This post is apart of a series in Philippians. To read earlier posts in this series you my have missed click here.
“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 1.3-6
For Paul, joy is the outworking of the Christian experience, it is not the end goal but rather a by product of the Christian experience. In this way, joy transcends circumstances. For Paul, this expression of joy in the midst of trial proves true in two ways, the present reality of God’s work and a future hope.
A Story in Motion
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” If you are familiar with the New Testament you know that Paul used to be Saul, and Saul (who is now Paul) is from Tarsus. And Tarsus was an intellectual hub for the Roman world and home to the top university in all of Rome. Home to Stoics and Philosophers, Saul would have been steeped in culture, philosophy, and education. Saul thrived in this environment and would eventually be given the opportunity to study under the Rabbi Gamaliel who was the most well known rabbi in all of Israel. So Paul moves to Jerusalem, and is educated under Gamaliel as a Pharisee. Now, as a Pharisee Paul would have been saturated in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
If you cut Paul open, Hebrew culture would come spilling out. The scriptures were in his bones! Because of this, Paul’s writings are littered with allusions and echoes back to the Old Testament; layered with depth and meaning beyond the surface. At one level it is about the surface reading of the text, but at another level, it is loaded with back story.
So when Paul writes, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He is saying at one level, God has began something in you and is working it toward completion.
But at another level, Paul is alluding to a far deeper reality, and for his original readers three words would have jumped off the page:
Began.
Good.
Completion.
Without question Paul’s original readers would have seen these words and immediately been reminded of the creation story in Genesis...
Gen. 1.1 - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Gen. 1.10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 - “And God saw that it was good”
Gen. 2.1 - “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.”
Paul is drawing a direct connection between the God of Genesis at work in creating the world and the God at work in them presently. The God that spoke the universe into existence has began a good work in you, and is bringing it to completion. The very creative, life-giving force that pulses energy to the created world is also flowing in and through your very existence. It is the God who created the stars, planets, grass, oceans, flowers, music, tacos, wine, laughter…that God is also at work in you. And that work of God is declared good.
This is how our story begins, with God’s good creation. But this isn’t the end of the story. God, in recognition of how this good world has been broken by injustice, greed, violence, and distortion is working to bring it to “completion” in the “day of Christ Jesus.” Paul is not only reminding his readers that God, from the beginning, has been creating a good work in you, but God is also present in the chaos working to reconcile all things back to himself in a future hope.
Paul’s hope is oriented toward the future. It is the vision of a flourishing new creation that is on the horizon, made possible only by the work of God in the resurrection. Paul’s hope...our hope...is that the work of Jesus in the Resurrection has inaugurated a new world. And that new world is breaking through into our world here-and-now, and at “the day of Christ Jesus” Heaven will crash down into earth, setting the world to rights, injustice reversed, swords beat into plowshares, shalom restored, creation working in rhythm with the divine. Or as the writer of Revelation says it, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them…He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21.3-4)
For some of us, we need to be reminded that the story is going somewhere. That today doesn’t have to be like yesterday and tomorrow is full of possibilities of new life. We need to be reminded that whatever brokenness, death, injustice you experience today doesn’t get the last word. The story is not stagnant. Death, disease, injustice, cancer, gossip, divorce, doesn’t get the last word. But we are apart of a story in motion. Our hope is fixed in the present good work of Jesus in us reconciling, restoring, creating life in the midst of death. All of which is pointed toward the day it is carried to completion and heaven and earth are one again.
This is our hope, a story in motion.