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The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians

by Robert Rainy · English · Gutenberg #39788 · 511,508 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians

Author: Robert Rainy


        
Release date: May 25, 2012 [eBook #39788]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39788

Credits: Produced by Colin Bell, Julia Neufeld and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS ***




Produced by Colin Bell, Julia Neufeld and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)





Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

Variations in spelling have been preserved except in obvious cases of
typographical error. Hyphenation is inconsistent.

Page 331: The transcriber has supplied the word "a"--"who has not made
it a matter of personal study".




  THE EPISTLE
  TO THE
  PHILIPPIANS

  BY
  ROBERT RAINY, D.D.
  PRINCIPAL OF NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH


  NEW YORK:
  FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY,
  LAFAYETTE PLACE.
  1900.




PREFATORY NOTE.


Not much need be said by way of preface, in addition to what is
suggested in the introductory chapter.

It may be observed, however, that the Apostle's teaching repeatedly
touches on the question, How the problem of practical human life on this
earth is to be conceived and dealt with under the light and the
influences of Christianity? The thought occurred that some expository
passages might be superseded by an appendix summing up in one view the
principles conceived to underlie the Apostle's way of dealing with such
topics, which could be referred to on each separate occasion: and such a
statement was prepared. It was, however, finally judged more suitable to
the nature of an exposition to keep as close as possible to the
Apostle's turn of thought in each of the cases in which he approaches
the subject, rather than to try to secure brevity by a more summary
treatment.

A few sentences have been transferred from a lecture on the Apostle
Paul, published some years ago.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.
                                                     PAGE

  INTRODUCTORY: THE SALUTATION                          3

  CHAPTER II.

  THE APOSTLE'S MIND ABOUT THE PHILIPPIANS             19

  CHAPTER III.

  HOW THE PHILIPPIANS SHOULD THINK OF PAUL AT ROME     45

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIVING AND DYING                  65

  CHAPTER V.

  UNDAUNTED AND UNITED STEADFASTNESS                   77

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE MIND OF CHRIST                                   95

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE MIND OF CHRIST (_continued_)                    111

  CHAPTER VIII.

  WORKING AND SHINING                                 131
  CHAPTER IX.

  TIMOTHY AND EPAPHRODITUS                            157

  CHAPTER X.

  NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH                          171

  CHAPTER XI.

  THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST                             199

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH                          217

  CHAPTER XIII.

  RESURRECTION LIFE AND DAILY DYING                   237

  CHAPTER XIV.

  CHRISTIAN LIFE A RACE                               259

  CHAPTER XV.

  ENEMIES OF THE CROSS                                281

  CHAPTER XVI.

  OUR CITY AND OUR COMING KING                        299

  CHAPTER XVII.

  PEACE AND JOY                                       317

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE THINGS TO FIX UPON                              337

  CHAPTER XIX.

  GIFTS AND SACRIFICES                                353




_INTRODUCTORY. THE SALUTATION._

     "Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in
     Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
     Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
     Christ."--PHIL. i. 1, 2 (R.V.).




CHAPTER 1.

_INTRODUCTORY. THE SALUTATION._


The sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles contains the account
of the Apostle Paul's first intercourse with the Philippians, and of the
"beginning of the gospel" there. The date may be fixed as A.D. 51. After
the council at Jerusalem (Acts xv.), and after the dissension between
Paul and Barnabas (ver. 39), the Apostle of the Gentiles, accompanied by
Silas, took his journey through Syria and Cilicia. "Confirming the
Churches," he went over a good deal of ground which he had traversed
before. At Lystra he assumed Timothy as an additional companion and
assistant; and he passed on, guided in a very special manner by the Holy
Spirit, until he arrived at Troas. Here a Divine warning, in a dream,
determined him to break ground in a new field. The little company, to
which Luke was now added, passed on to Macedonia, and, having landed at
Neapolis, where they do not seem to have made any stay or found any
opportunity of preaching, they came to Philippi. This therefore was the
first city in Europe in which, so far as we have any distinct
intimation, the gospel of the grace of God was declared.

Philippi was a city of some importance, and had the position and
privileges of a Roman colony. It was situated in a fruitful district,
was near to gold mines, and was also near enough to the sea to serve as
a depôt for a good deal of Asiatic commerce.

It is hardly necessary to remind readers of the Scripture how Lydia and
others received the word; how the preachers were followed by the damsel
with the spirit of divination; how, when that damsel had been silenced
by Paul, her masters raised a tumult against Paul and Silas, and got
them scourged and cast into prison; how the earthquake, which followed
during the night, resulted in the conversion of the jailor, and in Paul
and Silas being sent forth from the city with honour. Perhaps Luke and
Timothy remained behind at Philippi, and continued to edify the
believers. At any rate, Paul himself had by this time continued there
"many days." Two short visits of the Apostle to Philippi at a subsequent
time are known to us (Acts xx. 2, 6).

The Church thus founded proved to be an interesting one, for it
possessed much of the simplicity and earnestness of true Christianity.
Both in the Epistles to the Corinthians and in this Epistle, the
Philippians are singled out, above all Churches, for their cordiality of
feeling towards the Apostle who had brought to them the knowledge of the
truth. They made liberal contributions for the furtherance of his work
in other regions, beginning shortly after he left Philippi, and
repeating them from time to time afterwards. They seem to have been
remarkably free from some of the defects incidental to those early
Churches, and to the Churches at all periods. The Apostle's
commendations of them are peculiarly warm and glowing; and scarcely
anything had to be noticed in the way of special warning, except a
tendency to disagreement among some of their members. It does not appear
that there was any great number of Jews at Philippi, and we find no
trace of a synagogue. This may account in some measure for their freedom
from the Judaising tendency: for we find the Philippians exhorted,
indeed, to beware of that evil, but not reprehended as if it had taken
any strong hold among them. On the other hand, they seem to have
remained in a good measure free from evils to which Gentile Churches
were most exposed, and which, at Corinth for example, produced much that
was disheartening and perplexing.

Eleven years, probably, had now passed since Paul had brought to
Philippi the knowledge of Christ Jesus. During that time he had
undergone many vicissitudes, and now he had been for some time a
prisoner at Rome. Probably he had already written the Epistles to the
Ephesians, the Colossians, and to Philemon. Comparing these with our
Epistle, we may conclude that his prospects as a prisoner had not
improved, but rather darkened, since the date of those letters. At this
time, then, Epaphroditus arrived, apparently after a dangerous journey,
bearing with him a supply for the Apostle's wants, bringing tidings of
the state of the Philippian Church, and assuring him of their sympathy
and their prayers on his behalf. It is no wonder that, in these
circumstances, the Epistle bears marks of having been written by the
Apostle with a special flow of tenderness and of affection.

The scope of the letter may be briefly stated. After the usual
inscription and salutation, the Apostle expresses (as he does so often
in his Epistles) his thankfulness for what the Philippians had attained,
and his desire that they might grow to yet higher things. He goes on to
tell them how matters stood with himself, and opens up, as to those whom
he reckons trusted friends, the manner in which his mind was exercised
under these providences. Returning to the Philippians, and aiming at
this, that they and he might have growing fellowship in all Christian
grace, he goes on to set before them Christ, specially in His lowliness
and self-sacrifice. This is the grand end; attainment to His likeness is
work for all their lives. Paul sets forth how earnestly his heart is set
on this object, and what means he is taking to advance it. After a brief
digression relating to his circumstances and theirs, he returns again to
the same point. In order that defects may be removed, dangers avoided,
progress made, Christ must be their joy, their trust, their aim, their
very life. They, like the Apostle himself, must press on, never content
till the consummate salvation is attained (iii. 21). If this should be
so, his desires for them would be fulfilled. So he closes (iv. 2) with
directions rising out of this central view, and with renewed expression
of the comfort he had derived from their affectionate remembrance. Their
goodwill to the cause in which his life was spent, and to himself, had
cheered his heart. And he took it as God's blessing to him and to them.

Such is a brief outline of the course of thought. But the Epistle, while
perfect in the unity of its feeling and of its point of view, is
remarkable for the way in which it alternates between matters proper to
the Philippians, including the instruction Paul saw fit to impress upon
them, and matters personal to himself. The Apostle seems to feel sure of
affectionate sympathy in both regions, and in both equally; therefore in
both his heart utters itself without difficulty and without restraint.
Ch. i. 3-11, i. 27--ii. 16, iii. 1--iv. 9, are occupied with the one
theme, and i. 12-26, ii. 17-30, iv. 10-21, with the other. In short,
more than any other Epistle, if we except, perhaps, that to Philemon,
the Epistle to the Philippians has the character of an outpouring. The
official aims and obligations of the Christian instructor are fused, as
it were, in the glowing affection of the personal friend. He is sure of
his place in the hearts of his correspondents, and he knows how glad
they will be to be assured of the place they hold in his.

Let us now attend to the inscription and salutation. Those who send the
Epistle are Paul and Timothy. Yet plainly we are not to regard it as a
joint Epistle proceeding from both equally; for it is Paul who speaks
throughout, in his own name and by his own authority. Timothy only
joins, as Sosthenes and Silas do in other cases, in heartily commending
to the Church at Philippi whatever the Epistle contains. As there was
harmony between the two labourers when they laid the foundation at
Philippi, so there is also in the building up. Timothy is joined in the
love and care; but the authority is Paul's. Both alike are called
"servants of Jesus Christ"; for to this Church no further commendation
and no rehearsal of a special right to speak and teach are needed. And
yet, to understanding hearts, what commendation could be more weighty?
If these two men are called and allowed by Christ to be His servants, if
they are loyal and faithful servants, if they come on an errand on which
Christ has sent them, if they deliver His message and do His work, what
more need be said? This is honour and authority enough--to be, in our
degree, Christ's servants. But the word is stronger: it means
bondservants, or slaves,--such as are the master's property, or are at
his absolute disposal. So Paul felt; for we are not to reckon this to
be, on his part, a mere phrase. Already, in this word, we recognise the
sense of entire consecration to his Master and Lord; in which, as we
shall see, he felt he could count upon the hearty sympathy of his
Philippian friends.

Those who are addressed are, in the first place, "all the saints in
Christ Jesus who are at Philippi." The saints, or holy ones, is a common
expression in the Scriptures. The word "sanctify" is applied both to
persons and to things. Bible-readers will have noticed that the term
seems to vibrate or vacillate between two meanings,--signifying on the
one hand the production of personal intrinsic holiness, and on the other
merely consecration, or setting apart of anything to God's service. Now
the connection of both meanings will appear, if we mark how both meet in
the word as it is applied to the children of God. For such are
separated, set apart for God from sin and from the world; not, however,
by a mere outward destination, devoting them to a certain use and
service, but by an internal hallowing, which makes the man really in his
inward nature holy, fit for God's service and God's fellowship. This is
done by the regeneration of the Spirit, and by His indwelling
thereafter. Hence, to distinguish this consecration from the mere
outward ceremonial sanctification, which was so temporary and shadowy,
we find the Apostle Peter (i. 2) saying that God's children are chosen
"by sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus." For the ancient Israel was sanctified to obedience in
another manner (Exod. xxiv. 6).

Now because this real consecration takes place when we are grafted into
Christ by faith, because the Spirit comes to us and abides in us as the
Spirit of Christ, because whatever the Spirit does, as our Sanctifier,
has its rise from Christ's redeeming work, because He unites us to
Christ and enables us to cleave to Christ and hold fellowship with Him,
therefore those who are thus sanctified are called saints _in_ Jesus
Christ. It is the Spirit who sanctifies; but He does so inasmuch as He
roots us _in_ Christ and builds us up in Christ. Therefore saints are
sanctified _by_, or _of_, the Spirit; but they are sanctified (or holy)
_in_ Christ Jesus.

This expression, "saints," or some phrase that is equivalent, occurs
commonly in the Epistles as the designation of the parties addressed.
And two things are to be observed in connection with it. _First_, when
the Apostle addresses "all the saints," in any Epistle, he is not
shutting out any professed members of the Church, any professed
believers in the Lord. He never speaks at the outset of an Epistle as if
he meant to make deliberate distinction between two several classes of
members of the Church: as who should say, "I write now to some part of
the Church, viz., the saints; as for the rest, I do not now address
them." Hence we find the term used as equivalent to the Church--"to the
Church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all
Achaia," and again "to them ... that are called to be saints." We shall
see presently the lesson which this is fitted to teach. But, _secondly_,
on the other hand, the Apostle's use of the word makes it clear that he
uses it in the full sense which we have explained, of a real saintship.
He does not restrain the sense to some merely external saintship, as if
his meaning were "professing Christians whether they are real or not."
The word stands, in the inscriptions, as equivalent to "sanctified in
Christ Jesus," "faithful in Christ Jesus," "beloved of God"; or as in 2
Peter i., "them that have obtained like precious faith with us," and in
1 Peter, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God unto obedience."
Thus then we are to take it:--The Apostle wrote to the visible, or the
professed and accepted followers of the Lord, on the understanding that
they were what they professed to be. He was not to question it: he
assumed that they were saints of God, for to profess the faith of Christ
is to claim that character. He rejoiced to hope that it would prove to
be so, and gladly took note of everything which tended to assure him
that their holiness was real. He proclaims to them, in the character of
saints, the privileges and the obligations that pertain to saints. It
was the business of every man to look well to the reality of his faith,
and to try the grounds on which he took his place with those addressed
as beloved of God and called to be saints. There might be some who had
but a name to live (2 Cor. xiii. 5). If so, it was not the Apostle's
part, writing to the Church, to allow that possibility to confuse or
lower the style of his address to Christ's Church. He wrote to all the
saints in Christ Jesus who were at Philippi.

This is evident from the strain of all the Pauline Epistles, and it is
important to observe it and apply it. Otherwise we shall readily fall
into this way of reasoning,--"Since there must have been some in these
Churches who were only nominally and not really believers, the word
_saints_ must include such; therefore it can imply only an outward
separation of men, apart from any determination of their inward state."
If we do so, then everything the Apostle says to saints, their standing,
their privileges, their obligations, and their hopes, will come to be
strained and lowered in the interpretation, so as to mean only that such
privileges and blessings are somehow attainable, and if attained may
also on certain terms be secured. The interpretation of the Apostle's
teaching on these subjects will, in short, be what it _must_ be, if it
is taken to apply at once, in his intention, to those who are indeed
saints and to those who are not. This line, in point of fact, has been
taken, in the interpretation of the Epistles, so as to resolve
everything the Apostle says about the eternal life of saved men, as
actually theirs, from their election downwards, into a mere matter of
outward privileges. This view, no doubt, involves a straining of plain
words. Yet it will always seem to force itself upon us, unless we hold
fast (what is indeed demonstrably true) that when the Apostle speaks to
saints, he says what should be said to those who are indeed saints, and
on the understanding that those whom he addresses are such.

In like manner, on the other side, we have a lesson to learn from the
unhesitating way in which the Apostle writes to the saints, and sends
the letter to the members of a Christian Church as the parties
intended. He may have some things to reprehend; he may even have to
express fears, when things have gone amiss, that some in the Church may
yet prove to be no saints. Yet writing to the Church, he writes to
saints. Let us learn from this what those lay claim to who become
members of Christ's Church, and what responsibilities they take on. They
claim, in Christ, the salvation which makes men saints--_i.e._, persons
set apart under the influence of the Holy Spirit to enjoy Christ's
forgiveness and to walk in His ways. Christ does this for us, if He does
a Saviour's work. It is a thing incongruous, a thing, in the Apostle's
view, not to be taken for granted, that any one shall hold his place in
Christ's Church who is worldly, earthly, unholy. There may be such, but
Paul will not assume it; he will not measure the Christianity of
Christ's Church by any such standard. Neither will he go about to
determine whether perhaps it is so or not in the case of any who are
professing Christ in the ordinary way. _If_ any have entered Christ's
Church who are content to continue in worldliness and sin, not seeking
in Christ the grace which saves, that is solely their own personal sin,
and in it they lie unto the Lord. But not for that will the Apostle come
down to speak to Christ's Church as if it should be thought of as a
company to which holy and unholy may equally well belong. If any be
there who are in no vital sense saints, their intrusion will not hinder
Paul from speaking to the Church of God in its own proper character and
according to its calling.

But let it be remarked at the same time, that this same fact shows us
that the Apostle was wont to judge of men and Churches charitably; yes,
with a very large charity. We may be very sure that there was a good
deal in all those Churches, and a great deal in some, that needed to be
judged charitably. They were not all clear, eminent, conspicuous saints;
so far from that, there might well be some whole Churches in which
saintship was, so far as man's inspection could perceive, faint and
questionable. But the Apostle was far from thinking of shutting out the
man whose faith was weak, whose attainments were small, whose regard to
Christ was but a struggling and germinating thing. Far from being
disposed to shut him out, no doubt the Apostle's whole desire was to
shut such an one in, among the saints in Jesus Christ.

To be accepted in the Beloved, to be sanctified in Christ Jesus, is a
very great thing. No less than this great thing Christ offers, and no
less we humbly claim in faith. Also it is no less than this that Christ
bestows on those who come to Him. Let Christians, on the one hand, look
to Christ, as able and willing to do no less than this even for them; on
the other hand, let them look to themselves, that they neither deceive
themselves with false pretences, nor trifle idly with so great a gospel.
And in the case of others, let hasty and needless adverse judgments be
avoided. Let us be glad to think that Christ may see His own, where our
dim sight can find but scanty tokens of His work.

Along with the saints the letter specifies, in particular, the bishops
and deacons. The former were the officers who took the oversight, as the
word implies; the deacons those who rendered service, especially in the
Church's outward and pecuniary concerns. These two standing orders are
recognised by the Apostle. It is obvious that this does not suggest
diocesan Episcopacy, for that implies three orders, the highest being a
single bishop, to the exclusion of others assuming the office in that
place.

It is more important to observe that the Epistle is not directed to the
bishops primarily, or as if they were entitled to come between the
people and the message. It is directed to all the saints. To them the
Epistle, to them all the Scriptures belong, as their own inheritance,
which no man may take from them. In so far as the bishops and deacons
are distinguished from other saints, the Scriptures pertain to them that
they may learn their own duty, and also may help the people in the use
and enjoyment of that which is already theirs.

Now follows the salutation--Grace be unto you and peace. This is the
ordinary salutation, varied and amplified in a few of the Epistles. It
may be said to express the sum of all Christian well-being in this life.

Grace is, first of all, the word which expresses the free favour of God,
manifested towards the unworthy in Christ Jesus. But it is further
extended in meaning to that which is the fruit of this favour, to the
principles and dispositions in the mind which result from grace, which
recognise grace, which in their nature correspond to the nature of
grace. In this sense it is said "grow in grace." Peace is the
well-grounded tranquillity and sense of well-being which arises from the
sight of God's grace in Christ, from faith in it, and experience of it.
Grace and peace are the forerunners of glory. That is a blessed company
to which so great a fulness of good is commended, as ordinarily theirs.

And from whom is this good expected to proceed? From God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father who loved us, the Son who charged
Himself with the burden of our salvation, impart a grace and a peace
fragrant with that Divine love and charged with the efficacy of that
blessed mediation. If any one wonders why the Holy Spirit is left out, a
reason may be given for it. For if we look to the substance of the
blessings, what are this grace and peace but the Holy Spirit Himself
dwelling in us, revealing to us the Father and the Son from whom He
comes, and enabling us to continue in the Son and in the Father?




_THE APOSTLE'S MIND ABOUT THE PHILIPPIANS._

     "I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you, always in every
     supplication of mine on behalf of you all making my supplication
     with joy, for your fellowship in furtherance of the gospel from the
     first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that He
     which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of
     Jesus Christ: even as it is right for me to be thus minded on
     behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as,
     both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel,
     ye all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how I
     long after you all in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus. And this
     I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
     and all discernment; so that ye may approve the things that are
     excellent; that ye may be sincere and void of offence unto the day
     of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are
     through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."--PHIL. i.
     3-11 (R.V.).




CHAPTER II.

_THE APOSTLE'S MIND ABOUT THE PHILIPPIANS._


After the salutation, the first thing in the Epistle is a warm utterance
of the feelings and the desires which Paul habitually cherishes in
relation to his converts at Philippi. This is expressed vv. 3-11.

       *       *       *       *       *

Note the course of thought. In ver. 3 he declares his thankfulness and
in ver. 4 his prayerfulness on their behalf; and he puts these two
together, without as yet saying why he thanks and what he prays for. He
puts them together, because he would mark that with him these are not
two separate things; but his prayer is thankful, and his thankfulness is
prayerful; and then, having so much to be thankful for, his prayers
became, also, joyful. The reason why, he presently explains more
particularly. For, ver. 5, he had to thank God, joyfully, for their
fellowship in the gospel in the past; and then, ver. 6, knowing to what
this pointed forward, he could pray joyfully--that is, with joyful
expectation for the future. And thus he prepares the way for telling
what special things he was led to pray for; but first he interposes
vv. 7 and 8, to vindicate, as it were, the right he had to feel so warm
and deep an interest in his Philippian friends. The matter of his prayer
follows in vv. 9-11.

First he thanks God for grace bestowed upon the Philippians. As often as
he remembered them, as often as he lifted up his heart in prayer to make
request for them, he was cheered with the feeling that he could make
request joyfully--_i.e._, he could rejoice over mercies already given.
We know that the Apostle, in his letters to the Churches, is found
always ready to evince the same spirit; he is prompt to pour out his
thanks for anything attained by those Churches, either in gifts or
grace. We find it so in his letters to the Churches of Corinth and
Ephesus and Colossæ and Thessalonica. He does this, always, in a full
and hearty way. He evidently counted it both duty and privilege to take
note of what God had wrought, and to show that he prized it. Like John,
he had no greater joy than to hear that his children walked in the
truth; and he gave the glory of it to God in thanksgiving. In the case
of this Church, however, the ground of thanksgiving was something that
bound them to Paul in a peculiar manner, and touched his heart with a
glow of tenderer love and gladness. It was, ver. 5, "their fellowship in
the gospel (or rather, unto the gospel) from the first day until now."
He means, that from their first acquaintance with the gospel, the
Philippian Christians had, with unusual heartiness and sincerity,
committed themselves to the cause of the gospel. They had made it their
own cause. They had embarked in it as a fellowship to which they gave
themselves heart and soul. There might be Churches, more distinguished
for gifts than that of Philippi was, where less of this magnanimous
spirit appeared. There might be Churches, where men seemed to be
occupied with their own advantage by the gospel, their individual and
separate advantage, but withheld themselves from the fellowship unto
it,--did not readily commit themselves to it and to each other, as
embarking wholly and for ever in the common cause. This misconception,
this servility of spirit, is but too easy. You may have whole Churches,
in which men are full of self-congratulation about attainments they make
in the gospel, and gifts they receive by the gospel, and doctrines they
build up about it--but the loving "fellowship unto it" fails. A large
measure of a better spirit had been given to the Philippians from the
first. They were a part of those Macedonian Churches, who "first gave
their own selves" to the Lord and His Apostles, and then also their help
and service. It was an inward fellowship before it was an outward one.
They first gave their own selves, so that their hearts were mastered by
the desire to see the ends of the gospel achieved, and then came service
and sacrifice. Trials and losses had befallen them in this course of
service; but still they are found caring for the gospel, for their
brethren in the gospel, for their father in the gospel, for the cause of
the gospel. This fellowship--this readiness to make common cause with
the gospel, out and out, had begun at the first day; and after trouble
and trial it continued even until now.

The disposition here commended has its importance, very much because it
implies so just a conception of the genius of the gospel, and so hearty
a consent to it. He whose Christianity leads him to band himself with
his fellow-Christians, to get good by their help, and to help them to
get good, and along with them to do good as opportunity arises, is a man
who believes in the work of the gospel as a vital social force; he
believes that Christ is in his members; he believes that there are
attainments to be made, victories won, benefits laid hold of and
appropriated. He is in sympathy with Christ, for he is attracted by the
expectation of great results coming in the line of the gospel; and he is
one who looks not merely on his own things, but rejoices to feel that
his own hope is bound up with a great hope for many and for the world.
Such a man is near the heart of things. He has, in important respects,
got the right notion of Christianity, and Christianity has got the right
hold of him.

Now if we consider that the Apostle Paul, "the slave of Jesus Christ,"
was himself a marvellous embodiment of the spirit he is here commending
to the Philippians, we shall easily understand with what satisfaction he
thought upon this Church, and rejoiced over them, and gave thanks. Was
there ever a man who, more than Paul, evinced "the fellowship of the
gospel" from the first hour to the last? Was there ever one whose
personal self was more swallowed up and lost, in his zeal to be spent
for the cause,--doing all things for the gospel's sake that he might
have part therein? Did ever man, more than he, welcome sufferings,
sacrifices, toils, if they were for Christ, for the gospel? Was man ever
possessed more absolutely than he with a sense of the worthiness of the
gospel to be proclaimed everywhere, to every man--and with a sense of
the right the gospel had to himself, as Jesus Christ's man, the man that
should be used and expended on nothing else but upholding this cause,
and proclaiming this message to all kinds of sinners? The one great
object with him was that Christ should be magnified in him, whether by
life or by death (ver. 20). His heart, therefore, grew glad and thankful
over a Church that had so much of this same spirit, and, for one thing,
showed this by cleaving to him in their hearts through all the
vicissitudes of his work, and following him everywhere with their
sympathy and their prayers. Some Churches were so much occupied with
themselves, and had so little understanding of him, that he was obliged
to write to them at large, setting forth the true spirit and manner of
his own life and service; he had, as it were, to open their eyes by
force to see him as he was. This was not needed here: the Philippians
understood him already: they did so, because, in a degree, they had
caught the contagion of his own spirit. They had given themselves, in
their measure, in a fellowship unto the gospel, from the first day
until now. They had claimed, and they still claimed, to have a share in
all that befell the gospel, and in all that befell the Apostle.

Paul ascribed all this to God's grace in them, and thanked God for it.
True, indeed, much activity about the gospel, and much that looks like
interest in its progress, may proceed from other causes besides a living
fellowship with Jesus, and a true disposition to forsake all for Him.
The outward activity may be resorted to as a substitute for the inward
life; or it may express the spirit of sectarian selfishness. But when it
appears as a consistent interest in the gospel, when it is accompanied
by the tokens of frank goodwill and free self-surrender to the Church's
evangelical life, when it endures through vicissitudes of time, under
trial, persecution, and reproach, it must arise, in the main, from a
real persuasion of the Divine excellence and power of the gospel and the
Saviour. Not without the grace of God does any Church manifest this
spirit.

Now to the Apostle who had this cause of gladness in the past, there
opened (ver. 6) a gladdening prospect for the future, which at once
deepened his thankfulness and gave expectancy to his prayers. "Being
confident of this very thing, that He that hath begun a good work in you
will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ." "Being confident of this
very thing" is equivalent to "Having no less confidence than this"; for
he desires to express that his confidence is emphatic and great.

The confidence so expressed assumes a principle, and makes application
of that principle to the Philippian saints.

The principle is that the work of saving grace clearly begun by the
Spirit of God shall not be destroyed and come to nothing, but shall be
carried on to complete salvation. This principle is not received by all
Christians as part of the teaching of Scripture; but without entering
now into any large discussion, it may be pointed out that it seems to be
recognised, not merely in a few, but in many passages of Holy Writ. Not
to recite Old Testament indications, we have our Lord's word (John x.
28): "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." And there is hardly an
Epistle of our Apostle in which the same principle is not presented to
us, stated in express terms, or assumed in stating other doctrines, and
applied to the comfort of believers (1 Thess. v. 23, 24; 1 Cor. i. 8;
Rom. viii. 30). The ultimate salvation of those in whom a good work is
begun, is, in this view, conceived to be connected with the stability of
God's purposes, the efficacy of the Son's mediation, the permanence and
power of the Holy Spirit's influence, and the nature of the covenant
under which believers are placed. And the perseverance thus provided for
is supposed to be made good through the faith, patience, fear, and
diligence of those who persevere, and by no means without these. As to
the place before us, whatever exceptions and whatever distinctions may
be taken on the subject, it must be owned that, gladly recognising
Christian character and attainment as a fact, he finds therein a warrant
for emphatic confidence about the future, even to the day of Christ.

As to the application of this principle to the Philippians, the method
in which the Apostle proceeds is plain. He certainly does not speak as
by immediate insight into Divine counsels about the Philippians. He is
directed to utter a conclusion at which he had arrived by a process
which he explains. From the evidence of the reality of their Christian
calling, he drew the conclusion that Christ was at work in them, and the
further conclusion that this work would be completed. It may be asked
how so confident an application of the principle now in view could be
reached on these terms? How could the Apostle be sure enough of the
inward state of his Philippian friends, to enable him to reason on it,
as here he seems to do? In answer, we grant it to be impossible for any
one, without immediate revelation on the point, to reach absolute
assurance about the spiritual state of other people. And therefore we
are to keep in view, what has already been suggested, that the Apostle,
speaking to "saints," really remits to themselves and to their Lord the
final question as to the reality of that apparent saintship. But then,
we are taught by the Apostle's example that where ordinary tokens, and
especially where more than ordinary tokens of Christian character
appear, we are frankly and gladly to give effect to those signs in our
practical judgments. There may be an error, no doubt there is, in
unbounded charity; but there is error also when we make a grudging
estimate of Christian brethren; when, on the ground of some failing, we
allow suspicion to obliterate the impressions which their Christian
faith and service might fairly have made upon us. We are to cherish the
thought that a wonderful future is before those in whom Christ is
carrying on His work of grace; and we are to make a loving application
of that hope in the case of those whose Christian dispositions have
become specially manifest to us in the intercourse of Christian
friendship.

However, the Apostle felt that he had a special right to feel thus in
reference to the Philippians--more, perhaps, than in regard to others;
and instead of going on at once to specify the objects of his prayers
for them, he interposes a vindication, as it were, of the right he
claimed (ver. 7): "Even as it is meet for me to be thus minded with
respect to all of you, because I have you in my heart, you who are all
partakers of my grace, not only in the defence and confirmation of the
gospel, but also in my bonds." As if he would say,--There are special
ties between us, which justify on my part special tenderness and
vigilance of appreciation and approbation, when I think of you. A father
has a special right to take note of what is hopeful in his son, and to
dwell with satisfaction on his virtues and his promise; and friends who
have toiled and suffered together have a special right to cherish a
deep trust in one another's well-tried fidelity and nobleness. Let
strangers, in such cases, set, if they will, a slight value on
characters which they hardly know; but let them not dispute the right
which love has to scrutinise with delight the nobler qualities of those
who are beloved.

The Philippians were sharers of Paul's grace, as sharing his enthusiasm
for the successful advocacy and confirmation of the gospel. So they had
their share in the grace that was so mighty in him. But besides that,
the Apostle's heart had been cheered and warmed by the manifestation of
their sympathy, their loving thoughtfulness in reference to his bonds.
So he joyfully owned them as partakers in spirit in those bonds, and in
the grace by which he endured them. They remembered him in his bonds,
"as bound with him." Every way their fellowship with him expressed
itself as full and true. No jarring element broke in to mar the happy
sense of this. He could feel that though far away their hearts beat
pulse for pulse with his, partakers not only of his toil but of his
bonds. So he "had them in his heart": his heart embraced them with no
common warmth and yielded to them no common friendship. And what then?
Why then "it is meet that I should be thus minded," "should use love's
happy right to think very well of you, and should let the evidence of
your Christian feeling come home to my heart, warm and glowing." It was
meet that Paul should joyfully _repute them to be sincere_--to be men
cleaving to the gospel in a genuine love of it. It was meet that he
should _thank_ God in their behalf, seeing these happy attainments of
theirs were so truly a concern of his. It was meet he should _pray_ for
them with joyful importunity, counting their growth in grace to be a
benefit also to himself.

It would be a helpful thing if Christian friends cherished, and if they
sometimes expressed, warm hopes and expectations in behalf of one
another. Only, let this be the outcome of truly spiritual affection.
Paul was persuaded that his feelings arose from no mere human impulse.
The grace of God it was which had given the Philippians this place in
his heart. God was his record that his longing after them was great, and
also that it was in the mercies of Christ. He loved them as a man in
Christ, and with Christlike affections. Otherwise, words like these
assume a canting character, and are unedifying.

Now at last comes the tenor of his prayer (ver. 9): "That your love may
abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment; so that ye
may approve the things that are excellent," and so on.

Let this first be noted, that it is a prayer for growth. All that grace
has wrought in the Philippian believers, everything in their state that
filled his heart with thankfulness, he regards as the beginning of
something better still. For this he longs; and therefore his heart is
set on progress. So we find it in all his Epistles. "As ye have received
how ye ought to walk and to please God--so abound more" (1 Thess. iv.
1). This is a very familiar thought, yet let us spend a sentence or two
upon it. The spiritual prosperity of believers should be measured not so
much by the point they have reached, but by the fact and measure of the
progress they are making. Progress in likeness to Christ, progress in
following Him; progress in understanding His mind and learning His
lessons; progress ever from the performance and the failures of
yesterday to the new discipline of to-day,--this is Paul's Christianity.
In this world our condition is such that the business of every believer
is to go forward. There is room for it, need of it, call to it,
blessedness in it. For any Christian, at any stage of attainment, to
presume to stand still, is perilous and sinful. A beginner that is
pressing forward is a happier and a more helpful Christian than he is
who has come to a stand, though the latter may seem to be on the borders
of the land of Beulah. The first may have his life marred by much
darkness and many mistakes; but the second is for the present
practically denying the Christian truth and the Christian call, as these
bear on himself. Therefore the Apostle is bent upon progress. And here
we have his account of that which suggested itself to him as the best
kind of progress for these converts of his.

The life of their souls, as he conceived it, depended on the operation
of one great principle, and he prays for the increase of that in
strength and efficacy. He desires that their love may abound more and
more. He was glad to think they had shown, all along, a loving
Christian spirit. He wished it to grow to its proper strength and
nobleness.

No one doubts that, according to the Scriptures, love is the practical
principle by which the fruits of faith are brought forth. The Christian
character peculiarly consists in a Christlike love. The sum of the law
from which we fell is, Thou shalt love; and, being redeemed in Christ,
we find the end of the commandment to be love, out of a pure heart, and
a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. Redemption itself is a process
of love, setting forth from heaven to earth to create and kindle love,
and make it triumph in human hearts and lives. Every one that loveth is
born of God and knoweth God. No point is so well settled. Nobody doubts
it.

Yet, alas! how many of us are truly aware of the great meaning which
apostolic words, which Christ's words, carry, when this is spoken of? or
how shall it be made inwardly and vividly present to us? In the heart of
Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us, was a great purpose to
awaken in human hearts a deep and strong affection, kindred to His
own--true, tender, steadfast, all-prevailing, all-transforming.
Apostles, catching the fire in their degree, were full of the wonder of
it, of the glad surprise and yet the sober reality of it; and they
carried about the gospel everywhere, looking to see men thrill into this
new life, and become instances of its strength and gladness. And we?
Let each man answer for himself. He is a happy man who can answer
clearly. What is it to have love for the inspiration of the heart and
the life: love submerging the lower cravings, love ennobling and
expanding all that is best and highest, love consecrating life into a
glad and endless offering? Which of us has that within him which could
break into a song, like the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians, rejoicing
in the goodness and nobleness of love? "That your love may abound." In
our tongue it is but one syllable. So much the easier for our perversity
to slide over the meaning as we read. But all our earthly life is too
short a space for learning how deep and how pertinent to ourselves this
business of love is.

No doubt, the kindness the Philippians had shown to the Apostle, of
which he had been speaking, naturally prepares the way for speaking of
their love, as the verse before us does. But we are not to take the word
as referring only to the love they might bear to other believers, or, in
particular, to the Apostle. That is in the Apostle's mind; but his
reference is wider, namely, to love as a principle which operates
universally--which first holds lowly fellowship with the love of God,
and then also flows out in Christian affection towards men. The Apostle
does not distinguish these, because he will not have us to separate
them. The believer has been brought back in love to God, and having his
life quickened from that source he loves men. The manward aspect of it
is made prominent in the Bible for this reason, that in love towards
men the exercise of this affection finds the most various scope, and in
this way also it is most practically tested. The Apostle would not grant
to any of us that our profession of love to God could be genuine, if
love did not exert itself towards men. But neither would he suffer it to
be restricted in the other direction. In the present case he gladly
owned the love which his Philippian friends bore to himself. But he sees
in this the existence of a principle which may signalise its energy in
all directions, and is able to bear all kinds of good fruit. Therefore
his prayer fixes on this, "that your love may abound."

Now here we must look narrowly into the drift of the prayer. For the
Apostle desires that love may abound and work in a certain manner, and
if it shall, he assures himself of excellent effects to follow. Perhaps
we may best see the reason which guided his prayer, if we begin with the
result or achievement he aimed at for his Philippian friends. If we can
understand that, we may the better understand the road by which he hoped
they might be carried forward to it.

The result aimed at is this (vv. 10, 11): "that ye may be sincere and
without offence until the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of
righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of
God." The last end is the glory and praise of God. This, let us be
assured, is no mere phrase with the Apostle. All these things are real
and vivid to him. If he were to come among us, knowing us to be
professed believers, then, strange as some of us may think it, he would
actually expect that a great degree of praise and glory to God should
accrue out of our lives. The time he fixes on for the manifestation of
this, the time when it should be seen how this has come to pass, is the
day of Christ. That great day of revealing shall witness, in particular,
the consummate glory of Christ's salvation in His redeemed. And he prays
that unto that day and at that day they may be sincere, without offence,
filled with fruits of righteousness.

_First_, sincere: that signifies simplicity of purpose, and singleness
of heart in following out that purpose. Sincere Christians cherish in
their hearts no views, no principles, adverse to the Christian calling.
The test of this sincerity is that a man shall be honestly willing to
let light shine through him, to evince the true character of his
principles and motives. Such a man is on the road to the final,
victorious, and eternal sincerity. For the present there may be within
him too much of that which hinders him, and mars his life. But if he is
set on expelling this, and welcomes the light which exposes it, in order
that he may expel it, then he has a real, present sincerity, and his
course is brightening towards the perfect day.

_Second_, without offence. This is the character of the man who walks
without stumbling. For there are obstacles in the way, and they are
often unexpected. Grant a man to be in a measure sincere--the call of
the gospel has really won his heart. Yet as he goes, there fall in
trials, temptations, difficulties, that seem to come upon him from
without, as it were, and he stumbles: he fails to preserve the
uprightness of his life, and to keep his eye fixed with due steadiness
on the end of his faith. Suddenly, before he is well aware, he is almost
down. So he brings confusion into his mind, and guilt upon his
conscience; and in his bewilderment he is too likely to make worse
stumbles ere long. He who would be a prosperous Christian has not only
to watch against duplicity in the heart: he must give diligence also to
deal wisely with the various outward influences which strike into our
lives, which seem often to do so cruelly and unreasonably, and which
wear some false guise that we had not foreseen. Paul knew this in his
own case; and therefore he "studied to keep a conscience void of
offence." We may have wisdom enough for our own practice as to this, if
we know where to go for it.

_Third_, filled with fruits of righteousness--which is the positive
result, associated with the absence of guile and the freedom from
stumbling. A tree that bears any fruit is alive. But one that is filled
with fruit glorifies the gardener's care. "Herein is My Father
glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples."
Distinct and manifold acts of faith and patience are the proper
testimonies of the soul that is sincere and without offence.

This is the line of things which the Apostle desires to see running its
course towards the day of Christ. Now let us ask, In what circumstances
is the believer placed for whom Paul desires it?

He is placed in a world that is full of adverse influences, and is apt
to stir adverse forces in his own heart. If he allows these influences
to have their way--if he yields to the tendencies that operate around
him, he will be carried on in a direction quite different from that
which Paul contemplates. Instead of sincerity, there will be the
tainted, corrupt, divided heart; instead of freedom from offence, there
will be many a fall, or even a complete forsaking of the way; instead of
fruits of righteousness filling the life, there will be "wild grapes."
On the other hand, if, in spite of these influences, the Christian is
enabled to hold his course, then the discipline of conflict and trial
will prove full of blessing. Here also shall the promise be fulfilled
that all things work together for good to them that love God. Strong
temptations are not overcome without sorrow and pain; but being
overcome, they turn out ministers of good. In this experience sincerity
clears and deepens; and the bearing of the Christian acquires a firmness
and directness not otherwise attainable; and the fruits of righteousness
acquire a flavour which no other climate could have developed so well.
This hard road turns out to be the best road towards the day of Christ.

The effect, then, of the circumstances in which the believer is thus
placed will be according to the way in which he deals with them. But
plainly, to deal rightly with them, implies a constant effort of JUDGING
the things within him and without him, the world within and the world
without, that he may "approve what is more excellent"--that he may
choose the good and refuse the evil. Discerning, distinguishing, as to
opinions, influences, feelings, habits, courses of conduct, and so
forth, so as to separate right and wrong, spiritual and carnal, true and
false, must be the work in hand. There must be the prevailing practical
mind to elect and to abide by the proper objects of choice, to cleave to
the one and to put away the other.

So we can understand very well, if the Philippians were to be sincere,
without offence, filled with fruits of righteousness, that they must,
and ever more and more searchingly and successfully, "approve the things
that are more excellent." The phrase is also rendered "try the things
which differ"; for the expression implies both. It implies such a
putting to proof of that which is presented to us, as to make just
distinctions and give to each its proper place--silver on the one side,
dross on the other. What is the whole life and business of the
Philippians, of any Christians, as Christians, but that of following out
perpetually a choice, on given principles, among the multitude of
objects that claim their regard? The fundamental choice, arrived at in
believing, has to be reiterated continually, in a just application of it
to a world of varying and sometimes perplexing cases.

When we have all this in view it is easy to understand the scope of the
Apostle's prayer about the growth and education of their love. _Out of
love this needed discrimination must come._ For

1. No practical discriminations or determinations are of any worth in
God's sight except as they are animated by love, and, indeed, determined
by it. If a Christian should choose anything, or reject anything, yet
not in love, his choice as to the matter of fact may be right, but for
all that the man himself is wrong.

2. Love alone will practically carry through such habitual
discrimination, such faithful and patient choice. Love becomes the new
instinct which gives life, spring, and promptitude to the process. When
this fails, the life of approving the things that are more excellent
will fail; the task will be repudiated as a burden that cannot be
endured. It may still be professed, but it must inwardly die.

3. Nothing but love can enable us to see and to affirm the true
distinctions. Under the influence of that pure love (that arises in the
heart which God's love has won and quickened) the things which differ
are truly seen. So, and only so, we shall make distinctions according to
the real differences as these appear in God's sight. Let us consider
this a little.

Evidently among the things that differ there are some whose
characteristics are so plainly written in conscience or in Scripture,
that to determine what should be said of them is matter of no difficulty
at all. It is no matter of difficulty to decide that murder and theft
are wrong, or that meekness, benevolence, justice are right. A man who
has never been awakened to spiritual life, or a Christian whose love has
decayed, can make determinations about such things, and can be sure, as
he does so, that as to the thing itself he is judging right. Yet in this
case there is no just apprehension of the real difference in God's sight
of the things that differ, nor a right mind and heart to choose or to
reject so as to be in harmony with God's judgment.

And if so, then in that large class of cases where there is room for
some degree of doubt or diversity, where some mist obscures the view, so
that it is not plain at once into what class things should be
reckoned--in cases where we are not driven to a decision by a blaze of
light from Scripture or conscience--in such cases we need the impulse of
the love which cleaves to God, which delights in righteousness, which
gives to others, even to the undeserving, the brother's place in the
heart. Without this there can be no detection of the real difference,
and no assurance of the rectitude of the discrimination we make.

Now it is in such matters that the especial proof and exercise of
religious life goes on. Here, for example, Lot failed. The beauty of the
fair and prosperous valley so filled his soul with admiration and
desire, that it chilled and all but killed the affections that should
have steadied and raised his mind. Had the love of the eternal and
supreme maintained its power, then in that day when God on the one hand
and Lot on the other looked down on the plain, they would have seen the
same sight and judged it with the same mind. But it was otherwise. So
the Lord lifted up His eyes and saw that the men of Sodom were wicked
and sinners before the Lord exceedingly; and Lot lifted up his eyes and
saw only that the plain was well watered everywhere, as the garden of
the Lord, as the land of Egypt.

But the love of which the Apostle speaks is the breath of the upper
world and of the new life. It cleaves to God, it embraces the things
which God loves, it enters into the views which God reveals,--and it
takes the right view of men, and of men's interest and welfare. The man
that has it, or has known it, is therein aware of what is most material.
He has a notion of the conduct that is congruous to love's nature. What
love knows, it is the nature of love to practise, for it knows lovingly;
and at every step the practice confirms, establishes, and enlarges the
knowledge. So the genuine growth of love is a growth in knowledge (ver.
9)--the word implies the kind of knowledge that goes with intently
looking into things: love, as it grows, becomes more quick to see and
mark how things really are when tried by the true standard. Conversing
practically with the mind of God in the practice of life, love
incorporates that mind and judges in the light of it. This prepares a
man to detect the false and counterfeit, and to try the things that
differ.

Not only in knowledge shall love grow, but "in all discernment," or
perception, as it might be rendered. There may be instances in which,
with our best wisdom, we find it hard to disentangle clear principles,
or state plain grounds which rule the case; yet love, growing and
exercised, has its percipiency: it has that accomplished tact, that
quick experienced taste, that fine sensibility to what befriends and
what opposes truth and right, which will lead to right distinctions in
practice. So you discriminate by the sense of taste things that differ,
though you can give no reason to another, but can only say, "I perceive
it." In this sense "he that is spiritual judgeth all things."

For all this the aid of the Holy Spirit is held out to us, as we may see
in 1 John ii. He makes love to grow, and under that master influence
unfolds the needed wisdom also. So comes the wisdom "from above, which
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of
mercy and of good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy"
(James iii. 17). It is hidden from many wise and prudent, but God has
often revealed it unto babes.




_HOW THE PHILIPPIANS SHOULD THINK OF PAUL AT ROME._

     "Now I would have you know, brethren, that the things which
     happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the
     gospel; so that my bonds became manifest in Christ throughout the
     whole prætorian guard, and to all the rest; and that most of the
     brethren in the Lord, being confident through my bonds, are more
     abundantly bold to speak the word of God without fear. Some indeed
     preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will:
     the one do it of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the
     gospel: but the other proclaim Christ of faction, not sincerely,
     thinking to raise up affliction for me in my bonds. What then? only
     that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is
     proclaimed; and therein I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I
     know that this shall turn to my salvation, through your
     supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
     according to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing shall
     I be put to shame, but that with all boldness, as always, so now
     also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by
     death."--PHIL. i. 12-20 (R.V.).




CHAPTER III.

_HOW THE PHILIPPIANS SHOULD THINK OF PAUL AT ROME._


Having poured out his feelings about those dear friends and children in
the Lord at Philippi, the Apostle recognises corresponding feelings on
their part towards him. These must naturally be feelings of anxiety to
know how it was with him in body and spirit, and how far he had been
protected and sustained amid the dangers and sorrows of a prisoner's
lot. On this then he is glad to be able to give them good tidings. He
can do so, because he is in the hands of a wonder-working Lord, who
turns the shadow of death into the morning. Hence his history as well as
theirs (ver. 11) is moving towards the glory and praise of God.

The Apostle's affairs had seemed to be full of trial to himself, all the
more that they bore so discouraging an aspect towards the cause to which
he was devoted. He had been for years a prisoner. The work of preaching
to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ had been stopped,
except as the narrow opportunities of a prisoner's life offered scant
outlets for it. He had, no doubt, his own share of experiences tending
to depress and embitter: for in his day philanthropy had not yet done
much to secure good treatment for men situated as he was. Still more
depressing to an eager soul was the discipline of delay: the slow,
monotonous months passing on, consuming the remainder of his life, while
the great harvest he longed to reap lay outside uncared for, with few to
bring it in. Meanwhile even the work done in Christ's name was largely
taking a wrong direction: those who under the Christian name preached
another gospel, and perverted the gospel of Christ, had a freer hand to
do their work. Paul, at least, had no longer the power to cross their
path. Ground on which he might have worked, minds which he might have
approached, seemed to be falling under their perverting influence. All
this seemed adverse--adverse to Paul, and adverse to the cause for which
he lived--fitted therefore to awaken legitimate concern: fitted to raise
the question why God's providence should thus depress the heart and
waste the life of an agent so carefully prepared and so incomparably
efficient.

Most likely these things had tried the faith of Paul himself, and they
might distress and perplex his loving friends at Philippi. It was right
to feel that these providences were trying; but one might be tempted
also to conclude that they were in every sense to be lamented. So much
the better it was, therefore, that the Apostle could testify how here
also all things were working for good, and in particular were turning
out to be for the furtherance of the gospel. This was taking place in
two ways at least.

First, Paul's imprisonment had become the means of bringing to the
knowledge of the gospel many who were not likely ever to hear of it in
any other way; for his bonds had become manifest in Christ in the
Prætorium, and in all other places. The precise meaning of the several
words here used has become matter of discussion; but the general result
is much the same whatever view is taken of the matters debated. The word
translated "palace" in the Authorised Version (Marg. Cæsar's Court) may
perhaps refer to the quarters of the guard, in the immediate
neighbourhood of the palace. Prisoners whose cases were in a special
manner reserved to the Emperor were sometimes confined there. And Paul,
whether actually confined there or not, must have come into contact with
the troops stationed there, for we know he had been delivered to the
captain of the guard (Acts xxviii. 16[1]). Then the "all others" (Marg.
of A.V.) may probably mean the rest of the Emperor's household (comp.
ch. iv. 22), and would naturally be connected with it in the minds of
men, so that a mere indication like this was enough. For, in a military
system such as that of the Empire was, the soldiers and officers of the
guard formed an important part of the household. That household,
however, was an immense affair, including hundreds or even thousands of
persons--mostly freedmen or slaves, performing all sorts of functions.

  [1] This, however, is omitted in critical editions.

Paul, then, in charge of the guard, coming in contact with individuals
belonging to the various reliefs which successively had him in custody,
spoken of as one reserved to the judgment of the Emperor himself, became
known throughout the quarters of the guard, and to persons of the
household of every rank and class. In point of fact we know and can
prove from evidence external to the Bible that a few years later than
this (perhaps even earlier than this) there were members of the
household who were Christians. Before the end of the century a branch of
the family which then occupied the imperial throne seems to have joined
the Church, perhaps through the influence of a Christian nurse, who is
commemorated in an inscription still preserved.

But how did his bonds "become manifest in Christ"? The words no doubt
mean that he became known extensively as a man whose bonds, whose
imprisonment, was for his adherence to the name and doctrine of Jesus
Christ. Let us consider how this would come about.

There might, at first, be universal indifference with reference to the
cause of this prisoner's confinement. When his character and statements
led to some curiosity about him, men might find it difficult to
understand what the real nature of this mysterious case could be. For
while the charge, whatever form it took, was not yet a common one, we
may be very sure that the man struck people as profoundly different
from ordinary prisoners. For ordinary prisoners the one thing desirable
was release; and they employed every artifice, and exhausted every form
of influence and intrigue, and were prepared to sacrifice every scruple,
if only they could get free. Here was a man who pleaded for truth; his
own freedom seemed to be quite secondary and subordinate. So at last men
come to an understanding, more or less, of the real cause of his bonds.
They were bonds for Christ. They were the result of his adherence to the
faith of Christ's resurrection, and to the truths which that great event
sealed. They were connected with a testifying for Christ which had
brought him into collision with the authorities of his own nation, which
had set on Jews "everywhere" to "speak against" him (Acts xxviii. 22).
And in his imprisonment he did not lay down his testimony, but preached
with all his heart to every man who would hear him. This state of things
dawned upon men's minds, so far as they thought about him at all; it
became clear; it was "manifest in the Prætorium, and to all the others."

One influence was at work which would at least direct attention to the
case. There were certainly Jews in the household; there were also Jews
in Rome who made it their business, for their worldly interest, to
establish connections in the household; and about this time Jewish
influence rose to the person nearest to Nero himself. There was
therefore a class of persons in the household likely to feel an interest
in the case. And on these most likely the influence of Jewish religious
authorities would be exerted to produce an unfavourable opinion of Paul.
It would be felt desirable that the Jews of the household should think
of Paul as no loyal Jew, as a seditious person, and of his opinions as
not legitimately pertaining to Jewish religion--as a religious belief
and practice which Judaism repudiated and denounced. Thus, while Paul's
case might begin to influence the guard, because members of it were
personally in contact with him, in the rest of the household there was a
class of persons who would feel an interest in discussing his case. One
way or another, some impression as to the peculiar character of it was
acquired.

Now think how much was done when some view of the real nature of Paul's
bonds had been lodged in the minds of these men. Think what an event
that was in the mental history of some of these heathens of the old
world. Paul was, in the first place, a man very unlike the ordinary type
of movers of sedition. It seemed that his offence stood only in
religious opinions or persuasions; and that itself, precisely in Nero's
days, was a little singular to figure as the ground of political
imprisonment. He was persecuted and endangered for his faith, and he
neither denied nor disguised that faith, but spent all possible pains in
proclaiming it. This was new. He had a faith, resting professedly on
recent facts, which he proclaimed as indispensably necessary to be
received by all men. This was new. He seriously told men, any man and
every man, that their welfare must be attained through their being
individually transformed to a type of character of the unworldliest
type; he could press that alike on sordid Jews and gay young officers.
This was new. He was a man who, in place of the ordinary anxieties and
importunities of a prisoner, was ever ready to speak and plead in behalf
of Christ, that singular young Jew who had died thirty years before, but
whom Paul affirmed to be alive. And in all this, however it might strike
one as foolish or odd, there were tokens of an honesty, a sanity, and a
purity that could not be explained away. All this struck men who stood
near the centre of a world falling many ways into moral ruin, as
something strange and new. Paul's own explanation of it was in the one
word "Christ." So his bonds were manifest in Christ.

A few of them might have heard previously of Christianity as a new and a
malignant superstition. But another conception of it reached them
through the bonds of Paul. This imprisoned man was a fact to be
accounted for, and a problem to be solved. In him was an influence not
wholly to be escaped, an instance that needed a new interpretation. Many
of them did not obey the truth, some did; but at least something had
become manifest that could not easily be got rid of again,--the
beginning, in their case, of that leaven which was eventually to
revolutionise the thinking and feeling of the world. Remember also that
most of these were men to whom Paul at liberty, speaking in synagogues
and the like, would have found no access, nor would he have come near
the circles to which their influence extended. But now, being
imprisoned, his bonds became manifest in Christ.

Thus does it often come to pass that what seems adverse, proves to be on
our side. Fruit is not always borne most freely when the visible
opportunities of labouring are most plentiful. Rather the question is,
how the opportunities given are employed, and how far the life of the
labourer bears witness of the presence and power of Christ.

But besides the direct impression on those who were outside, arising
from the fact of Paul's imprisonment, it became the means of stimulating
and reinforcing the labours of other Christians (ver. 14). It is not
hard to see how this might be. From Paul's bonds, and from the manner
and spirit in which they were borne, these brethren received a new
impression as to what should be done and what should be borne in the
service of Christ. They were infected with the contagion of Paul's
heroism. The sources of Paul's consecration and of his comfort became
more real to them; and no discouragement arising from pain or danger
could hold its ground against these forces. So they waxed confident.
While dangers that threaten Christians are still only impending, are
still only looming out of the unknown future, men are apt to tremble at
them, to look with a shrinking eye, to approach with a reluctant step.
Now here in the midst of those Roman Christians was Paul, in whom were
embodied the trouble accepted and the danger defied. At once Christian
hearts became inspired with a more magnanimous and generous spirit.
Wherever dangers and hardships are endured, even apart from
Christianity, we know how prompt the impulse is to rush in, to give
help, and to share burdens. How much more might it be so here.

       *       *       *       *       *

Not that the impulse to evangelistic earnestness, arising from Paul's
presence in Rome, was all of this kind. It was not so. Some preached out
of goodwill, in full sympathy with the spirit that animated Paul's own
labours and sustained him in his trials. But some preached Christ out of
envy and spite, and supposed to add affliction to his bonds. How are we
to fit this into our notions of the Primitive Church?

The truth is that, ever since the gospel began to be preached, unworthy
motives have combined with worthier in the administration and professed
service of it. Mixture of motive has haunted the work even of those who
strove to keep their motives pure. And men in whom lower motive and
worse motive had a strong influence have struck into the work alongside
of the nobler and purer labourers. So it has pleased God to permit; that
even in this sacred field men might be tried and manifested before the
judgment of the great day; and that it might be the more plain that the
effectual blessing and the true increase come from Himself.

More especially have these influences become apparent in connection
with the divisions of judgment about Christian doctrine and practice,
and with the formation of parties. The personal and the party feelings
have readily allied themselves, in too many men, with a self-regarding
zeal and with envy or spite. And where these feelings exist they come
out in other forms besides their own proper colours and their direct
manifestation. More often they find vent in the way of becoming the
motive power of work that claims to be Christian--of work that ought to
be inspired by a purer aim.

There were, as we all know, in the Church of those days powerful
sections of professed believers, who contested Paul's apostleship,
questioned his teaching, and wholly disliked the effects of his work.
Perhaps by this time the strain of that conflict had become a little
less severe, but it had not wholly passed away. We call these persons
the Judaisers. They were men who looked to Jesus Christ as the Messiah,
who owned the authority of His teaching, and claimed interest in His
promises. But they insisted on linking Christianity to Jewish forms, and
rules, and conditions of law-keeping, which were on various grounds dear
and sacred to them. They apprehended feebly the spirituality and
Divineness of Christ's religion; and what they did apprehend they wished
to enslave, for themselves and others, in a carnal system of rules and
ritual that tended to stifle and to bury the truth. With this there went
a feeling towards Paul of wrath fear, and antipathy. Such men there
were in Rome. Possibly there might even be a Christian congregation in
the city in which this type prevailed. At any rate, they were found
there. Before Paul's coming no very remarkable nor very successful
efforts to spread abroad the gospel in that great community had been
going on. But Paul's arrival made men solicitous and watchful. And when
it was seen that his presence and the enthusiasm that gathered round him
were beginning to give impulse and effect to the speaking of the word,
then this party too bestirred itself. It would not--could not--oppose
the carrying of the message of Christ to men. But it could try to be
first in the field; it could become active, energetic, dexterous, in
laying hold of inquiring and susceptible persons, before the other side
could do so; it could subject Paul to the mortification, _the deserved
mortification_, of failure or defeat, so far as these would be implied
in his seeing the converts going to the side which was not his side.
Evangelistic zeal awoke on these terms, and bestirred itself. And
sheaves that in other circumstances might have lain untended long
enough, were gathered now.

This very same spirit, this poor and questionable zeal for Christ, still
works, and does so plentifully. The activities of Churches, the
alertness of Mission societies and agencies, still partake, in far too
many instances, of this sinister inspiration. We ought to watch against
it in ourselves, that we may overcome the evil and grow into a nobler
temper. As regards others, we may, in special cases, see the working of
such motives clearly enough, as Paul saw them at Rome. But usually we
shall do well, when we can, to impute the work of others to the better
side of their character: and we may do so reasonably; for as Christian
work is far from being all of it so pure and high as we might desire, on
the other hand, the lowly and loving temper of Christ's true followers
is very often present and operative when it is not easy for us to see
it. Let us believe it, because we believe in Him who worketh all in all.

Now the Apostle, looking at this, is glad of it. He is not glad that any
men, professing Christ, give way to evil and unchristian tempers. But he
is glad that Christ is preached. There were cases in which he vehemently
contended with such persons--when they strove to poison and pervert
Christians who had learned the better way. But now he is thinking of the
outside world; and it was good that the making known of Christ should
gather strength, and volume, and extension. And the Apostle knew that
the Lord could bless His own message, imperfectly delivered perhaps, to
bring thirsty souls to Himself, and would not fail in His unsearchable
wisdom to care for those who came, and to lead them in the ways He
thought best. Let Christ be preached. The converts do not belong to the
denominations, but first of all to Christ. Neither is it appointed that
the denominations shall permanently hold those whom they bring in; but
Christ can hold them, and can order their future in ways we cannot
foretell.

It is not true that the preaching of Christ serves no purpose and yields
no fruit, in cases where it is not carried on in the right, or the best
spirit. Indeed, God honours the pure, loving, lowly hearts, which He has
Himself cleansed; they are appropriate agents for His work, and often
receive a special blessing in connection with it. But God is not tied up
to give no success to men acting under wrong motives: at least, if we
are not to say He gives the success to them, yet in connection with them
He is well able to take success to Himself. Through strange channels He
can send blessings to souls, whatever He gives or denies to the unworthy
workmen. But perhaps the success which attends such preachers is not
remarkable nor very long continued. Souls truly gathered in will soon
get beyond their teaching. At any rate, it is a poor business to be
serving Christ upon the devil's principles. It cannot be good for
us--whatever good may sometimes come thereby to others. Let us purge
ourselves from such filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit.

"Christ is preached." How glad the Apostle was to think of it! How he
longed to see more of it, and rejoiced in all of it that he saw! One
wonders how far the thoughts and feelings associated with these words in
Paul's mind, find any echo in ours. Christ is preached. The meaning for
men of that message, as Paul conceived it, grew out of the anguish and
the wonder of those early days at Damascus, and had been growing ever
since. What might Christ be for men?--Christ their righteousness, Christ
their life, Christ their hope; God in Christ, peace in Christ,
inheritance in Christ; a new creature, a new world; joy, victory--above
all, the love of Christ, the love which passes knowledge and fills us
with the fulness of God. Therefore also this was the burning conviction
in Paul's soul--that Christ must be preached; by all means, on all
accounts, Christ must be preached. The unsearchable riches of Christ
must be proclaimed. Certainly, whoever might do or not do, _he_ must do
it. He was to live for nothing else. "I Paul am made a minister of it."
"Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel."

Lastly, as to this, not only does he rejoice that Christ is announced to
men, but he has an assurance that this shall have a happy issue and
influence towards himself also. What is so good for others shall also be
found to contribute an added element of good to his own salvation; so
good and rich is God, who, in working wide results of Divine
beneficence, does not overlook the special case and interest of His own
servant. This work, from which the workmen would shut Paul out, shall
prove to pertain to him in spite of them; and he, as reaper, shall
receive here also his wages, gathering fruit unto life eternal.

For it is characteristic of this Epistle (ii. 17; iv. 10, 18) that the
Apostle reveals to his Philippian friends not only his thoughts
concerning the great objects of the gospel, but also the desires and
hopes he had about his own experience of deliverance and well-being in
connection with the turns and changes of progressive providences. Here,
it is as if he said: "I confess I am covetous, not a little covetous, to
have many children in Christ: I would fain be a link in many a chain of
influences, by which all sorts of persons are reached and blessed in
Christ. And here where I sit confined, and am also the object of envy
and strife that are solicitous to baffle me, I can descry ties forming
between my influence in my prison and results elsewhere with which I
seem to have little to do. I can claim a something of mine, granted me
by my Lord, in the Christianity of those who are kept far from me, and
taught perhaps to doubt and dislike me. If I in my prison experience can
but live Christ, then all sorts of effects and reactions, upon all sorts
of minds, will have something in them that accrues as fruit to
Christ--and something also that accrues as my Lord's loving recognition
of me. Only do you pray--for this is a great and high calling--pray, you
who love me, and let the Lord in answer plentifully give His Spirit; and
then, while I lie here in the imprisonment which my Lord has assigned to
me, and in which He vitalises me, oh how fruitful and successful shall
my life be, what gain and wealth of salvation shall be mine! There shall
be fruit for an Apostle still, coming in ways I cannot follow; and in
it, and with it, the confirmation and deepening of my own eternal life.
It shall turn to my salvation."

So the eager Apostle, caged and cabined, triumphed still in Christ,
assured that there was a way of dealing with his Lord's will,
discouraging as that might seem, in which it would reveal both
enlargement for the Kingdom and the most loving enrichment also for
himself.

This is a commonplace of Christianity. Christians trust in Christ to
cause all to work for good. They know He can impart His most precious
gifts through what seem adverse providences. But it is a memorable
embodiment of this conviction that meets us in the Apostle's confidence,
that when Christ's providence outwardly stops his work, it not the less
pertains to Christ's wisdom to continue and extend his usefulness. The
applications of the same principle to various cases in which Christians
are trained through disappointment are innumerable. But mostly, even
when, in a way, we are open to the lesson, we take it too easily. We
forget that here also it is Christlike life and life in Christ that
proves so fruitful and so happy. We do not apprehend how great a thing
it is--what prayer it asks--what supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
For the Apostle, as we learn from what presently follows, this blessing
came in the line of "earnest expectation and hope." It was not an
exceptional effort of faith which awoke in him so firm a confidence
about his circumstances at Rome, and was rewarded so manifestly. His
whole life was set on the same key. He applied to that Roman experience
the same mode of view which he strove to apply to every experience. This
was his expectation--he was on the outlook for it--and this his hope,
that not only in one great crisis, but all along his pilgrimage, his
life should _eventuate_ one way--should shape into glory to Christ. His
whole life must turn out to be a loving, believing, effectual
manifestation of the greatness and goodness of Christ. This was what
rose before his mind as SUCCESS IN LIFE. His thoughts, his prayers
turned this way. As some men's minds turn spontaneously to money, and
some to family prosperity, and some to fame, and some to various lines
of recreation or of accomplishment, so Paul's turned to this. And in
this world of failure and disappointment, success welcomed him and
gladdened him. His would have been the nobler life even if its
expectation had been disappointed. But this is the life which cannot
fail, because God is in it.

There is a great admonition here for all of us who profess to be
followers of Christ. Our line of service may not be so emphatically
marked out for distinction, for special and exceptional eminence of
doing and suffering, as Paul's was. But for every believer the path of
service opens, however commonplace and undistinguished its scenery may
be. And in some of its stages it takes, for all of us, the peculiar
character, it assumes the distinguishing features which mark it out as
Christian. Here, in Paul, we see the spirit that should inspire
service, should make the strength, the peculiarity, the success of it,
should be the quickening and gladdening influence of its efforts and its
prayers. This ought to be for us also the longing outlook and the hope.

Let us note also, before we pass on, that the Lord's personal kindness
to ourselves is matter of legitimate rejoicing and legitimate desire.
That may be gathered from almost every verse. There have been persons
who conceived that a true Christian is to be so occupied with the
thought of God's glory and will, or so occupied with the weal of others,
as to have no personal desires or interests at all. This is a mistake.
One of the most intimate and special channels in which the glory of God
and the revelation of it are secured, is in the expression of His
goodwill to His child's own heart. This is the privilege of faith, to
cherish the expectation that His glory and our good are to agree well
together. Only, as to the latter, let us leave it to Him how it is to
come to pass; and then it will come divinely and wonderfully. "The Lord
is my shepherd, _I_ shall not want."




_THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIVING AND DYING._

     "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in
     the flesh,--if this is the fruit of my work, then what I shall
     choose I wot not. But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the
     desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better: yet
     to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake. And having
     this confidence, I know that I shall abide, yea, and abide with you
     all, for your progress and joy in the faith; that your glorying may
     abound in Christ Jesus in me through my presence with you
     again."--PHIL. i. 21-26 (R.V.).




CHAPTER IV.

_THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIVING AND DYING._


At the close of the preceding section we see that the ruling principle
of the Apostle--the earnest expectation and hope which inspired his
life--came into special exercise at this time with reference to the
possibility, and the likelihood, of an early and violent death. Dying
for the name of the Lord Jesus, as well as enduring imprisonment for
Him, might be near. He might not only be straitened in his labours, and
secluded from the activities connected with his loved work on earth, but
might be completely and finally withdrawn from it by Roman doom and
execution. The Apostle's faith looked steadily at this final
possibility. As at all times, so now also, Christ should be magnified in
him, whether by life or by death.

Now, when some great alternative of the future rises before a
Christian,--some possibility which God's providence may turn either
way,--it is natural that he should look heedfully to it, that he may
order aright his faith and patience as the day of decision draws near.
And it is natural in particular that his thoughts should be occupied by
the consideration how far the one way of it is in itself more attractive
to him than the other. For in view of that he has to watch his heart,
that as to what seems more attractive he may not desire it idolatrously,
nor let his heart be "overcharged" with it if it is realised; and that
as to what seems less attractive he may await God's will with submission
and faith, and welcome it, if so it come to pass, with sincerity. So
also the Apostle fixes his eye, ponderingly, on this alternative of life
or death, so strongly suggested by his circumstances. But, as it were,
with a smile he recognises that to a man standing, as he did, in the
light of Christ, it was hard to say which should attract him most. Life
and Death--what had they once been to him? what were they still to many?
To live, self--self pleased, provided for, contended for, perhaps
fighting for itself a losing battle with a bitter heart; to die, a dark,
dire necessity, full of fear and doubt. But now, to live is Christ. In
all life as it came to him, in all its various providences, he found
Christ; in all life, as it fell to him to be lived, he found the
circumstances set for him and the opportunity given to follow Christ; in
all the attraction and all the pressure, the force and strain of life,
he found the privilege of receiving Christ and employing Christ's grace,
the opportunity for living by the faith of the Son of God. That was all
very real to him: it was not only a fine ideal, owned indeed but only
distantly and dimly descried; no, it was a reality daily fulfilled to
him. To live was Christ, with a support, an elevation, and a love in it
such as the world knows not. That was good, oh how good! And then to die
was better: to die was gain. For to die, also, was "Christ"; but with
many a hindrance passed away, and many a conflict ended, and many a
promise coming into fulfilment as here it could not do. For if, as to
his own interest and portion, he lived by hope, then death was a long
step forward into possession and realisation. By grace Paul was to show
how he valued Christ; he was to show it in his life. And Christ was to
show His care for Paul--in this life, no doubt, very lovingly; but more
largely and fully at his death. To live is Christ--to die is gain; to be
all for Christ while I live, to find at length He is all for me when I
die!

Which should he prefer, which should he pray for (subject to God's
will), which should he hope for, life or death? The one would continue
him in a labour for Christ, which Christ taught him to love. The other
would bring him to a sinless and blessed fellowship with Christ, which
Christ taught him to long for. Looking to the two, how should he order
his desires?

It is because he speaks as one always does speak who is pondering
something--the words rising, as it were, from what he sees before
him--that he speaks so elliptically in ver. 22. "But if to live in the
flesh come to me, as its fruit and reward bringing...." What? The
Apostle sees, but does not say: something that might well reconcile him
to prolonged toil and suffering. But why produce the considerations on
either side, why balance them against one another? It is too long, too
difficult a process. And how can even an apostle confidently judge as to
better or best here? "And what I shall choose, really I do not know."
But this he knows, that so far as his own desires are concerned, so far
as the possible futures draw his spirit, he is in a strait between two,
having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better;
and yet that he should continue in the flesh is of more imperative
necessity for the sake of friends like the Philippians.

Not every Christian is in the state of mind which would naturally
express itself as a desire forthwith to depart and be with Christ. The
great hope claims its place in every Christian heart; but not in every
case so as to inspire the longing to overleap all intermediate stages.
Rather must we not say that there are periods of Christian experience,
as there are also casts of character, for which it is more usual and
natural to desire, if it be God's will, some further experience of life
on earth? If this be immature Christianity, we will not, therefore,
judge that it cannot be genuine.

Yet to be ready, and, subject to God's will, desirous to depart, is an
attainment to be aimed at and made good. Sooner or later it should come.
It lies in the line of ripening Christian affection and growing
Christian insight. For this is better. It is not that life in this world
is not good: it is good, when it is life in Christ. It has its trials,
its conflicts, and its dangers; it has also its elements of defect and
evil: yet it is good. It is good to be a child of God in training for a
better country; it is good to be one who carries the life of faith
through the experiences of time. And, for some especially, there is a
strong and not an unworthy attraction in the forms of exercise which
open to us just in such a life as this, under the guarantee and the
consecration of Christ. Knowledge opens its career, in which many a
generous mind is drawn to prove its powers. Love, in all the variety of
its calmer and its more ardent affections, sends a glow through life
which gladdens it with promise. The tasks which call for practical
effort and achievement stir vigorous natures with a high ambition. And
when all these spheres are illuminated by the light, and dominated by
the authority, and quickened for us by the love of Christ, is not life
on those terms interesting and good? True, it is destined to disclose
its imperfection. Our knowledge proves to be so partial; our love is so
sorely grieved, so often bereaved, sometimes it is even killed; and
active life must learn that what is crooked cannot wholly be made
straight, and that what is wanting cannot be numbered. So that life
itself shall teach a Christian that his longings must seek their rest
further on. Yet life in Christ here upon the earth is good: let us say
no unkind word of those who feel it so,--whose hearts, with true loyalty
to Christ, would yet if it be His will put life fully to the proof
before they go. Still, this must be said and pressed--let it be
joyfully believed--that to depart is better. It is _far_ better. It is
better to be done with sin. It is better to be where all hopes are
fulfilled. It is better to rise above a scene in which all is
precarious, and in which a strange sadness thrills through our happiness
even when we possess it. To be where Christ most fully, eminently,
experimentally is, that is best. Therefore it is better to depart. Let
mortality be swallowed up of life.

It is not only better, so that we may own it so to be as a certainty of
faith; but also so that we may and ought to feel it warming and drawing
the heart with delight and with desire. It is not needful that we should
judge more hardly of life on earth; but we might attain a far more
gladdening appreciation of what it must be to be with Christ. With no
rebellion against God's appointment when it keeps us here, and no
grudging spirit towards earth's mercies and employments, we might yet
have this thought of departing in God's time as a real and bright hope;
a great element of comfort and of strength; a support in trouble; an
elevating influence in times of gladness; an anchor of the soul, sure
and steadfast, entering into that which is within the veil.

The hope of the gospel implies it. If that hope is ours and is duly
cherished, must it not assert itself and sway the heart, so as more and
more to command the life?

The earnest of the Spirit implies it. Of the very substance of the life
eternal a foretaste comes, in the presence and grace of the Spirit of
love and comfort. Can that be with us, can that leaven work duly in our
hearts, and not awaken longing for the full entrance into so great a
good? It may be expected of us Christians that we should lift up our
heads because redemption is drawing nigh.

As for the Apostle, however, if the choice were his, he felt that it
must fall in favour of still cleaving to the present life; for this,
though less attractive to himself, was more necessary for the Churches,
and, in particular, for his friends at Philippi. This was so clear to
him that he was persuaded his life would, in fact, be prolonged by Him
who appoints to all their term of ministry. Probably we are not to take
this as a prophecy, but only as the expression of a strong persuasion.
Work still lay before him in the line of training and cheering these
believing friends, furthering and gladdening their faith. He hoped to
see them yet, and to renew the old glad "fellowship" (ch. i. 5). So
there should be for the Philippians fresh matter of exultation,--exultation
primarily in the great salvation of Christ, but yet receiving impulse and
increase from the presence and ministry of Paul. Mainly, they would be
exceeding glad of Christ; but yet, subordinately, exceeding glad of Paul
also.

It is a striking thing to see how confident the Apostle was of the
resources given to him to wield. He knew how profitable and how
gladdening his coming would be to the Philippian believers. He admits
no doubt of it. God has set him in the world for this, that he may make
many rich. Having nothing, he yet goes about, as one possessing all
things, to impart his treasures to all kinds of people. To disguise this
would be for him mock humility; it would be a denying of his Master's
grace. When ministers of Christ come aright to this impression of their
own calling, then they are also powerful. But they must come to it
aright. For it was not the Apostle's consciousness of himself, but his
consciousness of his Master, that bred this superb confidence, this
unabated expectation. In subordination to that faith the Apostle no
doubt had specific reason to know that his own personal mission was of
the highest importance, and was designed to accomplish great results.
Ordinary ministers of Christ do not share this peculiar ground of
confidence. But no one who has any kind of mission from Christ can
discharge it aright if he is destitute of the expectancy which looks
forward to results, and, indeed, to momentous results; for the reapers
in Christ's harvest are to "gather fruit unto life eternal." To cherish
this mood, not in the manner of a vain presumption, but in the manner of
faith in a great Saviour, is the practical question for gospel
ministers.

Alike in the utterance of his mind about his Philippian friends, and in
his explanations about himself, it is remarkable how thoroughly the
Apostle carries his faith through the whole detail of persons and
things. The elements and forces of the Kingdom of God are not for him
remote splendours to be venerated from afar. To his faith they are
embodied, they are vitally and divinely present, in the history of the
Churches and in his own history. He sees Christ working in the
Philippian believers; he sees in their Christian profession and service
a fire of love caught from the love of Christ--the increase and triumph
of which he anticipates with affectionate solicitude. The tender mercies
of Christ are the element in which he and they are alike moving, and
this blessedness it is their privilege assiduously to improve. So he was
minded in regard to all the Churches. If in any of them the indications
are feeble and dubious, only so much the more intently does he
scrutinise them, to recognise, in spite of difficulty, that which comes
and only could come from his Master's Spirit. If indications too
significant of a wholly different influence have broken out, and demand
the severest rebukes, he still casts about for tokens of the better
kind. For surely Christ's Spirit is in His Churches, and surely the seed
is growing in Christ's field towards a blessed harvest. If men have to
be warned that naming the name of Christ they may be reprobates, that
without the Spirit of Christ they are none of His, this comes as
something sad and startling to be spoken to men in Christian Churches.
So also in his own case--Christ is speaking and working by him, and all
providences that befall him are penetrated by the love, the wisdom, and
the might of Christ. In nothing is the Apostle more enviable than in
this victoriousness of his faith over the earthly shows of things, and
over the unlikelihoods which in this refractory world always mask and
misrepresent the good work. We, for our part, find our faith continually
abashed by those same unlikelihoods. We recognise the course of this
world, which speaks for itself; but we are uncertain and discouraged as
to what the Saviour is doing. The mere commonplaceness of Christians,
and of visible Christianity, and of ourselves, is allowed to baffle us.
Nothing in the life of the Church, we are ready to say, is very
interesting, very vivid, very hopeful. The great fire burning in the
world ever since Pentecost is for us scarcely recognisable. We even take
credit for being so hard to please. But if the quick faith and love of
Paul the prisoner were ours, we should be sensitive to echoes and
pulsations and movements everywhere,--we should be aware that the voice
and the power of Christ are everywhere stirring in His Churches.




_UNDAUNTED AND UNITED STEADFASTNESS._

     "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,
     that, whether I come and see you or be absent, I may hear of your
     state, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for
     the faith of the gospel; and in nothing affrighted by the
     adversaries: which is for them an evident token of perdition, but
     of your salvation, and that from God; because to you it hath been
     granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but
     also to suffer in His behalf: having the same conflict which ye saw
     in me, and now hear to be in me."--PHIL. i. 27-30 (R.V.).




CHAPTER V.

_UNDAUNTED AND UNITED STEADFASTNESS._


At ver. 27 the letter begins to be hortative. Up to this point the
Apostle has been taking the Philippians into his confidence, in order
that they may share his point of view and see things as He sees them.
Now he begins more directly to call them to the attitude and work which
become them as Christians; but up to ver. 30 the sense of the dear tie
between him and them is still very present, colouring and controlling
his exhortations.

"Be assured," he has been saying, "that by the grace of God, abounding
amid trials, it is well with me; and I have very good hope of yet again
enjoying this honour, that through my means it may be well with
you:--_only_ fix you on this, let this be your concern, to walk as it
becomes the gospel: this is the ground on which you must win your
victory; this is the line on which alone you can make any effectual
contribution to our common welfare, and that of all the Churches." So
the Apostle urges. For, let us be assured of it, while we debate with
ourselves by what efforts and in what lines we can do some stroke of
service to the good cause, or to some special representative of it,
after all the greatest and weightiest thing by far that we can do is to
be thoroughly consistent and devoted in our own Christian walk, living
lives answerable to the gospel.

The original suggests that the Apostle thinks of the Philippians as
citizens of a state, who are to carry on their life according to the
constitution and laws of the state to which they belong. That
citizenship of theirs, as we shall afterwards see, is in heaven (ch.
iii. 20), where Christ their head is gone. The privilege of belonging to
it had reached them through the call of God. And it was their business
on the earth to act out the citizenship, to prove the reality of it in
their conduct, and to manifest to the world what sort of citizenship it
is. Now the standard according to which this is to be done is the gospel
of Christ--the gospel, not only as it contains a code of rules for
practice, but as it reveals the Saviour to whom we are to be conformed,
and discloses a Divine order of holiness and grace to the influence of
which our souls are to bow. And indeed, if our thinking, and speaking,
and acting held some proportion to the gospel we profess to believe; if
they corresponded to the purity, the tenderness, the Divine worth of the
gospel; if from step to step of life we were indeed building ourselves
on our most holy faith, what manner of persons should we be? This opens
more fully in the next chapter.

But we are tried by circumstances; and the same Christianity will take
different manifestations according to the circumstances in which it is
unfolded. For every Christian and for every Christian community much
depends on the shaping influence of the providences of life. The
Apostle, therefore, must have regard to the circumstances of the
Philippians. We are all ready, commonly, to exert ourselves, as we say,
to "improve our circumstances"; and, in one view, it is natural and
fitting enough. Yet it is of more importance--much more--that in the
circumstances as they stand we should bear ourselves in a manner worthy
of the gospel. Some of us are ready to stir heaven and earth in order
that certain unwelcome conditions of our lot may be altered or
abolished. It would be more to the point to walk with God under them as
long as they last. When they have passed away, the opportunity for
faith, love, and service which _they_ have furnished will have passed
away for ever.

The Apostle, therefore, specifies what he wished to see or hear of in
the Philippian Church, as proper to the circumstances in which they
stood. He calls for steadfastness as against influences that might shake
and overthrow, put in motion against them by the enemies of the gospel.

The words suggest the strain of the situation as it was felt in those
small early Churches. It is difficult for us adequately to conceive it.
There was the unfriendly aspect both of Roman law and of public opinion
to unauthorised religious fraternities; there was the hostility of
ardent Jews, skilful to stir into activity enmities which otherwise
might have slumbered; there was the jealousy of religious adventurers of
all kinds with whom that age was becoming rife. But besides, there was
the immense pressure of general unbelief. Christianity had to be
embraced and maintained against the judgment and under the cool contempt
of the immense majority, including the wealth, the influence, the
wisdom, the culture--all that was brilliant, imposing, and conclusive.
This temper was disdainful for the most part: it became bitter and
spiteful if in any instance Christianity came near enough to threaten
its repose. It found, no doubt, active interpreters and representatives
in every class, in every family circle. Christianity was carried forward
in those days by a great spiritual power working with the message. It
needed nothing less than this to sustain the Christian against the
deadweight of the world's adverse verdict, echoing back from every
tribunal by which the world gives forth its judgments. Then, every
feeling of doubt, or tendency to vacillate, created by these influences,
was reinforced by the consciousness of faults and failings among the
Christians themselves.

Against all this faith held its ground, faith clinging to the unseen
Lord. In that faith the Philippians were to stand fast. Not only so;
looking on "the faith" as if it were a spiritual personality, striving
and striven with, they were to throw their own being and energy into
the struggle, that the cause of faith might make head and win fresh
victories. The faith is knocking at many doors, is soliciting many
minds. But much depends on ardent and energetic Christians, who will
throw their personal testimony into the conflict, and who will exert on
behalf of the good cause the magic of Christian sympathy and Christian
love. So they should be fellow-athletes contending on the side of faith,
and in the cause of faith.

In our own day a livelier sense has awakened of the obligation lying
upon Christians to spend and be spent in their Master's cause, and to be
fellow-helpers to the truth. Many voices are raised to enforce the duty.
Still, it cannot be doubted that in most cases this aspect of the
Christian calling is too languidly conceived and too intermittently put
in practice. And many in all the Churches are so little qualified to
labour for the faith, or even stand fast in it, that their Christianity
is only held up externally by the consent and custom of those about
them.

At this point and in this connection the Apostle begins to bring forward
the exhortation to peace and unity which goes forward into the following
chapter. Apparently no steadfastness will, in his view, be "worthy of
the gospel," unless this loving unity is added. If there was a common
instinct of worldliness and unbelief, giving unity to the influences
against which the Philippians had to contend, the operation of a mighty
uniting influence was to be expected on the other side, an influence
Divine in its origin and energy. The subject is brought forward, one
can see, in view of tendencies to disagreement which had appeared at
Philippi. But it was a topic on which the Apostle had intensely strong
convictions, and he was ever ready to expatiate upon it.

We need not be surprised at the earnestness about peace and unity
evinced in the Epistles, nor think it strange that such exhortations
were required. Consider the case of these early converts. What varieties
of training had formed their characters; what prejudices of diverse
races and religions continued to be active in their minds. Consider also
what a world of new truths had burst upon them. It was impossible they
could at once take in all these in their just proportions. Various
aspects of things would strike different minds, and difficulty must
needs be felt about the reconciliation of them. In addition to theory,
practice opened a field of easy divergence. Church life had to be
developed, and Church work had to be done. Rules and precedents were
lacking. Everything had to be planned and built from the foundation. The
very energy of the Christian faith tended to produce energetic
individualities. If all these things are weighed, instead of being
surprised at the rise of difficulties we may rather wonder how
interminable disagreement was averted. The temper of "standing fast"
might seem perhaps likely rather to aggravate than to alleviate some of
these sources of discord.

On the other hand, to the Apostle's mind a glorious unity was one
especial mark of the triumph of the Kingdom of God. That expressed the
victory in all the members of the new society of one influence
proceeding from one Lord; it expressed the prevalence of that new life
the chief element of which is the uniting grace, the grace of love. It
should not be difficult to understand the value which the Apostle set on
this feature in the life of Churches, how he longed to see it, how he
pressed it so ardently on his disciples. Sin, dividing men from God, had
divided them also from one another. It introduced selfishness,
self-seeking, self-worship, self-assertion, everything that tends to
divide. It rent men into separate interests, societies, classes,
worships; and these stood over against one another isolated, jealous,
conflicting. Men had long ago ceased to think it possible to have things
otherwise ordered. They had almost ceased to desire it. How eminently
then did the glory of the redemption in Christ appear in the fact that
by it the dispersed out of all kinds of dispersion were gathered into
one. They were bound to one another as well as to Christ: they became
more conscious of oneness than ever they had been of separation. It
testified to the presence and working of Him who made all, and from whom
all, by different paths, had gone astray.

The means by which this unity was to be maintained was chiefly the
prevalence of the Christian affections in the hearts of believers--the
presence and power of that mind of Christ, of which more must be said in
connection with the following chapter. Certainly the Apostle regards
this as, at any rate, the radical security for unity in life and work,
and without it he does not suppose the unity for which he cares can
exist at all. In this connection it is worth observing that the unity he
is thinking of is chiefly that which should bind together the members of
those little communities which were rising up in various places under
his ministry. It is the harmony of those whose lot is cast in the same
place, who can influence one another, whose plain business it was to
confess Christ together. Wider unity was supposed indeed, and was
rejoiced in; but the maintenance of it had not yet become so much a
practical question. This continued to be the case for some time after
the Apostolic period. Men were anxious to hold each local congregation
together, and to avert local splits and quarrels. If that were done, it
seemed as though nothing further were urgently needed.

Yet the same principles establish the unity of the visible Church
throughout the world, and indicate the discharge of the duties which are
necessary in order to the expression of it. Christians differ indeed
among themselves upon the question how far the Church has received
organic institutions fitted to give expression or embodiment to her
unity; and diversity of judgment on that point is not likely soon to be
removed. For the rest the main thing to observe is that Christ's Church
_is_ one, in root and principle. This applies not only to the Church
invisible, but to the Church visible too. Only the latter, as she falls
short in all service and attainment, falls short also in expressing her
own unity and in performing the duties connected with it. On the one
hand they err who think that because the state of the visible Church is
marred by divisions, therefore unity in her case is a dream, and that
the unity of the Church invisible is alone to be asserted. On the other
hand they err who, on much the same grounds, conclude that only one of
the organised communions can possess the nature and attributes of the
visible Church of Christ. The visible Churches are imperfect in their
unity as they are in their holiness. In both respects their state is
neither to be absolutely condemned nor to be absolutely approved. And no
one of them is entitled to throw upon the rest all the blame of the
measure of disunion. Any one that does so becomes a principal fomenter
of disunion.

This is too wide a subject to follow further. Meanwhile it may be
gathered from what has been said that the most direct application of the
Apostle's language must be, not to the mutual relations of great
communions, but to the mutual relations of Christians in the same local
society. There is great room for such an application of it. Exaggerated
statements may sometimes be made as to the indifference of Christians in
modern congregations to one another's weal or woe; but certainly very
often self-will and bitter feeling are allowed to prevail, as if the
tender ties and solemn obligations of Christian fellowship had been
forgotten. And very often mutual ignorance, indifference, or silent
aversion mark the relations of those who have worshipped God together
for long years. Certainly there is either some element lacking in the
Christianity which is supposed to sustain Church life of this kind, or
else the temperature of it must be low. Hence it comes, too, that the
edification of Christians has so largely dissociated itself from the
fellowship of the Churches to which they still resort, and seeks support
on other lines. It was not so in those earliest Churches. The life and
growth of the Christians were nursed in the Church meetings. There they
gathered to read and sing and pray and break bread; to strengthen one
another against Pagan violence and seduction; to love one another, as
bound together by ties which Pagans never knew; to endure together the
scorn and wrong which Christ's name might bring upon them; and not
impossibly, after they had thus fought side by side, to die together one
triumphant martyr death. Similar conditions have more or less returned
again whenever the Churches have been tolerably pure and united, and
have at the same time been subjected to some sharp pressure of
persecution.

They were to stand fast then in one spirit, cherishing that "spirit of
the mind" which is the immediate fruit of the working of the One Spirit
of God, the common gift of the Father. It is supposed that Christians
know what this is and can recognise it. But they might not be solicitous
enough to maintain it, and they might be betrayed into preferring a
spirit of their own. The Holy Spirit's influence, creating in each of
them the new spirit of the mind, would be the key to right conduct in
their common life. It would inspire a purer wisdom and a higher motive
than the flesh supplies. Recognising it in one another, they would find
themselves confirmed and cheered, established against external
opposition and internal strife. Too easily we content ourselves with
thoughts, words, and deeds which come only from our own private "spirit"
and which are governed by that. We are too careless of living in a
higher region. For the want of this some persons among us are infidels.
They think they can account for all they see in Christians from the
men's own spirit. Their cavil is by no means always true or fair; yet it
finds too much plausible support.

The same unity in the one spirit, with its accompanying vitality,
gladness, and courage, was to characterise their active labours in the
gospel. Let it be remembered that men do not make this attainment in a
moment by stepping across some definite line. They grow into it by
sincerity of aim, and by steadfast endeavour in the strength of Christ.
In this way the "fellowship unto the gospel" (ver. 5), already so
happily characteristic of the Philippians, was to grow yet more in
cordiality, devotedness, and power.

Meanwhile, what were they to make of the attacks directed against them
by those who hated the gospel? This was no doubt a very practical
question. Although persecution of the Christians had not yet revealed
the energy it was afterwards to assume, their lot was often hard
enough. The first burst of trial of this kind exerts a very depressing
influence on some minds: with others the prolonged endurance of it,
wearing out the spirit, is the more dangerous experience. Either way the
dark cloud is felt, suddenly or gradually, shutting out the sky. This
feeling of depression and dismay is to be steadfastly resisted. Enmity,
unpleasant and ominous as it may be, is not to perturb or move you. It
is not to be regarded as a reason for depression or an augury of defeat.
Far otherwise: here should be discerned and grasped a token of salvation
given by God Himself.

It has been said that earthly prosperity was the promise of the Old
Covenant, but adversity that of the New. This is, at least, so far true,
that the necessity and benefit of chastening are very plainly set before
us. Such discipline is part of the salvation secured for us; it is
necessary to lead us aright to final well-being; and it will be
administered to God's children as He sees fit. When it comes, it does
not necessarily indicate special Divine displeasure, still less Divine
ill-will. It does indicate that we have lessons to learn, attainments to
make, and faults to be purged out; it indicates also that God is taking
loving pains with us for these ends. All these things ought to be very
certain to Christians. Yet some Christians, when their own turn comes,
find it very hard to believe so much. Pains, losses, and
disappointments, coming in the very forms they most deprecate, wear
such an unfriendly aspect, that they can only feel scorched and
affronted; and the hurt spirit breaks out in a querulous "Why?" To be so
thrown off our balance is a failure of faith.

But Paul is occupied here with the spirit in which one special form of
trial is to be dealt with. Antipathy, contempt, and persecution are
bitter, very bitter to some sensitive souls; but when they come upon us
as followers of Christ, and for His sake, they have a consolation proper
to themselves. They are to be borne gladly, not only because all
chastening is guided by fatherly love and wisdom, but because this kind
of suffering is our glory. It comes to believers as part of their
fellowship with Christ; and it is such a part of that fellowship as
carries with it a peculiar power of assurance and confirmation.
Christians share with Christ the enmity of the world's unbelief, because
they share with Him the knowledge and love of the Father. If, indeed, by
indulging self-will and passion (though perhaps under religious forms)
we bring enmity on ourselves, then we suffer as evil-doers. But if we
suffer for righteousness, the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us.
Some share of suffering for Christ comes, therefore, as God's gift to
His children, and ought to be valued accordingly.

As to the exact point of the Apostle's remark on the "token" of
perdition and of salvation, two views may be taken. In the line of what
has just been said, he may be understood to mean simply that when God
allows believers to suffer persecution for Christ's sake, it is a sign
of their salvation; just as, on the contrary, to be found opposing and
persecuting God's children is a sign and omen of destruction. As if he
said: "It is not you but they who have cause to be terrified: for lo!
thine enemies, O Lord, for lo! thine enemies shall perish."

This is a scriptural view. Yet both here and in 2 Thess. i. 6 it is
perhaps more precise to say that for the Apostle the special sign of
salvation on the one side, and destruction on the other, is the patience
and calmness with which Christians are enabled to endure their trials.
This patience, while it is a desirable attainment on their part, is also
something secured for them and given to them by their Lord. It is very
precious and should be earnestly embraced. In this view the Apostle
says: "In no wise be terrified by your adversaries; and this
tranquillity of yours shall be a sign, on the one part, of your
salvation, and also, on the other part, if they repent not, of their
destruction. For this tranquillity is a victory given to you by God,
which endures when their malice is exhausted. Does it not tell of a
power working for you which mocks their malice, a power which is well
able to perfect your salvation as well as to overthrow the enemies of
God? So you find coming into experience that which beforehand was given
you by promise. It _was_ given you to believe in Christ, and also to
suffer for Him. Now that you find yourselves enabled to suffer for Him
so calmly, will not that become a sign to confirm all you have
believed?" For the tranquillity of spirit into which faith rises under
persecution is an evidence of the source from which it comes. Much may
be borne by resolute men for any cause in which they have embarked. But
very different from this striving of the human heart hardening itself to
bear, in order that an enemy's malice may not spy out its weakness, are
the calmness and patience given to God's children in the hour of trial.
That bespeaks an inward support more mighty than all sorrow. The
Divineness of it becomes still more conspicuous when it approves itself
as the One Spirit, triumphing in persons of diverse tempers and
characters. This has been a sign to many an unbeliever filling him with
rage and fear. And to the children of God it has been the Spirit
witnessing with their spirit that they _are_ His children.

The Apostle will not allow it to be overlooked that in this point as in
others his Philippian friends and he are tied together in closest
fellowship. This conflict of theirs is the same which they had heard of
and seen as proceeding in his case too. Perhaps we may say of this that
it admonishes us not to think too meanly of our own Christian
experience, and of the questions and decisions which it involves. The
Apostle knew that his Philippian friends regarded his conflict as
something conspicuous and great. He was a standard bearer, on whom much
depended; and then, all the movements of his soul were magnanimous and
grand. But their own experience might seem petty--almost mean; their
trials not very serious, and their way of dealing with them at times so
halting and half-hearted, that it seemed an offence against humility to
make much account of them. If this was the true view, then also it must
be Christ's view; and so a very depressed way of looking at their
calling and their encouragements might set in. The Apostle will not
allow this. He thinks, and they are to think, that it is the same
question that is being fought out in their case as in his--the same
forces are arrayed against one another in both cases--and the victory in
both cases will be equally momentous. So he would quicken their sense of
the situation by the energy and vivacity of his own convictions. It is
unquestionable that Christians suffer much loss by indulging a certain
bastard humility, which leads them to underrate the solemnity of the
interest attaching to their own history. This renders them inattentive
to the serious eyes with which Christ their Master is looking down upon
it.




_THE MIND OF CHRIST._

     "If there is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of
     love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and
     compassions, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having
     the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing
     through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each
     counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his
     own things, but each of you also to the things of others."--PHIL.
     ii. 1-4 (R.V.).




CHAPTER VI.

_THE MIND OF CHRIST._


In the verses last considered the Apostle had begun to summon his
Philippian friends to Christian duty. But so far his words bear the
character only of occasional exhortation, which falls naturally in as he
dwells upon his own circumstances and on theirs. Associated as they have
been and are, let there be no mistake as to the central bond between him
and them. Let the Philippian believers partake increasingly in his own
glowing apprehensions of the Christian calling. Let them abound in the
loving, steadfast, energetic, expectant life in which men are united who
have become acquainted with Christ.

But he thinks fit to press the theme in a more set and deliberate way.
For it is no light thing to awaken in men's hearts a right impression of
what it is to be a Christian; or if it has been awakened, to nurse it to
due strength. These Christians possessed some insight into the world of
truth which held the mind of Paul; they had some experience of
evangelical impression: in these things they had a happy fellowship
with one another and with their great teacher. But all this must be
affirmed and embodied in the conflict and ministry of Christian life. It
must prove strong enough for that. Deeds are the true confession of our
faith; they are the verification of our religious experience. And in
this practical form we must overcome, not the temptations of other
people or other ages, but our own. There is no more dangerous working of
unbelief than that in which it never questions the doctrinal theory, but
renders our Christianity cold and slack, and leads us to indulge a
preference for a religion that goes easy. Could we but see as we are
seen, we should find this to be a matter of endless lamentation.

Temptations to rivalry and discord were working at Philippi. We are not
obliged to think that they had gone very far; but one could see a risk
that they might go further. The Apostle has it in his heart to expel
this evil, by promoting the principles and dispositions that are opposed
to it. And in this work the Philippians themselves must embark with all
their might.

It has been remarked already that causes are easily found to account for
rivalries and misunderstandings springing up in those primitive
Christian congregations. The truth is, however, that in all ages and
conditions of the Church these dangers are nigh at hand. Self-seeking
and self-exaltation are forms in which sin works most easily, and out of
these come rivalry and discord by the very nature of the case. Eager
grasping at our own objects leads to disregard of the rights and
interests of others; and thence come wars. Danger in this direction was
visible to the Apostle.

It may be asked how this should be, if the Philippians were genuine and
hearty Christians, such as the Apostle's commendations bespeak them?
Here a principle comes to light which deserves to be considered. Even
those who have cordially embraced Christianity, and who have loyally
given effect to it in some of its outstanding applications, are
wonderfully prone to stop short. They do not perceive, or they do not
care to realise, the bearing of the same principles, which they have
already embraced, upon whole regions of human life and human character;
they do not seriously lay to heart the duties Christianity imposes or
the faults it rebukes in those departments. They are pleased to have won
so much ground, and do not think about the Canaanites that still hold
_their_ ground. So, in whole regions of life, the carnal mind is allowed
to work on, undetected and practically unopposed. This tendency is aided
by the facility we have in disguising from ourselves the true character
of dispositions and actions, when these do not quite plainly affront
Christian rules. Self-assertion and bad temper, for example, can put on
the character of honest firmness and hearty zeal. More particularly,
when religious principles have led us into certain lines of action, we
are apt to take for granted that all is right we do in those lines.
Religious zeal leads a man to take trouble and incur responsibility in
Church work. Under this notion, then, he readily persuades himself that
all his Church work is conscientious and disinterested: yet it may be
largely and deeply tainted with the impulses of the fleshly mind. In a
measure it might be so here. The Philippians might be generally a
company of sincerely Christian people. And yet the churchmanship of some
of them might disclose sad tokens of selfishness and bitterness.
Therefore they must be called to give heed to the principles and to give
effect to the motives that expel those sins.

In all this we may feel ourselves in the region of commonplaces; we know
it all so well. But the very point in hand is that for the Apostle these
are not commonplaces. He is greatly in earnest about the matter, and his
heart is full of it. We do not understand him until we begin to
sympathise with his sorrow and his anxiety. This is for him no mere
matter of expediencies or of appearances. He is striving for the victory
of grace in the souls of his beloved friends; for the glory of Christ;
for his own comfort and success as Christ's minister. All these are, as
it were, at stake upon this question of the life of the Philippian
Church proving to be, under the influence of Christ, lowly, loving, and
answerable to the gospel.

No one more than Paul appreciates the value of good theological
principles; and no one more than he lays stress on the mercy which
provides a gracious and a full salvation. But no one more than he is
intent upon Christian practice: for if practice is not healed and
quickened, then salvation ceases to be real, the promises wither
unfulfilled, Christ has failed. We may well feel it to be a great
question whether our own sympathy with him on such points is growing and
deepening. The Kingdom of God within us must exist in a light and love
for which goodness is a necessity, and evil a grief and heart-break. But
if it is not so with us, where do we stand?

In four clauses the Apostle appeals to great Christian motives, which
are to give strength to his main appeal--"If there be any comfort (or
store of cheering counsel) in Christ Jesus, if any consolation of love,
if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies or compassions";
in a fifth clause he draws a motive from the regard they might have for
his own most earnest desires--"fulfill ye my joy"; and then comes the
exhortation itself, which is to unity of mind and heart--"that ye be of
the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind."
This, in turn, is followed by clauses that fix the practical sense of
the general exhortation.

It has been made a question whether the Apostle means to say, "If there
be among you, Philippians, influences and experiences such as these," or
"If there be anywhere in the Church of God." But surely he means both.
He appeals to great practical articles of faith and matters of
experience. The Church of God believes them and claims a part in them.
So does the Church of Philippi, in its degree. But there may be a great
deal more in them than the Philippian believers are aware of,--more in
them as truths and promises; more in them as contemplated and realised
by riper Christians, like Paul himself. He appeals, certainly, to what
existed for the faith of the Philippians; but also to that "much more"
which might open to them if their faith was enlarged.

The "comfort" or cheering counsel "in Christ" is the fulness of gospel
help and promise. Great need of this is owned by all believers; and,
coming as needed succour to them all, it may well bind them all together
in the sense of common need and common help. As it comes from the good
Shepherd Himself to all and each, so it is conceived to be ever sounding
in the Church, passing from one believer to another, addressed by each
to each as common succour and common comfort. Hence, in the next place,
there comes into view the mutual ministry of "consolation" which
Christians owe to one another, since they "receive" one another, and are
to do to one another as Christ has done to them. Here the consolation
acquires a special character, from the individual affection and
friendship breathed into it by the Christian, who carries it to his
neighbour to encourage and cheer him on his way. This love of the
Christian to his brother, which comes from God, is itself a means of
grace; and therefore the "consolation of love" deserves to be distinctly
named.

The "fellowship of the Spirit" (see 2 Cor. xiii. 13) is the common
participation of the Holy Spirit of God in His gracious presence and
working. Without this no one could have a real share in Christian
benefits. The Spirit reveals to us the Son and the Father, and enables
us to abide in the Son and in the Father. He brings us into communion
with the mind of God as revealed in His word. He makes real to us the
things of the Kingdom of God; and it is He who opens to us their worth
and sweetness, especially the lovingkindness which breathes in them all.
Through Him we are enabled to exercise Christian affections, desires,
and services. It is He, in a word, through whom we are participant in
the life of salvation; and in that life He associates together all who
share His indwelling. The Apostle supposes that no Christian could ever
contemplate without, shall we say, a pang of gratitude, the
condescension, the gentleness, and the patience of this ministration.
And as all Christians are recipient together of so immense a benefit,
they might well feel it as a bond between them all. But more especially,
as the Holy Spirit in this dispensation evinces a most Divine love and
kindness--for what but love could be the spring of it?--so also the
upshot of all His work is the revelation of God in love. For love is at
the heart of all God's promises and benefits: they are never understood
until we reach the love that is in them. And God is love. So the love of
God is shed abroad in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit
given to them. Hence this is the leading view of that which the Spirit
comes to do: He comes to make us members of a system in which love
rules; and He inspires all loving affections and dispositions proper to
make us congruous members of so high and good a world.

Therefore, in the fourth place, it is to be supposed that "tender
mercies and compassions" in human breasts are abundant where the
fellowship of the Spirit is. How abundant they _might_ be: surely also
in some measure they must be present; they must abound, amid all human
infirmities and mistakes. All kinds of gentle, friendly, faithful, wise
and patient dispositions might be expected. They are the fruits of the
country in which Christians have come to dwell.

To all these the Apostle appeals. Perhaps a pathos is audible in the
form of his appeal. "If there be any." Alas! is there then any? Is there
some at least, if not much? For if all these had been duly present to
the faith and in the life of the Church, they would have spoken their
lesson for themselves, and had not needed Paul to speak for them.

The form of appeal "Fulfil ye my joy" brings up one more motive--the
earnest desires of one who loved them wisely and well, and whom they,
whatever their shortcomings, loved in turn. It is worth observing that
the motive power here does not lie merely in the consideration "Would
you not like to give me pleasure?" The Philippians knew how Paul had at
heart their true welfare and their true dignity. That which, if it came
to pass, would so gladden him, must be something great and good for
them. If their own judgment of things was cold, might it not take fire
from the contagion of his? The loving solicitude of a keener-sighted and
a more single-hearted Christian, the solicitude which makes his heart
throb and his voice tremble as he speaks, has often startled slumbering
brethren into a consciousness of their own insensibility, and awakened
them to worthier outlooks.

In regard to all these considerations, the main point is to catch sight
of the moral and spiritual scenery as the Apostle saw it. Otherwise the
words may leave us as dull as they found us. For him there had come into
view a wonderful world of love. Love had come forth preparing at great
cost and with great pains a new destiny for men. Love had brought in
Paul and the other believers, one by one, into this higher region. And
it proved to be a region in which love was the ground on which they
stood, and love the heaven over their heads, and love the air they
breathed. And here love was coming to be their own new nature, love
responsive to the love of Father, Son, and Spirit, and love going out
from those who had been so blessed to bless and gladden others. This was
the true, the eternal goodness, the true, the eternal blessedness; and
it was theirs. This was what faith embraced in Him "who loved me and
gave Himself for me." This was what faith claimed right to be and do. If
this was not so, Christianity was reduced to nothing. If a man have not
love, he is nothing (1 Cor. xiii.). "Is there any truth at all in this
glorious faith of ours? Do you believe it at all? Have you felt it at
all? Fulfil then my joy." Unity of mind and of heart is the thing
inculcated. Under the influence of the great objects of faith and of the
motive forces of Christianity this was to be expected. Their ways of
thinking and their ways of feeling, however different, should be so
moulded in Christ as to reach full mutual understanding and full mutual
affection. Nor should they rest contented when either of these failed:
for that would be contentment with defeat; but Christ's followers are to
aim at victory.

It is obvious to say here that cases might arise in which turbulent or
contentious persons might make it impossible for the rest of the Church,
however well disposed, to secure either one accord or one mind. But the
Apostle does not suppose that case to have arisen. Nothing had occurred
at Philippi which Christian sense and Christian feeling might not
arrange. When the case supposed does occur, there are Christian ways of
dealing with it. Still more obviously one might say that conscientious
differences of opinion, and that even on matters of moment, must
inevitably occur sooner or later; and a general admonition to be of one
mind does not meet such a case. Perhaps it may be said in reply that the
Church and the Christians have hardly conceived how much might be
attained in the way of agreement if our Christianity were sincere
enough, thorough enough, and affectionate enough. In that case there
might be wonderful attainment in finding agreement, and in dismissing
questions on which it is not needful to agree. But, if we are not to
soar so high as this, it may at least be said that, while conscientious
diversities of judgment are not to be disguised, they may be dealt with,
among believers, in a Christian way, with due emphasising of the truth
agreed upon, and with a prevailing determination to speak truth in love.
Here again, however, the Apostle recognises no serious difficulty of
this kind at Philippi. The difficulties were such as could be got over.
There was no good reason why the Philippians should not in their Church
life exhibit harmony: it would be so, if Christian influences were
cordially admitted into minds and hearts, and if they made a fit
estimate of the supreme importance of unity in Christ. The same thing
may be said of innumerable cases in later times in which Christians have
divided and contended. It is right to say, however, that these
considerations are not to be applied without qualification to all kinds
and degrees of separation between Christians. It is a cause for sorrow
that denominational divisions are so many; and they have often been both
cause and consequence of unchristian feeling. Yet when men part
peaceably to follow out their deliberate convictions, to which they
cannot give effect together, and when in doing so they do not unchurch
or condemn one another, there may be less offence against Christian
charity than in cases where a communion, professedly one, is the scene
of bitterness and strife. In either case indeed there is something to
regret and probably something to blame; but the former of the two cases
is by no means necessarily the worse.

In following out the line of duty and privilege set before them by the
Apostle, Christians have to get the better of arrogance and selfishness
(vv. 3, 4).

In the Church of Christ no man has a right to do anything from a spirit
of strife or vainglory. Strife is the disposition to oppose and thwart
our neighbour's will, either from mere delight in contest, or in order
to assert for our own will a prevalence which will gratify our pride;
and this is the animating principle of "faction." "Vainglory" is the
disposition to think highly of ourselves, to claim for ourselves a great
place, and to assert it as against the claims of others. In the jostle
of the world it may perhaps be admitted that forces acting on these
lines are not without their use. They compensate one another, and some
measure of good emerges from their unlovely energies. But such things
are out of place among Christians, for they are right against the spirit
of Christianity; and Christianity relies for its equipoise and working
progress on principles of quite another kind. Among Christians each is
to be lowly-minded, conscious of his own defects and of his ill-desert.
And this is to work in the way of our esteeming others to be better than
ourselves. For we are conscious of our own inward and deep defect as we
cannot be of any other person's. And it is abundantly possible that
others may be better than we are, and safe for us to give full effect
to that possibility. It is said, indeed, that we may possibly have
conclusive reason to believe that certain other persons, even in
Christ's Church, are worse than we are. But, apart from the
precariousness of such judgments, it is enough to say it is not for us
to proceed on such a judgment or to give effect to it. We all await a
higher judgment; until then it becomes us to take heed to our own spirit
and walk in lowliness of mind.

Selfishness ("looking to its own things," ver. 4), as well as arrogance,
needs to be resisted; and this is an even more pervading and inward
evil. In dealing with it we are not required to have no eye at all to
our own things; for indeed they are our providential charge, and they
must be cared for; but we are required to look _not only_ on our own,
but every man on the things of others. We have to learn to put ourselves
in another's place, to recognise how things affect him, to sympathise
with his natural feelings in reference to them, and to give effect in
speech and conduct to the impressions hence arising. So a Christian man
is to "love his neighbour as himself"--only with a tenderer sense of
obligation and a consciousness of more constraining motive than could be
attained by the Israelite of old. Lovingly to do right to a brother's
claims and to his welfare should be as cogent a principle of action with
us as to care for our own.

Arrogance and selfishness--perhaps disguised in fairer forms--had bred
the disturbance at Philippi. The same baleful forces are present
everywhere in all the Churches to this day, and have often run riot in
the House of God. How shall the ugliness and the hatefulness of the
every-day selfishness, the every-day self-assertion, the every-day
strifes of Christians, be impressed upon our minds? How are we to be
awakened to our true calling in lowliness and in love?




_THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued)._

     "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being
     in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality
     with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being
     made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man,
     He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the
     death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave
     unto Him the name which is above every name; that in the name of
     Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on
     earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should
     confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
     Father."--PHIL. ii. 5-11 (R.V.).




CHAPTER VII.

_THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued)._


It proves hard to make us aware of the sin and the misery involved in
the place commonly allowed to SELF. Some of its conspicuous outrages on
Christian decency we do disapprove and avoid: perhaps we have embarked
in a more serious resistance to its domination. Yet, after all, how
easily and how complacently do we continue to give scope to it! In forms
of self-assertion, of arrogance, of eager and grasping competition, it
breaks out. It does so in ordinary life, in what is called public life,
and, where it is most offensive of all, in Church life. Hence we fail so
much in readiness to make the case of others our own, and to be
practically moved by their interests, rights, and claims. There are
certainly great differences here; and some, in virtue of natural
sympathy or Christian grace, attain to remarkable degrees of generous
service. Yet these also, if they know themselves, know how energetically
self comes upon the field, and how much ground it covers. Many among us
are doing good to others; but does it never strike us that there is a
distant and arrogant way of doing good? Many in Christian society are
kind, and that is well; but undoubtedly there are self-indulgent ways of
being kind.

Having to deal with this evil energy of self, the Apostle turns at once
to the central truth of Christianity, the person of Christ. Here he
finds the type set, the standard fixed, of what Christianity is and
means: or rather, here he finds a great fountain, from which a mighty
stream proceeds; and before it all the forms of self-worship must be
swept away. In bringing this out the Apostle makes a most remarkable
statement regarding the Incarnation and the history of our Lord. He
reveals, at the same time, the place in his own mind held by the thought
of Christ coming into the world, and the influence that thought had
exerted on the formation of his character. He bids us recognise in
Christ the supreme exemplification of one who is looking away from his
own things--whose mind is filled, whose action is inspired by concern
for others. This is so at the root of the interposition of Christ to
save us, that the principle becomes imperative and supreme for all
Christ's followers.

We have to consider the facts as they presented themselves to the mind
of Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, that we may estimate the
motive which he conceives them to reveal, and the obligation which is
thus laid upon all who name the name of Christ and take rank among His
followers.

The Apostle, let us first observe, speaks of the Incarnation as that
reveals itself to us, as it offers itself to the contemplation of men.
To involve himself in discussion of inner mysteries concerning the
Divine nature and the human, and the manner of their union, as these are
known to God, is not, and could not, be his object. The mysteries must
be asserted, but much about them is to continue unexplained. He is to
appeal to the impression derivable, as he maintains, from the plainest
statement of the facts which have been delivered to faith. This being
the object in view, determines the cast of his language. It is the
_manner_ of being, the _manner_ of living, the _manner_ of acting
characteristic of Christ at successive stages, which is to occupy our
minds. Hence the Apostle's thought expresses itself in phrases such as
"_form_ of God," "_form_ of a servant," and the like. We are to see one
way of existing succeeding another in the history of Christ.

First, our Lord is recognised as already existing before the beginning
of His earthly history; and in that existence He contemplates and orders
what His course shall be. This is plain; for in the seventh verse He is
spoken of as emptying Himself, and thus assuming the likeness of men.
For the Apostle, then, it was a fixed thing that He who was born in
Nazareth pre-existed in a more glorious nature, and took ours by a
notable condescension. This pre-existence of Christ is the first thing
to consider when we would make clear to ourselves how Christ, being true
man, differs from other men. In this point Paul and John and the writer
to the Hebrews unite their testimony in the most express and emphatic
way; as we hear our Lord Himself also saying, "Before Abraham was, I
am," and speaking of the glory which He had before the world was. But
what manner of existence this was is also set forth. He "existed in the
form of God." The same word "form" recurs presently in the expression
"the form of a servant." It is distinguished from the words "likeness,"
"fashion," which are expressed by other Greek terms.

Frequently we use this word "form" in a way which contrasts it with the
true being, or makes it denote the outward as opposed to the inward. But
according to the usage which prevailed among thinking men when the
Apostle wrote, the expression should not be understood to point to
anything superficial, accidental, superimposed. No doubt it is an
expression which describes the Being by adverting to the attributes
which, as it were, He wore, or was clothed with. But the word carries us
especially to those attributes of the thing described which are
characteristic; by which it is permanently distinguished to the eye or
to the mind; which denote its true nature because they rise out of that
nature; the attributes which, to our minds, express the essence. So
here. He existed, how? In the possession and use of all that pertains to
the Divine nature. His manner of existence was, what? The Divine manner
of existence. The characters through which Divine existence is revealed
were His. He subsisted in the form of God. This was the manner of it,
the glorious "form" which ought to fix and hold our minds.

If any one should suggest that, according to this text, the pre-existent
Christ might be only a creature, though having the Divine attributes and
the Divine mode of life, he would introduce a mass of contradictions
most gratuitously. The Apostle's thought is simply this: For Christ the
mode of existence is first of all Divine; then, by-and-by, a new form
rises into view. Our Lord's existence did not begin (according to the
New Testament writers) when He was born, when He was found in fashion as
a man, sojourning with us. He came to this world from some previous
state. One asks from what state? Before He took the form of man, in what
form of existence was He found? The Apostle answers, In the form of God.

To Him, therefore, with and in the Father, we have learned to ascribe
all wisdom and power, all glory and blessedness, all holiness and all
majesty. Specially, through Him the worlds were made, and in Him they
consist. The fulness, the sufficiency, the essential strength of Godhead
were His. The exercise and manifestation of all these was His form of
being. One might expect, then, that in any process of self-manifestation
to created beings in which it might please Him to go forth, the
expression of His supremacy and transcendence should be written on the
face of it.

The next thought is expressed in the received translation by the words
"thought it no robbery to be equal with God." So truly and properly
Divine was He that equality with God could not appear to Him or be
reckoned by Him as anything else than His own. He counted such equality
no robbery, arrogance, or wrong. To claim it, and all that corresponds
to it, could not appear to Him something assumed without right, but
rather something assumed with the best right. So taken, these words
would complete the Apostle's view of the original Divine pre-eminence of
the Son of God. They would express, so to say, the equity of the
situation, from which all that follows should be estimated. Had it
pleased the Son of God to express only, and to impress on all minds only
His equality with God, this could not have seemed to Him encroachment or
wrong.

I think a good deal can be said for this. But the sense which, on the
whole, is now approved by commentators is that indicated by the Revised
Version. This takes the clause not as still dwelling on the primeval
glory of the Son of God, and what was implied in it, but rather as
beginning to indicate how a new situation arose, pointing out the
dispositions out of which the Incarnation came. "He counted it not a
prize to be on an equality with God." To hold by this was not the great
object with Him. In any steps He might take, in any forthgoings He might
enter on, the Son of God might have aimed at maintaining and disclosing
equality with God. That alternative was open. But this is not what we
see: no holding by that, no solicitude about that appears. His
procedure, His actings reveal nothing of this kind. What we see filling
His heart and fixing His regard, is not what might be due to Himself or
assumed fitly by Himself, but what might bring deliverance and
blessedness to us.[2]

  [2] Various shades of meaning have been proposed. Meyer, whose opinion
  has weight, virtually interprets in this way: He did not reckon equality
  with God (which was His) to imply or to be fitly exercised in
  acquisition, or in accumulation of benefit to Himself: and Hofmann,
  after supporting another view, appears (in his _Hist. Schrift. N. T._)
  to agree with this. To be equal to God, and to put forth power for His
  own enrichment, were for the Son very different things. The one He
  possessed: the other He renounced.

On the contrary, "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,
being made in the likeness of men." In the Incarnation our Lord assumed
the "form" of a servant, or slave: for in the room of the authority of
the Creator, now appears the subjection of the creature. He who gave
form to all things, and Himself set the type of what was highest and
best in the universe, transcending meanwhile all created excellence in
His uncreated glory, now is seen conforming Himself to the type or model
or likeness of one of His creatures, of man. He comes into human
existence as men do, and He continues in it as men do. Yet it is not
said that He is now merely a man, or has become nothing but a man; He is
in the likeness of men and is found in fashion as a man.

In taking this great step the Apostle says "He emptied Himself." The
emptying is perhaps designedly opposed to the thought of accumulation or
self-enrichment conveyed in the phrase "He counted it not a prize."
However this may be, the phrase is in itself a remarkable expression.

It seems most certain, on the one hand, that this cannot import that He
who was with God and was God could renounce His own essential nature and
cease to be Divine. The assertion of a contradiction like this involves
the mind in mere darkness. The notion is excluded by other scriptures;
for He who came on earth among us is Immanuel, God with us: and it is
not required by the passage before us; for the "emptying" can at most
apply to the "form" of God--the exercise and enjoyment of Divine
attributes such as adequately express the Divine nature; and it may,
perhaps, not extend its sense even so far; for the writer significantly
abstains from carrying his thought further than the bare word "He
emptied Himself."

On the other hand, we are to beware of weakening unduly this great
testimony. Certainly it fixes our thoughts on this, at least, that our
Lord, by becoming man, had for His, truly _for His_, the experience of
human limitation, human weakness and impoverishment, human dependence,
human subjection, singularly contrasting with the glory and plenitude of
the form of God. This became His. It was so emphatically real, it became
at the Incarnation so emphatically the form of existence on which He
entered, that it is the thing eminently to be regarded, reverently to
be dwelt upon. This emptiness, instead of that fulness, is to draw and
fix our regard. Instead of the form of God, there rises before us this
true human history, this lowly manhood--and it took place by His
emptying Himself.

Various persons and schools have thought it right to go further. The
word here used has appeared to them to suggest that if the Son of God
did not renounce His Godhead, yet the Divine nature in Him must have
bereaved itself of the Divine attributes, or withheld itself from the
use and exercise of them; so that the all-fulness no longer was at His
disposal. In this line they have gone on to describe or assign the mode
of self-emptying which the Incarnation should imply.

It does not appear to me that one can lay down positions as to the
internal privations of One whose nature is owned to be essentially
Divine, without falling into confusion and darkening counsel. But
perhaps we may do well to cherish the impression that this self-emptying
on the part of the eternal Son of God, for our salvation, involves
realities which we cannot conceive or put in any words. There was more
in this emptying of Himself than we can think or say.

He emptied Himself when He became man. Here we have the eminent example
of a Divine mystery, which, being revealed, remains a mystery never to
be adequately explained, and which yet proves full of meaning and full
of power. The Word was made flesh. He through whom all worlds took
being, was seen in Judæa in the lowliness of that practical historical
manhood. We never can explain this. But if we believe it all things
become new for us: the meaning it proves to have for human history is
inexhaustible.

He emptied Himself, "taking the form of a servant," or bondslave. For
the creature is in absolute subjection alike to God's authority and to
His providence; and so Christ came to be. He entered on a discipline of
subjection and obedience. In particular He was made after the likeness
of men. He was born as other children are; He grew as other children
grow; body and mind took shape for Him under human conditions.

And so He was "found in fashion as a man." Could words express more
strongly how wonderful it is in the Apostle's eyes that _He_ should so
be found? He lived His life and made His mark in the world in human
fashion--His form, His mien, His speech, His acts, His way of life
declared Him man. But being so, He humbled Himself to a strange and
great obedience. Subjection, and in that subjection obedience, is the
part of every creature. But the obedience which Christ was called to
learn was special. A heavy task was laid upon Him. He was made under the
law; and bearing the burden of human sin, He wrought redemption. In
doing so many great interests fell to Him to be cared for; and this was
done by Him, not in the manner of Godhead which speaks and it is done,
but with the pains and labour of a faithful servant. "I have a
commandment," He said, as He faced the Jews, who would have had His
Messianic work otherwise ordered (John xii. 49).

This experience deepened into the final experience of the cross. Death
is the signature of failure and disgrace. Even with sinless creatures it
seems so. Their beauty and their use are past; their worth is measured
and exhausted; they die. More emphatically in a nature like ours, which
aims at fellowship with God and immortality, death is significant this
way, and bears the character of doom. So we are taught to think that
death entered by sin. But the violent and cruel death of crucifixion,
inflicted for the worst crimes, is most significant this way. What it
comprehended for our Lord we cannot measure. We know that He looked
forward to it with the most solemn expectation; and when it came the
experience was overwhelming. Yes, He submitted to the doom and blight of
death, in which death He made atonement and finished transgression. The
Incarnation was the way in which our Lord bound Himself to our woful
fortunes, and carried to us the benefits with which He would enrich us;
and His death was for our sins, endured that we might live. But the
Apostle does not here dwell on the reasons why Christ's obedience must
take this road. It is enough that for reasons concerning our welfare,
and the worthy achievement of the Father's Divine purposes, Christ bowed
Himself to so great lowliness. A dark and sad death--a true obedience
unto death--became the portion of the Son of God. "I am the Living One,
and I was dead." So complete was the self-emptying, the humiliation,
the obedience.

"Therefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the Name that
is above every name." For still we must think of Him as One that has
come down into the region of the creatures, the region in which we are
distinguished by names, and are capable of higher and lower in endless
degrees. God, dealing with Him so situated, acts in a manner rightly
corresponding to this great self-dedication, so as to utter God's mind
upon it. He has set Him on high, and given Him the Name that is above
every name; so that Divine honour shall be rendered to Him by all
creation, and knees bowed in worship to Him everywhere, and all shall
own Him Lord--that is, partaker of Divine Sovereignty. All this is "to
the glory of the Father," seeing that in all this the worthiness and
beauty of God's being and ways come to light with a splendour heretofore
unexampled.

So then, we may say, perhaps, that as in the humiliation He who is God
experienced what it is to be man, now in the exaltation He who is man
experiences what it is to be God.

But the point to dwell on chiefly is this consideration--What is it that
attracts so specially the Father's approbation? What does so is Christ's
great act of self-forgetting love. That satisfies and rests the Divine
mind. Doubtless the Son's pure and perfect character, and the perfection
of His whole service, were on all accounts approved; but specially the
_mind_ of Christ revealed in His self-forgetting devotion. _Therefore_
God has highly exalted Him.

For, in the first place, Christ in this work of His is Himself the
revelation of the Father. All along the Father's heart is seen
disclosed. It was in fellowship with the Father, always delighting in
Him, that the history was entered on; in harmony with Him it was
accomplished. Throughout we have before us not only the mind of the Son,
but the mind of the Father that sent Him.

And then, in the next place, as the Son, sent forth into the world, and
become one of us, and subject to vicissitude, accomplishes His course,
it is fitting for the Father to watch, to approve, and to crown the
service; and He who has so given Himself for God and man must take the
place due to such a "mind" and to such an obedience.

Let us observe it then: what was in God's eye and ought to be in ours,
is not only the dignity of the person, the greatness of the
condescension, the perfection of obedience and patience of endurance,
but, in the heart of all these, _the mind of Christ_. That was the
inspiration of the whole marvellous history, vivifying it throughout.
Christ, indeed, was not One who could so care for us, as to fail in His
regard to any interest of His Father's name or kingdom; nor could He
take any course really unseemly, because unworthy of Himself. But
carrying with Him all that is due to His Father, and all that befits
His Father's Child and Servant, the wonderful thing is how His heart
yearns over men, how His course shapes itself to the necessities of our
case, how all that concerns Himself disappears as He looks on the fallen
race. A worthy deliverance for them, consecrating them to God in the
blessedness of life eternal--this is in His eye, to be reached by Him
through all kinds of lowliness, obedience, and suffering. On this His
heart was set; this gave meaning and character to every step of His
history. This was the mind of the good Shepherd that laid down His life
for the sheep. And this is what completes and consecrates all the
service, and receives the Father's triumphant approbation. This is the
Lamb of God. There never was a Lamb like this.

How all this was and is in the Eternal Son in His Divine nature we
cannot suitably conceive. In some most sublime and perfect manner we own
it to be there. But we can think of it and speak of it as the "mind of
Christ": as it came to light in the Man of Bethlehem, who, amid all the
possibilities of the Incarnation, is seen setting His face so steadily
one way, whose life is all of one piece, and to whom we ascribe GRACE.
"Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." _Therefore_ God has highly
exalted Him, and given Him the Name that is above every name. _This_ is
the right way. _This_ is the right life.

Are we followers of Christ? Are we in touch with His grace? Do we yield
ourselves to His will and way? Do we renounce the melancholy
obstructiveness which sets us at odds with Christ? Do we count it our
wisdom now to come into His school? Then, let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, this lowly, loving mind. _Let it._ Look not
every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Do nothing through strife or vainglory. In lowliness of mind let each
esteem the other better than himself. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and
anger, and envy, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all
malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. If there is
any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of
the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, let this be so. Let
this mind be in you; and find ways of showing it. But, indeed, if it be
in you it will find ways to show itself.

The Church of Christ has not been without likeness to its Lord, and
service to its Lord: yet it has come far short in showing to the world
the mind of Christ. We often "show the Lord's death." But in His death
were the mighty life and the conclusive triumph of Christ's love. Let
the life also of Christ Jesus be manifest in our mortal body.

We see here what the vision of Christ was which opened itself to
Paul,--which, glowing in his heart, sent him through the world, seeking
the profit of many, that they might be saved. This was in his mind, the
wonderful condescension and devotion of the Son of God. "It pleased God
to reveal His Son in me." "God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus." "Ye know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, how that though He was rich yet for our sakes He
became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich." "He loved
me and gave Himself for me." And in various forms and degrees the
manifestation of this same grace has astonished, and conquered, and
inspired all those who have greatly served Christ in the Church in
seeking to do good to men. Let us not separate ourselves from this
fellowship of Christ; let us not be secluded from this mind of Christ.
As we come to Him with our sorrows, and sins, and wants, let us drink
into His mind. Let us sit at His feet and learn of Him.

       *       *       *       *       *

A line of contemplation, hard to follow yet inspiring, opens up in
considering the Incarnation of our Lord as permanent. No day is coming
in which that shall have to be looked upon as gone away into the past.
This is suggestive as to the tie between Creator and creature, as to the
bridge between Infinite and finite, to be evermore found in Him. But it
may suffice here to have indicated the topic.

It is more to the point, in connection with this passage, to call
attention to a lesson for the present day. Of late great emphasis has
been laid by earnest thinkers upon the reality of Christ's human nature.
Anxiety has been felt to do full right to that humanity which the
Gospels set before us so vividly. This has been in many ways a happy
service to the Church. In the hands of divines the humanity of Christ
has sometimes seemed to become shadowy and unreal, through the stress
laid on His proper Godhead; and now men have become anxious to possess
their souls with the human side of things, even perhaps at the cost of
leaving the Divine side untouched. The recoil has carried men quite
naturally into a kind of humanitarianism, sometimes deliberate,
sometimes unconscious. Christ is thought of as the ideal Man, who, just
because He is the ideal Man, is morally indistinguishable from God, and
is in the closest fellowship with God. Yet He grows on the soil of human
nature, He is fundamentally and only human. And this, it is implied, is
enough: it covers all we want. But we see this was not Paul's way of
thinking. The real humanity was necessary for him, because he
desiderated a real incarnation. But the true original Divine nature was
also necessary. For so he discerned the love--the grace, and the gift by
grace; so he felt that the Eternal God had bowed down to bless him in
and by His Son. It makes a great difference to religion when men are
persuaded to forego this faith.




_WORKING AND SHINING._

     "So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my
     presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own
     salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in
     you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. Do all things
     without murmurings and disputings; that ye may be blameless and
     harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked
     and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the
     world, holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to
     glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither
     labour in vain. Yea, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and
     service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all: and in the
     same manner do ye also joy, and rejoice with me."--PHIL. ii. 12-18
     (R.V.).




CHAPTER VIII.

_WORKING AND SHINING._


After his great appeal to the mind of Christ, the Apostle can pursue his
practical object; and he can do so with a certain tranquillity,
confident that the forces he has just set in motion will not fail to do
their work. But yet that same appeal itself has tended to broaden and
deepen the conception of what should be aimed at. He had deprecated the
arrogant and the selfish mind, as these are opposed to lovingkindness
and regard for others. But now, in presence of the great vision of the
Incarnation and obedience of Christ, the deeper note of lowliness must
be struck in fit accord with that of love; not only lowliness in the way
of doing ready honour to others, but deep and adoring lowliness towards
God, such as is due both from creatures and from sinners. For if
Christ's love fulfilled itself in such a perfect humility, how deeply
does it become us to bear towards God in Christ a mind of penitence and
gratitude, of loving awe and wonder, such as shall at the same time for
ever exclude from our bearing towards others both pride and
self-seeking. In this way the one practical object suggested by the
circumstances at Philippi--namely, loving unity--now allies itself
naturally with ideas of complete and harmonious Christian life; and
various views of that life begin to open. But each aspect of it still
proves to be connected with the gracious and gentle mind of Christ, in
the lowly form of that mind which is appropriate for a sinner who is
also a believer.

So then they are to apply themselves to the "calling wherewith they are
called," in a spirit of "fear and trembling." The phrase is a common one
with the Apostle (1 Cor. ii. 3; 2 Cor. vii. 15; Eph. v. 6). He uses it
where he would express a state of mind in which willing reverence is
joined with a certain sensitive anxiety to escape dangerous mistakes and
to perform duty well. And it is fitly called for here, for

1. If lowliness so became the Divine Saviour, who was full of grace,
wisdom, and power, then what shall be the mind of those who in great
guilt and need have found part in the salvation, and who are going
forward to its fulness? What shall be the mind of those who, in this
experience, are looking up to Christ--_looking up to_ lowliness? Surely
not the spirit of strife and vainglory (ver. 3), but of fear and
trembling--the mind that dreads to be presumptuous and arrogant, because
it finds the danger to be still near.

2. The salvation has to be wrought out. It must come to pass in your
case in the line of your own endeavour. Having its power and fulness in
Christ, and bestowed by Him on you, yet this deliverance from distance,
estrangement, darkness, unholiness, is given to believers to be wrought
out: it comes as a right to be realised, and as a power to be exercised,
and as a goal to be attained. Think of this,--you have in hand your own
salvation--great, Divine, and wonderful--to be _wrought out_. Can you go
about it without fear and trembling? Consider what you are--consider
what you believe--consider what you seek--and what a spirit of lowly and
contrite eagerness will pervade your life! This holds so much the more,
because the salvation itself stands so much in likeness to Christ--that
is to say, in a loving lowliness. Let a man think how much is in him
that tends, contrariwise, to self-assertion and self-seeking, and he
will have reason enough to fear and tremble as he lays fresh hold on the
promises, and sets his face to the working out of this his own
salvation.

3. This very working out, from whom does it come? Are you the
explanation and last source of it? What does it mean? Wherever it takes
place, it means that, in a very special sense, God's mighty presence and
power is put forth in us to will and to do. Shall not this thought quell
our petulance? Where is room now for anything but fear and trembling--a
deep anxiety to be lowly, obedient, compliant?

Whether, therefore, we look to the history of the Saviour, or to the
work to which our own life is devoted, or to the power that animates
that work and on which it depends--in all alike we find ourselves
committed to the lowly mind; and in all alike we find ourselves beset
with a wealth of free beneficence, which lays obligation on us to be
self-forgetting and loving. We are come into a wonderful world of
compassionate love. That is the platform on which we stand--the light we
see by--the music that fills our ears--the fragrance that rises on every
side. If we are to live here, there is only one way for it--there is
only one kind of life that _can_ live in this region. And, being, as we
are, alas, so strangely coarse and hard--even if this gospel gladdens
us, there may well thrill through our gladness a very honest and a very
contrite "fear and trembling."

Now all this is by the Apostle persuasively urged upon his Philippian
children (ver. 12): "As ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence
only, but now much more in my absence." For, indeed, it proves easy
comparatively for our human indolence to yield to the spell of some
great and forcible personality when he is present. It is even pleasant
to allow ourselves to be borne on by the tide of his enthusiastic
goodness. And when the Apostle was at Philippi, it might come easier to
many of them to feel the force and scope of their calling in Christ. And
yet now that he was gone, now was the time for them to prove for
themselves, and evince to others, the durable worth of the great
discovery they had made, and the thoroughness of the decision which had
transformed their lives. Now, also, was the time to show Paul himself,
that their "obedience" was of the deep and genuine quality which alone
could give content to him.

Such in general seems to be the scope of these two verses. But one or
two of the points deserve to be considered a little before we go on.

Mark how emphatically the Apostle affirms the great truth, that every
good thing accompanying salvation which comes to pass in Christians is
of the mighty power and grace of God. Therefore Christianity must stand
so much in asking and in thanking. It is God that worketh in you. He
does it, and no other than He; it is His prerogative. He worketh to will
and to do. The inclination of the heart and the purpose of the will are
of Him; and the striving to bring forth into act and deed what has been
so conceived--that also is of Him. He quickens those who were dead in
trespasses and sins; He gives the renewing of the Holy Ghost; He makes
His children perfect, working in them that which is well pleasing in His
sight through Jesus Christ. All this He does in the exercise of His
proper power, in the "exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who
believe"--"according to the working of His mighty power, which wrought
in Christ when He was raised from the dead." Apparently we are to take
it that in the children of God there is the new heart, or new nature, in
respect of which they are new creatures; and also the indwelling of God
by His Spirit; and also the actual working of the same Spirit in all
fruits of righteousness which they bring forth to the glory and praise
of God. And these three are so connected, that regard should be had to
all of them when we contemplate each.

He worketh to will and to do. From Him all godly desires and purposes
proceed--from Him, every passage in our lives in which the "salvation
that is in Christ Jesus" is by us received, put to proof, wrought out
into the transactions of our lives. It must be so, if we will only think
of it. For this "salvation" involves an actual, and in principle a
complete agreement with God, affirmed and embodied in each right
thought, and word, and deed. Whence could this flow but from Himself?

In their statements and explanations about this Christians have
differed. The difference has been mainly on the point, how to make it
clear that men are not dealt with as inert nor as irresponsible; that
they must not hold themselves excused from working on the ground that
God works all. For all agree that men are called to the most serious
earnestness of purpose and the most alert activity of action; but the
theorising of this activity occasions debate. It is from the motive of
trying to make more room for these indispensable elements on the human
side, that modes of statement have been suggested which limit or explain
away the Apostle's statement here. The motive is commendable, but the
method is not commonly successful. All efforts to divide the ground
between God and man go astray. In the inward process of salvation, and
especially in this "willing and doing," God does all, and also man does
all. But God takes precedence. For it is He that quickeneth the dead,
and calleth things that are not as though they were. Here we may say, as
the Apostle does in another case, "This is a great mystery." Let us
recognise it as a mystery bound up with any hope we ourselves have of
proving to be children of God. And under the sense of it, with fear and
trembling let us work, for it is God that worketh in us to will and to
do.

He worketh in us to will. When I trace back any of my actions to the
fountain where it takes its rise _as mine_, I find that fountain in my
will. The materials which I take up into my act, the impressions which
gather together to create a situation for me, may all have their
separate history going back in the order of cause and effect to the
beginning of the world; but that which makes it mine, is that _I will_,
_I choose_, and thereupon I do it. Therefore also it is that I must
answer for it, because it is mine. I willed it, and in willing it I
created something which pertains to me, and to no other; something began
which is mine, and the responsibility for it cleaves only to me. But in
the return to God through Christ, and in the working out of that
salvation, there are acts of mine, most truly mine; and yet in these
another Will, the Will of Him who saves, is most intimately concerned.
He worketh in us to will. It is not an enslaving, but an emancipating
energy. It brings about free action, yet such as fulfils a most gracious
Divine purpose. So these "willings" embody a consent, a union of heart
and mind and will, His and mine, the thought of which is enough to bow
me to the ground with "fear and trembling." This is He who gathereth the
dispersed of Israel into one.

On the other hand, the salvation is to be wrought out by us. To have
faith in the Son of God in exercise and prevalence; to have heart and
life formed to childlike love of God, and to the fulfilment of His will;
to carry this out against the flesh and the world and the devil,--all
this is a great career of endeavour and attainment. It is much to make
the discoveries implied in it: finding out at each stage the meaning of
it, and how it should take shape. It is much to have the heart brought
to beat true to it, to love it, consent to it, be set upon it. It is
much to embody it in faithful and successful practice in the rough
school of life, with its actual collision and conflict. Now the nature
and working of God's grace at each stage is of this kind, that it
operates in three ways at least. It operates as a _call_, an effectual
call, setting a man on to arise and go. It operates also in a way of
instruction, setting us to learn lessons, _teaching_ us how to live, as
it is said in Titus ii. 11, 12. And it operates as a _power_, as help in
time of need. He that sits still at the call--he that will not be
considerate to learn the lesson--he that will not cast himself on the
strength perfected in weakness, that he may fulfil and do the Father's
will--he is a man who despises and denies the grace of God.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now what has been said of the believer's relation to the saving God,
prepares the way for referring to his office towards the world. Here the
moral and practical theme which is in the Apostle's mind all through
proves again to be in place: the lowly and loving mind will best
discharge that office towards the world, which the arrogant and
distempered mind would hinder. "Do all things without murmurings and
disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless."

A murmuring and disputatious temper--murmuring at what displeases us,
and multiplying debate about it--is simply one form of the spirit which
Paul deprecates all through this context. It is the sign of the
disposition to value unduly one's own ease, one's own will, one's own
opinion, one's own party, and to lie at the catch for opportunities to
bring that feeling into evidence. Now observe the harm which the Apostle
anticipates. It is your office to serve God by making a right impression
on the world. How shall that come to pass? Chiefly, or at least
primarily, the Apostle seems to say, by the absence of evil. At least,
that is the most general and the safest notion of it, with which to
begin. Some, no doubt, make impressions by their eloquence, or by their
wisdom, or by their enterprising and successful benevolence--though all
these have dangers and drawbacks attending them, in so far as the very
energy of action provides a shelter for unperceived self-will. Still,
let them have their place and their praise. But here is the line that
might suit all. A man whose life stands clear of the world's
deformities, under the influence of a light and a love from which the
world is estranged, gradually makes an impression.

Now murmuring and disputing are precisely adapted to hinder this
impression. And sometimes they hinder it in the case of people of high
excellence--people who have much sound and strong principle, who have
large benevolence, who are capable of making remarkable sacrifices to
duty when they see it. Yet this vice, perhaps a surface vice, of
murmuring and disputing, is so suggestive of a man's self being
uppermost, it so unpleasantly forces itself in as the interpretation of
the man, that his real goodness is little accounted of. At all events,
the peculiar purity of the Christian character--its blamelessness and
harmlessness, its innocence--does not in his case come to light. People
say: "Ah, he is one of the mixed ones, like ourselves. Christian
devoutness suits some people: they are sincere enough in it very likely;
but it leaves them, after all, pretty much as it found them."

I say no more about murmuring and disputing as these reveal themselves
in our relations to others. But the same spirit, and attended in its
operations with the same evil effects, may manifest itself in other
ways besides that of unkindness to men. As frequently, perhaps, it may
show itself in our behaviour towards God; and in that case it interferes
at least as seriously with the shining of our light in the world.

Just as in the camp of Israel of old on many memorable occasions there
arose a murmuring of the people against God, when His ways crossed their
will, or seemed dark to their wisdom; just as, on such occasions, there
broke out among the people the expression of doubt, dislike, and
disputation, and they criticised those Divine dealings which should have
been received with trust and lowliness,--so is it also, many a time, in
the little world within us. There are such and such duties to be
discharged and such and such trials to be encountered--or else a general
course of duty is to be pursued under certain discouragements and
perplexities. And, you submit, you do these things. But you do them with
murmuring and disputing in your heart. Why should it be thus? "How is it
fit," you say, "that such perplexities or such burdens should be
appointed? Is it not reasonable, all things considered, that I should
have more indulgence and greater facilities; or, at least, that I should
be excused from this conflict and this burden-bearing for the present?"
Meanwhile our conscience is satisfied because we have not rebelled in
practice; and it takes no strict account of the fretfulness which marred
our act, or the grumbling which well-nigh withheld us from compliance.
You are called, perhaps, to speak to some erring friend, or you have to
go on a message of mercy to some one in affliction. Indolently you
postpone it; and your heart begins to stretch out its arms and to cling
to the careless temper it has begun to indulge. At last conscience
stirs, conscience is up, and you have to do something. But what you do
is done grudgingly, with a heart that is murmuring and disputing. Again,
you are called to deny yourself some worldly pleasure; in Christian
consistency you have to hold back from some form of dissipation; or you
have to take up a position of singularity and separation from other
people. Reluctantly, you comply; only "murmuring and disputing." Now
this inward temper may never come to any man's knowledge, but shall we
suppose it does not tell on the character and the influence of the life?
Can you, in that temper, play your part with the childlike, the
cheerful, the dignified bearing, with the resemblance to Christ in your
action, which God calls for? You cannot. The duty as to the husk and
shell of it may be done; but there can be little radiation of Christ's
likeness in the doing of it.

Notice the Apostle's conception of the function which believers are to
discharge in the world. They are set in the midst of a crooked and
perverse nation. These words were applied to the children of Israel of
old on account of the stubborn insubordination with which they dealt
with God; and they were applicable, for the same reason, to the
Gentiles, among whom the gospel had come, but who had not bowed to it.
Judged by the high and true standard, these Gentiles were crooked and
perverse in their ways with one another, and still more so in their ways
with God. Among them the Christians were to show what Christianity was,
and what it could do. In the Christians was to appear, embodied, the
testimony proposed to the crooked and perverse nation, a testimony
against its perverseness, and yet revealing a remedy for it. In the
persons of men, themselves originally crooked and perverse, this was to
become plain and legible. Now how? Why, by their being blameless and
harmless, the sons of God without rebuke.

It has been remarked already that the special way in which we are to
manifest to the world the light of Christianity is here represented as
the way of blamelessness. That man aright represents the mind of Christ
to the world, who in the world keeps himself unspotted from the
world,--in whom men recognise a character that traces up to a purer
source elsewhere. As years pass, as cross lights fall upon the life,
even in its most common and private workings, if it still proves that
the man is cleansed by the faith he holds, if the unruly working of
interest, and passion, and will, give way in him to motives of a higher
strain, men will be impressed. They will own that here is something rare
and high, and that some uncommon cause is at the bottom of it. For the
world knows well that even the better sort of men have their weaker
side, often plainly enough revealed by the trials of time. Therefore
steadfast purity makes, at last, a deep impression.

Innocence indeed is not the whole duty of a Christian; active virtue is
required as well. The harmlessness called for is not a mere negative
quality--it is supposed to be exhibited in an active life which strives
to put on Christ Jesus. But the Apostle seems to lay stress especially
on a certain quiet consistency, on a lowly and loving regard to the
whole standard, which gives evenness and worthiness to the life. If you
will do a Christian's office to the "perverse nation," you have to seek
that they may have nothing against you except concerning the law of your
God; you have to seek that your reproach may be exclusively the reproach
of Christ: so that if at any time the malice of men seeks to misconstrue
your actions, and lays to your charge things which you know not, your
well-doing may silence them; and having no evil thing to say of you,
they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in
Christ.

Strong appeals are made in our day to members of the Christian Church to
engage actively in all kinds of Christian work. They are summoned to go
forth aggressively upon the world's misery and sin. This has become a
characteristic note of our time. Such appeals were needed. It is a shame
that so many Christians have absolved themselves from the obligation to
place at their Lord's service the aptitudes and the energies with which
He has endowed them. Yet in this wholesale administration diversities
are apt to be overlooked. Christians may be undervalued who do not
possess qualities fitting them for the special activities; or,
attempting these without much aptitude, and finding little success, they
may be unduly cast down. It is important to lay stress on this. There
are some, perhaps we should say many, who must come to the conclusion,
if they judge aright, that their gifts and opportunities indicate for
them, as their sphere, a somewhat narrow round of duties, mostly of that
ordinary type which the common experience of human life supplies. But if
they bring into these a Christian heart; if they use the opportunities
they have; if they are watchful to please their Lord in the life of the
family, the workshop, the market; if the purifying influence of the
faith by which they live comes to light in the steady excellence of
their character and course,--then they need have no sense of exclusion
from the work of Christ and of His Church. They, too, do missionary
work. Blameless, harmless, unrebuked, they are seen as lights in the
world. They contribute, in the manner that is most essential of all, to
the Church's office in the world. And their place of honour and reward
shall be far above that of many a Christian busybody, who is too much
occupied abroad to keep the light clear and bright at home.

Blameless, then, harmless, unaspersed, must the children of God, His
redeemed children, be. So will the light of Christian character come
clearly out, and Christians will be "luminaries, holding forth the word
of life."

The word of life is the message of salvation as it sets forth to us
Christ, and goodness and blessedness by Him. Substantially it is that
teaching which we have in the Scriptures; although, when Paul wrote, the
New Testament was not yet a treasure of the Churches, and the "word of
life" only echoed to and fro from teacher to taught, and from one
disciple to another. Still, the teaching rested on the Old Testament
Scriptures understood in the light of the testimony of Jesus; and it was
controlled and guided by men speaking and writing in the Spirit. What it
was therefore was very well known, and the influence of it as the seed
of life eternal was felt. It was for Christians to _hold by it_, and to
_hold it out_,--the expression used in ver. 16 may have either meaning;
and virtually both senses are here. In order to give light there must be
life. And Christian life depends on having in us the word, quick and
powerful, which is to dwell in us richly in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding. This must be the secret of blameless Christian lives; and
so those who have this character will give light, as holding forth the
word of life. The man's visible character itself does this. For while
the word and message of life is to be owned, professed, in fit times
proclaimed, yet the embodiment of it in the man is the main point here,
the character being formed and the practice determined by the "word"
believed. So also we are said to live by the faith of the Son of God.
The life of faith on Him, is the life of having and holding forth His
word.

Here, as everywhere, our Lord goes first. The Apostle John, speaking in
his Gospel of the Eternal Word, tells us that in Him was life, and the
life was the light of men. It was not merely a doctrine of light; the
life was the light. As He lived, in His whole being, in His acting and
suffering, in His coming and staying and departing, in His Person and in
His discharge of every office, He manifested the Father. Still we find
it so; as we contemplate Him, as His words leads us to Himself, we
behold the glory, the radiance of grace and truth.

Now His people are made like Him. They too, through the word of life,
become partakers of true life. This life does not dwell in them as it
does in their Lord, for He is its original seat and source; hence they
are not the light of the world in the same sense in which He is so.
Still they are luminaries, they are stars in the world. By manifesting
the genuine influence of the word of life which dwells in them, they do
make manifest in the world what truth and purity and salvation are. This
is their calling; and, in a measure, it is their attainment.

The view of the matter given here may be compared with that in 2 Cor.
iii. 4. Christ, the Father's Word, may also be regarded as the Father's
living Epistle. Then those who behold Him, and drink in the significance
of this message, are also themselves, in their turn, Epistles of
Christ, known and read of all men.

So to shine is the calling of all believers, not of some only; each,
according to his opportunities, may and ought to fulfil it. God designs
to be glorified, and to have His salvation justified, in this form.
Christ has said, in the plainest terms, "Ye are the light of the world."
But to be so implies separateness from the world, in root and in fruits;
and that is for many a hard saying. "Ye are a holy nation, a peculiar
people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who called you out
of darkness into His marvellous light."

In the sixteenth and following verses comes in again Paul's own share in
the progress and victory of the Christian life in his friends. "It would
be exceeding well," he seems to say, "for you; how well, you may gather
partly from learning how well it would be for me." He would have cause
to "rejoice in the day of Christ" that he had "not run in vain, neither
laboured in vain." What might be said on this has been anticipated in
the remarks made on ch. i., ver. 20 fol. But here the Apostle is
thinking of something more than the toil

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