NOTES for Php 3:3-8

Today the apostle Paul lists his “merits” before the law. He does so for one purpose alone: to explain that he gives up relying on righteousness not because he has no righteousness and never did. When someone “does not fit” within the bounds of the law, he can be accused of rejecting the law out of envy. But Paul, more than anyone else, could have counted on salvation by the works of the law—if those works could save. Yet because salvation is found not in works or righteousness, but only in Christ, Paul “counts as loss,” as nothing, everything of which he might have been proud. And what could anyone be proud of while standing at the Lord's cross and knowing the price at which our salvation was purchased?...