Albert Barnes Commentary Philippians 3:8

"Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ," — Philippians 3:8 (ASV)

Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss. Not only those things which he had just specified, and which he himself had possessed, he says he would be willing to renounce to gain the Saviour, but everything that could be imagined. If all the wealth and honour that could be conceived of were his, he would be willing to renounce them so that he might obtain the knowledge of the Redeemer.

He would be a gainer who sacrifices everything to win Christ. Paul had not only acted on this principle when he became a Christian, but had always afterwards continued to be ready to give up everything to gain the Saviour.

He uses here the same word zhmian—which he also uses in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 27:21), when speaking of the loss that had been sustained by sailing from Crete, contrary to his advice, on the voyage to Rome. The idea here seems to be, "What I might obtain, or did possess, I regard as loss in comparison with the knowledge of Christ, even as seamen do the goods on which they set a high value, in comparison with their lives. Valuable as they may be, they are willing to throw them all overboard to save themselves." Burder, in Ros. Alt. u. neu. Morgenland, in loc.

For the excellency of the knowledge. This is a Hebrew expression to denote excellent knowledge. The idea is that he held everything else to be worthless in comparison with that knowledge, and he was willing to sacrifice everything else to obtain it. On the value of this knowledge of the Saviour, see the comments on Ephesians 3:19.

For whom I have suffered the loss of all things. Paul, when he became a Christian, gave up his brilliant prospects in regard to this life, and indeed everything on which his heart had been set. He abandoned the hope of honour and distinction; he sacrificed every prospect of gain or ease; and he gave up his dearest friends, and separated himself from those whom he tenderly loved. He might have risen to the highest posts of honour in his native land, and the path that an ambitious young man desires was fully open before him. But all this he had cheerfully sacrificed to gain the Saviour and partake of the blessings of His religion.

He has not, indeed, informed us of the exact extent of his loss in becoming a Christian. It is by no means improbable that he had been excommunicated by the Jews; and that he had been disowned by his own family.

And do count them but dung. The word used here—skubalon—occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It properly means dregs, refuse; what is thrown away as worthless; chaff, offal, or the refuse of a table or of slaughtered animals—and then filth of any kind. No language could express a deeper sense of the utter worthlessness of all that external advantages could confer in the matter of salvation.

In the question of justification before God, all reliance on birth, and blood, and external morality, and forms of religion, and prayers, and alms, is to be renounced, and, in comparison with the merits of the great Redeemer, to be esteemed as vile. Such were Paul's views; and we may remark that if this was so in his case, it should be so in ours. Such things can no more avail for our salvation than they could for his. We can no more be justified by them than he could. Nor will they do anything more in our case to commend us to God than they did in his.

Concerning the phrase I have suffered the loss of all things, compare 2 Corinthians 11:25–27. The word translated as dung may also be rendered "refuse."