NOTES for Php 3:3-8
Today the apostle Paul lists his "merits" before the law. He does this for one single purpose: to explain that he renounces reliance on righteousness not because he does not have righteousness and never had it. When a person "does not fit" within the framework 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 works of the law, if those works could save. But since salvation is not in works, not in righteousness, but only in Christ, Paul "counts as loss," as nothing, everything of which he might have boasted. And what can one boast of while standing at the Lord's cross, knowing the price at which our salvation was bought?...