PAUL ON UNION WITH CHRIST SINCLAIR FERGUSON 2010 Basic Conference Parkside Church, Chagrin, OH Philippians 3 follows Paul's great Christological passage of Philippians 2:5–11. The great goal in view is the unity of the fellowship and the humble mindedness of believers. Paul has used two illustrations of how Christ's life works its way out in Christ's servants. There is Timothy, who like Christ, does not mind his own interests but the interests of others. Then also there is Epaphroditus. I'm using the English Standard Version, but I wish some translation would have the courage to stop translating the first verse of Philippians 3 as "finally" and thus make the Apostle Paul, as well as ourselves, the butt of many preacher jokes. The expression here really means "now to move on to other things." Philippians 3:8–15, 1Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. 2Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and 2 straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15Let those of us who are mature think this way. And he brings this to a conclusion in verse 20 of chapter 3: "Our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." (You can see that what he has said to the Colossians in Colossians 3:1–4 is a reality in our own life, because he, Christ, appearing, will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself). Philippians 4:1 continues, "Therefore my brothers whom I love and long for, my job and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord my beloved." Our first study on union with Christ focused on Colossians 3: the notion of union with Christ in the life of the Christian believer. Colossians 3 is a passage that sometimes strikes me the way it struck me in the old days when I was going away and my wife packed my suitcase. She did it because she's much better equipped to pack suitcases than I am, but I always encountered the same problem before I resolved that I would pack my own suitcase in the future. And that is when your wife packs your suitcase, you get everything out at your suitcase and it is impossible to get everything back in. And Colossians 3 is certainly such a passage where there is so much that is useful for us in gospel ministry. It's surely one of those passages that we need to take people, individually and corporately, back to again and again and again and say, "Do you see how the gospel works through union with Jesus Christ?" This message is on union with Christ and serving in the gospel ministry, because it is, in essence, Paul's theme here. These verses, in some ways, present us with Paul's life text. It is his self- understanding as someone who has been called into the ministry of the gospel. And as he gets close to the section in which he unburdens the heart of the drive of his ministry, it's very clear that he moves again back into this realm that union with Christ is central to living the Christian life and therefore, by necessity, union with Christ is that driving principal that transforms our gospel ministry. We live the Christian life in union with Christ but we also minister in union with Christ. That actually is one of the reasons why, on several occasions, the New Testament seems to emphasize that the one who actually does the preaching when we preach is Jesus Christ himself. Remember how Paul says it in Ephesians 2, that once Christ had 3 finished his work he came and he preached peace to those who were near and to those who were afar off. This is part of the reason why in giving sermons, when we are 15–20 minutes into the sermon, we have forgotten that the brothers speaking are actually speaking with a different accent from the accent we have ourselves. We are caught up in the fact that Jesus Christ is preaching his word to us himself, through servants to whom he has united himself to by the Holy Spirit, and whom he has made servants of his work. And that's why we are able to say we don't preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. How can we dare to say that? It is because in gospel ministry we minster out of the reality of our union with Christ and the way in which it impacts the dynamics of being a servant of the Lord Jesus. And what I want to try and do in the time we have together this morning is to look at four aspects of union with Christ in Paul's gospel ministry. First, I want to say something about the background to union with Christ in Paul's thinking. How on earth did he come up with the notion of union with Christ? Where does it come from? Second, the structure of Paul's thinking about union with Christ. Thirdly, the role of union with Christ in the way in which Paul thinks about the gospel. Fourthly, union with Christ and the way this particularly influences the manner in which Paul thinks about a fruitful gospel ministry. The Background to Paul's Theology of Union with Christ First of all, the background to Paul's teaching about our union with Jesus Christ. How is it that somebody who is so antagonistic to the gospel becomes the writer who, more than any other contributor to the New Testament, expound the reality of the Christian and the gospel minister's union with Jesus Christ? He sees it here as absolutely central to his knowledge of Christ. He says I want to know Christ and to be found in Christ, and the particular way I want to know him is to know him in the fellowship of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, in order that I might become like him in his death, and at the last become like him in his resurrection. As Paul says in verse 21, when Christ comes, he will transform these bodies of humiliation to become like his body of glory. All because we are united to Christ, as Paul expounds in his letters from eternity through resurrection: chosen in him from before the foundations of the world; raised with him at the end of time; and made like him for all eternity. 4 Paul gives us some clues here. He hints at the fact that as a young man he was profoundly ambitious. That's why he can still reel off all the things that would distinguish him for high honors in the school of Judaism. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised the eighth day. He had deliberately chosen the way of the Pharisee, had studied under Gamalial, had outdone, he thought, all of his contemporaries in zeal for Judaism. He believed he was second to none. And that was evidenced by the fact that even while a Gamalial might say, "Now let's just wait and see what will happen," Saul of Tarsus' response to the Christians was, "Let's make it happen by destroying them." So Paul regarded himself. He was obviously a Type-A personality, profoundly driven, doubtless a little obnoxious to many of his contemporaries, but he was determined to be the "#1" Jew. And then a series of things happened at which he only hints to here, but I think become clearer as we weave together Acts with some of the things Paul says about his own life in his epistles.