Philippians 3:7

“Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have. counted loss for Christ”

“Howbeit what things were gain to me”: “All the things which. once held to be gains” (TCNT). “Gain”: “Lit., gains. The various items of privilege are regarded separately” (Vincent p. 446). “Paul had natural pride in his Jewish attainments” (Robertson p. 453). This tells us that Paul was not. dissatisfied Jew, who was simply looking for. change. He was completely satisfied with his Jewish life and extremely proud of the above attainments, right up until the time that he encountered Jesus. “These”: These very same attainments that he had once considered so valuable and essential. “Counted”: “Perfect tense, to reach. state that remained with him even now; hence, no regrets” (Jackson p. 66). He still counts them as. loss. “Loss”: Notice the singular use of the word "loss". Paul now counts the above "gains" as one big loss.

Paul did see the advantage of being raised. Jew (Romans 3:1; Romans 9:4), yet if such advantages keep one from becoming. Christian, they are. big loss. “If one's observance of religious ritual, one's status due to birth, one's outstanding accomplishments due to innate intelligence or sustained effort, and so on, should ever make that person proud or self-reliant. unaware of his need of God...Paul had to abandon his past advantages precisely because they were the very things that kept him from coming to God. They kept him from surrendering to Christ” (Hawthorne p. 136). “In Paul's thinking, the decision he had made was not the decision to go from good to better. nor was it the surrender of. valued possession. It was an abandoning of. loss he perceived with horror that the things he had hitherto viewed as benefiting him had in reality been working to destroy him because they were blinding him to his need for the real righteousness which God required” (Hawthorne pp. 135-136). “For Christ”: In order to really accept the fact that one needs Jesus Christ, one must realize that everything one has been previously trusting in, is not only vain, it will equally keep one from heaven.

Erdman makes the following point: “The conversion of Saul of Tarsus and his sudden transformation forms, indeed, one of the strongest arguments in support of belief in the supreme miracle, namely, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unless on the way to Damascus, Saul met this living Lord, it is impossible to give. rational explanation of so sudden. change in all his views of life and its values” (p. 112). It is. point well-taken and not to be casually dismissed. How did such. content and self-sufficient Pharisee make such. radical change? Remember, this change didn't take years, but only days and weeks (Acts 9:9).