lk, of whom I told you often,
and now tell you even weeping, that they are the
enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is
perdition, whose God is the belly, and whose glory
is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For
our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we
wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who
shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation,
that it may be conformed to the body of His glory,
according to the working whereby he is able even
to subject all things unto Himself.'--PHIL. iii.
17-21 (R.V.).

There is a remarkable contrast in tone between the sad warnings which
begin this section and the glowing hopes with which it closes, and that
contrast is made the more striking when we notice that the Apostle binds
the gloom of the one and the radiance of the other by 'For,' which makes
the latter the cause of the former.

The exhortation in which the Apostle begins by proposing himself as an
example sounds strange on any lips, and, most of all, on his, but we
have to note that the points in which he sets himself up as a pattern
are obviously those on which he touched in the preceding outpouring of
his heart, and which he has already commended to the Philippians in
pleading with them to be 'thus minded.' What he desires them to copy is
his self-distrust, his willingness to sacrifice all things to win
Christ, his clear sense of his own shortcomings, and his eager straining
towards as yet unreached perfection. His humility is not disproved by
such words, but what is remarkable in them is the clear consciousness of
the main direction and set of his life. We may well hesitate to take
them for ours, but every Christian man and woman ought to be able to say
this much. If we cannot in some degree declare that we are so walking,
we have need to look to our foundations. Such words are really in sharp
contrast to those in which Jesus is held forth as an example. Notice,
too, how quickly he passes to associate others with him, and to merge
the 'Me' into 'Us.' We need not ask who his companions were, since
Timothy is associated with him at the beginning of the letter.

The exhortation is enforced by pointing to others who had gone far
astray, and of whom he had warned the Philippians often, possibly by
letter. Who these unworthy disciples were remains obscure. They were
clearly not the Judaisers