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Php_3:3. Justification of the preceding τ . κατατομήν ; not, however, “an evident copy” of 2Co_11:18 f. (Baur), but very different from the latter passage amidst the corresponding resemblances which the similarity of subject suggested; in both cases there is Pauline originality.
ἡμεῖς ] with emphasis: we, not they. The κατατομή being not the unconverted Jews, but Christian Judaizers, the contrasted ἡμεῖς cannot mean the Christians generally (Weiss), but only those who, in the apostle’s sense, were true and right Christians, whose more definite characterization-immediately follows. The ἡμεῖς are the Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ Θεοῦ of Gal_6:15 f., the members of the people of God in the sense of the Pauline gospel, and not merely Paul and the true teachers of the gospel (Hofmann),—a restriction which the exclusiveness of the predicate, especially furnished as it is with the article, does not befit; in Php_3:17 the context stands otherwise.
ἡ περιτομή ] If this predicate belongs to us, not to those men, then, in regard to the point of circumcision, nothing remains for the latter but the predicate κατατομή ! As the ἡμεῖς , among whom the readers also were included, were for the most part uncircumcised (Gal_2:9; Gal_2:3; Eph_2:11), it is clear that Paul here takes περιτομή purely in the antitypical spiritual sense, according to which the circumcised are those who, since the reception of baptism, are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and therefore members of the true people of God; the investiture with their new moral condition is typically prefigured by the legal bodily περιτομή of the Jewish theocracy. Comp. Rom_2:29; Rom_4:10 f.; Eph_2:11; Col_2:11; Act_7:51. Whether the bodily circumcision was present or not, and whether, therefore, the subjects were Jewish or Gentile Christians, was in that case matter of indifference, 1Co_7:19; Gal_3:28; Gal_5:6. Comp. the further amplification of the thought in Barnab. Ep. 9.
οἱ πνεύματι Θεοῦ κ . τ . λ .] We who serve through the Spirit of God, in contrast to the external, legal λατρεία , (Rom_9:4).[151] Comp. Heb_9:10; Heb_9:14; Rom_12:1 f. With this λατρεία , wrought by the Holy Spirit,[152] there takes place on the part of man (comp. Rom_1:9), but in virtue of that very working of the Holy Spirit, the worship which is required in Joh_4:24. The article οἱ extends also to the two participles which follow; and the arthrous participles (quippe qui colimus, etc.) contain the experimental proof that the ἡμεῖς are the ΠΕΡΙΤΟΜΉ . The dative ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΙ denotes neither the standard (van Hengel) nor the object (Hilgenfeld), which latter view would amount to the conception, foreign to the N. T., of a worship of the Holy Spirit—but is instrumental, expressing the inward agent (Rom_5:5; Rom_8:14 f., et al.). vi spiritus divini (Rom_8:13, et al.). On the absolute λατρεύειν , to render divine worship, comp. Luk_2:37; Act_26:7; Heb_9:9; Heb_10:2; Rom_9:4; Romans 3 Esdr. 4:54.
καυχώμ . ἐν Χ . Ἰ .] and who glory in Christ Jesus (as Him through whom alone we have attained righteousness, etc., see Php_3:9; comp. Gal_6:14), not in our own privileges and legal performances, as those false teachers do, who place their confidence in what is fleshly, i.e. in that which belongs to material human nature and has nothing in common with the divine blessings of the Christian (such as circumcision, descent, outward observance of the law, comp. Php_3:4-6). Hence the contrast: καὶ οὐκ ἐν σαρκὶ πεποιθότες , with which the disposition of mind contrary to the καυχᾶσθαι ἐν Χ . Ἰ . (from which disposition the ΚΑΥΧᾶΣΘΑΙ , opposed to that Christian ΚΑΥΧᾶΣΘΑΙ , of itself results) is negatived; so that this contrast is pregnant, belonging, however, by way of antithesis, to the second statement, and not containing a separate third one (Hofmann). if κ . οὐκ ἐν σ . πεπ . were merely a more precise definition of purport added to καυχ . ἐν Χ . Ἰ . (Weiss), it must have been added without ΚΑΊ . As to ΟὐΚ in the passage, referring to concrete persons and a definite fact, and negativing not merely the ἘΝ ΣΑΡΚΊ (Hofmann), but the actual position ἘΝ Σ . ΠΕΠΟΙΘ ., see Winer, p. 451 f. [E. T. 609]; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 276 f.
[151] True Christianity is, according to Paul also, the true continuation of Judaism, and that not merely of the promise given in it, but also of the law; the latter, however, according to the idea of the πλήρωσις , Mat_5:17, in which the letter has yielded to the spirit.
[152] If we adopt the reading πνεύματι Θεῷ , πνεύματι must be understood as in Rom_1:9. See Reiche, Comment, crit. p. 229 ff.