ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Philippians 3.20

Book: Philippians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

18. For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19. whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

20. For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

  1. who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:18-21, ASV)
WEB

18. For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ, 19. whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things.

20. For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

  1. who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:18-21, WEB)
KJV

18. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19. Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

20. For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: conversation: or, we live or conduct ourselves as citizens of heaven, or, for obtaining heaven

  1. Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:18-21, KJV)
YLT

18. for many walk of whom many times I told you, and now also weeping tell, the enemies of the cross of the Christ! 19. whose end [is] destruction, whose god [is] the belly, and whose glory [is] in their shame, who the things on earth are minding.

20. For our citizenship is in the heavens, whence also a Saviour we await, the Lord Jesus Christ

  1. who shall transform the body of our humiliation to its becoming conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working of his power, even to subject to himself the all things. (Philippians 3:18-21, 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

Hēmōn gar to politeuma en ouranois hyparchei, ex hou kai sōtēra apekdechometha kyrion Iēsoun Christon.

Politeuma lands with unusual force at Philippi. The noun denotes commonwealth, state, or the register of citizens. Philippi was a Roman colonia, settled with veterans after the battle of 42 BC, and its residents held Roman citizenship while living hundreds of miles from Rome. They knew exactly what it meant to belong to a distant capital, order local life by its law, and expect its authority to be vindicated. Paul takes a civic fact his readers lived inside and applies it to heaven.

The political vocabulary is deliberate and stacked. Sōtēr, saviour, and kyrios, lord, were both imperial titles. Verse 21 adds "the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself," using hypotaxai, the language of subjugation. The claim being made in a Roman colony is that the real emperor is elsewhere and is coming.

Apekdechometha. A doubly compounded verb of eager expectation, used by Paul at Romans 8:19, 8:23 and 8:25 of eschatological waiting. It denotes active anticipation rather than passive endurance.

The contrast with verse 19 is the point. Those who "mind earthly things" are set against those whose commonwealth is heavenly. Paul is not commending detachment from the world; he is relocating the source of the law under which the community lives. Citizens of a colony do not leave; they represent.

Note what is not said. The hope is not that believers depart to heaven, but that the Saviour comes from there, ex hou, and transforms the body of our humiliation (3:21). The direction of the expectation runs downward, which is consistent across Paul and is often reversed in popular teaching.

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.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Lexicon:

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.