“[I was a Pharisee]; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Phil 3:6).

During a Zoom class on soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, a student asked me about Phil 3:6. Was Paul really blameless before God before he was born again?

The word translated blameless is amemtos. It is used only four other times in the NT. The parents of John the Baptist “were both righteous before God, walking in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6). It is used earlier in Philippians to refer to Paul’s hope that the believers in Philippi would become and remain blameless until the Judgment Seat of Christ (Phil 2:15). Paul hoped the same thing for the believers in Thessalonica (1 Thess 3:13). In Colossians he used a different word for blameless. He said that if we continue in the faith, we will be found by Christ at the Bema to have been blameless (amōmos).

But in Phil 3:6 Paul was talking about himself as an unbeliever. How do we explain that?

My answer in class was that he was saying that among Pharisees, he was considered blameless. Maybe a modern example would help. A Mormon who comes to believe in Christ for everlasting life might say that he had been blameless concerning the righteousness which is in the Latter-Day Saints.

Paul was saying that he was an exemplary Pharisee. His fellow Pharisees considered him blameless. He wasn’t saying that God considered him blameless. He wasn’t saying that was righteous in God’s sight. This was man-centered righteousness and blamelessness.

Fee’s comments are helpful:

“As to righteousness in the Law, blameless.” This final item brings the catalogue to its climax; everything else is pointing here. But it is also the item that has generated long debates among later readers, since it seems to contradict what Paul says elsewhere about one’s ability to keep the Law. The key to the present usage lies at three points—the term “righteousness,” the qualifier “in the Law,” and the word “faultless”—which together indicate that he is referring to Torah observance understood as observable conduct.

…Paul has no “blemishes” on his record, as far as Torah observance is concerned, which means that he scrupulously adhered to the pharisaic interpretation of the Law, with its finely honed regulations for sabbath observance, food laws, and ritual cleanliness…

This means that “righteousness” in this context does not refer to God’s character or to the gift of right standing with God, but precisely as he qualifies it, that “righteousness” which is “in the Law.” Although “the Law” cannot always be so narrowly defined in Paul, here he is probably referring to matters of “food and drink” and “the observance of days,” since, along with circumcision, these are the two items regularly singled out whenever discussion of Torah observance emerges in his letters…

Paul’s present point, of course, is not his sinlessness, but his being without fault in the kind of righteousness that Judaizers would bring one to, by insisting on Torah observance. But what has that to do with righteousness at all, is his point. He has excelled here, he says, and found it empty and meaningless; hence he insists for the Philippians’ benefit that there is “no future in it” (Philippians, pp. 309-310, italics added).

Ironically, we can be blameless before God at the Bema if we continue in the faith. Blamelessness at the Bema does not refer to sinlessness; otherwise, no one would be found blameless. Besides, one of the requirements for elders in the local church is blamelessness (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:6-7; cf. 1 Tim 6:14 concerning Timothy). It refers to one who has been found faithful (1 Cor 4:2). If we endure, we will reign with Christ (2 Tim 2:12). Many of the Lord’s parables convey this truth (e.g., Matt 24:45-51; 25:1-13; 25:14-30; Luke 8:13-15; 19:11-27).

Blameless at the Bema. I like the sound of that. Wouldn’t it be great if the Lord Jesus Christ found us blameless at the Bema!

Keep grace in focus.