What Does Philippians 3:3 Mean?

(3) **We are the circumcision.**—So in Colossians 2:11-12, evidently alluding to baptism as the spiritual circumcision, he says, “In whom ye were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands.” Comp. Romans 2:20, “Circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter;” and passages of a similar character in the Old Testament, such as Deuteronomy 10:16, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your hearts;” Deuteronomy 30:6, “The Lord God will circumcise thine heart.” Hence the spirit of St. Stephen’s reproach, “Ye uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Acts 7:51). **Which worship God in the spirit . . .**—The true reading here is, *who worship by the Spirit of* *God, *the word “worship,” or *service, *being that which is almost technically applied to the worship of the Israelites as God’s chosen people (Acts 26:7; Romans 9:4; Hebrews 9:1; Hebrews 9:6), and which, with the addition of the epithet “reasonable,” is claimed for the Christian devotion to God in Christ (see Romans 12:1). Such “worship by the Spirit of God” St. Paul describes in detail in Romans 8, especially in Romans 8:26-27. **And rejoice** (or rather, *glory*) **in Christ Jesus.**—Comp. Romans 15:17, “I have therefore whereof I may glory in the Lord Jesus Christ,” and the Old Testament quotation (from Jeremiah 9:23-24) twice applied to our Lord, “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1Corinthians 1:31; 2Corinthians 10:17). In Galatians 6:14 we have a still more distinctive expression, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To glory in Christ is something more than even to believe and to trust in Him; it expresses a deep sense of privilege, both in present thankfulness and in future hope. **In the flesh.**—The phrase is used here, as not unfrequently, for the present and visible world, to which we are linked by our flesh (see John 8:15, “to judge after the flesh;” 2Corinthians 5:16, “to know Christ after the flesh,” &c.) We have an equivalent phrase in an earlier passage, which is throughout parallel to this (2Corinthians 11:18), “Many glory after the flesh.” The particular form of expression is probably suggested by the constant reference to the circumcision, which is literally “*in* the flesh.”