Philippians 3:6

Philippians 3:6. as touching zeal, persecuting the church. The preposition rendered ‘as touching' in the previous verse occurs here three times over in close connection, and this should be indicated by the translation. ‘Beyond measure,' he says, ‘I persecuted the church of God' (Galatians 1:13), and the voice from heaven in the road to Damascus confirmed this: ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.' He counts this among the things of which he might have gloried had he put himself on the level of these Jewish teachers. How he really did esteem this zeal we know from his statement that he was not worthy to be called an apostle, because he had persecuted the church of Christ.

as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Such righteousness as consisted in obedience to the legal ordinances he could claim, for he had observed them all. It is clearly to externals that he is referring, for his words imply that it was to men he had approved himself; none of his fellows surpassed him or even equalled him in strictness of legal observance. ‘I advanced in the Jews' religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers' (Galatians 1:14). In the participle rendered ‘found' (but omitted in Authorised Version), which is literally ‘having become,' there is another sounding of the same note: Saul's careful observance of the legal ordinances had brought him to be, in the eyes of his fellows, one in whom no fault could be found. This righteousness, which he names ‘a righteousness of his own,' he had now learnt to value at its true worth, and to seek that which is of God by faith.