All For Christ - What is the World to Me?

Thursday after Trinity 11 

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:1-11). 

Rejoice in the Lord, not in the flesh. Paul gives the people who receive his letters this message again, and again. It is a message Jesus gave: For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?[1] We are to take up our cross and follow Jesus. He calls us to deny ourselves. And, He says that whoever desires to save his life, this life he lives here and now in the flesh, will lose it. He will lose real life. He will lose Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, as he tries to hold on to the things of this world, which is in decay and passing away.

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. The people to whom Paul is referring here are sometimes called the circumcision party, or the Judaizers. They were the ones sowing dissension in the ranks; they were teaching false doctrine. They were teaching men to trust in their own works, literally in the cutting of their flesh in circumcision. They taught that you had to keep the Law and be circumcised to be a Christian, and that Paul was a false teacher. 

But Paul calls these men, these evil workers and the act they propagate, “the mutilation.” The circumcision they advocate is not the true circumcision. It is a kind of destruction. Not simply physically, by removing a bit of flesh from the body; It destroys Christians by removing faith in Christ: 

Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.[2]

It is a work of man designed to please God by keeping the Law. But the Law has been fulfilled by Christ. And the covenant sign of circumcision, which God gave to Abraham, is obsolete. It is a shadow of the true sign that marks you as one of God’s people: Baptism, the circumcision of Christ, which He performs on your heart. Paul says that we, those who have been baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of sins, are the true circumcision: 

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.[3]

We were dead in our trespasses. We were dead in the uncircumcision of our flesh. Jesus made us alive in Him. He has circumcised us with the true circumcision – the circumcision not made with hands, but with water and the Word, the circumcision of Christ – in our baptism. He has taken, as Paul writes to the Colossians, “…the hand-writing of requirements that was against us,” and nailed it to the cross. Jesus, who had no sin, became sin for us. Because we have been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ in our baptism, His death on the cross as the sacrifice for sin is also ours. We died in Jesus through our baptism. Through that same baptism, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead also belongs to us. We have risen from the dead already, in Him. And even though this body will die and be buried, we will not die. We are immortal. We are baptized into Christ. We have put on Christ. Our bodies will die and be buried, if Jesus should delay his coming, like a seed in the ground, but we will be with Christ. He is our body. And one day He will return to judge the living and the dead. And, in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised, sprouting forth from the earth, only now incorruptible and utterly changed, with immortal bodies like Jesus’ immortal body. In that way, this corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality; Death will finally be swallowed up in victory, once and for all. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Looking at our situation in that way, you can see how Paul is able to say that the things he formerly counted as gain – his fleshly circumcision, his blood connection to the nation of Israel, his zeal in working to please God and keep the Law – he now counts as loss, for the sake of Christ. These things are ultimately worthless. What Paul has gained by the grace of God through faith in Christ is priceless: the forgiveness of sins, life everlasting, membership in the true Israel of God, adoption as a son of Abraham by faith.

We have received the same gracious gifts. In comparison with such a treasure, what is a little suffering in this present age? In comparison to life with Christ in a remade world, one without sin and death, with a perfect, immortal body, living in perfect relationship to the Almighty Creator of the universe, what is it to endure a little scorn, a little ridicule, some persecution. These things are not pleasant, but they cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ.[4] Even death, our bitter enemy, need no longer be feared, though the devil and his angels do their best convince us otherwise. We have something more precious. We have eternal life in Christ. What is this world to me?

The world is sorely grieved

Whenever it is slighted

Or when its hollow fame

And honor have been blighted.

Christ, Thy reproach I bear

Long as it pleaseth Thee;

I'm honored by my Lord,-

What is the world to me![5]

The world with wanton pride 

Exalts it’s sinful pleasures 

And for them foolishly 

Gives up the heavenly treasures. 

Let others love the world 

With all its vanity; 

I love the Lord, my God – 

What is the world to me![6]

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[1] Mark 8:36 

[2] Galatians 5:2-4 

[3] Colossians 2:11-12 

[4] Romans 8:38-39 

[5] Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. The Lutheran Hymnal. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1941. Hymn 430, “What is the World to Me?” stanza 5. 

[6] ibid. TLH 430, stanza 6.