Citizens of Heaven

30. Citizens of Heaven The Greek word translated “conversation” in Phil. 1:27 is found in an early manuscript in the sentence, “I live the life of a member of a citizen body,” that is, the writer was fulfilling the duties expected of a citizen of a commonwealth. Indeed, our English word “politics,” is a transliteration of this Greek word. Paul exhorts them, “Only be constantly performing your duties as citizens, worthy of the gospel of Christ.” In Philippians 3:20 we have the noun, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” Philippi was a Greek city far from Rome, but in the Roman Empire, and a colony of Rome in the sense that its citizens possessed Roman citizenship. The inhabitants of Philippi recognized the emperor of Rome as their sovereign and were obligated to conduct themselves as Roman citizens, just as if they were residents of Rome itself. Paul was teaching the Philippian saints that just as they constituted a colony of Rome so far as their earthly connections were concerned, so they were also a colony of heaven so far as their heavenly relationships were concerned. They were far from their home country, far from their Sovereign, the Lord Jesus, just a little colony of citizens of heaven in the midst of a godless and perverse generation, among which they were to shine as luminaries, that is the word in the Greek. They were a heavenly people with a heavenly origin, a heavenly citizenship, a heavenly destiny, to live heavenly lives in a foreign land, telling others of a heavenly Father who offered them salvation through faith in His Son. What was true of the Philippian saints then is true of all the saints. We are a heavenly people with the obligation and privilege of 1iving a heavenly life on earth. Some day our Sovereign (Phil. 3:20, 21) will come back for us and take us to our native land, changing this body of our humiliation, fashioning it like to the body of His glory. The word “vile” is obsolete English for our word “humiliation.” The physical body has been humiliated by the curse of sin. It will be freed from that curse at the coming of the Lord for His Bride. In the meanwhile, we are to live on earth the same holy life that we would were we walking the streets of heaven.

Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader, vol. 17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 65–66.

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