Philippians 3:2

_ _ Beware — Greek, “Have your eye on” so as to beware of. Contrast “mark,” or “observe,” namely, so as to follow Philippians 3:17.

_ _ dogs — Greek, “the dogs,” namely, those impure persons “of whom I have told you often” (Philippians 3:18, Philippians 3:19); “the abominable” (compare Revelation 21:8, with Revelation 22:15; Matthew 7:6; Titus 1:15, Titus 1:16): “dogs” in filthiness, unchastity, and snarling (Deuteronomy 23:18; Psalms 59:6, Psalms 59:14, Psalms 59:15; 2 Peter 2:22): especially “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18; Psalms 22:16, Psalms 22:20). The Jews regarded the Gentiles as “dogs” (Matthew 15:26); but by their own unbelief they have ceased to be the true Israel, and are become “dogs” (compare Isaiah 56:10, Isaiah 56:11).

_ _ evil workers — (2 Corinthians 11:13), “deceitful workers.” Not simply “evildoers” are meant, but men who “worked,” indeed, ostensibly for the Gospel, but worked for evil: “serving not our Lord, but their own belly” (Philippians 3:19; compare Romans 16:18). Translate, “The evil workmen,” that is, bad teachers (compare 2 Timothy 2:15).

_ _ concision — Circumcision had now lost its spiritual significance, and was now become to those who rested on it as any ground of justification, a senseless mutilation. Christians have the only true circumcision, namely, that of the heart; legalists have only “concision,” that is, the cutting off of the flesh. To make “cuttings in the flesh” was expressly prohibited by the law (Leviticus 21:5): it was a Gentile-heathenish practice (1 Kings 18:28); yet this, writes Paul indignantly, is what these legalists are virtually doing in violation of the law. There is a remarkable gradation, says Birks [Horae Apostolicae] in Paul’s language as to circumcision. In his first recorded discourse (Acts 13:39), circumcision is not named, but implied as included in the law of Moses which cannot justify. Six or seven years later, in the Epistle to Galatians (Galatians 3:3), the first Epistle in which it is named, its spiritual inefficiency is maintained against those Gentiles who, beginning in the Spirit, thought to be perfected in the flesh. Later, in Epistle to Romans (Romans 2:28, Romans 2:29), he goes farther, and claims the substance of it for every believer, assigning the shadow only of it to the unbelieving Jew. In Epistle to Colossians (Colossians 2:11; Colossians 3:11), still later, he expounds more fully the true circumcision as the exclusive privilege of the believer. Last of all here, the very name is denied to the legalist, and a term of reproach is substituted, “concision,” or flesh-cutting. Once obligatory on all the covenant-people, then reduced to a mere national distinction, it was more and more associated in the apostle’s experience with the open hostility of the Jews, and the perverse teaching of false brethren.