14.What was Paul’s attitude of spirit and mind while he was confined

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He was pressing toward a mark, he was pursuing a goal in Christ.

This indeed is remarkable. Toward what was he pressing? What was he pursuing?

Paul at this time had been saved and filled with God’s Spirit for many years. His missionary work had born much fruit. Now he was in prison with a reasonable expectation of martyrdom. Had he not gained all the aspects of redemption that are possible to achieve in the world?

Isn’t it true that after we are saved, filled with God’s Holy Spirit, and labour successfully in the work of the Kingdom, there no longer is a personal spiritual level toward which to press while we are in the world? Aren’t we supposed to wait patiently until the Lord Jesus comes and "carries us away to our eternal home in Heaven"?

We are supposed to wait patiently until the Lord Jesus comes in the power of His Kingdom and brings us into glory and honour. Meanwhile there is a mark, a goal that has been placed before us by the Lord Jesus. The mark, the goal, is the perfect and complete relationship to Christ to which we have been called.

Each saint who attains a complete relationship to Christ has already received the inner aspects of the first resurrection. The coming of the Lord Jesus will not bring the inner aspects of throne-life to the perfected saint. Rather, the coming of Christ will reveal to the creation, through the reviving and glorifying of the saint’s mortal body, the Divine Life and relationship that was accomplished during the saint’s life on the earth.

Paul was seeking to lay hold of that for which he had been laid hold of by Christ.

Has Christ indeed laid hold of you and of me that we may be brought into transformations, relationships, and positions of which we are largely unaware? That we glimpse dimly?

To what end are we being resurrected?

We would suggest that the upward calling of the new-covenant saint is identical to the commission given to human beings in the beginning:

To be in the image of God in spirit, soul, and body.

To be male and female, that is, to have the capacity for union with God and with all who are in God. To be fruitful.

To have dominion over the creation.

As to image:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be changed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).

As to union:

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me (John 17:21).

As to fruitfulness:

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you (John 15:16). As to dominion:

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne (Revelation 3:21).

Of the four parts of the original commission given to mankind, union is the most important. When God made man He made him male and female so it would be impossible for any individual to achieve image, fruitfulness, or dominion apart from union with another person. Only the Father, God, is capable of image, fruitfulness and dominion apart from union with another person.

The third chapter of Philippians concerns the complete union of the saint with Christ. Paul was laying aside all other goals so that he might pursue the one supreme goal of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, of knowing the power of His resurrection from among the dead (not the power of Paul’s resurrection but the power of Christ’s resurrection), of sharing in Christ’s sufferings (not Paul’s sufferings).

Do not the power and the sufferings become Paul’s?

Yes, they do indeed. But the important aspect is that they are Christ’s power and sufferings. It is not what we attain to that is so vitally significant. The one true achievement of the human being is to enter all that Christ is, that Christ does, that Christ becomes, that Christ experiences, that Christ attains to and inherits.

We are coheirs with Christ. Not one thing we are or do is of value apart from the Lord. The necessary aspect of salvation is union with Him.

The difference between the False Prophet (religion), and Christ (Divine redemption), is as follows: the False Prophet and those who belong to him are seeking image, fruitfulness, and dominion apart from union with Christ, apart from union with God. Christ and those who belong to Him are also seeking image, fruitfulness, and dominion, but only as these elements flow naturally from union with God.

Therefore, all religious formulas, whether they have to do with fasting, meditation, faith, standing on the promises of Scripture, discipleship, patterns of baptism, gifts of the Spirit, organizational designs, or whatever else may be emphasized, are of the False Prophet unless their goals are achieved through union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We do not seek to acquire the likeness of God in our life, or fruitfulness, or dominion, so we may become spiritually proficient or a powerful person. Rather, we seek to acquire union with God through the Lord Jesus Christ so that the Divine image, fruitfulness, and dominion, which are the true goals of every person, may be given to us lawfully and enable us to please the Father.

No human being ever finds rest and joy until he finds it in the heart of God.

This is what Paul was seeking—to be found in Christ, not having any accomplishments, any righteousness of his own. All that is of gain to Paul must come as a result of his union with Christ.

Divine union, Divine Life, Divinely ordained image, fruitfulness, and dominion are an upward calling. The call comes down to us from the throne of the almighty God and draws us upward toward that throne.

The call to union is the call to the Bride of the Lamb. Response to the call of Divine love requires that every other interest and affection be regarded as secondary and that all previous accomplishments and experiences be laid aside and forgotten.

The Bride of the Lamb turns away from every entangling relationship so that Christ may have undisputed first place in her heart. He will allow no competitors.

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him (Psalms 45:10,11).

Paul was stretching toward the fullness of relationship to Christ, a fullness that the Lord caused to appear on the horizon of Paul’s spiritual consciousness. He was pressing forward in single-minded pursuit of this perfect, complete relationship.

Such pure devotion to Christ is admirable under any circumstance. The fact that Paul was seeking Christ with such intensity while he was in prison, with the zeal of one newly saved, should give us a different orientation to the Christian discipleship than the current "decision for Christ."

Our standard of discipleship is far below that presented by Paul. We may believe in one or two "works of grace" that give the seeker membership in a particular group. But the Scriptures point toward a lifelong pursuit of total union with Christ: with all He is, all He does, all He inherits.

"To attain to the first resurrection from among the dead." What a challenge! What a departure from our traditional thinking! Will our complacency, our indifference, force the Lord God to lower His standards? Or will we be held to this Word?

If we are being held to the written Word of the Apostles of the Lamb, how many of us actually will attain to the first resurrection, the out-resurrection from the dead?

At the time of his writing to the saints, overseers, and deacons in Philippi, Paul had not as yet attained to the first resurrection.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ (Philippians 3:12).

Given the spiritual stature of Paul at this time, it becomes clear that the rewards of the overcomer can be gained by nothing less than total devotion to Christ.

We are invited to press forward until we are able to grasp that for which we have been grasped by the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul does not count being converted to Christ, being born-again, speaking in tongues, and working in the ministry as being anything more than Christian basics. The wealth of glory in Christ available to the believer goes far beyond the basics!

There are few if any of us who have laid hold on Christ to the degree to which we have been called. Are we to wink at the challenge and compare ourselves among ourselves?

Indeed we are not! We are to forget what we have achieved to this point. We are to acknowledge that God never commands us to do anything but that He stands ready with all the power and wisdom (grace) we ever will need to perfectly and completely fulfil all of His expectations concerning us. We are to reach forward toward the horizon that the Holy Spirit is revealing to us as an individual.

We are to fan our first love into a consuming fire. We must prepare ourselves to be cut to the bone and to the marrow of the bone. Our resolve must harden as the finest steel. God’s knife shall prune. It shall circumcise what is useless and dead in our personality.

We are to begin once more in Christ with the zeal and zest of the newly converted. We are to return to our first love and do our first works. We are to know nothing. We are to be as a child although we may have been in the ministry for several decades.

We may be satisfied with our present attainment in Christ. We are to remain satisfied no longer. We are to ask God for our own mark, our own goal. We do not doubt that Christ will present us with a clear goal. We do not doubt He will match our total sincerity with total sincerity. There is something terribly sincere about Calvary!

Having been shown that clear goal, that definite mark, we are to press forward with every fiber of our personality in order that we may arrive at that goal. We do not beat the air. We are running to win. We can gain the crown of glory, through the grace of Christ, if we are willing to bring our flesh under subjection to the Holy Spirit; if we are willing to be made weak in order that the wisdom and strength of Christ may be poured into us—and through us.

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