Message Eight

Taking Christ as Our Goal

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Knowing Christ, the Power of His Resurrection,
and the Fellowship of His Sufferings

Scripture Reading: Phil. 3:10

1. Paul aspired to know Christ—Phil. 3:10:
   1. To have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ in Philippians 3:8 is by revelation, but to know Him in verse 10 is by experience.
   2. Paul first received the revelation of Christ, then sought the experience of Christ—to know and enjoy Christ in an experiential way.
   3. The one thing in the book of Philippians is the subjective knowledge and experience of Christ—2:2; cf. 1:20-21; 2:5; 3:7-9; 4:12-13.
   4. To know Christ is not merely to have the knowledge concerning Him but to gain His very person—2 Cor. 2:10; cf. Col. 2:9, 16-17:
      1. To gain something requires the paying of a price; to gain Christ is to experience, enjoy, and take possession of all His unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8) by paying a price.
      2. Christ has gained us, taken possession of us, that we might gain Him, take possession of Him—Phil. 3:12.
      3. The Christian life is a life of gaining Christ in His full ministry in His three divine and mystical stages— incarnation, inclusion, and intensification—John 1:14; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6:
         1. Even though Paul had experienced and gained Christ tremendously, he did not consider that he had experienced Him in full or gained Him to the uttermost; for this reason he was still advancing toward the goal—the gaining of Christ to the fullest extent—Phil. 3:12-14.
         2. In order to gain Christ to the fullest extent, Paul not only forsook his experiences in Judaism but also would not linger in his past experiences of Christ and be limited by them; he forgot the past—v. 13.
         3. Not to forget but to linger in our past experiences, however genuine they were, frustrates our further pursuing of Christ—v. 13; Heb. 6:1a.
         4. Christ is unsearchably rich, and there is a vast territory of His riches to be possessed; Paul was stretching out to reach the farthest extent of this territory—Phil. 3:13.
2. Paul aspired to know the power of Christ’s resurrection—v. 10:
   1. The power of Christ’s resurrection is His resurrection life, which raised Him from the dead—Eph. 1:19-20.
   2. The Spirit is the reality of Christ’s resurrection and its power—Rom. 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 1 John 5:6.
   3. The Spirit compounded with Christ’s resurrection and its power (Phil. 1:19; Exo. 30:23-25) indwells our spirit (Rom. 8:10-11) to dispense Christ’s resurrection and its power not only to our spirit and soul (vv. 6b, 10) but also to our mortal body (vv. 11, 13b; 2 Cor. 4:11).
   4. We should cooperate with the resurrecting Spirit to recognize that we have been resurrected with Christ (Col. 2:12; Eph. 2:6a) and to pursue the power of the resurrection of Christ:
      1. It is by this power of Christ’s resurrection that we, the lovers of Christ, determine to take the cross by denying our self—Matt. 16:24; cf. S. S. 2:8-9.
      2. It is also by this power of resurrection that we, the lovers of Christ, are enabled to be conformed to His death, to be one with His cross—Phil. 3:10; cf. S. S. 2:14-15.
      3. In order to experience the life-giving Spirit as the reality of the flourishing riches of the resurrection of Christ, we have to discern our spirit from our soul—Heb. 4:12; cf. S. S. 2:14-15.
   5. Christ’s resurrection with its power in the life-giving Spirit is the sufficient grace of the processed and consummated Triune God—2 Cor. 12:9; 13:14; 1 Cor. 15:10, 45b, 58; cf. Exo. 3:2-6, 14-15.
3. Paul aspired to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings—Phil. 3:10:
   1. With Christ, the sufferings and death came first, followed by the resurrection; with us, the power of His resurrection comes first, followed by the participation in His sufferings and conformity to His death.
   2. We first receive the power of His resurrection; then by this power we are enabled to participate in His sufferings and live a crucified life in conformity to His death.
   3. Christ’s sufferings are of two categories: those for accomplishing redemption, which were completed by Christ Himself, and those for producing and building the church, which need to be filled up by the apostles and the believers—Col. 1:24:
      1. We cannot participate in Christ’s sufferings for redemption, but we must take part in the sufferings of Christ for the producing and building up of the Body—cf. Rev. 1:9; 2 Tim. 2:10; 2 Cor. 1:5-6; 4:12; 6:8-11.
      2. Christ as the Lamb of God suffered for redemption (John 1:29); Christ as the grain of wheat suffered for reproducing and building (12:24):
         1. The Lord, as a grain of wheat that fell into the ground, lost His soul-life through death that He might release His eternal life in resurrection to the many grains—10:10-11.
         2. The one grain did not complete all the sufferings that are needed for the building up of the Body; as the many grains, we must suffer in the same way the one grain suffered—12:24-26:
            1. 1) As the many grains, we also must lose our soul-life through death that we may enjoy eternal life in resurrection—v. 25.
            2. 2) This is to follow Him that we may serve Him and walk with Him on this way, the way of losing our soul-life and living in His resurrection—v. 26.
            3. 3) The way for the church to come into being and to increase is not by human glory; it is by the death of the cross—vv. 20-24.