The Race Toward Maturity

Maturity is reached by means of the experimental acquisition of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.

Roberto Sáez

Reading: Philippians 3:12-15.

The apostle Paul presents the Christian life as a race to be run. In fact, it is the race of the faith, a spiritual race that has similarities with sports races. This can be found in almost all of Paul's writings. At other times it presents the Christian life as a combat, a fight against the Devil's darkness, the flesh, the world and the setbacks of life. In the text of the letter to the Philippians, mentioned above, the Christian life is presented as an investment in terms of loss and gain, at the same time as a spiritual race whose goal and prize is perfection or maturity.

The curious thing is that both the goal and the race itself are the knowledge of Christ, since knowing Him is the guarantee of maturity. Knowing Him is more valuable than all the treasures that can be attained, which are considered as rubbish in comparison with 'the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus'. Maturity appears as a fruit of this knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to understand what this knowledge consists of, since it is not a knowledge according to the style of the Greek culture, obtained by means of intellectual effort, but a knowledge according to the Hebrew and biblical style, obtained by means of a living experience with the object that is known, in this case the glorious person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, to arrive at maturity we need to enter into 'the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus'.

Knowing Christ in his righteousness

We know that the Jews went after righteousness by works, but they never reached it (Rom. 9:30 - 10:1-10). The regimen of the law demanded righteousness from those who committed themselves to completing it. The law represents the character of God, which is holy, righteous and good. The problem is that man has no chance of complying with the commandments of God, since his nature is sinful; contrary to that of God. Israel made the mistake of committing to obey all that God demanded of them, because they didn't know themselves. What God wanted, when giving them the law, was to show them how insolvent they were morally, as much as any other nation of the earth.

For nobody has been nor ever will be justified by the law of God, with the exception of our Lord Jesus Christ who alone could be accepted before the Father on account of his righteousness. Being righteous, He consented to suffer the punishment for the sin of all humanity in order to justify us through his grace, by means of the redemption brought about on the cross of Calvary. With His sacrifice He paid for our sins. Whoever welcomes the benefits of the work of the cross, will receive justification in this way.

We need to know or to experience this justification, since this is the starting point in our race towards perfection (maturity). Besides being justified, God makes us participate in the character of His righteous Son, who lives in us to reproduce His image, that is to say His characteristics. God wants the righteous character of His son to be manifested in us. To appropriate this righteousness it is necessary to exercise faith. This is the way in which we can be found in Him. If we try to establish our own justice, we will be found in ourselves; but the best in us is comparable to "filthy garments" (Is. 64:6).

During the Protestant Reformation, Luther was criticized for speaking of a justification by faith, that is to say an external righteousness granted as a mere judicial step. As if God had said to man: "I will consider you righteous, although I know that you are a sinner!." This was the criticism that the Catholics made of the teaching of justification according to Luther. The truth is that God not only attributes to us Christ's righteousness, but rather we by means of faith participate in Christ's righteous character since He lives in us. In this way we are found in him.

Knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection

The power of Christ's resurrection in us who believe is the very same power that was present in the life of Christ and went through the experience of death, triumphing over it. A lot of the time, we Christians live in ignorance of the tremendous power that there is inside us. We live in a spiritual mediocrity as a result of not knowing (experiencing) this grace with which we were endowed by God. Paul refers to this when he advises Timothy saying to him: "... take hold of the eternal life" (1 Tim. 6:12). He was referring to the uncreated life, the life of God that was manifested in Jesus Christ, who in his time on this earth conquered death, and now continues to conquer it through us, in all its forms: be it sin, illness, weakness, fears, temptations, tests; whatever it may be, Christ's life in us is bigger than all that can come against it.

When Paul wrote the epistle to the Philippians, he was a prisoner in Rome. The prison system of that time allowed the Roman prisoners to rent a house. Paul could receive visits, but he was guarded by a Roman soldier 24 hours a day. But even worse, there was the uncertainty of not knowing when the emperor would dictate his sentence.

However, in those circumstances he could write this epistle, where he gives us the most overwhelming message of how to live above circumstances, always joyful, because he has learned that all things are possible through Christ who strengthens him. He learned how to live content in whatever situation because Christ was his life and Christ was living in Him. He knew how to be content in shortage or in abundance. Circumstances didn't determine his state of mind. That is because the power of Christ's resurrection life sustained Paul. We find the same testimony in the history of the church through the centuries in which countless people have lived victoriously over and above their circumstances. The resurrected Christ has imparted to us his abundant life and he promises us that we will never perish.

Knowing Christ in the communion of His sufferings

To have communion with Christ's sufferings is not a sentimental matter, like someone feeling sorry for what Christ had to experience, but a real experience of pain until the point of death, "ending up being similar to him in his death." The context of the paragraph which we are talking about tells us that Paul experienced the loss of all that he was before: his lineage, his religious and professional background; in fact, all that was his life before his conversion. In his testimony he adds: "and I still reckon all the things as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus." What that means is that at the beginning of the race he discarded everything, and that during it he continued to throw away everything. For him there is one single thing to consider and that is what is before him: Maturity, perfection in Christ, that is the goal!

To throw everything away is to put to death the things which cause us pain, as well as the consequent incomprehension on the part of relatives or friends who won't understand how we squander the glories that the world offers us. And it is because they don't understand that something exists beyond what man has supposed are his limits for personal realization. For the excellence of Christ's knowledge, we won't only consider the profits of this world as rubbish, but we will even surrender our own lives, denying ourselves in order to gain our new self in Him, becoming like him in His death; that is, to surrender our life for others.

Throughout the epistle, Paul mentions the word 'like-minded' 14 times; he asks us to have the same feeling that there was in Christ. The feeling or attitude that there was in Christ was that, being God, He made himself man; being man, He made himself a slave; being King, He came to serve; being rich, He made himself poor; being everything, He made himself nothing. This means dying and this was the attitude that Christ had.

Therefore, it is expected from us that we should go through the same. If we don't experience this, we will remain in spiritual infancy. If you want to grow until arriving at maturity, you have to have communion with Christ's sufferings. Have you had this experience? Do you know Christ experimentally? Or is your knowledge of Christ historical, intellectual, biblical or theoretical?

Paul said: "Now I rejoice in what I suffer for you, and I complete in my flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for His body that is the church" (Col. 1:24). To rejoice in suffering could seem masochistic.

But it is not that, nor is it about going looking for hardships. They simply arrive as part of the Christian life. The joy is in knowing that the suffering serves a purpose. We suffer because there is still something lacking in the afflictions of Christ for His body, and these are the sufferings that are being completed in His members. Since the body is joined to the Head, it participates in all that happens to the Head. Christ still suffers and intercedes for the church, likewise the church suffers for His absence, but it rejoices in afflictions because it knows that these unite it more and more with its Lover.

The grace of God works into us, the death and the life of Christ. Dying and resurrecting is the constant pattern in this race. We cannot taste of the resurrection life without experiencing the death of self. And it is the Lord resurrected that has been implanted inside us in a perfect union with our spirit, because "the one that joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him" (1 Cor. 6:17). It is Christ Himself who puts to death the old man in us; it is him who '' resurrects" inside us, it is him who goes on reproducing His image in us until the consummation of the glory of God in us in the last day.

Maturity is the likeness of Christ

The apostle Paul says that in all these things he has not yet reached the full knowledge of Christ, and that he is still not perfect. He doesn't dare to say that he has arrived at full maturity in experiencing the "excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus". But he does one thing: he presses on in the race; he only has one objective: to arrive at the goal, to the supreme call of God in Christ Jesus. This means to experience Christ in the fullness of His death and resurrection. For that reason he forgets everything that he discarded behind him, everything that he left behind for the sake of Christ and everything in which he has suffered and been given over to death for the cause of Christ, and continues onwards to the goal. Perfection is Christ.

What is it that he wants to attain and has not yet reached, and for what was he seized by Christ? It is maturity, the likeness of Christ "to end up being like Him in His death", and also "if in some way to attain to the resurrection from among the dead." He is not sowing a seed of doubt regarding the fact of the resurrection; but rather, as one who has been in permanent combat, he knows that where there is combat there is danger. For that reason, he should stay humble and vigilant, dependent on the grace of God, because he knows that this is the only way he will obtain the victory.