If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Parallel translations
- WEB if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
- BSB and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
- NKJV if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
- NASB if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
- NLT so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul's aim in knowing Christ is to share in the resurrection of the dead. This is the goal toward which his whole life is bent.
Overview
Continuing from his desire to know Christ in his death (3:10), Paul names the final hope: bodily resurrection to glory. The phrase 'if by any means' expresses humble earnestness, not doubt about salvation. His confidence rests on Christ's own resurrection, the guarantee that all who are united to him will be raised.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Luke 20:35–36But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
- Rev 20:5But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
- Acts 23:6But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.
- Acts 26:7Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.
- Heb 11:35Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
- 2 Cor 11:3But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
- Ps 49:7None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
- 1 Cor 9:27But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
- 1 Cor 9:22To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
- Luke 14:14And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.
- Rom 11:14If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
- 2 Th 2:3Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
- John 11:24Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
- Acts 27:12And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west.
- 1 Th 3:5For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain.
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Christ at the center
The one who, being in the form of God, emptied himself to the point of death on a cross and was exalted to the name above every name — the joy and prize of the believer.
How Philippians 3:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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