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           Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians
      Creator(s): Rainy, Robert (1826-1906)
                  Nicoll, William Robertson, Sir (1851-1923) (Editor)
     Print Basis: New York, Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1900.
   CCEL Subjects: All;
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   THE EPISTLE

   TO THE

   PHILIPPIANS

   BY

   ROBERT RAINY, D.D.

   PRINCIPAL OF NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH

   NEW YORK:

   FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY,

   Lafayette Place.

   1900.
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PREFATORY NOTE.

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

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   passages might be superseded by an appendix summing up in one view the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

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

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

  INTRODUCTORY. THE SALUTATION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  THE APOSTLE'S MIND ABOUT THE PHILIPPIANS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOW THE PHILIPPIANS SHOULD THINK OF
PAUL AT ROME.

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

CHAPTER III.

  HOW THE PHILIPPIANS SHOULD THINK OF PAUL AT ROME.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIVING AND DYING.

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

CHAPTER IV.

  THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIVING AND DYING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UNDAUNTED AND UNITED STEADFASTNESS.

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

CHAPTER V.

  UNDAUNTED AND UNITED STEADFASTNESS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MIND OF CHRIST.

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

CHAPTER VI.

  THE MIND OF CHRIST.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued).

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

CHAPTER VII.

  THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WORKING AND SHINING.

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

CHAPTER VIII.

  WORKING AND SHINING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   In the sixteenth and following verses comes in again Paul's own share
   in the progress and victory of the Christian life in his friends. "It
   would be exceeding well," he seems to say, "for you; how well, you may
   gather partly from learning how well it would be for me." He would have
   cause to "rejoice in the day of Christ" that he had "not run in vain,
   neither laboured in vain." What might be said on this has been
   anticipated in the remarks made on ch. i., ver. 20 fol. But here the
   Apostle is thinking of something more than the toil and labour expended
   in the work. More than these was to fall to his lot. His life of toil
   was to close in a death of martyrdom. And whether the Apostle was or
   was not enabled to foresee this certainly, doubtless he looked forward
   to it as altogether probable. So he says: "But if I be offered (or
   poured out as a drink-offering) in the sacrifice and service of your
   faith, I joy and rejoice with you all; and do ye also likewise joy and
   rejoice with me."

   To see the force of this expression we must remember that it was an
   ancient custom to seal and complete a sacrifice by the pouring out of a
   libation on the altar or at the foot of it. This might be intended as
   the crowning testimony of the abundant freewill with which the service
   had been rendered and the sacrifice had been offered. To some such rite
   the Apostle alludes when he speaks of himself--that is to say, of his
   own life--as poured forth at the sacrifice and service of their faith.
   And it is not hard to understand the idea which dictates this mode of
   speech.

   We read in Romans xii. an exhortation to the saints to yield themselves
   a living sacrifice, which sacrifice is their reasonable service. They
   were to do so in the way of not being conformed to the world, but
   transformed by the renewing of their minds. So here: the course of
   conduct which the Apostle had been exhorting the Philippians to pursue
   was an act of worship or service, and in particular it was a sacrifice,
   the sacrifice of their faith, the sacrifice in which their faith was
   expressed. Each believer in offering this sacrifice acts as a priest,
   being a member of the holy priesthood which offers to God spiritual
   sacrifices (1 Peter ii. 5). Such a man is not, indeed, a priest to make
   atonement, but he is a priest to present offerings through Christ his
   Head. The Philippians, then, in so far as they were, or were to be,
   yielding themselves in this manner to God, were priests who offered to
   God a spiritual sacrifice.

   Here let us notice, as we pass, that no religion is worth the name that
   has not its sacrifice through which the worshipper expresses his
   devotion. And in Christian religion the sacrifice is the consecration
   of the man and of his life to God's service in Christ. Let us all see
   to it what sacrifices we offer.

   This doctrine, then, of the priesthood and the sacrifice was verified
   in the case of the Philippians; and, by the same rule, it held true
   also in the case of Paul himself. He, as little as they, was priest to
   make atonement. But certainly when we see Paul so cordially yielding
   himself to the service of God in the gospel, and discharging his work
   with such willing labour and pains, we see in him one of Christ's
   priests offering himself to God a living sacrifice. Now is this all? or
   is something more to be said of Paul? More is to be said; and although
   the point now in view is not prominent in this passage, it is present
   as the underlying thought. For the whole sacrifice of holy life
   rendered by the Philippians, and by his other converts, was, in a
   sense, the offering of Paul also; not theirs only, but his too. God
   gave him a standing in the matter, which he, at least, was not to
   overlook. God's grace, indeed, had wrought the work, and Paul was but
   an instrument; yet so an instrument, that he had a living and abiding
   interest in the result. He was not an instrument mechanically
   interposed, but one whose faith and love had wrought to bring the
   result to pass. To him it had been given to labour and pray, to watch
   and guide, to spend and to be spent. And when the Apostle saw the lives
   of many true followers of Christ unfold as the result of his ministry,
   he could think that God owned his place too in bringing all this
   tribute to the temple. "God grants me a standing in the service of this
   offering. The Philippians bring it, each for himself, and it is theirs;
   but I also bring it, and it is my offering too. God takes it at their
   hand, but also at my hand, as something which with all my heart I have
   laboured for and won, and brought to His footstool. I also have my
   place to present to Christ the sacrifice and service of faith of all
   these men who are living fruits of my ministry. I have been minister of
   Christ to these Gentiles, 'ministering the gospel of the grace of God,
   that the offering up of these Gentiles might be acceptable, being
   sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore whereof I may glory
   through Jesus Christ'" (Rom. xv. 16, 17).

   There remains but one step to be made, to reach the seventeenth verse.
   Consider the Apostle's heart glowing with the thought that God counted
   the holy fruits of those believing lives to be sacrifice and service of
   his, as well as theirs, and accepted it not only from their hands, but
   from Paul's too. Consider the gladness with which he felt that after
   all his toil and pains he had this great offering to bring, as his
   thank-offering to his Lord. And then imagine him hearing a voice which
   says: "Now then, seal your service, crown your offering; be yourself
   the final element of sacrifice; pour out your life. You have laboured
   and toiled, spent years and strength, very willingly, and most
   fruitfully: that is over now; one thing remains; die for the worthy
   name of Him who died for you." It is this he is contemplating: if I be
   poured out at the sacrifice and service of your faith; if I am called
   to go on and to complete the sacrifice and service; if one thing more
   alone is left for Paul the aged and the prisoner, and that one thing be
   to lay down the life whose labours are ending; if the life itself is to
   run out in one final testimony that my whole heart, that all I am and
   have are Christ's,--shall not I rejoice? will not you rejoice with me?
   That will be the final identification of my life with your sacrifice
   and service. It will be the expression of God's accepting the completed
   gift. It will be the libation that crowns the service. I am not to be
   used, and then set aside as having no more interest in the results. On
   the contrary, your Christianity and mine, in the wonderful relation
   they have to one another, are to pass to God together as one offering.
   If, after running and labouring, all issues in my life being finally
   poured out in martyrdom, that, as it were, identifies me finally and
   inseparably with the sacrifice and service which has filled your lives,
   and also my life. It becomes one complete offering.

   It may give cause for thought to ministers of the gospel that the
   Apostle should so vitally and vividly connect himself with the results
   of his work. It was no languid, no perfunctory ministry that led up to
   this high mood. His heart's blood had been in it; the strength and
   passion of his love to Christ had been poured out and spent on his work
   and his converts. Therefore he could feel that in some gracious and
   blessed way the fruits that came were still his--given to him to bring
   to the altar of the Lord. How well shall it be with the Churches when
   the ministry of their pastors burns with a flame like this! What an
   image of the pastoral care is here expressed!

   But may not all Christian hearts be stirred to see the devotedness and
   the love which filled this man's soul? The constraining power of the
   love of Christ so wrought in him that he triumphed and rejoiced both in
   bringing and in becoming an offering,--breaking out, as it were, into
   sacrifice and service, and pouring out his life an offering to the
   Father and the Son. All hearts may be stirred; for all, perhaps, can
   imagine such a mood. But how many of us have it as a principle and a
   passion entering into our own lives?
     __________________________________________________________________

TIMOTHY AND EPAPHRODITUS.

     "But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that
     I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state. For I have no
     man likeminded, who will care truly [genuinely] for your state. For
     they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. But ye know
     the proof of him, that, as a child serveth a father, so he served
     with me in furtherance of the gospel. Him therefore I hope to send
     forthwith, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me: but I
     trust in the Lord that I myself also shall come shortly. But I
     counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and
     fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, and your messenger and minister to
     my need; since he longed after you all, and was sore troubled,
     because ye had heard that he was sick: for indeed he was sick nigh
     unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me
     also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. I have sent him
     therefore the more diligently, that, when ye see him again, ye may
     rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him therefore
     in the Lord with all joy; and hold such in honour: because for the
     work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply
     that which was lacking in your service toward me."--Phil. ii. 19-30
     (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER IX.

  TIMOTHY AND EPAPHRODITUS.

   The outpouring of his thoughts, his feelings, and his desires towards
   the Philippians has so far spent itself. Now he turns to mention the
   steps he is taking, in response to their communication, to express
   practically his love and his care for their welfare. Yet we must carry
   along with us what has just been said of the Christian service and
   sacrifice, and of the tie between the Apostle and his converts; for
   these thoughts are still in the Apostle's mind, and they gleam through
   the passage which now comes before us.

   Paul had been contemplating the possibility of dying soon in his
   Master's cause: no doubt it was an alternative often present to his
   mind; and we see with what a glow of high association it rose before
   him. Still he, like ourselves, had to await his Master's will, had
   meanwhile to carry on the business of his life, and indeed (ch. i. 25)
   was aware that the prolongation of his life might very likely be a
   course of things more in the line of God's purpose, and more
   serviceable to the Churches at Philippi and elsewhere. So, while he has
   expressed the mood in which both they and he are to face the event of
   his martyrdom, when it comes, he does not hesitate to express the
   expectation that he may be set free and may see them again. Meanwhile
   he has made up his mind ere long to send Timothy. Timothy will bring
   them news of Paul, and will represent the Apostle among them as only a
   very near and confidential friend could do; at the same time he will
   bring back to Paul an account of things at Philippi, no doubt after
   doing all that with God's help he could to instruct, correct, and edify
   the Church during his stay. In this way a sustaining and gladdening
   experience for the Philippian Christians would be provided; and, at the
   same time, Paul too (I also, ver. 19) would be gladdened by receiving
   from so trustworthy a deputy a report upon men and things at Philippi.
   In connection with this declaration of his intention, the Apostle
   reveals some of the reflections which had occupied his mind; and these
   suggest several lessons.

   1. Notice the spirit of self-sacrifice on Paul's part. Timothy was the
   one thoroughly trusted and congenial friend within his reach. To a man
   who was a prisoner, and on whom the burden of many anxieties fell, it
   was no small ease to have one such friend beside him. Our blessed Lord
   Himself craved for loving human fellowship in His time of sorrow; and
   so must Paul do also. Yet all must give way to the comfort and
   well-being of the Churches. As soon as Paul can descry how it is to go
   with him, so that plans may be adjusted to the likelihoods of the
   situation, Timothy is to go on his errand to Philippi.

   2. Notice the importance which may justly attach to human
   instrumentalities. One is not as good as another. Some are far more fit
   for use than others are. The Apostle thought earnestly on the point who
   was fittest to go, and he was glad he had a man like Timothy to send.
   It is true that the supreme source of success in gospel work is God
   Himself; and sometimes He gives unexpected success to unlikely
   instruments. But yet, as a rule, much depends on men being adapted to
   their work. When God prepares fresh blessing for His Church, He
   commonly raises up men fitted for the service to be rendered. Therefore
   we do well to pray earnestly for men eminently qualified to do the
   Lord's work.

   3. Timothy's special fitness for this mission was that he had a heart
   to care for them, especially to care for their true and highest
   interests. So far, he resembled Paul himself. He had the true pastoral
   heart. He had caught the lessons of Paul's own life. That was the main
   thing. No doubt he had intellectual gifts, but his dispositions gave
   him the right use of gifts. The loving heart, and the watchfulness and
   thoughtfulness which that inspires, do more to create pastoral wisdom
   than any intellectual superiority. Timothy had a share of the "mind" of
   Christ (ver. 5), and that made him meet to be a wise inspector and
   adviser for the Philippians, as well as a trustworthy reporter
   concerning their state and prospects.

   4. What is most fitted to impress us, is the difficulty which Paul
   experienced in finding a suitable messenger, and the manner in which he
   describes his difficulty. He was conscious in himself of a
   self-forgetting love and care for the Churches, which was part, and a
   great part, of his Christian character. He was ready (1 Cor. x. 33) to
   please all men in all things, not seeking his own profit, but the
   profit of many, that they might be saved. He looked out for men among
   his friends whose hearts might answer to him here, but he did not find
   them. He had no man likeminded. One indeed was found, but no more. As
   he looked round, a sense of disappointment settled on him.

   One asks of whom this statement is made--that he finds none
   likeminded--that all seek their own? Probably not of Epaphroditus, for
   Epaphroditus goes at any rate, and the question is about some one in
   addition, to be, as it were, Paul's representative and commissioner.
   Nor are we entitled to say that it applies to Tychicus, Aristarchus,
   Marcus, and Jesus, mentioned in Colossians iv. For these men might not
   be with the Apostle at the precise moment of his writing to the
   Philippians; and the character given to them in the Epistle to the
   Colossians seems to set them clear of the inculpation in this passage:
   unless we suppose that, even in the case of some of them, a failure had
   emerged near the time when the Epistle was written, which vexed the
   Apostle, and forced him to judge them unprepared at present for the
   service. It will be safest, however, not to assume that these men were
   with him, or that they are here in view.

   Still, the sad comment of the Apostle must apply to men of some
   standing and some capacity,--men of Christian profession, men who might
   naturally be thought of in connection with such a task. As he surveyed
   them, he was obliged to note the deplorable defect, which perhaps had
   not struck himself so forcibly until he began to weigh the men against
   the mission he was planning for them. Then he saw how they came short;
   and also, how this same blight prevailed generally among the Christians
   around him. Men were not "likeminded"; no man was "likeminded." All
   seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. Is not this a
   sad saying? What might one expect at the outset of a noble cause, the
   cause of Christ's truth and Church? What might one count upon in the
   circle that stood nearest to the Apostle Paul? Yet this is the account
   of it,--All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.

   Is it any wonder that the Apostle pleads earnestly with Christians to
   cherish the mind of "not looking each of you to his own things" (ver.
   4); that he presses the great example of the Saviour Himself; that he
   celebrates elsewhere (1 Cor. xiii.) the beauty of that love which
   seeketh not its own and beareth all things? For we see how the meaner
   spirit beset him and hemmed him in, even in the circle of his Christian
   friends.

   What does his description mean? It does not mean that the men in
   question broke the ordinary Christian rules. It does not mean that any
   Church could have disciplined them for provable sins. Nay, it does not
   mean that they were destitute of fear of God and love to Christ. But
   yet, to the Apostle's eye, they were too visibly swayed by the
   eagerness about their own things; so swayed, that their ordinary course
   was governed and determined by it. It might be love of ease, it might
   be covetousness, it might be pride, it might be party opinion, it might
   be family interests, it might even be concentration on their own
   religious comfort:--however it might be, to this it came in the end,
   All seek their own. Some of them might be quite unsound, deceivers or
   deceived; especially, for instance, if Demas (2 Tim. iv. 10) was one of
   them. But even those of whom the Apostle might be persuaded better
   things, and things that accompany salvation, were so far gone in this
   disease of seeking their own, that the Apostle could have no confidence
   in sending them, as otherwise he would have done, on a mission in which
   the mind and care of Christ were to be expressed to Christ's Church. He
   could not rely on a "genuine care."

   You mistake if you suppose this faulty state implied, in all these
   cases, a deliberate, conscious preference of their own things above the
   things of Jesus Christ. The men might really discern a supreme beauty
   and worth in the things of Christ; they might honestly judge that
   Christ had a supreme claim on their loyalty; and they might have a
   purpose to adhere to Christ and Christ's cause at great cost, if the
   cost must finally be borne. And yet meanwhile, in their common life,
   the other principle manifested itself far too victoriously. The place
   which their own things held--the degree in which their life was
   influenced by the bearing of things on themselves, was far from
   occupying that subordinate place which Christ has assigned to it. The
   things of Jesus Christ did not rise in their minds above other
   interests, but were jostled, and crowded, and thrust aside by a
   thousand things that were their own.

   You may not cherish any avowed purpose to seek your own; you may have
   learned to love Christ for the best reasons; you may have the root of
   the matter in you; you may have made some sacrifices that express a
   sense of Christ's supreme claims: and yet you may be a poor style of
   Christian, an inconsistent Christian, a careless, unwatchful Christian.
   Especially you may habitually fail to make a generous estimate of the
   place to be given to the things of Jesus Christ. You may not be
   reckoned so defective either in general judgment or in your own esteem,
   because you may come up very well to what is usually expected. And yet
   you may be allowing any Christianity you have to be largely stifled and
   repressed by foreign and alien influences, by a crowd of occupations
   and recreations that steal heart and life away. You may be taking no
   proper pains, no loving pains, to be a Christian, in Christ's sense of
   what that should be. Though only at the beginning of the conflict, you
   may be living as if there was scarcely a conflict to be fought. And so
   in practice, in the history of your hours, you may be seeking your own
   things to an extent that is even disgraceful to Christian religion. You
   may allow your course of thought and action to be dictated by that
   which is of self, by gain, self-indulgence, or frivolity, to a degree
   that would even be appalling if your eyes were opened to discern it. We
   all know that in religious exercises formality may usurp a large place,
   even in the case of men who have received power for reality. Just so in
   the Christian course, and under the Christian name and calling, what is
   "your own" may be suffered to encroach most lamentably on the higher
   principle; so that an Apostle looking at you must say, "They all seek
   their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's." You are not
   faithful enough to apply Christ's standard to your heart and ways, nor
   diligent enough to seek His Spirit. Perhaps if you were strongly
   tempted to deny Christ, or to fall into some great scandalous sin, you
   would awaken to the danger and cling to your Saviour for your life. But
   as things go commonly, you let them go. And the consequence is, you are
   largely losing your lives. What should be your contribution to the good
   cause, and so should be your own gladness and honour, never comes to
   pass. Some of you have thoughts in your own minds upon this point, why
   you do not seem to find any doorways into Christian usefulness. You do
   wish to see Christ's cause prosper. Yet somehow it never seems to come
   to your hands to do anything effectually or fruitfully for the cause.
   What can the reason be? Alas, in the case of how many the reason is
   just what it was in the case of Paul's friends: you are so largely
   seeking your own things, not the things that are Jesus Christ's, that
   you are not fit to be sent on any mission. If the Apostle could say
   this to the Christians of his day, how great must be the danger still!

   Now if we look at it as part of the experience of Paul the Apostle, to
   find this temper so prevailing around him, we learn another lesson. We
   know Paul's character, his enthusiasm, the magnanimous faith and love
   with which he counted all to be loss in comparison of Christ. And yet,
   we see what he found among the Christians around him. This has been so
   in every age. The unreasonableness, faintheartedness, and faithlessness
   of men, the unchristlikeness of Christians, have been matter of
   experience. If our hearts were enlarged to plan and endeavour more
   generously for Christ's cause, we should feel this a great trial. All
   large-hearted Christians have to encounter it. Let it be remembered
   that it is not peculiar to any age. The Apostle had full experience of
   it. "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world....
   Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.... At my first answer no
   man stood with me, but all men forsook me" (2 Tim. iv. 10-16). Let us
   be assured, that if Christ's work is to be done, we must be prepared
   not only for the opposition of the world, but for the coldness and the
   disapprobation of many in the Church--of some whom we cordially believe
   to be, after all, heirs of the kingdom.

   Timothy is to go to Philippi, and is to bring to Paul a full report.
   But, at the same time, the Apostle finds it necessary to send
   Epaphroditus, not, apparently, with a view to his returning to Rome
   again, but to resume his residence at Philippi. It seems, on all
   accounts, reasonable to believe that Epaphroditus belonged to the
   Philippian Church, and was in office there. In this case he is to be
   distinguished from Epaphras (Col. iv. 12), with whom some would
   identify him, for no doubt Epaphras belonged to Colossæ. Epaphroditus
   had come to Rome, bearing with him the gifts which assured Paul of the
   loving remembrance in which he was held at Philippi, and of the abiding
   desire to minister to him which was cherished there. His own Christian
   zeal led Epaphroditus to undertake the duty, and he had borne himself
   in it as became a warm-hearted and public-spirited Christian. He had
   been Paul's brother and fellow-workman and fellow-soldier. But,
   meanwhile, the Apostle was aware how valuable his presence might be
   felt to be at Philippi. And Epaphroditus himself had conceived a
   longing to see the old friends, and to resume the old activities in the
   Philippian Church. For he had been sick, very sick, almost dead. Amid
   the weakness and inactivity of convalescence, his thoughts had been
   much at Philippi, imagining how the brethren there might be moved at
   the tidings of his state, and yearning, perhaps, for the faces and the
   voices which he knew so well. Paul was accustomed to restrain and
   sacrifice his own feelings; but that did not make him inattentive to
   the feelings of other people. Trying as his position at Rome was, he
   would not keep Epaphroditus in these circumstances. He had had great
   comfort in his company, and would be glad to retain it. But he would be
   more glad to think of the joy at Philippi when Epaphroditus should
   return. So he gives back Epaphroditus. As he does so he admonishes his
   friends to value adequately what they are receiving. Paul was sending
   to them a true-hearted and large-hearted Christian; one who allowed
   nothing--neither difficulties nor risks--to stand in the way of
   Christian service and Christian sympathy. Let such men be had in
   reputation. It is a lawful and right thing to make a high estimate of
   Christian character where it eminently appears, and to honour such
   persons very highly in love. If they are not honoured and prized, it is
   too likely that others will be whom it is not so fit and so wholesome
   to admire. And the ground of admiration in the case of Epaphroditus
   sets once more before us the theme of the whole chapter: Epaphroditus
   was to be had in reputation because he had approved himself to be one
   seeking not his own, one willing to lay down his life for the brethren.
     __________________________________________________________________

NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH.

     "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things
     to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe. Beware
     of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision:
     for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and
     glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh: though I
     myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man
     thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised
     the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
     Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching
     zeal, persecuting the Church; as touching the righteousness which is
     in the law, found blameless. Howbeit what things were gain to me,
     these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all
     things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
     Jesus my Lord."--Phil. iii. 1-8 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER X.

  NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH.

   The third chapter contains the portion of this Epistle in which,
   perhaps, one is hardest put to it to keep pace with the writer. Here he
   gives us one of his most remarkable expositions of true Christian
   religion as he knew it, and as he maintains it must essentially exist
   for others also. He does this in a burst of thought and feeling
   expressed together: so that, if we are to take his meaning, the fire
   and the light must both alike do their work upon us; we must feel and
   see both at once. This is one of the pages to which a Bible reader
   turns again and again. It is one of the passages that have special
   power to find and to stir believing men.

   Yet it seems to find its place in the letter almost incidentally.

   It would seem, as some have thought, that in the first verse of this
   chapter the Apostle begins to draw his letter to a close. Cheerful
   words of farewell begin to shape themselves. At the same time a closing
   reference is in view to some practical danger that required to be
   guarded against. Almost suddenly things take a new turn, and a flood of
   great ideas claim and take their place.

   "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord." Rejoice, Be of good cheer,
   was the common formula of leave-taking. The same word is translated
   "farewell" in 2 Cor. xiii. 11 (Authorised and Revised Versions). But
   the Apostle, especially in this Epistle, which is itself inspired by so
   much of Christian gladness, cannot but emphasise the proper meaning of
   the customary phrase. Rejoice, yes, rejoice, my brethren, in the Lord.
   The same turn of thought recurs again in ch. iv. 4. What it is fitted
   to suggest will be equally in place when we reach that point.

   Now he seems to be on the point of introducing some subject already
   referred to, either in this or in a previous Epistle. It concerned the
   safety of the Philippians, and it required some courteous preface in
   touching on it once again; so that, most likely, it was a point of some
   delicacy. Some have thought this topic might be the tendency to
   dissension which had appeared in Philippi. It is a subject which comes
   up again in ch. iv.: it may have been upon the point of coming up here.
   The closing words of ver. 1 might well enough preface such a reference.
   The theme was not so pleasant as some of those on which he had written:
   it might be delicate for him to handle; and it might call for some
   effort on their part to take it well. Yet it concerned their safety
   they that should fully realise this element of the situation, and
   should take the right view of it. Therefore also the Apostle would not
   count it irksome to do his part in relation to it. People entangled in
   a fault are in circumstances not favourable to a right estimate of
   their own case. They need help from those who can judge more soundly.
   Yet help must be tendered with a certain considerateness.

   But at this point a new impulse begins to operate. Perhaps the Apostle
   was interrupted, and, before he could resume, some news reaches him,
   awakening afresh the indignation with which he always regarded the
   tactics of the Judaisers. Nothing indicates that the Philippian Church
   was much disposed to Judaise. But if at this juncture some new
   disturbance from the Judaisers befell his work at Rome, or if news of
   that kind reached him from some other field, it might suggest the
   possibility of those sinister influences finding their way also to
   Philippi. This is, of course, a conjecture merely; but it is not an
   unreasonable one. It has been offered as an explanation of the somewhat
   sudden burst of warning that breaks upon us in ch. iii. 2; while, in
   the more tranquil strain of ch. iv., topics are resumed which easily
   link themselves to ch. iii. 1. [3]

   Still, even if this denunciation of Judaising comes in rather
   unexpectedly, it does not really disturb the main drift of the Epistle,
   nor does it interfere with the lessons which the Philippians were to
   learn. It rather contributes to enforce the views and deepen the
   impressions at which Paul aims. For the denunciation becomes the
   occasion of introducing a glowing description of how Christ found Paul,
   and what Paul found in Christ. This is set against the religion of
   Judaising. But at the same time, and by the nature of the case, it
   becomes a magnificent exposure and rebuke of all fleshly religionising,
   of all the ways of being religious that are superficial,
   self-confident, and worldly-minded. It also becomes a stirring call to
   what is most central and vital in Christian religion. If then there was
   at Philippi, as there is everywhere, a tendency to be too easily
   contented with what they had attained; or to reconcile Christianity
   with self-seeking; or to indulge a Christianised arrogance and
   quarrelsomeness; or, in any other shape, "having begun in the spirit to
   be made perfect in the flesh,"--here was exactly what they needed.
   Here, too, they might find a vivid representation of the "one spirit"
   in which they were to "stand fast," the "one soul" in which they were
   to "labour" together (ch. i. 27). That "one spirit" is the mind which
   is caught, held, vitalised, continually drawn upwards and forwards, by
   the revelation and the appropriation of Christ.

   The truth is that a remiss Christianity always becomes very much a
   Judaism. Such Christianity assumes that a life of respectable
   conventions, carried on within sacred institutions, will please God and
   save our souls. What the Apostle has to set against Judaism may very
   well be set against that in all its forms.

   "Keep an eye on the dogs, on the evil workers, on the concision." The
   Judaisers are not to occupy him very long, but we see they are going to
   be thoroughly disposed of. Dogs is a term borrowed from their own
   vocabulary. They classed the Gentiles (even the uncircumcised
   Christians) as dogs, impure beings who devoured all kinds of meat and
   were open to all kinds of uncleanness. But themselves, the Apostle
   intimates, were the truly impure, shutting themselves out from the true
   purity, the heart's purity, and (as Dr. Lightfoot expresses it)
   "devouring the garbage of carnal ordinances." They were also evil
   workers, mischievous busybodies, pertinaciously busy, but busy to undo
   rather than to build up what is good, "subverting men's souls" (Acts
   xv. 24). And they were the concision; not the circumcision according to
   the true intent of that ordinance, but the concision, the mutilation or
   gashing. Circumcision was a word which carried in its heart a high
   meaning of separation from evil and of consecration to the Lord. That
   meaning (and therefore also the word which carried it) pertained to
   gospel believers, whether outwardly circumcised or not. For the
   Judaising zealots could be claimed only a circumcision which had lost
   its sense, and which no more deserved the name,--a senseless gashing of
   the flesh, a concision. All these terms seem to be levelled at certain
   persons who are in the Apostle's view, and are not unknown to the
   Philippians, though not necessarily resident in that city.

   For any full statement of the grounds of the Apostle's indignation at
   the Judaising propaganda, the reader must be referred to the expository
   writings on other Epistles, especially on those to the Corinthians and
   to the Galatians. Here a few words must suffice. Judaising made the
   highest pretensions to religious security and success; it proposed to
   expound the only worthy and genuine view of man's relation to God. But
   in reality the Judaisers wholly misrepresented Christianity, for they
   had missed the main meaning of it. Judaising turned men's minds away
   from what was highest to what was lowest,--from love to law, from God's
   gifts to man's merits, from inward life and power to outward ceremonial
   performance, from the spiritual and eternal to the material and the
   temporary. It was a huge, melancholy mistake; and yet it was pressed
   upon Christians as the true religion, which availed with God, and could
   alone bring blessing to men. Hence, as our Lord denounced the Pharisees
   with special energy,--sometimes with withering sarcasm (Luke xi.
   47),--so, and for the same reasons, does Paul attack the Judaisers. The
   Pharisees applied themselves to turn the religion of Israel into a
   soul-withering business of formalism and pride; and Paul's opponents
   strove to pervert to like effect even the gracious and life-giving
   gospel of Christ. To such he would give place, no, not for an hour.

   Two things may be suggested here. One is the responsibility incurred by
   those who make a religious profession, and in that character endeavour
   to exert religious influence upon others. Such men are taking
   possession, as far as they can, of what is highest and most sacred in
   the soul's capacities; and if they misdirect the soul's life here, if
   consciously or unconsciously they betray interests so sacred, if they
   successfully teach men to take false coin for true in the matter of the
   soul's dealings with God and with its own welfare, their responsibility
   is of the heaviest.

   Another point to notice is the energy with which the Apostle thinks it
   right to denounce these evil workers. Denunciation is a line of things
   in which, as we know very well, human passion is apt to break
   loose--the wrath of man which worketh not the righteousness of God. The
   history of religious controversy has made this very plain. Yet surely
   we may say that zeal for truth must sometimes show itself in an honest
   indignation against the wilfulness and the blindness of those who are
   misleading others. It is not always well to be merely mild and
   placable. That may arise in some cases from no true charity, but rather
   from indifference, or from an amiability that is indolent and selfish.
   It is good to be zealously affected in a good thing. Only, we have
   reason to take heed to ourselves and to our own spirit, when we are
   moved to be zealous in the line of condemning and denouncing. Not all
   who do so have approved their right to do it, by tokens of spiritual
   wisdom and single-hearted sincerity such as marked the life and work of
   Paul.

   The Judaisers put abroad the false coin, and believers in Christ,
   whether circumcised or not, had the true. "We are the circumcision, who
   worship by the Spirit of God, and who glory in Christ Jesus, and who
   put no confidence in the flesh." Such are truly Abraham's children
   (Gal. iii. 29). To them belong whatever relation to God, and interest
   in God, were shadowed forth by circumcision in the days of old.

   No doubt, the rite of circumcision was outward; and no doubt it came to
   be connected with a great system of outward ordinances and outward
   providences. Yet circumcision, according to the Apostle, pointed not
   outwards, but inwards (Rom. ii. 28, 29). Elsewhere he lays stress on
   this, that circumcision, when first given, was a seal of faith. In the
   Old Testament itself, the complaint made by the prophets, speaking for
   God, was that the people, though circumcised in flesh, were of
   uncircumcised heart and uncircumcised ears. And God threatens to punish
   Israel with the Gentiles--the circumcised with the
   uncircumcised--because all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in
   heart.

   The true circumcision then must be those, in the first place, who have
   the true, the essentially true worship. Circumcision set men apart as
   worshippers of the true God: hence Israel came to be thought of as a
   people "instantly serving (or worshipping) God day and night." That
   this worship must include more than outward service in order to be a
   success--that it should include elements of high spiritual worth, was
   disclosed in Old Testament revelation with growing clearness. One
   promise on which it rested was: "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine
   heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy
   heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." The true
   circumcision, those who answer to the type which circumcision was meant
   to set, must be those who have the true worship. Now that is the
   worship "by the Spirit"; on which we shall have a word to say
   presently.

   And again, the true circumcision must be those who have the true
   glorying. Israel, called to glory in their God, were set apart also to
   cherish in that connection a great hope, which was to bless their line,
   and, through them, the world. That hope was fulfilled in Christ. The
   true circumcision were those who welcomed the fulfilment of the
   promise, who rejoiced in the fulness of the blessing, because they had
   eyes to see and hearts to feel its incomparable worth.

   And certainly, therefore, as men who had discovered the true foundation
   and refuge, they must renounce and turn from the false trust, they must
   put no confidence in the flesh. Is this, however, a paradox? Was not
   circumcision "outward, in the flesh"? Was it not found to be a
   congruous part of a concrete system, built up of "elements of this
   world"? Was not the temple a "worldly sanctuary," and were not the
   sacrifices "carnal ordinances"? Yes; and yet the true circumcision did
   not trust in circumcision. He who truly took the meaning of that
   remarkable dispensation was trained to say, "Doth not my soul wait on
   God? from Him cometh my salvation." And he was trained to renounce the
   confidences in which the nations trusted. Hence, though such a man
   could accept instruction and impression from many an ordinance and many
   a providence, he was still led to place his trust higher than the
   flesh. And now, when the true light was come, when the Kingdom of God
   shone out in its spiritual principles and forces, the true circumcision
   must be found in those who turned from that which appealed only to the
   earthly and the fleshly mind, that they might fasten on that in which
   God revealed Himself to contrite and longing souls.
     __________________________________________________________________

   The Apostle therefore claimed the inheritance and representation of the
   ancient holy people for spiritual believers, rather than for Judaising
   ritualists. But apart from questions as to the connection between
   successive covenants, it is worth our while to weigh well the
   significance of those features of Christian religion which are here
   emphasised.

   "We," he says, "worship by the Spirit of God." The Holy Spirit was not
   absent from the old economy. But in those days the consciousness and
   the faith of His working were dim, and the understanding of the scope
   of it was limited. In the times of the New Testament, on the contrary,
   the promise and the presence of the Spirit assume a primary place. This
   is the great promise of the Father which was to come into manifestation
   and fulfilment when Christ had gone away. This, from Pentecost onwards,
   was to be distinctive of the character of Christ's Church. According to
   the Apostle Paul, it is one great end of Christ's redemption, that we
   may receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. So, in particular,
   Christian worship is by the Spirit of God. Therefore it is a real and
   most inward fellowship with God. In this worship it is the office of
   the Holy Spirit to give us a sense of the reality of Divine things,
   especially of the truths and promises of God; to touch our hearts with
   their goodness, on account especially of the Divine love that breathes
   in them; to dispose us to decision, in the way of consent and surrender
   to God as thus revealed. He takes the things of Christ, and shows them
   to us. So he brings us, in our worship, to meet with God, mind to mind,
   heart to heart. Although all our thoughts, as well as all our desires,
   come short, yet, in a measure, a real consent with God about His Son
   and about the blessings of His Son's gospel comes to pass. Then we sing
   with the Spirit, when our songs are filled with confidence and
   admiration, arising out of a sense of God's glory and grace; and we
   pray in the Holy Ghost, when our supplications express this loving and
   thankful close with God's promises. It is our calling and our
   blessedness to worship by the Spirit of God. Much of our worship might
   fall silent, if this alone should be upheld: yet this alone avails and
   finds God. Whatever obscures this, or distracts attention from it,
   whether it be called Jewish or Christian, does not aid worship, but
   mars it.

   It is true that the presence of the Spirit of God is not discernible
   otherwise than by the fruits of His working. And the difficulty may be
   raised, how can we, in practice, be secure of having the Spirit,
   thereby to worship God? But, on the one hand, we know in some degree
   what the nature of the worship is which He sustains; we can form some
   conception of the attitude and exercise of soul towards Christ and God
   which constitutes that worship. We do therefore know something as to
   what we should seek; we are aware of the direction in which our face
   should be set. On the other hand, the presence of the Spirit with us,
   to make such worship real in our case, is an object of faith. We
   believe in God for that gracious presence, and ask for it; and so
   doing, we expect it, according to God's own promise. On this
   understanding we apply ourselves to find entrance and progress in the
   worship which is by the Spirit.

   All appliances which are supposed to aid worship, which are conceived
   to add to its beauty, pathos, or sublimity, are tolerable only so far
   as they do not tend to divert us from the worship which is by the
   Spirit. Experience shows that men are extremely prone to fall back from
   the simplicity and intentness of spiritual worship; and then they cover
   the gap, which they cannot fill, by outward arrangements of an
   impressive and affecting kind. Outward arrangements can render real
   service to worshippers, only if they remove hindrances, and supply
   conditions under which the simplicity and intentness of the worship "by
   the Spirit" may go on undisturbed. Very often they have tended exactly
   in the contrary direction; not the less because they have been
   introduced, perhaps, with the best intentions. And yet the chief
   question of all is not the more or less, the this or that, of such
   circumstantials; but rather what the heart fixes on and holds by.

   Again, we "glory in Christ Jesus." Christians are rich and great,
   because Christ Jesus assumes a place in their mind and life, such as
   makes them partakers of all spiritual blessing in Him. They glory, not
   in what they are, or do, or become, or get, but in Christ. Glorying in
   anything implies a deep sense of its wonderfulness and worth, along
   with some persuasion that it has a happy relation to ourselves. So
   Christ is the power and wisdom of God, the revelation of the Father,
   the way to the Father, the centre of blessing, the secret of religious
   restoration, attainment, and success: and He is ours; and He sets the
   type of what we through Him shall be. To glory and triumph in Christ is
   a leading characteristic of Christian religion.

   And so, then, we "put no confidence in the flesh." If in Christ, under
   the revelation which centres in Him, we have found the way to God and
   the liberty to serve God, then all other ways must be for us ipso facto
   exposed and condemned; they are seen to be fallacious and fruitless.
   All these other ways are summed up in "the flesh." For the flesh is
   human nature fallen, with the resources which it wields, drawn from
   itself or from earthly materials of some kind. And in some selection or
   combination of these resources, the religion of the flesh stands. The
   renunciation of trust in such ways of establishing a case before God is
   included in the acceptance of Christ's authority and Christ's
   salvation. This condemns alike the confidence in average morality, and
   that in accredited ecclesiastical surroundings. It condemns confidence
   in even the holiest Christian rites, as if they could transfer us, by
   some intrinsic virtue, into the Kingdom of God, or could accredit our
   standing there. The same holds of confidence in doctrines, and even of
   confidence in sentiments. Rites, doctrines, and sentiments have their
   place of honour, as lines in which Christ and we may meet. Otherwise
   they all fall into the category of the flesh. Many things the flesh can
   do, in worship as in other departments; but it cannot attain to the
   worship that is by the Spirit of God. Much it can boast of; but it
   cannot replace Immanuel; it cannot fill the place of the reconciliation
   and the life. When we learn what kind of confidence is needed towards
   God, and find the ground of it in the Christ of God, then we cease to
   rely on the flesh.

   At this point the Apostle cannot but emphasise his own right to speak.
   He appeals to his remarkable history. He knows all about this Judaic
   religion, which glories in the flesh, and he knows also the better way.
   The experience which had transformed his life entitled him to a
   hearing; for, indeed, he, as no man else, had searched out the worth of
   both the ways of it. So he is led into a remarkable testimony regarding
   the nature and the working forces of true Christian religion. And this,
   while it serves the purpose of throwing deserved disgrace on the poor
   religion of Judaising, serves at the same time a higher and more
   durable purpose. It sets the glory of the life of faith, love, and
   worship, against the meanness of all fleshly life whatever; and thus it
   vividly impresses on all hearers and readers the alternatives with
   which we have to deal, and the greatness of the choice which we are
   called to make.

   If Paul decries the Jewish glorying in the flesh, it is not because he
   lacked ground, that had enabled him to cherish it and might enable him
   still to do so. "I also have material enough of fleshly confidence:--if
   any other thinks to have confidence in the flesh, I more." Then comes
   the remarkable catalogue of the prerogatives which had once meant so
   much for Saul of Tarsus, filling his heart with confidence and
   exultation. "Circumcised the eighth day"--for he was no proselyte, but
   born within the fold: "of the stock of Israel"--for neither had his
   parents been proselytes: in particular, for he was one whose pedigree
   was ascertained and notorious, "of the tribe of Benjamin": "an Hebrew
   of Hebrews"--nursed and trained, that is to say, in the very speech and
   spirit of the chosen people; not, as some of them, bred up in a foreign
   tongue, and under alien influences: "concerning the law, a
   Pharisee"--that is, "of the strictest sect of our religion" (Acts xxvi.
   5); for, as a Pharisee, Saul had given himself wholly to know the law,
   to keep the law, to teach the law. More yet--"as to zeal, a persecutor
   of the Church"; in this clause the heat of the writer's spirit rises
   into pathetic irony and self-scorn: "This appropriate outcome of carnal
   Judaism, alas, was not lacking in me: I was not a Judaiser of the
   half-hearted sort." The idea is, that those who, trusting in fleshly
   Judaism, claimed also to be Christians, knew neither their own spirit,
   nor the proper working of their own system. Saul of Tarsus had been no
   such incoherent Jew; only too bloodily had he proved himself thorough
   and consistent. Lastly, as to "law righteousness," the righteousness of
   compliance with rules, he had been unchallengeable; not a pharisaic
   theorist only, but a man who made conscience of his theory. Ah! he had
   known all this; and more, he had been forced in a great crisis of his
   life to measure and search out the whole worth of it.

   "But what things were gain to me"--the whole class of things that
   ranked themselves before my eyes, and in my heart, as making me rich
   and strong--"those I have esteemed" (in a mass) "to be loss for
   Christ." They ceased to be valuable, they began to be reckoned as
   elements of disadvantage and of loss, in comparison of Christ. Nor
   these things only, but even all things--"Yea doubtless, and I count all
   things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
   Lord." "All things" must include more than those old elements of
   fleshly confidence already enumerated. It must include everything which
   Paul still possessed, or might yet attain, that could be separated from
   Christ, weighed against Him, brought into competition with Him--all
   that the flesh could even yet take hold of, and turn into a ground of
   separate confidence and boasting. So the phrase might cover much that
   was good in its place, much that the Apostle was glad to hold in Christ
   and from Christ, but which yet might present itself to the unwatchful
   heart as material of independent boasting, and which, in that case,
   must be met with energetic and resolute rejection. "All things" may
   include, for instance, many of those elements of Christian and
   Apostolic eminence which are enumerated in 2 Cor. xi.; for while he
   thankfully received many such things, and lovingly prized them "in
   Christ Jesus," yet as they might become occasions to flatter or seduce
   even an Apostle--betraying him into self-confidence, or into the
   assertion of some separate worth and glory for himself--they must be
   rejected and counted to be loss.

   The difficulty for us here is to estimate worthily the elevation of
   that regard to Christ which had become the inspiration of the life of
   Paul.

   At the time when he was arrested on the road to Damascus, God revealed
   His Son to him and in him. Paul then became aware of Jesus as the
   Messiah of his people, against whom his utmost energies had bent
   themselves--against whom he had sinned with his utmost determination.
   That discovery came home to him with a sense of great darkness and
   horror; and, no doubt, at the same time, his whole previous conceptions
   of life, and his judgments of his own life, were subverted, and fell in
   ruins around him. He had had his scheme of life, of success, of
   welfare: it had seemed to him a lofty and well-accredited one; and,
   with whatever misgivings he might occasionally be visited, on the whole
   he thought of himself as working it out hopefully and well. Now on
   every side were written only defeat, perplexity, and despair. But ere
   long the Son of God was revealed in his heart (Gal. i. 16) as the
   Bearer of righteousness and life to sinners--as the embodiment of
   Divine reconciliation and Divine hope. In this light a new conception
   of the world, a new scheme of worthy and victorious life, opened itself
   to Paul--new and wonderful. But the reason of it, the hopefulness of
   it, the endless worth of it, lay chiefly here, that God in Christ had
   come into his life. The true relation of moral life to God, and the
   ends of human life as judged by that standard, were opening before him;
   but, if that had stood alone, it might only have completed the dismay
   of the paralysed and stricken man. What made all new was the vision of
   Christ victoriously treading the path in which we failed to go, and of
   Christ dying for the unrighteous. So God came into view, in His love,
   redeeming, reconciling, adopting, giving the Holy Spirit--and He came
   into view "in Christ Jesus." God was in Christ. The manifold relation
   of the living God to His creature man, began to be felt and verified in
   the manifold relation of Christ the Son of God, the Mediator and
   Saviour, to the broken man who had defied and hated Him. Christ
   henceforth became the ground, the meaning, and the aim of Paul's life.
   Life found its explanation, its worth, its loving imperative here. All
   things else that once had value in his eyes fell away. If not entirely
   dismissed, they were now to have only such place and use as Christ
   assigned to them, only such as could fit the genius of life in Christ.
   And all new prerogatives and attainments that might yet accrue to Paul,
   and might seem entitled to assume value in his eyes, could only have
   the same subordinate place:--Christ first, whose light and love, whose
   power to fix and fill and attract the soul, made all things new; Christ
   first, so that all the rest was comparatively nowhere; Christ first, so
   that all the rest, if at any time it came into competition with Him, if
   it offered itself to Paul as a source of individual confidence and
   boasting, is recognised as mere loss, and in that character resolutely
   cast away.

   This had become the living and ruling principle with Paul; not so,
   indeed, as to meet with no opposition, but so as to prevail and bear
   down opposition. Enthusiastically accepted and embraced, it was a
   principle that had to be maintained against temptation, against
   infirmity, against the strong tides of inward habit and outward custom.
   Here lay the trial of Paul's sincerity and of Christ's fidelity and
   power.

   That trial had run its course: it was now not far from its ending. The
   opening of heart and mind to Christ, and the surrender of all to Him,
   had not been the matter merely of one hour of deep impression and high
   feeling. It had continued, it was in full force still. Paul's value for
   Christ had borne the strain of time, and change, and temptation. Now he
   is Paul the aged, and also a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Has he abated
   from the force or cooled from the confidence of that mind of his
   concerning the Son of God? Far otherwise. With a "Yea doubtless" he
   tells us that he abides by his first conviction, and affirms his first
   decision. Good right he had to testify. This was not a matter of inward
   feeling only, however sincere and strong. He had been well proved. He
   has suffered the loss of all things; he has seen all his
   treasures--what are counted for such--swept away from him as the result
   of unflinching faith and service; and he counts all to be well lost for
   Christ.

   This passage sets before us the essential nature of Christianity--the
   essential life of a Christian, as revealed by the effect it has on his
   esteem for other things. Many of us, one supposes, cannot consider it
   without a sense of deep disgrace. The view here given awakens many
   thoughts. Some aspects of the subject must be dwelt upon for a moment.

   Those things that were gain, all things that can be gain, such are the
   objects Paul here reckons with. The believing mind concerning Christ
   carries with it a changed mind as regards all these.

   Apparently, in some deep sense, there arises for us in this world an
   inevitable competition between Christ on the one hand and all things on
   the other. If we should say some things, we might be in danger of
   sliding into a one-sided puritanism. But we escape that risk by saying,
   emphatically, all things. A decision upon this has to be reached, it
   has to be maintained, it is to be reaffirmed in particulars, in all
   particulars. For we must remember that the heart of Paul, in this burst
   of loyalty, is only echoing the call of Christ: "He that loveth father
   or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." Let us repeat it, this
   applies to ALL things. Because a certain way of feeling and thinking
   about these things, and especially about some of them, is present with
   us all, which asserts itself against this principle, therefore
   Christian life, however rich and full, however gracious and generous
   its character truly is, must include a negative at the base of it. "Let
   a man deny (or renounce) himself, and take up his cross."

   That life should be subjected to this severe competition seems hard: we
   may repine at it, and count it needless. We may ask, "Why should it be
   so? Why might not Christ take His place in our regard--His first, His
   ideal, His incomparable place--and, at the same time, all the other
   things take their place too, each in due order, as the true conception
   of human life may imply, and as the claims of loyalty to Christ may
   dictate? Why should not each take its place, more prominent or more
   subordinate, on a principle of harmony and happy order? Why should life
   be subjected to conflict and strain?" We may dream of this; but it will
   not be. We are such persons, and the world about us is so related to us
   now, that the "all things" are found continually claiming a place, and
   striving to make good for themselves a place in our heart and life,
   that will not consist with the regard due to Christ. They can be
   resisted only by a great inward decision, maintained and renewed all
   along our life, for Christ and against them. The nearest approach the
   believer makes in this life to that happy harmony of the whole being
   which was spoken of just now, is when his decision for Christ is so
   thorough and joyful, that the other elements--the "all things"--fall
   into their place, reduced into obedience by an energy that breaks
   resistance. Then too, in that place, they begin to reveal their proper
   nature as God's gifts, their real beauty and their real worth.

   But then, in the next place, though the decision cannot be escaped,
   yet, let us be assured, there is in this no real hardship. To be so
   called to this decision is the greatest blessedness of life. There is
   that in Christ for men, on account of which a man may gladly count all
   else but loss, may count it abundantly well worth his while to make
   this choice. Christ as binding us to God, Christ as the living source
   of reconciliation and sonship, Christ as the spring of a continually
   recruited power to love and serve and overcome, Christ as assuring to
   us the attainment of His own likeness, Christ as the Revealer of a love
   which is more and better than all its own best gifts--Christ discloses
   to us a world of good, for the sake of which it is well done to cast,
   if need be, all else away. It proves reasonable to reject the
   importunate claim which other things make to be reckoned indispensable.
   It proves natural, according to a new nature, to hold all else loosely,
   that we may hold this one interest fast.

   Yet this is not to be done or endeavoured by dismissing out of life all
   that gives character and movement to human existence. Not so: for
   indeed it is human life itself, with its complex of relations and
   activities, that is to receive the new inspiration. The decision is to
   be made by accepting the principle that life, throughout, must be life
   in Christ, life for Christ; and by setting ourselves to learn from Him
   what that principle means. Of the "all things" many must continue with
   us; but if so, they must continue on a new principle: no longer as
   competitors, certainly not as allowed competitors, but as gifts and
   subjects of Christ, accepting law and destination from Him. Then, also,
   they may continue to carry with them many a pleasant experience of our
   Master's providential goodness. The effort to comply with Paul's
   example by mutilating human life of some of its great elements has
   often been a sincere and earnest effort. But it implies a distorted,
   and eventually a narrowed view of the Christian's calling. For, short
   of suicide, we can never deal with ALL things on that principle of
   simple amputation. Now the Apostle says all things: "I count all things
   to be loss."

   Let this, however, be noted, that loyalty requires something more than
   merely a new valuation of things in our minds, however sincere that
   valuation might be. It demands also actual sacrifice, when duty or when
   faithful service calls for it. Paul's Christianity was prompt to lay
   down, as circumstances in the course of following Christ might demand,
   everything, anything, even that which, in other circumstances, might
   retain its place in life, and be counted, in its own place, seemly and
   welcome. Not only shall a man count all to be loss for Christ: he shall
   actually, when called upon, suffer the loss of anything or of all
   things. No Christian life is without its occasions when this test has
   to be accepted. Most Christian lives include lessons in this department
   at the very outset. Some Christian lives are very full of them,--full,
   that is, of experiences in which contented submission to privation, and
   cheerful acceptance of trouble and danger, must approve the sincerity
   of the esteem for Christ our Saviour which is the common profession of
   us all. So it was with Paul. He had suffered the loss of all things.

   It is because the "all things," in their infinite variety of aspect and
   influence, tend so constantly to come into competition with Christ, to
   our great hurt and danger, that they must be so emphatically
   repudiated, and counted to be "loss." They are loss indeed, when they
   succeed in taking the place they claim, for then they impoverish our
   life of its true treasure. We may suffer this encroachment to take
   place stealthily--all but unconsciously. All the more fit it is that we
   should learn to assert loyalty to our Lord with a magnanimous
   vigilance. It becomes us to set His worth and claims emphatically, with
   a "yea doubtless," against the poor substitutes for which we are
   tempted silently to exchange Him. If not, we are likely to come back to
   that sad stage which has been already brought before us (ch. ii.), the
   condition of those Christians who "all seek their own, not the things
   which are Jesus Christ's."

   Let us own, however, that men are trained in different lines of
   discipline to the same great result. The lesson broke into the life of
   Paul with astounding force at one great crisis. Some, on the contrary,
   begin their training in little instances of early life, and under
   influences working too gently to be afterwards recalled. Gradually they
   grow into a clearer perception of the gifts Christ offers and of the
   claims He makes; and each step of decision paves the way to new
   attainments. The experience of all Christians, however diversified
   their training may be, is harmonised in the fidelity of each to the
   light he has, and of all to the Lord who calls them all to follow Him.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [3] In the text Ewald's suggestion is followed, in the form given to it
   by Lightfoot. Meyer's view, however, may seem simpler to some readers.
   He thinks that "the same things" of ch. iii. 1 are the warnings against
   Judaising which actually follow in ver. 2. According to Meyer, the
   Apostle had already, in a previous Epistle, warned the Philippians
   against the Judaisers, and he considers it "safer" for them and "not
   irksome" to himself to repeat the admonition. In this view the
   connection between vv. 1 and 2 may be stated in this way: "Rejoice in
   the Lord;" and, need I repeat it?--yes, it is better that I should
   repeat it,--rejoicing in the Lord is wholly contrary to that boasting
   in the flesh which characterises some great religious pretenders well
   known to you and me. Beware of them! The energetic scorn of the
   phrasing is explained by supposing that the circumstances and the
   argument of the former Epistle had led to this animated denunciation,
   so that the Apostle recapitulates phrases that were well remembered in
   the Philippian congregation.
     __________________________________________________________________

THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST.

     "Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of
     the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss
     of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ,
     and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even
     that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ,
     the righteousness which is of [from] God by [upon] faith: that I may
     know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of
     His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I
     may attain unto the resurrection from the dead."--Phil. iii. 8-11
     (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XI.

  THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST.

   Mr. Alexander Knox, in a letter to a friend, [4] makes the following
   remark: "Religion contains two sets of truths, which I may venture to
   denominate ultimate and mediatory: the former refer to God as an
   original and end; the latter to the Word made flesh, the suffering,
   dying, rising, ruling Saviour; the way, the truth, the life. Now I
   conceive these two views have almost ever been varying, in the minds
   even of the sincerely pious, with respect to comparative consequence;
   and, while some have so regarded the ultimate as in some degree to
   neglect the mediatory, others have so fixed their view on the mediatory
   as greatly and hurtfully to lose sight of the ultimate." This writer
   refers to Tillotson on one side, and Zinzendorf on the other, as
   instances of these extremes; and indicates that perhaps his own leaning
   might be a little too much in the former direction.

   It can hardly be doubted that there is something in this suggestion. In
   the guidance and training of the soul some aim mainly at right
   dispositions towards God and His will, without much dwelling on what
   Knox calls mediatory truths; because they assume that the latter exist
   only with a view to the former; and if the end has been brought into
   view and is coming to be attained, there is no special need of dwelling
   on the means. Others aim mainly at receiving the right impressions
   about Christ dying and rising, and at complying with the way of
   salvation as it is set forth to us in Christ; because they are
   persuaded that here the secret lies of all deliverance and progress,
   and that the end cannot otherwise be reached. And Mr. Knox suggests,
   with truth most likely, that such persons have often so occupied
   themselves with what may be called the means of salvation, that they
   lose sight in a great degree of the end to which all tends--life in
   God, life in fellowship with His loving goodness and His holy will.

   What application these views may have to divergences of our own day it
   would take too long to consider. Mr. Knox's remark has been referred to
   here in order to throw light on the mental attitude of Paul. Paul will
   hardly be accused of losing sight of the ultimate truths; but certainly
   he delights to view them through the mediatory truths; and he strives
   to reach the ultimate victory, through the most realising application
   to his heart and life of what those mediatory truths embody and
   disclose. Through the mediatory truths the ultimate ones reveal
   themselves to him with a wealth and an intensity otherwise
   unattainable. And the eternal life comes into experience for him as he
   takes into his soul the full effect of the provision which God has
   made, in Christ, to bestow eternal life upon him. That order of things
   which is mediatory is not regarded by Paul only as a fitting
   introduction, on God's part, to His ultimate procedure; it is also in
   the same degree fitted to become for the individual man the medium of
   vision, of assurance, of participation. In other words, Paul finds God
   and makes way into goodness through Christ; and not through Christ
   merely as an embodied ideal, but through union to Christ Divine and
   human, Christ living, dying, rising, redeeming, justifying,
   sanctifying, glorifying. He never pauses in any of these, so as to fail
   in looking onward to God, the living God. But neither does he pass on
   to that goal so as to disregard the way unto the Father. If he could
   have foreseen the method of those who are striving in our day to bring
   men to the blessedness which Christianity holds out by dwelling
   exclusively on Christian ethics, he might have sympathised with their
   ethical intensity; but he would surely have wondered that they failed
   to find in Christianity more pregnant springs of motive and of power.
   Perhaps he would even be moved to say, "O foolish Galatians (or
   Corinthians), who hath bewitched you?" Not less, it must also be said,
   might he wonder at many a gospel preacher, who rehearses the "way of
   salvation" until the machinery clanks and groans, unable apparently to
   divine--unable, at least, to bring out--that glory of God in it, that
   wonderful presence and influence of infinite holiness, goodness, and
   pity, which make the gospel the power of God.

   We, meanwhile, shall do well to imitate the charity of Mr. Knox, who
   cordially owned the Christian piety of those who might go too far
   either way. Few of us, indeed, can dispense with the charity that is
   tender to partial and imperfect views. But if we are to understand
   Paul, we must find our way into some sympathy with him here; not only
   as he is seen on this line to have attained so far in saintship, but as
   he is seen to be sure that this way lay much more--that on this line
   his road lay to the glory that should be revealed. He could contemplate
   the practice and growth of piety in many lights; yet it came home to
   him most evidently as growth in the knowledge and in the appropriation
   of Jesus Christ.

   He has cast away for the sake of Christ the treasures so much valued by
   the Jews, and many a treasure more. But what he would chiefly impress
   on the minds of those to whom he writes is not so much the amount of
   what he has cast away, but rather the worth of that which he has found,
   and more and more is finding. The mass of things set down for loss is a
   mere stepping-stone to this central theme. But though he tells us what
   he thought and felt about it, most of us learn but slowly how much it
   meant for him. When we sit down beside the Apostle to learn his lesson,
   we become conscious that he is seeing what we cannot descry; he is
   sensitive to Christ through spiritual senses which in us are torpid and
   undeveloped. Christ holds him all through. It is faith, and love, and
   gratitude; it is self-devotion, and obedience, and wonder, and worship;
   and, through all, the conviction glows that Christ is his, that in
   Christ all things have changed for him. "In Christ we have redemption
   through His blood, the forgiveness of sin. He hath made me accepted in
   the Beloved. I live; yet not I, but Christ. In Christ, old things have
   passed away, all things are made new. Christ is made of God unto us
   wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Who shall
   separate us from the love of Christ?" The intense heat of this
   conception of Christ, it must once more be said, gives its distinctive
   character to the religious life of Paul. May we not say that the
   lamentable distinction of a great deal of current Christianity is the
   coldness of men's thoughts about their Saviour? The views of many may
   be characterised as "correct, but cold." Only what can be more
   incorrect, what can more effectually deny and controvert the main
   things to be asserted, than coldness towards our Saviour, and cold
   thoughts of His benefits? This we should hold to be unpardonable. We
   never should forgive it to ourselves.

   "For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus." Christ had come
   into the life of Paul as a wonderful knowledge. Becoming thus known to
   him, He had transformed the world in which Paul lived, and had made him
   conscious of a new order of existence, so that old things passed away
   and all became new. The phrase employed combines two ideas. In the
   first place, Paul felt Christ appealing to him as to a thinking,
   knowing nature. Various influences were reaching him from Christ which
   bore on heart, will, conscience: but they all came primarily as a
   revelation; they came as light. "God, who commanded the light to shine
   out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the
   knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus." In the next
   place, this discovery came with a certain assuredness. It was felt to
   be not a dream, not a fair imagination only, not a speculation, but a
   knowledge. Here Paul felt himself face to face with the real--indeed,
   with fundamental reality. In this character, as luminous knowledge, the
   revelation of Christ challenged his decision, it demanded his
   appreciation and adherence. For since Christ claims so fundamental a
   place in the moral world, since He claims so intimate and fruitful a
   relation to the whole state and prospects of the believing man,
   acquaintance with Him (at least, if it be acquaintance in Paul's style)
   cannot pause at the stage of contemplation: it passes into
   appropriation and surrender. Christ is known as dealing with us, and
   must be dealt with by us. So this knowledge becomes, at the same time,
   experience.

   Hence, while in ver. 8 the Apostle speaks of himself as encountering
   all earthly loss that he may know Christ, in ver. 9 it is that he may
   gain Christ and may be found in Him. Christ so came into the field of
   his knowledge as to become the treasure of his life, replacing those
   things which heretofore had been gain, and which now figured as loss.
   When Paul turned from all else to know Christ, he turned, at the same
   time, to have Christ, "gaining Him," and to be Christ's, "found in
   Him."

   Christ, in fact, comes to us with commandments, "words" (John xiv. 23),
   which are to be kept and done. He comes to us, also, with promises, the
   fulfilment of which, in our own case, is a most practical business.
   Some of these promises concern the world to come; but others apply to
   the present; and these, which lie next us, either are neglected, or are
   embraced and put to proof, every day of our lives. Besides all this,
   Christ comes to us to fix and fill our minds, and to endear Himself to
   us, in virtue simply of what He is. So viewed, He is to be owned as our
   best Friend, and indeed henceforth, with reverence be it said, by far
   our nearest Relation. This is to be, or else it is not to be. Each day
   asks the question, Which? Paul's Christianity was the answer to that
   question. How his answer rings in all our ears! Our Christianity also
   is making its reply.

   Both as to knowledge and as to experience the type was fixed from the
   first: there could be no doubt about either. But both were to deepen
   and widen as life went on. Christ was apprehended at first as a
   wonderful Whole of good; but so that indefinite fields of progress were
   continually to open up. In the very first days a knowledge dawned, for
   the sake of which all else was counted loss; yet a world of truths
   remained to know, as well as of good to experience, for the sake of
   which also all else should continue to be counted but loss. This, in
   fact, is only one way of saying that Christ and His salvation were
   realities, divinely full and worthy. Being real, the full acquaintance
   with all they mean for men can only arise in a historical way. Paul
   therefore emphasises this, that real Christianity, the right kind of
   Christianity, just because it has found a treasure, is set on going on
   to find that same treasure still further and still more (comp. ch. i.
   9). If the treasure is real and the man is in earnest, that will be so.
   Such had been the course of his own Christian life from the first. Now,
   though many years have disciplined him, though changing experiences
   have given him new points of view, still, no less than at the first,
   his rejoicing in the present goes hand in hand with reaching onward to
   the future. The one, in fact, is the reason of the other. Both are
   rational, or neither. He has counted all to be loss for the excellency
   of the knowledge which has broken upon his soul: and still he presses
   on, that he may know; for the same strong attraction continues and
   grows.

   Before passing to details, something more should perhaps be said of
   this magnificent generality, "the knowledge of Christ."

   Christ is first of all known historically; so He is presented to us in
   the Gospels. His story is part of the history of our race. He passes
   through youth to manhood. We see Him living, acting, enduring; and we
   hear Him teaching--wonderful words proceed from His mouth. We
   contemplate Him in His humiliation, under the limits to which He
   submitted that He might share our state and bear our burdens. In the
   pathways of that Jewish life He discloses a perfect goodness and a
   perfect dignity. We see especially that He cherishes a purpose of
   goodwill to men which He bears to them from the Father. It overflows in
   all His words and works, and in the prosecution of it He moves on to
   lay down His life for us. This is the beginning of the knowledge of the
   Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Much may as yet
   be undefined; many questions may crowd on us that receive as yet no
   precise answer; nay, much may seem to us as yet to be strangely
   entangled in the particulars of an individual and of a provincial
   existence. But this presentation of Christ can never be dispensed with
   or superseded; and, for its essential purpose, it never can be
   surpassed. For this is the Life. "The Life was manifested, and we have
   seen it, and show unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the
   Father, and was manifested unto us."

   This vision, which the Gospels set before us, was also before the mind
   of Paul. And words of our Lord, delivered in His earthly ministry, and
   preserved by those who heard Him, were treasured by the Apostle of the
   Gentiles, and reproduced to guide the Churches as need required. Yet
   there is a sense in which we may say that it is not exactly the Christ
   of the Gospels who comes before us in the Pauline writings. The Christ
   of Paul is the Lord who met him by the way. It is Christ dead, risen,
   and ascended; it is Christ with the reason and the result of His
   finished work made plain, and with the relation unveiled which He
   sustains to men who live by Him; it is Christ with the significance of
   His wonderful history for believers shining out from Him--Christ
   vestitus Evangelio. Now He has gone up above all worlds. No longer is
   He hedged about by necessities of mortal life; no longer tied by
   earthly bonds to some places and some men and one nation. He is
   glorified; all fulness dwells in Him; all God's purposes are seen to
   centre in Him. And then, by His death and resurrection, the tie between
   Him and His people is unveiled to faith, as it could not be before.
   They are one with Him--in Him redeemed, endowed, triumphant, glorified.
   Every Christian privilege and attainment, every grace, every virtue and
   good gift, takes on a celestial character, as it is seen to be an
   element in our fellowship with Christ. The state of Christians is seen
   reflected in their Head. And, in turn, Christ is seen, as it were,
   through the medium of the relation which He sustains to them, and of
   the wealth of good arising to them by it. It is Christ as He is to His
   people, Christ as He is set in the centre of the world of good that
   radiates to them all, whom Paul wonders at and worships. And he finds
   all this to be rooted in our Lord's death upon the cross, which was the
   crisis of the whole redemption. All that follows took character and
   efficacy from that death.

   A special insight into all this was included in the wisdom given to
   Paul. And yet this view of things does not turn out to be something
   diverse or alien from what the Gospels set before us. Rather it is the
   gospel story revealing its native significance and virtue along many
   lines which were not so distinct before.

   But now all this, in turn, leads us to the third aspect of the case.
   What Christ is and what He does may be described; but there is a
   knowledge of it which is imparted practically, in the progressive
   history of the believer. According to the Christian teaching, we enter,
   as Christians, on a new relation; and in that relation a certain
   blessed well-being is appointed to us. This well-being is itself an
   unfolding or disclosure of Christ. Now this well-being comes home to us
   and is verified in the course of a progressive human experience. Life
   must become our school to teach us what it all means. Life sets us at
   the point of view now for one lesson, now for another. Life moves and
   changes, and brings its experiences; its problems, its conflicts, its
   anxieties, its fears, its temptations; its need of pity, pardon,
   strengthening; its experience of weakness, defeat, and disgrace; its
   opportunities of service, self-denial, fidelity, victory. For all these
   occasions Christ has a meaning and a virtue, which, in those occasions,
   is to become personal to ourselves. This makes knowledge indeed. This
   becomes the vivid commentary upon the historical and the doctrinal
   instruction. Life, taken in Christ's way, along with prayer and
   thought, manifests Christ's meaning, and makes it real to us, as
   nothing else can. It furnishes the stepping-stones for passing onward,
   in the knowledge of Christ.

   This also was Paul's condition, though he was an inspired man. He too
   was fain to improve his knowledge in this school. And when we take all
   three aspects together, we shall see how truly, for Paul and for us,
   the knowledge of Christ is, on the one hand, so excellent from the
   first, that it justifies the great decision to which it calls us; and,
   on the other hand, how it creates a longing for further insight and
   fresh attainment. The latter we see in the Apostle as plainly as the
   former. From the first, he knew in whom he believed, and was persuaded
   that for His sake all else was to be resigned. Yet to the end he felt
   the unsatisfied desire to know more, to gain more; and his heart, if we
   may apply here the Psalmist's words, was breaking for this longing
   which it had.

   It was remarked above that the "excellency of the knowledge of Christ"
   in ver. 8 corresponds in the Apostle's thought to the "gaining" of
   Christ and being "found in Him" of ver. 9; and this may be the best
   place to say a word on these two phrases. To gain Christ, points to a
   receiving Christ as one's own; and the Apostle uses the phrase so as to
   imply that this finding of Christ, as One who is gained or won, was
   still going on; it was progressive. Clearly also the alternative is
   implied, that what is not gained is lost. The question in the Apostle's
   life, about which he was so decided, was about no less than losing or
   gaining Christ. The phrase "be found" points to the verification of
   Paul's relation to Christ in his history and in its results. That
   relation is contemplated as something that proves true. It turns out to
   be so. We shall best understand the phrase as referring, not to some
   one future date at which he should be so found, but rather to present
   and future alike. As men, or angels, or God, or Christ might view him,
   or as he might take account of his own state, this was what he would
   have found in regard to himself. Every way he would be found in Christ.
   The form of expression, however, is specially appropriate here, because
   it fits so well into the doctrine of righteousness through Christ,
   which the Apostle is about to emphasise. A similar remark applies to
   the expression "in Christ" so frequently occurring in the Pauline
   writings. This is usually explained by saying that the Apostle sets
   before us Christ as the sphere of his spiritual being--in whom he lived
   and moved--never out of relation to Him, and not so related to any
   other. Such explanations are true and good: only we may say that the
   pregnant strength of the expression seems to be weakened even by the
   best explanations. The relation in view is too wonderful ever to be
   adequately described. The union between Christ and His Church, between
   Christ and the believing man, is a mystery; and, like all objects of
   faith, it is dimly apprehended by us for the present. But the certainty
   of it, and its wonderfulness, we should never allow ourselves to
   overlook. Christ is able to bring men into fellowship with Himself, to
   assume responsibility for them, to represent their interests and to
   care for their good; and men may receive Christ into their lives; with
   a completeness on both sides which no explanations can adequately
   represent. The identification with Christ which the phrase suggests
   naturally fits what follows.

   Now the Apostle goes more into detail. He tells us what were for him
   the main articles of this good state of being "found in Christ." He
   indicates, with a certain eager gratitude, the main lines along which
   the benefits of that state had come into experience, and along which he
   was pressing on to know the fulness of Christ. First, in Christ he has
   and shall have not his own righteousness, which is that of the law, but
   that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is
   of God by faith. Then, secondly, he has in hand a practical knowledge
   of Christ, culminating in the complete deliverance of the resurrection.
   It includes two aspects or elements; Christ known in the power of His
   resurrection, and Christ known in the fellowship of His sufferings.

   The first thing then which rises distinctly into view in connection
   with being found in Christ is the possession of the new righteousness.
   We have seen already that value for righteousness such as is of law,
   and hope of achieving it, had been associated with Paul's old days of
   Jewish zeal. He then stood on the law, and gloried in the law. But that
   had passed away when he learned to count all things loss for the
   excellency of the knowledge of Christ. Ever after, the contrast between
   the two ways of seeking "righteousness" continued to be fundamental in
   Paul's Christian thinking.

   The law here in view was the whole revealed will of God touching man's
   behaviour, coming as a will of authority, requiring obedience. The
   discussion in the earlier chapters of the Epistle to the Romans makes
   this plain. And Paul's way of keeping the law, in those old days,
   though it was necessarily too external, had not been so merely external
   as is sometimes supposed. His obedience had been zealous and resolute,
   with as much heart and meaning as he could put into it. But law-keeping
   for righteousness had been the principle of it. The Jew was placed
   under a law; obedience to that law should be his pathway to a destiny
   of incomparable privilege and gladness. That was the theory. So
   believing, Paul had given himself with zeal to the work, "living in all
   good conscience before God." A great change had now befallen him; but
   that could not imply on his part a renunciation of God's law. The law,
   better understood indeed, and far more inwardly apprehended, still
   retained for Paul its great outlines, and was reverenced as Divine. It
   was holy and just and good. It was felt still to shed its steadfast
   light on human duty, awakening and illuminating the conscience; and
   therefore it revealed most authentically the moral situation, with its
   elements of failure, and danger, and need. The law stood fast. But the
   scheme of life which stood in keeping the law for righteousness had
   passed away for Paul, vanishing in the light of a new and better day.

   Here, however, we must ask what the Apostle means when he speaks of the
   righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ, the righteousness
   which is of God unto or upon faith. Great disputes have arisen over
   this question. We must endeavour to find the Apostle's main meaning,
   without involving ourselves too much in the mazes of technical debate.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [4] Remains, iv., p. 156.
     __________________________________________________________________

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH.

     "Not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the
     law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness
     which is of [from] God by [upon] faith."--Phil. iii. 9 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XII.

  THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH.

   Righteousness is a term which is applied in different ways. Often it
   denotes excellence of personal character. So used, it suggests the idea
   of a life whose manifestations agree with the standard by which lives
   are tried. Sometimes it denotes rectitude or justice, as distinguished
   from benevolence. Sometimes a claim to be approved, or judicially
   vindicated, is more immediately in view when righteousness is asserted.
   Paul himself freely uses the word in different applications, the sense,
   in each passage, being determined by the context. Here we have the
   righteousness of faith, as distinguished from the righteousness of
   works, or righteousness by the law. The passage belongs to a large
   class in which righteousness is spoken of as accruing, through Christ,
   to those who are unrighteous, or whose own righteousness has proved
   unreliable. Let us try to fix the thought which the Apostle designed to
   inculcate in such passages. [5]

   The Apostle, then, conceives of the righteousness, of which he has so
   much to say, as God's: it is the "righteousness of God" (Rom. i. 17,
   iii. 22, x. 3). Yet it is not God's in the sense of being an attribute
   of His own Divine nature: for (in the passage before us) it is called
   "the righteousness from God"; it arises for us by our faith in Jesus
   Christ; and so (2 Cor. v. 21) "we are made the righteousness of God in
   Christ." It is, therefore, something that is from God to us believing,
   a "gift of righteousness" (Rom. v. 17). At the same time it is not, on
   the other hand, an attribute or quality of the human mind, whether
   natural or imparted; for it is something "revealed" (Rom. i. 17). Also,
   it is opposed to the wrath of God. Now, that wrath is indeed an element
   of our state as sinners, but not a feature of our character. Further,
   it could not be said of any internal character of our own, that we are
   to be "obedient," or are to "submit" to it (Rom. x. 3).

   In the latter part of Romans v. we have set before us two counter
   conceptions: the one of sin and condemnation, deriving from Adam,
   antecedent to the personal action and offence of those who descend from
   him; the other of free gift unto justification, following from the
   righteousness or obedience of Christ, this being a gift of grace
   abounding unto many. In either case the Apostle sees arising from one a
   relation which pertains to many, and which brings forth its results to
   them: on the one hand, sin and death; on the other, righteousness and
   life. In both cases a common relation is recognised, under which
   individuals are found existing; and in either case it traces up to the
   one--to Adam or to Christ. Whatever difficulties may be felt to attach
   to this passage, the Apostle's doctrine of the righteousness of faith
   must be understood so as to agree with the way of thinking which the
   passage expresses.

   It appears, then, that the righteousness which is from God, unto or
   upon faith, expresses a relation between God and believers that is the
   proper basis for fellowship with God, confiding on their part,
   communicative of the best blessings on His. It is analogous to the
   relation conceived to arise when a perfectly righteous man is approved
   and set apart to weal; and like that it stands in contrast with the
   relation due to sin as it incurs wrath. It follows that this
   righteousness, if it exists or becomes available for those who have
   sinned, includes the forgiveness of sins. But it includes more than
   forgiveness, in so far as it is not merely negative. It is the
   concession to us of a standing which is a positive basis for
   experiences, pointing towards eternal life, and rising into it.

   This relation to Himself God has founded for us sinful men in Christ,
   and specially in His atonement. It is part of what is divinely held out
   to us, as life or well-being in Christ. When we do awaken to it, our
   whole religious attitude towards God takes character from it, and is to
   be ordered accordingly. This way of being related to God is called
   God's righteousness, or righteousness "from God," because it is not set
   up by us, but by God's grace, through the redeeming work of Christ
   ("being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is
   in Christ Jesus"---Rom. iii. 24). On the other hand, it is
   righteousness "of faith," or "through faith of Christ," because faith
   subjects itself to the order of grace, revealed and made effectual in
   Christ, and therein finds the reconciliation. For the believing man the
   relation becomes effectual and operative. He is "accepted in the
   Beloved." He is "constituted righteous" (Rom. v. 19), and his
   intercourse with his Heavenly Father regulates itself accordingly, he
   being justified "from--or upon--his faith." The harmony with God on
   which he has entered becomes, in some degree, matter of consciousness
   for himself (Rom. v. 1). With this connection of things in view, the
   Apostle teaches that righteousness is imputed, or reckoned, to him who
   believes in Jesus (Rom. iv. 24).

   Whatever opinion we may choose to entertain of this scheme, it ought
   not to be disputed that this, in general, is Paul's conception of the
   matter.

   However, let us emphatically note that it is as "in Christ," "found in
   Him," the Apostle possesses this form of well-being. If there be such a
   thing as a real union between the Saviour and Paul, then in the Saviour
   and with the Saviour Paul is thus righteous. The faith to which this
   righteousness arises is faith that unites to Christ, and not any other
   kind of faith. And so, if it be possible for Paul to fall from Christ,
   then also he must fall from the righteousness of faith. In Christ a
   relation to God appears, made good, maintained, and verified, in which
   He gathers to Himself and comprehends all true believers: "for which
   cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Hence also this
   Christian benefit, though it is distinguishable, is not separated
   radically from the other benefits. It is not possible to take the one
   and leave the rest; for Christ is not divided. But there is an order in
   His gifts; and, for Paul, this gift is primary. God is ours in Christ;
   therefore religion, true religion, may begin and go on.

   It is of weight with Paul that this righteousness of faith, arising for
   him who is "found" in Christ, is founded for us in the atonement. That
   is to say, the new relation is not represented as a relation created
   for us by a mere Divine fiat that it shall be so. It is represented as
   arising for sinful men out of the redemption of Christ; which
   redemption is represented as in its own nature fitted to fructify into
   this result, as well as into other fruits which are due to it. Christ's
   atonement is the way which grace has taken to bring in the
   righteousness of faith. In particular, we are made righteous (in this
   sense) through Christ, in a manner corresponding to that in which He
   was made sin for us (2 Cor. v. 21). Hence the blood, the sacrifice, the
   obedience of Christ are referred to on all occasions, in connection
   with the righteousness of faith, as explicative causes to which this is
   to be traced. The relation is first of all a relation completely
   grounded and made good in Christ; and then we are participant in it
   with Him, in virtue of our faith in Him.

   Clearly the Apostle thinks of this righteousness of faith as something
   very wonderful. It is for him fundamental. It is the first article in
   which he celebrates the worth of the knowledge of Christ; no doubt,
   because he felt it transforming his whole moral and spiritual
   experience; and, in particular, because it contrasted so vividly with
   the nugatory righteousness of earlier days.

   In earlier days Paul sought righteousness--an approved and accepted
   standing with God--by the works of the law. That project failed when
   the great discovery on the road to Damascus showed him to himself as
   all astray; in particular, when the law itself, coming home to him in
   the fulness of its meaning, both revealed to him the beggarliness of
   his own performance, and, at the same time, stung into appalling
   activity ungodly elements within him. Then he saw before him the law
   rising from its deep foundations in eternal strength and majesty,
   imperative, unalterable, inexorable; and over against it his own works
   lay withered and unclean. But another vision came. He saw the Son of
   God in His life, death, and resurrection. Mere love and pity were the
   inspiration of His coming: obedience and sacrifice were the form of it.
   So in that great vision one element or aspect that rose into view was
   righteousness,--righteousness grounded as deep as the law itself, as
   magnificent in its great proportions, as little subject to change or
   decay, radiant with surpassing glory. As he saw, and bowed, an trusted,
   he became conscious of a new access and nearness to God Himself; he
   passed into the fellowship of God's dear Son; he found acceptance in
   the Beloved. Here was the answer to that woful problem of the law:
   righteousness in Christ for a world of sinners, coming to them as a
   free gift to faith. Here was the strong foundation on which faith found
   itself set to learn its lessons, and perform its service, and fight its
   battles. In Christ he received the reconciliation--merciful, and also
   righteous. As Paul thought of the ground on which he once had stood,
   and of the standing granted to him now, "in Him,"--it was with a "yea
   doubtless" he declared that he counted all to be loss for the gain of
   Christ, in whom he was found, not having his own righteousness, which
   was of the law, but that which is by the faith of Christ.

   Righteousness of faith, as the Apostle conceives it, is to be
   distinguished from personal righteousness, or goodness, as an attribute
   of human character, but yet is most closely connected with it.
   Righteousness of faith opened what seemed to Paul the prosperous way
   into righteousness of daily living. In the very hour when he first
   believed for righteousness, he felt himself entering a kingdom of
   light, and love, and power, in which all things were possible; and ever
   after the same order of experience verified itself for him afresh. The
   righteousness of faith being the relation in which, through Christ, he
   found himself standing to God, fixed at the same time his relation to
   all Christian benefits, including, as a principal element, conformity
   to the likeness of Christ. To the man in Christ all these benefits
   pertained; in Christ he could claim them all: in Christ he found
   himself before doors that opened of their own accord to let him in; in
   Christ it proved to be a fit thing, grounded deep in the congruities of
   God's administration, that God should be for him; therefore, also, the
   pathway of holiness lay open before him. The fulness of blessing had
   not yet come into possession and experience. But in the righteousness
   of faith he apprehended all blessings as stretching out their hands to
   him, because through Christ they ought to be his. That he should find
   himself in a relation to God so simple and so satisfying was wonderful;
   all the more, when it was contrasted with the condemnation belonging to
   him as a sinner. This was the righteousness from God to faith, in the
   strength of which he could call all things his own.

   If Paul had succeeded in the enterprise of his earlier days, when he
   sought righteousness by the law, he would, as he hoped, have found
   acceptance in the end; and various blessings would have followed. He
   would have emerged from his task a man stamped as righteous, and fit to
   be treated accordingly. That would have been the end. But now, in
   reference to his present enterprise, he has found, being in Christ,
   acceptance at the beginning. So often as faith lifts him into the
   heavenly places where Christ is, he finds all things to be his; not
   because he has achieved righteousness, but because Christ has died and
   risen, and because God justifies him who believes in Jesus. The
   platform he hoped to reach by the efforts of a lifetime is already
   under his feet. Paul faces each arduous step in his new enterprise,
   strong in the conviction that his standing before God is rooted, not in
   his doings nor in his feelings, but in his Saviour in whom he holds the
   righteousness of faith.

   We need not conceal from ourselves, however, that many find the
   doctrine thus ascribed to Paul unacceptable. If they do not count it
   positively misleading, as some do, they yet regard it as unprofitable
   theory.

   Apart from objections drawn from theology or morals or texts, they
   argue, for example, that it is all in the air, away from real
   experience. Christian religion is a practical matter,--a question of
   improved dispositions, improved habits, and improved prospects. If,
   through Christ, such things as these arise for us, if, through Him,
   influences reach us that tend to such results, then those are the
   practical specimens which interpret to us a Saviour's kindness. To know
   Christ in these must be the true knowledge of Him. To carry us away
   beforehand into the region of a supposed relation to God is a
   precarious, and may be a delusive business; it is, at any rate, a
   dogmatic nicety rather than a vital element in religion. If we are to
   experience God's mercy or Christ's kindness in any practical form, then
   that is to be so; and it is shorter to say so at once. Let us fix on
   that, without interposing any doctrine of "righteousness by faith."

   But it must be said, in reply, that to speak of this righteousness of
   faith as unpractical, is a strange mistake. All religion aims at
   fellowship with God; and in Christian religion that fellowship becomes
   real and authentic in Christ. Through all exercises and attainments of
   Christian religion that are genuine, this thread goes. We have access
   to God, and we abide in the Father and the Son. How imperfectly this
   takes place on our part need not be said. The imperfection on our part
   is, indeed, only exceeded by the condescension on His. Yet our faith is
   that this is real, otherwise Christianity would not be for us the
   opening of an eternal blessedness. How can it be judged unpractical, if
   God reveals to men, first, that in the room of those confused and
   melancholy relations to God which arise for us out of our own past
   history, He has constituted for us a relation, apprehensible by faith,
   in which we find ourselves pardoned, accepted, commended to God to be
   made partakers of life eternal; and, secondly, that this is grounded in
   the service and sacrifice of His Son, sent forth to save us; so that we
   enter this relation and hold it, not independently, but in fellowship
   with the Son of God, His sonship becoming the model of ours? Is this
   unpractical? Is it unpractical to be conscious of such a relation
   between God and men, for ever embodied and made accessible in His Son
   our Saviour? Is it unpractical to apprehend God in the attitude towards
   us which is due to such a relation, and to take, ourselves, the
   attitude of gratitude and penitence and trust which on our side
   corresponds to it? It cannot be unpractical. It may be pernicious, if
   it takes the form of a cold, presumptuous arrogance, or of a
   self-satisfied Pharisaism; that is to say, if God be not in it. But if
   God in Christ is reaching us along those lines, or if we, alive to His
   eternal character, and conscious of our guilt and need, are reaching
   out to real relations and real fellowship with Him through His Son our
   Lord, then it cannot be unpractical. And, indeed, however men may
   differ as to theological explanations, some sense of the worth of the
   thing intended has reached the hearts of all true Christians.

   Perhaps the state of the case will more clearly appear if we fix
   attention on one Christian benefit. Let us take the forgiveness of
   sins.

   Forgiveness of sins is the primary grace, and it sets the type of the
   grace to which we owe all benefits. Forgiveness, as it were, leads in
   all other blessings by the hand; or, each blessing as it advances into
   a Christian life comes with a fresh gift of forgiveness in the heart of
   it. If this is so, then the tendency, which is observable in various
   quarters, to pass forgiveness by, as a matter of course, and to hurry
   on to what are reckoned more substantial, or more experimental
   benefits, must be attended with loss. It must, so far, damage our
   conceptions of the manner in which it befits God to bestow blessings on
   sinful men, and also our conception of the spirit in which we should
   receive them.

   But then, in the next place, the forgiveness of sins itself is referred
   to the mediation of Christ, and the work accomplished in that
   mediation, as its known basis. Forgiveness of sins was to arise out of
   an order of grace, embodied in history--namely, in the history of the
   Incarnate Son of God; and we are not entitled to take for granted it
   could fitly arise otherwise. Apparently Christ Himself came into the
   inheritance which He holds for us, by an order of things which it was
   imperative on Him to regard, and by a history which He must fulfil. And
   we, believing in Him, find, in consequence, a new place and standing;
   we receive a "gift of righteousness" which contains the forgiveness of
   sins; we obtain, through Christ, a mode of access to God, of which
   forgiveness is a feature. So the place of forgiveness in the Divine
   administration is vindicated and safe-guarded; and while forgiveness
   comes to us as a gift of the Father's compassionate heart, it is found
   to be true also that "Christ washed us from our sins in His own blood."
   "God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them
   that were under the law." "God hath sent Him forth for a propitiation,
   through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the
   remission of sins that are past, ... that He might be just, and the
   Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." Our forgiveness is a free
   gift of God's goodness; yet also, it is our participation with Christ,
   sent to us from the Father, in a wonderful relation which He has come
   to hold to sin and to righteousness. If we overlook this, we conceal
   from ourselves great aspects of the work undertaken for us by the love
   of God.

   But if forgiveness, which is itself a meeting with God in peace, refers
   itself to the mediation of Christ as preparing for us a blessed
   relation to God--a righteousness of faith--how should our whole
   fellowship with God, in grace, fail to presuppose the same foundation?

   But argument upon this topic might lead us far. Let us close the
   chapter in another vein.

   All religion, worth recognising in that character, implies earnestness,
   serious aspiration and endeavour. It supposes human life to place
   itself under the influence of an order of motives that is to be
   comprehensive and commanding. And this is true also of Christian
   religion. But Christian religion, as we know, does not begin with a
   consciousness of ability to achieve success; it is not grounded in an
   expectation that by strenuous or apt effort of ours, we may achieve the
   aims and secure the benefits at which religion points. That is not the
   root of Christian religion. It begins with a consciousness and
   confession of weakness: the soul owns its incompetency to deal with the
   great interests that reveal themselves in the light of Christ; it is
   without strength for tasks like these. And so the deepest and earliest
   exercise of Christian religion is Prayer. It asks great things from a
   great God. "This poor man cried," and the Lord heard him. Paul's
   Christianity began thus: "Behold, he prayeth."

   Now just so Christian religion does not begin with a consciousness of
   deserving something, or an idea that by taking pains we may deserve
   something, may single ourselves out for at least some modest share of
   favourable recognition. Rather it often begins with the fading away of
   such ideas when they were present before. Christian religion roots
   itself in the confession of sin, and therefore of ill-desert; it
   signalises itself by a deepening sense of the seriousness of the
   situation in this respect. With this it comes face to face before God.
   "I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." "God be merciful to
   me a sinner." We have nothing that is not sinful to bring before Him;
   so, at length, we come with that. It is all we have. Our prayer rises
   not merely out of the sense of weakness, but out of the consciousness
   of demerit.

   But in Christian religion we are aware, as of strength which can remedy
   our weakness, so of forgiveness which can put away our sins. "There is
   forgiveness with Thee." "Through this Man is preached to us the
   forgiveness of sins." It is clear also that this forgiveness comes,
   wherever it comes, as full and free forgiveness, "forgiving you all
   trespasses." So that in Christian religion we listen at Christ's feet
   to the testimony directed to all penitent believers, that instead of
   reckoning in part or whole about the guilt of sins committed, we are to
   find God in Christ to be One who simply puts away our sin. That shall
   hold us apart from God no more. Rather, the putting of it away brings
   with it the strangest, lowliest access to God. "O God, thou art my
   God." "Who is a God like unto Thee?" Forgiveness is by no means mere
   immunity (least of all for Christian religion). Punishment, certainly,
   in the sense of the separation and evil which sin deserves, passes
   away. But forgiveness, in Christian religion, is forgiveness with the
   Forgiver in it. We meet God in the forgiveness of sins. We abide with
   God in the forgiveness of sins.

   Forgiveness, too, as we already foresee, is but the foundation and
   beginning of a history in which we are called to go forward. This
   history may have sad passages in it; but in going forward in it in
   faith we are assured that on God's part it is a history of most
   painstaking and most sublime benefaction: all of it ordered so as to be
   of a piece with His sending of His Son; all of it instinct with the
   grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith looking to Christ believes this,
   and receives it. And to faith upheld by Him on whom we trust all this
   is more and more made good, and comes true. It is a history of progress
   in true goodness. And the end is life everlasting.

   Now the words before us suggest, upon the one hand, very strongly, the
   simply gratuitous character of the Christian benefits, and the sense of
   undeserved kindness with which they are to be received. In Christian
   religion we begin as those who have no righteousness, who plead no
   merit, who owe and are to owe all to Divine mercy. From the base
   upwards Christian religion is a religion of grace; and "it is of faith,
   that it might be by grace." Whatever activities, whatever successes may
   fall into the Christian's career, whatever long possession of
   accustomed good may eventually mark his experience, all is to be
   informed and inspired by this initial and perpetual conviction, "Not
   having mine own righteousness, which is of the law."

   At the same time, the same words of the Apostle suggest very strongly
   the Divine stability of the good which meets us in Christ. A very
   strong foundation has been laid for those who flee for refuge to lay
   hold of the hope set before them in the gospel. To our sense, indeed,
   things may seem to be most mutable. But when faith reaches to the
   things not seen, it learns another lesson. In Christ believers are
   graced with entrance into an order of salvation divinely strong and
   durable. When God gave us Christ, He gave us, in a sense, "all things,"
   and indeed all things ordering themselves into an eternal expression of
   fatherly love and care. In Christ comes into view not goodness only,
   but goodness allying itself for us with Wisdom and Power and Right. It
   makes its way by incarnation and atonement and resurrection to a
   kingdom which, being first Christ's, appointed to Him, is also His
   people's, appointed to them. Now a relation to God which looks forward
   to all this, which is the basis for it and the entrance to it, descends
   on the believing man through Christ. It is due to Christ that it should
   come so. It is the Father's loving will that it should be so. All that
   is needful to ground and vindicate that most gracious relation is found
   in Christ, who of God is made unto us righteousness; in whom we hold
   the righteousness which is of God on faith.

   The Apostle's course of thought has not led us to raise any question
   about the nature and the virtue of the faith which apprehends and
   receives the righteousness of God. It is a subject on which much has
   been said. What seems needful here may be soon spoken.

   The only way of entering on new relations with God, or ourselves
   becoming new men, is the way of faith. This Christian way is the only
   way. Every other is simply impossible. Let any man seriously try it,
   and he will find it so. But the question, What kind of faith? is best
   answered by saying, Such faith as is called for by the object of faith
   set before us, when that is honestly and intently regarded. As the
   gospel is, the faith must be; for the gospel is the instrument by which
   faith is evoked, sustained, and guided. The great object of faith is
   God, graciously revealing Himself through Christ. Every genuine aspect
   of this revelation takes its significance from its disclosure of God.
   The faith, so called, which misses this, is wrong faith; the faith
   which marks and welcomes this is right faith. And such faith is
   already, even in its earliest life, breaking forth into repentance and
   love and obedience. It must be, for God is in it.

   So, to confine ourselves to the aspect of things which occupies this
   chapter, the faith which meets God in the forgiveness of sins through
   Christ, and genuinely accepts from Him the wonderful position of
   holding fellowship with God forgiving, is already, virtually,
   repentance as well as faith. The man who so meets with God, is therein
   agreed with God about his own sin: he feels God to be in the right and
   himself to be wholly in the wrong; he feels, in particular, God to be
   most sublimely and conclusively in the right in the holy pity of His
   forgiveness. The man who does not feel this, is not accepting
   forgiveness. He may be posturing as if he were, but he is not doing it.

   There is just one difficulty in faith--the difficulty of being real.
   But when it is real, it makes all things new.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [5] The statement which follows in the next six paragraphs is partly
   based on Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, p. 172 fol. He will perhaps be
   regarded as a tolerably impartial reporter on this point.
     __________________________________________________________________

RESURRECTION LIFE AND DAILY DYING.

     "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the
     fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if
     by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the
     dead."--Phil. iii. 10, 11.
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XIII.

  RESURRECTION LIFE AND DAILY DYING.

   We have still other aspects to consider of that "gain" which the
   Apostle descried in Christ, for the sake of which he had cast so much
   away.

   To prize the righteousness of faith was an element in the true
   knowledge of Christ; but it was so far from exhausting that knowledge,
   that it only opened a door of progress, and brought near the most
   stirring possibilities. For, indeed, to be found in Christ having that
   righteousness meant that God in Christ was his, and had begun to
   communicate Himself in eternal life. Now this must still reveal itself
   in further and fuller knowledge of Christ. According to the Apostle's
   conception, that which Christ means to be to us, that which we may
   attain to be by Christ, opens progressively to the soul that has been
   won to this pursuit; it comes into view and into experience in a
   certain growing knowledge. It is a practical historical career; and the
   Apostle was set on achieving it, not by strength or wisdom of his own,
   but by the continual communication of grace, responding to desire and
   prayer and endeavour.

   We must not forget, what has more than once been said, that this
   earthly life of ours is the scene in which the discipline goes on, in
   which the career is achieved. It is the calling here and now, not at
   some other stage of being, that the Apostle is thinking of for himself
   and for his disciples. And as earthly life is the scene, so earthly
   life also furnishes the occasions and opportunities by which the
   knowledge of Christ is to advance. Any other way of it is for us
   inconceivable. This life in all the various forms which it assumes for
   different men, in all the changing experiences which it brings to each
   of us--life on the earth we know so well--with its joy and sorrow, its
   labour and rest, its gifts and its bereavements, its friends and foes,
   its times and places, its exercise and interest for body and mind, for
   intellect and heart and conscience, with its temptations and its better
   influences,--life must furnish the opportunities for acquiring this
   practical knowledge of Christ. For that which falls to us, if we are in
   Christ, is a certain blessed well-being (itself an unfolding of
   Christ's wisdom and grace). And this must impart itself, and reveal
   itself, in our actual experience, but in an experience which we pass
   through under the guidance of Christ.

   This familiar life, then, is the scene; it alone can furnish the
   opportunities. And yet what the Apostle apprehends, as coming into
   possession and experience, is a life of a higher style, a life set on a
   nobler key: it is a life that has its centre and source and true type
   elsewhere; it belongs to a higher region; indeed, it is a life whose
   perfect play pertains to another, coming world. Capacity for such a
   life is not something superhuman; it is congenital to man, made in the
   image of God. And yet, if these capacities unfold, man's life must, in
   the end, become other than we know it now; with a new proportioning of
   elements, with a new order of experience, with new harmonies, with
   aptitudes for love and service and worship that are beyond us now. Only
   now, they begin and grow; they are now to be aimed at, and realised in
   earnest and firstfruit, and embraced in hope. For they are elements in
   the knowledge of Christ, who is ours to know.

   This is indicated in the Apostle's aspiration after knowing Christ in
   the power of His resurrection, and his yearning if by any means he
   might attain to the resurrection of the dead.

   The resurrection of Christ marked the acceptance of His work by the
   Father, and revealed the triumph in which that work ended. Death and
   all the power of the enemy were overcome, and victory was attained. For
   one thing, the resurrection of Christ made sure the righteousness of
   faith. He rose again for our justification. So every passage of the
   Apostle's life which proved that his confidence in that respect was not
   vain, that God in Christ was truly his God, was an experience of the
   power of Christ's resurrection. But the resurrection of Christ was also
   His emergence--His due emergence--into the power and blessedness of
   victorious life. In the Person of Christ life in God, and unto God, had
   descended into the hard conditions set for Him who would associate a
   world of sinners to Himself. In the resurrection the triumph of that
   enterprise came to light. Now, done with sin, and free from death, and
   asserting His superiority to all humiliation and all conflict, He rose
   in the fulness of a power which He was entitled also to communicate. He
   rose, with full right and power to save. And so His resurrection
   denotes Christ as able to inspire life, and to make it victorious in
   His members.

   When, then, Paul says that he would know Christ in the power of His
   resurrection, he aims at a life (already his, but capable of far more
   adequate development) conformed to the life which triumphed in the
   risen Christ, one with that in principle, in character, and in destiny.
   This was, in the meantime, to be human life on the earth, with the
   known elements and conditions of that life; including, in Paul's case,
   some that were hard enough. But it was to be transformed from within,
   inspired with a new meaning and aim. It was to have its elements
   polarised anew, organised by new forces and in a new rhythm. It was,
   and was to be, pervaded by peace with God, by the consciousness of
   redemption, by dedication to service. It was to include a recoil from
   evil, and a sympathy with goodness,--elements these which might be so
   far thought of as a reverting to the unfallen state. But it had more in
   it, because it was based on redemption, and rooted in Christ who died
   and rose again. It was baptised with the passion of gratitude; it was
   drawn into the effort to build up the Redeemer's kingdom; and it aimed
   at a better country.

   So while the life we know so well was the sphere in which this
   experience fulfilled itself, the longings it included pointed to an
   existence higher up and further on--to an existence only to be reached
   by resurrection from the dead, an existence certainly promised to be so
   reached. All the effort and the longing pointed to that door of hope;
   Paul was reaching on to the resurrection of the dead. For that blessed
   resurrection would consummate and fulfil the likeness to Christ and the
   fellowship with Him, and would usher into a manner of being where the
   experience of both should be unimpeded. The life of "knowing Christ"
   could not be contented here, could not rest satisfied short of that
   consummation. For indeed to be with Christ and to labour for Christ
   here on earth was good; yet so that to depart and be with Christ was
   far better.

   We have here to do with the active and victorious aspect of Christian
   life, the energy in it that makes it new and great. It holds by a title
   and it draws from a source which must be looked for, both of them, high
   up in heaven. Something in it has already triumphed over death.

   It may be felt, however, that there is some danger here lest the great
   words of Paul may carry us off our feet, and divorce us from terra
   firma altogether. Some one may ask, But what does all this mean in
   practice? What sort of life is it to be? Apostles can soar, perhaps;
   but how about the man in the workshop or in the counting-house, or the
   woman busied in family cares? A life in "the power of a resurrection"
   seems to be something that transcends earthly conditions altogether.
   These are perfectly fair questions, and one should try to meet them
   with a plain reply.

   The life in view is first of all goodness in its ordinary sense, or
   what we call common morality--common honesty, common truthfulness,
   common kindness. "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him
   labour"; "Not slothful in business"; "Lie not one to another, seeing ye
   have put off the old man with his deeds." But then this common morality
   begins to have an uncommon heart or spirit in it, by reason of Christ.
   So a new love for goodness and a new energy of rejection of evil begin
   to work; also, a new sensitiveness to discern good, where its
   obligation was not felt before, and to be aware of evil which, before,
   was tolerated. Moreover, in the heart of this "common morality" the man
   carries about a consciousness of his own relation to God, and also of
   the relation to God of all with whom he meets. This consciousness is
   very imperfect, sometimes perhaps almost vanishes. Yet the man is aware
   that an immense truth is here close to him, and he has begun to be
   alive to it. This consciousness tends to give a new value to all the
   "moralities": it awakens a new percipiency as to good and evil; in
   particular, the great duty of purity in relation to the man himself,
   and to others, acquires a new sacredness. The place and claims of self
   also begin to be judged by a quite new standard. In all directions
   possibilities of good and evil in human life are descried; and the
   obligation to refuse the evil and to choose the good presses with a new
   force. So far, the remark made a little ago is justified, that the
   Christian life of Paul was a life that had begun to point practically
   towards sinlessness, towards what we call an unfallen state; however
   far off it might be, as yet, from that attainment. But this would be a
   very limited account of the matter. The whole region of duty and
   privilege Godwards is lighted up now by the faith of redemption in
   Christ; that not only awakens gratitude, but inspires a new passion of
   desire and hope into all moral effort. And the man, being now aware of
   a kingdom of goodness set up by Christ, which is making its way to
   victory against all the power of evil, and being aware of the agencies
   by which it works, must give himself in his own place to the service of
   that kingdom, that he may not hurt but help the cause which it
   embodies. The new life is therefore to be an energetic life of the
   plainest goodness. Only faith places it in relation to the world of
   faith, and inspires it with the passion of love and gratitude, and
   amplifies it by the new horizons that fall back on all sides, and gives
   it a goal in the hope of life eternal.

   Returning to the instance of the Apostle Paul, one observes from his
   account of it that the regard of the believer to Christ, such regard as
   may actually be attained and operative in this life, ought to fructify
   into desires and prayers that point beyond this life, and reach out to
   the resurrection of the dead. There is a contentedness with life here
   that is not Christian. It would agree well with a thankful use of
   earthly comforts, and a cheerful serenity amid earth's changes, that we
   should feel our home and our treasure to be in another place, and the
   enjoyment of them to lie in a coming world. Not otherwise shall we know
   how to make a right Christian use and have a right Christian enjoyment
   of this life. We are not prepared to get the full good of this world
   until we are ready and willing to go out of it.

   Let it be observed, also, how the Apostle strove to "attain" the
   resurrection of the dead. The great things of the Kingdom of God are
   exhibited in various connections, none of which are to be overlooked.
   One of these connections is here exhibited.

   We know that in Scripture a distinction is made between the
   resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of the wicked. A
   solemn obscurity rests on the manner and the principles of the latter,
   the resurrection to shame. But the resurrection of the just takes place
   in virtue of their union to Christ; it is after the example of His
   resurrection; it is to glory and honour. Now this resurrection, while
   it is most obviously a crowning blessing and benefaction coming from
   God, is represented also as having the character of an attainment made
   by us. The faith in which we turn to God is the beginning of a course
   leading to the "end of our faith, the salvation of our souls." This end
   coincides with the resurrection. Then the hour comes which completes,
   then the state arrives in which is completed, the redemption of the
   man. The resurrection rises before us, therefore, as something which,
   while on the one hand promised and given by God, is, on the other hand,
   "attained" by us. Our Lord (Luke xx. 35) speaks of those who shall be
   "counted worthy to attain that world, and the resurrection of the
   dead."

   The resurrection is promised to believers. It is promised to arise to
   them in sequel to a certain course--a history of redemption, made good
   in their lives. How shall the disciple verify his expectation of this
   final benefit? Not surely without verifying the intermediate history.
   The way must point towards the end--at least, must point towards it. A
   resurrection state, if it be like Christ's, how much must it include!
   What purity, what high aptitudes, what delicate congenialities! The
   desires of the true Christian life, its aspirations and efforts, as
   well as the promises which animate and the influences which sustain it,
   all point in this direction. But how if in any case this prove unreal,
   deceptive; how if it be ostensible only? How if no real changes take
   place, or if they die out again? What if soul and body rise unchanged,
   the soul polluted, and so the very body bearing the stamp of old sins?
   What if the murderous eye of hate, or the lurid eye of lust, shall look
   into the eyes of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire? Accordingly
   this connection of things is impressed upon us by our Apostle (Rom.
   viii. 11): "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead
   dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
   your mortal body by His Spirit which dwelleth in you." While we live
   here, our body, however disciplined, must still be the body of our
   humiliation (ver. 21); and sin continues to beset even renewed souls.
   But if the Spirit of grace is even now bringing all into subjection to
   the obedience of Christ, enabling us to die to sin and to live to
   righteousness, that points forward to the completion of the work, in
   the resurrection to glory.

   This, then, is one view in which the Apostle realises the solemnity and
   interest of Christian life. It is the way that leads up to such a
   resurrection. The resurrection rises before him as the consummate
   triumph of that life for which he came to Christ, the life which he
   longs perfectly to possess, perfectly to know. The success of his great
   venture is to meet Him in the rising from the dead; his course,
   meanwhile, is a striving onwards to it. How was it to be reached? In
   order to that, much must still be brought into experience of the
   resurrection power of Christ. Only in that strength did Paul look to be
   carried to the point at which, ending his course, he should lie down
   (if he died before Christ come) in the blessed hope of the rising from
   the dead. For this he looked to Christ to work mightily in him; for
   this he owned himself bound, under the grace of Christ, to strive
   mightily, if "by any means" he might attain to it. So great is this
   consummation; so great are those things which fitly lead up to it. Is
   it not a great view of Christian religion that it sends men onward in a
   life in which they "attain" to the resurrection of the dead? Must not
   that be a great history of which this is the appropriate close?

   Paul, then, was eager to go forward in a life intense and mighty,
   drawing on a great power to sustain it, and rising into splendid
   effects and results. But yet, in respect of some of its aspects, it
   rather seemed to the Apostle to be a certain deliberate and blessed
   dying. At least, the life must fulfil and realise itself along such a
   dying; and this also, this emphatically, he pressed on to know--"the
   fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death."

   Our Lord's life on earth, strong and beautiful though it was, was
   really at the same time His procedure towards death. He lived as one
   laying down His life, not merely in one great sacrifice at the close,
   but from step to step along His whole earthly history. With no touch of
   the morbid or the fanatical, yet His course, in practice, had to be one
   of self-impoverishment, of loneliness, of acquaintance with energetic
   hostility of sin and sinners. It had to be so if it was to be faithful.
   He knew not where to lay His head; He endured the contradiction of
   sinners against Himself; He came unto His own, and His own received Him
   not. Even His friends, whom He so loved, and who loved Him in their
   imperfect way, did not love Him wisely or magnanimously, and constantly
   became occasions of temptation which had to be resisted. Pain and trial
   were the inevitable characters of the work given Him to do. It lay in
   His calling to put a strong and faithful negative on the natural desire
   for safety, for happiness, for congenial society and surroundings, for
   free and unembarrassed life. All this He had steadily to postpone to a
   period beyond the grave, and meanwhile make His way to the final
   crisis, at which, under a mysterious burden of extreme sorrow, accepted
   as the Saviour's proper portion, He died for our sins. By this
   sacrifice He did, no doubt, relieve His followers of a burden which
   they never could have borne. But yet in doing so He made it possible
   for them to enter, happily and hopefully, on a life so far like His
   own. Their life, too, comes to be governed by a decision, maintained
   and persisted in, for God's will, and against the impulse, in their
   case the impure and treacherous impulse, of their own will. They also,
   in their turn, but under His influence and with His loving succour,
   have so to live as in that life to die. They learn to say "No" for
   their Master's sake to many objects which strongly appeal to them. They
   consent to postpone the period of perfectly harmonious life, free and
   unimpeded, to the time which lies beyond death. They must count their
   true life to be that which, perfectly conformed to and associated with
   their Master's life, they shall live in another scene of things.
   Meanwhile, as to the elements of this world, the life which stands in
   these must die, or they must die to it, growing into the mind of their
   Lord.

   It is difficult to speak of this without, on the one hand, conveying a
   strained and unreal view of the Christian's attitude towards the
   present life, or, on the other hand, weakening too much the sense of
   "conformity to His death." In the first place, the Christian's dying is
   mainly, and certainly it is first of all, a dying to sin, a mortifying
   the flesh with the affections and lusts. It is the practical
   renunciation of evil, along with the maintenance of the watchfulness
   and self-discipline needed in order to be ready to renounce evil when
   it comes. Evil has to be rejected, not merely by itself, but at the
   cost of those earthly interests which are involved in the surrender to
   it, however dear or constraining those interests may seem to be; so
   that conformity to Christ's death, if it covered no more, would still
   cover a great deal of ground. But it seems to cover something
   more--namely, a general loosening of the grasp upon this life, or on
   the temporary and sensible elements of it, in view of the worth and
   certainty of the higher and the better life. This life, indeed, as long
   as we are in it, can never lose its claims upon us, as the sphere of
   our duty, and the scene of our training. Here we have our place to
   fill, our relations to sustain, our part to play, our ministries to
   perform. In all these ways of it we have some good to do, of lower or
   loftier kinds; in all, we have many lessons to learn, which crowd upon
   us to the last; through all, we have to carry the faith of the unseen
   Kingdom and the unseen Lord; and in all these aspects of earthly life,
   if God gives us any cheering experience of earthly brightness, surely
   it is to be taken most thankfully. It is a poor way of construing the
   conformity to Christ's death, to renounce interest in the life of which
   we are a part, and the world which is the scene of it. But the interest
   should fasten more intently on the things which interest our Lord, and
   eagerness of spirit about earthly good for ourselves must give place
   and subside.

   And yet, when one thinks of the beauty and sweetness of much that
   pertains to our earthly existence, and of the goodness of God in
   material or temporal gifts, and of the thankfulness with which
   Christian hearts are to take these when they are given, and are to walk
   with God in the use of them, one feels the risk of involving oneself
   here in extravagance or in contradiction. We are not going to maintain
   that the Apostle would shut himself out, or us, from interest or
   delight in the innocent beauty or gladness of the earth. But yet, is it
   not true that we are all passing on to death, and in death are to be
   parted from all this? Is it not true that as Christians we consent to
   dying; we count it the good discipline of Christ's people that they
   should die, and pass so into the better life? Is it not true that our
   life as Christians should train us to maintain this mind deliberately
   and habitually, calmly and gladly? For indeed this life, at its purest
   and best, still offers to us a vision of good that is apt to steal our
   hearts away from the supreme good, the best and highest. Now that best
   and highest rises before us, as practically to be made ours, in the
   resurrection.

   Meanwhile, it is well, no doubt, that we should cherish a frank and
   thankful gladness in all earthly good and earthly beauty that can be
   taken as from the Father's hand. Yet there should grow upon us an
   inward consent, strengthening as the days go by, that this shall not
   endure; that it shall not be our permanent possession; that it shall be
   loosely held, as ere long to be parted from. Such a mind should grow,
   not because our hearts are cold to the present country of our being,
   but because they are warming towards a better country. These earthly
   things are good, but they are not ours; we have only a lease of them,
   terminable at any time. Who shall bring us to that which is, and shall
   eternally be, our very own?

   So Christ our Master passed through life, with an open eye and heart
   for the fair and the lovable around Him, for flowers and little
   children, and for what was estimable or attractive in men, even in a
   natural way. Surely all was dear to Him on which He could see the trace
   of the Creator's holy hands. Yet He passed on and passed by, going
   forward to death and consenting to die, His face set steadfastly to a
   joy before Him which could not be realised by lingering here.

   Now let this be especially observed, that while we may here recognise a
   practical lesson to be learned, the wisest of us may also recognise it
   as a lesson we could not undertake to teach to ourselves. To oppose
   sin, when conscience and God's word warn us of its presence, is at
   least something definite and plain. But how to take the right attitude
   and bear the right mind towards this various, manifold, engrossing,
   wonderful human life, as it unfolds for us here--how shall that be
   done? Some have tried to answer by amputating large sections of human
   experience. But that is not the way. For, indeed, it is in human life
   itself--in this present, and, for the present, the only form of our
   existence--that we must take the right view of human life, and form the
   right mind about it. Moreover, our conditions are varying continually,
   from the state of the little child, open to every influence that
   strikes the sense, to the state of the old man, whom age is shutting up
   in a crippled and stunted existence. The just equipoise of soul for one
   stage of life, could it be attained, would not be the just equipoise
   for the next.

   The truth is, there is no ready-made theory here for any of us. All our
   attainments in it are tentative and provisional; which does not hinder,
   however, that they may be very real. When we believe in Christ we
   become aware that there is a lesson in this department to be learned,
   and we become willing, in a measure, to learn it. But we should learn
   little were it not for three great teachers that take us in hand.

   The first is the inevitable conflict with sin and temptation. The
   Christian must, at all events, strive against known sin, and he must
   hold himself ready to resist the onset of temptation, watching and
   praying. In this discipline he soon learns how sin is entangled for him
   with much that in other respects seems desirable or good; he learns
   that in rejecting sin he must forgo some things which on other accounts
   he gladly would embrace. It is often a painful conflict through which
   he has to pass. Now in seeking help from his Lord, and entering into
   the fellowship of the mind of Christ, he is not only strengthened to
   repel the sin, but also learns to submit willingly to any
   impoverishment or abridgement of earthly life which the conflict
   entails. He is taught in practice, now in one form, now in another, to
   count all things but loss--to lower the overweening estimate of earthly
   treasure and let it go, dying to it with his dying Lord.

   Then, besides, there is the discipline of suffering. Sorrow, indeed, is
   not peculiar to Christians. Of it, all are partakers. But Christian
   endurance is part of a fellowship with Christ, in which we learn of
   Him. In the warm air of prosperity a hot mist rises round the soul,
   that hides from view the great realities, and that deceives and
   misleads us with its vain mirage. But in suffering, taken in Christ's
   way and in fellowship with Him, in the pain of disappointment and of
   loss, and especially in the exercise of submission, we are taught
   feelingly where our true treasure is; and we are trained to consent to
   separations and privations, for the sake of Christ, and under the
   influence of the love of Christ.

   And, lastly, the growth of Christian experience and Christian character
   deepens our impressions of the worth of Christ's salvation, and gives
   more body and more ardour to Christian hope. As that world with its
   perfect good draws the believer, as it becomes more visible to faith
   and more attractive, his grasp of this world becomes, perhaps, not less
   kindly, but it becomes less tenacious. Knowledge, such as the schools
   of earth afford, we still feel to be desirable and good. Love, under
   the conditions which earth supplies for its exercise, we still feel to
   be very dear. The activities which call out courage and resource, we
   still feel to be interesting and worthy. Yet knowledge proves to be but
   in part. And love, if it does not die, needs for its health and
   security a purer air. And in the problems of active life failure still
   mingles with success. But the love of God which is in Jesus Christ
   grows in worth and power; so that, in new applications of the
   principle, we learn afresh to "count all things but loss for the
   excellency of the knowledge of Christ."

   In a word, then, that we may grow into the mind of Christ, sufferings
   and self-denials are appointed to come into experience. He sets them
   for us; we should not wisely set them for ourselves. They come in the
   conflict with sin or in the ordinary discipline of life. Either way
   they become for believers the fellowship of Christ's sufferings; for
   they are taken in Christ's way, under His eye, endured in the strength
   of His truth and grace and salvation. So believers become more
   conformable to His death. Hence this discipline of trial is
   indispensable to all disciples.

   Some such view of the ends of Christ in regard to separation from sin
   and disengagement from the life which is doomed to die, we suppose to
   have been before Paul's mind. He had come to Christ for life, abundant
   and victorious, such as should be answerable to the power of Christ's
   resurrection. But he saw that such life must fulfil itself in a certain
   dying, made good in a fellowship of Christ's sufferings; and it must
   find its completeness and its peace beyond death, in the resurrection
   of the dead. Did he flinch or shrink from this? No: he longed to have
   it all perfectly accomplished. His knowledge of Christ was to be not
   only in the power of His resurrection, but in the fellowship of His
   sufferings, being made conformable to His death.

   Whatever mistakes have been made by followers of the ascetic life, it
   is a mistake on the other side to neglect this element of Christianity.
   He who is not self-denied, and that cheerfully, to the danger and
   seduction of lawful things, is one who has not his loins girt nor his
   lamp burning.

   It is worth our while to mark the thoroughgoing sincerity of the
   Apostle's Christianity. Not merely did he in general embrace Christ and
   salvation: but with the utmost cordiality he embraced the method of
   Christ; he strove after fellowship with Christ's mind in living, and
   also in dying; he did so, though the fellowship included not only the
   power of His resurrection, but the fellowship of His sufferings. He
   longed to have it all fulfilled in his own case. So he strove toward
   the resurrection of the dead.

   In parting from these great Christian thoughts we may note how fitly
   the power of Christ's resurrection takes precedence of the fellowship
   of His sufferings and the being made conformable to His death. Some
   have thought that, as death comes before resurrection, the order of the
   clauses might have been inverted. But it is only through the precedent
   virtue of Christ's resurrection that such a history is achieved, either
   in Paul or in any of us. We must be partakers of life in the power of
   Christ's resurrection, if we are to carry through the fellowship with
   the suffering and the death.
     __________________________________________________________________

CHRISTIAN LIFE A RACE.

     "Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I
     press on, if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was
     apprehended by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to
     have apprehended: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which
     are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I
     press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God
     in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus
     minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, even this shall
     God reveal unto you: only, whereunto we have already attained, by
     that same rule let us walk.

     "Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them which so
     walk even as ye have us for an ensample."--Phil. iii. 12-17 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XIV.

  CHRISTIAN LIFE A RACE.

   Various passages in this Epistle suggest that the Apostle's Philippian
   friends or some of them were relaxing in diligence; they were failing
   perhaps to lay to heart the need of progress, less sensitive than they
   ought to be to the impulse of Christianity as a religion of effort and
   expectancy. Some of them, it might be, were inclined to think of
   themselves as now pretty well initiated into the new religion, and as
   pretty thorough adepts in its teaching and its practice; entitled
   therefore to sit down and look round with a certain satisfaction and
   complacency. If it were so, the tendency to division would be accounted
   for. Arrogance in Christians is a sure preliminary to heats and
   disputings. At all events, however it might be at Philippi, an
   insidious complacency in little improvements and small attainments is
   not unknown among Christians. It is, one may fear, a common impression
   among us that we are fair average Christians,--a feeling perhaps not so
   cherished as to make us boast, but yet so cherished as to make us feel
   content. And, alas! the very meaning of Christianity was to inspire us
   with a spirit that would refuse so to be contented.

   Some feeling of this kind may have led the Apostle to lay stress on the
   onward energising character of Christianity as he knew it. This was the
   manner of his regard to his Lord. At the foundation of his religion
   there was, indeed, the faith of a wonderful gift of righteousness and
   life. That gift he welcomed and embraced. But it wrought in him
   eagerness of desire, and intentness of purpose, to secure and have all
   that this gift implied. It stirred him to activity and progress. His
   was not the Christianity of one who counts himself to have already
   obtained all into possession, nor of one who finds himself landed
   already in the state at which the Christian promises aim. Rather he is
   one set in full view of a great result: some experience of the benefits
   of it is already entering into his history; but it is yet to be brought
   to pass in its fulness; and that must be along a line of believing
   endeavour, Christ working and Paul working, Christ faithful with Paul
   faithful. "I follow after, if that I may lay hold and extend my grasp,
   seeing Christ has laid hold with His grasp on me." Christ had a
   purpose, and has mightily inaugurated a process through which this
   purpose may be achieved in the history of Paul. And as Christ lays His
   grasp on Paul, behold the purpose of Christ becomes also the purpose of
   Paul, and he now throws himself into the process with all his force, to
   apprehend that for the sake of which Christ apprehended him.

   Here Paul signalised one distinguishing attribute of genuine
   Christianity as he knew it. He did not yet count himself to have laid
   complete grasp on the whole of Christian good. In a very important
   practical sense salvation was still something ahead of him, as to the
   final, secure, complete possession; Christ Himself was an object still
   before him, as to the knowledge and the fellowship for which he longed.
   But one thing is vital and distinctive. "This Saviour with His
   salvation holds me so, that I count all but loss for Him. He holds me
   so, that forgetting all that lies behind, I bend myself to the race,
   stretching out towards the goal at which the prize of the high calling
   of God in Christ is won. That is my Christianity." He who had suffered
   loss of all for Christ, he who so burned with desire to know Him in His
   righteousness, in the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship of
   His sufferings, is far from thinking he has reached the goal. Because
   the knowledge of Christ is so great a thing in his eyes, therefore, on
   the one hand, all he has attained as yet seems partial and imperfect;
   but for the same reason, on the other hand, he feels the great
   attraction by which all his powers are drawn into the endeavour which
   so great a prize shall crown.

   The question may here be put how the consistency of the gospel can be
   made out if we are called to rest and rejoice in Christ, and if, at the
   same time, we find ourselves committed to so absorbing a struggle for a
   prize. If God will have us, it may be said, to seek and strive that we
   may obtain, then we must do so because it is His will. But where is the
   connection of things that will avert inconsistency, and bring out a
   reasonable continuity of principles, between the call to rest on Christ
   for full salvation, and the call to run a race, and so run as to
   obtain? For answer it is to be remembered, in the first place, that (as
   commonly happens in matters where life and its activities are
   concerned) the difficulty concerns only the adjustment of our theory;
   it begins to vanish when we come to practice. When we are in vital
   contact with the spiritual realities themselves, we find both elements
   of the case to be true for us, and each indispensable to the truth of
   the other. The rest of faith and the fight of faith belong to each
   other. But not to dwell on so general a consideration, two lines of
   thought may be suggested to those who are conscious of embarrassment at
   this point.

   First, let it be considered that the faith of a Christian embraces real
   relations with the living God, different from anything that is possible
   to unbelief. Through Christ we believe in God. Those relations are
   conceived to be real and vital from the first, though the perfect
   experience of all that they imply belongs to the future. Faith means
   that from the outset of believing we are to be to God, and God is to be
   to us, something different from what the flesh perceives. Christ
   believed in is an assurance that so it is and shall be. But now, the
   state of men is such, as long as they have to carry on a life of faith
   in a world of sense and sin, that this faith of theirs presently meets
   with flat contradiction. The course of the world treats it all as null.
   Sin in their own hearts, and many experiences of life, seem to negative
   the pretensions and the claims of faith. And strong temptations whisper
   that this high fellowship with a living God not only does not exist,
   but that it is not desirable that it should. So that from the outset
   and all along, faith, if it is not content to be a mere dream, if it
   will count for a reality, must contend for its life. It must fight,
   "praying always with all prayer," to make good its ground, and to hold
   on to its Lord. It is indeed the nature of faith to rest, for it is a
   trust; not less certainly faith is under necessity to strive, for it is
   challenged and impeached.

   It lies therefore in the very nature of the case that, if faith is in
   earnest in embracing real and progressive salvation, it must find
   itself drawn into conflict and effort to assert the reality and to
   experience the progress. The opposition it meets with ensures this.

   On the other hand, it is the nature of the gospel to set men free for
   active service. It supplies motives, therefore, for enterprise,
   diligence, and fidelity; and it provides a goal towards which all shall
   tend. So men become fellow-labourers with their Lord. And if it is
   intelligible that the Lord should exert continual care for them, it
   ought to be intelligible also that they are to be exercised in a
   continual care for Him; care, that is, for the discharge of the trust
   which they hold from Him.

   The Apostle dwells on all this, evidently because he felt it to be a
   point of so great importance in practical Christianity. In this world
   the right Christian is the man who knows well he has not attained, but
   who devotes his life to attaining. Paul brings this out by means of the
   image of a race for a prize, such as might be seen in the public games.
   This is a favourite illustration with him. His use of it illustrates
   the way in which things that are steeped in worldliness may aid us in
   apprehending the things of God's kingdom. They do so, because they
   involve elements or energies of man's nature that are good as far as
   they go. As the Apostle thought of the racers, prepared by unsparing
   discipline, which had been concentrated on the one object; as he
   thought of the determination with which the eager runners started, and
   of the way in which every thought and every act was bent upon the one
   purpose of success, until the moment when the panting runner shot past
   the goal, it stirred him with the resolve to be not less eager in his
   race; and it made him long to see the children of light as practical
   and wise as, in their generation, the children of this world are.

   As usual in the case of illustrations, this one will not hold in all
   points. For instance, in a race one only wins, and all the rest are
   defeated and disappointed. This is not so in the Christian race. The
   analogies lie elsewhere. In order to run well the runners submit to
   preparation in which everything is done to bring out their utmost
   energy for the race. When the race comes each competitor may possibly
   win: in order to win he must put forth his utmost powers; he must do so
   within a short period of time; and during that time nothing must
   distract him from the one aim of winning. He does this for a benefit
   embodied in, or symbolised by, the prize which rewards and commemorates
   his victory. These are the points in which the races of public games
   afford lessons for the Christian race. In the former the fact that the
   success of any one competitor deprives the others of the prize they
   seek, is the circumstance that puts intensity into the whole business,
   and makes a real race of it. So also in the spiritual antitype there
   are elements which make the race most real, though they are elements of
   another kind.

   The prize can be nothing else than the life eternal (1 Tim. vi. 12)
   which comes, as we have seen, into full possession at the resurrection
   of the dead. He whose favour is life confers it. The bestowment of it
   is conceived as taking place with gladness and with honourable
   approbation: "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the
   joy of thy Lord." The prize stands in strict connection with the
   perfecting of the believer: the time of receiving the prize is also the
   time of being presented faultless. Neither prize nor perfectness is
   attained here; neither is attained unless sought here; and the
   blessedness bestowed is connected in fact and measure with the faith
   and diligence expended on the race. On all these accounts the prize is
   spoken of as a crown: a crown of glory, for it is very honourable; a
   crown of life, incorruptible, that fadeth not away, for it shall never
   wither on the brow, as the wreaths of those earthly champions did. Now
   to run his race was for Paul the one thing. He had not yet attained; he
   could not sit still as if he had: it was his living condition that he
   must run, as one not yet there, following on in earnest that he might
   actually have the prize.

   Perhaps some one may regard it as objectionable to conceive practical
   Christianity as a race for a prize. This seems, it may be said, to
   subordinate the present to the future, this world to the other world,
   and, in particular, virtue to happiness; because in this way the
   efforts of goodness here are conceived only as a means to enjoyment or
   satisfaction there. We reply that the prize does indeed include joy,
   the joy of the Lord. But it includes, first of all, goodness,
   consummate in the type of it proper to the individual; and gladness is
   present no otherwise than as it is harmonised with goodness, being
   indeed her proper sister and companion. Besides, the elements of the
   gladness of that state come in as the expression of God's love--a love
   both holy and wise. Communion with that love is the true security for
   goodness. It is equally absurd to suppose, on the one hand, that when
   that love fills the heart with its unreserved communication there can
   fail to be gladness; and, on the other hand, to suppose that fellowship
   with it can be other than the proper and supreme object of a creature's
   aspiration.

   There is no unworthiness in devoting life to win this prize; for it is
   a state of victorious well-being and well-doing. The highest goodness
   of all intervening stages is to aspire to that highest goodness of all.
   Whatever we may do or be, meanwhile, is best attained and done as it
   confesses its own shortcoming, and hopes and longs to be better and to
   do more.

   It is true that a complete gift of eternal life is held out to us in
   Christ, and it is faith's part to accept that gift and to rest in it.
   But yet part of that gift itself is an emancipation of the soul; in
   virtue of this the man becomes actively responsive to the high calling,
   reiterates his fundamental decision all along the detail of mortal
   life, affirms his agreement with the mind and life of his Lord,
   approves himself faithful and devoted, and runs so as to obtain. All
   this is in the idea of the gift bestowed, and is unfolded in the
   experience of the gift received. So the prize is to arise to us as the
   close of a course of progressive effort tending that way: the reality
   of the prize corresponds to the reality of the progress; the degree of
   it, in some way, to the rate of that progress. The progress itself is
   made good, as we have said, by perpetually re-affirming the initial
   choice; doing so in new circumstances, under new lights, with a new
   sense of its meaning, against the difficulties implied in new
   temptations; yet so as ever, in the main, to abide by the beginning of
   our confidence. With all this let it be remembered that the time is
   short; and it will be understood that the Christian life, so viewed,
   assumes the character, and may well exhibit the intensity and pressure,
   of a race.

   How far short men fall of the great idea of such a life--how they
   flinch from the perfectness of this Christian imperfection--need not be
   enlarged upon. But if any life is wholly untrue to this ideal, the
   Apostle seemingly could not count it Christian. This one thing he did,
   he bent himself to the race. For if the ultimate attainment has become
   very attractive, if the sense of present disproportion to it is great,
   and if, in Christ, both the obligation and the hopefulness of reaching
   the perfect good have become imperatively plain, what can a man do but
   run?
     __________________________________________________________________

   Verses 15 and 16 state the use which the Apostle desires his disciples
   to make of this account of his own views and feelings, his attitude and
   his effort,--"As many of us as are perfect."

   Since the Apostle has disclaimed (ver. 12) being already perfected, it
   may seem strange that he should now say, "As many of us as are
   perfect." His use of language in other places, however, warrants the
   position that he is not speaking of absolute perfection, as if the
   complete result of the Christian calling had been attained. Rather he
   is thinking of ripe practical insight into the real spirit of the
   Christian life--that is to say, advanced acquaintance, by experience,
   with the real nature of the Christian life. He uses this word "perfect"
   in contrast to "babes" or "children" in Christ. These last are persons
   who have been truly brought to Christ; but their conceptions and their
   attainments are rudimentary. They have not attained to large insight
   into the means and ends of the Christian life, nor to any ripe
   acquaintance with the position of a Christian man, and the relation he
   holds to things around him. They are therefore unready to face the
   responsibilities and perform the duties of Christian manhood. Hence the
   translators of the Authorised Version, in some passages, render the
   same word so as to bring out this sense of it. So 1 Cor. xiv. 20, "Be
   not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in
   understanding be men" (theleioi), and Heb. v. 14, "Strong meat belongs
   to those that are of full age" (telheion).

   It cannot be doubted, however, that the word is used here with a
   certain emphatic significance in reference to the previous disclaimer,
   "I am not yet perfected." In the Philippians, or in some of them, Paul
   apprehended the existence of a self-satisfied mood of mind, such as
   might perhaps be warrantable if they were now perfect, if Christianity
   had brought forth all its results for them, but on no other terms. In
   contrast to this he had set before them the intense avidity with which
   he himself stretched out towards attainment and completeness which he
   had not reached. And now he teaches them that to be thus well aware how
   far we are from the true completeness, to be thus reaching out to it,
   is the true perfection of our present state: he only is the perfect
   Christian who is "thus minded"; who knows and feels how much remains to
   be attained, and gives himself up to the effort and the race under that
   inspiration. It is as if he said: Would you approve yourselves to be
   believers, advanced and established; would you show that you have come
   to a larger measure of just views and just feelings about the new world
   into which faith has brought you; would you have the character of men
   well acquainted with your Lord's mind about you, with your own position
   in relation to Him; in short, would you be perfect, fully under the
   influence of the Christianity you profess:--then let you and me be
   "thus minded"; let us evince the lowly sense of our distance from the
   goal, along with a living sense of the magnificence and urgency of the
   motives which constrain us to press on to it.

   For is there such a thing attainable here as a Christian perfectness, a
   ripe fulness of the Christian life, which exhibits that working of it,
   in its various forces, which was designed for this stage of our
   history? If so, what must it be? That man surely is the perfect man who
   fully apprehends the position in which the gospel places him here, and
   the ends it sets before him, and who most fully admits into his life
   the views and considerations which, in this state of things, the gospel
   proposes. Then, he must be a man penetrated with a sense of the
   disproportion between his attainment and Christ's ideal, and at the
   same time set on fire with the desire and hope of overcoming it. Has a
   man experienced many gracious dealings at his Lord's hands, has he made
   attainments by grace, has he come to a Christian standing that may be
   called full age, would he be what all this would seem to imply,--then
   let him take heed to be "thus minded." Otherwise he is already
   beginning to lose what he seemed to have attained.

   It is not so surprising, and it is not so severely to be reprehended,
   if those fail in this point who are but children in Christ. When the
   glorious things of the new world are freshly bursting into view, when
   the affections of the child of God are in their early exercise, when
   sin for the present seems stricken down, it is not so wonderful if men
   suppose danger and difficulty to be over. Like the Corinthians, "now
   they are full, now they are rich, now they have reigned as kings." It
   has often been so; and at that stage it may be more easily pardoned.
   One may say of it, "They will learn their lesson by-and-by; they will
   soon find out that in the life of a Christian all is not triumph and
   exultation." But it concerns those who have got further on, and it is
   expected of them, that they should be "thus minded" as the Apostle Paul
   was. It is a more serious business for them to be of another mind on
   this point, than for those who are only children in Christ. It tends to
   great loss. Are we, says the Apostle, come to a point at which we may
   be thought to be--may hope we are--experienced believers, well
   acquainted now with the salvation and the service, men in Christ? Then
   as we would ever act in a manner answerable, at this stage, to the
   gospel and to our position under the gospel, let us be thus minded;
   forgetting that which is behind, reaching forth to that which is
   before, let us press toward the mark. For at each stage of progress
   much depends on the way in which we deal with the position now
   attained, with the views which have opened to us, and with the
   experiences that have been acquired. This may decide whether the stage
   reached shall be but a step towards something better and more blessed,
   or whether a sad blight and declension shall set in. There are
   Christian lives to-day sadly marred, entangled and bewildered so that
   one knows not what to make of them, and all by reason of failure to be
   "thus minded."

   A man is awakened to the supreme importance of Divine things. At the
   outset of his course, for years perhaps, he is a vigorous and growing
   Christian. So he comes to a large measure of establishment: he grows
   into knowledge of truth and duty. But after a time the feeling creeps
   into his mind that matters are now less urgent. He acts rather as a man
   disposed to keep his ground, than as one that would advance. Now he
   seems to himself to lose ground somewhat, now to awaken a little and
   recover it, and on those terms he is fairly well contented. All this
   while it would be unjust to say that he does not love and serve Christ.
   But time passes on; life draws nearer to its close. The period at which
   God's afflictions usually multiply has arrived. And he awakens at last
   to see how much of his life has been lost; how extensively, though
   secretly, decay has marred his attainments and his service; and how
   little, in the result, of that honourable success has crowned his life
   which once seemed fair before him.

   "Let us be thus minded." Let Christians be admonished who have for some
   time been Christians, and especially those who are passing through
   middle life, or from middle life into older years. There is enchanted
   ground here, in passing over which too many of Christ's servants go to
   sleep. Leave that which is behind.

   Let us be thus minded: but this proves hard. One may see it in a
   general way to be most reasonable, but to come up to it in particulars
   is hard. In all particular cases we are tempted to be otherwise minded.
   And in many particulars we find it very difficult to judge the manner
   of spirit that we are of. Were all right in us, absolutely right,
   rectitude of disposition and of moral action would be in a manner
   instinctive. But now it is not so. With reference to many aspects of
   our life, it is very difficult to bring out distinctly to our own minds
   how the attitude that becomes us is to be attained and maintained. The
   difficulty is real; and therefore a promise is annexed. "If in anything
   ye be otherwise minded." That may realise itself in two ways. You may
   be distinctly conscious that your way of dealing with some interests
   which enter into your lives is unsatisfactory, is below your calling
   and privilege as a Christian; and yet you may find it hard to see how
   you are to rise into the worthier life. It is like a problem which you
   cannot solve. Or, again, you may fear that it is so; you may fear that
   if things were seen in the true light it would turn out so. But you
   cannot see clearly; you cannot identify the faulty element, far less
   amend it. Here the promise meets you. "If in anything ye be otherwise
   minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." Keep your face in the
   right direction. Be honestly set on the attainment, and the way will
   open up to you as you go. You will see the path opening from the point
   where you stand, into life that throughout is akin to the aspiration
   and the achievement of the life of Paul.

   Paul here has regard to a distinction which theorists are apt to
   overlook. We have a sufficient objective rule in the word and example
   of Christ. This may be summarised in forms easily repeated, and a man
   may, in that respect, know all that need be said as to what he is to do
   and to be. But in morals and in spiritual life this is only the
   beginning of another process--namely, the subjective individual
   entrance into the meaning of it all and the practical appropriation of
   it. I know the whole of duty on the human side: I am to love my
   neighbour as myself. It is most essential to know it, and a grand thing
   to have consented to make a rule of it. But, says one, there remains
   the difficulty of doing it? Is that all? I reply. There is another
   previous difficulty. I can preach a sermon on loving my neighbour as
   myself. But what does that mean, for me, not for any one else, but for
   myself, on a given day in November, at half-past one in the afternoon,
   when I am face to face with my neighbour, who has his merits, and also
   his defects, being, perhaps, provoking and encroaching, with whom I
   have some business to arrange? What does it mean then and there and for
   me? Here there opens the whole question of the subjective insight into
   the scope and genius of the rule; in which problem heart and mind must
   work together; and commonly there has to be training, experience,
   growth, in order to the expert and just discernment. Short of that
   there may be honest effort, blundering most likely, but honest, and
   lovingly accepted through Christ. But there ought to be growth on this
   subjective side.

   Moreover, when progress has been made here it imposes responsibility.
   Have you been carried forward to such and such degrees of this
   subjective insight? Then this ought to be for you a fruitful
   attainment. Do not neglect its suggestions, do not prove careless and
   untrue to insight attained. Whereto we have attained, "by the same rule
   let us walk,"--or, as we may render it, "go on in the same line." So
   new insight and new achievement shall wait upon our steps.

   Generally, if their Lord had carried the Philippians forward to genuine
   attainments of Christian living, then that history of theirs was a
   track which reached further on. It was not a blind alley, stopping at
   the point now reached. It had had a meaning; there was some rationale
   of it; it proceeded on principles which could be understood, for they
   had been put in practice; and it demanded to be further pursued. There
   is a continuity in the work of grace. There is a rational development
   of spiritual progress in the case of each child of God. What God means,
   what the direction is in which His finger beckons, what the
   dispositions are under the influence of which His call is complied with
   and obeyed,--these are things which have been so far learned in that
   course of lessons and conflicts, of defeats and backslidings,
   restorations and victories, which has brought you so far. Let this be
   carried out; keep on in the same road. Whereto you have attained, go on
   with the same.

   But such an admonition at once raises a question; the question, namely,
   whether we are at any stage in the pathway of Christian attainment,
   whether there is for us as yet any history of a Divine life. Among
   those who claim part in Christ's benefits are some whom the grace of
   God has never taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live
   soberly, righteously, and godly; for they have been persistently deaf
   to the lesson. There are some who do not know how Christ turns men from
   darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. To them the
   line of admonition now in hand does not apply: to exhort them to "walk
   on in the same" would be to perpetuate for them a sad mistake. Their
   course has been dark and downward. Therefore to the admonition already
   given, the Apostle adds another. "Brethren, be followers together of
   me, and mark (keep sight of) them who walk so as ye have us for an
   example." Do not mistake the whole nature of Christianity; do not
   altogether miss the path in which God's children go. It is one spirit
   that dwells in the Church; let not your walk forsake the fellowship of
   that spirit. Christians are not bound to any human authority: Christ is
   their Master. They must sometimes assert their independence, even with
   respect to the maxims and manners of good people. Yet there is one
   spirit in God's true Church, and there is in the main one course of
   life which it inspires. God's children have not been mistaken in the
   main things. In these, to forsake the spirit and the way of Christ's
   flock is to forsake Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

ENEMIES OF THE CROSS.

     "For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even
     weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end
     is perdition, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their
     shame, who mind earthly things."--Phil. iii. 18, 19 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XV.

  ENEMIES OF THE CROSS.

   The New Testament writers, and not least the Apostle Paul, are wont to
   bring out their conception of the true Christian life by setting it
   vividly in contrast with the life of the unspiritual man. They seem to
   say: "If you really mean to say No to the one, and Yes to the other, be
   sincere and thorough: compromises are not possible here." So 1 Tim. vi.
   10: "The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some
   coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves
   through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God," etc. Or Jude 18:
   "mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who
   separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But, ye beloved,"
   etc. Here in like manner the course of worldliness and self-pleasing
   life is sketched in concrete instances, that its sin and shame may be
   felt, and that by contrast the true calling of a Christian may be
   discerned and may be impressed on the disciples.

   It may be taken as certain that the Apostle is not speaking of mere
   Jews or mere heathen. He is speaking of professing Christians, whose
   practical life belied their profession. In general they are enemies of
   the cross of Christ; that is the first thing he thinks fit to say of
   them. And here it may be asked whether the Apostle has in view, if not
   Jews, yet the Judaising faction about which he had already said strong
   things in the beginning of this chapter. Some have thought so; and it
   must be owned that antagonism to the cross, ignorance of its virtue,
   and antipathy to its lessons, is exactly what the Apostle was wont to
   impute to those Judaisers; as may be seen in the Epistle to the
   Galatians, and in other Pauline writings. But it is preferable, as has
   been already indicated, to take it that the Apostle has turned from the
   particular issue with those Judaisers; and having been led to declare
   emphatically what the life of Christianity was in his own experience
   and practice, he now sets this life in Christ not merely against the
   religion of the Judaisers, but in general against all religion which,
   assuming the name of Christ, denied the power of godliness; which
   meddled with that worthy name, but only brought reproach upon it. It is
   quite possible indeed that here he might have in view some of the
   Judaisers also; for there was a sensual side of popular Judaism which
   might be represented also among the Judaising Christians. But it is
   more likely that the Apostle's eye is turning mainly to another class
   of persons. It seems that in the early Churches, especially perhaps at
   the time when the later Epistles were written, a recognisable tendency
   to a loose and lawless Christianity was finding representatives.
   Warning against these was needed; and they embodied a form of evil
   which might serve to show the Philippians, as in a mirror, the disaster
   in which an idle, self-satisfied, vainglorious Christianity was like to
   land its votaries.

   What first strikes the Apostle about them is that they are enemies of
   the cross of Christ. One asks, Does he mean enemies of the doctrine of
   the cross, or of its practical influence and efficiency? The two are
   naturally connected. But here perhaps the latter is principally
   intended. The context, especially what follows in the Apostle's
   description, seems to point that way.

   When Christ's cross is rightly apprehended, and when the place it
   claims in the mind has been cordially yielded, it becomes, as we see in
   the case of Paul himself, a renovating principle, the fountain of a new
   view and a new course. That immense sacrifice for our redemption from
   sin decides that we are no more to live the rest of our time in the
   flesh to the lusts of men (1 Peter iv. 1). And that patience of Christ
   in His lowly love to God and man under all trial, sheds its conclusive
   light upon the true use and end of life, the true rule, the true
   inspiration, and the true goal. So regarded, Christ's cross teaches us
   the slender worth, or the mere worthlessness, of much that we otherwise
   should idolise; on the other hand, it assures us of redemption into His
   likeness, as a prospect to be realised in the renunciation of the "old
   man"; and it embodies an incomparable wealth of motive to persuade us
   to comply, for we find ourselves in fellowship with Love unspeakable.

   Under this influence we take up our cross; which is substantially the
   same as renouncing or denying ourselves (Matt. xvi. 24) carried
   practically out. It is self-denial for Christ's sake and after Christ's
   example, accepted as a principle, and carried out in the forms in which
   God calls us to it. This, as we have seen, takes place chiefly in our
   consenting to bear the pain involved in separation from sin and from
   the life of worldliness, and in carrying on the war against sin and
   against the world. It includes rejection of known sin; it includes
   watchfulness and discipline of life with a view to life's supreme end;
   and so it includes prudential self-denial, in avoiding undue excitement
   and over-absorbing pleasure, because experience and God's word tell us
   it is not safe for our hearts to be so "overcharged" (Luke xxi. 34).
   This cross in many of its applications is hard. Yet in all its genuine
   applications it is most desirable; for in frankly embracing it we shall
   find our interest in salvation, and in the love which provides it,
   brought home with comfort to our hearts (1 Peter iv. 14).

   It seems, then, that there are professing Christians who are enemies of
   the cross of Christ. Not that it is always an open and proclaimed
   hostility; though, indeed, in the case of those whom Paul is thinking
   of, it would appear to have revealed itself pretty frankly. But at all
   events it is a real aversion; they would have nothing to do with the
   cross, or as little as they may. And this proves that the very meaning
   of salvation, the very end of Christ as a Saviour, is the object of
   their dislike. But in Christianity the place of the cross is central.
   It will make itself felt somehow. Hence those who decline or evade it
   find it difficult to do so quietly and with complacency. Eventually
   their dislike is apt to be forced into bitter manifestation. They
   begin, perhaps, with quiet and skilful avoidance; but eventually they
   become, recognisably, enemies of the cross, and their religious career
   acquires a darker and more ominous character.

   It is, however, an interesting question, What draws to Christianity
   those who prove to be enemies of the cross? Nowadays we may explain the
   adhesion of many such persons to Christian profession by referring to
   family and social influences. But we can hardly set much down to that
   score when we are thinking of the days of Paul. It cannot be doubted
   that some persons were then strongly drawn by Christianity, who did not
   prove amenable to its most vital influence. And that may persuade us
   that the same phenomenon recurs in all ages and in all Churches. For
   different minds there are different influences which may operate in
   this way. Intellectual interest may be stirred by the Christian
   teachings; the sense of truth and reality may be appealed to by much in
   the Christian view of men and things; there may be a genuine
   satisfaction in having life and feelings touched and tinged with the
   devout emotions which breathe in Christian worship; there may be a
   veneration, real as far as it goes, for some features of Christian
   character, as set forth in Scripture and embodied in individual
   Christians; and, not to dwell on mere particulars, the very goodness of
   Christian truth and life, which a man will not pay the cost of
   appropriating to himself, may exert a strong attraction, and draw a man
   to live upon the borders of it. Nay, such men may go a good long way in
   willingness to do and bear for the cause they have espoused. Men have
   run the risk of loss of life and goods for Christianity, who have yet
   been shipwrecked on some base lust which they could not bring
   themselves to resign. And who has not known kindly, serviceable men,
   hanging about the Churches with a real predilection for the suburban
   life of Zion,--men regarding whom it made the heart sore to form any
   adverse judgment, and yet men whose life seemed just to omit the cross
   of Christ?

   In the case of those whom Paul thinks of there was no room for doubt as
   to the real nature of the case; and therefore the Apostle cannot too
   emphatically bring it out. He puts first the most startling view of it.
   Their end is destruction. Not salvation, but destruction is before
   them, although they name the name of Christ. Destruction is the port
   they are sailing for: that is the tendency of their whole career. Their
   place must be at last with those on whom the day of the Lord brings
   sudden destruction, so that they shall not escape. Alas for the
   Christians whose end is destruction!

   "Their god is their belly." Their life was sensual. Most likely,
   judging from the tone of expression, they were men of coarse and
   unblushing indulgence. If so, they were only the more outstanding
   representatives of the sensual life. The things which delight the
   senses were for them the main things, and ruled them. They might have
   intellectual and æsthetic interests, they might own family and social
   connections, they certainly did attach importance to some religious
   views and some religious ties; but the main object of their life was to
   seek rest and content for those desires which may have rest apart from
   any higher exercise or any higher portion. Their life was ruled and
   guided by its lower and sensual side. So their belly was their god. Yet
   they claimed a place in the Christian fellowship, in which Christ has
   revealed God, and has opened the way to God, and brings us to God. But
   their thoughts ran, and their plans tended, and their life found its
   explanation, bellywards. This was their god. Their trust and their
   desire were placed in the things which the flesh appreciates. These
   they served, and of these they took on the likeness. They served not
   the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. One cannot think of it,
   without grave questions as to the direction in which life
   preponderates. That would seem to indicate our god. One does not
   severely judge "good living." And yet what may "good living" denote in
   the case of many a professing Christian? In what direction do we find
   the tides of secret and unrestrained thought setting?

   And they glory in their shame. In this Epistle and elsewhere, one sees
   the importance attached by the Apostle to that which a man glories in,
   as marking his character. For himself, Paul gloried in the cross of
   Christ: he counted all things but loss for the knowledge of Christ. And
   these men also were, or claimed to be, in Christ's Church, in which we
   are taught to rate things at their true value and to measure them by
   the authentic standard. But they gloried in their shame. What they
   valued themselves upon; what they inwardly, at least, rejoiced in, and
   applauded themselves for; what they would, perhaps, have most
   cheerfully dwelt upon in congenial company, were things of which they
   had every reason to be ashamed--no doubt, the resources they had
   gathered for the worship of this god of theirs, and the success they
   had had in it. For example, such men would inwardly congratulate
   themselves on the measure in which they were able to attain the kind of
   satisfaction at which they aimed. They gloried in the degree in which
   they succeeded in bringing about a perfect accommodation between
   themselves and the objects which sense alone appreciates, and in
   producing a harmonious and balanced life, set on that key. Really, it
   should have been to them a cause of grief and shame to find themselves
   succeeding here, and failing in attaining a right relation to Christ
   and to the things of God's kingdom, to righteousness, godliness, faith,
   love, patience, meekness. So they gloried in their shame. This was seen
   in their lives. Alas, is there no reason to fear that when the thoughts
   of all hearts are revealed, too many whose lives are subject to no
   obvious reproach shall be found to have lived an inward life of evil
   thought, of base desire, of coarse and low imagination, that can only
   rank in the same class with these--men whose whole inward life
   gravitates, and gravitates unchecked, towards vanity and lust?

   In a word, their character is summed up in this, that they mind earthly
   things. That is the region in which their minds are conversant and to
   which they have regard. The higher world of truths and forces and
   objects which Christ reveals is for them inoperative. It does not
   appeal to them, it does not awe them, it does not govern them. Their
   minds can turn in this direction on particular occasions, or with a
   view to particular discussions; but their bent lies another way. The
   home of their hearts, the treasure which they seek, the congenial
   subjects and interests, are earthly.

   Since this whole description is meant to carry its lesson by suggestion
   of contrast, the clause last referred to brings powerfully before us
   the place to be given to the spiritual mind in our conception of a true
   Christian life. In the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans we
   are told that to be carnally minded--or the minding of the flesh--is
   death, but the minding of the spirit is life and peace. Care,
   therefore, is to be taken of our thoughts and of our practical
   judgments, so that they may be according to the spirit. Effort in this
   direction is hopeful effort, because we believe that Christ grants His
   Spirit to hallow those regions of the inward man by His illuminating
   and purifying presence. It cannot be doubted that many lives that were
   capable of yielding much good fruit, have been frittered away and
   wasted through indulged vanity of thought. Others, that are methodical
   and energetic enough, are made sterile for Christian ends by the too
   common absence or the too feeble presence of the spiritual mind. It is
   not altogether direct meditation on spiritual objects that is here to
   be enforced. That has its important place; yet certainly, frank
   converse with the whole range of human interests is legitimately open
   to the Christian mind. What seems to be essential is that, through all,
   the regard to the supreme interests shall continue; and that the manner
   of thinking and of judging, the modes of feeling and impression, shall
   keep true to faith and love and Christ. The subject recurs in another
   form at the eighth verse of the following chapter.

   Probably, as was said, the Apostle is speaking of a class of men whose
   faults were gross, so that at least an Apostolic eye could not hesitate
   to read the verdict that must be passed upon them. But then we must
   consider that his object in doing this was to address a warning to men
   to whom he imputed no such gross failings; concerning whom, indeed, he
   was persuaded far other things, even things that accompany salvation;
   but whom he knew to be exposed to influences tending in the same
   direction, and whom he expected to see preserved only in the way of
   vigilance and diligence. Outstanding failures in Christian profession
   may startle us by their conspicuous deformity; but they fail to yield
   us their full lesson unless they suggest the far finer and more subtle
   forms in which the same evils may enter in, to mar or to annul what
   seemed to be Christian characters.

   The protest against the cross is still maintained even in the company
   of Christ's professed disciples. But this takes place most commonly,
   and certainly most persuasively, without advancing any plea for conduct
   grossly offensive, or directly inconsistent with Christian morals. The
   "enemies of the cross" retreat into a safer region, where they take up
   positions more capable of defence. "Why have a cross?" they say. "God
   has not made us spiritual beings only: men ought not to attempt to live
   as if they were pure intelligences or immaterial spirits. Also, God has
   made men with a design that they should be happy; they are to embrace
   and use the elements of enjoyment with which He has so richly
   surrounded them. He does not mean us to be clouded in perpetual gloom,
   or to be on our guard against the bright and cheering influences of the
   earth. He has made all things beautiful in their time; and He has given
   to us the capacity to recognise this that we may rejoice in it. Instead
   of scowling on the beauty of God's works, and the resources for
   enjoyment they supply, it is more our part to drink in by every sense,
   from nature and from art, the brightness, and gladness, and music, and
   grace. Let us seek, as much as may be in this rough world, to have our
   souls attuned to all things sweet and fair."

   There is real truth here; for, no doubt, it lies in the destiny of man
   to bring the world into experience according to God's order: if this is
   not to be done in ways of sin and transgression, it is yet to be done
   in right ways; and in doing it, man is designed to be gladdened by the
   beauty of God's handiwork and by the wealth of His beneficence. And yet
   such statements can be used to shelter a life of enmity to the cross,
   and they are often employed to conceal the more momentous half of the
   truth. As long as the things of earth can become materials by means of
   which we may be tempted to fall away from the Holy One, and as long as
   we, being fallen, are corruptly disposed to make idols of them, we
   cannot escape the obligation to keep our hearts with diligence. So
   long, also, as we live in a world in which men, with a prevailing
   consent, work up its resources into a system which shuts God and Christ
   out; so long as men set in motion, by means of those resources, a
   stream of worldliness by which we are at all times apt to be whirled
   away,--so long every man whose ear and heart have become open to Christ
   will find that as to the things of earth there is a cross to bear. For
   he must decide whether his practical life is to continue to accept the
   Christian inspiration. He must make his choice between two things,
   whether he will principally love and seek a right adjustment with
   things above, with the objects and influences of the Kingdom of God, or
   whether he will principally love and seek a right, or at least a
   comfortable adjustment with things below. He must make this choice not
   once only, but he must hold himself at all times ready to make it over
   again, or to maintain it in reiterated applications of it. The grace of
   Christ who died and rose again is his resource to enable him.

   Every legitimate element of human experience, of human culture and
   attainment, is, doubtless open to the Christian man. Only, in making
   his personal selection among them, the Christian will keep sight of the
   goal of his high calling, and will weigh the conditions under which he
   himself must aim at it. Still every such element is open; and all
   legitimate satisfaction accruing to men from such sources is to be
   received with thankfulness. Let all this be recognised. But
   Christianity, by its very nature, requires us to recognise also, and in
   a due proportion, something else. It requires us to recognise the evil
   of sin, the incomparable worth of Christ's salvation. Along with these
   things, duly regarded, let all innocent earthly interests take their
   place. But if we are conscious that as yet we have very incompletely
   established the right proportionate regard, is it any wonder if we are
   obliged to keep watch, lest the treacherous idolatry of things seen and
   temporal should carry us away,--obliged to accept the cross? We are
   obliged; but in the school of our Master we should learn to do this
   thing most gladly, not by constraint, but of a ready mind.

   The ideal life on earth no doubt would be a life in which all was
   perfectly harmonised. The antagonism of the interests would have passed
   away. Loyalty and love to God's kingdom and to His Son would embody
   themselves in all human exercise and attainment as in their proper
   vesture, each promoting each, working together as body and soul. There
   are Christians who have gone far towards this attainment. They have
   been so mastered by the mind of Christ, that while, on the one hand,
   they habitually seek the things above, on the other hand there is
   little trace of bondage or of timorousness in their attitude towards
   the bright aspects of earthly experience. Some of them were happily
   carried in early days into so clear a decision for the better part;
   some emerged later, after conflict, into so bright a land of Beulah,
   that they find it easy, with little conflict and little fear, to take
   frank use of forms of earthly good which other Christians must treat
   with more reserve.

   This is one of the reasons why we must not judge one another about
   these things; why we must not lay down absolute rules about them; why
   even our recommendations must be provisional and prudential only. It is
   at the same time a reason for the more fidelity in each of us towards
   himself, to see that we do not trifle with the great trust of
   regulating our own life. It is possible to give to God and to Christ a
   recognition which is not consciously dishonest, and yet to fail in
   admitting any deep and dominant impression of the significance of
   Christ's redemption for human life. So the heart is yielded, the time
   is surrendered, the strength is given to attractive objects, which are
   not indeed essentially immoral, but which are suffered to usurp the
   heart, and to estrange the man from Christ. Such persons prove enemies
   of the cross of Christ: they mind earthly things.

   Since the earthly side of human life, with its sorrow and joy, its work
   and its leisure, is legitimate and inevitable, questions arise about
   adjusting details. And in particular, those who retain a relation to
   Christianity while they cherish a worldly spirit, take a delight in
   raising questions as to the forms of life which are, or are not, in
   harmony with Christianity, and as to whether various practices and
   indulgences are to be vindicated or condemned. It is a satisfaction to
   persons of this sort to have a set of fixed points laid down, with
   respect to which, if they conform, they may take the credit of doing
   so, and if they rebel, they may have the comfort of feeling that the
   case is arguable: as indeed these are often matters upon which one may
   argue for ever. Now what is clearly prohibited or clearly warranted in
   Scripture, as permanent instruction for the Church, must be maintained.
   But beyond that point it is often wisest to refuse to give any specific
   answer to the questions so raised. The true answer is, Are you a
   follower of Christ? Then it is laid on your own conscience, at your own
   responsibility, to answer such questions for yourself. No one can come
   in your place. You must decide, and you have a right to decide for
   yourself, what course is, for you, consistent with loyalty to Christ
   and His cross. Only it may be added, that the very spirit in which one
   puts the question may be significant. One who minds earthly things will
   put the question in one way; one whose citizenship is in heaven, in
   another. And the answer which you attain will be according to the
   question you have put.
     __________________________________________________________________

OUR CITY AND OUR COMING KING.

     "For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a
     Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of
     our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory,
     according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all
     things unto Himself."--Phil. iii. 20, 21 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XVI.

  OUR CITY AND OUR COMING KING.

   To live, amid the things of earth, and in constant converse with them,
   a life in the power of Christ's resurrection, and in the fellowship of
   His sufferings, was the Apostle's chosen course; in which he would have
   the Philippians to follow him. For a moment he had diverged to sketch,
   for warning, the way of the transgressors, who spend their lives intent
   on the things that pass away. Now he brings the argument to a close, by
   once more proclaiming the glory of the high calling in Christ. As the
   Christian faith looks backward to the triumph of Christ's resurrection,
   and to the meekness of His suffering, and receives its inspiration from
   them, so also it looks upward, and it looks forward. It is even now in
   habitual communion with the world on high; and it reaches on towards
   the hope of the Lord's return.

   "Our citizenship is in heaven." The word here used (comp. i. 27) means
   the constitution or manner of life of a state or city. All men draw
   much from the spirit and laws of the commonwealth to which they belong;
   and in antiquity this influence was even stronger than we commonly find
   it to be in our day. The individual was conscious of himself as a
   member of his own city or state. Its life enfolded his. Its
   institutions set for him the conditions under which life was accepted
   and was carried on. Its laws determined for him his duties and his
   rights. The ancient and customary methods of the society developed a
   common spirit, under the influence of which each citizen unfolded his
   own personal peculiarities. When he went forth elsewhere he felt
   himself, and was felt to be, a stranger. Now in the heavenly kingdom,
   which had claimed them and had opened to them through Christ, the
   believers had found their own city; and finding it, had become,
   comparatively, strangers in every other.

   A way of thinking and acting prevails throughout the world, as if earth
   and its interests were the whole sphere of man; and being pervaded by
   this spirit, the whole world may be said to be a commonwealth with a
   spirit and with maxims of its own. We, who live in it, feel it natural
   to comply with the drift of things in this respect, and difficult to
   stand against it; so that separation and singularity seem unreasonable
   and hard. We claim for our lives the support of a common understanding;
   we yearn for the comfort of a system of things existing round us, in
   which we may find countenance. It was urged against the Christians of
   the early ages that their religion was unsocial--it broke the ties by
   which men held together; and doubtless many a Christian, in hours of
   trial and depression, felt with pain that much in Christian life
   offered a foundation for the reproach. On the other hand, those who,
   like the enemies of the cross, refer their lives to the world's
   standard, rather than to Christ's, have at least this comfort, that
   they have a tangible city. The world is their city: therefore also the
   prince of it is their king. But the Apostle, for himself and his
   fellows, sets against this the true city or state--with its more
   original and ancient sanctions; with its more authoritative laws; with
   its far more pervading and mighty spirit, for the Spirit of God Himself
   is the life which binds it all together; with its glorious and gracious
   King. This commonwealth has its seat in heaven; for there it reveals
   its nature, and thence its power descends. We recognise this whenever
   we pray, "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." This, says the
   Apostle, is our citizenship. The archaism of the Authorised Version,
   "Our conversation" (that is, our habitual way of living) "is in
   heaven," expresses much of the meaning; only the "conversation" is
   referred, by the phrase employed in the text, to the sanctions under
   which it proceeds, the august fellowship by which it is sustained, the
   source of influence by which it is continually vitalised. Our state,
   and the life which as members of that state we claim and use, is
   celestial. Its life and strength, its glory and victory, are in heaven.
   But it is ours, though we are here on earth.

   Therefore, according to the Apostle, the standard of our living, and
   its sanctions, and its way of thinking and proceeding, and, in a word,
   our city, with its interests and its objects, being in heaven, the
   earnest business of our life is there. We have to do with earth
   constantly and in ways most various; but, as Christians, our way of
   having to do with the earth itself is heavenly, and is to be conversant
   with heaven. What we mainly love and seek is in heaven; what we listen
   most to hear is the voice that comes from heaven; what we most
   earnestly speak is the voice we send to heaven; what lies next our
   heart is the treasure and the hope which are secure in heaven; what we
   are most intent upon is what we lay up in heaven, and how we are
   getting ready for heaven; there is One in heaven whom we love above all
   others; we are children of the kingdom of heaven; it is our country and
   our home; and something in us refuses to settle on those things here
   that reject the stamp of heaven.

   Does this go too high? Does some one say, "Something in this direction
   attracts me and I reach out to it, but ah! how feebly"?--then how
   strongly does the principle of the Apostle's admonition apply. If we
   own that this city rightfully claims us, if we are deeply conscious of
   shortcoming in our response to that claim, then how much does it
   concern us to allow no earthly thing that by its own nature drags us
   down from our citizenship in heaven.

   It is in heaven. Many ways it might be shown to be so; but it is enough
   to sum up all in this, that One has His presence there, who is the Life
   and the Lord of this city of ours, caring for us, calling us to the
   present fellowship with Him that is attainable in a life of faith, but
   especially (for this includes all the rest) whom we look for, to come
   forth from heaven for us. He has done wonders already to set up for us
   the grace of the kingdom of heaven, and He has brought us in to it; He
   is doing much for us daily in grace and in providence, upholding His
   Church on earth from age to age; but this "working" is proceeding to a
   final victory. He is "able to subject all things to Himself." And the
   emphatic proof of it which awaits all believers, is that the body
   itself, reconstituted in the likeness of Christ's own, shall at last be
   in full harmony with a destiny of immortal purity and glory. So shall
   the manifestation of His power and grace at last sweep through our
   whole being, within and without. That is the final triumph of
   salvation, with which the long history finds all its results attained.
   For this we await the coming of the Saviour from heaven. Well therefore
   may we say that the state to which we pertain, and the life which we
   hold as members of that state, is in heaven.

   The expectation of the coming of Christ out of the world of supreme
   truth and purity, where God is known and served aright, to fulfil all
   His promises,--this is the Church's and the believer's great hope. It
   is set before us in the New Testament as a motive to every duty, as
   giving weight to every warning, as determining the attitude and
   character of all Christian life. In particular, we cannot deal aright
   with any of the earthly things committed to us, unless we deal with
   them in the light of Christ's expected coming. This expectation is to
   enter into the heart of every believer, and no one is warranted to
   overlook or make light of it. His coming, His appearing, the revelation
   of Him, the revelation of His glory, the coming of His day, and so
   forth, are pressed on us continually. In a true waiting for the day of
   Christ, is gathered up the right regard to what He did and bore when He
   came first, and also a right regard to Him as He is now the pledge and
   the sustainer of our soul's life: the one and the other are to pass
   onward to the hope of His appearing.

   Some harm has been done, perhaps, by the degree in which attention has
   been concentrated on debatable points about the time of the Lord's
   coming, or the order of events in relation to it; but more by the
   measure in which Christians have allowed the world's unbelieving temper
   to affect on this point the habit of their own minds. It must be most
   seriously said that our Lord Himself expected no man to succeed in
   escaping the corruption of the world and enduring to the end, otherwise
   than in the way of watching for his Lord (see Luke xii. 35-40--but the
   passages are too numerous to be quoted).

   And the Apostle lays an emphasis on the character in which we expect
   Him. The word "Saviour" is emphatic. We look for a Saviour; not merely
   One who saved us once, but One who brings salvation with Him when He
   comes. It is the great good, in its completeness, that the Church sees
   coming to her with her Lord. Now she has the faith of it,--and with the
   faith an earnest and foretaste,--but then salvation comes. Therefore
   the coming is spoken of as redemption drawing nigh, as the time of the
   redemption of the purchased possession. So also in the Epistle to the
   Galatians the end of Christ's sacrifice is said to be to "deliver us
   from this present evil world."

   Doubtless it is unwise to lay down extreme positions as to the spirit
   in which we are to deal with temporal things, and especially with their
   winning and attractive aspects. Christian men, at peace with God,
   should not only feel spiritual joy, but may well make a cheerful use of
   passing mercies. Yet certainly the Christian's hope is to be saved out
   of this world, and out of life as he knows it here, into one far
   better--saved out of the best and brightest state to which this present
   state of things can bring him. The Christian spirit is giving way in
   that man who, in whatever posture of his worldly affairs, does not feel
   that the present is a state entangled with evil, including much
   darkness and much estrangement from the soul's true rest. He ought to
   be minded so as to own the hope of being saved out of it, looking and
   hasting to the coming of the Lord.

   If we lived out this conviction with some consistency, we should not go
   far wrong in our dealings with this present world. But probably there
   is no feature in which the average Christianity of to-day varies more
   from that of the early Christians, than in the faint impressions, and
   the faint influence, experienced by most modern Christians in
   connection with the expectation of the Lord's return.

   As far as individual life goes, the position of men in both periods is
   much the same; it is so, in spite of all the changes that have taken
   place. Then, as now, the mirage of life tempted men to dream of
   felicities here, which hindered them from lifting up their heads to a
   prospect of redemption. But now, as then, counter influences work; the
   short and precarious term of human life, its disappointments, its cares
   and sorrows, its conflicts and falls, conspire to teach even the most
   reluctant Christian that the final and satisfying rest is not to be
   found here. So that the difference seems to arise mainly from a secret
   failure of faith on this point, due to the impression made by long ages
   in which Christ has not come. "Where is the promise of His coming? All
   things continue as they were."

   This may suggest, however, that influences are recognisable, tending to
   form, in modern Christians, a habit of thought and feeling less
   favourable to vivid expectation of Christ's coming. It does not arise
   so much in connection with individual experience, but is rather an
   impression drawn from history and from the common life of men. In the
   days of Paul, general history was simply discouraging to spiritual
   minds. It led men to think of all creation groaning together.
   Civilisation certainly had made advances; civil government had
   conferred some of its benefits on men; and, lately, the strong hand of
   Rome, however heavily it might press, had averted or abridged some of
   the evils that afflicted nations. Still, on the whole, darkness,
   corruption, and social wrong continued to mark the scene, and there was
   little to suggest that prolonged effort might gradually work
   improvement. Rather it seemed that a rapid dispensation of grace,
   winning its way by supernatural energy, might well lead on to the
   winding up of the whole scene, sweeping all away before the advent of
   new heavens and a new earth. But, for us, nineteen hundred years have
   well-nigh passed. The Christian Church has been confronted all that
   time with her great task; and, however imperfect her light and her
   methods have often been, she has set processes agoing, and pressed on
   in lines of action, in which she has not been without her reward. Also
   the public action of at least the European races, stimulated and guided
   by Christianity, has been inspired by faith in progress and in a reign
   of justice, and has applied itself to improve the conditions of men.
   How much of sin and pain still afflict the world is too sadly evident.
   But the memory of the successive lives of saints, thinkers, men of
   public spirit and devoted public action, is strong in Christian minds
   to-day--it is a long, animating history. And never more than at the
   present time did the world press itself on the Christian mind as the
   sphere for effort, for helpful and hopeful achievement. All this tends
   to fix the eye on what may happen before Christ comes; for one asks
   room and time to fight the battle out, to see the long co-operant
   processes converge upon their goal. The conflict is thought of as one
   to be bequeathed, like freedom's battle, from sire to son, through
   indefinite periods beyond which men do not very often look. And,
   indeed, the amelioration of the world and remedy of its ills by works
   of faith and love is Christlike work. The world cannot want it; the
   fruit of it will not be withheld; and the hopeful ardour with which it
   is pursued is Christ's gift to His people. For Christ Himself healed
   and fed the multitudes. Yet all this shall not replace the coming of
   Christ, and the redemption that draws nigh with Him. The longing eyes
   that gaze into the prospects of public-spirited beneficence and
   Christian philanthropy, do well; but they must also look higher up and
   further on.

   One thing must be said. It is vain for us to suppose we can adjust
   beforehand, to our own satisfaction, the elements which enter into the
   future, so as to make a well-fitted scheme of it. That was not
   designed. And in this case two ways of looking at the future are apt to
   strive together. The man who is occupied with processes that, as he
   conceives, might eventuate in a reign of goodness reached by gradual
   amelioration, by successive victories of the better cause, may look
   askance on the promise of Christ's coming, because he dislikes
   catastrophe and cataclysm. First the blade, then the ear, then the full
   corn in the ear, is his motto. And the man who is full of the thought
   of the Lord's return, and deeply persuaded that nothing less will
   eradicate the world's disease, may look with impatience on measures
   that seem to aim at slow and far results. But neither the one mode of
   view nor the other is to be sacrificed. Work is to be done in the world
   on the lines that promise best to bless the world. Yet also this faith
   must never be let down--The Lord is coming; the Lord shall come.
     __________________________________________________________________

   How decisive the change is which Christ completes at His coming--how
   distinctive, therefore, and unworldly, that citizenship which takes its
   type from heaven where He is, and from the hope of His appearing--is
   last of all set forth. Paul might have dwelt on many great blessings
   the full meaning of which will be unfolded when Christ comes; for He is
   to conform all things to Himself. But Paul prefers to signalise what
   shall befall our bodies; for that makes us feel that not one element in
   our state shall fail to be subjected to the victorious energy of
   Christ. Our bodies are, in our present state, conspicuously refractory
   to the influences of the higher kingdom. Regeneration makes no
   improvement on them. In our body we carry about with us what seems to
   mock the idea of an ethereal and ideal life. And when we die, the
   corruption of the grave speaks of anything but hope. Here, then, in
   this very point the salvation of Christ shall complete its triumph,
   saving us all over and all through. He "shall fashion anew the body of
   our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory."
     __________________________________________________________________

   For the Apostle Paul the question how the body is to be reckoned with
   in any lofty view of human life had a peculiar interest. One sees how
   his mind dwelt upon it. He does not indeed impute to the body any
   original or essential antagonism to the soul's better life. But it
   shares in the debasement and disorganisation implied in sin; it has
   become the ready avenue for many temptations. Through it the man has
   become participant of a vivid and unintermittent earthliness,
   contrasting all too sadly with the feebleness of spiritual impressions
   and affections, so that the balance of our being is deranged. Nor does
   grace directly affect men's bodily conditions. Here, then, is an
   element in a renewed life that has a peculiar refractoriness and
   irresponsiveness. So much is this so that sin in our complex nature
   easily turns this way, easily finds resources in this quarter. Hence
   sin in us often takes its denomination from this side of things. It is
   the flesh, and the minding of the flesh, that is to be crucified. On
   the other hand, just because life for us is life in the body, therefore
   the body with its members must be brought into the service of Christ,
   and must fulfil the will of God. "Yield your bodies a living
   sacrifice." "Your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost." A disembodied
   Christianity is to the Apostle no Christianity. There may be
   difficulties, indeed, in carrying this consecration through, elements
   of resistance and insubordination to be overcome. If so, they must be
   fought down. "I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest I
   prove a castaway." To be thorough in this proved hard even for Paul.
   "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"--a text in which
   one sees how the "body" offered itself as the ready symbol of the whole
   inward burden and difficulty. So the body is dead because of sin:
   dying, fit to die, appointed to die, and not now renewed to life. "But
   if the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you,
   He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
   bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Then, limits now imposed on
   right thinking, right feeling, right acting, shall be found to have
   passed away. Till then we groan, waiting for the adoption, the
   redemption of the body; but then shall be the manifestation of the sons
   of God. To Paul this came home as one of the most definite, practical,
   and decisive forms in which the triumph of Christ's salvation should be
   declared.

   The body, then, by which we hold converse with the world, and by which
   we give expression to our mental life, has shared in the evil that
   comes by sin. We find it to be the body of our humiliation. It is not
   only liable to pain, decay, and death, not only subject to much that is
   humbling and distressing, but it has become an ill-adapted organ for an
   aspiring soul. The bodily state weighs down the soul, when its
   aspirations after good have been rekindled. It is not wholly
   unconnected with our physical state that it is so hard to carry the
   recognition of God and the life of faith into the comings and goings of
   the outward life; so hard to wed the persuasions of our faith to the
   impressions of our sense. But we look forward to our Lord's coming with
   the expectation that the body of our humiliation shall be transfigured
   into the likeness of the body of His glory. In this we discern with
   what a pervading energy He is to subdue all things to Himself. Love in
   righteousness is to triumph through all spheres.

   We have more than once acknowledged how natural it is to dream of
   constructing a Christian life on earth with all its elements, natural
   and spiritual, perfectly harmonised, each having its place in relation
   to each so as to make the music of a perfect whole. And in the strength
   of such a dream, some look down on all Christian practice as blind and
   narrow, which seems to them to mar life by setting one element of it
   against another. It must be owned that narrow types of Christianity
   have often needlessly offended so. Nevertheless we have here a new
   proof that the dream of those who would achieve a perfect harmony, in
   the present state and under present conditions, is vain. A perfect
   Christian harmony of life cannot be restored in the body of our
   humiliation. The nobler part is to own this, and to confess that amid
   many undeserved good gifts, yet, in relation to the great hope set
   before us, we groan, waiting for the redemption; when Christ who now
   fits us to run the race and bear the cross shall come and save us out
   of all this, changing the body of our humiliation into the likeness of
   the body of His glory.

   Against the ways of Jewish self-righteousness, and against the impulses
   of fleshly minds, the Apostle had set the true Christianity--the
   methods in which it grows, the influences on which it relies, the
   truths and hopes by which it is mainly sustained, the high citizenship
   which it claims and to the type of which it resolutely conforms. All
   this was possible in Christ, all this was actual in Christ, all this
   was theirs in Christ. Yet this is what is brought into debate, by
   unbelief and sin; this against unbelief and sin has to be maintained.
   Some influences come to shake us as to the truth of it--"It is not so
   real after all." Some influences come to shake us as to the good of
   it--"It is not after all so very, so supremely, so satisfyingly good."
   Some influences come to shake us as to our own part in it--"It can
   hardly control and sustain my life, for after all perhaps--alas, most
   likely--it is not for me, it cannot be for me." Against all this we are
   to make our stand, in and with our Lord and Master. He is our
   confidence and our strength. How the Apostle longed to see this victory
   achieved in the case of all these Philippians, who were the treasure
   and the fruit of his life and labour! Be decided about all this, be
   clear about it, cast every other way of it from you. "Therefore, my
   dearly beloved brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord,
   my dearly beloved."
     __________________________________________________________________

PEACE AND JOY.

     "I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche, to be of the same mind in
     the Lord. Yea, I beseech thee also, true yokefellow, help these
     women, for they laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also,
     and the rest of my fellow-workers whose names are in the book of
     life.

     "Rejoice in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice. Let your
     forbearance be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. In nothing
     be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with
     thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace
     of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and
     your thoughts in Christ Jesus."--Phil. iv. 2-7 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XVII.

  PEACE AND JOY.

   Dr. Lightfoot has observed that the passages in the Acts of the
   Apostles which record the Macedonian experiences of Paul, have a good
   deal to say about women (Acts xvi., xvii.). They convey the impression
   that in Macedonia women had a position and exercised an influence, at
   least in religious matters, that was not usual in the Greek world. And
   he has appealed to the remains of ancient Macedonian inscriptions to
   support the general idea that exceptional respect was accorded to women
   in that country. Here, at any rate, we have two women of note in the
   Church at Philippi. They might, very likely, possess social standing
   and influence. They had been qualified to render, and in point of fact
   did render, important help in setting forward the cause of Christ in
   that city. We cannot doubt therefore that they were warm-hearted
   Christian women, who had deeply felt the power of the gospel, so that,
   like many of their sisters in later days, they gladly embarked in the
   service of it. In those days such service on the part of women implied
   no small effort of faith; and doubtless it had cost them something in
   the way of cross-bearing. But now, disagreements and estrangement had
   fallen out between them. Most likely the keen practical energies, which
   made them serviceable Christians, had brought about collision on some
   points in which their views differed. And then they had not managed the
   difference well. Self came in, and coloured and deepened it. Now, one
   may think, they were in danger of being always ready to differ, and to
   differ with mutual distrust and dislike.

   People cannot always think alike, not even Christians who share the
   same service. But there is a Christian way of behaving about these
   inevitable divergences. And, in particular, in such cases we might be
   expected to show a superiority, in Christ our Lord, to minor
   differences, not allowing them to trouble the great agreement and the
   dear affection in which Christ has bound us. Whatever is to be said
   about a difference, as to its merits, the main thing that has to be
   said about it often is, "You should not have let it come between you.
   You should, both of you, have been big enough and strong enough in
   Christ, to know how to drop it and forget it. In making so much of it,
   in allowing it to make so much of itself, you have been children, and
   naughty children."

   What this difference was we do not know; and it is of no consequence.
   Paul does not address himself to it. He holds both parties to be in the
   wrong now, and, for his purpose, equally in the wrong; and he addresses
   entreaty to both, in exactly the same terms, to agree in Christ and be
   done with it: no longer to allow this thing to mar their own
   edification and hinder the cause of Christ. Yet, while he is sure that
   this is the right way, he does not conceal from himself how difficult
   human nature finds it to come happily out of such a complication. So he
   appeals to some old comrade at Philippi, whom he calls his "genuine
   yokefellow," to lend a hand. A Christian bystander, a friend of both
   parties, might help them out of the difficulty. In this connection the
   Apostle's mind goes back to happy days of cordial effort at Philippi,
   in which these women, and the "yokefellow," and Clement, and others had
   all been at work, shoulder to shoulder, all rejoicing in the common
   salvation and the joint service.

   In difficulties between Christians, as between other people, wise and
   loving friendship may perform the most important services. Selfishness
   shrinks from rendering these; and on the other hand, meddlesomeness,
   which is a form of egotism combined with coarseness, rushes in only to
   do harm. Wisdom is needed, mainly the wisdom which consists in loving
   thoughtfulness. The love which seeketh not her own, and is not easily
   provoked, is much called for in this ministry of reconciliation.

   These good women had little idea, probably, that their names should
   come down the ages in connection with this disagreement of theirs; and
   they might have deprecated it if they had thought of it. But let them
   be remembered with all honour--two saints of God, who loved and
   laboured for Christ, who bore the cross, and each of whom was so
   important to the Church, that it was a matter of public interest to
   have this difficulty removed out of the way of both. As to it, we of
   later times have not succeeded in keeping Christian activity so free of
   personal misunderstandings as to be entitled on this account to assume
   any attitude of superiority. Let us think only with tenderness and
   affection of those venerable and beloved, those long-remembered mothers
   in Christ, Euodia and Syntyche.

   The commentators have tried to divine something further about this
   "true yokefellow"; but with no success. As to Clement, some have been
   willing to identify him with the Clement known to have laboured in the
   first age at Rome, and who is reported to have been the writer of a
   well-known Epistle from the Church at Rome to that at Corinth. He,
   again, has been by some identified with another Clement, also a Roman,
   a near relation of the Emperor Domitian, whom we have reason to believe
   to have been a Christian. Both identifications are probably mistaken;
   and the Clement now before us was no doubt resident at Philippi, and
   belonged to a somewhat earlier generation than his Roman namesake. The
   Roman world was full of Clements, and there is nothing surprising in
   meeting several Christians who bore the name.

   With the "yokefellow" and with Clement, the Apostle recalls other
   "labourers" who belonged to the fellowship of those gospel days at
   Philippi. We are not to think that they were all gifted as teachers or
   preachers; but they were zealous Christians who helped as they could to
   gather and to confirm the Church. Paul will not give their names; but
   it must not be thought that the names have ceased to be dear and
   honourable to him. "They shall not be in my letter," he says, "but they
   are written in even a better place, in the book of life. They are
   precious, not to me only, but to my Master." Here, again, if any one
   had asked Paul how he ventured to speak with so much assurance of the
   condition of persons whose course was not yet ended, he would no doubt
   have replied, as in ch. i. 7: "It is meet for me to think thus of them,
   because I have them in my heart: because both in my bonds, and in the
   defence and confirmation of the gospel, they all are partakers with me
   of grace."

   These personal references indicate that the main burden of the
   Apostle's thought in the Epistle has been disposed of, and that it is
   drawing to a close. Yet he finds it natural to add some closing
   admonitions. They are brief and pithy; they do not seem to labour with
   the weight of thought and feeling which pours through the preceding
   chapter. Yet they are not quite fragmentary. A definite conception of
   the case to be provided for underlies them, and also a definite
   conception of the way in which its necessities are to be met.

   He had been pouring out his soul on the subject of the true Christian
   life--the deep sources from which it springs, the great channels in
   which it runs, the magnificent conditions of Christ's kingdom under
   which it becomes possible and is accomplished. But yet, another order
   of things crosses all this. It is the incessant detail of human life on
   earth, with its pettiness and superficiality, and yet with its
   inevitable hold upon us all. How much we are at the mercy of it! How
   hard to keep quite true to the grand music of the gospel we believe,
   amid the multifarious patter of the incidents of life, playing on the
   surface only, but on the sensitive surface of our being. The case of
   Euodia and Syntyche was itself but an illustration, of the commonest
   kind, of the liability of believing lives to be swayed and marred in
   this way. For all these little things claim attention; they assume a
   magnitude that does not belong to them, and they take a place to which
   they have no right. Can anything be said to help us to some prevailing
   mood, in which we shall be likely to take the right attitude towards
   these elements of life, and, at the same time, to keep due touch with
   the springs of our spiritual welfare?

   The Apostle reverts to the significant "good-bye" which was heard at
   the beginning of the third chapter. "Rejoice," "Be of good cheer," was
   the usual farewell salute. He had begun to use it, in the third
   chapter, with an emphasis on the native signification of the word. Now
   he resumes it more emphatically still, for here he finds the keynote
   which he wants: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; again I will say it,
   Rejoice."

   If joy be possible, it would seem to need no great persuasion to induce
   men to embrace it. But, as a matter of fact, Christians fail greatly
   here. In the Old Testament there are abundant exhortations to Israel to
   rejoice in the Lord: the Lord being Jehovah, without further
   distinction or limitation; and the ground of rejoicing being His
   revealed character, especially His mercy and His truth, and the fact
   that He is Israel's God. Here the Lord is our Lord Jesus, in whom the
   Father is both known and found. Now, to rejoice in Him is, and should
   be recognised as being, for believers, the most direct inference from
   their faith. For if this Lord be what the believer holds Him to be,
   then there is more in Christ to make him glad, than there can be in
   anything whatever to make him sorry. This applies even to remembered
   sin; for where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound. If indeed the
   joy be really in the Lord, it will be found to agree well with humility
   and penitence, as well as with diligence and patience; for all these
   things, and whatever should accompany them, come naturally from faith
   in Christ. But not the less, joy should have its place and its
   exercise.

   If one will think of it, it will be plain that rejoicing in the Lord
   just denotes this, viz., that the influence of the objects of faith has
   free play through the soul. It is well that faith should bring our
   intellective powers under its influence--that we should be brought to a
   vivid sense of the reality of Christ, and that our minds should work in
   reference to Him as they do in reference to things which are felt to be
   real, and which claim to be understood. That is well, even if as yet
   some malign force seems to impede cordial appreciation and personal
   fellowship. It is well, again, if Christ is felt drawing out personal
   trust, and with that, genuine affection, so that the heart beats with
   desire and admiration, even though for the present that can only be
   under the burden of a perplexed and sorrowful mind. But when the
   conviction makes way through all the soul, first that Christ is most
   real, and second that Christ is most good and desirable, and thirdly
   that Christ is for me, and when the soul surrenders thoroughly to it
   all, then gladness is the token that faith is playing freely through
   the human soul, throughout all its provinces. It is the flag hoisted to
   signify that Christ is believed and loved indeed. On the other hand,
   wrong is done to the Lord, and an evil report is brought up upon Him,
   when those who profess to believe in Him, fail to rejoice in Him.

   You well may rejoice in the Lord; you ought surely to do it. You ought
   to give yourselves time to think and feel so as to rejoice; you should
   be ashamed to fail to rejoice. You do not apprehend aright your
   position as a believer, you do not take the attitude that befits you,
   if the Lord believed in, though perhaps He makes you diligent, and
   patient, and penitent, and thankful, does not also make you heartily
   glad. Let the elements of this gladness come warm home to your heart,
   and do their work. Then you will realise, as, short of this, you never
   can, how the believer rises above the things that threaten to entangle
   him, and can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth him.

   And, in particular, how influential this is to preserve men from being
   unduly moved and swayed by the passing things of time! These sway us by
   joy and grief, by hope and fear; and what an inordinate measure of
   those affections they do beget in us! But let the great joy of the Lord
   have its place, and then those lesser claimants will have to content
   themselves with smaller room. A great grief shuts out lesser griefs.
   When a woman has lost her son, will she grieve greatly for the loss of
   her purse? So a great joy keeps down the excess of lesser joys. A man
   that has just won the heart and hand of the woman he loves, will not be
   greatly concerned about winning or losing at some game. He will be
   about equally glad either way. So he whose heart thrills with the joy
   of Christ will feel the pleasure and the pain of earthly things; but
   they will not master him, nor run away with him.

   According to the Apostle, a believer in the way of his duty, if he
   cherishes this joy, may ordinarily have a great deal of it. And, as it
   were, he urges us: "Now do not be moved away from it. Do not be so
   foolish. Various things will come, all sorts of things, claiming to
   preoccupy your mind, so that for the present this joy shall fall into
   the background. They claim it--and far too often they are allowed to
   succeed. Do not let them. 'Rejoice in the Lord alway; again I will say,
   Rejoice.'"

   Always: for many believers rejoice in the Lord sometimes; for example,
   in hours of undisturbed meditation. But when they go out into the stir
   of life, to meet experiences which either greatly gratify or greatly
   grieve them, then it seems fit that the new passion should have its
   turn, and the heart insists on this indulgence. So also when some great
   hope absorbs the mind, or some great anxiety weighs upon it, the soul
   seems fascinated with the coming good or ill, and hangs upon the
   prospect as if nothing else for the present could be minded. Now the
   Apostle does not say that insensibility is the duty of Christians in
   these circumstances. Indeed it is because these experiences do interest
   and impress, that they become an effective instrument of Divine
   training. But Christ is fit to be rejoiced in, right through all
   vicissitudes; and common experiences, duly dealt with, ought to throw
   into relief the reasons why He must still be cause of gladness,
   whatever may be felt about other things. This maintained joy of the
   Lord--a rejoicing faith, a rejoicing love, a rejoicing obedience--this
   is the temper in virtue of which all else of life will fall into its
   due place, and will assume its just proportion. "Though the fig tree
   shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of
   the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock
   shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the
   stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my
   salvation" (Hab. iii. 17, 18).

   So then, "Let your moderation (or forbearance) be known to all men."
   The word here used expresses a state of mind opposed to the eagerness
   that overrates the worth of our personal objects, and to the arrogance
   that insists on our own will about them. Some would render it
   "considerateness." It is a temper which dictates a gentle and
   forbearing way of dealing with men. This is the appropriate evidence
   that the impetuosity of the heart about earthly things has been
   assuaged by the unseen presence and the influence of Christ. Christ
   seen, felt, and rejoiced in, is the secret of this moderation. A great
   vision of faith, and that not a vision which is dreaded, but a vision
   which is loved, brings the movement of the soul into a happy order.
   Now, not only so: not only does the love of Christ, unseen and absent,
   work in this way; but Christ is coming and is near. The hopes connected
   with Him are soon to be realised, the gladness of fellowship with Him
   is soon to be complete. The Lord is at hand. "Be patient therefore,
   brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Stablish your hearts. The coming
   of the Lord draweth nigh" (James v. 7).

   For believers, as we have already seen, the coming of the Lord is,
   according to the New Testament, the great hope. Then the joy in the
   Lord is to be complete and crowned. Those who apprehend that glad day
   as near are not supposed to be capable of yielding up their hearts to
   the uncontrolled sway of mere earthly interests.

   Here, however, a question arises. Paul speaks of the day as near, and
   calls on his disciples to live under the influence of that belief. He
   does not merely say that it may be near, but that it is. Yet we now
   know that the day was then more than eighteen hundred years away. In
   the light of this fact, one asks what we are to make of the statement
   before us, and what we are to make of the view of Christian life which
   the statement implies.

   Our Lord expressly withheld from His disciples all definite statement
   of times and seasons in this connection. Yet the Early Church with one
   consent expected the Lord to come within comparatively few years (what
   are commonly called few), and language shaped itself in accordance with
   that impression. We have here, however, more than a mere mode of
   phrasing. The nearness of Christ is emphasised as the ground on which
   Christian experience ought to build. Was not this a mistake?

   But one may ask in reply, Was it after all untrue that Christ's coming
   was near then, or that it is near now? Even if anticipations in our own
   day which bring it within a generation are to fail again, as they have
   always done before, shall we think that the Lord is not near?

   There is a nearness which pertains to all future events which are at
   once very great and important, and also are absolutely certain. Being
   so great, involving interests so great, and being contemplated in their
   inevitable certainty, such events can loom large upon the eye, and they
   can make their influence felt in the present, whatever tale of days may
   interpose before they actually arrive. If, for instance, one were told
   of a friend, whom he supposed he might meet at any time, "You shall
   certainly see him six months hence," the reply might be, "Six months!
   That is a long time to wait." But if he were told with infallible
   authority, "Six months hence you shall die," would he then say, "It is
   a long time"? Would he not feel that it was near? Would not an event so
   momentous as death, so inclusive of all interests and all issues, prove
   able to stretch, as it were, across six months, and to come into each
   day, as part of that day's concern? So of the coming of Christ. It is
   the great event for the individual, the Church, the world. All issues
   run up to it; all developments are broken off by it; all earthly
   histories await its decision. To it all earthly movement tends; from it
   all that lies beyond is dated. It is the great gate of the world to
   come. Let us think what it means: and suppose we could be assured that
   it is still ten thousand years away, shall we say, "How far off it is"?
   Not if we believe in its certainty, and realise what it means. If we do
   so, our hearts will stir and thrill as we hearken how the surges of the
   eternal world are beating on the thin barrier of ten thousand years.
   Come when it may, it comes hasting to us, pressing before it all that
   lies between, big with the decisions and the fulfilments of Eternity.
   If we truly believe and rightly estimate it, we shall feel that it is
   near--even at the door. We shall be aware whenever we look forward that
   beyond all possible events of earthly history it rises high, catching
   and holding our gaze, and hurrying toward our individual selves not one
   whit the less because it aims at others too.

   We are apt to ask why the words of warning and encouragement in
   reference to the future are not connected with the prospect of death,
   rather than with that of the Lord's return; for death certainly is the
   topic generally selected for such purposes by moralists and preachers
   of more recent days. The answer may partly be, that the possibility and
   likelihood of the Lord's return, even in the lifetime of themselves and
   their contemporaries, might render it more natural for the Apostles to
   fix all but exclusively on that. Yet this will not suffice. For nobody
   could overlook the fact that some believers were dying, and that death
   before the Lord's return might well be the portion of more. Besides, in
   particular circumstances, death does come into view in a perfectly easy
   and natural way, as at ch. i. 23; and the bearing of it on what lies
   nearer is considered. The true answer is that death is not the great
   expectation of the believer--not death, but victory over death,
   consummated and conclusively manifested when the Lord comes. This
   expectation certainly is associated with the solemn prospect of
   judgment; but not so as to quench the gladness of the hope for those
   who love the Lord and have trusted in Him. This is our
   expectation--"the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope" (1 Tim. i. 1).
   Death is a great event; but it is negative, privative, and, after all,
   provisional. True, it seals us up for the coming of the Lord, and so,
   in many respects, it may be, for many purposes, practically identified
   with that coming. The sermons which are preached upon it, commonly from
   Old Testament texts, are, no doubt, well grounded and edifying. But the
   New Testament, speaking to believers, all but constantly passes on to
   the day of the Lord as the true focus of the future; and it will be
   well for us to conform our thinking and our feeling to this model. No
   one can estimate, who has not made it a matter of personal study, how
   large and how influential a place this topic takes in New Testament
   teaching.

   Meanwhile, no doubt, the vicissitudes and the possibilities of earthly
   life press upon us. Now the Apostle provides a special additional
   relief for that. We are not merely prepossessed with a joy that should
   fortify us against undue disturbance from this source, but we have
   access in all things to the mind and heart of our Father. We can bring
   our thoughts and wishes about them all into contact with the deep, true
   thoughts and with the fatherly love of God. The incidents and the
   possibilities of life exercise us: they tend to become anxieties, keen
   and wearing; and anxieties are the materials of disturbance and
   temptation. "Be anxious about nothing; but in all things by prayer and
   supplication, with thankfulness, let your requests be made known unto
   God."

   This is the practical way of getting continually to those springs of
   joy which comfort and establish the heart. The way to be anxious about
   nothing is to be prayerful about everything.

   It is promised that when we pray in faith God hears us, and that he
   that asketh receiveth. However, this does not mean that whatever
   appears to us desirable shall certainly be brought to pass in answer to
   prayer. That would be to sacrifice our own welfare, and also the order
   of God's world, to our shortsightedness and vanity. There is great
   reason to believe indeed that those who live by prayer find many a
   desire granted, and many a burden lifted, in token of God's loving
   interest in them, and the heed He gives to their prayers. But we are
   not to start from a general principle that we are to get all our own
   way by praying. Two things we may fix upon. First, the absolute
   promises of the gospel, the blessings which pertain to eternal life,
   are given to us through prayer. "This poor man cried, and the Lord
   heard him." Secondly, concerning all other things, we have access to
   God in prayer, as to One who grudges us no good thing; we are to
   express our anxieties and our desires, and to receive the assurance
   that they are lovingly considered by One who knows our frame and
   understands our troubles. Often the answer comes, even in small things.
   But, generally, we may in this point have an absolute assurance that we
   shall either have what we ask, or else something which God sees to be
   better for us than that.

   It is this second article of the doctrine of prayer that is chiefly in
   view here. The prayer of faith must be a prayer of thanksgiving,
   because faith knows how much it owes to God. "Thou hast not dealt with
   us after our sins." At the same time it has supplications and requests,
   over and above the great petition for life eternal. For our daily human
   experience is God's providence to us. It exercises our thoughts and
   feelings, and sets agoing contemplations and desires, which may be
   shortsighted and erring, but, so far, they are the best that we can
   make of it; or, if not the best, they have the more need to be
   corrected. Here, then, we are encouraged to pour out our hearts to God.
   We are to do it with submission: that is one of the best parts of the
   privilege, for our Father knows best. At the same time, we are to do it
   with supplication; we not only may, but we should. Our desires should
   all be made known in this quarter; nowhere will they have a kindlier
   hearing. So, last of all, we come, not only touching eternal life, but
   touching each day's concerns, into a blessed agreement with God our
   Father through Christ. It is agreed, that He takes loving charge of our
   anxieties and desires, as One who would withhold no good from us; and
   it is agreed, that we put unreserved confidence in Him,--in which
   confidence we say, "Abba, Father; not our will, but Thine be done."

   The confidence we have that all this is most real and solid, and not
   merely a deceptive piece of religious acting, comes to us in the
   channel of the faith and experience which have been fulfilled in God's
   children from the first; but it is most emphatically confirmed and made
   sure to us by Christ. He has taught us to pray. His is the religion in
   which men pray. Under His influence we come away from ceremonial
   utterances, and also from the despairing experiments of supplication
   with which, in other religions, men assail the heavens; and, hand in
   hand with that loving Mediator, we pray. Prayer, when it is real, when
   it is "in the Holy Spirit," is a wonderfully simple and a wonderfully
   great thing.

   So it comes to pass that the peace of God which passeth all
   understanding is found. For this great and deep agreement with God in
   Christ, about all things great and small, is the very entrance into the
   peace of God Himself, and is the participation of it. In this, as in
   other aspects, things are daily realised in the history of believers,
   that pass all understanding, because God in Christ is in the matter.
   The infinite and eternal life is wedding itself to us and our affairs.
   It may be understood, finally, that this peace, arising to Christians
   at the throne of grace, guards their minds and hearts. It guards them
   against being overcharged, outworn, surprised; it guards them against
   being carried captive by earthly care. Yet this peace does not disable
   them for earthly business. Rather, because their main interests are so
   secure, it gives them calmness and clearness; it supplies them a moral
   vantage ground from which to dispose of all earthly affairs.
     __________________________________________________________________

THE THINGS TO FIX UPON.

     "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things
     are honourable [venerable], whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
     things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
     of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,
     think on these things. The things which ye both learned and received
     and heard and saw in me, these things do: and the God of peace shall
     be with you."--Phil. iv. 8, 9 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE THINGS TO FIX UPON.

   The topics last considered bring us naturally to the remarkable
   exhortation of vv. 8 and 9. This proceeds on the same view of the moral
   and spiritual situation, and completes what the Apostle has to say in
   reference to it.

   If men are to live as citizens of a heavenly commonwealth, on great
   principles and to great ends, it is, as we have seen, a very practical
   question, What to do about the inevitable play and onset of this
   changing earthly life, which assails us with motives, and detains us
   upon interests, and inspires us with influences, of its own. These
   cannot be abjured: they are not easy to harmonise with the indications
   of that loftier and purer world; they are prone to usurp the whole
   heart, or at least a very undue share of it. This is the practical
   problem of every honest Christian. In reference to the solving of it
   the Apostle had suggested the place given to Christian joy; he had
   suggested also the place and power of prayer. These were indications as
   to the spirit and the method in which a believer might bring into play
   the resources of the Kingdom of Christ to control and subjugate those
   insubordinate forces. But might not all this seem to be too negative?
   Does it not speak too much of holding off and holding in? After all, do
   not all human experiences constitute the scene in which we are both
   formed and tried? What can we make of life unless we are interested in
   it? How otherwise can we even be religious in it? What is life, if it
   is not a scene of inquiry and of search set in motion by the objects
   around us, a scene in which we like and dislike, hope and fear, desire
   and think? The answer is, Yes, we are to be keenly interested in the
   experiences of life, and in the possibilities it opens. Life is our way
   of existing; let existence be animated and intense. But while the
   aspects of it that are merely transient are to have their place, and
   may attract a lively interest, there are other aspects, other
   interests, other possibilities. All the transient interests have an
   outgate towards such as are eternal. Life is the experience of beings
   that have high capacities, and can rise to noble destinies. It is the
   experience of societies of such beings, who mould one another,
   exchanging influences continually. The changing experience of human
   life, when seen in the true light, is found to add to all its lower
   interests a play of interests that are more interesting as well as more
   worthy. It is iridescent with lights which it catches from the infinite
   and the eternal. Every step of it, every turn of it, asks questions,
   offers opportunities, calls for decisions, holds out treasures, which
   it is the business of a lifetime to recognise and to secure. It has
   gains, it has victories, it has accomplishments, it has glories, which
   need not lead us to deny its lower interests, but which we may
   reasonably feel to be far the higher. Endless shades, and forms, and
   types of goodness, of being good, getting good, doing good, gleam
   reflected to us from the changing experience. Goodness is not one
   monotonous category embodied in some solemn phrase, and exhausted when
   that is learned. There is no end to the rich variety in which it is
   offered, and in which it is to be caught, understood, appropriated. And
   life, through all the manifoldness of its legitimate interests, and its
   illegitimate possibilities, is the scene in which all this passes
   before us, and asks to be made ours. The Apostle says to us, Think on
   these things. Take account, that is, of what they are, and what their
   worth is. Lay forth on these the care and pains, which spent themselves
   before on mere pain and pleasure, loss and gain. Reckon what these are,
   search out their nature, prove their capabilities, appropriate and
   enjoy them. Think on these things. So earthly life, through all its
   busy processes, shall acquire a nobler interest; and it shall begin, at
   the same time, to minister with unexpected readiness to your true
   welfare. Enter then, or press on, in this wide field. Be this your
   passion and pursuit; that which unifies your life, and draws all its
   resources towards one result.

   We may be helped to fix more firmly the point of view from which this
   striking catalogue of good things is drawn up, if we observe that the
   Apostle collects all these excellences under the notion of "a virtue
   and a praise." Let us consider how men are trained to progressive
   conceptions of virtue and praise. For virtue and praise, both name and
   notion, have had a large place in men's minds and a great influence on
   their actions. How has this influence been sustained and made to grow?

   Men are conscious of obligations; and they are aware, more dimly or
   more clearly, that the standard of those obligations must exist somehow
   above themselves. It is a standard not of their own creation, but such
   as claims them by an antecedent right. Yet if each individual could
   hold himself apart, forming his own conceptions of fit and right for
   himself without regard to others, the standard would tend downwards
   rapidly, because moral judgment would be warped by each man's
   selfishness and passion, excusing evil in his own case and putting it
   for good. Even as it is, this has taken place only too widely. But yet
   the tendency is powerfully counteracted by the fact that men do not
   exist, nor form their notions, in that separate way. A principle within
   them prompts them to seek one another's approbation, and to value one
   another's good opinion. Indeed the consciousness that what is law for
   me is law for others, and that they are judging as well as I, is one of
   the forms in which we realise that duty descends upon us all, from some
   august and holy source.

   This principle of regarding the judgment and seeking the approbation of
   others, has had an enormous effect on men and on society. For though
   men are skilful enough, in their own case, in averting or silencing the
   admonition of the monitor within, they have little reluctance to make
   full use of their sense of right in scrutinising one another. They
   judge, in their thoughts about each other, with far more clearness,
   shrewdness, and certainty than they do about themselves. Men do in this
   way make requirements of one another, which each of them might be slow
   to make from himself. This is a great operative force in all cases; and
   in those cases in which, in any society, vivid convictions about truth
   and duty have taken possession of some minds, the principle we are
   speaking of propagates an influence through the whole mass, with
   effects that are very striking.

   This mutual criticism of men "accusing or else excusing one another,"
   has had a great effect in sustaining what we call common morals. But
   especially let it be observed that this criticism, and the
   consciousness of it, stimulating the higher class of minds, sustains
   and develops the finer perceptions of morality. There are minds that
   eminently strive for distinction in things that are counted for a
   virtue and a praise. And through them is developed in the general mind
   the approving perception of more delicate shades of worthy conduct,
   which in a coarser age were unperceived or unheeded. These come up in
   men's mutual judgments; they are scrutinised; they interest the mind
   and take hold of it. So, whether in the case of those who begin to pay
   respect to such forms of good because they perceive that others approve
   of them, or in the case of those who, when those forms of good are thus
   presented, perceive a worth in them and take a pride in living up to
   them for their own sake,--in both cases, the creating and sustaining of
   the higher standard depends on the principle we have now before us.

   Thus there arises, for example, the code of honour, the fine perception
   of what is socially right, becoming, and graceful. Men, no doubt, are
   always to be found who cultivate the nicest sense of this, not from a
   mere desire that others should know it, but because they see it to be
   desirable in itself, and because they shun the sense of inward disgrace
   that follows when they fall below their own standard. Yet it is the
   process of mutual criticism which develops the consciousness, and it is
   this which, on the whole, sustains it.

   Thus we find in the world not merely a sense of duty, but something
   that has spurred men on to things counted for a virtue and a praise.
   Outside of all Christian influences, wonderful examples are found of
   self-sacrificing devotion to the noble and the true. Men have eagerly
   pursued the nicest discriminations of duty and honour, that they might
   be, and might show themselves to be, accomplished, finished, not merely
   in some things, but in whatever things were counted to be the proper
   tokens of a noble mind.

   Well now, the Apostle is not shutting out from his plan of mental life
   the attainments made in this way in the true or the good, even apart
   from Christian teaching. Far less is he excluding the human social
   method, in which mind whets mind, and one stirs another to discern and
   appropriate what is for a virtue and for a praise. He supposes this
   mode of influence to go on in Christianity more successfully than ever.
   And he is not at all excluding the natural life of men; for that is the
   scene, and that yields the materials, for the whole process. But he
   does suppose that now all old attainment shall be set in a new light,
   and acquire a new life and grace, and that new attainment shall come
   wonderfully into view by reason of the new element which for us has
   entered into the situation. And what is this element? Is it that we
   recognise around us a society of Christians with whom we share a higher
   standard, and with whom we can give and take the contagion of a nobler
   conception of life? Yes, no doubt; but far before that, the great new
   element in the situation is the Lord--in whom we trust and rejoice.

   It is always human duty to have regard to the will of God, however it
   may reach us. But when you are called to know the Lord and to rejoice
   in Him, when He vouchsafes Himself to be yours, when you begin to enjoy
   His peace, and to walk with Him in love, and to have it for your hope
   to be with Him for ever, then you are placed in a new relation to Him.
   And it is such a near and dear relation on both sides that much may be
   expected from you in it. If this be so, you are now dealing with Him
   always; not merely in direct acts of worship, but in your thoughts,
   your feelings, your words, your business, your common intercourse with
   men, and all your daily life, you walk with Him. You cannot repudiate
   having so much to do with Him, unless you will repudiate your
   Christianity. Then, if so, something new is expected. A new test of the
   becoming, of that which is for a virtue and for a praise, has come into
   operation, and has become intelligible to you; and it is a test of new
   delicacy and new force. It is expected we should recognise it. Not now
   the mutual judgments merely of erring men, but His mind and His will,
   what He delights in and approves,--this begins to solicit us and press
   upon us, for we walk with Christ. That this "walk" of ours may escape
   being mean, coarse, offensive, we have great lessons to learn. We have
   to learn what, in His judgment, as seen by His eye, as tried by the
   sensibilities of His heart, are the things that are true and venerable
   and just, what with Him counts for a virtue and a praise.

   And here, indeed, is our crown. The crown of honour which man cast away
   when sin gained him, was the approbation of the Lord. But now we are
   set on afresh to seek it, testing our ways by the perception of that
   which He approves; or, on the other hand, what He counts to be mean and
   degrading, fit to be recoiled from and rejected. It is our calling
   (whatever our attainment may be) to be more sensitive to the nicest
   touches of truth and honour towards our Lord than ever we were towards
   men. And this does not apply only to some narrow field of life. It goes
   through all relations, up to God and Christ, and out through all duties
   and ties. The great calling reaches wide and far; it is very high and
   noble: we cannot pretend to disclaim it, unless we disclaim the Lord.
   This way lies God's crown. Win it; wear it; let no man take thy crown.

   When our Lord's mind and heart are said to be the test, this does not
   exclude our profiting by our fellows, accepting the admonition
   contained in human judgments, and especially in those of Christian
   people. Great good comes to us in such channels. Only now the judgment
   of our fellows is to refer itself always to a further standard; and a
   new Presence brings new tenderness and grace, new depth and
   significance, to every suggestion of right feeling and worthy life.
   This is the light and this the influence under which we are to learn
   what shall be counted for a virtue and for a praise. And we must bend
   our mind to think upon it, if we are to learn our lesson.

   We must think upon it. For, on the one hand, it is not "some things,"
   but "whatsoever things." What should we say of a man who proposed in
   his dealings with others to do "some things" that are honourable, but
   not all things, not "whatsoever things"? And, on the other hand, we may
   be further off from even a small measure of attainment in this field
   than we are disposed to think. Christians who, as to all social
   excellence, as that is commonly understood between man and man, are
   unexceptionable, may be sadly blind to the requirements of an
   honourable walk with God; may be sadly wanting even in the conception
   of what is due in all love and honour to Christ, and to men for His
   sake. Men may be the soul of honour and delicacy in their ways, judged
   from the world's point of view; yet not far from a savage coarseness in
   the manner of their life judged by Christ's standard. We would not
   needlessly wound another's feelings; but with what indifference have we
   "grieved the Spirit." We would shrink from saying anything to our
   fellows that is deceitful and hypocritical: can we say as much for our
   prayers? In our common life we maintain truth in the ordinary sense
   between men; but do we loyally express and act out the truth by which
   God's children live in our speech and action among men? Is there that
   fine congruity of our bearing to the truth we live by, which becomes a
   child of God?

   We are greatly hindered here by the assumption we make, that when we
   have mastered the form of knowledge concerning the will of God, we then
   know all about our calling. It is a great delusion. We must not only
   sit down at the feet of Christ to learn from Him; but also, with a
   watchful eye on the phases of life, catching the lessons which things
   and men afford, we must be trained to know and sharpened to loving
   discernment as to our Master's mind, and so, as to what is honourable
   and right-minded, refined and noble, in a walk with God. We do not
   easily emerge from the meanness of our spirits; we do not easily shake
   off that insensibility to what is spiritually fair and fit, on which
   the angels look down with pity and wonder.

   Therefore, says the Apostle, think on these things, the things which in
   the Lord's kingdom and under the Lord's eye are well-pleasing, and
   count for a virtue and a praise; think on those things which are
   related to His esteem, and to the esteem of persons who learn of Him,
   as various excellences are to the common judgment of the world. Do so,
   for here you are close to the genuinely and supremely true and good;
   and this, as was said before, is your crown.

   The Apostle is thinking of a perception of duty and privilege attained
   not merely by studying a catalogue of virtues, but by a far finer and
   more living process--by life that is instinct with observant
   watchfulness, that is frank in self-criticism, that is recipient of the
   light flashing from the experience and the censure of others: all this
   under constant regard to the Lord, and leading us into fuller sympathy
   with Him.

   That this is so, appears from the Apostle's way of arranging the
   particulars of his exhortation. He does not merely desire his disciples
   to discern what is right in general: but he would have them grow into a
   vital knowledge, so as to feel the right in those matters where the
   shading becomes delicate; where it may be difficult to distinguish
   argumentatively an absolute right and wrong, but where a mind purged
   and trained in the Master's school can well discern a difference.
   "Whatsoever things are true"--which includes not only veracity and
   fidelity, but also whatever in conduct and temper God's truth requires
   as agreeable to itself; and then "Whatsoever things are venerable"--the
   character that emerges when all that is congruous to truth, in its
   finest filaments and ramifications, has been developed, and has assumed
   its own place. "Whatsoever things are just"--rightfully due on all
   hands to God and to man; and then "Whatsoever things are pure"--the
   character that recoils from all that sullies, from the smallest shade
   or infection of iniquity. "Whatsoever things are lovely"--the dear or
   amiable, whatever draws out love, cherishes it, befits it; and then
   "Whatsoever things are of good report"--actions that can hardly be more
   discriminatingly classified than by saying that the heart is pleased to
   hear of them; it confesses that they are of a good name, of a welcome
   sound; they are like some delicate sound or odour on which you dwell
   with delight, but cannot definitely describe it. In a word, "If there
   be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
   Study them, look out for them, learn to recognise them, to know their
   worth, to pursue them lovingly through all their manifestations.

   Thus, let it be said once more, the Apostle is not open to the
   objection that he calls us to a mere retreat from energetic life. To
   such a call men have always replied, that they find in themselves
   capacities wonderfully adapted to grapple with life, and to do so with
   interest and with energy. Virtually the Apostle says, Yes, true; and
   life has aspects to interest the mind, and results to engage the will,
   which are its noble and its imperative possibilities: for the followers
   of Christ these become dominant; they afford noble scope for all human
   faculty; and all forms of life are dignified as they become subservient
   to these supreme interests and aims. Now, lay forth the care and pains
   that fastened before on mere joy and sorrow, hope and fear, on a
   certain thinking and making account of the true, the venerable, the
   just, the pure, the lovely, that which is of good report. Reckon what
   they are; search out their nature; make them your serious object. "O
   man of God, flee those things; but follow after righteousness,
   godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness."

   But progress is not to be made in this line by mere subtle refining and
   contemplation. If there was any danger that the Apostle's call to
   "think" might be interpreted that way, presently it is corrected. The
   thinking is to be practical thinking, bending itself to action. "What
   things ye have received and learned"--those practical points in which
   the Apostle always taught his Gentile converts to put to proof the
   grace of Christ; and "What ye have heard and seen in me"--in a man
   poor, tried, persecuted, a man whose life was rough and real, who knew
   weakness and sorrow, who bore heavy burdens, that were not proudly
   paraded, but which brought him lowly and weary to Christ's feet,--these
   things do. That is the road to the attainments on which I bid you
   think.

   "And the God of peace shall be with you." In those ways (for they are
   His own ways) God walks with men; and peace with God, spreading out
   into peace with men, becomes the atmosphere in which such wayfarers
   move.
     __________________________________________________________________

GIFTS AND SACRIFICES.

     "But I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at length ye have
     revived your thought for me; wherein ye did indeed take thought, but
     ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I
     have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I
     know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything
     and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to
     be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in
     Him that strengtheneth me. Howbeit ye did well, that ye had
     fellowship with my affliction. And ye yourselves also know, ye
     Philippians, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed
     from Macedonia, no Church had fellowship with me in the matter of
     giving and receiving, but ye only; for even in Thessalonica ye sent
     once and again unto my need. Not that I seek for the gift; but I
     seek for the fruit that increaseth to your account. But I have all
     things, and abound: I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus
     the things that came from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a
     sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God. And my God shall fulfil
     every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ
     Jesus. Now unto our God and Father be the glory for ever and ever.
     Amen.

     "Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me
     salute you. All the saints salute you, especially they that are of
     Cæsar's household.

     "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."--Phil. iv,
     10-23 (R.V.).
     __________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER XIX.

  GIFTS AND SACRIFICES.

   The Apostle had urged joy in the Lord, and a moderation visible to all
   men. If any one supposes that in doing so he recommended a stoical
   temper, insensible to the impressions of passing things, the passage
   which now comes before us will correct that error. It shows us how the
   Apostle could "rejoice in the Lord," and yet reap great satisfaction
   from providential incidents. "I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now
   at last you have revived your thought for me," or, as in the older
   version, "that your care for me has flourished again."

   Worldly eagerness, and worldly care and anxiety about persons and
   things, are rebuked by the spirit of rejoicing in the Lord. But the
   persons and the things about us all have a connection with the Lord, if
   we have eyes to see it, and hearts to mark it; and that is the chief
   thing about them. They are in the Lord's world, the Lord calls us to
   have to do with them: as for the persons, they are, some of them, the
   Lord's servants, and all of them the Lord calls us to love and to
   benefit; as for the things, the Lord appoints our lot among them, and
   they are full of a meaning which He puts into them. So regard to the
   Lord and a spirit of rejoicing in Him may pervade our earthly life. The
   worldly eagerness and worldly care must be controlled. There is no
   avoiding that conflict. But now--shall we in faith give ourselves to
   learn the true rejoicing in the Lord? If not, our Christianity must be
   at best low and comfortless. But if we do, we shall be rewarded by a
   growing liberty. The more that joy possesses us, the more will it give
   occasion to the finest and freest play of feeling in reference to
   passing things; and some of these which, on other accounts, might seem
   insignificant, will begin to yield us an abounding consolation.

   These Philippians, who had given early proof of attachment to the
   gospel, had lately, for some reason or other, been unable, "lacked
   opportunity," to minister to the wants of Paul. Now the winter,
   whatever it was, that hindered the expression of their goodwill was
   gone, and their care of Paul flourished again. Did the Apostle think it
   needful to freeze up the feelings of satisfaction which this incident
   awakened? No: but in his case those feelings, having spiritual
   elevation, became so much the more deep and glad. He rejoiced greatly
   in this; and still, he was rejoicing in the Lord. Let us mark how this
   comes out both when we consider what was not the spring of his
   gladness, and what it was.

   "Not that I speak in respect of want." It was not the change from want
   to comparative plenty that explained the nature of his feelings. Yet he
   evidently implies that he had been in want, strange as that may seem in
   a city where there was a Christian congregation. But though the removal
   of that pressure would no doubt be thankfully taken, yet for a man
   whose gladness was in the Lord no mere change of that kind would lead
   to "rejoicing greatly." "I speak not in respect of want: I have
   learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know how
   to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all
   things have I learned the secret (have been initiated) both to be
   filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all
   things through Him that strengtheneth me."

   "Therewith to be content." Paul had learned to be so minded that, in
   trying circumstances, he did not anxiously cast about for help, but was
   sufficed: his desires were brought down to the facts of his condition.
   In that state he counted himself to have enough. He knew how to suit
   himself to abasement, that common experience of the indigent and
   friendless; and he knew how to suit himself to abundance, when that was
   sent: each as a familiar state in which he made himself at home--not
   overgrieved or overjoyed, not greatly elevated or greatly depressed. "I
   have been instructed," or initiated (the word used by the heathen of
   introduction to the mysteries), "not only into the experience of those
   conditions, but into the way of taking kindly with them both." Mark how
   his words follow one another: "I have learned"--been put through a
   course of teaching and have had a teacher; "I know"--it has become
   familiar to me, I understand it; "I am initiated"--if there is a secret
   in it, something hidden from the natural man, I have been led into
   that, out and in, through and through.

   If we would know by what discipline the Lord trained Paul to this mind,
   we may listen to what Paul himself says of it (1 Cor. iv. 9-13): "I
   think God hath set forth us the apostles last of all, as men doomed to
   death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world.... Even unto this
   present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are
   buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and we toil, working with
   our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure;
   being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, the
   offscouring of all things, unto this day" (see also 2 Cor. vi. 4, xi.
   23). If, again, we would know the manner of his training in such
   experiences, take 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9: "Concerning this thing I besought
   thrice that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is
   sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most
   gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities." Also how his
   faith wrought and gathered strength in all these, we may see from Rom.
   viii. 24-28: "We are saved by hope.... If we hope for that which we see
   not, then do we with patience wait for it. Also the Spirit helpeth our
   infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit
   Himself maketh intercession for us.... And we know that all things work
   together for good to them that love God." So "being strengthened with
   all might, according to His glorious power, to all patience and
   longsuffering with joyfulness" (Col. i. 11), he was able to say, "I can
   do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

   This was the course, and this the fruit, of Paul's biography. But each
   Christian has his own life, the tenor and the upshot of which should
   not be wholly estranged from Paul's.

   Now what it was that did move him so to rejoice is explained when he
   speaks of the Philippians "holding fellowship with his affliction";
   and, again, when he says, "I desire fruit that may abound to your
   account." He saw in their succour the blessed unity of Christ's living
   Church, the members having mutual interest, so that if one suffers all
   suffer. The Philippians claimed a right to take part as fellow-members
   in the Apostle's state and wants, and to communicate with his
   affliction. And this was only a continuation of their former practice
   in the beginning of the gospel. This, as a fruit of Christ's work and
   of the presence of His Spirit, refreshed the Apostle. It was a
   manifestation in the sphere of temporal things of the working of a high
   principle, communion with the common Lord. And it betokened the
   progress of the work of grace, in that the Philippians were not weary
   in well-doing. So it was fruit that abounded to their account.

   It may be noticed that the directness and frankness of the Apostle's
   speech to the Philippians on these matters convey a testimony to the
   generous Christian feeling which prevailed among them. He speaks as one
   who feared no misconstruction. He does not fear that they will either
   mistake his meaning or do wrong to his motives; as he, on the other
   side, puts no other than a loving construction upon their action. He
   could not so trust all the Churches. In some there was so little of
   large Christian sympathy that a complaining tone in such matters was
   forced on him. But in the case of the Philippians he has no difficulty
   in interpreting their gift simply as embodying their earnest claim to
   be counted "partakers of the benefit," and therefore entitled to bear
   the burdens and alleviate the sufferings of Paul. Gladly he admits and
   welcomes this claim. It is worth observing that the way of giving vent
   to Christian feeling here exemplified was apparent at Philippi from the
   very first. Not only did it appear when Paul departed from Macedonia
   (ver. 15); but, before that, the earliest convert, Lydia, struck the
   keynote,--"If ye judge me faithful in the Lord, come into my house"
   (Acts xvi. 15). Both in individuals and in Churches, the style of
   feeling and action embraced at the outset of Christianity, under the
   first impressions, often continues to prevail long after.
     __________________________________________________________________

   Now, in virtue of this liberality, Paul had all and abounded. He had
   desired to see the old spirit flourish again, and he had his wish. "I
   have all: I feel greatly enriched since I received the things sent by
   Epaphroditus." What gladdened him was not the outward comfort which
   these gifts supplied, but much more, the spiritual meaning they carried
   in their bosom. Let us see how he reads that meaning.

   This gift comes to him. As it comes, what is it? From its destination
   and its motives it takes on a blessed character. It is "an odour of a
   sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing unto God." This was
   what came to the Apostle: something that was in a peculiar manner God's
   own, something which He regarded, set value on, and counted precious.
   Further, it turned out to be something in connection with which the
   assurance ought to go forth, "My God shall fulfil every need of yours."
   They had ministered to Paul's need, in faith, love, thankfulness, and
   loyal care of Christ's servant. Christ counted it done to Him: as such
   He would surely repay it, supplying their need with that considerate
   liberality which it becomes Him to exhibit. Observe, then, the position
   in which the Apostle finds himself. He is himself the object of
   Christian kindness; affections wrought in the Philippians by the Holy
   Ghost are clinging to him and caring for him. He is also one so linked
   with God's great cause, that offerings sent to him, in the spirit
   described, become an "odour of a sweet smell, an acceptable sacrifice
   to the Lord." Also this supply of his need is so directly a service
   done to Christ, that when it is done, God, as it were, stands forth
   directly on His servant's behalf: He will repay it, supplying the need
   of those who supplied His servant. Poor though Paul may be, and
   sometimes sad, yet see how the resources of God must be pledged to
   requite the kindness done to him. All this made him very glad. His
   heart warmed under it. What a blessed, happy, secure, and, looking
   forward, what a hopeful state was his! This came home to him all at
   once with the Philippians' gift. No wonder that he says, "I have all
   and abound."

   If any one chooses to say that all this was true about the Apostle, and
   he might have known it, apart from the gift, and even if it had never
   come, that may be a kind of truth, but it signifies exactly nothing to
   the purpose. It is one thing to have a doctrine which one knows: it is
   another thing to have the Holy Spirit setting it home with a warmth and
   glory that fills the man with joy. The Spirit of God may do this
   without means, but often He uses means, and, indeed, what we esteem
   little means; by little things carrying home great impressions, as out
   of the mouths of babes and sucklings He perfects praise. When a child
   of God is cast down, no one can tell out of how small a thing the
   Spirit of God may cause to arise a peace that passeth all
   understanding.

   Christianity confers great weight and dignity on little things. This
   gift, not in itself very great, passing between Christians at Philippi
   and an Apostle imprisoned at Rome, belongs after all to an unearthly
   sphere. Paul sees its connection with all spiritual things, and with
   the heavenly places where Christ is. And it comes to him carrying a
   rich meaning, preaching everlasting consolation and good hope through
   grace.

   Mark, again, the illustration of the truth that the members have need
   of one another, and are compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
   according to the effectual working in the measure of every part. The
   strong may benefit by the weak, as well as the weak by the strong. This
   Apostle, who could do all things through Christ who strengthens him,
   might be very far more advanced as a Christian than any one in
   Philippi. Possibly there was nothing any of them could say, no advice
   they could tender to him in words, that would have been of material
   benefit to the Apostle. But that which, following the impulse of their
   faith and love, they did, was of material benefit. It filled his heart
   with a joyful sense of the relation in which he stood to them, to
   Christ, to God. It welled up for him like a water-spring in a dry land.
   No one can tell how it may have conduced to enable him to go forward
   with more liberty and power, testifying in Rome the gospel of God.

   Nor must we omit the comfort to all who serve God in their generation
   arising from the view which the Apostle is here led to take. There may
   be trials from without and trials from within. Still God careth for His
   servant. God will provide for him out of that which is peculiarly His
   own. God so identifies him with Himself, that He must needs requite all
   who befriend him out of His own riches in glory.

   So far for the bearing of the case on Paul. We have still to look a
   little into the view given of this Philippian gift on its own account.
   It is emphatically called a sweet savour, an offering acceptable and
   well-pleasing to God. We have seen already (ch. ii. 17) that believers
   are called upon to offer themselves as a sacrifice; and now we see also
   that their obedience, or that which they do for Christ's sake, is
   reckoned as an offering to God. So it is said (Heb. xiii. 16) "to do
   good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is
   well pleased." It need hardly be said they are not sacrifices to atone
   for sin. But they are offerings accepted by God, at His altar, from His
   children's hands. They suitably express both the gratitude of believers
   to God, and the sincerity of their Christianity in general. God grants
   us this way of expressing the earnestness of our regard to Him: and He
   expects that we shall gladly avail ourselves of it; our obedience is to
   assume the character of a glad and willing offering. The expressions
   used by the Apostle here assure us that there is a Divine complacency
   in the manifestation of this spirit on the part of God's children. The
   heart of Him who has revealed Himself in Christ, of Him who rested and
   was refreshed on the seventh day over His good and fair works, counts
   for a sweet savour, acceptable and well-pleasing, the works of faith
   and love willingly done for His name's sake.

   In this connection it is fit we should remember that the view we take
   of money, and the use we make of it, are referred to with extraordinary
   frequency in the New Testament, as a decisive test of Christian
   sincerity. This feature of Bible teaching is very faintly realised by
   many.

   The other point noteworthy in relation to this Philippian gift is the
   assurance that it shall be recompensed. God will not be unfaithful to
   reward their work and labour of love, in that they have ministered to
   His servant.

   We are not to shrink from the doctrine of reward because it has been
   perverted. It is true the good works of a Christian cannot be the
   foundation of his title to life eternal. They proceed from the grace of
   God; they are very imperfect and mixed at their best. Yet they are
   precious fruits of Christ's death, and of God's grace, arising through
   the faith and love of souls renewed and liberated. When a penitent and
   believing man is found devoting to God what he is and has, doing so
   freely and lovingly, that is a blessed thing. God sets value on it. It
   is accepted as fruit which the man brings, as the offering which he
   yields. The heart of Christ rejoices over it. Now it is fit that the
   value set on this fruit should be shown, and the way God takes to show
   it is to reward the service. Such a man "shall in no wise lose his
   reward." God orders the administration of His mercy so that it really
   comes in a way of recompense for works of faith and labours of love.

   This may well convince us that the kindness of our Father is
   measureless. He omits nothing that can win His children's love, and
   bind them to Himself. Might not those servants who have gone furthest
   and done most, feel it almost a bitter thing to hear reward spoken of?
   For if their service could be far more worthy, it could not amount to
   an adequate expression of gratitude for all their Father has done for
   them. Yet He will certainly reward. Cups of cold water given to
   disciples shall have remembrance made of them, by Him who reckons all
   those gifts to be bestowed upon Himself. Every way God overwhelms His
   children with His goodness. There is no dealing with this God,
   otherwise than by confessing that every way we are debtors. It is vain
   to think of paying the debt, or relieving oneself of any of the weight
   of obligation. Only we may with all our hearts give glory to Him to
   whom we owe all.

   Accordingly the Apostle closes in a doxology: "Now unto our God and
   Father be glory for ever."

   Among the salutations with which the Epistle winds up, every one must
   be struck with that which goes in the name of "those of Cæsar's
   household." Bishop Lightfoot has annexed to his Commentary an essay on
   this topic, which collects, with his usual skill, the available
   information. It was remarked in connection with ch. i. 12, that Cæsar's
   household was an immense establishment, comprehending thousands of
   persons, employed in all sorts of functions, and composed chiefly,
   either of slaves, or of those who had emerged from slavery into the
   condition of freedmen. Indications have been gathered from ancient
   mortuary inscriptions tending to show that a notable proportion of
   Christians, whose names are preserved in this way, had probably been
   connected with the household. At the end of the first century, a whole
   branch of the Flavian imperial family became Christian; and it is
   possible, as indicated in an earlier page, that they may have done so
   under the influence of Christian servants. This, however, fell later.
   The Apostle wrote in Nero's days. It is certain that at this time
   singularly profligate persons exercised great sway in the household. It
   is also certain that powerful Jewish influences had got a footing; and
   these would in all likelihood act against the gospel. Yet there were
   also Christian brethren. We may believe that Paul's own work had
   operated notably to produce this result (ch. i. 12). At all events,
   there they were. Amid all that was vile and unscrupulous, the word of
   God had its course; men were converted and were sanctified by the
   washing of water by the word. Then, as now, the Lord gathered His elect
   from unlikely quarters: how secure soever the strong man's goods seemed
   to be, his defences went down before the might of a stronger than he.
   Probably the Christians in the household belonged chiefly or
   exclusively to the lower grades of the service, and might be partly
   protected by their obscurity. Yet surely entanglements and
   perplexities, fears and sorrows, must often have been the portion of
   the saints of Nero's household. Out of all these the Lord delivered
   them. This glimpse lets us see the process going on which by-and-by
   made so strange a revolution in the heathen world. It reminds us also
   for what peculiarities of trial God's grace has been found sufficient.

   "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." This is the
   parting benediction; certainly an appropriate one, for the whole
   Epistle breathes the same atmosphere. The Epistle would not fail of its
   effect, if their spirit retained the consciousness of the grace of
   Christ; if throughout their life they owned its sway, and felt its
   attraction, its charm, its power to elevate and purify and comfort.
     __________________________________________________________________

   In following the course of thought and feeling which this letter
   embodies, we have seen the Apostle touch various topics. They rise into
   view as pastoral care, or friendly feeling, as outward circumstances
   suggest them. The demands of Christian friendship, the responsibilities
   of the Christian ministry, the trials of Christian endurance; what is
   due from an apostle, or from a Church member; how life and death are to
   be confronted; what is to be done about dangers and faults; how pride
   and self-will are to be judged and remedied; how the narrow heart is to
   be rebuked and enlarged; how the life of a disciple is to become
   luminous and edifying,--in reference to all, and all alike, he speaks
   from the same central position, and with the same fulness of resource.
   In Christ revealed, in Christ received and known, he finds the light,
   and the strength, and the salve, which every case requires. Each new
   demand unlocks new resources, new conceptions of goodness and of
   victory.

   So, in one great passage, in the third chapter, catching fire, as it
   were, from the scorn with which a religion of externals fills him, he
   breaks forth into a magnificent proclamation of the true Christianity.
   He celebrates its reality and intensity as life in Christ--Christ
   known, found, gained--Christ in the righteousness of faith and in the
   power of resurrection. He depicts vividly the aspiration and endeavour
   of that life as it continually presses onward from faith to experience
   and achievement, as it verifies relations to a world unseen, and looks
   and hastes towards a world to come. Then the wave of thought and
   feeling subsides; but its force is felt in the last wavelets of loving
   counsel that ripple to the shore.

   One feels that for Paul, who was rich in doctrine, doctrine is after
   all but the measure of mighty forces which are alive in his own
   experience. No doctrine, not one, is for the intellect alone: all go
   out into heart and conscience and life. More than this: he lets us see
   that, for Christians, Christ Himself is the great abiding means of
   grace. He is not only the pledge and guarantee that holiness shall be
   reached: He is Himself our way of reaching it. He is so for the
   Christian societies, as well as for the individual Christian soul.

   One cannot but wonder sometimes in reading Paul's Epistles what manner
   of congregations they were to whom such remarkable letters were sent.
   Did they understand the deeper and loftier passages? Were Paul and they
   on common ground? But the answer may be, that whatever they failed to
   attain, they at least apprehended a new world created for them by the
   interposition of Christ--new horizons, new possibilities, new hopes and
   fears, new motives, new consolations, new friendships, and a new
   destiny. The grace of Christ had made all new--in which process they
   themselves were new. Their "spirit" had become like a lyre new-strung
   to render new harmonies. And the great thoughts of the Apostle, if not
   always grasped or followed, yet made every string vibrate--so much on
   his part and so much on theirs being sensitive to the grace of our Lord
   Jesus.

   Ere long they all passed away: Paul beheaded at Rome, as the story
   goes; the Philippian converts dying out; and the world changing in
   manners, thought, and speech, in all directions. But the message
   entrusted to Paul lives still, and awakens the same response in the
   hearts of Christians of to-day, as it did among the Philippians when
   first read among them. It still assures us that the highest thing in
   life has been found,--that it meets us in Him who came among us meek,
   and having salvation.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Philippians

   [1]1:1-2   [2]1:3-11   [3]1:12-20   [4]1:21-26   [5]1:27-30
   [6]2:1-4   [7]2:5-11   [8]2:12-18   [9]2:19-30   [10]3:1-8
   [11]3:8-11   [12]3:9   [13]3:10-11   [14]3:12-17   [15]3:18-19
   [16]3:20-21   [17]4:2-7   [18]4:8-9   [19]4:10-23
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Pages of the Print Edition

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     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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