What is Paul’s letter to the Philippians all about?

We will be doing some sessions on Philippians at the Communitas staff conference in Malaga next week. Here, by way of preparation, is a quick explanatory synopsis of the letter as a historical document, by which I mean that it emphasises the restricted outlook and experience of Paul and of the community of believers in Philippi. It also incorporates the reading of the Christ encomium in Philippians 2:6-11 put forward in my book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul. I mark my own translations with an asterisk; they are stilted but as transparent to the grammar and vocabulary of the Greek as I can make them.

The historical restriction means that we will have to work a bit harder to discover what the letter has to say to an organisation that aims to start, or help start, new communities of faith in Jesus two thousand years later. I will try not to break things.

The day of Jesus Christ

I have the impression that we are mostly deaf to the “eschatological” orientation of Paul’s thought, but the “end”—or perhaps more accurately, an end—drives everything.

So we must pay close attention to the terminus ad quem referenced in the opening paragraph. He is thankful for their common participation in the gospel “from the first day,” having been persuaded that “the one who inaugurated in you a good work will complete until a day of Christ Jesus” (1:5-6*). He prays that they will abound in knowledge and discernment in order to “approve the better things, that you may be sincere and blameless for a day of Christ” (1:10*; cf. 1 Cor. 1:8).

We cannot escape the fact that Paul sees this day of Christ Jesus as the fulfilment of the Philippians’ partnership in the gospel. In other words, like Jesus, he is working with an eschatological time frame of, say, 30-40 years. The church needs to make good decisions for the duration so that, when Jesus Christ is eventually revealed to the world (cf. 1 Cor. 1:7), they will be found “blameless.” The similarities with the opening paragraph of 1 Corinthians are striking. Paul, of course, is not talking about the end of the world.

• 21 reasons why the coming of the kingdom of God was not the end of the world
• Why the end of the world is the end of the world

The problem of Paul’s imprisonment

Paul does not want the Philippians to think that his present imprisonment is a setback for the eschatological programme, either practically or ideologically. He assures them that, to the contrary, what has happened to him has “served to advance the gospel.”

He is under Roman arrest, more probably in Caesarea or Ephesus than in Rome. The gospel has been made known throughout the Praetorian guard, but also believers locally have been encouraged “to speak the word without fear” (1:13-14).

Among the local believers, however, there are a few who “proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry… from selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking to stir up trouble in my imprisonment” (1:15, 17*). This small group, it appears, has concluded that Paul’s imprisonment is a mark of failure and are promoting a rival campaign that is not hampered by association with such suffering and disgrace.

Paul rejoices that Christ is proclaimed by both groups, but more importantly he is confident that he will not be “ashamed” and that “Christ will be magnified (megalynthēsetai) in my body, whether through life or death” (1:18, 20*). His desire is to depart and be with his resurrected Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8), but he seems to think that he will survive the ordeal and will continue to support the Philippian believers. The point to stress here is that he regards his personal suffering as a more powerful means of displaying the career of Christ to the world than merely telling the story. His own life has become a lens which magnifies the biography of Christ.

Proclamation of the gospel presupposes both the earlier statements about an impending day of Jesus Christ and the circumstances of Paul’s imprisonment by an imperial power. The good news was that Jesus had been installed in heaven as Lord and that, in the not too distant future, he would be revealed as such to all peoples currently subject to the power of Rome, which would dramatically change the face of the ancient world.

But the one proclaimed as Lord first suffered and was crucified, and the experience not only of Paul but also—as we shall see—of the community of believers in Philippi mirrors this part of the story.

Have this mind among yourselves

Paul urges them to live-as-citizens (politeuesthe) in a manner “worthy of the gospel of Christ” (1:27). Given the emphasis on being of one spirit in the face of violent opposition (1:28-29), we may assume that he is thinking of the model of Christ as one who suffered. It is their calling not only to believe that Jesus is Lord but also to suffer for his sake, though politeuesthe presumably has in view their participation in civic life generally.

So their “salvation” consists precisely in remaining faithful under trying circumstances, persevering through the coming years, in a pagan society, until the day of Jesus Christ, when their suffering would be brought to an end and they would be publicly vindicated.

The appeal to live in a manner worthy of the good news about Jesus is repeated at greater length in 2:1-11. Perhaps the exhortations of 2:1-4* reflect the division noted earlier between those who were preaching Christ with a genuine understanding of the significance of Paul’s imprisonment and those preaching “through envy and rivalry (erin)… from selfish ambition (eritheias).” The Philippians are to act “not according to selfish ambition (eritheian), not according to vainglory,” but in humility “considering others better than yourselves,” looking out for the interests of others.

In the form of a god

In that respect, they should think in the way Christ Jesus thought. At this point, it makes little sense to appeal to the metaphysical kenosis of the pre-existent heavenly, even divine, Son, I think. My argument is that the encomium of 2:6-11 was composed from the perspective of a pagan audience, hearing Paul’s proclamation concerning an invisible heavenly Lord. It addresses the matter of dubious social standing and fragile personal worth. A Spirit-inspired community must nevertheless choose the way of renunciation, ostracism, humiliation, suffering.

In the early days of his career, empowered by the Spirit, Jesus would have appeared to the pagan world as one “in the form of a god”—a powerful, charismatic, other-worldly miracle worker—much as Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for gods by the over-excited citizens of Lystra (Acts 14:8-19). Luke tells the story of the apostles’ encounter at Philippi with a slave girl, possessed of a “python spirit,” who recognised them as “servants of the Most High God” (Acts 16:17).

But Jesus did not seize the opportunity presented to him by Satan in the wilderness to rule over the kingdoms of the Greek-Roman world. Instead, he emptied himself of the passions and ambitions that might so easily have derailed his vocation, and in the end he was found to be painfully and degradingly human, mortal, not remotely godlike, dying on a Roman cross.

That was the low point of his reputation. But subsequently God has highly exalted him, dramatically transforming the standing of this disgraced Jewish pretender to the throne of Israel as his story is told across the region. The name of Jesus is now increasingly held in higher esteem than any other name in the ancient world; and before long, in or at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Work out your own salvation

Paul again says that salvation is not a given. It comes in obedience to apostolic instruction, and it is worked out with fear and trembling in collaboration with God, who is “working in you both to will and to work for the good purpose” (2:13*). Why is this necessary? Because what is at stake here is not the personal salvation of these believers; it is the consistent and credible witness of the community, under attack from several directions, through to the day when Jesus Christ is confessed as Lord by the nations and their job is done. It is essential that they remain “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (2:15).

The phrase “crooked and perverted generation” comes from Deuteronomy 32:5 and describes rebellious Israel. Jesus uses similar language against Israel (Matt. 12:39; 16:4; 17:17; Lk. 9:41); Peter exhorts the people of Jerusalem to save themselves from “this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40). It seems likely, therefore, that Paul’s concern is that the Philippian believers in Jesus should be “blameless and innocent, children of God” in contrast to the Jews of the diaspora synagogues, who, as we know from Romans, were far from blameless and innocent in Paul’s view, and who violently opposed his mission.

Timothy and Epaphroditus

Paul states his intention to send Timothy to them soon and his hope of visiting them after his release. It appears that there are few people with him who seek the interests of Jesus the messiah and not their own interests (2:21), which may be another reference to the hostility of the Jews towards him.

He has also sent Epaphroditus to them, who had “nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me” (2:30).

The knowledge of Christ Jesus

Paul has been troubled by the Jews and he warns the church in Philippi in the strongest terms to look out for “the workers of evil… the mutilation” (3:2). He has been an outstanding representative of Judaism, to the point of zealous persecution of the church. But as far as he is concerned, it is worship of God in the Spirit and boasting in Jesus the messiah that now defines “circumcision” (3:3-6). There is no thought of atonement here: boasting in the one whose story is told so powerfully in the dense encomium of 2:6-11 results in the experience of worshipping the one God in the Spirit. That is the heart of the gospel.

The encomium is an account not of a journey from heaven to earth and back again but of startling shifts in the reputation of Jesus in the wider world of the apostolic mission. Paul boasts in Christ, however, as a Jew who has renounced the “righteousness” that he had on the basis of Torah observance for a way of being in the right with the God of Israel that comes through a whole-hearted and very realistic identification with Christ in his sufferings, death, resurrection, and vindication.

He expresses the disconcerting desire to be conformed (symmorphizomenos) to the death of Jesus in order concretely to experience the power of his resurrection from the dead. This is only a personally intensified articulation of what he believed would be the experience of many in the churches:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom. 8:29-30)

This is what justification by faith meant for Paul: faithful and obedient participation in the dangerous proclamation that within a generation—or, at least, within a foreseeable future—a “messiah” rejected by the Jews and crucified by the Romans would be acclaimed as Lord by the peoples of the Greek-Roman world. When that day came, at his royal parousia and revelation to the world as the supreme ruler seated at the right hand of God, those who had suffered with Christ would be glorified with him—they would be found to have been in the right all along.

Bodies of his glory

This is Paul’s driving ambition: he presses on in hope of gaining the “prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” and urges his readers to do the same (3:14-16). He is not telling them to be good Christians. He holds up his own suffering as a servant of Christ for imitation (cf. 1 Cor. 4:16; 1 Thess. 1:6), drawing a contrast again with those Jewish opponents, I think, who are “enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly and the glory in their shame, those thinking about things on earth” (Phil 3:18-19*).

The citizenship (politeuma) of those who believe in Jesus is not “on earth” (epigeia), centred on Jerusalem, regulated by Torah, but in heaven, from where the Lord Jesus Christ will come to bring about the transformation of “the body of our humiliation in conformity with the body of his glory” (3:21*). This must be the hope of the believers as they live through just the violent opposition that Jesus experienced both from the Jews and from the Roman authorities.

Closing remarks

So Paul tells his brothers and sisters in Philippi to “stand firm in the Lord” in this way (4:1). Practically speaking, this means resolving relational conflicts: “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord” (4:2). It means bringing their needs and anxieties to God. It means keeping their minds set on what is good and important (4:8-9).

Paul is thankful that they have revived their concern for him. He has learned how to cope with both abundance and affliction, but he is deeply appreciative of their partnership in his work and the gifts conveyed by Epaphroditus.

He closes with greetings to every “saint” in Philippi, from all the saints wherever exactly he is, “especially those of the household of Caesar” (4:21-22*).