I. Introduction

A. Certain religious teachers had gone to Philippi to refute Paul's teaching of justification by faith alone.

I. These men taught that you had to believe in Christ but you must also include certain ceremonial traditions.

2. Included in those traditions would be the adherence to the law of Moses and the sign of circumcision.

3. They were challenging the fact that Paul was a real Jew. In their minds he had become a gentile.

B. Paul bristles at their accusations and proceeds to assemble his religious heritage and pedigree.

1. He builds his case item by item, merit by merit, when he is finished he destroy this religious house in which he could have lived by one simple statement. (3:7)

2. There are six specifics of Paul's religious pedigree which if it could save would have brought Saul of Tarsus an abundant salvation

A. Circumcised the eighth day.

1. Paul was not a proselyte brought in as an adult from some other religious persuasion.

2. He was born in the Hebrew faith. His family kept the command given to Abraham in Gen 17:12 which stated that male children were to be circumcised on the eighth day.

B. He is stressing the fact that he was born into the Jewish faith and had observed it from his birth.

III. Pride of Ancestry - (5) of the stock of Israel.

A. Israel was the name which had been specially given to Jacob by God after wrestling with him for a whole night (Gen 32:28)

1. It was to Israel that the true Jew traced his heritage.

2. In point of fact the Ishmaelites could trace their descent to Abraham for they belonged to Abraham by Hagar.

3. The Edomites could trace their descent to Esau, the founder of the Edomite nation was Isaac's son.

4. But it was the Israelites alone who could trace their descent to Jacob whom God had called by the name of Israel.

B. By calling himself an Israelite, Paul stressed the absolute purity of his descent.

IV. Pride of Position (5) of the Tribe of Benjamin.

A. Among Israelites the Benjamites were particularly distinguished like the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers.

1. They were the aristocracy of Israel. Benjamin was the son of Rachel the well loved wife of Jacob.

2. Of all the patriarchs he alone had been born in the promised land. (Gen 35:17-18)

3. It was from the tribe of Benjamin that the first King had come.

4. when under Rehoboam the kingdom had been split up ten of the tribes went with Jeroboam Benjamin was the only tribe which remained faithful to Judah (I Kings 12:29)

5. The tribe of Benjamin had the place of honor in Israel's battle line so that the battle cry of Israel was; After thee 0 Benjamin (Judges 5:14)

6. In the book of Esther the central figure is a man named Mordecai - a Benjarninite

B. When Paul claimed to be from this tribe he was saying that he was not just any Israelite but was from the highest aristocracy of Israel.

1. Paul later tells us that we are to trust in none of these things to give us merit before God.

2. Remember we are on our own before the Judge of the Universe.

3. Your position and ancestry does not merit you one thing before the Lord.

V. Pride of Caste (5) Hebrew of the Hebrews

A. The Jewish nation had been dispersed to every corner of the world.

1. They stubbornly refused to be assimilated into the nations amongst whom they lived.

2. They remained true to their religion, their customs and their feasts but the one thing they often forgot to protect was their own language.

3. A Hebrew was a Jew who was not only of pure racial descent but one who deliberately retained the ancient language.

B. Paul claims not only to be a pure blooded Jew, but he was a Jew who still spoke the Hebrew language (Acts 21:40)

1. Though Paul was born in the Gentile city of Tarsus.

2. He never allowed that to make him any less than a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

VI. Pride of Religion (5) Touching the Law, a Pharisee.

A. There were never many Pharisees, never more than 6000.

1. Their very name means "The Separated Ones"

2. Their one aim in life was to keep the smallest detail of the law of Moses.

3. Paul is claiming a zealous adherence to the law - he is claiming a devotion to the law of God that his enemies said he was profaning.

4. His zeal for the law went as far as the persecution of Christians.

5. He was willing to wipe the enemies of the law from the face of the earth.

6. Pharisees is now a dirty word but in Paul's day it was the equivalent of being a fundamentalist today.

B. He rigidly believed the Bible and sought to implement its teaching into his every day life.

VII Pride of Character (6) Touching righteousness - Blameless

A. It is doubtful Paul is claiming moral perfection but rather his observance of its literal and external requirements.

1. But one day on the Damascus Road these things all vanished in the light of a greater glory.

2. There in the presence of Christ all these boasted dependencies vanished in His presence.

3. He wrote all six of these things off as nothing more than a bunch of bad debts.

B. He suffered loss but he experienced gain.

1. He exchanged religion for Christ.

2. what Paul counted loss were not evil things, they were good things but not good enough when salvation is at stake.

3. A good thing becomes a bad thing when it becomes a substitute for the best thing.

4. All that God wants us to have for time and eternity are available to us in the person of Christ (3:9)

C. Self Righteousness leads to condemnation - Christ righteousness to justification.

1. All these things Paul might have claimed to set down on the credit Side of the balance; but when he met Christ, he wrote them off as nothing more than bad debts.

2. All human achievement had to be laid aside, in order that he might accept the free grace of Christ.