Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Philippians · About this commentary
Our Citizenship Is in Heaven
Philippians 3:20-21
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, · WEB
The answer to minds set on earthly things is a passport — and a promise about these particular bodies.
For our citizenship is in heaven. The noun is the commonwealth or state one belongs to, and in a Roman colony it was the town's proudest possession. Philippi's citizens held Roman rights though most had never seen Rome, and the letter uses that exact experience: a real citizenship, in a place one has not yet visited, which nonetheless determines how one lives here.
From where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The verb means to await eagerly, and Savior was among the emperor's titles — a word chosen for a colony that knew who normally bore it.
Verse 21 says what he will do on arrival: who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory.
The verb is the one behind schēma, outward form, and the noun for conforming is from morphē, the hymn's word Philippians 2:6. The body is not discarded and replaced but transformed, and the pattern it is conformed to is his own risen body.
And the guarantee is power: according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself. This is the letter's second statement of where Paul's hope lies, and like the first Philippians 3:11 it is dated to the coming rather than to death.
settled What this mark means