Saving Faith necessarily Treasures

Philipians 3:7-11 is a familiar passage to most Christians. But in that brief excerpt there is a sentence that never really hit me like it did recently during my time at my fellowship retreat. Here it is:

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish SO THAT I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,” (Phil. 3:7-9, NAS95S)

This passage hinges upon this "so that." Notice how the passage breaks into two parts on either side of it. Preceding this "so that" Paul in summary is saying "I count everything as refuse!" and following it Paul says "I gain a righteousness apart from my own works in Christ" Do you see it? To put it another way more generally, preceding the "so that" there is a section on Treasuring, and following it there is a section on Justification. When these two statements come together via this "so that" it is what we call a purpose clause. In the greek, it is the "hina" which sits in between two statements presenting the first statement as a basis for the which the second exists, i.e. the first statement is the thought or action and the second is the reason for it.

Very simply. Paul is saying that one must consider everything as loss in order to gain the alien righteousness of Christ. The Apostle Paul counted all things as rubbish because he knew that if he did not he would not "gain Christ" which Paul explains to mean he would not then be covered in Christ's "righteousness."

Therefore, saving Faith MUST Treasure the object of Faith or else it is not a faith that saves.

The great and necessary exchange between our Sin and Christ's righteousness is conditioned on this one thing: Loving Christ more than all else and considering all else simply.. poo.