Filipenses 3:20

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Our conversation. — The original may signify either “our city” or “our citizenship” is in heaven. But both the grammatical form and the ordinary usage of the word (not elsewhere found in the New Testament) point to the former sense; which is also far better accordant with the general wording of the passage. For the word “is” is the emphatic word, which signifies “actually exists”; and the reference to the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ is obviously suggested by the thought that with it will also come the manifestation of the “Jerusalem which is above... the mother of us all” (Gálatas 4:26); as in Apocalipse 21:2, “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven.” The force of the passage would, however, in either case be much the same. “Their mind is on earth; our country is in heaven,” and to it our affections cling, even during our earthly pilgrimage. It is impossible not to remember the famous words of Plato of his Divine Republic, “In heaven, perhaps, the embodiment of it is stored up for any one who wills to see it, and seeing it, to claim his place therein” (Rep. ix., p. 592B). But the infinite difference between the shadowy republic of the philosopher, to which each has to rise, if he can, by his own spiritual power, and the well-centred “kingdom of God,” is suggested by the very words that follow here. The kingdom is real, because there is a real King, who has given us a place there, who will one day be manifested to take us home. It should be noted that the city is spoken of as ours already. As all the citizens of Philippi, the Roman colony, were citizens of the far distant imperial city, so the Philippian Christians even now were citizens of the better country in heaven. (See Efésios 2:19.)

We look for. — Properly, we eagerly wait for. The word is a peculiar and striking expression of longing, found also in Romanos 8:19; Romanos 8:28; Romanos 8:25, “The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (where see Note).

The Saviour. — The title is emphatic in relation to the hope of perfected salvation which follows. But we note that the use of the word “Saviour” by St. Paul is peculiar to the later Epistles, and especially frequent in the Pastoral Epistles. It is found also again and again in the Second Epistle of Peter.

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