his invitation — our goal
Philippians 3:9-14
Philippians 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ – the righteousness from God based on faith.
Philippians 3:10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the partnership of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,
Philippians 3:11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already complete, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
Philippians 3:14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s high invitation in Christ Jesus.
his invitation — our goalPaul’s language in this section of Philippians reveals how thoroughly his understanding of the Christian life has been shaped by the gospel itself. When he speaks of God’s “high calling,” he is not referring to an invitation to heaven, as though the Christian life were simply a waiting room for a disembodied afterlife. Many assume that heaven is the ultimate goal, but Paul consistently directs attention elsewhere. His goal is not escape from the world but union with Christ—knowing Him, sharing in His sufferings, and ultimately sharing in His resurrection from among the dead. That resurrection is the final stage of a partnership that begins now and reaches its fulfillment only when Christ returns.
This is why Paul rejects the idea that believers already possess the resurrection in some spiritualized sense. Some in his day, and many in ours, teach that Christians have already experienced a kind of resurrection that guarantees survival after death. Paul refuses that notion. He openly admits that he has not yet attained the resurrection. He is still pressing toward it. For Paul, resurrection is not a metaphor for spiritual renewal. It is a future, bodily event that has not yet occurred for anyone except Christ.
Paul’s clarity on this point shapes his entire understanding of the Christian journey. God’s call is not an invitation to drift upward into the clouds at death. It is a summons to follow Christ through suffering, obedience, and perseverance, with the confident expectation that God will one day raise the dead. The destination is not a disembodied existence but a permanent life—real, embodied, incorruptible life in the renewed creation. That life does not begin when this present life ends. It begins when Christ returns and calls His people out of their graves.
This perspective gives Paul both humility and hope. He knows he has not arrived. He knows the journey continues. But he also knows where the path leads. The resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that those who belong to Him will share in His victory. God’s high invitation is therefore not an escape from the world but a promise of transformation. It is the assurance that the God who began a good work will bring it to completion—not by whisking believers away to heaven, but by raising them to everlasting life when Christ appears in glory.
Lord, we have responded to your heavenly invitation. We make it our goal know you and the power of your resurrection.
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