ouching the
righteousness which is in the law blameless,' is 'I have done my best, I
have lived a decent life. My religion is to do good to other people.'
All such talk, which used to be a vague sentiment or excuse, is now put
forward in definite theoretical substitution for the Christian Truth,
and finds numerous teachers and acceptors. But how short a way all such
grounds of confidence go to satisfy a soul that has once seen the vision
that blazed in on Paul's mind on the road to Damascus!

II. The discovery of their worthlessness.

'These have I counted loss for Christ.' There is a possibility of
exaggeration in interpreting Paul's words. The things that were 'gain'
to him were in themselves better than their opposites. It is better to
to be 'blameless' than to have a life all stained with foulness and
reeking with sins. But these 'gains' were 'losses,' disadvantages, in so
far as they led him to build upon them, and trust in them as solid
wealth. The earthquake that shattered his life had two shocks: the first
turned upside down his estimate of the value of his gains, the second
robbed him of them. He first saw them to be worthless, and then, so far
as others' judgment went, he was stripped of them. Actively he 'counted
them loss,' passively he 'suffered the loss of all things.' His estimate
came, and was followed by the practical outcome of his brethren's
excommunication.

What changed his estimate? In our text he answers the question in two
forms: first he gives the simple, all-sufficient monosyllabic reason for
his whole life--'for Christ,' and then he enlarges that motive into 'the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.' The former carries
us back straight to the vision which revolutionised Paul's life, and
made him abjure all which he had trusted, and adore what he had
abhorred. The latter dwells a little more upon the subjective process
which followed on the vision, but the two are substantially the same,
and we need only note the solemn fulness of the name of 'Jesus Christ,'
and the intense motion of submission and of personal appropriation
contained in the designation, 'my Lord.' It was not when he found his
way blinded into Damascus that he had learned that knowledge, or could
apprehend its 'excellency.' The words are enriched and enlarged by later
experiences. The sacrifice of his earlier 'gains' had been made before
the 'excellency of the knowledge' had been discerned. It was no mere
inte