Philippians 3:11

if by any means For the strong language of contingencyhere cp. 1 Corinthians 9:27. Taken along with such expressions of exulting assurance as Romans 8:31-39; 2 Timothy 1:12; and indeed with the whole tone of "joy and peace in believing" (Romans 15:13) which pervades the Scriptures, we may fairly say that it does not imply the uncertainty of the final glory of the true saint. It is language which views vividly, in isolation, one aspect of the "Pilgrim's Progress" towards heaven; the aspect of our need of continual watching, self-surrender, and prayer, in order to the development of that likeness without which heaven would not be heaven. The other side of the matter is the efficacy and perseverance of the grace which comes out in our watching; without which we should not watch; which "predestinates" us "to be conformed to the image of the Son of God" (Romans 8:29). The mystery lies, as it were, between two apparently parallel lines; the reality of an omnipotent grace, and the reality of the believer's duty. As this line or that is regarded, in its entire reality, the language of assurance or of contingency is appropriate. But the parallel lines, as they seem now, prove at last to converge in glory (John 6:39-40; John 6:44; John 6:54; John 10:27-29; Romans 8:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

See Hooker's Sermon Of the Certainty and Perpetuity of Faith in the Elect, especially the closing paragraphs.

I might Lit., and here better, with R.V., I may.

the resurrection of the dead The better supported reading gives, as R.V., the resurrection from the dead. The phrase implies a certain leaving behind of"the dead"; and this is further emphasized in the Greek, where the noun rendered "resurrection" is the rare word exanastasis, i.e. the common word (anastasis) for resurrection, strengthened by the preposition meaning "from." This must not, however, be pressed far; later Greek has a tendency towards compounding words without necessarily strengthening the meaning. It is the settingof the word here which makes an emphasis in it likely. It has been inferred that St Paul here refers to a special and select resurrection, so to speak, and that this is "the first resurrection" of Revelation 20:5-6, interpreted as a literal resurrection of either all saints or specially privileged saints, before that of the mass of mankind. (Such an interpretation of Revelation 20 appears as early as Tertullian, cent. 2, de Monogamiâ, c. x.). But against this explanation here lies the fact that St Paul nowhere else makes any unmistakablereference to such a prospect (1 Corinthians 15:23-24 is not decisive, and certainly not 1 Thessalonians 4:16); and that this makes it unlikely that he should refer to it here, where he manifestly is dealing with a grand and ruling article of his hope. We explain it accordingly of the glorious prospect of the Resurrection of the saints in general. And we account for the special phrase by taking him to be filled with the thought of the Lord'sResurrection as the pledge and, so to speak, the summary of that of His people; and HisResurrection was emphatically "fromthe dead." Or it may be that we have here to explain "the dead" as a term of abstract reference, meaning practically "the state of the dead," the world of death. In any case, the phrase refers to "the resurrection of life" (Daniel 12:2; John 5:29); "the resurrection of the just" (Luke 14:14); differenced from that of "the unjust" (Acts 24:15), whether or no in time, certainly in an awful distinction of conditions and results. The blessed resurrection is here called "theresurrection" as the blessed life is called "thelife" (e.g. 1 John 5:12). The antithesis is not non-resurrection, and non-existence, but such resurrection, and such existence, as are ruin and woe. It is observable that the Apostle here implies his expectation of death, to be followed by resurrection; not of survival till the Lord's Return. Cp. 2 Corinthians 4:14.