God’s Word for You

Philippians 3:7-9 as useless as armor in the desert

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, April 9, 2026

7 But whatever things were gain for me I now consider loss because of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of what is worth so much more: knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and by faith.

All of the advantages Paul had were as useless to him as a suit of armor is to a man walking through a desert. In fact, those things were not only useless, they were a detriment. Off they all had to come, just like each piece of armor to the knight trudging along the drifting dunes in the raging heat. “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews…” each piece came flying off of Paul’s fleshly pride like the breastplate, shoulder-armor, leg-pieces, the greaves around his ankles, and the iron gloves tailored perfectly to the hands—all of it had to come off. None of it did him any good.

How hard this must have been for Paul and for many other Jews in their time! There was so much to be proud of, so much to rely on, so much even to boast about! But could it be that none of it really helped with regard to their salvation? Paul teaches us this with the grammar of verses 7 and 8. He uses the same verb in two different tenses in parallel phrases: “I consider loss” (ἥγημαι, perfect tense) is followed by “and I still consider loss” (ἡγοῦμαι, present tense) verse 8 and soon after, “And for his sake… I still consider loss” (ἡγοῦμαι, present tense). His realization in the past is continued in the present and has not changed. He knows that it is all loss and nothing but loss. He’s not going to go back and pick up any of those discarded reasons for boasting any more than our parched knight in the desert would go back to pick up his breastplate or his greaves after having thrown them away. “All rubbish” is Paul’s judgment and his certainty.

He doesn’t overstate himself; he has not spoken one single word too many when he says, “I have lost all things.” But some of those things he lost were more than ancestry; some of them were good deeds. Don’t good deeds have any place in our salvation? Is there no room for good deeds in the doctrine of justification? Even if someone wanted to peel apart those two things, justification and salvation, they would not have any different parts. “There are not different causes for justification and for salvation. Rather, just as we are justified by the grace of God for the sake of Christ, apprehended by faith, so also we are saved by the same grace of God, the same merit of Christ, and the same faith.” Yet we also acknowledge and teach that those who have been justified (declared not guilty) and saved must walk and live their lives in good works and enter the kingdom of heaven through many trials and hardships (Acts 14:22).

Therefore we have good works that follow salvation, but not that contribute to our salvation. In these verses, Paul rejects the usefulness of good works three times. And he does so elsewhere in familiar words: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9), and again, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Imagine for a moment a happy mother always proud if her boys and their friends follow one of her huge meals with loud belches and burps. She would laugh and sometimes even clap her hands, because she knew they had eaten well. But if they burped before the meal, she would offended, because it meant they had eaten something already, something not hers, and she would say, “That one wasn’t for me!” I wonder if it would be all right to use this as an illustration of good works? God loves it when the good work is like a big old burp after a meal—on account of what God gave us. But beforehand? “That one wasn’t for me!”

But then someone might come along and say, “Burps are never polite!” Which is to say, are good works never any good?

Here our Lutheran Confessions come and help us to understand both sides of the road, so to speak. On the one hand, we must not go so far as to say without qualification that good works in general are harmful to our salvation (this was the extravagant claim of Nicholas von Amsdorf). This would be correct if a person relied on good works in order to be saved. “The fault, however, lies not with the good works themselves, but with the false confidence which, contrary to the express word of God, is being placed upon good works. But it does not follow that one may say without qualifications that good works are detrimental to believers as far as their salvation is concerned. For when good works are done on account of right causes and for right ends (that is, with the intention that God demands of the regenerated), they are an indication of the salvation of believers.”

So our good works are not righteousness in God’s eyes. Our faith grasps Christ’s rightoeusness. It is Christ that earns our salvation and gives to us eternal life. But when, following this, we do good works, they are a way of showing our faith and of pleasing God, for Jesus’ sake. Therefore “Christians are not to be deterred from good works, but are most diligently to be admonished and urged to apply themselves to good works” (Formula of Concord). This is why Jesus says to forgiven believers, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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