We are now coming to end of Chapter 50 in our Complete Green Letters study of Reckoning in Philippians 3:10. To repeat this vital verse:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death
LAST time we concluded the looked at the second aspect of “knowing him” – the “fellowship of his suffering.” There we saw the threefold fruit born out from this point: we learn something of the process of growth; we learn more of Him; and we learn to appreciate the needs of others. We ought to remind ourselves here that this instruction is not isolated from parallel encouragements and exhortations. Paul recorded his chief prayer for the believer in Ephesians 1:17-19, when he proclaimed:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places… .”
WE could point to many other places; one more will suffice for now, Luke 9:23:
And he said to them all, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
THE objective end is Christ, in “whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory … which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). To that end, we come now to our authors’ concluding point, “Being made conformable unto his death – that we may be conformed to His image.”
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Chapter 50—Reckoning in Philippians 3:10 – Part 5, conclusion
“Being made conformable unto his death.” We are “always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake,” and thereby are being “conformed to his death”—that we may be conformed to His image. As we take up our cross daily, this conformation is worked out in the two aspects of death and life. Self is dealt with by the crucifixion of Calvary; its power is broken by the death process within. As a result, the crucified life of the Lord Jesus is manifested in our mortal bodies. “Let this mind [attitude] be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who … made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant … and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5, 7, 8).
As we remain within the crucifying influence of the cross, we are freed to abide in the life-giving influence of the Resurrected One. We are to be conformed to His death as the basis of our being conformed to the image of His life-out-of-death. In this alien world we are as pilgrims, crucified followers of our crucified Lord. “He said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
