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ST PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS
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PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
LESSONS IN FAITH AND LOVE FROM
ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS
H. C. G. MOULE, D.D.
PRINCIPAL OF RIDLEY HALL AND FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE
"Let US pray to God, that we may speak, think, believe, live, and depart
hence, according to the wholesome doctrine and verities of His IVord."
The Homilies, i. i.
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
1898
Printed by Hasell, IVatson, <§• Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
TO THE
REV. G. A. SCHNEIDER, M.A,
VICE-PRINCIPAL OF RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE,
THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED
IN TOKEN OF WARM FRIENDSHIP
AND WITH A GRATEFUL SENSE OF THE BENEFIT
OF HIS INVALUABLE CO-OPERATION
"Thou the Way art, Thou the Prize
That beyond the journey lies ;
Thou the Truth art, Thou the Guide,
Gone before, yet at our side ;
Everlasting life below
It is truly Thee to know:
Such to Thy saints wast Thou of yore ;
Unchangeable Thou art, and shalt be evermore."
MONSELL.
PREFACE
THE plan and purpose of the following
pages will be soon evident to the reader.
The whole aim is towards edification. What
is said in the way of historical introduction,
what is done in the course of the chapters in
the way of rendering and grammatical explana-
tion, all has this aim in view. The Epistle
is handled throughout with the firm belief that
it is an Oracle of God, while that Oracle is
conveyed through the mind and heart of one
of the greatest of the sons of men ; and the
Expositor's aim accordingly is always, and
above all things, to expound. To put it other-
wise, his highest ambition is to call attention
to the sacred text, and let it speak.
May the Lord of the Apostle, of the
Philippians, of ourselves, only grant that His
Vlll PREFACE
mercy may rest upon this poor contribution
to the exegesis of His inexhaustible Word.
May it be permitted to throw a quiet light
upon some of the treasures of this apostolic
casket, to the help, in any measures, of the
disciples of our day. Then will the Expositor
indeed give thanks to the Master at whose
feet he lays his work.
Ridley Hall, Cambridge.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY ....
PAGE
3
CHAPTER H
THE INTIMACY OF HUMAN HEARTS IN CHRIST . . 25
(PHIL, 1, I-II.)
CHAPTER HI
THE apostle's POSITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES . . 43
(PHIL. i. 12-20.^
CHAPTER IV
THE christian's PEACE AND THE CHRISTIAN'S CON-
SISTENCY 65
(PHIL. i. 21-30.)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
PAGE
UNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS : THE EXAMPLE OF
THE LORD ........ 87
(PHIL. ii. I-II.)
CHAPTER VI
THE lord's power IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE . . lOg
(PHIL. 11 12-lJS.)
CHAPTER VII
TIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS ..... 131
(PHIL. ii. 19-30.)
CHAPTER VIII
JOY IN THE LORD AND ITS PRESERVING INFLUENCE .
"that I MAY KNOW HIM " ..... 153
(PHIL, iii I-II.)
CHAPTER IX
CHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. . 1 75
(PHIL. iii. 12-16.)
CONTENTS XI
CHAPTER X
PAGE
THE BLESSED HOPE AND ITS POWER .... I97
(PHIL. iii. 17-21.)
CHAPTER XI
PURITY AND PEACE IN THE PRESENT LORD . . 219
(PHIL, iv 1-9.)
CHAPTER XII
THE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL : THE FAREWELL , 243
(PHIL iv. 10-23.)
" Holy Scripture is the Letter of God Almighty to His creatures ;
learn God's heart in God's Words."
Gregory the Great, Epist., iv. 31.
INTR on UCTOR Y
O Gracious God and most mercifull Father, which hast vouchsafed
us the rich and precious iewell of thy holy worde, assist us with
thy Spirit, that it may be written in our hearts to our euerlasting
comfort, to reforme us, to renew us according to thine owne image,
to build us up, and edifie us into the perfect building of thy Christ,
sanctifying and increasing in us all heauenly vertues. Graunt this
O heauenly Father, for lesus Christes sake. Amen.
From the Geneva Bible, 1557.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
THE Epistle of St Paul to the Philippians
is, to careful and loving Bible-students,
one of the fairest and dearest regions of the
Book of God. It is true that the Christian
who genuinely believes that "every Scripture
is God-inspired " (2 Tim. iii, 16), and who
realizes that the "Divine Library" is never-
theless, and from a higher point of view. One
Book all through, will be always on the guard
against a mistaken favouritism in his Scripture
studies. He will strive to make himself in
some sense familiar with the whole Book, as
a whole, and to recognize in all its parts the
true Author's hand and purpose. Yet it is
inevitable that in this supreme Book, as in
other books, though all parts are " co-operant
to an end," all parts are not equally important
3
PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
for the deepest needs of the reader. The
reader therefore will have to be more familiar
with some parts than with others. Acquaint-
ance with the whole will indeed deepen insight
into the part. But it will not supersede our
study, loving and special, of the part which,
in a degree and manner peculiar to itself, " is
able to make us wise unto salvation, through
faith which is in Christ Jesus."
The present simple Studies in the Philippian
Epistle will accordingly be pursued with the
desire to remember as we go the whole scrip-
tural revelation of God and salvation. But
we shall also approach the Epistle as a pecu-
liarly precious Scripture in itself, containing in
its few short pages a rare fulness of messages
and teachings, meeting the inmost wants of
the heart and the life.
Amongst the Epistles of St Paul Philippians
shines out with singular light and beauty. In
such a comparison we scarcely need consider
the great Epistles to Rome and Corinth ; their
large scale and wide variety of topics set them
apart. Nor need we consider Hebrews, with
its difficult problem of authorship. Looking
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPISTLE 5
at the other Epistles, each with its own divine
and also deeply human characteristics, we find
Philippians more peaceful than Galatians, more
personal and affectionate than Ephesians, less
anxiously controversial than Colossians, more
deliberate and symmetrical than Thessalonians,
and of course larger in its applications than
the personal messages to Timothy, Titus, and
Philemon. Meanwhile it is as comprehensive
almost as it is brief. It presents more than
one important passage of doctrine, some of
these passages being revelations of the first
order. It is full of pregnant ^irec^epts for
Christian character and conduct, whether seen
in the individual or in the community. It
discloses in a way ot the utmost interest and
significance the circumstances and experiences
of the writer, and also, in a measure, of the
readers. And the whole is suffused with a
singularly sweet light of "joy and peace in
believing." It is written by one who was, as
he wrote, at once resting and moving in the
peace of God which passes understanding, and
in the love of Christ which passes knowledge ;
and what is felt in his soul comes out inevitably
PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
on his page. The letter, written in a prison,
and addressed to a mission-church always
exposed to insult and assault, yet seems in
a wonderful way to call us " apart, to rest
awhile." "A glory gilds the sacred page," the
glory of the presence of the Lord in all His
majesty of Godhead and nearness of Manhood ;
in His finished work, and living power, and
wonderful coming again. A peculiar sort ot
joy, which is impossible without at least the
experience, if not the presence, of sorrow,
rests and shines over the whole. It is the
joy of the heart which has found at length
" the secret of the Lord," His hiding-place
from the tyranny of circumstances and time ;
the way how always to be of good cheer,
naturally yet also supernaturally, not by a
hard-won indifference to life, but by living,
amidst everything external, " hidden with
Christ in God."
Let us approach the beloved pages once
again. They can never wear out ; there will
always prove to be " more to follow." Perhaps
we have loved and pondered them for long
years ourselves. Perhaps we have heard them
THE BIBLE IS EVER YOUNG
expounded by voices silent now, " in days that
never come again," in chambers or in churches
which we seem still to see, but which in fact
have passed from us very far away. The
heart is full and the eyes are wet as we look
back. But the melancholy of the past has
no permanent place in Bible-study. The
Book is divine, immortal, and ever young.
He who was in it tor our fathers is in it for
us. And since He is in it, as He is in no
other literature in the world, (because no other
literature is His Word Written,) therefore it
springs up to us ever new ; it is always con-
temporary with every generation of believers.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus, and let us meet
Thee in Thy Scripture now again.
A very simple " Introduction " will suffice
for our present purposes. These chapters
make no pretension to be, in the technical
sense, critical. I say next to nothing, for
example, about the Authenticity and Genuine-
ness of the Epistle. Let me only remind
the reader that from the early dawn of the
literature of the Church we have unmistakable
8 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
testimonies to its existence as an apostolic
Scripture. Ignatius and Polycarp, quite early
in the second century, shew us that they have
read it. A little later, in the " Epistle of the
Churches of Lyons and Vienne " (a.d. 177),^
it is quoted. Clement of Alexandria, and
Irenseus, and Tertullian, all in the second
century, use it as "the sword of the Spirit"
to assert truth and confute error. So it floats
down into the broad stream of the patristic
literature at large. Not till the rise of an
ultra-sceptical criticism in quite modern times
was Philippians ever seriously questioned as
the work, in its integrity, of St Paul. And
Baur's objections, all due to an a priori theory,
not to an impartial literary enquiry, have been
repudiated even by critics even less orthodox
than himself: Renan, for example. It is quite
as certain, in a literary sense, that in Philippians
we have the very words and heart of St Paul
as that we have Addison in the papers signed
C. in the Spectator, or Erasmus in the
correspondence with Colet.
And what a thought of strength and joy
1 Preserved by Eusebius, Hist. EccL, ii.
LITTERA SCRIPTA MANET
this is to the believer of our latter day!
Littera scripta manet. How impressive is
the permanence of every written reflexion of
the mind, and of the life ! Who has not felt
it, even in the reading of a private letter to
himself, written years and years ago ? We
have St Paul speaking to us in this indelible
page as really as if we were seated with him
in " his own hired house," and were listenins'
as he dictates to the friend beside him. And
as we recollect this, we reflect that all he is
saying, all he has thus left written, is just
so much testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ,
contemporary, direct, inspired. When the
words we are about to read were written,
scarcely thirty years had passed away since
the Son of Man died outside the gate of
Jerusalem, and rose again. Perhaps my reader
cannot look back over thirty years, perhaps
not over twenty, with conscious memory. But
I can ; and beyond the thirty I can see a
long vista of the still earlier past. Thirty
years ago ^ ; — at that time the great conflict
between Austria and Prussia was preparing,
' Written early in i{
lO PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
the issue of which was so long a step towards
the unification of Germany. I was then a
master in a public school. The discussions
of the impending war in our common-room,
and the men who joined in them, are very
present still to my mind ; certainly not the
faintest haze of mythical change or dispro-
portion has had time to gather over those
scenes in the interval. With some differences,
no doubt, the world of this day is yet essen-
tially the same as the world of that day ; I
certainly still, in my whole personal conscious-
ness, am the man of that day, only somewhat
developed in experience. Well, what the date
ot the battle of Sadowa (Koniggratz) is to
me, such was the date of the Crucifixion to
St Paul, when he wrote from Rome to his
dear converts at Philippi. And I venture to
say that, while St Paul's tone about the Lord
of Calvary is of course immeasurably different
in the highest respects from what mine might
be had I to speak of the makers of European
history of 1866, it is in one respect just the
same. It is as completely free from the tone
of legend unreality, uncertainty. With the
THIS SAME JESUS II
same entire consciousness of matter of fact
with which I might write of the statesmen or
generals of my early manhood, he writes of
One who, in his early manhood, overcame
death by death, and " shewed Himself
alive after His passion by many infallible
proofs."
Only, there is this wonderful difference ; that
for St Paul the Jesus Christ of recent history
is absolutely One with the Jesus Christ of
his present spiritual experience. The Man of
the Cross is also, for him, the Lord who is
exalted to the throne ot heaven, and is also
so related to the writer that Paul is "in Christ
Jesus," with a proximity and union which
enters into everything. "In Him" are in-
cluded the very actions of the disciple's mind
and the experiences of his heart. He is the
Lord who lives in the inmost being of His
servant, and who yet is also expected to
return from the heavens, to transfigure the
servant's very body into glory. The Christ of
history, the Christ of the soul — it was " this
same Jesus" then; it is "this same Jesus"
now.
12 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
" Can length of years on God Himself exact,
Or make that fiction which was once a fact?
Fix'd in the rolling flood of endless years
The pillar of the eternal plan appears ;
The raging storm and dashing wave defies,
Built by that Architect who built the skies." ^
For me and for my reader may the two
aspects of "this same Jesus," the historical
and the spiritual, ever combine in one mighty
harmony of certainty ; faith's resting-place to
the end, " the rock of our heart, and our
portion for ever " ; at once our peace and our
power, in life and in death, and through the
eternal day also, in which we shall need Him
still in the experiences of heaven.
What shall we say of the place to which
the Epistle was sent, and of that from which it
was written ; and of the writer, the bearer, the
readers ; and of the occasion and the time ?
Philippi now, so travellers tell us, is a scene
of beautiful and silent ruin. Near the head
of the fair Archipelago, amidst scenery of
exquisite beauty, near the range of Pangaeus,
now Pirnari, on the banks of the quiet Gangas,
^ Cowper, Conversation.
PHILIPPI 13
lie the relics of the once busy city, visited
only by the herdsman and the explorer. By
it or through it ran a great road from West
to East, called by the Romans the Egnatian
Way. The double battle of Philippi, B.C. 42,
when the Oligarchy fell finally before the rising
Empire, made the plain famous. Augustus
planted a colonia in the town. It thus became
a miniature Rome, as every " colony " was. It
had its pair of petty consuls {duumviri ; the
(TTpaTrjyoL of Acts xvi. 20) and their lictors
(A.V. " Serjeants," pafiSovxot). And it faith-
fully reproduced Roman pride in the spirit of
its military settlers. It had its Jewish element,
as almost every place then had ; but the Jews
must have been few and despised ; their place
of worship was but a " prayer-house" {irpocrevxv)'
outside the walls, on the river's bank (Acts
xvi. 13). We need not recount in detail the
history of the first evangelization (a.d. 52) of
the difficult place. We recollect sufficiently
the address to the pious Jewesses and prose-
lyte-women in the "prayer-house"; the con-
version and baptism of Lydia ; the rescue of
the poor girl possessed with the "spirit of
14 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Pytho " ; the tumult, and the trial before the
duumvirs ; the scourge, the inner prison,
the hymn at midnight, the earthquake, and
the salvation of the jailor's life and soul ; the
message sent through the lictors in the morn-
ing, then the respectful approach of the
magistrates themselves, and the retirement of
the Missionaries "to another city," along the
Egnatian road. It is enough now to remember,
what the very existence of the Epistle reveals
to us, the growth and life of the little mission-
church planted amidst such storms, and in a
climate, so to speak, full of possible tempests
at any hour. In the Epistle, we arrive at a
date some nine years later than the first visit
of St Paul. Twice during that period, and
perhaps only twice, we find him at Philipp'
again; late in a.d. 57 (Acts xx. i) and early
(it was the sweet spring, the Passover time)
in A.D. 58 ; this last may have been a visit
arranged on purpose (in Lightfoot's words :
Philippians, p. 60) " that he might keep the
Paschal feast with his beloved converts." No
doubt, besides these personal visits, Philippi
was kept in contact with its Missionary
HOW THE MISSION CHURCH HAD GROWN 1 5
between a.d. 52 and a.d. 61 by messages and
by the occasional visits ot the Apostle's faithful
helpers. But on the whole the Church would
seem in a very large degree to have been left
to its own charge. And what do we find as
the issue when we come to the Epistle ? A
community large enough to need a sta^ of
Christian ministers, " bishops and deacons,"
" overseers and working-helpers " {iiTLo-KOTTOL
Kol SLaKopoi) ; full of love and good works ;
affectionately mindful of St Paul in the way of
practical assistance ; and apparently shewing,
as their almost only visible defect or danger, a
tendency to separate somewhat into sections
or cliques — a trouble which in itself indicates a
considerable society. If we may (as we may,
looking at the ordinary facts of human nature)
at all estimate the calibre of Philippian Chris-
tianity by the tone in which the Apostle ad-
dresses the Philippians, we gather that on the
whole it was a high tone, at once decided and
tender, affectionate and mature. The converts
were capable of responding to a deep doctrinal
teaching, and also to the simplest appeals of
love. Such was the triumph of the mysterious
1 6 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Gospel over place, and circumstance, and
character ; the lily flowered at its fairest among
the thorns ; grace shone and triumphed in the
immediate presence of its " adversaries."
But the evil we indicated just above was
present in the otherwise happy scene. When
Epaphroditus crossed the mountains and the
sea to carry a generous gift of money to
St Paul, risking his life (ii. 27) somehow by
dangerous sickness in the effort, he had to
carry also news of differences and heart-burn-
ings, which could not but cloud the Apostle's
loving joy. The envoy found it needful to
speak also of the emissaries ot error who at
Philippi, as everywhere, were troubling the
faith and hope of the believers ; " turning the
grace of God into lasciviousness " ; professing
a lofty spirituality, and worshipping their appe-
tites all the while. And side by side with
them, apparently, might be found Pharisaic
disputants of an older type (iii. 3, 18, etc.).
Such was the report with which Epaphroditus
found his way from Macedonia to Rome.
Where, in Rome, did he find St Paul, and
at what stage of his Roman residence ? Our
WHERE WAS THE EPISTLE WRITTEN ? 1 7
answer must begin with affirming the convic-
tion that it was to Rome, not elsewhere, that
Epaphroditus went. The reader is aware that
the Epistle itself names no place of origin ; it
only alludes to a scene of imprisonment. And
this does not of itself decide the locality ; for
at Csesarea Stratonis, in Palestine, as well as
at Rome, St Paul spent two years in captivity
(Acts xxiv. 27). Some modern critics have
favoured the date from Csesarea accordingly.
They have noticed e.g. the verbal coincidence
between Herod's pr^storium (A.V. "judgment-
hall ") of Acts xxiii. 35, and the pratorimn
(A.V. "palace") of Phil. i. 13. But Light-
foot^ seems to me right in his decisive rejection
of this theory and unshaken adherence to the
date from Rome. He remarks that the oldest
Church tradition is all for Rome ; that the
Epistle itself evidently refers to its place of
origin as to a place of first-rate importance and
extent, in which any advance of the Gospel
was a memorable and pregnant event ; and
that the allusion to " Csesar's household "
* Philippians (ed. i.), p. 30, note.
2
PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
(though it is not so quite decisive as it might
at first sight appear to be) " cannot without
much straining of language and facts be made
to apply to Csesarea."
If now the Epistle was written from Rome,
during the " two whole years " of Acts xxviii. 30,
at what point in that period may we think
that the writing fell ? Here again is a prob-
lem over which much thought and labour
has been spent. A majority of opinions no
doubt is in favour of a date towards the
end ot the imprisonment, so that Philippians
would follow after Colossians and Ephesians.
It is held that (i) the tone of the Epistle
betokens the approach of a closing crisis for
St Paul ; and that (2) it seems to indicate an
already developed Christian mission work at
Rome, as if St Paul had worked there some
while ; and that (3) Epaphroditus' visit cannot
be adjusted with any probability if we do not
allow a good time for previous communications
between Rome and Philippi. But here again
Lightfoot's view commends itself to my mind
decisively. He holds that Philippians was
the £rst of the " Epistles of the Captivity,"
WHEN WAS THE EPISTLE WRITTEN .'* 1 9
and was written perhaps within the first few
months of the " two whole years." Two of
his reasons seem adequate of themselves to
make this likely. The first is, that St Paul's
allusion to the profound impression made on the
Roman Christians by his " bonds in Christ "
(i. 13, 14) goes well with the hypothesis of his
recent arrival as a prisoner for Christ's sake,
but not with that of his having been long
present on the scene. The other is that the
great doctrinal passage (iii. 4-9), where he
repudiates " his own righteousness " and com-
mits himself to " the righteousness which is of
God by faith," is evidently akin to the group
of Epistles to which Romans belongs ; and
that it seems more likely that the divine
Inspirer, in His order of revelation, led His
servant so to write while the occasion for
the writing of Romans was still comparatively
recent, than long after, when the different
(though kindred) sides of saving truth dealt
with in Ephesians and Colossians had become
prominent in his teaching. With reason, I
think, Lightfoot " cannot attach any weight "
to the argument from Epaphroditus' visit,
20 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
which may well have been planned at Philippi
before St Paul actually reached Rome, and
planned thus early on purpose, so as to reach
him promptly there with the collected gifts
of love. Nor are the allusions to a prob-
able impending crisis in the trial before the
Emperor important for the date ; for quite
early in the imprisonment it may well have
seemed likely that the case would be soon
decided. As for the comparatively advanced
state of Roman Christianity, the Epistle to the
Romans is evidence enough that a vigorous
and extensive mission-church, however it was
founded, existed at Rome some years before
St Paul arrived.
I will venture then to take it for granted
that it was some time in a.d. 6i, or at latest
early in a.d. 62, that Epaphroditus came, with
his collection and his reports, and struggled
through his illness, and then prepared to return
to Macedonia, carrying this precious Letter
with him. We seem to see the scene as he
converses day by day with St Paul, and as at
length he takes his leave, in charge of this
Message of " faith and love." We see a large
"the word ENDURETH 2]
chamber in one of those huge piles of building,
storey over storey, of which imperial Rome
was full. The window looks perhaps north-
westward, up the stream of the Tiber, towards
the distant hills of which Soracte is the most
prominent. The sentinel, perhaps himself a
convert to the Lord, sits motionless at a
little distance, chained to the Apostle. The
saints pray, converse, and embrace ; and then
Epaphroditus descends to set out for Ostia,
or for Puteoli, on his way home to Philippi.
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but
the Word of the Lord endureth for ever."
The graves of the blessed ones who worked
for the heavenly Master then are more than
eighteen centuries old now. But the Letter
to Philippi is to-day as new as ever. It is
addressed to us, that we too may " believe,
unto life everlasting," on " that same Jesus."
"Man, like the grass ol morning,
Droops ere the evening hour;
His goodliness and beauty
Fade as a fading flower;
But who may shake the pillars
Of God's unchanging Word ?
Amen, Himself hath spoken ;
Amen, — thus saith the Lord.
Bishop E. H. Bickersteth,
THE INTIMACY OF HUMAN HEARTS IN
CHRIST
23
" I LEARNED without bookc almost all Paules Epistles, yea and I
weene all the Canonicall Epistles, save only the Apocalyps. Of
which study, although in time a great part did depart from me, yet
the sweete smell thereof I trust I shall cary with me into heaven."
Bishop Ridley, 1555.
CHAPTER II
THE INTIMACY OF HUMAN HEARTS IN CHRIST
Philippians i. i-ii
LET US begin our verbal study ot the
Letter which Epaphroditus carried to
Philippi. We attempt first a translation of
its first main section, interspersed with an ex-
planatory paraphrase. This will be followed
by a brief meditation upon one of the main
" Lessons in Faith and Love " suggested by
the section.
Ver. I. Paul and Timotheus, bondservants of Christ
Jesus, to all the holy ones in union with Christ Jesus
who are living at Philippi, Overseers, Workers, and all.^
* 2vv eTTia-KOTTois Koi bioKovois. I render the words as literally
as possible, not to discredit the distinctive functions of the
Christian ministry, but to remind the reader of the natural
origin of the titles by which Christian ministers are desig-
nated. And it is important here to remember that our word
bisho;p, while derived from eVi'o-KOTroy, cannot properly translate
25
26 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Ver. 2. Grace to yau, and peace — all the free favour
of acceptance and of divine presence, and all the
repose which it brings, within you and around you^
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Vers. 3, 4. I give thanks to my God (He is mine, as I
am His) over my whole memory of you; always in
each request of mine on behalf of you all forming and
expressing {nroiovfievo'i^) that {ti]v) request with joy;
Ver. 5. on account of your participation with me in
regard of the Gospel, your active co-operation with
me, by prayer, by work, by gifts, in the Gospel work,
Ver. 6. from the first day up to this present. For
(the thought of your long consistency suggests the
assertion) I am quite sure of just this, that He who
inaugurated {ivap^d^evo'i : the word has solemn, cere-
monial connexions) in you the ^ good work will perfect
it as it is used in the New I'estament. For inidKonos is
not used there as the special title of a superintendent pastor
set over other pastors. Such superintendents, however the
office originated, are found in the New Testament, and early
in the second century are called distinctively eVto-KOTroi : but
the term so used is later, on any theory, than the origin of the
office. But I do not purpose in these devotional chapters
to discuss at length such a question as that raised here.
The reader should by all means consult Bishop Lightfoot's
Excursus in his Commentary on this Epistle, 7he Christian
Ministry. The views advanced in that essay were, as I
personally know, held by the writer to the last.
' The middle suggests a certain fulness of action.
* I think the definite article should be supplied in English ;
the reference is to the work of works.
THE APOSTLE AND HIS CONVERTS ONE 27
it, will evermore put His finishing touches to it
(eTTtTeXeVet), up to Christ Jesus' Day, the Day of His
promised Return, and of our glorification with Him.
But this is by the way ; I return to my joy and my
Ver. 7. thanksgivings over you : Even as it is just
that I, I above all men (e'/u-ot, emphatic, not //,ot),
should feel ((f)povelv) like this over you all, on behalf
of you all,^ because of my having you in my heart,
as those who, alike in my imprisonment (Sea/xol^) and
in the vindication and establishment of the Gospel, the
defence of it against its enemies, the developement
of its truths and its power in the believing, are
copartners, all of you, of my grace ; my grace, the
grace granted me, the glorious privilege of suffering
and of doing as a Missionary of Christ. Your
loving, working sympathy has inextricably united
you and me, alike in my prison and in my apostolate.
Ver. 8. Yes, I feel this in my inmost being. For
God is my witness, how I yearn, as with a homesick
affection {iTmroOla), for you all, in the heart {airXdr^x^a)
of Christ Jesus ; for to His members His heart is as
it were theirs ; our emotions are, by the Spirit, in
contact with His.
Ver. 9. And what are those " requests " which I
make for you with joy ? This is my prayer, that your
' I give both the possible renderings of vnep. Both would
certainly be in place, as he thought of them and prayed and
gave thdixiks/or them.
28 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
love, in the fullest Christian sense, but above all in
the sense of your love to one another, may abound yet
more and more in the attendant and protective bless-
ing of spiritual knowledge (i7rL<yvcoa-L<i) and all needed
Ver. 10. discernment; so that, amidst life's many
temptations to compromises of conviction or incon-
sistency of spirit, you may test the things that differ
(to, Bia(f)epovTa), sifting truth and holiness from their
counterfeits ; in order to be singlehearted {elXiKpiveh i)
and without a stumbling-block, such as error and in-
consistency so easily lay in our further path, against,
in view of, Christ's Day ; so that when that Day dawns
you may be found to be not servants whose time
has been half lost for their Lord's work and will, but
Ver. II. rather those who have been filled with the
fruit {Kapirov, not Kapiroiv) of righteousness — the result,
in witness and service, of your reconciliation and re-
newal,^ fruit which is borne through Jesus Christ, the
Procurer and the Secret of your fruit-bearing life, to
God's praise and glory, the true goal and end of all
our blessings and of all our labours.
So the Letter opens ; with greeting, with
benediction, and then with an outpouring of
' The derivation is doubtful, but the idea of the word in
usage is clearness, freedom from complication,
^ With some hesitation I assign to BiKaioarivrj here the
meaning of the righteousness of justification, as in iii. 9.
THE POSSIBLE ISOLATION OF HEARTS 29
sympathies full at once of the warmest and
tenderest hwnanity and of the inmost secrets
of divine truth and life. It is a preamble
beautifully characteristic not only of St Paul
but of the Gospel. It illustrates from many
sides the happy fact that there is nothing
which so effectually opens human hearts to one
another as the love of Christ. We are all
sadly familiar with the possibilities of isolation
between heart and heart. Poets have written
with eloquent melancholy of our personalities
as islands which lie indeed near together, but
in an unfathomable ocean, over whose channels
no boat has ever passed. Schools of pessimistic
thought have positively affirmed that never
really has one ego found its way into another
through the hermetic seal of individuality ; all
that we seem to know of others is but the
action of our own mind within itself, occasioned
by a blind collision with a something not itself,
which we can strike upon but can never really
know. Such lucubrations are artificial, not
natural ; a distortion of mysterious facts, not
an exposition of them ; the result of an
arbitrary selection from the data of our con-
30 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
sciousness, and then the treatment of the
selection as if it were the whole. Quite apart
from the Gospel, the facts of human intercourse
are full of evidence to wonderful and beautiful
possibilities of insight and intercourse between
human spirit and spirit. But if we want to
read the best possible negative to the gloomy
dream of impenetrable isolation, we must come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. We must make
experiment of what it is, in Him, to know and
love others who are in Him too. Then indeed
we shall find that we can, in the common
possession of a living Lord who dwells in our
hearts by faith, see as it were from heart into
heart, in the warm light of His presence. We
shall find how wonderful is the friendship with
one another to which the friends of Jesus are
called, and for which they are enabled in Him.
" In Him " : those words are the key to this
deep, tender, healthful union, and as it were
fusion, of souls. We have the truth which
they convey prominent already in the Philip-
pian Letter. It is addressed (ver. i) to "the
holy ones in Christ Jesus." That is to say,
it comes to men and women who, taken on
UNION WITH AND IN CHRIST 3 1
their profession, assumed to be in fact what
they were denoted to be in baptism, were
separated from self and sin to God by their
union in covenant and hfe with their Redeemer.
It regards them as personaHties so truly
annexed by Jesus Christ, in the miracle of
converting grace, so articulated spiritually into
Him, that no language short of this wonderful
^^ in Him " will worthily express their relation
to Him. Later (ver. ii), they are regarded as
so united to Him that " the fruit of righteous-
ness " which they are to bear in rich abundance
is to be borne only " through Him " ; He, the
Vine, is the one possible secret by which they,
the branches, can possibly be productive of the
sweet cluster of " the fruit of the Spirit." And
between those two places comes a sentence
(ver. 8) where, just in passing, in a mere
allusion to his own experience, the Apostle
takes for granted this profound " continuity
with Christ " in a peculiarly impressive way :
" I long after you all in the heart of Jesus
Christ." As we have seen above, he regards
himself (not as an Apostle but simply as a
believer) as so "joined unto the Lord " that, if
2,2 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
I may dare so to expand the phrase, the heart
of Jesus Christ is the true organ and vehicle
of his own regenerate emotions. The whole
Scripture, and particularly the whole Pauline
Scripture, assures us what this does no^ mean.
It does not mean the least suspension or dis-
tortion of the humanity or of the personality
of Paul. It means no absorption of his e£-o,
and nothing whatever un-natural in either the
nature or the exercise of his affections. His
" homesick longing" to see the dear Philippian
people again is quite as simple, natural, per-
sonal, as any longing he ever felt in his boyhood
for his home at Tarsus when he was absent
from it. Yes, but this personality, working so
freely and truly in its every faculty, is now,
by the Holy Ghost, so put into spiritual con-
tact with the will and heart of Jesus Christ,
who now " dwells in it by faith," that the
whole action moves, so to speak, in the sphere,
in the atmosphere, of Him. The love which
passes so freely through and out of the believer
to his brethren would not be what it is if the
believer were not " in Christ." He is still all
himself; nay, he is more than ever himself,
CHRIST AND THE PERSONALITY
being in the Lord ; for indeed that blessed
union has a genial and developing power upon
its happy subject. But such is that power that
it deeply qualifies the mental and spiritual
action of the being who enters into it ; never
violates but always qualifies.
The fact, the experience, of course tran-
scends our analysis. But it is not beyond our
faith, nor beyond our reception and inward
verification.
" Thy love, Thy joy, Thy peace,
Continuously impart
Unto my heart ;
Fresh springs that never cease,
But still increase." '
Our immediate purpose meanwhile is not to
discuss the believer's union with his Lord, but
to remark on this one precious result of it,
the opening of his inmost sympathies to the
sharers of the same blessing. We see that
result displayed in all its brightness in this
first paragraph of the Epistle ; and we shall
see it to the end. In the particular case of
St Paul and the Philippians it was indeed a
J F. R. Havergal.
PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
remarkable phenomenon. Here on the one
side was a man who, not very many years
before, had been the devotee of the Pharisaic
creed, a creed which tended powerfully not to
expand but to annihilate every sympathy which
could touch " the Gentiles." Here on the
other side were people whose life and thought
had been moulded in the proud political and
national ideas of a Roman colonia ; no kindly
atmosphere for the growth of affections which
should be at once intense and comprehensive.
But these two unlikely parties are now one,
in the strongest and most beautiful union of
thought and heart. If we may use again a
word ventured just above, they are mutually
(not confused but) fused together. Their
whole beings have come into living touch, not
on the surface merely but most of all in their
depths. An interchange of idea, ot sympathy,
of purpose has become possible between them
in which, while self-respect is only deepened
and secured, reserve is melted away in the
common possession of the life and love of
Jesus Christ. The Apostle writes to his friends
as one whose whole soul is open to them, is
CHRIST THE SECRET OF INTIMACY 35
at their command. His memory and reflexion
are full of them. He not only prays and
gives thanks for them but delights in telling
them that he is doing so. He says without
difficulty exactly what he is sure of about
them, and exactly what things he is asking
for them as yet more developed blessings.
Above all, the name of Him who is everything
to himself and to them flows from his heart
with a holy freedom which is impossible except
where the parties in religious intercourse are
indeed "one" in Him. Seven times in these
eleven short verses " Christ Jesus " is explicitly
named; as the writer's Possessor; as the Philip-
pian saints' Life and Head ; as the Giver to
them, with His Father, of grace and peace ;
as the Lord of the longed-for *' Day," that
dear goal of hope ; as the mighty Sphere of
regenerate family-love ; as the Cause and Con-
dition of the Christian's fruitfulness for God.
His presence, as it were, moves in the whole
message, in the whole intercourse of which
the message is the expression. Writer and
readers perfectly ** understand each other," for
they both know Christ, and are found in Him.
36 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
The same divine Cause tends always to
similar efifects. Unhappily it does not always
act without obstruction — obstruction which
need not be. There are no doubt obstruc-
tions to its action which are inherent in our
mortality ; things which have to do really with
physical temperament, or again with external
circumstances which we may be helpless to
modify. But the Cause, in itself, tends always
to the effects visible in this noble passage of
Christian affection. The possession and know-
ledge of Jesus Christ, in spirit and in truth,
tends always, by an eternal law, to warm and
open as well as to purify the human heart ; to
anchor it indeed immoveably to God, but also
to suffuse it with a gracious sympathy towards
man, and first and most of all towards man
who is also, in Christ, cognizant of the *' free-
masonry " of faith.
Let this be our first main Lesson in Faith
and Love in our Philippian studies. The
section which we have traversed is full of
points of interest and importance otherwise ;
but this aspect of it is so truly dominant that
we may rightly take it for the true message
IS THE SECRET OURS T 2>7
of the whole. Let us welcome it home. Let
us question ourselves, in presence of it, and
before our Lord, first about our personal
possession of the Cause, and then about our
personal manifestation of the effects. Let us
put to our own hearts some very old-fashioned
interrogations : Am I indeed in Jesus Christ ?
Is He to me indeed Possessor, Lord, Giver of
grace and peace ? Is my life so lived and my
work so done in contact with HiTn that through
Him, and not merely through myself, " my fruit
is found " ? Is His promised Day the goal and
longing of m^y heart, as I suhnit myself to Him
that He may perfect His work in me by the
way, and watch over inyself that I may meet
Him single-hearted and " withoiU offence " at
the end? Is He the pervading and supreme
Interest of my life ? Is He the inward Power
which colours my thought and gives direction
and quality to 7ny affections ?
No answer which a heart fully wakeful to
God can give to such deliberate inward
questionings can possibly be an easy or *' light-
hearted " answer. The gladdest and most
thankful utterance of such a heart will carry
38 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
along with it always the prayer, "Search me,
O God, and try my heart " ; " Enter not into
judgment with Thy servant." Yet we are
assuredly meant, if we are in Christ, so to
know the fact as to rejoice in it, and to be
strong in it ; we are invited, without a doubt,
so to know Him as to know we know Him,
and to find in Him " all our salvation, and all
our desire." Let us not rest till, in great
humility but with perfect simplicity, we so see
Him as to leave behind our doubts about our
part and lot in Him, and, " believing, to rejoice."
And then let us covet the developement of
those results of possession of Christ, of union
with Christ, which we have specially studied
in the opening section of our Epistle. Let
us welcome the Lord in to " the springs of
thought and will," with the conscious aim that
He should so warm and enrich them with
His presence that they shall overflow for
blessing around us, in the life of Christian
love. I do not mean for a moment that we
should set ourselves to construct a spiritual
mannerism of speech or of habit. The matter
is one not of manufacture but of culture ; it
RESERVE IN CHRISTIAN INTERCOURSE 39
is a call to "nourish and cherish" the gift of
God which is in us, and to give to it the
humble co-operation of our definite wish and
will that it may be manifested in the ways
commended in His Word. It is a call to
desire and intend to '■'■adorn the doctrine of
God our Saviour," in the outcoming of His
presence in us in our tone, temper, and con-
verse, towards those around us, and especially
where we know that a common faith and
common love do subsist.
If I mistake not, there is far too little of
this at present, even in true Christian circles.
A certain dread of " phraseology," of
"pietism," of what is foolishly called "goody-
goody," has long been abroad ; a grievously
exaggerated dread ; a mere parody of rightful
jealousy for sincerity in religion. Under the
baneful spell of this dread it is only too
common for really earnest Christians to keep
each other's company, and even to take part
in united religious work, and to be constantly
together as worshippers, aye, perhaps as
ministers of the Word and Ordinances of
Christ, and yet never, or hardly ever, to
40 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
exchange a word about Him, heart to heart ;
still less to " speak often one to another," and
share fully together their treasures of experi-
ence of what He is and what He has done
for them. The very dialect of the Christian
life has greatly lost in holy depth and tender-
ness, so it seems to me, since a former
generation in which this over-drawn fear (it
is a mere fashion) of " phraseology " was less
prevalent. It ought not so to be.
Let us each for himself come closer to our
eternal Friend, converse more fully with Him,
"consider Him" much more than many of us
do. And then we too shall discover that " our
mouth is opened, our heart enlarged," for holy
converse with our fellow-servants, in that
wonderful interchange of souls which is pos-
sible " in the heart of Jesus Christ."
"Oh days of heaven, and nights of equal praise,
Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days,
When souls, drawn upwards in communion sweet,
Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat ;
Discourse, as if releas'd and safe at home,
Of dangers past and wonders yet to come.
And spread the sacred treasures of the breast
Upon the lap of covenanted rest." ^
' Cowperr Conversation.
THE APOSTLES POSITION AND
CIRCUMSTANCES
41
'Yield to the Lord, with simple heart,
All that thou hast and all thou art,
Renounce all strength but strength divine.
And peace shall be for ever thine."
Mme de la Motiie Guvon, translakd by Cowper.
42
CHAPTER III
THE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES
PhILIPPIANS i. I2-20
ST PAUL has spoken his affectionate
greeting to the Philippians, and has
opened to them the warm depths of his
friendship with them in the Lord. What he
feels towards them " in the heart of Christ
Jesus," what he prays for them in regard of
the growth and fruit of their new life, all
has been expressed. It is time now to meet
their loving anxieties with some account of
his own position, and the circumstances of the
mission in the City. Through this passage
let us follow him now ; we shall find that the
quiet picture, full of strong human interest in
its details, is suffused all over with the glory
of the presence and the peace of Christ.
Ver. 12. Now I wish you to know, brethren, that my
position and circumstances {ra kut if^e, "■the things
43
44 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
related to me'*) have come out, have resulted, rather
for the progress of the Gospel message and enter-
Ver. 13. prise, than otherwise ; so that my bonds, my
imprisonment, with its custodia militaris, are become
unmistakable {^avepovi) as being in Christ; as due
to no social or political crime, but to the name
and cause of the Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of
the world. This is the case in the whole Praetorium,^
in all ranks of the Imperial Guard, and among
other people in general (rot? XoiTroi? wdat^). And
Ver. 14. another result is^ that the majority (rov<;
TrXetom?) of the brethren in the Lord, the converts
of the Roman mission, feeling a new confidence in
connexion with my bonds,* animated by the fact of
my imprisonment, realizing afresh the glory of the
cause which makes me happy to suffer, venture more
abundantly, more frequently, more openly, fearlessly
^ See note at the end of this chapter.
' The A.V. rendering "in all other places" is obviously
due to the belief that npatTupiov signified a place, not a body
of men.
^ I thus convey the force of wore, across the break we have
made in the original sentence.
* Literally perhaps, "relying on my bonds," as a new
ground for their assurance of the goodness of the cause. —
It is possible to render here, " the brethren, having in the
Lord confidence^ are, in view of my bonds, much more bold,"
etc. But the rhythm of the Greek is in favour of our render-
ing (which is essentially that of A.V. and R.V.).
DISLOYAL " BRETHREN 45
to speak the Word, the message of Christ, of the Cross,
of Truth, of Life. There is a drawback in this
Ver. 15. welcome phenomenon : some indeed actually
(/cat) for envy and strife, while others as truly («at)
for goodwill, are proclaiming the Christ. The latter^
Ver. 16. are at work thus from motives of love,
love to the Lord and to me His captive Messenger,
knowing that on purpose for the vindication (airoXoyiav)
of the Gospel I am posted (Ke2/xat, as a soldier, fixed
by his captain's order) here. The former from
Ver. 17. motives of faction, partizanship (ipiOeia)
in a self-interested propaganda of their own opinions,
are announcing the Christ, not purely, thinking and
meaning to raise up (iyelpetv, so read) tribulation for
me in my bonds; as so easily they can do, by
detaching from me many converts who would other-
wise gather round me, and generally by the mortify-
ing thought of their freedom and activity in contrast
to my enforced isolation. Shall I give way to the
trial, and lose patience and peace ? Must I ? Need
Ver. 18. I ? Nay ; what matters it (tl rydp) ? Is
not the fiery arrow quenched in Christ for me? Is
it not thus nothing to me? Yes — yet not nothmg,
after all ; for it brings a gain ; it spreads the Gospel
so much further ; so that to my " What matters it ? "
I may add, Only, in every way, fair or foul, Christ
^ I adopt here the order of the Greek clauses which is best
attested.
46 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
is being announced; and in this I rejoice, aye, and
rejoice I shall ; the future can only bring me fresh
reasons for a joy which Hes wholly in the triumphs
of my Lord, and can only bring fresh blessings to
Ver. 19. me His vassal. For I know that I shall
find (/iot) this experience result in salvation, in the
access of saving grace to my soul, through your
supplication for me, which will be quickened by your
knowledge of my trials, and through a resulting full
supply {eTTLXopvy^o, : the word suggests a supply
which is ample) of the Spirit of Jesus Christ; a de-
veloped presence in me of the Holy Ghost, coming
from the exalted Saviour, and revealing Him, and
applying Him. Such blessing will be exactly
Ver. 20. according to my eager expectation (dTro-
KapaSoKia) and hope, that in no respect shall I he
disappointed (alaxwOrjcrofMac : with the " shame " of a
miscalculation), but that in all outspokenness (Trapprjcria)
of testimony, whether in word or deed, as always, so
also now, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether
by means of life or by means of death.
The passage is full of various points of
interest. It is interesting, as we saw in our
first chapter, in regard of the historical criticism
of the Epistle. It gives a strong suggestion
(I follow Lightfoot in the remark) in favour
of dating the Epistle early in the " two years "
INTEREST OF THE PARAGRAPH 47
of Acts xxviii. For it implies that the fact
of the Apostle's imprisonment was a powerful
stimulant to the zeal of the Roman Christians ;
and this is much more likely to have been the
case when the imprisonment was still a new
fact to them, than later. St Paul's arrival and
first settlement, in the character (totally new
in Rome, so far as we know) of a " prisoner of
Jesus Christ," would of itself give a quickening
shock, so to speak, to the believing com-
munity, which had suffered, so we gather, from
a certain decadence of zeal. But when he
had been some time amongst them, and the
conditions of the " hired house " had become
usual and familiar in their thoughts, it would
be otherwise ; whatever else about St Paul
might rekindle their ardour, the mere fact of
his imprisoned state would hardly do so.
The passage is further interesting as it indi-
cates one particular direction of the Apostle's
influence upon the pagans around him. It
was felt, primarily, " in all the Praetorium,"
that is to say, in the large circle of the Imperial
Life-guards.^ We gather here, with reason-
^ See note at the end of this chapter.
48 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
able certainty, that from the Life-guards were
supplied, one by one, " the soldiers that kept
him" (Acts xxviii. 16); mounting guard over
him in turn, and fastened to him by the long
chain which clasped at one end the wrist of
the prisoner, at the other that of the sentinel.
It needs only a passing effort of imagination
to understand something of the exquisite trial
to every sensibility which such a custody must
have involved, even where the conditions were
favourable. Let the guardian be ever so con-
siderate and civil, it would be a terrible ordeal
to be literally never alone, night or day ; and
too often, doubtless, the guardian would be not
at all complaisant. To many a man, certainly
to any man of the refined mental and moral
nature of St Paul, this slow fire of indescrib-
able annoyance would be far worse to endure
than a great and sudden infliction of pain,
even to death. It is a noble triumph of grace
when such a test is well borne, and turned by
patience into an occasion for God. When
Nicholas Ridley, for a long year and a half
(1554-5) was committed at Oxford to the
vexatious domestic custody of the mayor and
THE VICTORY OF PATIENCE 49
his bigoted wife, Edmund and Margaret Irish,
it must have been nothing less than a slow
torture to one whose fine nature had been
used for years to the conditions of civil and
ecclesiastical dignity and of a large circle of
admirable friends. And it was a spiritual
victory, second only to that of his glorious
martyrdom (Oct. 16, 1555), when the close
of that dreary time found the once obdurate
and vexatious Mrs Irish won by Ridley's life
to admiration and attachment, and also, as
it would seem, to scriptural convictions.^ But
it was a still nobler result from a still more
persistent and penetrating trial when St Paul
so lived and so witnessed In the presence of
this succession of Roman soldiers that the
whole Guard was pervaded with a knowledge
of his true character and position, evidently
in the sense of interest and of respect. It
must have been a course of unbroken consist-
ency of conduct as well as of openness of
witness. Had he only sometimes, only rarely,
only once or twice, failed in patience, in kind-
^ I venture to refer to my book, Bishop Ridley on the
Lord's Supper (Seeley), pp. 54, 55, 72.
4
50 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
ness, in the quiet dignity of the Gospel, the
whole succession of his keepers would have
felt the effect, as the story passed from one
to another. As a fact, the " keeping power
of Christ " was always with him, and always
used by him, and the men went out one
after another to say that here was a prisoner
such as never was before. Here was no
conspirator or criminal ; his " bonds " were
evidently (ver. 13) due only to his devotion
to a God whom he would not renounce, and
whose presence with him and power over
him were visibly shewn in the divine peace
and love of his hourly life.
We can please ourselves if we will by
imagining many a scene for the exercise of
that influence. Sometimes the Saint would be
left much alone with the Praetorian. Some-
times a long stream of visitors would flow in,
and for a whole day perhaps the two would
scarcely exchange a word ; the Guardsman
would only watch and listen, if he cared to
do so. Sometimes it would be a case where
ignorant and ribald blasphemies would have
to be met in the power of the peace of God.
THE PR^TORIAN SENTINEL 5 I
Sometimes a really wistful heart would at once
betray its presence under the Roman cuirass.
Perhaps the man would attack the Apostle
with ridicule, or with enquiries, after some
long day of religious debate, such as that
recorded in Acts xxviii., and the silent night
would see St Paul labouring on to win this
soul also.
" These ears were dull to Grecian speech ;
This heart more dull to aught but sin ;
Yet the great Spirit bade thee reach,
Wake, change, exalt, the soul within :
I've heard ; I know ; thy Lord, ev'n He,
Jesus, hath look'd from heaven on me.
* # * * •
* A Christian, yes — for ever now
A Christian ; so our Leader keep
My faltering heart : to Him I bow.
His, whether now I wake or sleep:
In peace, in battle, His : — the day
Breaks in the east : oh, once more pray ! " ^
The passage before us is interesting again
because of the light it throws on the very
early rise of a separatist movement in the
Roman mission-church, and on the principles
on which St Paul met it. Extremely painful
' See the close of the volume.
52 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
and perplexing the phenomenon was, though
by no means new in its nature to St Paul, as
we well know. It was a trouble altogether
from within, not from without. The men who
" preached Christ of envy and strife " bore
evidently the Christian name as openly as
their sincerer brethren. They were baptized
members of the community of the Gospel.
And their evangelization was such that St Paul
was able to say, " Christ is preached " ; though
this does not mean, assuredly, that there were
no doubtful elements mingled in the preaching.
Now for them, as for all the Roman Christians,
he had every reason to regard himself as the
Lord's appointed centre of labour and of order.
There he was, the divinely commissioned
Apostle of Christ, at once the Teacher and
the Leader of the Gentile Churches ; only a
few short years before he had written to these
very people, in his inspired and commissioned
character, the greatest of the Epistles. Yet
now behold a separation, a schism. That such
the movement was we cannot doubt. These
" brethren," he tells us, carried on their mis-
sionary efforts in a way precisely intended to
SEPARATISM, AND HOW IT WAS MET 53
" raise up trouble " for him in his prison. The
least that they would do with that object would
be not only to teach much that he would
disapprove of, but to intercept intercourse
between their converts and him ; to ignore him
altogether as the central representative of the
Church at Rome ; to arrange for assemblies,
to administer Baptisms, to practise the Break-
ing of Bread, wholly apart from the order and
cohesion which he would sanction, and which
he had the fullest right to enjoin. All this was
a great evil, a sin, carrying consequences which
might affect the Christian cause far and wide.
Is it not true that no deliberate schism has ever
taken place in the Church where there has not
been grievous sin in the matter — on one side,
or on the other, or on both ?
Yet how does the Apostle meet this dis-
tressing problem ? With all the large tolerance
and self-forgetting patience which come to the
wise man who walks close to God in Christ.
No great leader, surely, ever prized more the
benefits of order and cohesion than did St
Paul. And where a fundamental error was in
view, as for example that about Justification in
54 THILIPPIAN STUDIES
Galatia, no one could meet it more energetic-
ally, and with a stronger sense of authority,
than he did. But he *' discerned things that
differ." And when, as here, he saw around
him men, however misguided, who were aiding
in the "announcement" of the Name and
salvation of Christ, he thought more of the
evangelization than of the breach of coherence,
which yet most surely he deplored. He speaks
with perfect candour of the unsound spiritual
state of the separatists, their envy, strife, and
partizanship. But he has no anathema for
their methods. He is apparently quite uncon-
scious of the thought that because he is the
one Apostle in Rome grace can be conveyed
only through him ; that his authority and com-
mission are necessary to authenticate teaching
and to make ordinances effectual. He would
far rather have order, and he knows that he is
its lawful centre. But " the announcement of
Christ " is a thing even more momentous than
order. He cannot stay to speak of that great
but inferior benefit, while he " rejoices, aye,
and is going to rejoice," in the diffusion of the
Name and salvation of the Lord.
ST PAUL S SECRET 55
It is an instructive lesson. Would that in
all the after ages the Church had more watch-
fully followed this noble precedent ! The
result would have been, so I venture to hold,
a far truer and stronger cohesion, in the long
run, than we see, alas, around us now.
What was the secret of this happy harmony
of the love of order and the capacity for
tolerance in the mind of St Paul ? It was a
secret as deep but also as simple as possible ;
it was the Lord Jesus Christ. Really and
literally, Jesus Christ was the one ruling con-
sideration for St Paul ; not himself, his claims,
position, influence, feelings ; not even the
Church. To him the Church was inestimably
precious, but the Lord was more. And all
his thoughts about work, authority, order, and
the like, were accordingly conditioned and
governed by the thought. What will best
promote the glory of the Lord who loved
us and gave Himself for us? If even a
separatist propaganda will extend the know-
ledge of Him, His servant can rejoice, not
in the separatism, not in the unhappy spirit
which prompted it, but in the extension of
56 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
the reign of Jesus Christ in the human hearts
which need Him. Surely, even in our own
day, with its immemorial complications of the
question of exterior order, it will tend more
than anything else to straighten the crooked
places and level the rough places, if we look,
from every side, on the glory of the blessed
Name as our supreme and ruling interest.
This view of the supremacy of the Saviour
in the thoughts of St Paul about the Church
leads us to a view, as we close, of that
supremacy in all his thoughts about his own
life. Our paragraph ends with the words
which anticipate a great blessing, a new de-
velopement of " salvation," in the writer's soul,
in answer to the believing prayers of the Philip-
pians ; and then comes the thought that this
result will carry out his dearest personal ambition
— " that Christ may be magnified in my body,
whether by life or by death." Let us take up
those final words for a simple study, before God.
" According to my eager expectation," my
anoKapaSoKia, my waiting and watching, with
outstretched head, for some keenly wished-for
arrival, or attainment. Such is this man's
HIS '• EARNEST EXPECTATION " 57
thought and feeling with regard to the " mag-
nification " of Christ through his Hfe and
death. It is his " hope," it is his absorbing
" expectation." It is to him the thing with
which he wakes up in the morning, and over
which he Hngers as he prepares to sleep at
night. It is the animating inner interest
which gives its zest to life. What art is
to the ambitious and successful painter, what
literature is to the man who loves it for its
own sake and whose books have begun to
take the world, what athletic toil and triumph
is to the youth in his splendid prime, what
the fact of extending and wealth-winning
enterprise is to the man conscious of mercantile
capacity — all this, only very much more, is
the "magnification of Christ in his body" to
the prisoner who sits, never alone, in the
Roman lodging. It is this which effectually
forbids him ever to find the days dull. Its
light falls upon everything ; comforts, trials,
days of toil, hours of comparative repose,
prospects of life, prospects of death. It
quickens and concentrates all his faculties, as
a great and animating interest always tends
58 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
to do ; it is always present to his mind as
light and heat, to his will as rest and power.
It secures for him the quiet of a great dis-
engagement and liberty from selfish motives ;
it continually drives him on, with a force which
does not exhaust him (for it is from above)
in the ambition and enterprise which is for
Christ ; giving him at once an impulse toward
great and arduous labours, and a patience and
loving tact which continually adjusts itself to
the smallest occasions of love and service.
Reader, this is admirable in St Paul. But
after all, the ultimate secret of the noble
phenomenon resides not in St Paul but in
Jesus Christ. "It pleased God to reveal
His Son in me" (Gal. i. 15, 16). The man
had seen his Saviour with his whole soul.
And because of — not the man who saw but
— the Saviour who was seen, behold, the life
is lifted off the pivot of self-will and transferred
to that of " the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ." The same " revealing " grace
can lift us also. We are not St Pauls ; but
the Jesus Christ of St Paul is absolutely the
same, in Himself, for us. We will, in His
" CHRIST MAGNIFIED 59
name, place ourselves in the way of His
working, that He may so shew us His fair
countenance that we may not be able not to
live, quite really, for Him as the enthralling
Interest of life.
Let us look at the words again : " That
Christ may be magnified,''' may be made great.
In what respect? Not in Himself; for He
is already "all in all"; "filling all things";
" higher than the heavens." Such is He that
"no man knoweth the Son but the Father";
the mind of Deity is alone adequate to com-
prehend His glory. But He may be magnified
— relatively to those who see Him, or may
see Him. To eyes which find in Christ only
a distant and obscure Object, however sacred,
He may be made to occupy the whole field
of the soul with His love and glory. As
when the telescope is directed upon the
heavens, and some " cloudy spot " becomes,
magnified, a mighty planet perhaps, or perhaps
a universe of starry suns ; so it is when
through a believer's life " Christ is magnified "
to eyes which watch that life and see the
reality of the power within.
60 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Ah, have we not known such lives our-
selves ? Has not the Lord been made very-
near to us, and very luminous, in the face
of father, mother, brother, sister, friend, or
pastor? Have we not seen Him shining
large and near us in their holy activities, and
in their blessed sufferings, shedding His glory
through all they were and all they did ? He
has been magnified to us by saints in high
places, whose dignity and fame have been to
them only so much occasion for the exercise
of their " ruling passion " — the glory of Christ.
And He has been magnified to us also by
saints in comfortless cottages, imprisoned upon
sick-beds in gloomy attics, but finding in
everything an occasion to experience and to
manifest the power of their Lord. May He
make it always our ambition to be thus His
magnifiers. But may He keep it a really pure
ambition. For even this can be distorted into
the misery of self-seeking ; an ambition not
that Christ may be magnified, but that His
magnifier may be thought "some great one"
in the spiritual life.
"In my docfy." Because through the body,
IN MY BODY " 6 1
and only through it, practically, can we tell
on others for the Lord. Do we speak to
them ? Do we write to them ? Do we make
home comfortable and happy for them ? Do
we " meet the glad with joyful smiles and wipe
the weeping eyes " ? Do we travel to those
who want us ? Do we nurse them ? Do we
think for them ? All has its motives in the
regenerate spirit, but all has its effect through
the body. Without brain, eyes, ears, lips,
hands, feet — how could we serve, how could
we shine ? Our life would have no articulation
to others, nor our death.
" I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies
a living sacrifice." So be it, for writer and
for reader. Then blessed will be our life, as
day by day brings ceaseless occasions for the
pursuit of our dear ambition — " that Christ
may be magnified."
*
* 'Ei^ oXw Tw 'TTpaLTopico (ver. 13). — The
word npaLTcopLov occurs in e.g. Matt, xxvii. 27.
Acts xxiii. 35, in the sense of the residence
62 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
of a great official, regarded as prcetor, or
commander. The A.V. here evidently reasons
from such passages, and takes the word to
mean the residence at Rome of the supreme
prcetor, the Emperor ; the Palatium, the vast
range of buildings on the Mons Palatinus
which has since given a name to all *' palaces."
Bishop Lightfoot however has made it clear
{a) that such a use at Rome, by Romans, of
the word Prcetorium was probably not known ;
(b) that the word Prcetorium was a familiar
word for the great body of the Imperial Life-
guards ; and that it would probably be often
so used by the (praetorian) " soldiers who kept
him." On the whole it seems clear that, at
Rome, the word would denote a body, not
a place. It never appears as a name for the
great camp of the Praetorians, outside Rome
at the east.
THE CHRISTIAN'S PEACE AND THE
CHRISTIAN'S CONSISTENCY
63
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all
just works do proceed ; Give unto Thy servants that peace which
the world cannot give ; that both our hearts may be set to obey
Thy commandments, and also that by Thee we being defended
from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quiet-
ness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
The Second Collect at Evening Prayer,
64
CHAPTER IV
THE CHRISTIANS PEACE AND THE CHRISTIAN'S
CONSISTENCY
Philippians i. 21-30
Ver. 21. For to me, to live is Christ ; the conscious-
ness and experiences of living, in the body, are so
full of Christ, my supreme Interest, that CHRIST
sums them all up ; and to die, the act of dying,^ is
gain, for it will usher me in from an existence of
blessing to an existence of more blessing still. But
Ver; 22. if living on, in the flesh, be my lot ; if the
present suspense issues in my being acquitted at the
Roman tribunal, this will prove to me (tovto fiot) fruit
of work ; it will just mean so much more work for
the Lord, and so much more fruit ; I shall welcome
1 Observe the aorist infinitive, to dirodave^v, of ;fhe crisis,
dying, contrasted with the present infinitive, to (rjv, of ^Ae
process, living. — It may be noticed that the renderings of
Luther, Christus ist mein Leben, and Tindale, Christ is to
me lyfe, are untenable, though expressing as a fact a deep
and precious truth. The Apostle is obviously dealing with
the characteristics, not the source, of "living."
65 5
66 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
it not as being the best thing in itself, as if I chose
mortal life for its own sake, but because of its cease-
less opportunities for my Lord. And which alterna-
tive I shall choose, I do not know, I do not recognize
(yvoapi^o), as one who seeks to be sure of the face of
Ver. 23. a friend amidst other faces). Nay (Se), I
am held in suspense on both sides ; ^ my personal desire
being ^ in the direction of departing, striking my tent,
weighing my anchor {dva\va-ai),^ and being with Christ
(for this is what " departing " means for us Christians,
on its other side) ; for it is far, far better, by far
more preferable, ttoXX&j fiaWov Kpeiaa-ov — aye even
than a " life in the flesh " which " is Christ " ! But
Ver. 24. then the abiding by {e-mfieveLv) the flesh, the
brave, faithful, holding fast to the conditions of earthly
* 2vvfxofiai fK rav fiuo : literally, "I am confined, restricted
from the two (sides) " ; as if to say, " I am hindered as to my
choice, whichever side you view me from."
' Literally, "having the desire " ; not "a desire," which
misses the point of the words. He means that his emdvuia lies
in one direction, his conviction of call and duty in the other.
T/ze desire, the element of personal longing in him, is for
" departing."
^ The Vulgate renders here, cu^z'o dissolvi, as if avakvaai
meant, so to speak, to "analyse" myself into my elements,
to separate my soul from my body. But the usage of the
verb, in the Greek of the Apocrypha, is for the sense given
in our Versions, and above; to "break up," in the sense of
" setting out "
HE WILL BE SPARED TO THEM 67
trial, is more necessary, more obligatory, more of the
nature of duty as against pleasure, on account of you,
and your further need of me in the Lord. And feeling
Ver. 25. confident of this, I know that I shall remain
— aye and shall remain side hy side {TrapafxevM) with
you all, as your comrade, your helper, in order to your
progress and joy in your faith ; ^ so as to promote your
growth in the exercise of loyal reliance on your Lord,
and in the deep joy which is the natural issue of such
Ver. 26. reliance ; so that your exultation may be over-
flowing in Christ Jesus, in your living union with Him,
in me (eV ifiol), " in " whom you see a living example
of your Lord's love, shewn to you by means of my
Ver. 27. coming back to you again. Only, whether
am thus actually restored to you or not, order your
life ^ in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ (above
all, worthy of the unifying, harmonizing power of the
Gospel) ; so that whether coming and seeing you, or
^ Literally, "your progress and joy of the faith." The
Greek suggests the connexion of both "progress" and "joy"
with "faith." And St Paul's general use of the word Tr/ortj
favours its reference here not to the objective creed but to
the subjective reliance of the holder of the creed.
^ IloXirevfo-^f : literally, " live your citizen-life." But in its
usage the verb drops all explicit reference to the ttoXitt]!, and
means little more than " live" ; in the sense however not of
mere existence, or even of experience, but of a course of
principle and order. See Acts xxiii. i, the only other N.T.
passage where it occurs ; and 2 Mace. vi. i, xi. 25.
68 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
remaining absent, I may hear ^ about your circumstances,
your condition, that you are standing firm in One Spirit,^
in the power of the One Strengthener, and, with one
soul, one life and love, the resultant of the One Spirit's
work in you all, wrestling side by side, with enemies
and obstacles, for ^the faith of the Gospel, for the main-
tenance and victory of that reliance which embraces
Ver. 28. the truth of Christ ; and refusing to be {firj)
scared out of that attitude in anything by your {rSiv)
opponents, the unconverted world around you. Such
{r)TL<i) calm united courage is to them an evidence,
a sure token, an omen, of the perdition which awaits
the obstinate foes of holiness, but to you of the salva-
tion which awaits Christ's faithful witnesses. And
this, this condition of conflict and courage, is from
God; no mere blind result of accidents, but His purpose.
Ver. 29. Yes, because to you there has been granted *
^ The words suggest to us that the Apostle might have
written, more fully and exactly, 'Iva i'Sw, ihv 'fKdu), Ka\ Iva dKovcrco,
iav dirS). But it is best to retain in translation the somewhat
lax grammatical form of the Greek.
" The parallels, i Cor. xii. 13, Eph. ii. 18, strongly favour
the reference of Trvev^ia here to the Holy Spirit of God.
^ It is of course possible to translate a-waBXovvTes rfi Tria-rei,
" wrestling side by side with the faith," as if "the faith " was
the Comrade of the believers. But the context is not favour-
able to this ; the emphasis seems to lie throughout on the
believers' fellowship wiih one another.
* 'Exapladrj : the English perfect best represents here the
Greek aorist.
SPIRITUAL WEALTH OF THE PARAGRAPH 69
as an actual boon — for the sake of Christ not only
the believing on Him but also the suffering for His
sake;^ a sacred privilege when it is involved by
Ver. 30. loyalty to such a Master! So you will be
experiencing^ (e^oyre?) the same conflict in kind {olov)
(as you wrestle side by side for your Lord against
evil) as that which you saw in me, in my case, when I
was with you in those first days (Acts xvi.), and which
you now hear of in me, as I meet it in my prison
at Rome.
The translation of our present section is
completed. It has presented rather more
material than usual for grammatical remark
and explanation ; constructions have proved
to be complex, contracted, or otherwise slightly
anomalous ; and points of order and emphasis
have claimed attention. But I trust that this
handling of the texture has only brought more
vividly into sight the holy richness and bright-
' The Greek may be explained as if the Apostle had meant
to write, exapicrdrf to vnep XpiaTov nda-xeiv, and then freely
inserted the antecedent fact of to ina-Teveiv.
^ "'ExovTes : the nominative participle takes us back gram-
matically to the construction previous to the sentences
beginning Ijtis ia-Tiv k.t.X. ; which sentences may be treated
as a parenthesis. I have attempted to convey this in a
paraphrase
70 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
ness of the design. Sentence by sentence,
we have been reading a message of the first
order of spiritual importance, as St Paul has
spoken from his own experience of the
Christian's wonderful happiness in life and
death, and then, in his appeal to the Philip-
pians, of the Christian's path of love and
duty.
Let us listen anew to each part of that
precious message.
i. The Christian's Happiness in Life and
Death.
In Adolphe Monod's volume of death-bed
addresses, his Adieux a ses Ajnis et a P Eglise,
one admirable chapter, the second, is devoted
to the passage before us, Phil. i. 21-26. From
the borderland of eternity the great French
Christian looks backward and forward with
St Paul's letter in his hand, and comments
there upon this divine possibility of *' Happi-
ness in Life and in Death." " The Apostle,"
he says, " is asking here which is most worth
while for him, to live or to die. Often has
that question presented itself to us, and
ADOLPHE MONOD S EXPOSITION 7 1
perhaps we, like the Apostle, have answered
that * we are in a strait.' But I fear we may
have used the words in a sense far different
from St Paul's. When we have wished for
death, we meant to say, * I know not which
alternative I ought most to dread, the afflic-
tions of life, from which death would release
me, or the terrors of death, from which life
protects me.' In other words, life and death
look to us like two evils of which we know
not which is the less. As for the Apostle,
they look to him like two immense blessings,
of which he knows not which is the better.
Personally, he prefers death, in order to be
with Christ. As regards the Church and the
world, he prefers life, in order to serve Jesus
Christ, to extend His kingdom, and to win
souls for Him. What an admirable view of
life and of death! — admirable, because it is
all governed {dominie), all sanctified, by love,
and is akin to the Lord Jesus Christ's own
view of life and death. Let us set ourselves
to enter into this feeling {sentiment). Life is
good ; death is good. Death is good, because
it releases us from the miseries of this life,
72 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
but above all because, even were life full for
us of all the joys which earth can give, death
bids us enter into a joy and a glory of which
we can form no idea. We are then to con-
sider dea^h as a thing desirable in itself. Let
us not shun what serves to remind us of it.
Let all the illnesses, all the sudden deaths, all
that passes round us, remind us that for each
one of us death may corne at any moment.
But then life also is good, because in life we
can serve, glorify, imitate, Jesus Christ. Life
is not worth the trouble of living for any other
object. All the strength we possess, all the
breath, the life, the faculties, all is to be con-
secrated, devoted, sanctified, crucified, for the
service of our Lord Jesus Christ. This cruci-
fied life is the happy life, even amidst earth's
bitterest pains ; it is the life in which we can
both taste for ourselves and diffuse around us
the most precious blessings. Let us love life,
let us feel the value of life — but to fill it with
Jesus Christ. In order to such a state of
feeling, the Holy Spirit alone can transform
us into new men. But observe ; it is not
only that ottr spirit must be sustained, con-
ADOLPHE MONOD S EXPOSITION 73
soled, fortified ; the Spirit of God must come
to dwell in us. We often set ourselves to
work on ourselves, to set our spirit in order ;
this is well, but it is not enough. We want
more. Jesus Christ Himself must dwell in
our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
" My friends, let us reflect upon the char-
acter of the promises of the Gospel, and we
shall see how far we are from possessing and
enjoying them. May God open the heavens
above our heads ; revealing all to us, filling
us with all wisdom, granting us to see that
even here below we may attain to perfect joy,
while looking forward to possess hereafter the
plenitude of bliss and of victory. May He
teach us how to gather up the blessings which
the heavens love to pour upon the earth which
opens to receive them. And so may He teach
us to know that if earth is able to bear us
down and trouble us, it is unable to quench
the virtues of heaven, to annul the promises
of God, or to throw a veil, be it even the
lightest cloud, over the love with which God
has loved us in Jesus Christ."^
1 Adteux, ed. 1857, pp. 10-12.
74 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
" He being dead yet speaketh." On his
bed of prolonged and inexpressible sufferings
Monod, called comparatively early to leave
a life and ministry of singular fruitfulness and
rich in interests, found in Jesus the inex-
haustible secret of this blessed equilibrium of
St Paul. And what a cloud of witnesses have
borne their testimony to that same open secret,
as the most solid while most supernatural of
realities ! As I write, the memory comes up
before me of a beloved friend and kinsman,
my contemporary at Cambridge, called un-
expectedly to die in his twenty-second year.
Life to him was full of the strongest interests
and most attractive hopes, alike in nature and
in grace. He had no quarrel with life; it
had poured out before him a rich store of
social and mental blessings, and a large wealth
of surrounding love, and the Lord Jesus,
taking early and decisive possession of the
young man's heart, had only augmented and
glorified, not rebuked or stunted, every interest.
But a slight fever, caught in the Swiss hotel,
was medically mismanaged, and when perfect
skill was summoned in, it was too late. His
CHARLES SIMEON S TESTIMONY 75
mother came to her son on his sofa to
tell him that he was not only, as he knew,
very poorly ; he was about to die. In a
moment, without a change of colour, without
a tremor, without a pause, smiling a radiant
smile, he looked up and answered, " Well, to
depart and to be with Christ is far better ! "
So the young Christian passed away, ex-
changing life which was sweet for death which,
because of the life it would reveal, was sweeter.
And ** the veterans of the King " say just the
same. If ever a man enjoyed life, with a
vigorous and conscious joy, it was Simeon
of Cambridge. And till the age of exactly
seventy-seven he was permitted to live with
a powerful life indeed ; a life full of affections,
interests, enterprises, achievements, and all full
of Christ. Yet in that energetic and intensely
human soul "the desire was to depart and to
be with Christ." It was no dreamy reverie ;
but it was supernatural. It stimulated him to
unwearied work ; but it was breathed into him
from eternity. ** I cannot but run with all
my might," he wrote in the midst ot his
youthful old age, " /br / am close to the goal!'
76 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
It is indeed a phenomenon peculiar to the
Gospel, this view of life and death. It is far
more than resignation. It is different even
from the " holy indifference " of the mystic
saints. For it is full of warmth, and sympathy,
and all the affections of the heart, in both
directions. The man who is the happy pos-
sessor of this secret does not on the one hand
go about saying to himself that all around him
is may a, is a dream, a phantasm of the desert
sands counterfeiting the waters and the woods
of Eden. He is as much alive in human life as
the worldling is, and more. He cordially loves
his dear ones ; he is the open-hearted friend,
the helpful neighbour, the loving and loyal
citizen and subject, the attentive and intelligent
worker in his daily path of duty. Time with
its contents is full of reality and value to
him. He does not hold that the earth is
God-forsaken. With his Lord (Ps. civ.), he
** rejoices in the works " of that Lord's hands ;
and, with the heavenly Wisdom (Prov. viii.),
" his delights are with the sons of men." But
on the other hand, he does not banish from
his thoughts as if it were unpractical the dear
THE EQUILIBRIUM AND ITS SECRET T"]
prospect of another world. He is not foolish
enough to talk of " other-worldliness," as if
it were a selfish thing to " lay up treasure in
heaven," and so to have " his heart there also."
For him the present could not possibly be
what it is in its interests, af^ctions, and pur-
poses, if it were not for the revealed certainties
of an everlasting future in the presence of
the King. "He faints not," in the path of
genuine temporal toil and duty, because " he
looks at the things which are not seen."
But now, what is the secret of the equili-
brium ? We saw in our last chapter what was
the secret of the unruffled peace with which
St Paul could meet the exquisite trials occa-
sioned by the separatist party at Rome. It
was the Lord Jesus Christ. And the secret
of the far more than peace with which here
he meets the alternative of life and death is
precisely the same ; it is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has no philosophy of happiness ; he has
something infinitely better ; he has the Lord.
What gives life its zest and charm for him ?
It is, that life " is Christ." What makes death
an object of positive personal " desire " for
78 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
him, matched, let us remember, against a
"life" with which he is so deeply contented?
It is, that "to depart" is to be with Christ,
which is "far, far better." On either side of
the veil, Jesus Christ is all things to him. So
both sides are divinely good ; only, the con-
ditions of the other side are such that the
longed-for companionship of his Master will
be more perfectly realized there.
We might linger long over this golden
passage. It would give us matter for more
than one chapter to unfold adequately, for
example, its clear witness to the conscious and
immediate blessedness in death of the servants
of God. We may ponder long what it implies
in this direction when we remember that its
'* far, tar better" means "better" not than
our present life at its worst but than our
present life at its holiest and best ; for, as we
have observed already, it is " far, far better "
than a life here which " is Christ." Whatever
mysteries attend the thought of the Inter-
mediate State, and however distinctly we
remember that the dise^nbodied spirit must, as
such, be circumstanced less perfectly than the
THE INTERMEDIATE BLISS 79
Spirit lodged again in the body, " the body of
glory," yet this at least we gather here ; the
believer's happy spirit, *' departing" from " this
tabernacle," finds itself not in the void, not
in the dark, not under penal or disciplinary
pain, but in a state "far, far better" than its
very best yet. It is, in a sense so much better
in degree as to be new in kind, " with Christ."
"Yes, think of all things at the best; in one rich thought
unite
All purest joys of sense and soul, all present love and light ;
Yet bind this truth upon thy brow and clasp it to thy
heart,
And then nor grief nor gladness here shall claim too great
a part —
All radiance of this lower sky is to that glory dim ;
Far better to depart it is, for we shall be with Him." ^
ii. But even on this theme I must not linger
now. Not only because " the time would fail
me," but because we have to remember that
^/le main incidence of the Apostle's thought
here is not upon the blessedness ot death but
upon the joy of duty, the " fruit of labour," in
continued life. He looks in through the gate,
' From the writer's volume of verse, In the House of the
Pilgrimage.
8o PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
not to sigh because he may not enter yet, but
"to run with all his might," in the path of
unselfish service, "because he is close to the
goal " — the goal of being with Christ, to whom
he will belong for ever, and whom he will serve
for ever, " day and night in His temple." He
" knows that he shall remain, and that, side by
side with " his dear converts at Philippi. And
his " meat is to do the will of Him that sent
him, and to finish His work."
The remainder of our chosen portion is
altogether to this purpose. He has said
enough about himself now, having just indi-
cated how much Christ can be to him for peace
and power in the great alternative. Now his
thoughts are wholly at Philippi, and he spends
himself on entreating them to live indeed, to
live wholly for Christ ; and to do so in two
main respects, in self-forgetting unity, and in the
recognition of the joy and glory of suffering.
" Only let them order their life in a way
worthy of the Gospel of Christ." ** Only " ;
as if this were the one possible topic for him
now. This will content him ; nothing else
will. He "desires one thing of the Lord" —
HE LONGS FOR THEIR FULL CONSISTENCY 8 1
the practical holiness of his beloved converts ;
and he cannot possibly do otherwise, coming
as he has just come from " the secret of the
presence," felt in his own experience. Will
they be watchful and prayerful ? Will they
renounce the life of self-will, and entirely live
for their Lord's holy credit and glory ? Will
they particularly surrender a certain temptation
to jealousies and divisions ? Will they recollect
that Christ has so committed Himself to them
to manifest to the world that it is the " only "
thing in life, after all, in the last resort, to be
practically true to Him ? Then the Missionary
will be happy ; his "joy will be fulfilled,"
What pastor, what evangelist, what worker
of any true sort for God in the souls of others,
does not know something of the meaning of
that " only " of the Apostle's ?
Then he passes, by a transition easy indeed
in the case of the Philippian saints, to the
subject of suffering. In that difficult scene, the
Roman colonia, to be perfectly consistent, must
mean, in one measure or another, to suffer ; it
must mean to encounter " adversaries," such
open adversaries, probably, as those who had
6
82 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
dragged Paul and Silas to the judgment seat
and the dungeon, ten years before. How were
they to meet that experience, or anything
resembling it ? Not merely with resignation,
nor even with resolution, but with a recognition
of the joy, nay of the ''gift," of ** suffering for
His sake."
Circumstances infinitely vary, and so there-
fore do sufferings. The Master assigns their
kinds and degrees, not arbitrarily indeed but
sovereignly ; and it is His manifest will that
not all equally faithful Christians should equally
encounter open violence, or even open shame,
" for His sake." But it is His will also,
definitely revealed, that suffering in some sort,
" for His name's sake," should normally enter
into the lot of " all that will live godly in Christ
Jesus." Even in the Church there is the world.
And the world does not like the allegiance to
Christ which quite refuses, however modestly
and meekly, to worship its golden image. To
the end, pain must be met with in the doing
here on earth of the "beloved will of God."
But this very pain is "a gift " from the
treasures of heaven. Not in itself; pain is
THE " GIFT " OF SUFFERING 8^
never in itself a good ; the perfect bliss will
not include it; "there shall be no more pain."
But in its relations and its effects it is " a gift "
indeed. For to the disciple who meets it in
the path of witness and of service for his
Master amongst his fellows, it opens up, as
nothing else can do, the fellowship of the
faithful, and the heart of Jesus.
"Lord, we expect to suffer here,
Nor would we dare repine;
But give us still to find Thee near,
And own us still for Thine.
"Let us enjoy, and highly prize,
These tokens of Thy love,
Till Thou shalt bid our spirits rise
To worship Thee above."
Newton.
84
UNITY IN SELF-FORGETFUINESS : THE
EXAMPLE OF THE LORD
85
"Our glorious Leader claims our praise
For His own pattern giv'n ;
While the long cloud of witnesses
Shew the same path to heav'n."
Watts.
86
CHAPTER V
UNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS : THE EXAMPLE
OF THE LORD
Philippians ii. l-il
IN the section which we studied last we /
found the Apostle coming to the weak
point of the Christian life of the Philippians.
On the whole, he was full of thankful and
happy thoughts about them. Theirs was no
lukewarm religion ; it abounded in practical
benevolence, animated by love to Christ, and
it was evidently ready for joyful witness to the
Lord, in face of opposition and even of perse-
cution. But there was a tendency towards
dissension and internal separation in the
Mission Church ; a tendency which all through
the Epistle betrays its presence by the stress
which the Apostle everywhere lays upon holy
unity, the unity of love, the unity whose secret
lies in the individual's forgetfulness of self.
87
88 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Such dangers are always present in the
Christian Church, for everywhere and always
saints are still sinners. And it is a sad
but undeniable fact of Christian history that
the spirit of difference, dissension, antagonism,
within the ranks of the believing, is not least
likely to be operative where there is a gene-
rally diffused life and vigour in the community.
A state of spiritual chill or lukewarmness may
even favour a certain exterior tranquillity ; for
where the energies of conviction are absent
there will be little energy for discussion and
resistance in matters not merely secular. But
where Christian life and thought, and the
expression of it, are in power, there, unless
the Church is particularly watchful, the enemy
has his occasion to put in the seeds of the tares
amidst the golden grain. The Gospel itself
has animated the disciples' affections, and also
their intellects ; and if the Gospel is not
diligently used as guide as well as stimulus,
there will assuredly be collisions.
Almost every great crisis of life and blessing
in the Church has shewn examples of this.
It was thus in the period of the Reformation,
DISSENSIONS INCIDENT TO ACTIVITY 89
the moment the law of love was forgotten by
the powerful minds which were so wonderfully
energized as well as liberated by the re-
discovery of eternal truths long forgotten. It
was thus again in the course of the Evangelical
Revival in the last century, when holy men,
whose whole natures had been warmed and
vivified by a new insight for themselves into
the fulness of Christ, were betrayed into dis-
cussions on the mysteries of grace carried on
in the spirit rather of self than of love. " We
that are in this tabernacle do groan, being
burthened." The words are true of the
believing individual ; they are true also of
the believing Church. That which is perfect
is not yet come. In the inscrutable but holy
progress of the plan of God in redemption
towards its radiant goal, it is permitted that
temptation should connect itself with our very
blessings, both in the person and in the com-
munity. And our one antidote is to watch
and pray, looking unto Jesus, and looking away
from ourselves.
It was thus in measure at Philippi. And
St Paul cannot rest about it. He plies them
90 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
with every loving argument for the unity of love,
ranging from the plea of attachment to himself
up to the supreme plea of " the mind that was
in Christ Jesus" when He came down from
heaven. He has begun to address them thus
already. And in the wonderful passage now
before us he is to develope his appeal to the
utmost, in the Lord's name.
Ver. I. If therefore, in connexion with this theme
of holy oneness of love and life, there is such a thing
as comfort, encouragement (7rapdK\r)ai<;), in Christ,
drawn from our common union with the Lord, if
there is such a thing as love's consolation, the tender
cheer which love can give to a beloved one by meet-
ing his inmost wish, if there is such a thing as Spirit-
sharing,^ if there are such things as hearts (aTrXdyxva,
' Koivavia nvevfiaTos : "participation in the Spirit"; shar-
ing and sharing alike in the grace and power of the Holy
Ghost. I venture to render Trvevfiaros as if it were tov nvevfiaros,
having regard to the great parallel passage, 2 Cor. xiii. 14,
T] Koivcovia TOV ayiov Ilvfvfiaros. With a word SO great and
conspicuous as nvevna it is impossible to decide by the mere
absence of the article that the reference is not to ^ke (personal)
Spirit. Kvpios, Qfos, Xpia-ros, are continually given without
the article where the reference is definite ; because they are
words whose greatness tends of itself to define the reference,
unless context withstands. Uveiifia in the N. T. is to some
extent a parallel case with these.
ARGUMENTS FOR HEART-UNION 9 1
viscera) and compassions, feelings of human tender-
ness and attachment, through which I may appeal
to you simply as a friend, and a friend in trouble,
Ver. 2. calling for your pity ; make full my joy,
drop this last ingredient into the cup of my thankful
happiness for you, and bring the wine to the brim,
by bemg^ of the same mind {(ftpovrj/Ma, feeling, attitude
of mind), feeling (ej^oi^re?) the same love, " the same "
on all sides, soul and soul together (o-y/ii/ry^j^ot) in a
Ver. 3. mind which is unity itself.^ Nothing (fiijBev,
implying of course prohibition) in the way of (Kara)
personal or party spirit ; ' rather (aWa), as regards your
(t^^) humblemindedness, your view of yourselves learnt
at the feet of your Saviour, reckon * each other superior
* "Iva . . . (ppojnJTt : my English is obviously a mere para-
phrase here. More exactly we may render, " make full my
joy, so as to be," etc. ; words which come to much the same
effect, but are less true to our common idioms.
* To fv (f)povovvTfs : a difficult phrase to render quite ade-
quately. We may paraphrase it either as above, or,
"possessed with the idea, or sentiment, of unity." But the
paraphrase above seems most satisfactory in view of the
similar phrase just before, r6 avro (ppovrJTe. This phrase seems
to echo that, only in a stronger and less usual form. The
thought thus will be not so much of unity as the object of
thought or feeling as of unity as (so to speak) the substance
or spirit of it.
' Kara ipiOeiav : my long paraphrase attempts to give the
suggestion that the epiBela might be either purely individual
self-assertion or the animus of a clique.
* 'Hyou/ici'ot : the participle practically does the work of an
92 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
to yourselves; as assuredly you will do, with a logic
true to the soul, when each sees himself, the person-
ality he knows best, in the light of eternal holiness
Ver. 4. and love. Not to your own interests look
{a-K07rovvTe<i), each circle of you, but each circle^ to those
Ver. 5. of others also. Have this mind {(^povelre) in
you, this moral attitude in each soul, which was, and
is,^ also in Christ Jesus, (in that eternal Messiah whom
I name already with His human Name, jESUS ; for
in the will of His Father, and in the unity of His
own Person, it was as it were His Name already
Ver. 6. from everlasting,) who in God's manifested
Being ^ subsisting,* seeming divine, because He was
divine, in the full sense of Deity, in that eternal
imperative. See Rom. xii. for a striking chain of examples of
this powerful and intelligible idiom.
' "E/caoTot, not e/cao-Tos, should probably be read in the first
clause here, and certainly in the second. By Greek idiom,
the plural gives the thought of a collective unity under
"each."
^ The Greek gives no verb. I have written " was, and is,"
in the paraphrase, because the limitation of the reference of
our blessed Lord's <^p6vr\\t.a to the pre-incarnate past is not
expressed in the Greek.
' 'Ei/ [i-op^xi : /u.op0)7 is imperfectly represented by our common
use of the word "form," which stands often even in contrast
to " reality." Mop^ij is reality in manifestation.
* 'Ynapxcov : R.V. margin, "originally being." The word
lends itself to such a reference, but not so invariably as to
allow us to press it here.
" NO PLUNDERER S PRIZE 93
world, reckoned it no plunderer's prize ^ to be on an
equality with God;^ no, He viewed His possession
of the fulness of the Eternal Nature as securely and
inalienably His own, and so He dealt with it for our
sakes with a sublime and restful remembrance of
others ; far from thinking of it as for Himself alone,
as one who claimed it unlawfully would have done,
Ver. 7. He rather {aWd) made Himself void by His
own aet,^ void of the manifestation and exercise of
Deity as it was His on the throne,* taking^ Bond-
' 'Kpivayfiov : the word is extremely rare, found here only in
the Greek Scriptures, and once only in secular Greek. Strictly,
by form (-/idf), it should mean, " a process of plunder" rather
than " an object of plunder" (-/ua). But parallel cases forbid
us to press this. The A.V. rendering here suggests the
thought that our Lord "thought it no usurpation to be equal
with God, and yet made Himself void," etc. But surely the
thought is rather, " and so made Himself void." So sure was
His claim that, so to speak, with a sublime un-anxiety ,
while with an infinite sacrifice, He made Himself void.
^ 'lo-a Gew : the neuter plural calls attention rather to the
Characteristics than to the Personality. — Through this whole
passage we cannot too distinctly remember that it occurs in
the Scriptures, and in the writings of one who was trained in
the strictest school of Pharisaic Monotheism. St Paul was
not the man to use such terms of his Saviour and Master had
he not seen in Him nothing less than the very " Fellow of
Jehovah" (Zech. xiii. 7).
^ "E,avTov eKevcoa-e : eavrov is slightly emphatic by position ; I
attempt to convey this by the words " by His own act."
* See further below, pp. 98, etc.
* AajScDv : the aorist participle, in Greek idiom, unites itself
94 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
servant's (Bovkov) manifested being {fiop^rj), that is
to say, the veritable Human Nature which, as a
creaturely nature, is essentially bound to the service
of the Creator, the bondservice of the Father ; coming
to be, becoming, y€v6fi€vo<i, in men's similitude, so truly
human as not only to be but to seem Man, accepting
all the conditions involved in a truly human exterior,
Ver. 8. " pleased as Man with men to appear." And
then, further, being found, as He offered Himself to
view, in respect of guise (o-^jy/^aTi), in respect of out-
ward shape, and habit, and address, as Man, He went
further, He stooped yet lower, even from Humanity
to Death ; He humbled Himself, in becoming obedient,^
obedient to Him whose Bondservant He now was
as Man, to the length'^ of death, aye (Se), death of Cross,
that death of unimaginable pain and of utmost
shame, the death which to the Jew was the symbol
of the curse of God upon the victim, and to the
Roman was a horror of degradation which should
closely in thought with the aorist verb e/ceWo-e just previous.
The resulting idea is not " He made Himself void, and then
took," but "He made Himself void by taking.'' The
" Exinanition " was, in fact, just this — the taking the form
of the ^ovkoi : neither less nor more.
' Note again the aorist verb and aorist participle : fraTrtlvua-e
. . . yfvofievos.
^ The Greek, ^xe^pl Bavdrov, makes it plain that the Lord
did not obey death but obeyed the Father so utterly as even
to die.
THE NAME 95
be " far not only from the bodies but from the
imaginations of citizens of Rome." ^
So He came, and so He suffered, because " He
Ver. 9. looked to the interests of others." Wherefore
also God, His God (6 0eo9), supremely exalted Him, in
His Resurrection and Ascension, and conferred upon
Him, as a gift of infinite love and approval (ixapia-aro),
the Name which is above every name ; THE Name,
unique and glorious ; the Name Supreme, the I Am ;
to be His Name now, not only as He is from eternity,
the everlasting Son of the Father, but as He became
also in time, the suffering and risen Saviour of
sinners,'^ In His whole character and work He is
invested now with the transcendent glory and great-
ness of divine dignity ; every thought of the suffering
Manhood is steeped in the fact that He who, looking
on the things of others, came down to bear it, is now
enthroned where only the Absolute and Eternal King
Ver. 10. can sit ; so that in the Name of Jesus,^ in
presence of the revealed majesty of Him who bears,
as Man, the human personal Name, Jesus, every knee
should bow, as the prophet (Isa. xlv. 23) foretells, of
1 Cicero, ^ro Rabir to, c. 5.
- Bishop Lightfoot has well vindicated this reference of the
ovo}ia here. I venture to refer the reader also to my com-
mentary on Philippians, in The Cambridge Bible for Schools
and Colleges.
^ Not "the Name Jesus," but "the Name of, belonging
96 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
things celestial, and terrestrial, and subterranean, of all
created existence, in its heights and depths ; spirits,
men, and every other creature ; all bowing, each in
their way, to the imperium of the exalted Jesus,
Ver. II. Jehovah-Jesus; and that every tongue
should confess, with the confessing of adoring, praising,
worship {e^o^o\o'yi]ar]TaC), that Jesus Christ is nothing
less than Lord, in the supreme and ultimate sense of
that mighty word, to God the Father's glory. For the
worship given to " His Own Son " (Rom. viii. 32),
whose Nature is one with His, whose glories flow
eternally from Him, is praise given to Him.^
So closes one of the most conspicuous and
magnificent of the dogmatic utterances of the
to, Jesus." The grammar admits either rendering, but the
context, if I explain it aright, is decisive. "The Name" is
still the Supreme Name, Jehovah, as just above. — "In the
Name" should be explained, in view of the context, not of
worship through but worship yielded to the Name. See
Lightfoot for examples of this usage.
' Chrysostom brings this great truth nobly out in his
homiletic comments here {Horn. vii. on Philippians, ch. 4) :
" A mighty proof it is of the Father's power, and goodness,
and wisdom, that He hath begotten such a Son, a Son nowise
inferior in goodness and wisdom . . . like Him in all things,
Fatherhood alone excepted." Nothing but the orthodox
Creed, with its harmonious truths of the proper Godhead
and proper Filiation of the Lord Christ, can possibly satisfy
the whole of the apostolic language about His infinite glory
on the one hand and His relation to the Father on the other.
THE TONE OF THE GREAT PASSAGE 97
New Testament. Let us consider it for a
few moments from that point of view alone.
We have here a chain of assertions about our
Lord Jesus Christ, made within some thirty
years of His death at Jerusalem ; made in
the open day of public Christian intercourse,
and made (every reader must feel this) not
in the least in the manner of controversy, of
assertion against difficulties and denials, but
in the tone of a settled, common, and most
living certainty. These assertions give us on
the one hand the fullest possible assurance
that He is Man, Man in nature, in circum-
stances and experience, and particularly in
the sphere of relation to God the Father.
But they also assure us, in precisely the same
tone, and in a way which is equally vital to
the argument in hand, that He is as genuinely
Divine as He is genuinely Human. Did He
" come to be in Bondservant's Form " ? And
does the word Form, fxop(j)r], there, unless the
glowing argument is to run as cold as ice,
mean, as it ought to mean, reality in manifesta-
tion, fact in sight, a Manhood perfectly real,
carrying with it a veritable creaturely obliga-
7
98 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
tion (SovXeta) to God? But He was also,
antecedently, " in God's Form." And there
too therefore we are to understand, unless the
wonderful words are to be robbed of all their
living power, that He who came to be Man,
and to seem Man, in an antecedent state of
His blessed Being was God, and seemed God.
And His '* becoming to be " one with us in
that mysterious but genuine Bondservice was
the free and conscious choice of His eternal
Will, His eternal Love, in the glory of the
Throne. ".When He came on earth abased "
He was no Victim of a secret and irresistible
destiny, such as that which in the Stoic's
theology swept the Gods of Olympus to their
hour of change and extinction as surely as
it swept men to ultimate annihilation. ** He
made Hi7nself void," with all the foresight and
with all the freewill which can be exercised
upon the Throne where the Son is in the Form
of the Eternal Nature. Such is the Christo-
logy of the passage in its aspect towards Deity.
Then in regard of our beloved Lord's Man-
hood, its implications assure us that the perfect
genuineness of that Manhood, which could not
WHAT THE " KENOSIS CANNOT BE 99
be expressed in a term more profound and
complete than this same fj-opcf^rj BovXov, Form
of Bondservant, leaves us yet perfectly sure
that He who chose to be Bondservant is to us
only all the more, even In His Manhood, Lord.
Was it not His own prescient choice to be true
Man? And was it not His choice with a
prescient and infallible regard to " the things
of others," to "us men and our salvation " ?
Then we may be sure that, whatever is meant
by the "made Himself void," 'Eavrw eKevcocrev,
which describes His Incarnation here, one thing
it could never possibly mean — a " Kenosis "
which could hurt or distort His absolute fitness
to guide and bless us whom He came to save.
That awful and benignant " Exinanition "
placed Him indeed on the creaturely level
in regard of the reality of human experience
of growth, and human capacity for suffering.
But never for one moment did it, could it,
make Him other than the absolute and infallible
Master and Guide of His redeemed.
We are beset at the present day, on many
sides, with speculations about the "Ken6sis"
of the Lord which in some cases anyhow have
lOO PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
it for their manifest goal to justify the thought
that He condescended to be falhble ; that He
" made Himself void " of such knowledge as
should protect Him from mistaken statements
about, for example, the history, quality, and
authority of the Old Testament Scriptures.
I have said once and again elsewhere ^ that
such an application of the " made Himself
void," 'EavTov eKivoiaev, of this passage (from
which alone we get the word Kenosis for the
Incarnation) is essentially beside the mark.
The Kenosis here is a very definite thing, as
we see when we read the Greek. It is just
this — the taking of " Bondservant's Form."
It is — the becoming the absolute Human
Bondservant of the Father. And the Absolute
Bondservant must exercise a perfect Bond-
service. And this will mean, amidst all else
that it may mean, a perfect conveyance of the
Supreme Master's mind in the delivery of His
message. " He whom God hath sent, speaketh
' In my Vent Creator and To my Younger Brethren, and
more recently in a University Sermon quoted at the close of
a little book published Easter, 1896, by Seeley : Prayers and
Promises.
IT GUARANTEES THE INFALLIBILITY lOI
the words of God" The Kenosis itself (as
St Paul meant it) is nothing less than the
guarantee of the Infallibility. It says neither
yes nor no to the question, Was our Redeemer,
as Man, " in the days of His flesh," omniscient ?
It says a profound and decisive yes to the
question. Is our Redeemer, as Man, " in the
days of His flesh," to be absolutely trusted as
the Truth in every syllable of assertion which
He was actually pleased to make ? *' He whom
God hath sent, speaketh the words of God!'
The dogmatic treasures of this wonderful
passage are by no means exhausted, even when
we have drawn from it what it can say to
us about the glory of the Lord Christ Jesus.
But it is not possible to follow the research
further, here and now ; this imperfect indica-
tion of the main teachings about Him must be
enough.
But now, in closing, let us remember for our
blessing how this passage of didactic splendour
comes in. It is no lecture in the abstract.
As we have seen, it is not in the least a
controversial assertion. It is simply part of
I02 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
an argument to the heart. St Paul is not
here, as elsewhere in his Epistles, combating
an error of faith ; he is pleading for a life
of love. He has full in view the temptations
which threatened to mar the happy harmony
of Christian fellowship at Philippi. His long-
ing is that they should be "of one accord,
of one mind " ; and that in order to that
blessed end they should each forget himself
and remember others. He appeals to them
by many motives ; by their common share in
Christ, and in the Spirit, and by the simple
plea of their affection for himself But then —
there is one plea more ; it is " the mind
that was in Christ Jesus," when " for us men
and for our salvation He came down from
heaven, and was made Man, and suffered for
us." Here was at once model and motive
for the Philippian saints ; for Euodia, and
Syntyche, and every individual, and every
group. Nothing short of the " mind " of the
Head must be the " mind " of the member ;
and then the glory of the Head (so it is
implied) shall be shed hereafter upon the
member too : " I will grant to him to sit with
DOCTRINE AND LIFE IO3
Me in My throne, even as I also overcame,
and am set down with My Father in His
throne."
What a comment is this upon that fallacy
of religious thought which would dismiss
Christian doctrine to the region of theorists
and dreamers, in favour of Christian " life " !
Christian doctrine, rightly so called, is simply
the articulate statement, according to the
Scriptures, of eternal and vital facts, that we
may live by them. The passage before us is
charged to the brim with the doctrine of the
Person and the Natures of Christ. And why ?
It is in order that the Christian, tempted to
a self-asserting life, may " look upon the
things of others," for the reason that this
supreme Fact, his Saviour, is in fact thus
and thus, and did in fact think and act thus
and thus for His people. Without the facts,
which are the doctrine, we might have had
abundant rhetoric in St Paul's appeal for
unselfishness and harmony ; but where would
have been the mighty lever for the affections
and the will?
Oh reason of reasons, argument of argu-
I04 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
merits — the Lord Jesus Christ ! Nothing
in Christianity lies really outside Him. His
Person and His Work embody all its dogmatic
teaching. His Example, "His Love which
passeth knowledge," is the sum and life of
all its morality. Well has it been said that
the whole Gospel message is conveyed to us
sinners in those three words, ** Looking unto
Jesus." Is it pardon we need, is it acceptance,
free as the love of God, holy as His law?
We find it, we possess it, " looking unto
Jesus " crucified. Is it power we need, victory
and triumph over sin, capacity and willingness
to witness and to suffer in a world which loves
Him not at all ? We find it, we possess it,
it possesses us, as we " look unto Jesus " risen
and reigning, for us on the Throne, with us
in the soul. Is it rule and model that we
want, not written on the stones of Horeb only,
but " on the fleshy tables of the heart " ? We
find it, we receive it, we yield ourselves up
to it, as we " look unto Jesus" in His path of
love, from the Throne to the Cross, from the
Cross to the Throne, till the Spirit inscribes
that law upon our inmost wills.
ONLY THOU 105
Be ever more and more to us, Lord Jesus
Christ, in all Thy answer to our boundless
needs. Let us " sink to no second cause."
Let us come to Thee. Let us yield to Thee.
Let us follow Thee. Present Thyself ever-
more to us as literally our all in all. And so
through a blessed fellowship in Thy wonderful
humiliation we shall partake for ever hereafter
in the exaltations of Thy glory, which is the
glory of immortal love.
" Make my life a bright outshining
Of Thy life, that all may see
Thine own resurrection power
Mightily shewn forth in me;
Ever let my heart become
Yet more consciously Thy home."
Miss J. S. PiGOTT.
1 06
THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S
LIFE
107
*' O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,
And all things else recede ;
My heart be daily nearer Thee,
From sin be daily freed.
" More of Thy glory let me see,
Thou Holy, Wise, and True;
I would Thy living image be
In joy and sorrow too."
H. B. Smith, from the German of J. C. Lavatir.
loS
CHAPTER VI
THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE
Phiuppians ii. 12-18
WE have just followed the Apostle as he
has followed the Saviour of sinners
from the Throne to the Cross, and from the
Cross to the Throne. And we have remem-
bered the moral motive of that wonderful para-
graph of spiritual revelation. It was written
not to occupy the mind merely, or to elevate
it, but to bring the believer's heart into a
delightful subjection to Him who " pleased
not Himself," till the Lord should be reflected
in the self-forgetting life of His follower.
In the passage now opening before us we
find St Paul's thought still working in con-
tinuity with this argument. He has still in
his heart the risks of friction at Philippi, and
the need of meeting them in the power ot the
109
I lO PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Lord's example. This will come out particu-
larly in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses,
where he deprecates " murmurings and dis-
putings," and pleads for a life of pure, sweet
light and love. But the line of appeal, though
continuous, is now somewhat altered in its
direction. The divine greatness of the love
of the Incarnation has, during his treatment
of it, filled him with an intense and profound
recollection of the greatness of the Christian's
connexion with his God, and of the sacred
awfulness of his responsibility, and of the
fulness of his resources. So the appeal now
is not merely to be like-minded, and to be
watchful for unity. He asks them now to
use fully for a life of holiness the mighty fact
of their possession of an Indwelling God in
Christ. The details of precept are as it were
absorbed for the time into the glorious power
and principle — only to reappear the more largely
and lastingly in the resulting life.
Ver. 12. So, my beloved ones, (he often introduces his
most practical appeals with this term of affection :
see for example i Cor. x. 14, xv. 58 ; 2 Cor, vii. i,)
YOUR OWN SALVATION I I I
just as you always obeyed^ me, obey me now. Not
{^rjy the imperative negative) as in my presence only,
influenced by that immediate contact and intercourse,
but now much more in my absence, (" much more,"
as my absence throws you more directly on your
resources in the Lord,) work out, develope, your own
salvation, your own spiritual safety, health, and joy,
with fear and trembling; not with the tortures of
misgiving, not driven by a shrinking dread of your
gracious God, but drawn by a tender reverence and
solemn watchfulness, lest you should grieve the
eternal Love. Yes, " work out yotir own salvation " ;
do not depend upon me ; take four own souls in hand,
in a faith and love which look, without the least
earthly intermediation, straight to GOD and to Him
alone.^ For indeed He is near to you ; far nearer
than ever a Paul could be ; "a very present help," for
Ver. 13. your safety, and for your holiness. For God
it is who is effecting {evep^Syv) in you, in your very
being, in " the first springs of thought and will," both
' 'YnrjKova-aTf : the aorist. It gathers into one thought the
whole recollection of his work at Philippi.
' " There is not the slightest contradiction here to the pro-
found truth of the Justification by Faith only ; that is to say,
only for the merit's sake of the Redeemer, appropriated by
submissive trust ; that justification whose sure issue is glori-
fication (Rom. viii. 30). It is an instance of independent
lines converging on one goal. From one point of view, that
I I 2 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
your (to) willing and your eflfecting, your carrying out
the willing, for His (t^?) good pleasure's sake ; in order
to the accomplishment through you of all His holy
purposes. Here, in this wonderful immanence, this
divine indwelling, and in its living, operative power,
you will find reason enough alike for the " fear and
trembling" of deepest reverence, and for the calm
resourceful confidence of those who can, if need be,
" walk alone," as regards dependence upon even an
apostolic friend beside them. Live then as those
who carry about with them the very life and power
of God in Christ. And what will that life be ? A
life of spiritual ostentation ? Nay, the beautiful and
Ver. 14. gentle opposite to it. Do all things without,
apart from (^wp/?), in a definite isolation from,
murmurings and disputes, thoughts and utterances of
discontent and self-assertion towards one another,
grudgings of others' claims, and contentions for your
Ver. 15. own ; so that you may become (yivrjcrOe), what
in full realization you scarcely yet are, unblamable
and simple (aKepaiot, " unadulterated "), single-hearted,
of justifying merit, man is glorified because of Christ's work
alone, applied to his case through faith alone. From another
point, that of qualifying capacity, and of preparation for the
Lord's individual welcome (Matt. xxv. 21 ; Rom. ii. 7), man
is glorified as the issue of a process of work and training, in
which in a true sense he is himself operant, though grace
lies below the whole operation" (Note on this verse in TAe
Ca7Hb7-idge Bible for Schools and Colleges).
STARS IN THE MIDNIGHT SKY II 3
because self-forgetting ; God's children (jkicva), shewing
what they are by the unmistakable family-likeness of
holy love ; blameless as such, true to your character ;
in the midst of a race {<yeveaq) crooked and distorted, the
members of a world whose will always crosses the will
of God who is Love ; among whom you are appearing,
like stars which come out in the gloom, as luminaries
{<^oiarrrjpe<i), light-bearers, kindled by the Lord of
Light, in the world ; in which you dwell ; not of it,
but in it, walking up and down " before the sons of
men " (Ps. xxxi. 19), that they may see, and seek,
Ver, 16. your blessed Secret ; holding out {eirexovre'^ ^),
as those who offer a boon for acceptance, the word
of life, the Gospel, with its secret of eternal life in
Christ ; at once telling and commending His message ;
to afford me, even me (ifioi), exultation, in view of (eZ?)
Christ's Day, in anticipation of what I shall feel then ;
because not in vain did I run, nor in vain did I toil.^
But let me not speak of " toil " as if I sighed over
a hard lot, or wished to suffer less on your behalf
Ver. 17. Nay, even if I am being poured out as
a drink-offering (airevBo/jiai) on the sacrifice and ritual
' It is possible to render Xoyov ^w^s errexovTes, " serving as
life (to the world)." But it is unlikely. See Philippians in
T^e Cambridge Greek Testament, Appendix.
' The aorists obviously are anticipatory ; giving the re-
view of the past as he will then make it, Cp. e.g. (ca^ws
fnfyvaa-drjv, I Cor. xiii. 12.
8
114 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
(XeiTovpjLa) of your faith — on j/ou, so to speak, as you
in faith offer yourselves a living sacrifice to God ^ —
I rejoice, and I congratulate (avyx^'lpa)) you all, on your
faith and holiness, for which it was well worth my
while to die as your helper and example. And in
Ver. i8. the same way (to Se avro) do you too rejoice,
and congratulate me,^ as true partners with me in the
martyr-spirit and its joys.
Here let us pause in our paraphrasing
version, and sit down as it were to gather
up and weigh some of the treasures we have
found.
' " He views the Philippians, in their character of conse-
crated beUevers (cp. Rom. xii. i), as a holocaust to God;
and upon that sacrifice the drink-oflfering, the outpoured
wine, is his own life-blood, his martyrdom for the Gospel
which he has preached to them. Cp. Num. xv 5 for the
Mosaic libation, olvou els (rnovbrjv . . . jrotijcrerc cVt ttjs oXokov-
raa-eas. Lightfoot thinks that a reference to pagan libations
is more likely in a letter to a Gentile mission. But surely
St Paul familiarized all his converts with Old Testament
symbolism. And /it's own mind was of course full of it"
(Note here in The Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools).
— This and Rom. xv. 16 are the only two passages where
St Paul connects the language of " sacerdotalism " with the
distinctive work of the Christian ministry ; and both passages
speak obviously in the tone of figure and, so to say, poetry.
' Xaipere : avyxaipfre. The form leaves us free to render
either indicative or imperative. But the latter is most likely
in the context.
TRUTH AND HOLINESS I I 5
i. We have had before us, in the whole
passage, that ever-recurring lesson. Holiness
in the Truth, as Truth — " the Truth as it is
in Jesus " — is the living secret of Holiness.
We have still in our ears the celestial music,
infinitely sweet and full, of the great paragraph
of the Incarnation, the journey of the Lord
of Love from glory to glory by the way of
the awful Cross. May we not now give
ourselves awhile wholly to reverie, and feast
upon the divine poetry at our leisure? Not
so ; the immediate sequel is — that we are to
be holy. We are to act in the light and
wonder of so vast an act of love, in the wealth
and resource of " so great salvation." We are
to set spiritually to work. We are to learn
that all-important lesson in religion, the holy
and humble energy and independence which
come to the man who " knows whom he has
believed," and is aware that he possesses " all
spiritual blessing " (Eph. i. 3) in Him. We
are to rise up and, if need be, walk alone, alone
of human help, in the certainty that Christ has
died for us, and reigns for us, and in us. Our
Paul may be far away in some distant Rome,
Il6 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
and we may sorely miss him. But we have
at hand Jesus Christ, who " took Bondservant's
Form," and obeyed even unto death for us, and
who is on the eternal throne for us, and who
lives within us by His Spirit. Looking upon
Him in the glory of His Person and His
Work, we are not only to wonder, not only
even to worship ; we are to work ; to " work
out " our spiritual blessings ^ into a life which
shall be full of Him, and in which we shall
indeed be "saved" ourselves, and help others
around us to their salvation. In the " fear
and trembling" of those who feel the blissful
awfulness of an eternal Presence, we are to set
ourselves, with the inexhaustible diligence of
hope, to the business of the spiritual life. We
are to bring all the treasures of a manifested
and possessed Redeemer to bear upon the
passing hour, and to let Him be seen in
us, " Christ our Life," always formative and
empowering.
ii. We have here in particular that deep
secret of the Gospel, unspeakably precious to
' 2a)TT]p[a must here include not only final glory but the
whole blessing possessed now and always in the Swrijp.
THE ATONEMENT AND THE INDWELLING II7
the soul which indeed longs to be holy — the
Indwelling of God in the believer. It here
appears in close and significant connexion with
the revelation of the love and work of the
Incarnate and Atoning Lord ; as if to remind
us without more words that He who gave
Himself for us did so not only to release us
(blessed be His Name) from an infinite peril,
from the eternal prison and death of a violated
law, but yet more that He might bring His
rescued ones into an unspeakable nearness in
Him to God. His was no mere compassion,
which could set a guilty captive free. It was
eternal love, which could not be content with-
out nearness to its object, without union with
it, without a dwelling in the very heart by
faith. As if it was a matter of course in the
plan of God, St Paul passes from the Cross
and the Glory of Jesus to the Indwelling of
God in the Christian, and to all the rest and
all the power which that Indwelling is to bring.
" It is God who is working in you, effecting
alike your willing and your working ; for the
sake of His good pleasure." These are words
of deep mystery. They contain matter w^hich
Il8 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
has exercised the closest thought of some of
the greatest thinkers of the Church. Operatiir
in nobis velle ; " He worketh in us to will."
How is this to be reconciled with the reality,
and in that sense the freedom, of the human
will ? What relation does it bear to human
responsibility, and to the call to watch, and
pray, and labour ? Very soon, over such
questions, we have, in the phrase of the Rabbis,
to " teach our tongue to say, / do not know!'
But the words appear in this context with a
purpose perfectly simple and practical, what-
ever be their more remote and hidden indica-
tions. They do indeed intimate to us a reality
and energy in the divine sovereignty which
may well correct those dreams of self-salvation
which man is so ready to dream. But their
more immediate purpose is as simple as it is
profound. It is on the one hand to solemnize
the disciple with the remembrance of such an
inward Presence, and on the other hand to make
him always glad and ready, recollecting that
such an inward Power is there, altogether for
his highest good, and altogether in the line of
the eternal purpose (evSoKta). For the while at
MYSTERY AND NEED OF THE INDWELLING II9
least let us drop out of sight all hard questions
of theoretical adjustment between the finite will
and the Infinite, and rest quite simply in that
thought : — God is in me, working the willing
and the doing. The willing is genuine, and is
mine. The working is genuine, and is mine.
My will chooses Him, and my activity labours
for Him ; both are real, and are personally
mine. But He is at the back ; He is at
"the pulse of the machine"; I, His personal
creature, am held in no less a hold than His, to
be moulded and to be employed ; His imple-
ment, His limb.
Not very long ago I was in conversation
with a young but deeply thoughtful Christian,
who, placed on a difficult social height, was
seeking with deep desire not only to " follow
the Lamb whithersoever He goeth " but to
lead others similarly circumstanced to do the
same. I was struck with the strong conscious-
ness which possessed that heart, that the
religious life must inevitably be a weary and
exhausting effort on any other condition than
this — " God working in us, to will and to do."
" Ah, they all say that it is so hard ; no one
I20 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
can really do it ; no one can keep it up. But
we must speak to them about the indwelling
Spirit of God, about the Lord's power in us ;
then they will find that it is possible, and is
happy."
Xw/3t9 IjLioi) — ** isolated from Me (John xv. 5)
— ye can do nothing " ; and what seems our
" doing " will, in such isolation, be only too
sorely felt to be a weary toil. But let us accept
it as true, at the foot of the atoning Cross, that
the Indwelling of God in Christ is as much
a fact as our pardon and adoption in Him,
and we shall know something of the blessed
life. Only, we must not only accept it as
true, but use it. " Work out — for it is God
who is working in you."
And, let us remember it once more, we shall
learn in that quiet School not only a restful
energy but also that holy independence {jy)v
eavTuv (TcoTrjpLav) which is, in its place, the
priceless gain of the Christian. Our spiritual
life is indeed intended to be social in its issues
— but not at its root. We accept and thank-
fully use every assistance given us by our
Lord's care, as we live our life in His Church ;
INDEPENDENCE IN GOD 12 1
yet our life, as to its source, is to be still
" hidden with Christ in God." We are to
be so related to Him, in faith, that our soul's
health, growth, gladness, shall depend not on
the presence of even a St Paul at our side,
but on the presence of God in our hearts.
Let us cherish this blessed certainty, and
develope it into experience, in these strange
days of unrest and drift. That secret independ-
ence will do anything but isolate us from our
fellows. It will make us fit, as nothing else
could make us, to be their strength and light,
in truest sympathy, in kindest insight, in the
fullest sense of loving partnership. But we
must learn independence in God if we would
be fully serviceable to man.
iii. We have in this passage one ot the
richest and most beautiful expressions found
in the whole New Testament of that great
principle, that at the very heart of a true life
of holiness there needs to lie the law of holy
kindness. The connexion of thought between
ver. 13 and ver. 14 is deeply suggestive here.
In ver. 13 we have the power and wonder of
the operative Indwelling of God. In ver. 14
122 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
we have depicted the true conduct of the
subjects of the Indwelling ; and it shines with
the sweet light of humility and gentleness.
It is a life whose hidden power, which is
nothing less than divine, comes out first and
most in the absence of the grudging, self-
asserting spirit ; in a watchful consistency and
simplicity ; in the manifestation of the child-
character, as the believer moves about " in
the midst of" the hard and most unchildlike
conditions of an unregenerate world. There
is to be action as well as patience ; this we
shall see presently. The disciple is to be
aggressive, in the right way, as well as
submissive. But the first and deepest char-
acteristic of his wonderful new life is to be
the submission of himself to others, " in the
Lord, and in the power of His might." We
have this aspect of practical holiness presented
to us often in the general teaching of the New
Testament ; but seldom is it so explicitly con-
nected as it is here with that other spiritual
fact, the presence in us of the divine power.
Perhaps our best parallels come from the
two other Epistles of the Roman Captivity,
SPIRITUAL POWER SHEWN IN LOVE 1 23
Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians,
the third chapter closes with the astonish-
ing prayer that the Christian (the everyday
Christian, be it remembered) may be, through
the Indwelling of Christ, " filled unto all the
fulness of God " ; and then the fourth chapter
begins at once with the appeal to him to live
" therefore " a life of " all lowliness, meekness,
longsuffering, and forbearance in love." In
Colossians we have the same sequence of
thought in one noble sentence (ver. ii) of the
first chapter : " Strengthened with all strength,
according to the might of His glory, unto ah
patience and longsuffering, with joy T^ In all
three passages comes out the same deep and
beautiful suggestion. " The Lord is not in the
wind" so much as in "the still small voice."
Omnipotent Love, in its blessed immanence
' "Observe the holy paradox of the thought here. The
fulness of divine power in the saints is to result primarily not
in ' doing some great thing ' but in enduring and forbearing,
with heavenly joy of heart. The paradox points to one deep
characteristic of the Gospel, which prepares the Christian
for service by the way of a true abnegation of himself as his
own strength and his own aim" (Note on Col. i. ii in The
Cambridge Bible').
124 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
in the believer's soul, shews its presence and
power most of all in a life of love around.
It is to come out not only in self-sacrificing
energy but in the open sympathies of an
affectionate heart, in the " soft answer," in
the generous first thought for the interests
of others — in short, in the whole character
of I Cor. xiii. The spiritual " power " which
runs rather in the direction of harshness
and isolation, which expends itself rather in
censures than in ** longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, and meekness," is not the kind of
" power " which most accords with the apos-
tolic idea. Nothing which violates the plain
precepts of the law of love can take a true
part in that heavenly harmony.
" On earth, as in the holy place,
Nothing is great but charity."*
iv. Meanwhile the "charity" of the saints
is not by any means the mere amiability
which makes itself pleasant to every one, and
forgets the solemn fact that we who believe
* A. Vinet, Hymn on the Crucifixion, translated by
C. W. Moule.
AGGRESSION AND WITNESS I 25
are the servants of a Master whom the world
knows not, the messengers of a King against
whom it is in revolt. The Philippian disciple
was to renounce the spirit of unkindness, of
self; he was to live isolated from {yoipii)
''murmurings and disputings." But he was
not to hide the sacred Light, for the sake
of so-called peace, from the world around.
He was to "hold out the word of life";
confessing his blessed Lord as the life of his
own soul, and so commending Him to the
souls of his fellows. He was to make this
a part of his very existence and its activities.
As truly as it was to be his habit to live
a life of sweet and winning consistency, it
was to be his habit to offer {€7r€)(CLv) the
water of life to the parched hearts around
him, the lamp of glory to the dark and
bewildered whom he encountered upon the
difficult road. The truth and beauty of a life
possessed by Christ was to be the basis of
his witnessing activities. But the witness
was to be articulate, not merely implied ; he
was to " hold out the word {\6yov) of life " ;
he was to seize occasion to " give a reason
126 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
{Xoyov) of the hope that was in him, with
meekness and fear" (i Pet. iii. 15). To be,
in his way, an evangelist was to be one main
function of his Hfe. In benignant and gracious
conduct he was to be as a "luminary" ((jyocrTtjp),
moving calm and bright in the dark hemi-
sphere of the world. But he was to be a
voice as well as a star. He was not only
to shine ; he was to speak.
Here is one of the passages, by the way,
in which the Apostle assumes, and stimulates,
the " missionary consciousness " of the con-
verts. It is remarkable that neither he nor
his brethren have much to say in the Epistles
about the duty of enterprises of evangelization,
as laid upon all believers. The stress of
their appeals is directed above all things on
the supreme importance of holiness, at any
cost, in common life. But a passage like this
shews us how entirely they take it for granted
all the time that the Churches would never
concentrate themselves upon merely their own
Christian life ; they would go out continually,
with the beauty of holiness and with " the
word of life," to bring the wanderers in, and
THE WITNESSES AND THE MARTYR 12/
to extend the knowledge of the blessed Name.
So, and so only, would their Apostle feel,
in his prison at Rome, that his " running "
(eSpafxov) on the great circuit of his evan-
gelistic journeys, and his pastoral " toil "
[eKOTTLacra) for the souls of his converts, had
not been thrown " into the void " (etg to Kevov).
So, and so only, would his life and death
of sacrifice for them be crowned with its
perfect joy. Let him see his beloved converts
living and speaking as indeed the Lord's
witnesses, and then with what inward "glad-
ness" {^aCpeiv), with what a call for ''con-
gratulation " {(Tvyyai'P^i'v) on their part, would
he go out to death as the Lord's martyr\
♦* O Thou who makest souls to shine
With light from brighter worlds above,
And droppest glistening dew divine
On all who seek a Saviour's love,
* Do Thou Thy benediction give
On all who teach, on all who learn,
That all Thy Church may holier live,
And every lamp more brightly burn.
* * * ie *
" If thus, good Lord, Thy grace be giv'n
Our glory meets us ere we die ;
Before we upward pass to heav'n
We taste our immortality."
J. Armstrong.
12S
TIAIOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS
129
" Puisse la meme foi qui consola leur vie
Nous ouvrir les sentiers que leurs pas ont presses,
Et, dirigeant nos pieds vers la sainte patrie
Oil leur bonheur s'accroit de leurs travaux passes,
Nous rendre ces objets de tendresse et d'envie
Qui ne sont pas perdus, mais nous ont devances."
A. ViNEX
130
CHAPTER VII
TIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS
Philippians ii. 19-30
Ver. 19. But I hope in the Lord Jesus, with an
expectation conditioned by my union with Him in all
things, and with you in Him, promptly to send to you
Timotheus,^ that I too, I as well as you, who will of
course be gladdened by his presence, may be of good
cheer, getting, through him, a knowledge (71/0^9) of your
circumstances (ra irepl v/xwv). I send him, and not
Ver. 20. another, for I have — at hand, and free to
move — no one equal-souled with him,^ one who {6a-rt<i)
will genuinely take anxious care about your circum-
stances; the "care" which is not a weary burthen,
better cast upon the Lord (iv. 6), but a sacred charge,
undertaken in and for Him, and absorbing all the
Ver. 21. thought. For all of them (ot iravre^), all
from whom I could in this case select, are bent on
' TiyioBeov is slightly emphatic by its place in the Greek;
as if to say, " Though / must still be absent, he will soon be
with you."
2 Not " equal-souled OT?/>^ myself^' ; which would demand
rather, in the Greek, ovbeva SKKov e^a laoylfvxpv.
131
132 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
{^rjTova-t : cp. Col. iii. i) their own interests, not the
interests of Jesus Christ ; they plead excuses which
indicate a preference of their own ease, or reputation,
or affections, to a matter manifestly and wholly His.
Ver. 22. But the test through which he, Timotheus,
passed {rrjv SoKifirjv avrov) you remember QycvcoaKeTe,
" you recognize," as you look back) ; you know that
as child with father so he with me, in closest com-
panionship and sympathy, did bondservice^ for the
Gospel, et9 ro evwyyiXiov, " iinto it," for the furtherance
Ver. 23. of its enterprise and message. So him then
(rovTov fiev ovu^) I hope to send, immediately upon (0)9
av . . . e^avrrj<i) my getting a view of (aTrtSw) my
circumstances, my position with regard to my trial
Ver. 24. and its result. But (though I thus allude
to external uncertainties) I feel sure, in the Lord, in
the light of union and communion with Him, that I
too in person shall speedily arrive, in the track of this
my messenger and torerunner.
Ver. 25. But I count^ it obligatory {avayKotov), and
^ Possibly, " entered on bondservice," " took tcp the slave's
life," with a reference to Timothy's earliest connexion with
St Paul (Acts xvi. 1-3). But the reference to the memories
of Phili^^i is much more likely. The aorist, idovkevaev, will
in this case gather up into one the whole recollection.
^ The ToiiTov is slightly emphatic by position, for St Paul is
about to speak of other persons also, himself and Epaphroditus.
^ 'Hyrjaafirjv : I render the epistolary past by a present tense,
which is the English idiom.
EPAPHRODITUS 1 33
not merely a matter for hopes and personal satis-
faction, to send to you, as I now do, in charge of
this Letter, another person, Epaphroditus, my brother,
fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier, a man who has toiled
and contended at my very side for the Lord and
against the Enemy, while he is also your missionary
and ministrant^ for my need. Yes, I feel that I ought
Ver. 26. to send him, and to send him now ; since
he has been suffering from home-sickness for^ all of you,
(all, without exception ; his affection knows no party
or partiality,) and from the distraction {uZr][jbovo}v) of
over-wrought feeling, because you have heard that he
Ver. 27. fell HP (rja-Oivrja-e). And so it was ; for he
did fall ill, almost fatally (TrapairXrjaiov Oavdrw).
' So I render airoa-Tokov, to represent something of the
sacredness attaching by usage to the word. If I read aright,
we have here an instance of gentle pleasantry, quite in harmony
with the gravity of the Epistle at large. He takes the Philip-
pians' message of love and gift of bounty as a sort of gosJ>el
to himself, and so regards their messenger as a fnissw7tary
to him. So also with the word Xetroup-yo'y : its usual associa-
tions in New Testament Greek are sacred, or at least solemn ;
and so St Paul seems to employ it here. Epaphroditus was
no mere agent ; he was a " ministrant,^^ commissioned from
a high quarter — the Philippians' love.
2 'EireiSr; fnnroSwv rjv : the epistolary past (rju) is rendered in
accordance with English idiom. 'ETn7ro6oov rjv is perhaps too
heavily rendered above ; but the phrase is certainly a little
stronger than iTrenodei would have been.
^ Perhaps it was an attack of Roman fever.
134 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
But our (6) God pitied him, sparing him the grief of
broken hopes and purposes in the Lord's work on
earth, and the grief of being a cause of tears to you ;
and not only him but also me, that I might not have ^
sorrow upon sorrow. For had he died, I should have
had a sore bereavement, and the sad consciousness
that you, in a loving effort for my benefit, had lost
a beloved friend ; and all this added to, heaped upon
(eVi c. ace), the antecedent pain of my captivity and
the trials which it involves.
Ver. 28. With the more earnestness therefore I have
sent him,^ that seeing him you may be glad again, and
that I may feel less sorrow, finding my imprisonment,
and also my loss of this dear friend's company,
softened to my heart by the thought of your joy in
Ver. 29. welcoming him back. Receive him therefore
in the Lord, in all the union and sympathy due to
your common share in Him, with all gladness, and
Ver. 30. hold in high value such men as he is ; because
on account of Christ's work he was at death's very
door,^ playiug as it were the gambler with his life,*
^ "Iva fifj . . . o-x<» : lit., "that I may not." But the
English idiom asks for ^' might." The Greek puts the past
intention into what was its present aspect.
- "Enefx-^a avrov : the epistolary aorist.
^ Quite literally, "up to death he drew near." It is as if
St Paul had been about to write, fiexP'- ^(ivciTov i^uQivr^a-e, and
then varied the expression by writing fjyyia-e.
* Hapa^oXfya-dfjifvos ttj ■^vxj) '■ SO read, not TrnpajSovXtvadixf vos
THE VARIETY OF SCRIPTURE 1 35
that he might (lit., " may ") supply your lack, do the
service which you could not do, and so complete
your loving purposes, in regard of the ministration
you designed for me.
Our present section illustrates vi^ell the inex-
haustible variety of Scripture. That pregnant
Christian thinker, the late Dr John Ker, has
some good sentences on this subject : ** What
varieties are in the Bible, side by side! The
Book of Ruth, with its pastoral quiet after
the Vicars ot the Judges, like an innocent child
which has crept between the ranks of hostile
armies ; the intense devotion of the Psalms
after the speculative discussions of Job, and
before the practical wisdom of Proverbs ; the
gloom of Ecclesiastes, and then the sweetness
of the Song of Solomon, as sharply divided
as the eastern morning which leaps from the
night, or, as an old Greek might have said,
silver-footed Thetis rising from the bed of old
(which would mean, "taking evil counsel for his life," neglect-
ing its interests), Hapa^oXevadixevos is a well-attested reading;
the verb is not found elsewhere, but the form is abundantly
likely. It would be developed from the adjective Trapd^oXoy,
"reckless," connected with the verb irapa^aWfadai, "to cast
a die."
136 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Tithonus ; Isaiah's majestic sweep of eagle
pinion, with Jeremiah's dovelike plaint ; the
cloudlike obscurities of Ezekiel, to be solved,
as one might expect, by piercing light from
the sky ; and the perplexities of Daniel, to be
opened by the movements of the nations."^
What a variety lies before us here !
" Into the heaven of heavens we have presumed,
And drawn empyreal air";
while the Apostle has told us (only fourteen
verses above) how Christ Jesus, in the glory
of the Throne, in the Form of God, cared for
us men and for our salvation, and made Him-
self void, and took the creature-nature, and
died; and how He is now on the Throne
again in His Incarnation, to receive supreme
and universal worship. And then again we
came back to earth, yet so as to be led into
the deep secrets of the Lord in the inner life
of His saints below ; " God is working in you,
to will and to do, for His good pleasure's
sake." And then we have seen this inner
* Thoughts for Heart and Life, by John Ker, D.D. (i
p. 92-
CONTRASTS IN CONTEXT 1 37
life expanding and shewing itself in the
holy life without, which shines as a star in
the dark, and speaks like a voice from the
unseen. And then again we have watched
the Apostle's martyr-joy as he thinks of dying
for his Philippians, if need be. Close upon
all these heights and depths now comes in
this totally different passage about Timotheus
and Epaphroditus, with its quiet, practical
allusions to individual character, and to parti-
cular circumstances, and to personal hopes and
duties ; its words of sympathy and sorrow ;
the dear friend's agitated state of mind ; his
recent almost fatal illness ; the mercy of his
recovery ; the pleasurable thought of his
restoration to the loving circles at Philippi.
Nothing could be more completely different
than this from the grand dogmatic passage
traversed a little while before, nor again from
the passages to follow in the next chapter,
where the believer's inmost secrets of accept-
ance and of life are in view, and his foresight
of glory. We are placed here not in the upper
heaven, nor before the judgment-throne, nor
in the light of the resurrection-morning. We
PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
are just in the " hired rooms " at Rome, and
we see the Missionary seated there, studying
the characters of two of his brethren, and
weighing the reasons for asking them, at once
or soon, to arrange for a certain journey. He
reviews the case, and then he puts down,
through his amanuensis, for the information
of the Phihppians, what he thinks of these
two men, and what he has planned about
them.
All is perfectly human, viewed from one
side. I or my reader may at any time, in the
course of life and duty, be called upon to write
about Christian friends and fellow -workers of
our own in a tone neither less nor more human
and practical than that of this section. In
any collection of modern Christian letters we
may find the like. I open at this moment
the precious volume of Henry Martyn's corre-
spondence, published (1844) as a companion
to the Memoir. There I read as follows, in
a letter to Daniel Corrie, dated Shiraz, Decem-
ber 12, 181 1 : "Your accounts of the progress
of the kingdom of God among you are truly
refreshing. Tell dear H. and the men of both
HENRY MARTYN S LETTER 1 39
regiments that I salute them much in the Lord,
and make mention of them in my prayers.
May I continue to hear thus of their state ;
and if I am spared to see them again, may
we make it evident that we have grown in
grace. Affectionate remembrances to your
sister and to S. I hope they continue to
prosecute their labours of love. Remember
me to the people of Cawnpore who enquire.
Why have I not mentioned Colonel P. ? It
is not because he is not in my heart, for there
is hardly a man in the world whom I love and
honour more. My most Christian salutations
to him. May the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with your spirit, dearest brother.
Yours affectionately, H. Martyn."
What is the difference in quality and char-
acter between this extract and our present
section of Philippians, or between it and many
another passage in the Pauline Epistles ? From
one point of view, I repeat it, none — none that
we either can, or should care to, affirm. Of
the letters compared, one is as purely human
as the other, in the simplicity of its topics,
in its local and personal scope, in its natural
140 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
and individual manner. I would add that, so
far as we can tell, the one was written under
just as much or little consciousness of a super-
natural jprompting as the other. I feel sure
that when St Paul wrote thus (whatever might
be his sense of an ajflatus at other times, when
he wrote, or spoke, or thought, abnormally)
he " felt " exactly as we feel when writing a
quiet letter ; he was thinking, arranging topics,
choosing words, considering the needs of corre-
spondents, just as simply as we might do.
And all this is an element inestimably pre-
cious in the structure and texture of the Bible.
It is that side or aspect of the Bible which,
at least to innumerable minds, brings the whole
Book, in a sense so genuine, home ; making it
felt in the human heart as a friend truly con-
versant with our nature and our life. " Thy
testimonies," writes the Bible-loving Psalmist
(Ps. cxix. 24), " are the men of my counsel,"
ans/iiy 'atsdthi', a pregnant phrase, which
puts vividly before us "the human element"
of the blessed Word, its varieties and indivi-
dualities, its living voice, or rather voices, and
the sympathetic confidence which it invites
'THE HUMAN ELEMENT*' I41
as it draws close to us to advise and guide.
How perfectly in contrast are the Bible on
the one side, with this humanity and com-
panionship, and such a ** sacred book " as the
Koran on the other, with its monotonous
oracles ! Strange, that the man-made " sacred
book " should be so little humane and the
God-made Book so deeply and beautifully so !
Yet not strange, after all. For God knows
man better than man knows himself; and
when He prepares a Book of books for man,
we may expect it to correspond to the deep
insight of Him who is Maker ot both the
volume and the reader.
For now on the other part we have to
remember that this Book, so naturally and
humanly written, as to a very large proportion
of its contents, is yet God-made all through.
It is, in a sense quite peculiar to itself, divine.
I quoted a passage from a letter of Henry
Marty n's just now, on purpose to place it
beside this letter of St Paul's, with a view to
shewing the likeness of the two. But are
they like in all respects ? No ; they present
a radical difference from another side. It is
142 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
just this, that the biblical letter is not only-
human as to its type and utterance ; as to
its message, it is authoritative, it is from God.
Henry Martyn writes as a Christian man, and
it helps us spiritually to be in contact with
his affectionate and holy thoughts. Paul
writes as a Christian man, but also as "a
chosen vessel to bear the Name " of his Lord ;
as the messenger of the mind of Christ ; as
he who received "his Gospel" "not of man,
nor by man, but by the revelation ot Jesus
Christ" (Gal. i. 12). From his own days to
these he has been known in the Church of
God as the divinely commissioned prophet and
teacher. Clement of Rome in the first century
refers to him as having written to Corinth by
divine inspiration.^ Simon Peter, earlier than
Clement, refers to Paul (2 Pet. iii. 16) as the
writer of "Scriptures," ypacjyai : that solemn
word, restricted in the language of Christianity
to the oracles of God.
The simplest and seemingly most naturalistic
' See Ep. i. ad. Cor., § 47 : " Take up the Epistle of the
blessed Paul, the Apostle. ... He wrote to you in the Spirit
(TTveu/xariKoJs) about himself, and Cephas, and ApoUos."
HIS LETTERS I HAVE READ 1 43
passage occurring in a Pauline letter is a
" Scripture " ; and as such it speaks to me
only not like the utterances of a Martyn but
with the voice of the Lord of the Gospel.
** Paul, Paul — his letters I have read, but not
always I agree with him ! " So, according to
the story, said a German literary visitor in
an Oxford common-room, fifty years ago ; the
words shocked the Anglican company. Very
many people think with the German now,
whether or no they have really " read Paul's
letters." But their thought is not that of
the Church ot God ; and the soul that will
indeed make experiment of what " Paul's
letters " can be when they are read as divine,
and before God, will surely find itself in
harmony in this matter with the Church. It
will be little disposed to take up the cry
(true enough in itself), *' Back to Christ," in
that false sense which discredits the servant's
words as if the Master was not committed to
them. "If they have kept My saying, they
will keep yours also."
In a passage like the present therefore we
feel the two elements or aspects, the human
144 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
and the divine, each real and powerful, and
both working in perfect harmony. The human
is there, not in the least as a necessary element
of error ; rather as an element ot delicate and
beautiful truth, the truth of justest thought
and feeling. The divine is there, as the
message from Christ Himself through His
servant ; sacred, authoritative, binding on be-
lief, giving solid ground for the soul's repose.
We study here St Paul's watchful and unselfish
remembrance of the Philippians, in the case
of Timothy and his mission, and still more in
that of Epaphroditus. We recognize of course
the actings of a noble human heart, and we
are right to do so. But we find more than
this ; we see Jesus Christ informing us, in
the concrete example of His servant, exactly
how it behoves us, as His servants, to feel
and act under our responsibilities. St Paul's
thought and action is " written for our learn-
ing." True, the " learning " comes not as a
mere code, or lecture. It takes the form of
a living experience, recorded, in the course
of correspondence, by the man who is going
through it. But the man is a vehicle of
THE TWO ASPECTS OF SCRIPTURE 1 45
revelation. He writes about himself ; but his
Master is behind him, and is taking care
that his whole thought shall be the well-
adjusted conveyance of a thought greater than
his own.
As we come to the incidental details ot the
passage, we find the same double aspect of
Scripture everywhere. St Paul speaks about
people who are " seeking their own interests,
and not the interests of Jesus Christ " (ver. 21).
He says this quite naturally, and with a
reference quite local and in detail. But on
the other side the words are an oracle ; they
convey the message of the Master of His
people ; they implicitly claim on His part that
we shall seek not our own interests, but His.
Again, quite in passing, the Apostle speaks
of this or that " hope " or " trust " as being
formed " in the Lord." He does so with
no conscious dogmatic purpose, surely ; it is
because it comes as naturally to him to do it
as for an ordinary correspondent to say that he
hopes to do this or that " if all goes well."
But in the epistolary Scripture these brief
phrases have another side ; they are authority
10
146 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
and oracle ; they convey the mind of Christ
about our right relations with Him ; they tell
us, from Him, that it is His will that we too,
as His, should form our hopes and plans " in
Him," in conscious recollection of our being
His members.
St Paul speaks again of his human sensi-
bilities. He tells us of his sorrows, and his
longings for encouragement, and his thank-
fulness that an aggravation of trial, " sorrow
upon sorrow," has been spared him. He
speaks of Epaphroditus, and of his generous
carelessness of his own health and life, and
of the illness he had contracted, and of his
merciful recovery, and of his home-sick longing
for Philippi, and of his " bewilderment " of
regret as he thinks of the Philippians' anxiety
about him. All this is quite as naturally and
" humanly " conceived and written on St Paul's
part as anything that I or my reader ever
wrote about joys and griefs, our own or of
our friends. But not one whit the less is this
all a message, an oracle, from our Lord Jesus
Christ, in a sense in which no letter of ours
could possibly be such. For it is a "Scripture."
DIVINE MESSAGES IN HUMAN CONTEXT 1 47
And so it tells me from above that the free
and loving exercise of human sympathies is
entirely according to the will of God ; that
human tears and longings are in perfect
harmony with holiness. It assures me that
from one point of view it is right to speak
of the prolongation of the believer's life as
a " mercy," even though " to depart is to be
with Christ, which is far better." It assures
me, let me notice by the way, that bodily sick-
ness is not by any means necessarily a direct
result or index of sinfulness in the sufferer.
There are those who think and say that it is.
But this is not the view of the "chosen vessel."
He sees no sin in Epaphroditus' " falling ill,
nigh unto death," "drawing near, up to death."
It is for him only an occasion for fresh grati-
tude and affection towards the sufferer, and
for deep thanksgivings to Him who in His
mercy has granted the recovery. All this is
not only an experience, recorded with beautiful
naturalness ; it is a revelation, an oracle. We
learn by it, as by the voice of Christ, that
although "He took our infirmities and bare
our sicknesses," His servants do not therefore
148 PHILIPHAN STUDIES
of necessity fail in either faith or love when
they suffer " in this tabernacle," and " groan,
being burthened." Let them look indeed with
great simplicity, in humble faith, for the heal-
ing power of their Lord, whether or not it
may please Him to apply it through human
agency. But do not let them think it an act
of faith to dictate to Him, as it were, the
necessity of their physical recovery. "If it
be Thy will," is never out of place in such
appeals. Faith can breathe its most absolute
and restful reliance into that " If"
We close the section ot Timotheus and
Epaphroditus. We have given our main
thought to the light which it throws upon the
nature of the Scriptures, those blessed " men of
our counsel." We have scarcely turned aside
to think of the actual " men " of the passage ;
Timotheus, and his self-forgetting devotion to
the Lord and to St Paul, overcoming the
sensitiveness of a tender nature ; Epaphroditus,
at once brave and affectionate, yearning for the
old friends in the old scene, restless in the
thought of their trouble about him, yet ready
" TOGETHER WITH THEM 1 49
to " throw his life down as a die " in the cause
of God and of His people. But if we have
said little about them, it is not that we do
not love their very names, and feel our union
with them.
"Once they were mourning here below";
finding then, as we find now, that the~~tJay^
burthen is no dream. But we shall see them
hereafter, in the mercy of God, " changed and
glorified," yet the same, where there will be
leisure to learn all the lessons that all the
saints can teach us from their experience of
the love of Jesus.
Meanwhile let us pray, with the Moravians
in their beautiful Liturgy :
J^eep us in everlasting fellowship with our
brethren of the Church triumphant, and let us
rest together in Thy presence from otir laboiirs.
"One family we dwell in Him,
One Church, above, beneath,
Though now di%'ided by the stream,
The narrow stream of death.
"One army of the living God
To His command we bow ;
Part of His host hath cross'd the flood.
And part is crossing now."
C. Wesley.
ISO
JOY IN THE LORD AND ITS PRESERVING
POWER:: ''THAT I MAY KNOW HIM"
151
O Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life ; Grant
us perfectly to know Thy Son Jesus Christ to be the wa}', the truth,
and the life ; that, following the steps of Thy holy Apostles, we may
stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life ; through the
same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Collect for St Philip and St James.
152
CHAPTER VIII
JOY IN THE LORD AND ITS PRESERVING POWER
" THAT I MAY KNOW HIM "
Philippians iii. i-ii
WITH the section just closed the Epistle
reaches its middle point and already
looks towards its end. We may lawfully think
of St Paul as pausing here in his dictation ; he
returns to it after some considerable interval,
with new topics, or rather with one important
new topic, in his mind. Hitherto, if we have
read him aright, we have seen him occupied,
from one side or another, with the thought
of Christian Unity at Philippi. That thought
has been either explicitly developed, as in the
close of the first chapter, and in the opening
of the second, and again in the passage em-
bracing ii. 14-16 ; or it has been rather implied
than expounded. The Apostle's assurances
of love and prayer have been often worded
153
154 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
SO as to suggest it. The grand passage of
doctrine, ii. 5-1 1, has been occasioned directly
by it, and is made to bear immediately upon
it ; the Lord's wonderful self-abnegation (if
the word may be tolerated) is revealed and
asserted there, not in an isolated way, but as
it speaks to the believer of the spirit which
should animate him, and which will preclude
jealousies and separations as nothing else can.
And even the paragraph where Timotheus and
Epaphroditus are before us is tinged with the
same feeling ; what the Apostle says about
both these dear friends is so said as to unite
the sympathies of the Philippians.
But he has more to speak of than this sacred
call to union of spirit and of life in Christ.
We gather that Epaphroditus, talking over
the condition of the Mission with his leader,
had alluded to the presence there of serious
doctrinal perils, which must ultimately affect
Christian holiness. That ubiquitous difficulty,
the propaganda of anti-Pauline Christian
Judaism, had come on the scene, or was
just coming. The teachers who affirmed, or
insinuated, that Jesus Christ could be reached
DOCTRINAL PERILS AT PHILIPPI 1 55
only through the ceremonial law, were now
to be reckoned with. The converts were
disturbed, or soon might be disturbed, by-
being told that proselytism to Moses, sealed
by circumcision, was a sine qua non in order
to a valid hope of salvation through the
Gospel ; that the man awakened from his
paganism must be at least something of a Jew
to be anything of a Christian ; that the door
was not absolutely open between the sinner's
soul and the Saviour, to be passed through
by the one step of a living trust in the Promise.
Let us remember that assertions like these,
which to Christians now may seem obviously
futile, by no means necessarily seemed so then.
Then, much more than now, pagan enquirers
after Jesus would be sure to be conscious that
the true salvation offered was, in one sense,
emphatically a Jewish salvation. It was the
message which told of the life and death, the
person and work, of One who was, "after
the flesh," a Jew. It was the announcement
that the long hope of Israel was fulfilled in
Him. Its terminology was full of words and
ideas altogether Jewish. And its messengers
156 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
— above all, for the Philippians, St Paul — were
Jews, of unmistakable nationality, training,
and (doubtless) appearance. On a first view,
on a hasty and shallow view certainly, it may
have seemed a quite natural incident in such
a message when some of its propagandists
asserted that to reach this Hebrew Deliverer
and King the enquirer must form a connexion
in religion which should be definitely Hebrew.
It is conceivable that even yet, in the history
of the Church, this phase of error may in some
form assert itself again. We look in the future,
it may be in the near future, for the keeping to
the old Israel of promises which have never
been revoked. We believe that Rom. xi. shall
yet find its fulfilment, and that the " receiving
of them again shall be life from the dead " to
the world. In that great period of blessing,
the work of missions may (shall we not say,
probably will ?) be very largely taken up by
Hebrew Christians. And if any of these, like
some of their predecessors of the first age,
should have only a distorted view of the Gospel
of Christ, their intense national character may
tell not a little on the form of their message.
DOCTRINAL PERILS AT PHILIPPI 1 57
But this is by the way. All that is really before
us here is the fact that — not the open hostility
of unconverted Jews but — the sidelong counter-
action of Judaistic Christians was threatening
Philippi, and must be met by the Apostle.
Nor was this, if we explain rightly the close
of ch. iii., the only such danger in the air.
The antinomian traitor was also within the
gates. There were those who could assert
that the Gospel, the Pauline Gospel, the
wonderful message ot Justification by Faith
only, and of a life lived in the Spirit as its
sequel, was the very truth they held and
rejoiced in ; but they taught it so as to reason
from it that practical holiness did not matter ;
the justified, the accepted, the man of the
Spirit, lived in a transcendental religious
region ; he was not to be bound in conduct
by common rules. Was he not in grace ?
And was not grace the antithesis of works ?
Was not grace, before everything else, the
condonation of sin ? And the more it did that
work, was it not the more glorious? "Shall
we not continue in sin then, that grace may
abound?" What does it signify, though the
158 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
perishable and burthensome body defiles itself?
The emancipated spirit of the " spiritual " man
lives on another plane ; the sensual and
the mystical elements may approach, may run
parallel, but can never meet. The body may
sin ; the spirit must be pure — if only the man
is in grace.
Such assuredly were some of the conditions
of error and evil to be considered when on
that far-oft day, in his Roman chamber, St Paul
turned his soul again to Philippi, and asked
his scribe to write. There is a solemn comfort
in the thought. In our days of trial, when
again and again it is as if " the foundations
were destroyed," it is something to remember
the awful mental and moral trials of the apos-
tolic age. It was indeed an " age of faith " ;
but, as the other side of that very fact, it was
an age of clouds and darkness, trom the point
not of " faith " but of " sight." It had a glorious
answer to the tremendous questions that beset
it. But that answer was not human reasoning,
or material successes ; it was the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so it is for us to-day.
But now St Paul is at work ; let us listen,
•* BE GLAD IN THE LORD " 1 59
and we shall hear how promptly he brings that
answer to bear in his letter to Philippi.^
Ver. I. For the rest (to Xolttov), my brethren, to
turn now to another topic, as I draw towards an
end, let me give you this comprehensive watchword
Be glad in the Lord.^ To write the same things to you,
to reiterate that one thought, that CHRIST is our
* The reader may be aware that Bishop Lightfoot's theory
of the connexion of thought at the beginning of ch. iii. is
different from that advocated here. He thinks that St Paul
dictated on continuously /z7/ ^Ae close of iii. i, and was
interrupted thete, and then began de novo with iii. 2, entirely
on another line. In this view, the words about "writing the
same things unto you" refer still to Christian unity, on
which St Paul was going to dilate further, but a sudden pause
occurred, and the theme was dropped. With reverence for
the great expositor, I cannot but think this unlikely. It
assumes that St Paul was curiously indifferent to the sequence
of thought in an important apostolic message, which assuredly
he would read over again before it was. actually sent. A theory
which fairly explains the passage, and meanwhile avoids the
thought of such indifference, seems to me far preferable.
^ The words obviously may be rendered, " Farewell in the
Lord " ; and so some take them, explaining that St Paul was
intending to close immediately, and so wrote his "Adieu"
here ; but then changed his plan. This is very unlikely
however. See below, iv. 4 : Xaipere ev Kvpia iravrore. The
"always" there scarcely suits a formula of farewell, while
it perfectly suits an injunction to be glad. And that passage
is the obvious echo of this. — A.V. and R.V. both render
" rejoice," though R.V. writes " or, farewell" in the margin
l60 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
glory and our joy, "to me not irksome, it is safe for
you."^ Safe, because there are spiritual dangers
around you from which this will be the best preserva-
tive ; false teachings which can only be fully met
with the gladness of the truth of Christ. Beware of,
Ver. 2. keep your eyes open upon (/SXevrere), the
*' dogs," the men who would excommunicate all who
hold not with their half-Christian Pharisaism and its
legal burthens, but who are themselves thus self-
excluded from the covenant blessing. Beware of the
evil workmen, the teachers whose watchword is " works,
works, works," a weary round of observances and
would-be merits, but who are sorry work-mot indeed,
spoiling the whole structure of " Heaven's easy, artless,
unencumber'd plan." Beware of the concision, the
apostles of a mere physical wounding, which, as
enjoined according to their principles, is nothing
better than a mutilation {jcaTaToyJ]), a parody of
what circumcision was meant to be, as the sacrament
St Chrysostom in his comments here explains the passage as
referring to the Christian's joy {xapa). The ancient Latin
versions render Gaicdete (not valete) in Domino.
^ I thus render rhythmically the rhythmical Greek (it is
an iambic trimeter) : l\ioi fiev ovk oKvrjpov, vfuv 8' dcrcftaXes. It
is probable that the words are a quotation from a Greek
poet, perhaps a " comic" poet ; the " comedies " being full of
neatly expressed reflexions. For such a quotation, probably
from the " comedian " Menander, see i Cor, xv. 33 : (pdeipova-iv
fj6t] XPW^' ofxikiai KOKai: ^^ III converse cankers fair morality"
THE TRUE ISRAEL l6l
of a preparatory dispensation now terminated in its
Vcr. 3. fulfilment. For not they but we are the
circumcision, the true Israel of the true covenant,
sealed and purified by our God; we who by God's
Spirit worship,^ doing priestly service in a spiritual
temple * in a life, love, and power, which is ours by
the presence in us of the Holy Ghost, the promise
of the Father ; and who exult, not in tribal, national,
ceremonial prerogatives, but in Christ Jesus, our refuge
and our crown, our righteousness and glory, with an
exultation infinitely warmer than the legalist's can
be, and meanwhile pure, for its source is altogether
not ourselves ; and who, in Him, not in the flesh,^ not
' The reading ol nvev^an Qeov (not OtS) XaTpevovres is to be
preferred.
' Aarpevfiv means first to do servants' work, then to do
religious "service" (so almost always in LXX. and N.T.)
and sometimes specially ^rzi^j-Z/y duty (see e.g. Heb. xiii. 10).
This latter may be in view here : we Christians, born anew
of the Spirit, are the true _pries Is, and we little need to be
made Jewish proselytes first.
^ The adp^ in St Paul is very fairly represented by the word
" self" as used popularly in religious language. It is man
taken as apart from God, and so man versus God ; then by
transition it may mean, as here, the products of such a
source, the labours of the self-life to construct a self-
righteousness. It is hardly necessary to say that, in such
contexts as this, where it stands more or less distinguished
from the irvevfia, it is not a synonym for "the body." Sins
of "the flesh" may be sins purely of the mind, as e.g.
"emulation" (Gal. v. 20).
II
1 62 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
in self and its workings, are confident (for confident
we are, but it is a "confidence in self-despair," the
confidence of those who have been driven by self-
discovery to Christ alone). ^ I speak with a general
reference, of all true disciples ; but let me instance
myself as a case peculiarly in point. I speak thus,
Ver. 4. though having (e%&)y), I, myself (e7&)), from
their view-point, confidence even in flesh. Whoever else
thinks of confiding in fiesh, of building a legal standing-
place on his privilege and merit, I may do so more
than he ; for I have reached the ne plus tiltra in that
Ver. 5. direction. As for circumcision,^ I was an
eight-day child ; no proselyte, operated upon in later
life, but a son of the Covenant ; descended from
Israel's race, one of the progeny of him who was
a prince with God (Gen. xxxii. 28) ; of Benjamin's
tribe, the tribe which gave the first God-chosen king
to the nation, and which remained " faithful among
the faithless " to the house of David at a later day ;
Hebrew offspring of Hebrew ancestors,^ child of a home
' I thus attempt to convey the emphasis of the words
ovK. (V (rapid TrenoiBoTes, which is not precisely as if he had
written ov irfn. tv crapKi.
^ HfpiTOfjL^ : a dative of reference, a frequent construction
with St Paul. See Rom.xii. 10-12 for several examples together.
^ See Trench, Synonyms, § xxxix., for the special meanings
of ^laparjKlrrjs, the member of the Covenant-people ; 'E^paios,
the Jew who was true to his inmost national traditions ; and
'loi/Saloy, the Jew merely as other than the Gentile.
AN IDEAL LEGALIST 163
in which, immemorially, the old manners and the
old speech were cherished ; in respect of the Law,^ a
Pharisee — the votary of religious precision, elaborate
devotion, exclusive privilege, and energetic prose-
Ver. 6. lytism ; in respect of zeal, intense and per-
fectly sincere, persecuting the Church; in respect of
the righteousness which resides in the Law, as its terms
are understood by the Pharisee, found ('yev6/jbevo<;)
blameless.^ Such was my position, I possessed an
ideal pedigree ; full sacramental position from the
first ; domestic traditions pure and strict ; an absolute
personal devotion to the cause of my creed ; the most
rigorous observance of its rules ; the most energetic
Ver. 7. efforts to maintain and extend its power. But
the kind of things which (ariva) I felt (/iol rjv) so many
gains,' these things I have . come to consider (rjyqfxai,
perfect), because of our (rov) Christ (discovered at last
in His glory, as the slain and risen Jesus), just one
^ The article is absent ; but context leaves no doubt of the
special reference here.
2 In solemn contrast but with perfect consistency, from
another point of view — that not of the Pharisee but of GOD
— he can point out elsewhere that "no flesh" can possibly
claim "righteousness" on the ground of fulfilment of code
and precept. See especially Rom. iii. 19, 20. But his
business here is to meet the legalist on the legalist's own
ground.
' Notice the plural; as if, miser-like, he had counted his
bags of treasure. And then see the contrasted singular,
Cr]ixiav : he finds them all one mass of loss.
164 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
loss, one deprivation ; not merely a worthless thing,
but a ruinous one ; a robbery of the true Blessing
Ver. 8. from my soul. Aye more, I actually (/cat)
now consider all things, from all points of view, all
possessions, all ambitions, to be similarly loss, depriva-
tion, because of the surpassingness of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus my Lord, because of the immeasurable
betterness of a spirit-sight of what He is, in Himself,
and as my own ; because of whom — on account of
what He now was to me — I suffered deprivation
{i^7]fn,o}6r]v) of my all (ra iravra), in the crisis of my
change ; and I consider it only refuse,' rubbish, that
I may gain ^ (in a blessed exchange of profit against
loss, the loss of what I thought my " gains ") Christ,
nothing less than HiM, my boundless Wealth (ttXoOto?
Ver. 9. ave^L')(ylaaTov, Eph. iii. 8), and be found, at
any and every " time of finding " (Ps. xxxii. 7, Heb.)
by the Holy One, in Him, one with Him, in His
precious merits and in His risen life, but now espe-
cially in His merits ; not having a righteousness of my
own, that derived from the Law, a title to acceptance
drawn from my own supposed perfect correspondence
' 2Kv/3aXa : the Greek etymologists derived the word from
Kvcri /SaXeli/, " to cast to dogs." Otherwise it is traced to a
connexion with (TKOip^ " excrement."
^ Practically, he means "that I might gain," in the past
transaction of conversion and surrender. He thinks the past
over again.
POSITION AND EXPERIENCE 1 65
to the Law, but that which comes through faith in^
Christ, through reliance wholly reposed in Him, the
righteousness which is derived not from the Law but
from God, coming wholly out of His uncaused and
sacred mercy, on terms of our (rrj) faith, conditioned ^
Ver. 10. to us by simply our accepting reliance ; in
order to know Him, Him, my Lord, with an intuition
possible only to the soul which accepts Him for its
All ; and the power of His Resurrection, as that Resur-
rection assures His people of their justification (Rom.
iv. 24, 25), and of their coming glory (i Cor. xv. 20),
and yet more as He, by His life-giving Spirit, shed
forth from Him the risen Head, lives His " indis-
soluble life" (Heb. vii. 16) in His members; and
the partnership of His sufferings, that deep experience
of union with Him which comes through daily
** taking up the cross," in His steps, for His sake, and
in His strength ; growing into conformity (a-ufx/iopcfit-
fo/i6vo9, a present participle) with His Death, drawn
evermore into spiritual harmony with Him who
wrought my salvation out by an ineffable surrender
Ver. 11. of Himself to suffer; if somehow I may
arrive, along the appointed path of the believer's
^ Lit., " faith 0/" nla-Tecos XpLcrrov. This use of the genitive
with TTia-Tis, to denote its object, is frequent. Cp. e.g. Mark
xi. 22 ; Gal. ii. 16, 20.
^ Even as the benefit of food is conditioned to us by our
(not buying but) eating it.
1 66 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
obedience, at the resurrection which is out from
the dead (rrjv i^avdcrraatu ttjv eK veKpwv : so read) ;
" that blessed hope " for all who sleep in Him,
when their whole existence, redeemed and perfected,
shall leave the world of " the dead " behind for
ever.
Here is a piece of consecutive rendering and
paraphrase longer than usual. And meanwhile
the passage before us is one of extraordinary
fulness and richness, alike in its record of
experience and its teaching of eternal truths.
But it seemed impossible to break into frag-
ments the glorious wholeness of the Apostle's
thought and utterance. And then, the utter-
ance is so rich, so detailed, so explanatory of
itself, that I could not but feel that, for very
much of it at least, my best commentary was
the closest rendering I could offer, with a few
brief suggestions by the way.
Drawing now to a close, I can only indicate,
under one or two headings, some main messages
to the mind and soul.
i. I gather from the connexion of the passage,
as we have traced it, the supreme importance
of a true joy in the Lord, a true personal sight of
THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF HOLY JOY 1 67
"the King in His beauty," in order to our
spiritual orthodoxy. Let me quote again from
the Prayer Book of the Moravians, from which
I gave one short extract in the last chapter.
In their " Church Litany," among the first
suffrages, occur these petitions : " From cold-
ness to Thy merits and death, From error and
misunderstanding, From the loss of our glory
in Thee, Preserve us, gracious Lord and God!'
The words are the very soul of St Paul, as it
conveys the Spirit's oracle to us here. St Paul
dreads exceedingly for the Philippians the
incursion of " error and misunderstanding" ;
the advent of a mechanical rigorism of rule
and ordinance, and (as we shall see in later
pages) the subtle poison also of the specious
antinomian lie. How does he apply the anti-
dote ? In the form of an appeal to them to
be sure to not to " lose their glory in the
Lord " ; and then he writes a record of his own
experience in which he shews them how his
own Pharisaic treasures had all been cast away,
or willingly given up to the spoiler ; and why ?
Not for abstract reasons, but "because of the
surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ
1 68 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Jesus my Lord " ; because of the irresistible
and infinite betterness of His discovered glory,
seen in the atoning Cross and the Resur-
rection power.
Let us •* arm ourselves likewise with the
same mind." We have countless perils about
us in our modern Christendom, things which
only too easily can trouble the reason and
sway the will away from the one " hope set
before us." Let us meet them, whatever else
we do, with the Moravians' prayer. Let us
meet them with obedience to the Apostle's
positive injunction, " Rejoice in the Lord."
ii. The passage bids us remember the pro-
found connexion between a true "knowledge"
ot the Lord Jesus as our Atonement and a
true "knowledge" of Him as our Life and
Power. Both are here. In ver. 9, so it seems
to me, any unprejudiced reader of St Paul's
writings must see language akin to those great
passages of Romans and Galatians which put
before us the supreme question of our Justi-
fication, and which send us for our whole hope
of Acceptance before the eternal Judge, whose
law we have broken, to the Atoning Death of
ACCEPTANCE AND HOLINESS 1 69
our Lord Jesus Christ. In those passages,
demonstrably as I venture to think, the word
" Righteousness " is largely used as a short
term for the Holy One's righteous way of
accepting us sinners for the sake of the Sinless
One, who, in our nature, was ** made a curse
for us," " made sin for us," " delivered for our
offences," " set forth for a propitiation," that
we might be "justified from all things " in our
union with Him by faith. If so, this is the
purport of similar phrases here also. St Paul
is thinking here first of the discovered glory
of Christ as the propitiation for his sins, his
peace with God, his refuge and his rest for
ever against the accuser and the curse. That
comes first, profoundly first.
But then we have also here the sequel truth,
the glorious complement. Here is Acceptance,
wholly for Jesus Christ's most blessed sake.
But this is but the divine condition to another
divine and transcendent blessing ; it is revealed
as the way in to a knowledge of this Lord of
Peace, a deep and unspeakable knowledge of
Him, such as shall infuse into His disciple
the power of His Risen Life, and the secret
170 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
of an inward assimilation ot the soul to the
very principle of His Death, and shall be the
path whose end shall be His glory.
St Paul here bids us never put asunder what
God hath joined together. " Never further
than the Cross, never higher than Thy feet " ;
there may we be "found," "in Him"; un-
shaken by surrounding mysteries, and meekly
resolute against fashions of opinion. Let us
be recognized for those who truly know for
themselves, and truly commend to others,
that blessed " Justification by Faith " which is
still, as ever, the Beautiful Gate of the Gospel.
" 'Tis joy enough, my All in All,
Before Thy feet to lie ;
Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
And who can higher fly ? "
But then let us be known as those who,
accepting Christ Jesus as our i\ll for peace,
(whatever we may have to " consider to be
loss " that we may do so,) have clasped Him
also as our Hidden Life, our Risen Power,
our King within.
" O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,
And all things else recede;
ATONING CROSS AND RISEN LIFE 171
My heart be daily nearer Thee,
From sin be daily freed." ^
Always at the atoning Cross ; — yes, every
day and hour ; " knowing no other stand "
before the face of the Holy One. Always
receiving there the Risen Life, the presence
inwardly of the Risen One, the secret power
tp suffer and to serve in peace ; — yes, for
ever yes ; "to the praise of the glory of
His grace."
So, and only so, shall we live the life of
real sinners really saved; ** worshipping by
the Spirit of God, exulting in Christ Jesus,
and confident, but not in the flesh."
* See the whole hymn (rendered from Lavater's O Jesu
Christe, wachs in mir) in Hymns of Cofisecration, 295.
"We will dwell on Calvary's mountain
Where the flocks of Zion feed,
Oft resorting to that fountain
Open'd when our Lord did bleed ;
Thence deriving
Grace, and life, and holiness."
From the Moravian Hymn-book.
172
CHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN
PROGRESS
»73
"I WANT that adorning divine
Thou only, my God, can'st bestow;
I want in those beautiful garments to shine
Which distinguish Thy household below.
"I want, as a traveller, to haste
Straight onward, nor pause on my way.
Nor forethought nor anxious contrivance to waste
On the tent only pitch'd for a day,
"I want — and this sums up my prayer —
To glorify Thee till I die,
Then calmly to yield up my soul to Thy care,
And breathe out, in faith, my last sigh."
Charlotte Elliott.
174
CHAPTER IX
CHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS
Philippians iii. 12-16
IN a certain sense we have completed our
study of the first section of the third
chapter of the Epistle. But the treatment
has been so extremely imperfect, in view of
the importance of that section, that a few
further remarks must be made. Let us ponder
one weighty verse, left almost unnoticed when
we touched it.
Observe then the brief, pregnant account of
the true Christian, given in ver. 3 : '* We are
the circumcision, we who by God's Spirit
worship, and who exult in Christ Jesus, and
who, not in the flesh, are confident." This
is a far-reaching description of the true
member of the true Israel, the man of the
Covenant of grace.
175
176 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Note first its positive lines. " We worship^'
" we exult,'' " we are coiifident !' Every
affirmation is full of divine principles of truth.
" We worship " ; ours is a hallowed, dedicated,
and reverent life. It is spent in a sanctuary.
Whatever we have to be, or to do, as to
externals ; whether to rule a province, a church,
a school, a home ; whether to keep accounts,
or sweep a room ; whether to evangelize the
slums of a city, or the dark places of
heathenism, or to teach language, or science,
or music ; whether to be active all day long,
or to lie down alone to suffer ; whatever be
our actual place and duty in the world, " we
worships "■ We have set the Lord always
before us." We have " sanctified Christ as
Lord in our hearts" (i Pet. iii. 15 ; so read).
We belong to Him everywhere, and we
recollect it. We owe adoring reverence to
Him everywhere, and we recollect it. Let
us reiterate the fact ; ours is a hallowed life,
for it belongs to a divine Master ; it is a
reverent life, for that Master in His great-
ness is to us an abiding Presence. The fact
of Him, the thought of Him, has expelled
CHRISTIAN EXULTATION I 77
from our lives the secular air and the light
and flippant spirit. We are nothing if not
worshippers.
Then, secondly, " we exult'' Ours is a life
of gladness, so far as it is the true Christian
life. Constantly and profoundly chastened
by its worshipping character, it is constantly
quickened and illuminated by this element of
exultation. The word is strong, Ka.vyo}[iG^oi,
"exulting." We observe that the Apostle
does not say that we are resigned, that we
are at peace, that there is a calm upon us.
This is true; but he says that "we exult T
The " still waters," the mey rnnuchoth of
Ps. xxiii. 2, are anything but stagnant. They
are a lake ; but it is a lake upon a river,
like the fair waters of Galilee, receiving and
giving, and therefore alive with pure move-
ment, while yet surrounded by the " rest,"
mntlchdh, which means repose not from action
but underneath it. " We exult." Ours is not
an autumn of feeling ; not a state of the soul
in which the characteristics are the sighs and
starting tears of memory and apprehension.
It is an everlasting spring, in which the mighty
12
lyS PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
but temperate Sun of Salvation is shining,
and will not set ; not parching but quickening
all day long, *' We exult." It is a happy
life, not only with the happiness of a cheerful
contentment, beautiful as that is ; ours is the
happiness of wondering discovery, and rich
possession, and ever-opening prospects ; it is
'* quick and lively " ; it is " exultation."
Then, " we are confident!' If I traced the
bearing of this clause aright, in the last chapter,
we shall feel that the word- TreTroi^ores is meant
to carry a positive message. It is not only
that "we do not rely on the flesh " ; it is that
" we are reliant, though not on the flesh."
Even so, in the true idea of the Christian life.
" We are confidejitT We are not wanderers
from one peradventure to another ; we are
reliant, we are assured, we know where we
are, and what we are, and whither we are
bound. True, we are intensely conscious of
the limits of our knowledge ; it is only here
and there that we can absolutely say, " We
know." But then, the points where we can
say so are points of supreme importance.
" We know that the Son of God is come."
CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE I 79
" We know that our sins are forgiven us for
His name's sake." " We know that all things
work together for good to them that love
God." " We know that if our earthly house
of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a
building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens ; therefore we are
always confident^ And all this is summed
up in the thought that " we know whom we
have believed, and that He is able to keep
what we have committed unto Him." Our
certainty is a confiding certainty. It does
not reside in our courage, or our mental
insight ; it is lodged in a Person, who is
such that He claims our entire reliance on
His work, His word. Himself
Then from its other side this wonderful
verse gives us the cautions, the negatives, of
the Christian life ; though even here it speaks
the language of the highest positive truth.
" We worship by God's Spirit'' ; our reverence,
our adoration, the hallowing and religiousness
of our lives, is not a form imposed from with-
out ; it is a power exerting itself from within,
having come to our poor hearts from above.
l80 PHIUPPIAN STUDIES
Assuredly we do not neglect or slight actions
and rites of worship ; He who has made each
of us soul and body, one man, does not mean
us to despise the outward and physical in
devotion. But we watchfully remember that
no such actions or rites are, for one moment,
the soul of worship, or its formative power.
That so\A and power is "God's Spirit" only;
the Holy Ghost dwelling in the renewed being,
and teaching the man ** to cry Abba, Father,"
and " making intercession for him with
groanings which cannot be uttered," and
" taking of the things of Christ, and shewing
it unto us." We pray, and it is " in the Holy
Ghost." We worship, and it is " in Spirit, and
in truth."
Again, " we exult in Christ Jesus!' Our
glad and animated happiness lies in nothing
short of Him as its cause. We are thankful
for noble religious traditions and institutions,
and for holy parentage, and for all which
makes Christianity correspond in practice to
its name. But we are watchful not to let
even these blessings take the unique place of
"Christ Jesus" in our "exultation." " In all
"NOT IN THE flesh" i8i
things He must have the pre-eminence."
Piety itself without Him, if it can be found,
is not a body but a statue. All the privileges
of the Church of God, without Him, though
we reverently cherish every teaching and
every ordinance that is Christian indeed, are
but the frame without the picture, the casket
without the stone.
Then again, " not in the flesh are we con-
fident." We have learnt a deep distrust of
everything which St Paul classes under that
word " flesh." It is always offering itself to
us, in one Protean shape or another, to be
our comfort and our repose. Sometimes it
takes the form of our supposed usefulness
and diligence ; sometimes of our strict and
exemplary observances ; sometimes, putting on
a disguise still more subtle, it sets before the
Christian the depth, or the length, of his
spiritual experience. Or it grows bolder, and
is content with coarser masks ; it tempts us to
a miserable reliance on some imagined better-
ness when we compare ourselves, forsooth,
with some one else. I knew long ago an old
shepherd, in my father's parish, who based a
162 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
hope for eternity on the fact (if such it was)
that he was never tipsy on a Sunday. We
are amused, or we are shocked. But this was
only an extreme type of a vast phenomenon,
to be found lurking in countless hearts, when
God lets in the light ; the " reliance " on our
being somehow, so we think, " not as other
men are." And from this whole world of
delusion, in all its continents and islands, the
Lord calls us away here by His Apostle. He
bids us migrate as it were to another planet,
laying our whole confidence, not part of it,
on Him ; let that other world, our old world,
roll along without us.
Christ presents to us Himself (as we follow
out this rich Philippian passage) as all our
Righteousness, in His precious justifying
Merit, offered for the acceptance of the very
simplest faith. And He presents Himself as
all our Power, for deliverance and for service,
in His resurrection Life ; coming to reveal
Himself to us in the divine beauty of His
sufferings. His death, through which he has
passed for us into "indissoluble life" (Heb.
vii. i6). Our Righteousness — it is He, "the
"IN CHRIST JESUS " 183
propitiation for our sins." Our Sanctification
— it is still He, in "the power of His resur-
rection, and fellowship with His sufferings,
and assimilation to His death." Our Redemp-
tion, from the power of the grave — it is still
"this same Jesus," in union with whom alone
we " attain unto the resurrection which is out
from the dead."
Even so, Lord Jesus Christ ; let us thus
be "found in Thee"; worshipping, exulting,
confiding ; resting on Thee, abiding in Thee,
with an accepting faith which only grows more
simple and single as the years move on and
gather " since we believed."
" Help us, O Christ, to grasp each truth
With hand as firm and true
As when we clasp'd it first to heart
A treasure fresh and new ;
" To name Thy name, Thyself to own,
With voice unfaltering,
And faces bold and unashamed
As in our Christian spring." '
But St Paul is again dictating, and we must
follow. He has confessed and affirmed, once
1 Dr H. Bonar.
184 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
for all, his standing and fixity in the Lord,
and in Him alone. Now he must emphasize
another aspect of the living truth, his progress
in the Lord ; the non-finality of any given
attainment in union with Him.
Ver. 12. Not as though I had already received
(eXa^ov) the crown of accomplished glory, or had
been already perfected, with the perfection which shall
be when " we shall be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is." No, I am pressing on (Sccokm Se), as
on the racer's course, if indeed, if as a fact, in blessed
finality, I may seize (KaTaXd/Bo)) that promised crown
with a view to which ^ I was actually (/cat) seized by
Christ Jesus, when in His mercy He as it were laid
violent hands upon me, to pluck me from ruin, and
to constrain me into His salvation and His service.
Yes, " I press on " to " seize " that crown, with the
animating thought that it was on purpose that I
might " seize " it that the Lord " seized " me ; and that
so every stage in the upward and onward course of
faith runs straight in the line of His will whose
^ 'E0' o) KaTfXr'jipSrjv : grammatically we may render, "inas-
much as I was seized"; cp. the Greek of Rom. v. 12;
I Cor. V. 4. But the connexion of thought seems to be best
met by the above rendering, which is practically that of A.V.
and R.V.
THE PRIZE IN VIEW 1 85
mighty, gracious grasp is on me as I go. Brethren,
Ver. 13. (I speak the word of pause and of appeal,
as if I could stand by you, and lay my hand upon
your arm,) I (e^w), whatever others may think and
do about theiHseXves, do not account m y self {ifiavrov,
emphatic like €70^) to have seized the crown as yet ;
no, one thing {ev he) — my thoughts, my purposes, are
all concentrated on this one thing — the things behind
forgetting, as one experience after another falls behind
me into the past, and towards the things in front
stretching out and onward (eVe/cTeivo/iefo?), like the
eager racer, with head thrown forward and body
bent towards his object, seeking for more and yet
more, in the grace and power of my unchangeable
Ver. 14. Saviour, goal-ward I press on {Kara ukottov
Bkokco), " not uncertainly," with no faltering or divided
aim, unto (et?), till I actually touch, the prize {^pa^elov,
I Cor. ix. 24), the victor's wreath,^ the prize of,
offered by, made possible through, the high call of
God, the voice of His prevailing grace^ coming from
the heights {avw) of glory and leading the believer
at length up thither, in Christ Jesus ; for through
1 2Te(j)avos, as in i Cor. ix. 25, Rev. iii. 11, and often.
^Tecjiavos is properly the victor's wreath, 8id8r]ijLa the king's
crown (Rev. xix. 12). — For a short essay on St Paul's use of
athletic metaphors see this Epistle in T/te Cambridge Greek
Testament, Appendix.
^ KXj)o-if, Kokfiv, kXtjtoi, in the Epistles will be found
regularly to refer not to the general invitations of the
1 86 PIIILIPPIAN STUDIES
Him comes the " call," and its blessed effect is to
unite the " called," the converted, sinner to Him, so
that he lives here and hereafter in Him, So let all
Ver. 15. us perfect ones {oaoi ovv reXeiot), with the
perfection not of ideal attainment but of Christian
maturity and entirety of experience, be of this
mind ; the " mind " of those who rest in Christ
immoveably for their acceptance, and press forward
in Christ unrestingly in their obedience, ever dis-
covering fresh causes for humility and for progress,
as they keep close to Him. And if you are diversely
(iripax;) minded in any thing, if in any detail of
theory or statement you cannot yet see with me,
this also God shall unveil to you. Sure I am that
" the Spirit of God speaketh by me," and that
ultimately therefore you will, in submission to Him,
see as I have taught you. But I am not therefore
commissioned in this rnatter to denounce and excom-
municate ; I lay the truth before you, and in love
leave it upon your reverent thoughts. Only, as to
Ver. 16. what we have succeeded in reaching,^ so far
Gospel, but to the actually prevailing power of God over
the wills of His people. See particularly i Cor. i. 23, 24,
where the "call" is clearly distinguished from the general
proclamation, which alas so many "Greeks" and "Jews"
heard, but only to reject it.
^ 'Ecf)daa-an€v : the verb seems always to indicate not merely
reaching, but reaching zvtYh some difficulty. I attempt to
express this in the translation.
NO FINALITY IN THE PROGRESS 1 87
as our insight into Christ has actually gone, up to
our full present light in the Gospel, let us step in the
same path (tw avrS) aroix^iv^), on the unchanging
principles of faith, love, and holiness, and with a
watchful desire to cherish to the utmost a holy
harmony of spirit and conduct.
Here, in suggestive contrast or complement
to the section we studied last, the Christian
appears in full and energetic movement,
animated with a sacred discontent, repudiat-
ing all thought of finality in his conformity to
his Lord, and in his actual spiritual condition ;
running, pressing on, remembering at every
step that, although grace is present in power,
and glory is in view, still this is the journey,
not the home ; the race, not the goal ;
JVi'l actum rej^iitans dum quid sibi restat agendum.
The passage contains of course much divine
teaching in detail. But two main points come
up conspicuously " for our learning."
i. We have here a strong, and at the
' There is good evidence for omitting the words Kavovi, to
avTo (ppovelv. — Iroixeiv is more in detail than irepiTraTelv : "to
step," not only " to walk." See the Greek of Rom. iv. 12.
1 88 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
same time a most tender, warning against all
approaches to a theoretical " perfectionism."
Under that word, as I am well aware, many
varieties ot opinion in detail may be found.
And again, few who hold opinions commonly
called perfectionist like the word ** perfec-
tionism." But I speak with practical accuracy
when I give that title to such views as on
the whole affirm the attainableness here below
of a spiritual condition in which man needs
no longer confess himself as now a sinner,
and in which his attention tends to be drawn
more to his perfectness than to his imperfec-
tions of condition. That such views are held,
and strongly held, by many earnest Christians,
is a familiar fact. As far as my own observa-
tion goes, such views are not uncommonly
attended, in those who hold them, by a certain
oblivion to personal shortcomings and incon-
sistencies ; by an obscuration of consciousness,
and of conscience, more or less marked, towards
the sinfulness of ordinary, everyday violations
of the law of holiness in respect of " meek-
ness, humbleness of mind, longsuffering,"
sympathy, and other quiet graces.
"NOT ALREADY PERFECT" 1 89
In the present passage the Apostle's whole
spirit moves in just the opposite direction.
His complete repose in Christ as the Right-
eousness of God for him, and then his deep
nearness to his Lord as the Power of God
in him, alike seem not so much to banish as
utterly to preclude any thought about himself
but that of his own imperfection. He writes
as one whose very last feeling is that of
complacency in his spiritual condition. I
deliberately do not say " self-complacency " ;
for all Christians would repudiate that word ;
I say, complacency in his spiritual condition.
His s^iniudX position, in Christ, as he is "found
in Him," fills him with much more than com-
placency ; it is his glory and his boast. But
when he comes to speak of his spiritual con-
dition, the possessing thought is that all is
imperfect and progressive. He has a perfect
blessing ; but he is an imperfect recipient of
it ; he has " not attained." He is deeply happy.
But he is thoroughly humble. As we read
the passage, we feel very sure that the man
who wrote it would lie very tenderly and
candidly open to reproofs, and to painful truths
IQO PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
told him about himself. For his Lord, he is
ready to bear rejoicing witness to the whole
world. For himself, even as in Christ, he
holds no brief; nay, he takes the other
part.
He has had a vision of absolute holiness
which has completely guarded him from the
delusion of thinking that he is himself abso-
lutely holy, even in the fullest state of grace.
He is so genuinely "perfect" in the sense of
mature knowledge of his Lord that he is
incapable of thinking himself " perfected."
All the while, this does not for a moment
leave him in the miserable plight of acquiescing
in sin because he knows he is still a sinner. If
he were merely going by a theory, it might be
so. But he is going by the Lord Jesus Christ ;
he is using Him, daily and hourly, as not only
his always abasing standard, but as " all his
salvation, and all his desire " ; as the infinitely
blissful Object of his affections and of his
knowledge ; as his Summum Bonum. While
Christ is fully this to the Christian, he will
be little likely on the one hand to say, " I am
perfect " (Job ix. 20) ; on the other he will be
THE RECOMPENSE OF REWARD IQI
always seeking, in the most practical of all
ways, watching, praying, believing, for a closer
conformity and yet closer (crvju,/Aop(^i{ojaei^os) to
his Lord's bright image.
And at the back of all his thoughts about
defect and progress will lie the restful certain-
ties to which no ideas of defect attach, and
from which the idea of progress is absent,
because it is out of place — the certainties of the
Righteousness of God, "of peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ " ; the being
" found in Him."
ii. The passage puts very distinctly before
us the thought of the Reward of Grace. The
writer is living, loving, working, in view of
a " prize," ^pa/Seiov : he looks forward to the
Master's hand as it will extend the wreath of
victory, and to His voice as it will utter the
longed-for words, " Well done, good and faith-
ful Servant." This same man has laboured, in
many an hour of public and private teaching,
and in many an inspired page, to emphasize
the magnificent truth that grace is grace ; that
God owes man nothing ; that " all things are
of God " ; that " to him that worketh not, but
192 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is reckoned for righteousness." He
well knows that there is a side of truth from
which the one possible message is the Lord's
own solemn question and answer (Luke xvii. 9),
" Doth he thank that servant ? I trow not."
The most complete and laborious service
cannot possibly outrun the obligation of the
rescued bondservant to the Possessor, of the
limb to the blessed Head. But then, this
absolute servitude is to One who is, as a fact,
eternal Love. The work is done for a Master
who, while His claims are absolute, is such
that He personally delights in every response
of love to His love, of will to His will. His
servant cannot serve Him with a grateful heart
without thereby pleasing the heart of his Lord.
And so, at the close of the day's work, while,
from the side of law and claims, the Lord
"doth not thank that servant," from the side of
love and of moral sympathy He will welcome
him in with " Well done, good and faithful
servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,"
And that holy " prize " does, and must, prove
a magnet to the Christian's will and hopes.
WHAT THE PRIZE WILL BE 1 93
What is he looking for ? Not an accession of
personal dignity in heaven, but a word from
his beloved Master's heart. There is nothing
mercenary in this. True, it " has respect unto
the recompense of reward." But the " reward "
is what only love can give, and only love can
take. It is love's approval of the service of
love.
Much discussion has been spent upon the
theory of reward, in the matter of our service
rendered to " our King who has saved us."
The theme no doubt is one which admits of
much interesting and important enquiry ; and
it has many sides. But after all the true
philosophy of it lies in " the truth as it is
in Jesusr Let the Christian be seeking the
reward of personal aggrandizement in heaven,
" to sit on His right hand, or on His left, in
His glory " ; and the motive is as earthly as if
the scene of its fulfilment were to be an earthly
palace. Let him be seeking the " well done "
of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ has
redeemed him, and is dear to him ; and he
is in the line of the will, and of the love,
of God.
13
"Sovereign Lord and gracious Master,
Thou didst freely choose Thine own,
Thou hast call'd with holy calling,
Thou wilt save, and keep from falling;
Thine the glory, Thine alone !
Yet Thy hand shall crown in heaven
All the grace Thy love hath given ;
Just, though undeserv'd, reward
From our glorious, gracious Lord."
F. R. Havergal.
194
THE BLESSED HOPE AND ITS POWER
195
"We are waiting, we are yearning for Thy voice
Through the long, long summer day and winter night;
We are mourning till Thou bid'st our souls rejoice,
Till Thy coming turns our darkness into light :
Come, Lord Jesus, come again ;
We shall see Thee as Thou art.
Then, and not till then.
In Thy glory bear a part ;
Then, and not till then.
Thou wilt satisfy each heart,"
J. Denham Smith,
196
CHAPTER X
THE BLESSED HOPE AND ITS POWER
Philippians iii. 17-21
THE Apostle draws to the close of his
appeal for a true and watchful fidelity
to the Gospel. He has done with his warning
against Judaistic legalism. He has expounded,
in the form of a personal confession and
testimony, the true Christian position, the
acceptance of the believer in " the righteous-
ness which is of God by faith," and the
sanctification ot the believer through union
with his Lord and in an always growing com-
munion with Him. Throughout this deep and
most tender argument has run everywhere
the truth with which it began, that the sure
antidote to the spiritual errors in question is
"joy in the Lord." The glad use of Jesus
Christ in His personal glory and perfection, as
197
198 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
He merited for us, and as we abide in Him
— this is the way.
Already another class of mistake and danger
has risen before his mind, and occupies it
now exclusively. From ver, 12 onward, if I
read the passage aright, he has been thinking
not of the legalist only, who opposed and
denounced his doctrine of grace and faith,
but of the school or schools which rather would
applaud it — and then distort it. There was
the teacher who would assert a premature and
delusive personal perfection, proclaiming him-
self so close to Christ that he had already
reached the holy goal. And there was the
teacher who would reason so upon the perfect-
ness of the atoning merits as to disclaim the
need of seeking with all his soul a personal
conformity to the Lord of the Atonement.
Such a man would conceivably affirm for
himself an experience of intense spiritual in-
sight, a communion with God profound and
direct, an exaltation into a celestial atmosphere
of consciousness ; while yet, and on his own
avowed theory, he was living a life in which
sin was allowed to reign in his mortal body.
THE PROBLEM OF THE BODY 1 99
What did it matter ? The spirit soared and
expatiated in a higher region. The true man
Hved in the world above, " commercing with
the skies " ; it was but the body, soon to
perish, which went its own way, and might be
allowed to do so, for it could never be other
than the uncongenial burthen of the real man.
Such theories, as all are aware, were largely
developed and widely spread in the sub-
apostolic age. The word Gnosticism, so
familiar to the reader of the early history of
thought in and around the Church, reminds
us of this ; for while many Gnostics were
severe ascetics, others were practical libertines ;
and the divergent practices sprang from one
deep source of error, dishonour of the body.
To both schools, spirit was good, matter was
evil. By both therefore the body was viewed
not as a subject of redemption, but as a barrier
in its way. The one aimed to wear out
the barrier, to help it to disappear. The
others left it, as they thought, alone ; leapt,
as they thought, over it ; as if they could
pursue a spiritual life which should be irre-
spective of the body's hopeless evils.
200 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
The embryo, at least, of this latter type
of thought was beyond doubt apparent in
St Paul's day, and had begun to be felt at
Philippi. There, in that loving and beloved
community, the plague had begun, or at least
the infection was imminent. " Many walked"
(perhaps not actually at Philippi yet, but they
might soon come) in the foul broad road
which they asserted to be clean and narrow.
Very probably they used the terms of the
Pauline Gospel, and said much of grace, and
faith, and the Spirit, and the things above.
But none the less they were the victims of
an awful self-delusion ; teachers whose doctrine
led downwards to the pit. To them he comes
at length, explicitly and finally. In view of
them he places before the Philippians once
more the fact of his own and his brethren's
examples, and then the sanctifying power of
that blessed hope, the Redemption of the
Body.
Ver. 17. United imitators of me become ye, brethren;
taking me, your long-known guide in the Lord, for
your moral pattern, and strengthening your mutual
CAUTIONS AND TEARS 20I
cohesion (av/ji/mifi'rjTai) by so doing (an appeal
prompted not by egotism or self-confidence, but by
single-hearted certainty about my message and my
purpose) ; and mark, watch, in order to tread in their
steps,^ those who so walk as you have us, me and my
missionary-brethren, for a model ; those whose practical
conduct in human life and intercourse {jrepLiraTelv),
seen among you day by day in its wholesomeness
and truth, plainly reproduces what you remember
of ours. There is need for this attention, and for this
Ver. i8, discrimination. For there are many men
walking, pursuing a line of conduct and practice, whom
I often used to tell you of, in the days of our direct
intercourse, but {he) now tell you of actually {kuI) with
cries and tears (KXatoov), (so much has the evil grown,
in extent and in depth, so awfully apparent are its
issues, for this world and the world to come,) as the
enemies, ^/le personal enemies (tov<; iydpov<i), as if in
a bad pre-eminence, of the Cross of our (jov) Christ,
that Cross of whose virtues they can say much, but
whose power upon the soul they utterly ignore ; of
Ver. 19. whom the end is perdition, ruin of the whole
^ SKOTreTre : cTKoivfiv usually has reference to the attention
which results in avoidance ; so Rom. xvi. 17 : irapaKoku) anoneiv
Toiis TO, (TKapBaXa iroiovvTas' Koi eKKkivare, k.t.X. But here
obviously the "looking" is for imitation, — The Philippians
knew St Paul's teaching, and in his attached leading disciples
among them they could see it embodied.
202 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
being,^ final and hopeless ; of whom the god is the
belly, (the sensual appetites, the body's degradation,
not its function,) while they claim an exalted and
special intimacy with the Supreme ; and their (?;)
glory, their boast to see deeper and to soar higher
than others, is in their shame ; men whose mind is for
{^povouvr€<;) the things on earth, not, as they dream,
or as at least they say, for the things of an upper
and super-corporeal world. No ; their subtle doctrine
of spirit and body — what is it when tested in its
issues ? It is but a philosophy of sin ; a gossamer
robe over the self-indulgence which has come to be
the real interest of the theorist, the real occupation
of his will. All is really, with them, of the earth,
earthy. Far other is the doctrine zve have learned,
and have striven to exemplify, at the feet oi Christ.
Ver. 20. For our city-home, the seat of our citizenship,
and of the conduct which it demands and inspires,^
* Cp. Matt. vii. 13 ; Rom. vi. 21 ; 2 Cor. xi. 15 ; Heb. vi. 8 ;
I Pet. iv. 17.
^ I thus attempt to give the meaning of TroXireviia, so far as
I understand it. The R.V. renders it ''citizenship'' and
^^commonwealth" in the margin. The usage of the word in
Greek literature amply justifies either, and either well suits
the general context. The Apostle means that Christians are
citizens of the heavenly City as to their status, and are there-
fore "obliged by their nobility" to live, however far from
their home, as those who belong to it, and represent it.
What seems lacking however in the rendering of the R.V. is
the idea of locality, which (to me) was clearly present to
" THAT BLESSED HOPE " 2C3
subsists in the heavens, is always there, an antecedent
and abiding fact (yirdp^^et), on which we are to act
in life ; in that heavenly world, where the Lord is,
and for which He is training us ; the eternal Country
of this eternal City and Home ; out of which (city) ^
■we are actually (kuI) waiting for, as our Saviour, in the
full and final sense, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will
Ver. 21. transfigure — not annihilate, not cast away
as essentially evil, but wonderfully change in its con-
ditions, and so in its guise, in its semblance (a-^^ijfia) —
the body of our humiliation, this body, now inseparably
connected with the burthens and abasements of our
mortality, hiiinbling us continually in the course of
its necessities, and of its sufferings, but not therefore,
in its essence, other than God's good handiwork ; to
be conformed, with a resemblance based on an essenti;d
assimilation {(Tv/j,iJiop<f)ov, fxopjuf), to the body of His
glory, as He resumed His blessed Body when He
St Paul's mind in his use of irokirev^ia here. The proof of
this lies in the words e'l oil just below ; not e'| hv {ovpavwv) but
f| ov (noXiTivfjiaTos) : I can find no ;proof of the assertion
(Moulton's Winer, p. 177) that e'^ ov is a mere equivalent
for oQiv, and so may refer to the plural ovpavoi. The rendering
" sea^ of citizenship" seems fairly to represent TroXirevfia
thus. — The A.V. ''conversation'" (Lat. conversation "inter-
course of life ") probably represents an impression of the
translators that the Apostle is as it were echoing i. z'j, d^ia>s
Tov fvayyeXiov iroX it e v ( a 6 e. But the imagery here is
different, and definite.
' See note just above on e| ov.
204 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
rose, and as He wears it now upon the Throne,
and in it manifests Himself to the happy ones in
their bliss ; according to, in ways and measures con-
ditioned only by, the forth-putting (ivepyeca) of His
ahility actually to subdue to Himself all things that are
(to. iravTo).
So the great passage, the pregnant chapter,
ends. As it began so it closes — with Jesus
Christ. With Him His servant can never
have done ; " Him first, Him midst. Him
last, and without end." Jesus Christ is the
present joy, and the everlasting hope. His
perfected righteousness is the believer's actual
deep safety and repose. His unsearchable
riches of personal grace and glory are the
constant animation and ever-rising standard
of the believer's spiritual progress. He is
the eternal Antidote to our fears, and also to
our sins. He is the infinite Contradiction to
the least compromise, under any pretext, with
evil ; and He is this, among other ways, by
being Himself "that blessed Hope"; "the
Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Hope " (i Tim.
i. i); so that the prospect of His Return, and
of what He will do for us, and for Himself
THE DUTY OF WARNING 20 5
(eavT(o), when He returns, is to be our mighty-
motive in the matter of practical, aye of bodily,
cleanness and holiness of life.
The whole passage now before us is strongly
characteristic of the New Testament way of
dealing with sin. In the first place, there is
no lack of urgent and explicit warning. The
moral and spiritual evil is labelled unmistak-
ably. It is pointed out as a danger not
hypothetical but actual ; not floating in the
air, but embodied in lives and influences :
" Many persons walk whom I tell you of
with tears as the enemies of the cross of
Christ." And of these persons, as such, it is
unflinchingly said that their end is aTrwAeta,
" ruin," " perdition " ; dread and hopeless word.
In all this lies a lesson for our day. In many
quarters the solemn utterance of warning is
now almost silent ; it is regarded as almost
unchristian to warn sinners, even open sinners,
to do anything so much out of the fashion as
" to flee from the wrath to come," " the wrath
which is coming upon the children of disobedi-
ence." But this is not the apostolic way, nor
the Lord's way.
2o6 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Yet this passage, this heart-searching appeal,
while it deals with warning, does not end with
it. Its strongest and chosen argument is not
fear but hope; not perdition but "the coming
again of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our
gathering together unto Him." St Paul has
to guard the Philippians against a most subtle
form of sensual temptation, a masterpiece of
the Enemy. In passing, and with bitter tears,
he points to the gulph where that path ends.
In closing, and with his whole heart, he points
to the coming Lord in His benignant glory,
and to the unutterable joy of our being then,
finally and even in our material being, trans-
figured for ever into His likeness.
For our own blessing, and for that of others,
let us follow this example. Whether in the
pulpit to a listening throng, or in more individual
approaches to other men, or when we turn in
upon ourselves, and, like the Psalmists, speak to
our own souls, in the most secret possible hour,
let us seek to speak thus. Let us not take an
opiate against the ideas of judgment, wrath,
perdition — unless, with our Bibles quite open,
we are quite sure that such things are only
THE MORAL POWER OF THE HOPE 207
dreams of a past religious night. Let us take
urgent heed, above all for ourselves, lest we
lose faith in the warnings of God. But all
the while let us present to ourselves, and to
others, as the great argument of all for saying
" No " to specious sin, " that blessed Hope."
Let us consider Jesus Christ, till He shines
upon us in something of the glory of His
Person and His Work. Let us wait for Him
from heaven. More and more, as the years
roll, and the suns set, and "that day" is
approaching, let us take our place among those
who "love His appearing." And as for our
bodies, and His call to be pure in body as in
spirit, let us continually remember that " the
body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the
body" (i Cor. vi. 13). Let us not merely try
to reason down temptation, or to order it down,
in the name of abstract Tightness, or of concrete
peril. Let us recollect as a glorious fact that
the body is the purchased property of the Lord
Jesus ; that He cares for it, as His dear-bought
possession ; that He can, by His own Spirit,
sanctify it now, through and through ; and that
He is coming, perhaps very soon indeed, to
208 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
" transfigure it to be conformed to the body
of His glory."
The whole genius of the Gospel tends to
connect together, as closely as possible, holi-
ness and happiness. They are to act and
react in manifold ways in the Christian life.
Holiness lies at the root of happiness, as its deep
condition. But also happiness, from another
point of view, waters the root of holiness, and
expands its flowers, and brings its sweet fruit
to fulness. " The joy of the Lord is your
strength " — your strength to say to temptation
a " No " which shall be entirely willing and
simple. Never shall we so tread down the
tempter, and the traitor, as when we are
" rejoicing in Christ Jesus," and " in the hope
of the glory of God."
Then let us cultivate this blessed secret.
Let us prove the power of Christ loved and
looked for. In a very special sense let St Paul
teach us here to apply to our present needs
the force of a heavenly future, the future of
His coming, and of our meeting Him and
being transfigured by Him. In many direc-
tions, in the Church, this rule is being practised
THE HOPE FULL OF IMMORTALITY 209
now with great earnestness, and with happy
issues ; the looking for the Lord's Return is
indeed a reality to many. But in many direc-
tions it is otherwise. Christian thought and
labour too often seem to limit themselves to
the sphere of the present, and to forget that
the goal of the Gospel is not a state of social
bie7i-etre developed by philanthropy under the
auspices, so to speak, of Christ, but an immor-
tality of holy power and service, won for us
by His merits, prepared for us by His exaltar
tion, while we are prepared for it by His
Spirit working in us. Again and again we
need to remember this. The Gospel showers
along its path, upon the mortal life of man,
personal and social blessings of the philan-
thropic kind which nothing else can possibly
bring down. It makes to-day infinitely impor-
tant by connecting it with the eternal to-morrow.
But the path is towards that to-morrow. " We
look at the things not seen, for the things
which are not seen are eternal." We " desire
a better country, that is, an heavenly." "It
doth not yet appear what we shall be ; we shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
14
2IO PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Much current Christian teaching practically
tends to drop immortality very nearly out of
sight. The Lord's Return, the heavenly Life,
'* the liberty of the glory of the sons of God"
— these topics are either little mentioned, or
treated too much as luxuries and ornaments
of the Gospel. But it was not so for the Lord
Jesus, and for His Apostles. And we shall
find that to follow Him and them in this, as
in other things, is best. It " hath the promise
of the life that now is, and of that which is
to come." Their doctrine of the future is much
more than an antidote to death. It is the
mighty animation of life. It makes altogether
for present purity, and righteousness, and self-
sacrificing love, in the concrete circumstances
of this generation. It is the thought in which
alone man can live his true life 7iow, as a
being v/ho is made " to glorify God — and to
enjoy Him {\^y for ever."
As a matter of fact, no human life is so true,
full, and beautiful as that which is at once
assiduously attentive to present duty and
service, and full of the everlasting hope. Such
lives are being lived all around us. Which of
MY mother's life 2 I I
my readers has not known at least one such ?
For me, one among many shines out in my
heart radiant with a brightness all its own ;
it is the life of my blessed Mother. She has
now been a great while with the Lord, on whom
she so long believed. But the impression of
what that " conversation " was is not only in-
delible ; it lives and moves, as fresh to-day as
ever. It was a busy life — the life of a wife,
a mother of many sons, a friend ot many
friends, the pastor's help-mate in a poor parish.
It was a life of minute and devoted attention
to every duty, large and little. It was a life
of warm and ready sympathies, and manifold
interests. But it was a life all the while of
divine communion, and of an unwavering "hope
full of immortality." Dear to that heart indeed
were husband, children, friends, neighbours,
suffering and sinning world. Very fruitful was
that life for individual and social blessing, just
such as the philanthropist seeks to convey.
Side by side with my Father, who laboured
incessantly through a long life for God and man,
and for men's health as well as their salvation,
my Mother lived for others in all their present
212 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
needs. But the springs of what she was, and
did, were within the veil. And the choice and
the longing were always, in perfect harmony
with every strong human affection, directed
towards heaven She did indeed "wait, as
for her Saviour, for the Lord Jesus Christ."
And the whole result, for those whom that
life affected, was a deep, strong evidence of
Christianity. In her we saw the Gospel
beautify the present by lifting the veil of the
blessed future. We recognized the reality of
Jesus Christ now by converse with one who
so much desired the sight of His glory then.
As we draw to an end, let us take up the
closing words of our paragraph, and read them
as a special " lesson of faith." St Paul is
telling us of a change yet to pass over us,
over these our bodies, altogether inconceivable
in kind and degree. They are to be " trans-
figured into conformity to the body of our
Saviour's glory." Yes, it is inconceivable ;
in modern parlance, it is " unthinkable."
" How can these things be ? " Well, Scripture
does not invite us to " conceive " it, to
HE IS ABLE 213
•' think " it, in the sense of thinking it out.
It helps us indeed elsewhere (i Cor. xv.) with
intimations and illustrations, up to a certain
point ; but this is not to explain, or to ask us
to explain. What it does is something better ;
it invites us to trust a personal Agent, who
understands all that He has undertaken, and
who is able. "How can these things be?"
Not according to this or that law, principle,
or tendency, which we can divine. No ; but
" according to the mighty working whereby
He is able to subdue all things unto Himself."
The method of the Bible is to give us ample
views of what Jesus Christ is, and then (not
before) to ask us to trust Jesus Christ to do
what he says He can. He says, " I will raise
you up at the last day." And He does not
go on to explain. He says nothing in detail
of His modus operandi. We are in absolute
ignorance of it, as much as the Christians ot
five, or ten, or eighteen centuries ago. We
do not know how. But we know Him. And
He has said, " I will " — and has died and risen
again.
Shall we not rest here ? It is good ground.
214 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
" I know whom I have believed ; and am
persuaded that He is able."
And what is true of His power and promise
in this great matter of our resurrection and
our glory, is true of course all round the circle
of His undertakings. " He can subdue all
things." And therefore, not only death, and
the grave, and the mysteries of matter, but
also our hearts, our affections, our wills. He
can "bring every thought into captivity"
to the holy rule of His thought. He can
" subdue our iniquities." And he can subdue
also all that we know as circumstance and
condition ; making the crooked straight, and
the rough places plain. How, we may be
wholly ignorant beforehand; only, ** according
to the mighty working."
Lastly, it is eaura!,^ " unto Himself." What
a word of rest and power ! Our expectation
of His victories in us and for us does not
terminate upon ourselves ; it is never safe to
terminate things there. It rises and rests in
Himself Our glorification, body and soul,
1 Perhaps read avra. But the translation must remain the
same.
THE PROMISE OF HIS COMING 215
is, ultimately, "unto Him"; therefore the
prospect, and th@ desire, are boundlessly right
and safe. " To subdue all things unto Him-
self \ so as to serve Him, to promote His
ends, to do His will. Our absolute emancipa-
tion from all the limitations of both moral and
material evil is " unto Himself" Emancipa-
tion on this side, it is an entire and eternal
annexation on the other. The being will be
fully liberated that it may fully serve — " day
and night in His temple."
" Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Come, to
our full and final salvation. Come, that we,
the beings whom Thou hast made, and remade,
may enjoy "the liberty of the glory" (Rom.
viii. 21) for which we were destined in Thy
love. Come, that we may be for ever happy,
and strong, and free, in that wonderful world
of the resurrection. Come, that we may meet
again with exceeding joy the beloved ones
who have gone before us, and all Thy saints,
and may with them inherit the everlasting
kingdom. But oh come yet more for Thyself,
and for Thy glory, and to take Thy full
possession. " Subdue all things," Lord Jesus,
2l6 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
'• unto Thyself." Subdue our death for ever,
that our endless life may be, in all its fulness,
spent for Thee.
" For Thou hast met our longings
With words of golden tone,
That we shall serve for ever
Thyself, Thyself alone ;
*' Shall serve Thee, and for ever,
Oh hope most sure, most fair;
The perfect love outpouring
In perfect service there." '
' F. R. Havergal.
PURITY AND PEACE IN THE PRESENT
LORD
217
" Now the Christians, O King, as men who know God, ask from
Him petitions which are proper for Him to give and for them to
receive ; and thus they accomplish the course of their lives. And
because they acknowledge the goodnesses of God towards them,
lo ! on account ot them there flows forth the beauty that is in
the world." — Apology of Aristtdcs, about a.d. 130; translated by
Mrs Rendel Harris.
Si8
CHAPTER XI
PURITY AND PEACE IN THE PRESENT LORD
Philippians iv. I-9
Ver. i. So, my brethren beloved and longed for, missed
indeed, at this long distance from you, my joy and
crown of victory (a-recpavo^), thus, as having such
certainties and such aims, with such a Saviour, and
looking for such a heaven, stand firm in the Lord,
beloved ones.
The words are a link of gold between
the passage just ended and that which is
to follow. They sum up the third chapter
of the Epistle into one practical issue. In
view of all that can tempt them away to alien
thoughts and beliefs St Paul once more points
the converts to Jesus Christ ; or rather, he
once more bids them remember that in Him
they are, and that their safety, their lite, is to
stay there, recollected and resolved. There is
219
2 20 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
the point of overwhelming advantage against
error, and against sin ; and only there.
" Standing in the Lord," in remembrance and
in tise of their vital union with Him, they
would be armed alike against the pharisaic
and the antinomian heresy. Counterfeits and
perversions would be seen, or at least felt,
to be such while they were thus in living and
working contact with the Reality. There,
with a holy instinct, they would repudiate
utterly a merit of their own before God, and
a strength of their own against sin. There,
with equal inward certainty, they would detect
and reject the suggestion that they " should
not surely die," though impurity was cloaked
and loved.
But the words we have just rendered look
forward also. St Paul is about to allude, for
the last time, and quite explicitly, to that blot
on the fair Philippian fame, the presence in the
little mission Church of certain jealousies and
divisions. One instance of this evil is promi-
nent in his thoughts, no doubt on Epaphroditus'
report. Two Christian women, Euodia^ and
' So certainly read, not Euodt'as, which would be a man's
EUODIA AND SYNTYCHE 221
Syntyche, evidently well-known Church mem-
bers, possibly officials, " deaconesses," like
Phcebe (Rom. xvi. i), were at personal
variance. Into their life and work for Christ
(for workers they were, or however had been ;
they had " wrestled along with Paul in the
Gospel,") had come this grievous inconsistency.
Somehow (modern experiences in religious
activity supply illustrations only too easily)
they had let the spirit of self come in ; jealousy
and a sense of grievance lay between them.
And out of this unhappy state it was the
Apostle's deep desire to bring them, quickly
and completely. He appeals to them per-
sonally about it, with a directness and explicit-
ness which remind us how homelike still
were the conditions ot the mission Church.
He calls on his " true yoke-fellow," and on
Clement, and on his other " fellow-labourers,"
to " help " the two to a better mind, by all the
name, a contraction of Euodianus. Euodias as a fact is not
found in inscriptions. Euodia on the other hand is a known
feminine name; and the words just following ("help these
women ") make it practically certain that the two persons just
named were both female converts. (EvoSi'ai' of course may be
the accusative of either EvoSm? or EvoSta.)
2 22 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
arts of Christian friendship. But surely first,
in this verse, he leads not only the Philippians
generally but Euodia and Syntyche in par-
ticular up to a level where the self-will and
self-assertion must, of themselves, expire.
" Stand firm in the Lord." In recollection
and faith surround yourselves with Jesus
Christ. The more you do so the more you
will find that so to be in Him is to " be of
one mind in Him." In that Presence self
is put to shame indeed. Pique, and petty
jealousies, and miserable heart-burnings, and
"just pride," die of inanition there, and heart
meets heart in love, because in Christ.
It is not guaranteed to us, I think, that we
shall certainly be brought here on earth to
perfect intellectual agreement by a realized
union with Christ all round. Such agreement
will certainly be promoted by such a realiza-
tion ; we all know how powerfully, in almost
all matters outside number and figure, feeling
can influence reasoning ; and to have feeling
rightly adjusted, "in Him that is true," must
be a great aid to just reasoning, and so a great
contribution to mental agreement. Thomas
CONDITIONS TO UNANIMITY 223
Scott, in his Fo7'ce of Truth, (a memorable
record of experience,) maintains that vastly
more doctrinal concord would be attained in
Christendom if all true Christians unreservedly
and with a perfect will sought for "God's
heart" (and mind) ** in God's words." ^ But
it is a law of our present state, even in Christ,
that " we know in part " ; and while this is so,
certain discrepancies of inference would seem
to be necessary, where many minds work each
with its partial knowledge. It is otherwise
with ''the spirit of our mind," the attitude of
will and affection in which we think. In the
Lord Jesus Christ this is meant to be, and
can be, rectified indeed, as " every thought
is brought into captivity" to Him. If so, to
" stand firm in Him " is the way of escape out
of all such miseries of dissension (whether
between two friends, or two Churches, or two
enterprises) as are due not to reasoning but
to feeling. " In Him " there is really no room
for envy, and retaliation, and " the unhappy
' Cor Deiin verbis Dei; Gregory the Great's noble descrip-
tion of the Bible, in a letter to the courtier Theodorus, begging
him to study daily " the Letter of the heavenly Emperor."
224 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
desire of becoming great," and the eager
combat for our own opinion as such. " Standing
firm in Him " the Euodias and Syntyches of
all times and places must tend to be of one
mind, one attitude of mind {(jipovelv). So far as
they are, in a sinful sense, not so " minded,"
it is because they are half out of Him.
But now St Paul comes to them, name by
name. What must the tender weight of the
words have been as they were first read aloud
at Philippi !
Vcr. 2. To Euodia I appeal (jrapaicaXu))} and to
Syntyche I appeal, to be of the same mind, in the Lord ;
to lay aside differences of feeling, born of self, in the
power of their common union in Christ.^ Aye (read
1 " I exhort," R.V. A slightly tenderer word seems better
to represent tTapaKoKeiv in this personal connexion. " I
beseech" (A.V.) is ;perhaps rather too tender.
^ " As a curiosity of interpretation, Ellicott (see also
Lightfoot, p. 170) mentions the conjecture of Schwegler,
that Euodia and Syntyche are really designations of Church-
parties [the imagined Petrine and Pauline parties], the
names being devised and significant [Euodia = ' Good-way,''
Orthodoxy ; Syntyche = ' Combination,' of Gentiles and
Jews on equal terms]. This theory of course regards our
Epistle as a fabrication of a later generation, intended as
an eirenicon. 'What will not men affirm?'" (Note on
ver. 2 in The Cambridge Bible /or Schools).
GREAT USES OF SMALL OCCASIONS 225
Ver. 3. vai, not Kai), and I beg thee also, thee in thy
place, as I seek to do in mine, thou genuine yoke-
fellow,^ help them (avTaU) — these sisters of ours thus
at variance, women who (airti/e?) wrestled along with
me, as devoted and courageous workers, in the cause
of the Gospel, when the first conflicts with the powers
of evil were fought at Philippi ; yes, do this loving
service, with Clement ^ too, and my other fellow-workers,
whose names are in the Book of Life ; the Lord's own,
" written in heaven," His for ever.^
Wonderful is the great use of small occasions
everywhere in Scripture. Minor incidents in
a biography are texts for sentences which
afford oracles of truth and hope for ever.
Local and transitory errors, like that of the
^ We know nothing for certain of this person. Lightfoot
suggests that it was Epaphroditus, whom St Paul would
thus commission not only orally but in writing, as a sort of
credential. One curious and most improbable conjecture is
that it was Si Paul's wife. Renan {Saint Paul, p. 148)
renders here ma chere espouse.
^ Perhaps the bishop of Rome of a later day. So Origen
and Eusebius. But we cannot be certain of the identity.
' " Cp. Rev. iii. 5, xiii. 8, xvii. 8, xx. 12, 15, xxi. 2'j -, and
Luke x. 20. And see Exod. xxxii. T)^, 7,2^ ; Ps. Ixix. 28,
Ixxxvii. 6; Isa. iv. 3 ; Ezek. xiii. 9; Dan. xii. i. The result
of the comparison of these passages with this seems to be
that St Paul here refers to the Lord's ' knowledge of them
that are His ' (2 Tim. ii. 19 : cp. John x. 27, 28), for time and
15
2 26 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Thessalonians about their departed friends,
give opportunity for a prophecy on which
bereaved hearts are to rest and rejoice till
the last trumpet sounds. The unhappy dis-
agreement of two pious women at Philippi is
dealt with in words which lead up to the
thought of the eternal love of God for His
chosen ; as if the very unworthiness of the
matter in hand, by a sort of repulsion, drove
the inspired thought to the utmost height,
without for one moment diverting it from its
purpose of peace and blessing. And now, in
the passage which is to follow, the thought still
keeps its high and holy level. It says no more
eternity. All the passages in the Revelation, save iii. 5, are
clearly in favour of a reference of the phrase to the certainty
of the ultimate salvation of all true saints ... so too
Dan. xii. i and Luke x. 20. Rev. iii. 5 appears to point in
another direction (see Trench on that passage). But in view
of the other mentions of the ' Book ' in the Revelation the
language of iii. 5 may well be only a vivid assertion that the
name in question shall be found in an indelible register. . . .
Practically, the Apostle here speaks of Clement and the rest
as having given illustrious proof of their part and lot in that
' life eternal ' which is ' to know the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom He hath sent' (John xvii. 3). — The word ' trames'
powerfully suggests the individuality and speciality of divine
love." (Note in The Cambridge Bible for Schools.)
CONNEXION OF THE PARAGRAPHS 22/
indeed of the Book of Life. But it unfolds
in one sentence after another the manifestation
here below of the eternal life in all its holy-
loveliness. It invites Euodia, and Syntyche,
and us with them, to the sight of what the
believer is called to be, and may be, day by
day, as he rejoices in the Lord, and recollects
His presence, and tells Him everything as it
comes, and so lives " in rest and quietness,"
deep in His peace ; and finds his happy
thoughts occupied not with the miseries of
self-esteem and self-assertion, but with all that
is pure and good, in the smile of the God
of peace.
The passage now to be translated has surely
this among its other precious attractions and
benefits, that it stands related to what has gone
just before. The precepts and promises are
not given as it were in the air ; they are
occasioned by Euodia and Syntyche, or rather
by what they have suggested to St Paul's
mind, the crime and distress of an unchristian
spirit in Christians. It is with this he is
dealing. And he deals with it not by an
elaborate exposure of its obvious wrong, but
2 28 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
by carrying it into the sanctuary of holiness
and peace, there to die.
With this recollection let us read the words
now before us.
Ver. 4. Rejoice in the Lord always ; again I will say
(epw), Rejoice ; I have said it above, as my antidote-
word to every subtle error ; I come back (Trakiv)
to say it again, as my antidote to self-will. Your
Ver. 5. yieldingness, your selflessness, the spirit which
will yield in anytJiing that is only of self, for Christ's
sake, let it be known to all men, let it be proved a
reality in real life, by all and sundry who have to do
with you ; the Lord is near, always beside you, to
Ver. 6. know, to lovc, to clcvatc, to calm.^ About
nothing be anxious (fjbeptfivdre) ; never let yourselves
be burthened and distracted as those who are alone
from your Lord ; but in everything, however great,
however little, by your (t^) prayer, your whole wor-
shipping approach to Him, and your (t^) supplication,
your definite petitions of Him, with thanksgiving,
thanks at least for this, that you have Him to speak
to and to trust, let your requests be made known towards
^ I think the Apostle has in mind Ps. cxix. 151, where the
Septuagint version has o-w eyyvs eT, Kijpte. He is thinking of
"the secret of the Presence" (Ps. xxxi. 20). We need not
shut out the calming thought of the Lord's approaching
Return ; but it does not seem to be the leading thought here
THE FORTRESS AND THE SENTINEL 2 29
our God (77/909 Tov Geov), with perfect simplicity of
detail, putting aside all the mysteries of prayer in the
Ver. 7. recollection that He bids you pray. And,
and thus, not anyhow, but thus, in adoring, trusting
communion with Him, the peace of God, the innermost
tranquillity caused by contact with Him, breathed by
His Spirit into ours, the peace which transcends all
mind, for no reasoning can explain and define its
nature and its consciousness, shall (it is nothing less
than a promise) safeguard, as garrison, as sentinel
{(^povprjaei), your hearts, in all their depths of will,
affection, and reflexion, and your thoughts, the very
workings of those hearts in detail, in Christ Jesus.
In Him you are, as your Fortress of rest and holiness ;
and, while there you rest, this sacred keeper watches
the door ; the peace of God is sentinel.
Such was to be the condition for the true play
of the inner life ; such, not in a dream but at
Philippi, were to be their " hearts and thoughts,
in Christ Jesus " ; thus happy, gentle, un-
anxious, prayerful, thankful, all the day. And
now, what is to be the matter for such con-
ditions, the food for such thinking and such
willing? There is to be no vacuum, called
peace. These " hearts and thoughts " are to
be active, discursive, reflective ; " reckoning,"
230 PHILIPriAN STUDIES
"calculating," " reasoning out " (Xoyt^eo-^at) in-
numerable things — all with a view, of course,
to the life-long work of serving God and man.
Ver. 8. For, finally, brethren, all things that are true,
all things that are honourable, serious, sacred, vener-
able, self-respectful, all things that are righteous, as
between man and man in common life, aU things
that are pure, clean words, clean deeds, all things that
are amiable, gracious, kindly ; for manner as well as
matter falls under the will of God ; all things that
are sweet to speak of, things prompting a loving and
noble tone of conversation ; whatever virtue there is,
truly so called, not in the pagaia sense of self-grounded
vigour, even in right directions, but in that of the
energy for right which is found in God ; and whatever
praise there is, given rightly by the human conscience
to deeds and purposes of good ; these things think
out, reckon, reason on (Xoyl^eade). Let r/V/^/ in all
its practical, all its noble forms, be the subject-matter
of your considering and designing activities within.
Strong, not in yourselves but in your Lord's presence
and His peace, use His strength in you to work out
every precept of His Word, every whisper of His
Spirit, every dictate of the conscience He has given.
Then follows one word of a more personal
kind ; it is no egotism, but as if he would
A GOLDEN CHAIN OF TRUTHS 23 1
remind them amidst these great generahties
of principle that they well knew a human
life which strove to realize them in practice.
Ver, 9. The things you learnt of me, and received as
revealed truth from me, and heard and saw in me,
these things practise (Trpdaaere), make them the habits
of your lives ; and so the God of peace, Author and
Giver of peace within, and of harmony around, shall
be with you ; your Companion and Guardian, " Lord
of the Sabbath " of the soul, secret of the true unity
of the group, and of the Church,
Thus we read over again this golden chain
of " commandments which are not grievous "
and " exceeding precious promises." Few
passages ot equal length, even in St Paul's
Epistles, at once invite more attention to
details of language and convey richer spiritual
messages. Very passingly and partially I have
noted the more important details of word and
phrase, in the course of the translation. It
remains to say not what I would but what I
can, in brief compass, upon the messages to
the Christian's soul.
Let us be quite practical, and let our study
take the simplest form. In this wonderful
-o-^
PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
paragraph let us not only wonder ; let us take
its sentences as revelations of fact. Here the
Holy Spirit through the Apostle sets before
us some of the intended facts of the normal
Christian life. These precepts were not meant
to dissolve into bright dreams ; they were to
be obeyed in Philippi then, and in England
now ; they were spoken for not ideal but
actual human beings, the rank and file of the
followers of the Lord. These promises were
not meant to be met with an aspiration,
followed by a sigh. They were to be received
and used, as certainties of the grace of God,
" before the sons of men."
Come then to the paragraph once again, to
study it with real life in immediate view, and
in the full consciousness of our own sin and
weakness. Here are some of the normal
" possibilities of grace," not for the strong and
holy but for the very weak, for those who
know that " in their flesh dwelleth no good
thing," but who come to Jesus, and (if only
for very fear and need) stay by Him.
Here then is the fact, first, that the Christian
life, as such, is to be, and may be, a life of
JOY IN THE LORD
"joy in the Lord always." Such is "the
Lord " that He is indeed able to be a perpetual
cause of joy. The believer has but to recollect
Him, to consider Him, to converse with Him,
to make use of Him, in order to have in
himself (not of himself) ** a well of water,
springing up unto eternal life." " In joy and
sorrow, life and death, His love is still the
same"; for He is still the same; and the
believing man is His.
He will henceforth covet, and cultivate, this
life of holy "joy in the Lord always." It
is not a boisterous mirth ; it is pure and
chastened ; but it is joy. It is an unfigurative
happiness, a deep practical cheerfulness, full
of health for him who has it, and a most
powerful secret for influence over those who
have to do with him. Think of the track
of light left behind by lives of holy joy which
we have watched ! It was good to be near
them. The very things and places round them
were warmed and beautified by them. And
their source and strength lay, not in the
believer, but in "the Lord"; therefore the
way is open for us too ; we may be bearers
234 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
of such sunshine too, happy and making
happy.
" By influence of the light divine
Let thy own light to others shine ;
Reflect all heaven's propitious rays
In ardent love and cheerful praise." ^
Again, here is the fact that the normal
Christian Hfe is, as such, a life of " moderation
known unto all men," in the controlling calm
of the nearness of the Lord. The meaning
of this " moderation " (to eVteiKc?) we have
seen ; it is that blessed facility, that unselfish
yieldingness, which is not weakness at all but
the outcome of the meekness of a heart which
Christ has overcome. It is the instinctive
spirit, where He is in full command of thought
and will, when personal " grievances " cross
us, when our personal claims are slighted, our
feelings disregarded, and even our legitimate
rights overridden. Of course more considera-
tions than one have to be taken as to our
action when our rights are overridden. We
have to ask whether our yielding will be
' Bishop Ken.
YIELDINGNESS 235
helpful or hurtful to othe7's ; we have even to
ask whether to yield may not do harm to
the invader. But these questions, if honestly
asked, stand clear of the spirit of self; they
regard others. And wherever they can be so
answered as to leave us free to yield in view
of others, we, if Christians indeed, living really
our Christian life, shall find it quite possible,
in the Lord Jesus, to let our " yieldingness
be known unto all men," in the deep calm of
" the Lord at hand." Yes, this can be so, in
the most complicated life, and with the most
irritable character, if we will fully " receive
the grace of God" (2 Cor. vi. i). And the
"all men" who "know" it will note it, and
will recognize, sooner or later, the Master in
the servant.
Yet again, the normal Christian life is given
here as a life free from care, from that
miserable anxiety, y.ipi\kva, which blights and
withers human happiness far and wide, whether
it comes in the torm of a weight of large
responsibilities or of the most trifling mis-
givings. " Be careful for nothing " ; " care-ful "
in the antique sense of the word ; " burthened
236 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
with care." In the modern sense of careful,
no one should be more careful than we ;
" faithful in the least," " shewing all good
fidelity in all things," " walking circumspectly,"
accurately, (XKjOtySws (Eph. v. 15), "pleasing
the neighbour for his good unto edification,"
" whether we eat or drink, doing all to the
glory of God," " watching and praying always."
But in the other sense we are, we positively
are, enjoined to live " without carefulness " ;
to take pains, but in peace ; to work and
serve, but at rest within ; to ** provide," to
think beforehand (TTpovoela 9 at, Rom. xii. 17),
but in the repose ot soul given by the fact
that with the morrow will come the Lord, or
rather that He will walk with us and lead us
into it. It is a great triumph to live such a
life ; but it is His triumph, not ours. Let
us leave Him free (may the word be used in
reverence ?) to win it ; to "do this mighty
work," to "bear our burthen daily" (so we
may render Ps. Ixxviii. 19). Nothing will
much more glorify Him in eyes that notice
our daily walk than to see us always taking
care, yet always unanxious while we take it.
PRAYER IN EVERYTHING 237
" In the calm of sweet communion
Let thy daily work be done ;
In the peace of soul- outpouring
Care be banish'd, patience won." ^
The sweet hymn leads us straight to the
next point. The normal Christian life, accord-
ing to this paragraph, is a life of perpetual,
habitual, converse with God, converse about
everything. And such converse has every-
thing to do with the unanxious life. The
man who would be unanxious is to cultivate
the practice of reverent, worshipping {TTpoaevyrj),
thankful, detailed prayer ', so shall he enter into
peace. Here is a large subject ; it is inex-
haustible ; from every aspect prayer is wonder-
ful ; and there are many kinds and types ot
prayer, as regards the act and exercise of it.
But the all-important thing to remember here is
that we are called to pray as the great means
to a divine unanxious peace ; and that we
are called to pray in the sense of "making
our requests known in everything!' Shall we,
in the grace of God, set ourselves to do it ?
* G. M. Taylor, in Hymns of Consecration, 349.
238 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Shall we remember the presence of the Hearer,
and "practise the Presence"? Shall we act
upon it ? More, and more, and always more,
shall we really " in everything''' turn to Him,
and tell Him? Thought is good, but prayer
is better ; or rather, thought in the form of
prayer is, in ten thousand cases, the best
thought. Let us make it a rule, God helping,
"in everything" which calls for pause, for
consideration, for judgment, to pray first and
then to think. Innumerable futile thoughts
will thus be saved, thoughts made fruitless by
a hurry of spirit, or a heat, or a hardness,
which puts all our view out of order. We shall
indeed need to take pains. For while nothing
is simpler in idea than the act of speaking to
the unseen Friend, nothing is more easy, alas,
to let slip in practice. But the pains will
be infinitely worth the while ; it will be all
applied at the right point. Wonderful result,
guaranteed here by the Hearer of prayer;
His "peace shall safeguard our hearts and
our thoughts, in Christ Jesus," in the living
Sanctuary of security and strength. There all
our powers shall be active, yet at rest ; dealing
ACTIVITIES OF A HEART AT REST 239
with a thousand things, yet always conditioned
by Him who is " the One Thing Needful."
Unity will lie at the heart of multiplicity ;
Christ will rule life from the centre.
Lastly, the normal Christian life, thus con-
ditioned, is a life whose mental energies
(Xoyi^ecrOe) are fully at work, always gravita-
ing towards purposes and actions true, pure,
gracious, virtuous, commendable ; " sowing the
fruit of righteousness in peace," at the side of
" the God of peace." True, the man may
have many things to think of which are either
perfectly secular in themselves (he may be a
servant, he may be a man ot business, he may
be a physician, he may be a minister of state) ;
or which are evil in themselves (he may be
an investigator, or a judge, of crime). Never-
theless, this will not deflect the true current
of the mind. These " thinkings " will all find
place and direction in the "thought" which
remembers that the thinker is the Lord's, and
that in his w/io/e life he is to be true to the
Lord's glory and the good of man. " The
God of peace will be with him " wherever
he goes, whatever he does ; deep below the
240 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
surface, but so as to control the whole surface
all the while.
Such is the Christian life, where the Chris-
tian " stands firm in the Lord." It was thus
at Philippi. In the early generations of the
Church (let the Apology of Aristides alone be
adequate witness) it was thus, to a degree and
to an extent most memorable, in at least very
many Christian circles. It is thus still, in
many an individual life. But is it in any sense
whatever thus in the rule and average ot even
earnest Christian lives ? Is it thus in ours ?
" Henceforth, let us live — not unto ourselves,
but unto Him who died for us, and rose again."
To Him, in Him, by Him, we are bound to live
so (Rom. viii. 12, oc^etXerat), we are able to live
so. Let us "present ourselves to God" (Rom.
vi. 13), watching and praying, and it shall be.
"Two arms I find to hold Thee fast,
Submission meek and reverent faith ;
Held by Thy hand that hold shall last
Through life and over death.
"Not me the dark foe fears at all,
But hid in Thee I take the field;
Now at my feet the mighty fall,
For Thou hast bid them yield.'' ^
* Iti the House of the Pilgrimage.
THE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE
FAREWELL
241 16
"Is thy cruse of comfort wasting? rise and share it with another,
And through all the years of famine it shall serve thee and thy
brother.
" Is thy burthen hard and heavy ? do thy steps drag wearily ?
Help to bear thy brother's burthen ; God will bear both it and
thee.
" Is the heart a living power ? self-entwin'd, its strength sinks
low;
It can only live in loving, and by serving love will grow."
E. RuNDLE Charles.
242
i
CHAPTER XII
THE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE FAREWELL
Philippians iv. 10-23
THE work of dictation is nearly done in
the Roman lodging. The manuscript
will soon be complete, and then soon rolled
up and sealed, ready for Epaphroditus ; he
will place it with reverence and care in his
baggage, and see it safe to Philippi.
But one topic has to be handled yet before
the end. " Now concerning the collection ! "
Epaphroditus, who had brought with him to
Rome the loving alms of the Philippian be-
lievers, must carry back no common thanks
to them. All honour shall be done by the
Lord's great servant to those who have done
the Lord this service in him ; they shall know
how it has rejoiced and warmed his heart ;
they shall be made very sure that " inasmuch
243
244 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
as they have done it to " their Missionary
" they have done it to " their King.
We do not know how much the money
amounted to. It was not improbably a sub-
stantial sum. Among the contributors might
be Lydia, whose means may well have been
comfortable ; and the Keeper of the Prison
would be by no means a beggar : what grati-
tude to St Paul glowed in both those hearts !
But not in theirs only ; the rank and file of
the mission would do all that love could do
for the man who had manifested Jesus to
them. And when that is the spirit, the
liberality will often be surprising. Not long
ago in one of our North American missions
a small meeting of poor Christian Indians
apologized for the scantiness of their collection
for missionary objects ; it was worth only £'j ;
they would do better the next time !
But small or large, the Philippian gift was
precious with the weight of love. And no
doubt it was exceedingly useful practically.
It would secure for the imprisoned missionary
many alleviating personal comforts, and part
of it would probably be spent upon the work
THE PHILIPPIAN ALMS 245
of evangelization in Rome and its neighbour-
hood ; for then as now work inevitably meant
expense.
Ver. 10. But, to turn now from teaching to thanking
— I rejoice (i^apw '• the English present best gives
the point of the " epistolary " aorist) in the Lord, in
our union of heart and life with Him, greatly, that
now at length, after an interval which was no fault
of yours, you have blossomed out ^ into loving thought
on my behalf. With a view to this (icf)' a), this effort
to aid me, you were, I know (/cat), taking thought
{e(f)povelre), even when you made no sign ; but you
were at a loss for opportunity for the transmission ; no
bearer for your bounty could be spared, or found.
Ver. II. Not that I speak thus in the tone of need
(/ca^' vcnipi)(Ttv), as if I had been wondering, and
fretting, and suspecting you of forgetful ness or of
parsimony ; no, I have been in a happier mood than
that ; for I, for my part (e^co : slightly emphatic),
have learnt (e^iaOov : our perfect tense best gives
this aorist) to be, in my actual circumstances, self-
* 'AveBaXere to virep tfiov ({)pov(lv. Literally, "you shot forth
(as a branch) thought in my behalf." (The English perfect
best represents this aorist.) The phrase is unmistakably
pictorial, poetical. If I read it aright, it is touched with
a smile of gentle pleasantry ; the warm heart comes out in a
not undesigned quaintness of expression.
246 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
sufficing {avrdpKr)<i) ; " carrying with me all I have " ;
independent, not of grace, but of surroundings.
Ver. 12. I know both (/cat, not he) how to run low,^ and
how to run over, as I do now, with your bounty ;
and both experiences need a teaching from above
if they are to be rightly borne. In everything and
in all things, in the details and in the total, I have
been let into the secret, I have been initiated into the
" mystery," ^ of being full fed and of being hungry, of
Ver. 13. running over and of coming short. For all
things I am strong in Him who makes me able.^
But not even this joyful testimony to the
enabling presence of his Lord must divert his
^ TaireivoxxrOai is used in classical Greek of the falling of
a river in drought. Perhaps such an image is present in the
language here.
^ Mf fxvTjfiai : the verb whose root is that of iivcrrf^piov,
tnysterium, "mystery." In the Greek world "mysteries"
were systems of religious belief and practice derived, perhaps,
from pre-Hellenic times, and jealously guarded from common
knowledge by their votaries. Admission into their secrets,
as into those of Freemasonry now, was sought by people of
all kinds, from Roman consuls and emperors downwards ;
with the special hope of freedom from evil in this life and
the next. St Paul's use of this phenomenon to supply language
for Christian experience is beautifully suggestive. The know-
ledge of the peace of God is indeed an o;pen secret, open to
"whosever will" " learn of Him." But it is a secret, a mystery,
none the less.
3 The word Xpio-rw should be omitted from the reading.
HIS SENSE OF THEIR FAITHFUL LOVE 247
thought from the loving act of the Philippians,
He seems about to dilate on the glorious theme
of what he can be and do in Christ ; the
wonder of that experience on which he entered
at the crisis detailed in 2 Cor. xii. is surely
powerfully upon him ; the " My grace is suffi-
cient for thee " ; the sense of even exultation
in weakness and imperfection, "that the power
of Christ may overshadow " him. But all this
leaves perfectly undisturbed his delicate sym-
pathy with the dear Macedonian converts.
And so he will assure them that no spiritual
" sufficiency " can blunt the sense of their
generous kindness.
Ver. 14. Yet you did well, you did a fair, good deed,
when you joined together {avy Koiv(tivrjcravT€<i) in partici-
pating in my tribulation, with the partnership of a
sympathy which feels the suffering it relieves. But you
though perfectly right as a note or explanation. — The la-xus
is the forth-putting of the bvva^is — the action of \hefaculiy.
He is ready to act (or to bear) in a power always latent,
always present, through his union with his Lord. The "all
things " so met are, of course, the all things of the will of
God, the choice of the Master for the servant in the way of
circumstance and trial ; not the all things of the mere wish
or ambition of the servant.
248 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Ver. 15. know, (to add a thought on your previous
bounties, which may as it were correct (Be) the
thought that I needed this last bounty to assure me of
your love,) you know, Philippians,^ that in the beginning
of the Gospel, in the early days of the mission in your
region, when I left Macedonia, parting from you on
my way south, in order to quit Macedonia (Roman
Northern Greece) for Achaia (Roman Southern
Greece), vm Thessalonica and Beroea,^ no church
participated with me, helped me in my labours, in
the matter of giving and taking, (they giving and I
taking the needed monetary aid,) but you alone. But
Ver. 16. you did so ; because even in Thessalonica ;
even when I was still there, in a place which was
but ninety miles away,^ and in the same province
still ; twice over (koI aira^ koI StV) you sent aid to
my need, within the few weeks which I spent at
Thessalonica.
Again he will not be misunderstood. This
w^armly expressed gratitude may conceivably
* ^iknTTTTja-ioi : the Greek form represents a Latin Phili;p-
penses, by which the residents in the Ro?nan "colony'^
would call themselves. So Corinthiensis means not a born
Corinthian but a settler at Corinth. — Greek tends to represent
a Latin syllable -ens by -r/s : so KX^/ijjs, Clemens.
* See Acts xvii. 1-15.
* On the Egnatian road. He made three stages of the
distance; Amphipolis, ApoUonia, Thessalonica.
HE HAS RECEIVED IN FULL 249
be mistaken for an indirect petition, " thanks
for favours to come." So with sensitive
delicacy he pursues :
Ver. 17, Not that I am in quest oi {ein^iqTS) : almost, " I
am hunting for ") the gift, the mere sum of money, in
and for itself ; but I am in quest of the interest that is
accumulating to your account ; M am bent upon just
such a developement of your generosity as will win
from the heavenly Master more and yet more of that
supreme reward. His own " Well done, good and
Ver. 18. faithful." But (he is still anxious, lest this
too should be mistaken for a personal bid for
more) I have received in full (aTre'^o)) ; you have
amply discharged love's obligations, in the gift now
sent ; and I run over ; the largeness of your bounty
makes an overflow. I have been filled full, in accepting
from Epaphroditus what came from you; an odour of
fragrancy, a sacrifice acceptable, pleasing to God, to
whom you have really presented what you have sent
' Toi/ Kapwov Tov Trkeova^ovra els Xoyov vfiwv. I venture to
render these words as above, as a monetary phrase, relating
to principal and interest. It is true that Kapnos is not found
used in the sense of interest, for which the regular word is
TOKOS. But it would easily fit into the language of the money-
market. And St Chrysostom's comment here seems to show
that he, a Greek, understood it thus : Spas on iKelvois 6 Kapnos
TiKTeTai {tokos).
250 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
to the man who serves Him — this evidence of your
sacrifice to Him of yourselves and your possessions,
a burnt offering (Lev. i. 9) of surrender, a peace
offering (Lev. ii. 2, iii, 5) of thanksgiving.^ I cannot
Ver. 19. requite you ; but my God shall fill up every
need of yours (jraaav -yjpeiav, not it. tt}v xP-)> leaking
up to you in His own loving providence the gap in
your means left by this your bounty, and enriching
you the while in soul, according to, on the scale of.
His wealth, in glory, in Christ Jesus, Yes, He will
draw on no less a treasury than that of " His glory,"
His own Nature of almighty Love, as it is manifested
to and for you " in Christ Jesus," in whom " all the
Ver. 20. Fulness dwells." ^ But now to our God and
Father, to Him of whom I and you are alike the dear
children, be the glory, the praise for this and for all
like acts of His children's love, for ever and ever ; " to
the ages of the ages," the endless cycles of eternal
life, in which shall it be fully seen how He was the
Secret of all the holiness of all His saints. Amen.
' For oa-fifj evabias see Eph. V. 2. The phrase is common
in the Septuagint to render the Hebrew "savour of rest,"
the fume of the altar pictorially represented as smelt by the
Deity.
* This reference of 86^a seems better than that which would
connect it only with the eternal future, the glory of heaven,
and make the sentence mean that He would hereafter requite
them thet'e. He would indeed do so. But the phrase nXrjpovv
iraa-av xpfl^av hardly suggests that thought here.
A PASSAGE IN THE SCRIPTURAL MANNER 25 1
So the Utterance of thanks for a loving and
hberal collection closes. Here is another case
of the phenomenon we have seen already —
the beautiful skill with which a local and
personal incident is used as the occasion for
a whole revelation of grace and truth. We
can easily imagine a gift like that which
came from Philippi acknowledged with a few
cordial words which would adequately express
gratitude and pleasure, but would otherwise
terminate wholly in themselves. How different
is this paragraph ! Throughout it, side by
side, run at once the most perfect and delicate
human courtesy and considerateness, and sug-
gestions of eternal and spiritual relations, in
which " the gift " touches at every point the
heart of the Lord, and the promises of grace,
and the hope of glory. This message of
thanks gives us, just in passing, such oracles
of blessing as, " I can do all things in Him
that strengtheneth me," and " My God shall
supply all your need." It is on one side
a model of nobility and fineness of human
thought and feeling, on the other an oracle
of God. This is just in the manner of
252 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
Scripture. *' Never book spake like this
Book."
Now the close comes. The greetings which
those who are one in the Lord cannot but
send to one another in His name, have to be
spoken, and then the scribe's pen will rest.
Ver. 21. Salute every saint in Christ Jesus, every holy-
one of your circle, holy because in Him ; pass the
greetings round from my heart to each member of the
Church. And as I write, the Christians now around
me, my personal friends upon the spot, must send their
message too ; there salute you all the brethren who are
with me. And not they only, but all the believers
of the Roman mission, represented around me in my
chamber as I dictate, do the same ; and among them
one class asks to join with special warmth ; there
Ver. 22. salute you all the saints, but particularly
those who belong to (ol e«) the household of the Emperor
{KaL(Tapo<i) ; the Christians gathered from the re-
tainers of the Palace ; peculiar in their circumstances
of temptation, and quickened thereby to a special
warmth of faith and love.^
' "Bishop Lightfoot . . . {Philippians, pp. 171-178) has
shewn with great fulness of proof that ' the household of
Caesar ' was a term embracing a vast number of persons, not
only in Rome but in the provinces, all of whom were either
THE LETTER CLOSES 253
Nothing is left now but the final message
from the Lord Himself; the invocation of
that " grace " which means in fact no abstract
somewhat but His living Self, present in His
people's inmost being, to vivify and to bless.
Ver. 23. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
your spirit.^ Amen.
The voice is silent ; the pen is laid aside.
In due time the papyrus roll, inestimable
manuscript, is made ready for its journey.
actual or former slaves of the Emperor, filling every possible
description of office more or less domestic. The Bishop
illustrates his statements from the . , . burial inscriptions
of members of the ' Household ' found . . . near Rome. . . .
These inscriptions afford a curiously large number of co-
incidences with the list in Rom. xvi. . . . Amplias, Urbanus,
Apelles, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Patrobas, Philologus. . . .
Bishop Lightfoot infers from this whole evidence the great
probability that the * saints ' greeted in Rom. xvi. were, on
the whole, the same ' saints ' who here send greeting from
Rome. . . . Their associations and functions, not only in the
age of Nero but in the precincts of his court, and probably
(for many of them) within the chambers of his palace, give
a noble view in passing of the power of grace to triumph over
circumstances, and to transfigure life where it seems most
impossible " (Note in The Cambridge Bible for Schools and
Colleges'). See also the writer's commentary on the Ep. to
the Romans {Expositor^ s Bible), pp. 423-425.
^ Read /xera rov Trvfi/fiaros vnav, not fi. Travnov vy.a>v.
254 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
And perhaps as it now lies drying the
Missionary and his brethren turn to further
conversation on the beloved Philippian Church,
and recall many a scene in the days that
are over, and which are now gliding far into
the past of the crowded years ; and they speak
again of the brightness of Philippian Christian
life, and the shadows that lie on it here and
there ; and then, while the Praetorian sentinel
looks on in wonder, or perhaps joins in as
a believer, they pray together for Philippi, and
pour out their praises to the Father and the
Son, and anticipate the day of glory.
It is all over now ; it all happened very
long ago. But though that blessed group of
our elder brethren " are all gone into the
world of light " these many more than eighteen
hundred human years, that Letter is our
contemporary still. " The word of God liveth
and abideth for ever'' (i Pet. i. 23); it is
never out of date, never touched by the
pathetic glamour of the past, with the sug-
gestion of farewells, and waxings old, and
vanishings away. To us to-day, so near the
CHRIST IS PREACHED 255
twentieth century, the Epistle to the Philippians
is immortal, modern, true for our whole world
and time.
And what is its secret, its elixir of undying
life ? It is the Name of Jesus Christ. It is
that these pages are the message of *• the
chosen Vessel " about that Name.
Our studies in the Epistle shall close with
that reflexion. The incidental topics and
interests of the document are numerous in-
deed ; but the main theme is one, and it is
Jesus Christ. From first to last, under every
variety of reference, " Christ is preached."
Let me quote from a Sermon preached many
years ago, the last of a series in which I
attempted to unfold the Epistle to a Christian
congregation in the beloved Church of Ford-
ington, Dorchester, then my Father's cure and
charge.
" The mere number of mentions of the
Saviour's name is remarkable. More than
forty times we have it in this short compass ;
that is to say, it occurs, amidst all the variety
256 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
ot subjects, on an average of about once in
every two or three verses. This is indeed
perfectly characteristic, not of this Epistle
only but of the whole New Testament. What
the Apostles preached was not a thing but a
Person ; Christ, Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus the
Lord.
" But let us not look only on this frequency
of mention. Let us gather up something of
what these mentions say * concerning the King.*
" The writer begins with describing himself
and his associates as the servants, the absolute
bondmen, oj Jesus Christ. And truly such
servants witness to the worthiness of their
Master.
"He addresses those to whom he writes
as saints, as holy ones, in Jesus Christ. Their
standing, their character, their all, depends on
Him ; on union with Him, on life in Him.
Without Him, apart from Him, they would
not be saints at all.
" The writer speaks of his imprisonment at
Rome ; the subject is full of Jesus Christ.
' My bonds in Christ ' is his remarkable de-
scription of captivity. And the result of that
i
" CHRIST IS PREACHED 257
captivity was, to his exceeding joy, just this,
amidst a great variety of conditions in detail,
including some exquisite trials to patience
and peace : ' Christ is being preached ' ; ' that
Christ may be magnified in my body, whether
by life or death.' He is kept absolutely cheer-
ful and at rest ; and the secret is Jesus Christ.
"He has occasion to speak of his trial, with
its delays, and its suspense between life and
death. The whole is full of Jesus Christ.
' To me to live is Christ ' ; He fills, and as
it were makes, life for me. * And to die is
gain ' — why ? Because * to depart and to be
with Christ is far, far better.' The dilemma
in which he stands (for he is 'in a strait
betwixt the two ') is a dilemma between Christ
and Christ, Christ much and Christ more,
Christ by faith and Christ by sight.
"He dwells, in various places, on the life
and duties of the Philippians. His precepts
are all this, in effect — Christ applied to con-
duct. * Let your life-walk be as it becometh
the Gospel of Christ' \ 'Filled with the fruit
of righteousness which is through Jesus
Christ ' ; ' It is granted to you not only to
17
258 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
believe in Christ but also to suffer for His
sake.'
"In particular, he has to press on them
the homely duty of practical self-forgetfulness.
He takes them for model and motive to the
heaven of heavens, and shews them * Christ
Jesus ' there, as for us men and for our
salvation He prepares to come down, and
comes. * Let this mind be in you,' as you
contemplate the original Glory, the amazing
Incarnation, the atoning Death, o{ Christ Jesus.
"He expresses hopes, intentions, resolutions,
as to his own actions. All is still ' in Jesus
Christ.' * I trust in the Lord Jesus to send
Timotheus,' ' I trust in the Lord to come
myself shortly.'
" Does he speak of the believer's joy ?
• We rejoice in Christ Jesus' ' Rejoice in the
Lord alway, and again I say. Rejoice.' Does
he speak of pardon and of peace ? ' I counted
all things but loss that I might win Christ,
and be found in Him, having the righteousness
which is of God by faith.' Does he speak of
knowledge, and of power ? ' That I might know
Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and
" CHRIST IS PREACHED 259
the fellowship of His sufferings, being made
conformable unto His death ' ; * I can do all
things in Christ which strengtheneth me.'
" He speaks of a holy immortality, of eternal
glory, and of pleasures for evermore. It is
no vague aspiration ; it is a sure and certain
hope ; and it is altogether in Jesus Christ.
* Our home, our citizenship, is in heaven, from
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall change the body of
our humiliation into likeness to the body of His
glory, according to the working whereby He is
able even to subdue all things unto — Himself
"He bids his beloved converts stand fast ;
it is ' in the Lord! He bids them be of
one mind ; it is ' in the Lord! He bids them
be always calm, always self-forgetting ; * the
Lord is at hand.' He assures them of an
all-sufficient resource for their every need ;
' My God shall supply all, according to His
riches, in glory, in Christ Jesus!
" His last message of blessing brings
together their inmost being and this same
wonderful Person ; ' The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.' . . .
26o PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
' ' What a witness it all is to the glory of our
beloved Redeemer; to the majesty of His
Person ; to the fulness and perfection of
His Work ; to the solidity, the sobriety, the
strength, of the faith which is in Him ! There
is no inflation or rhetoric in the language of
the Epistle about Him. Glowing with love,
it is all clear and calm. Yes, for Christ
Jesus is not a phantom of the fancy ; a
hope floating on the thick waves of a wild
enthusiasm. He is an anchor, sure and
steadfast. Blessed are they who ride secure
on the deep, held fast by Him.
" The Epistle witnesses to Him as to a
Treasure worth all our seeking, at any cost ;
infinitely precious to our joyful finding ;
infinitely deserving of our keeping, of our
holding, our ' appreheniing,' as He in His
mercy has laid hold of us, and will keep
hold of us, even to the end ; * unto the day
of Jesus Christ.' As then, so now ;
• He help'd His saints in ancient days
Who trusted in His name ;
And we can witness to His praise,
His love is still the same.'
I
"TOGETHER WITH THEM " 261
" May the Spirit bring home to our spirit
this great witness of the Epistle ; it has its
perfect adaptation to each heart, to every
life, to every hour.
" Then hereafter we shall give God thanks
yet better for ' Philippians,' as we too enter,
late or soon, into that world where the Apostle,
and Timotheus, and Epaphroditus, and Euodia,
and Syntyche, and Clement, and the saints
of Caesar's household, have so long beheld
the Lord. In that land of light we, who
have believed, shall rest with them. We shall
know them. In the long leisure of endless
life we shall enjoy their company, amidst the
multitudinous congregation of the just made
perfect. There we shall understand how,
under the infinite differences of our earthly
conditions, the one Hand led them and led
us along the one way of salvation to the one
end of everlasting life. Above all, we there,
with them, shall know Jesus Christ, even
as we are known. There we, with them,
shall realize how to Him, and to Him alone,
from all His servants, from Hebrew, and
Roman, and Philippian, and Englishman, and
262 PHILIPPIAN STUDIES
African, from ancients and moderns, wise
and ignorant, of all kinds and times, was due
the whole praise of their whole salvation.
'Conflicts and trials done
His glory they behold,
Where jESUS and His flock are one,
One Shepherd and one fold.' "
THE PRAETORIAN AND THE APOSTLE
Acts xxviii. i6, 31
" Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. . . •
preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the
Lord Jesus Christ."
(the soldier loquilur.)
Father, the dawn is near ! the shield
Of Luna sinks remote and pale
O'er Tiber and the Martial field ;
The breeze awakes ; the cressets fail :
This livelong night from set of sun
Here have we talk'd : thy task is done.
But yesterday I smil'd or frown'd
To watch thy audience, soon and late,
With scroll and style embattl'd round
In barbarous accents ply debate ;
While this would chide, and that would start
Sudden, as sword-struck in the heart,
I laugh'd aside, or, tir'd, withdrew
From the strange sound in waking dreams
To Umbrian hills — the home I knew —
The cottage by Mevania's streams :
Twas hush'd at length : the guests were flown,
And thou wast left and I alone.
263
264 THE PR^TORIAN AND THE APOSTLE
Thou hast forgiven (I know thee now)
The insults of this heathen tongue;
The taunting questions why and how;
The songs (oh madness!) that I sung:
Thou hast forgiv'n the hateful strain
Of dull defiance and disdain.
Thy gaze, thy silence, they compell'd
My own responsive : aw'd I stood
Before thee ; soften'd, search'd, and quell'd ;
The evil captive to the good :
Half conscious, half entranc'd, I heard
(While the stars mov'd) thy conquering word.
These ears were dull to Grecian speech.
This heart more dull to aught but sin;
Yet the great Spirit bade thee reach,
Wake, change, exalt, the soul within :
I've heard; I know; thy Lord, ev'n He,
JESUS, hath look'd from heaven on me.
Thou saw'st me shake, and (spite of pride)
Weep on thy hand : so stern thy truth :
I own'd the terrors that abide
Dread sequel to a rebel's youth :
But soon I pour'd a happier shower
To learn thy Saviour's dying power.
Ah, speechless, rapt, I bent, to know
Each wonder of that fateful day
When midst thy zeal's terrific glow
He met thee on the Syrian way :
I saw, I felt, the scene : my soul
Drank the new bliss, the new control.
THE PR^TORIAN AND THE APOSTLE 26'
Father, the dawn is risen ! the hour
Is near, too near, when from this hand
Thy chain must fall — from yonder tower
Another guard must take my stand :
The City stirs : I go, to meet
The foe, the world, in camp and street : —
A Christian — yes, for ever now
A Christian : so our Leader keep
My faltering heart : to Him I bow,
His, whether now I wake or sleep :
In peace, in battle. His : — the day
Breaks in the east: oh, once more pray I
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Philippian studies : lessons in faith
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library
1012 00064 7612
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