C

Phil. 2:1. Fellowship of the Spirit. Leading to the great descent and subsequent exaltation of Christ

(Phil. 2:6-11).

Phil. 3:10. Fellowship of His sufferings. Leading to attainment of resurrection and prize of the high

calling.

Phil. 4:14. Ye did communicate with my afflictions.

Phil. 4:15. Ye only communicated in the beginning of the gospel.

The desire for the fellowship of Philippians 3:10 is therefore not only the logical sequence of the other usages of

the word koinonia and its derivations, but is of the very essence of the epistle itself.

Just as there are two stages visible in the descent of Christ in Philippians 2:6-11 :

(1) He was made in the likeness of men.

(2) He humbled Himself to the death of the cross,

so in Paul's contemplated association with Christ's rejection, there are two stages :

(1) Fellowship with His sufferings.

(2) Conformity unto His death;

the one deeper and more terrible than the other.

It is possible to have fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, and still not be made conformable unto His death.

This conformity to His death leads on to the conformity of His resurrection, the apostle's goal, `if by any means I

might attain unto the resurrection of the dead'.

The doctrine of the identification of the believer, with the death and resurrection of the Saviour, is entirely a

matter of grace, but there is an identification with His death and its shame and sufferings that is voluntary and

experimental and is moreover the necessary prelude to attaining the resurrection of the dead. It is obvious therefore

that not only must the conformity unto the death of Christ be something beyond the doctrinal identification of the

believer with His death and resurrection, it is also equally obvious that the resurrection which was the object of the

apostle's aim, a resurrection concerning which he entertained doubt, cannot possibly be the resurrection which is the

blessed and certain hope of every believer.

Resurrection is not only a blessed hope, it is inescapable. The unjust, as well as the just, they that have done

good, and they that have done evil, those who form the body of Christ, and those who stand before the great white

throne, each and every son of Adam, Jew and Gentile, saved and lost, must be raised from the dead. The fact that

the apostle could preface his reference to resurrection in Philippians 3:11 with an `if', after having expressed his

complete surrender to the grace of God in Christ, is of itself an indication that something exceptional is before us.

`If by any means I might attain unto'. No ambiguity attaches to the original here, the Revised Version makes but

one alteration, the exchange of `may' for `might'. The simple way of `putting the condition' is attained by using the

particle ei, as in Philippians 1:22. In the passage before us, ei is combined with the adverb pos `how', and so means

`if somehow'. The word eipos occurs but four times in the New Testament and in every case the contingency is very

real and the possibility of failure is stressed. The passages are :

`If by any means they might attain to Phenice' (Acts 27:12).

`If by any means now at length, I might have a prosperous journey' (Rom. 1:10).

`If by any means I may provoke to emulation' (Rom. 11:14).

`If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection' (Phil. 3:11).

The grafting in of the Gentile, as a wild olive, failed to provoke Israel to emulation. The attempt to reach

Phenice, ended in shipwreck. The original of Philippians 3:11 reads eipos katanteso eis, the original of Acts 27:12

reads eipos dunainto katantesantes eis. The differences are purely grammatical, katanteso being singular, and

katantesantes being plural, and the added word dunainto being the addition of the word meaning `be able'.