Philippians 3:3

‘For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.'

The position of such people is now seen as in contrast with those who make up the true Israel (‘the Circumcision'), who are detectable not by the mutilation of their flesh, but by a recognition of the fact that that they worship by the Spirit of God (rather than by dead ritual), glory in the true Messiah Jesus, and have no confidence in fleshly achievement. Such people are truly circumcised in heart. Notice Paul's emphasis on the fact that all is of God. It is He by His Spirit Who enables their worship. Their glorying is in Him, in the person of the Messiah Jesus. They do not believe that they can become acceptable to God by fleshly achievement. It is such people who constitute the true Israel. They are people who have had the truth revealed to them by their Father in Heaven (Matthew 16:17; Matthew 11:25). They worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). They acknowledge Christ Jesus as ‘LORD' and exult in the fact (Philippians 2:11; Rom 10:9; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Ephesians 4:5). They are circumcised in heart (Romans 2:29; compare Leviticus 26:41; Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4). They come to God with a broken and contrite heart and thus have their spirits and hearts revived (Isaiah 57:15; 1 John 1:7). They have no confidence in the satisfactory nature of their own righteousness, which they recognise as coming short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). They are totally dependent on the grace of God.

The emphatic ‘we' refers to the church made up of all believers, whether former Jew or former Gentile, as encapsulated in Paul and the Philippians (who were mainly former Gentiles) to whom he is writing. Their ‘boasting' in Christ Jesus is probably to be seen as in contrast with those who boast in the works of the Law. And their lack of confidence in ‘the flesh' has in mind both the irrelevance of physical circumcision, and of man's efforts to make himself acceptable to God by what he does.