Passage

Philippians 3.12

Book: Philippians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

10. that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; 11. if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.

12. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, 14. I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14, ASV)

WEB

10. that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death; 11. if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, 14. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14, WEB)

KJV

10. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

12. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14, KJV)

YLT

10. to know him, and the power of his rising again, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11. if anyhow I may attain to the rising again of the dead.

12. Not that I did already obtain, or have been already perfected; but I pursue, if also I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by the Christ Jesus;

brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold; and one thing, the things behind indeed forgetting, and to the things before stretching forth 14. to the mark I pursue for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Paul the Apostle, writing with Timothy named as co-sender (Phil 1:1).
Audience: The church at Philippi, a Roman colony in Macedonia and the first congregation Paul planted in Europe (Acts 16:11-40). The letter names overseers and deacons at 1:1 and thanks the church for repeated financial support.
Location: Written from imprisonment. Paul refers to his bonds and to "Caesar's household" (Phil 1:13, 4:22); the traditional identification is Roman custody, with Ephesus and Caesarea proposed as alternatives.
Time period: c. AD 60-62 on the traditional Roman-imprisonment dating.

Theological reading

Ouch hoti ēdē elabon ē ēdē teteleiōmai, diōkō de ei kai katalabō, eph' hō kai katelēmphthēn hypo Christou Iēsou.

An explicit denial of arrival. Paul has just written some of the most exalted lines in the letter, and he immediately blocks the inference: not that I already obtained, or am already made perfect. Teteleiōmai is perfect passive, "have been brought to completion," and the disclaimer is the New Testament's clearest statement against Christian perfectionism from someone who could plausibly have claimed it.

A wordplay carries the theology. Diōkō... ei kai katalabō... eph' hō kai katelēmphthēn. The verb katalambanō, to seize or lay hold of, appears twice: Paul presses on that he may lay hold, because he was laid hold of by Christ. The pursuit is a response to a prior apprehension. The initiative was Christ's and is in the aorist passive; the pursuit is Paul's and is in the present active.

Diōkō is the same verb translated "persecute" at 3:6. The man who pursued the church now pursues Christ. Given that the two uses stand seven verses apart in a tightly argued passage, the echo is almost certainly deliberate, and it is a quiet piece of autobiography: the energy was never the problem, the object was.

The athletic frame. Diōkō and katalambanō both suit the footrace that verses 13 and 14 make explicit, with the runner stretching toward the line and the prize awarded at the end. Philippi's readers, in a Roman colony with Greek games in the region, would have taken the imagery immediately.

Function. The verse is the corrective the chapter needs. Verses 8 to 11 could be read as claiming attainment; verse 12 forecloses it, and verses 13 to 16 develop the correction into a positive discipline.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

G5547 - christos, christos, Strong's G5547
G2424 - Iesous, Iesous, Strong's G2424

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Sanctification

Lexicon:

G5046 - teleios

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.