By Any Means Necessary

“that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:11)

It all comes down to this single moment. The game is on the line. It’s do or die. You must make the play. You’ll do whatever it takes. Like a ball carrier willing to sacrifice his body in a all out dive over the defender into the end zone in the Super Bowl. Like baserunner flying round third for a bang-bang play at the plate in the World Series. You MUST do it! By any means necessary. That’s the picture Paul paints here in Philippians 3, “that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Somehow he’s got to grab the brass ring of eternal life. Someway he’s got to make his escape from the rotting corpses. He’ll do whatever it takes. By any means necessary.

From the slammer in Rome, the apostle is writing a letter of encouragement to his friends back in Philippi. Just a few years back, Paul and his posse rolled into the Macedonian seaport carrying the Good News of Jesus into Europe for the very first time (Acts 16:12-40). God used the man from Tarsus to plant a church out of an unlikely bunch. A transplanted fashionista from Thyatira. A formerly demon-possessed young woman liberated from human trafficking. A tough-as-nails prison guard and his family. This goofy bunch of believers has a special place in Paul’s heart. So after sending letters to churches with serious issues in places like Ephesus and Colossae, he grabs his pen one more time. This time it drips with joy as well as ink. He reminds them how he wasted much of his life trying to impress God with his religious resume (Phil 3:4-6). It was only when he met the resurrected Jesus face-to-face that he realized all his own accomplishments and awards were no more than a big steaming pile (Phil 3:7-8). He had one goal. He had one target. A deep and intimate relationship with the One who came to his rescue. And nothing was going to get in his way.

Paul picks right up where he left off in verse 10. Once he dies and becomes like Jesus in His death, he knows his own resurrection will follow. He’s putting everything on the line in order that he “may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death” (Phil 3:10). A personal relationship with the Son of God logically leads to access to His explosive resurrection power. That means we also become teammates in Jesus’ pain, suffering, and death. But the apostle circles back once again to the glorious end game, “the resurrection from the dead” (v11). He’ll lay it all on the line to get it. By any means necessary.

A closer look at the original language reveals a couple of curious things. Paul drops a tiny Greek word (Gr. pos) from which the ESV translators give us “by any means possible” (v11). It means somehow, in some way, after all, or by some means. If there’s any sliver of hope, the apostle will “attain” what he’s after. This is the verb katantao, which can be translated to come to, arrive, or reach, finish a journey. Cross the goal line. Touch home plate. The apostle is will sell out to make it happen. Picture a running back sacrificing his body to dive for the score.

At first you might read this verse and scratch your head. There sure seems to be a boatload of doubt in Paul’s mind about arriving at his goal of resurrection. Is he hedging his bets? Is he unsure of what will eventually happen? Is he apprehensive about how this will all end? Relax. Robertson tells us this is not so much an expression of doubt, but of humility. There’s no question in Paul’s mind he’ll walk out of the graveyard just like every other believer. He simply knows he’s done nothing in his own efforts to make it happen. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?

Our author will use every club in his bag in order to get ahold of “the resurrection from the dead” (v11). MacArthur points out Paul uses a phrase that literally means a “resurrection out from the corpses.” He’s emphasizing the rising up and escape of believers out of the sea of lifeless bodies. Ewww! Sounds gross, doesn’t it? Seems like a scene from the “Walking Dead” or “World War Z.” Well, it should. There’s nothing the apostle won’t do to put death in his rearview mirror. And he’s going to do everything he can to share the Gospel of Jesus with everyone who will listen so that they can join him in his escape to resurrection.

Here’s the crazy thing. On one hand, Paul says he’ll take extreme measures to get his hands on resurrection. But that only happens through a relationship with Jesus (Phil 3:10). We only attain His resurrection because He’s attained it for us. We can’t do it. There’s no way. We CANNOT save ourselves. We can’t make ourselves good enough. We can’t build up enough brownie points. We can’t win enough awards. What we can do is place our trust in the One who has. Jesus attained the perfect live I failed to live. He died the bloody death I should have died. He rose to the jaw-dropping resurrection life I don’t deserve. I believe in what He did on my behalf. I have to. There’s no way I can attain it on my own. You see, Christ was willing to do whatever it took to “attain the resurrection from the dead” (v11) for you and me. The night before His murder, the Son asked the Father if there was any other way this could go down. Jesus determines to do whatever His Dad decides (Lk 22:42). By any means necessary.