More Thoughts on Today’s Text
Paul understands profitable living in the household of God terms of “attaining to the resurrection of the dead” (verses 11; see also 12, 14). In order to make a profit, he counts all his external advantages as “loss” and counts knowing Christ as “gain.” Earlier, Paul had written about giving up all rights and privileges for the sake of others (2:1-4). Now he speaks about giving up all rights and privileges for the sake of knowing Christ (verse 10).
Paul values knowing Christ because he has come to see that only in union with Christ, and not on account of his natural qualities or achievements, may he stand before God. Paul wants to be “found” in Christ. This is language of final judgment, when a person’s life is disclosed before his maker (see also 2 Peter 3:10, 14). Paul contrasts two kinds of righteousness for this disclosure: “having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law” versus “one that comes through faith in Christ” (verse 9).
He has described the righteousness from the law in verses 5-6. By contrast, the righteousness through faith in Christ likely refers to Jesus’ obedient death on the cross. Grammatically, the phrase translated “faith in Christ” may also be translated “the faithfulness of Christ.” This alternate translation makes the best sense of the contrast that Paul sets up: not the law versus human faith; but the law (its works do not give life) versus Jesus’ obedient death (by his work, he gives life; see also Romans 8:1-4).
Paul mixes accounting imagery with athletic imagery in order to portray the extent to which he values Christ. In verse 12, he says that he has not already obtained “all this,” probably referring to the full knowledge of Christ and the resurrection of the dead that is his ultimate goal. Because his values have changed, he exerts the energy with which he would strain to win a race into the pursuit of Christ. He does this by forgetting what lies behind (all those privileges and achievements he mentions in verses 5-6) and by straining forward to what lies ahead (sharing in Christ’s resurrection).