Phil 3:14 and the calling.
Pulpit Commentary
Verse 14. - I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; rather, with the best manuscripts, unto the prize. The first preposition, "towards," expresses the aim; the second, "unto," the end of the race. The high calling; the upward, heavenward calling. God is calling us all upward, heavenward, by the voice of the Lord Jesus, who is the Word of God. Comp.
Hebrews 2:1, "Partakers of the heavenly calling." The words, "in Christ Jesus," are to be taken with "the high calling." It is God who calls: he calls us in the person of Christ, by the voice of Christ, "Come unto me." "It was his will that thou shouldst run the race below; he gives the crown above. Seest thou not that even here they crown the most honored of the athletes, not on the racecourse below, but the king calls them up, and crowns them there" (Chrysostom). Philippians 3:14
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
14. the mark] R.V., “the goal.” But the Greek word is, like “mark,” a general rather than a special one, and used in the classics rather of archery than of racing. The verse might be roughly but closely rendered, “mark-wards I haste, towards the prize &c.”; I run with a definite aim, and that aim is to win the prize. Cp.
1 Corinthians 9:26; “I so run, not as uncertainly.”
the prize] The same word occurs
1 Corinthians 9:24, and not elsewhere in N.T. It is very rare in secular Greek, but is connected with the common word for the arbiter or umpire who awarded the athletic prize. In Christian Latin (e.g. in the Latin versions here) it appears transliterated, as bravium (or brabium). The “prize” is “the crown,” glory everlasting as the blessed result and triumph of the work of grace, of the life of faith. Cp.
Revelation 2:10; and esp.
2 Timothy 4:7-8.