Philippians 3:21 - Exposition

Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body ; rather, as R.V., who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation , that it may be conformed to the body of his glory. Compare the description of our Lord's person and work in Philippians 2:6-8 . There St. Paul tells us that he who was originally in the form of God took upon him the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man. Here he uses the derivatives of the same words "form" and "fashion" ( μορδή and σχῆμα ), to describe the change of the bodies of the saved at the resurrection. He had already told us ( Philippians 2:10 ) that the Christian soul is being gradually conformed during life unto the death of Christ. He now tells us that this conformity of the Christian unto Christ is ultimately to extend to the body. The Lord shall change the outward fashion of our body; but this change will be more than a change of outward fashion: it will result in a real conformity of the resurrection-body of the believer unto the glorious body of the Lord. The body of our humiliation ; not "vile body." St. Paul does not despise the body, like the Stoics and Gnostics; the Christian's body is a sacred thing—it is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and the seed of the resurrection-body. According to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself . According to the working, the energy, of his power not only to change and glorify the bodies of the redeemed, but also to subdue all things, the whole universe, unto himself. "The apostle shows," says Chrysostom, "greater works of the Savior's power, that thou mightest believe in these."