[Paul] also speaks positively in verses 12–14 of what he is doing in light of the incompleteness of his spiritual journey. His language comes from the world of war and athletics and emphasizes the strenuous nature of his efforts to fulfill his vocation. In verse 12 he says that he presses on to take hold of the goals listed in verses 8–11, choosing a pair of words that could, in military contexts, refer to the pursuit of one army by another. Together the two terms connote a single-minded attempt to reach a particular goal.

According to the niv, Paul’s goal is to reach “that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” But the Greek phrase behind “that for which” (eph’ ho) usually expresses cause in Paul’s letters, and it probably carries a causal force here. So the goal Paul pursues probably remains all that he has described in verses 8–11, and the second part of verse 12 should be rendered, “because Christ Jesus took hold of me.” That is to say, Paul vigorously pursues the knowledge of Christ, his sufferings, his resurrection power, and union with him at the final day because on the road to Damascus, Christ took hold of him (Acts 9:1–19; 22:3–16; 26:9–18). Had that event not taken place, Paul might still be busy “persecuting (dioko) the church” (Phil. 3:6) instead of pressing on (dioko) toward these goals (vv. 12, 14).

Even more expressive of the difficulty of Paul’s exertion to reach these goals is the athletic imagery in verses 12–14. Like a runner who knows that a backward glance at ground already covered will only slow his progress toward the finish, Paul says that he forgets what is behind and stretches out toward what is ahead, so that he might complete the race and win the prize. Some interpreters have taken Paul’s claim that he forgets what is behind as a reference to his pre-Christian past (cf. vv. 5–6), but two considerations point away from this interpretation. (1) The point under discussion here is Paul’s progress as a believer, not his progress beyond his days of persecuting the church. (2) When Paul uses athletic imagery elsewhere, the subject is his apostolic labors (cf. 2:16; 1 Cor. 9:24–26). These labors are his focus here too. Paul’s point, then, is that he refuses to rest on his past successes but presses on toward that day when he will present the Philippians and his other congregations blameless to Christ (1:10; 2:14–18; 1 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23).

What is this prize? The term “call” in Paul’s letters, both as a noun and as a verb, possesses a rich theological significance. Just as God called Israel to be his people in the Old Testament (Isa. 48:12; 51:2), so, in Paul’s letters, God calls people from many ethnic and social backgrounds (1 Cor. 1:26; Eph. 3:1; 4:1) into fellowship with Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:9) and into his kingdom (1 Thess. 2:12), and he does this by his grace (Gal. 1:6). This call is not, moreover, to something that will be fully realized in the present but to the future for which the believer now hopes (Eph. 1:18; 4:4). Thus, the heavenly call toward which Paul stretches with all his might is God’s call to be part of the people, made up of both Jews and Gentiles, who will stand justified before him on the final day because of their identification with Christ (vv. 8–11).