{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25221/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25221","id":"gutenberg_25221","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25221","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Philippians -- Commentaries","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"E-text prepared by Al Haines\n\n\n\nTranscriber's notes:\n\n   In the original book, each odd-numbered page (except for the first\n   page of a chapter) had its own header.  In this e-book, each\n   chapter's headers have been collected into an introductory\n   paragraph at the start of the chapter.\n\n   The original book contained many Greek words.  They have been\n   transliterated according to the Project Gutenberg \"Greek How-To,\"\n   and have been indicated with surrounding underscores.\n\n   Italicised words in the original have also been indicated with\n   underscores, but such words are always English.\n\n   Bold-face text in the original book has been enclosed between\n   plus (+) signs in this ebook.\n\n   Footnotes have been renumbered consecutively and moved to the\n   end of their host chapter.\n\n\n\n\n\nPHILIPPIAN STUDIES\n\nLessons in Faith and Love from\nSt. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians\n\nby\n\nH. C. G. MOULE, D.D.\n\nPrincipal of Ridley Hall and Formerly Fellow of Trinity College\nCambridge\n\n\n\n  \"_Let us pray to God, that we may speak, think, believe, live,\n  and depart hence, according to the wholesome doctrine and verities\n  of His Word._\"\n        THE HOMILIES, i, 1.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThird Edition\n\nLondon\nHodder and Stoughton\n27, Paternoster Row\n1900\n\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR.\n\n\n  THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.\n  COLOSSIAN STUDIES.\n  EPHESIAN STUDIES.\n  TO MY YOUNGER BRETHREN ON PASTORAL LIFE AND WORK.\n  OUTLINES OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.  (In the _Theological Educator_\n    Series.)\n  VENI CREATOR: THOUGHTS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT OF PROMISE.  Third Edition.\n  LIFE IN CHRIST AND FOR CHRIST.\n  \"NEED AND FULNESS.\"\n  \"PATIENCE AND COMFORT.\"\n  THOUGHTS ON CHRISTIAN SANCTITY.\n  THOUGHTS ON UNION WITH CHRIST.\n  THOUGHTS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.\n  SECRET PRAYER.\n  \"AT THE HOLY COMMUNION.\"  Thoughts for Preparation and Communion.\n  \"THE PLEDGE OF HIS LOVE.\"  Thoughts on the Lord's Supper.\n  THE NEW BIRTH.  A Brief Enquiry and Statement.\n  THE CLEANSING BLOOD.  A Study of 1 John i. 7.\n  JUSTIFYING RIGHTEOUSNESS.\n  THE CHRISTIAN AND THE WORLD.\n  THE NET AND THE DELIVERANCE.\n  A MORNING ACT OF FAITH.\n  THE CHRISTIAN'S OWN CALENDAR OF PERSONAL AND FAMILY EVENTS.\n    With an Introduction by Rev. H. C. G. MOULE.\n  PRAYERS FOR THE HOME.\n  THE CHRISTIAN'S VICTORY OVER SIN.\n  \"GRACE AND GODLINESS.\"  Chapters on Ephesians.\n  \"CHRIST IS ALL.\"  Sermons.\n  COMMENTARIES ON THE ROMANS; EPHESIANS; PHILIPPIANS;\n    COLOSSIANS in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges_;\n    and on the PHILIPPIANS in the _Cambridge Greek Testament_.\n    Also on the ROMANS in the _Expositor's Bible_.\n  \"BETWEEN MY LORD AND ME.\"  A Card containing Morning and Evening\n    Acts of Faith and Devotion.\n  CHARLES SIMEON. (In _English Leaders of Religion_.)\n  BISHOP RIDLEY ON THE LORD'S SUPPER.  A Reprint from the Original\n    Edition, with Life of Ridley, Notes, Appendices, etc.,\n    and Illustrations.\n  \"IN THE HOUSE OF THE PILGRIMAGE.\"  Hymns and Sacred Songs.\n\n\n\n\nTO THE\n\nREV. G. A. SCHNEIDER, M.A.,\n\nVICE-PRINCIPAL OF RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE,\n\nTHIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED\n\nIM TOKEN OF WARM FRIENDSHIP\n\nAND WITH A GRATEFUL SENSE OF THE BENEFIT\n\nOF HIS INVALUABLE CO-OPERATION\n\n\n\n\n    \"Thou the Way art, Thou the Prize\n    That beyond the journey lies;\n    Thou the Truth art, Thou the Guide,\n    Gone before, yet at our side;\n    Everlasting life below\n    It is truly Thee to know:\n  Such to Thy Saints wast Thou of yore;\n  Unchangeable Thou art, and shall be evermore.\"\n        MONSELL.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe plan and purpose of the following pages will be soon evident to the\nreader.  The whole aim is towards edification.  What is said in the way\nof historical introduction, what is done in the course of the chapters\nin the way of rendering and grammatical explanation, all has this aim\nin view.  The Epistle is handled throughout with the firm belief that\nit is an Oracle of God, while that Oracle is conveyed through the mind\nand heart of one of the greatest of the sons of men; and the\nExpositor's aim accordingly is always, and above all things, to\nexpound.  To put it otherwise, his highest ambition is to call\nattention to the sacred text, and let it speak.\n\nMay the Lord of the Apostle, of the Philippians, of ourselves, only\ngrant that His mercy may rest upon this poor contribution to the\nexegesis of His inexhaustible Word.  May it be permitted to throw a\nquiet light upon some of the treasures of this apostolic casket, to the\nhelp, in any measures, of the disciples of our day.  Then will the\nExpositor indeed give thanks to the Master at whose feet he lays his\nwork.\n\nRIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE INTIMACY OF HUMAN HEARTS IN CHRIST\n    (PHIL. i. 1-11.)\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES\n    (PHIL. i. 12-20.)\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN'S PEACE AND THE CHRISTIAN'S CONSISTENCY\n    (PHIL. i. 21-30.)\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nUNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD\n    (PHIL. ii. 1-11.)\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE\n    (PHIL. ii. 12-18.)\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS\n    (PHIL. ii. 19-30.)\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nJOY IN THE LORD AND ITS PRESERVING INFLUENCE\n  \"THAT I MAY KNOW HIM\"\n    (PHIL. iii. 1-11.)\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS.\n    (PHIL. iii. 12-16.)\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE BLESSED HOPE AND ITS POWER\n    (PHIL. iii. 17-21.)\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPURITY AND PEACE IN THE PRESENT LORD\n    (PHIL. iv. 1-9.)\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE FAREWELL\n    (PHIL. iv. 10-23.)\n\n\n\n\n\"Holy Scripture is the Letter of God Almighty to His creatures; learn\nGod's heart in God's Words.\"\n\nGREGORY THE GREAT, _Epist._, iv. 31.\n\n\n\n\n_INTRODUCTORY_\n\n\n\n\nO Gracious GOD and most mercifull Father, which hast vouchsafed us the\nrich and precious iewell of thy holy worde, assist us with thy Spirit,\nthat it may be written in our hearts to our euerlasting comfort, to\nreforme us, to renew us according to thine owne image, to build us up,\nand edifie us into the perfect building of thy Christ, sanctifying and\nincreasing in us all heauenly vertues. Graunt this O heauenly Father,\nfor Iesus Christes sake.  Amen.\n\n_From the_ GENEVA BIBLE, 1557.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\nCharacteristics of the Epistle--The Bible is ever young--Littera\nScripta Manet--\"This Same Jesus\"--Philippi--How the mission church had\ngrown--Where was the Epistle written?--When was the Epistle\nwritten?--\"The word endureth\"\n\n\nThe Epistle of St Paul to the Philippians is, to careful and loving\nBible-students, one of the fairest and dearest regions of the Book of\nGod.  It is true that the Christian who genuinely believes that \"every\nScripture is God-inspired\" (2 Tim. iii. 16), and who realizes that the\n\"Divine _Library_\" is nevertheless, and from a higher point of view,\nOne _Book_ all through, will be always on the guard against a mistaken\nfavouritism in his Scripture studies.  He will strive to make himself\nin some sense familiar with the whole Book, _as_ a whole, and to\nrecognize in all its parts the true Author's hand and purpose.  Yet it\nis inevitable that in this supreme Book, as in other books, though all\nparts are \"co-operant to an end,\" all parts are not equally important\nfor the deepest needs of the reader.  The reader therefore will have to\nbe more familiar with some parts than with others.  Acquaintance with\nthe whole will indeed deepen insight into the part.  But it will not\nsupersede our study, loving and special, of the part which, in a degree\nand manner peculiar to itself, \"is able to make us wise unto salvation,\nthrough faith which is in Christ Jesus.\"\n\nThe present simple Studies in the Philippian Epistle will accordingly\nbe pursued with the desire to remember as we go the whole scriptural\nrevelation of God and salvation.  But we shall also approach the\nEpistle as a peculiarly precious Scripture in itself, containing in its\nfew short pages a rare fulness of messages and teachings, meeting the\ninmost wants of the heart and the life.\n\nAmongst the Epistles of St Paul Philippians shines out with singular\nlight and beauty.  In such a comparison we scarcely need consider the\ngreat Epistles to Rome and Corinth; their large scale and wide variety\nof topics set them apart.  Nor need we consider Hebrews, with its\ndifficult problem of authorship.  Looking at the other Epistles, each\nwith its own divine and also deeply human characteristics, we find\nPhilippians more peaceful than Galatians, more personal and\naffectionate than Ephesians, less anxiously controversial than\nColossians, more deliberate and symmetrical than Thessalonians, and of\ncourse larger in its applications than the personal messages to\nTimothy, Titus, and Philemon.  Meanwhile it is as comprehensive almost\nas it is brief.  It presents more than one important passage of\ndoctrine, some of these passages being revelations of the first order.\nIt is full of pregnant precepts for Christian character and conduct,\nwhether seen in the individual or in the community.  It discloses in a\nway of the utmost interest and significance the circumstances and\nexperiences of the writer, and also, in a measure, of the readers.  And\nthe whole is suffused with a singularly sweet light of \"joy and peace\nin believing.\"  It is written by one who was, as he wrote, at once\nresting and moving in the peace of God which passes understanding, and\nin the love of Christ which passes knowledge; and what is felt in his\nsoul comes out inevitably on his page.  The letter, written in a\nprison, and addressed to a mission-church always exposed to insult and\nassault, yet seems in a wonderful way to call us \"apart, to rest\nawhile.\"  \"A glory gilds the sacred page,\" the glory of the presence of\nthe Lord in all His majesty of Godhead and nearness of Manhood; in His\nfinished work, and living power, and wonderful coming again.  A\npeculiar sort of joy, which is impossible without at least the\nexperience, if not the presence, of sorrow, rests and shines over the\nwhole.  It is the joy of the heart which has found at length \"the\nsecret of the Lord,\" His hiding-place from the tyranny of circumstances\nand time; the way how always to be of good cheer, naturally yet also\nsupernaturally, not by a hard-won indifference to life, but by living,\namidst everything external, \"hidden with Christ in God.\"\n\nLet us approach the beloved pages once again.  They can never wear out;\nthere will always prove to be \"more to follow.\"  Perhaps we have loved\nand pondered them for long years ourselves.  Perhaps we have heard them\nexpounded by voices silent now, \"in days that never come again,\" in\nchambers or in churches which we seem still to see, but which in fact\nhave passed from us very far away.  The heart is full and the eyes are\nwet as we look back.  But the melancholy of the past has no permanent\nplace in Bible-study.  The Book is divine, immortal, and ever young.\nHe who was in it for our fathers is in it for us.  And since He is in\nit, as He is in no other literature in the world, (because no other\nliterature is His Word Written,) therefore it springs up to us ever\nnew; it is always contemporary with every generation of believers.\nEven so, come, Lord Jesus, and let us meet Thee in Thy Scripture now\nagain.\n\n\nA very simple \"Introduction\" will suffice for our present purposes.\nThese chapters make no pretension to be, in the technical sense,\ncritical.  I say next to nothing, for example, about the Authenticity\nand Genuineness of the Epistle.  Let me only remind the reader that\nfrom the early dawn of the literature of the Church we have\nunmistakable testimonies to its existence as an apostolic Scripture.\nIgnatius and Polycarp, quite early in the second century, shew us that\nthey have read it.  A little later, in the \"Epistle of the Churches of\nLyons and Vienne\" (A.D. 177),[1] it is quoted.  Clement of Alexandria,\nand Irenaeus, and Tertullian, all in the second century, use it as \"the\nsword of the Spirit\" to assert truth and confute error.  So it floats\ndown into the broad stream of the patristic literature at large.  Not\ntill the rise of an ultra-sceptical criticism in quite modern times was\nPhilippians ever seriously questioned as the work, in its integrity, of\nSt Paul.  And Baur's objections, all due to an _a priori_ theory, not\nto an impartial literary enquiry, have been repudiated even by critics\neven less orthodox than himself: Renan, for example.  It is quite as\ncertain, in a literary sense, that in Philippians we have the very\nwords and heart of St Paul as that we have Addison in the papers signed\nC. in the _Spectator_, or Erasmus in the correspondence with Colet.\n\nAnd what a thought of strength and joy this is to the believer of our\nlatter day!  _Littera scripta manet_.  How impressive is the permanence\nof every written reflexion of the mind, and of the life!  Who has not\nfelt it, even in the reading of a private letter to himself, written\nyears and years ago?  We have St Paul speaking to us in this indelible\npage as really as if we were seated with him in \"his own hired house,\"\nand were _listening_ as he dictates to the friend beside him.  And as\nwe recollect this, we reflect that all he is saying, all he has thus\nleft written, is just so much testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ,\ncontemporary, direct, inspired.  When the words we are about to read\nwere written, scarcely thirty years had passed away since the Son of\nMan died outside the gate of Jerusalem, and rose again.  Perhaps my\nreader cannot look back over thirty years, perhaps not over twenty,\nwith conscious memory.  But I can; and beyond the thirty I can see a\nlong vista of the still earlier past.  Thirty years ago[2];--at that\ntime the great conflict between Austria and Prussia was preparing, the\nissue of which was so long a step towards the unification of Germany.\nI was then a master in a public school.  The discussions of the\nimpending war in our common-room, and the men who joined in them, are\nvery present still to my mind; certainly not the faintest haze of\nmythical change or disproportion has had time to gather over those\nscenes in the interval.  With some differences, no doubt, the world of\nthis day is yet essentially the same as the world of that day; I\ncertainly still, in my whole personal consciousness, am the man of that\nday, only somewhat developed in experience.  Well, what the date of the\nbattle of Sadowa (Koeniggratz) is to me, such was the date of the\nCrucifixion to St Paul, when he wrote from Rome to his dear converts at\nPhilippi.  And I venture to say that, while St Paul's tone about the\nLord of Calvary is of course immeasurably different in the highest\nrespects from what mine might be had I to speak of the makers of\nEuropean history of 1866, it is in one respect just the same.  It is as\ncompletely free from the tone of legend unreality, uncertainty.  With\nthe same entire consciousness of matter of fact with which I might\nwrite of the statesmen or generals of my early manhood, he writes of\nOne who, in _his_ early manhood, overcame death by death, and \"shewed\nHimself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs.\"\n\nOnly, there is this wonderful difference; that for St Paul the Jesus\nChrist of recent history is absolutely One with the Jesus Christ of his\npresent spiritual experience.  The Man of the Cross is also, for him,\nthe Lord who is exalted to the throne of heaven, and is also so related\nto the writer that Paul is \"in Christ Jesus,\" with a proximity and\nunion which enters into everything.  \"In Him\" are included the very\nactions of the disciple's mind and the experiences of his heart.  He is\nthe Lord who lives in the inmost being of His servant, and who yet is\nalso expected to return from the heavens, to transfigure the servant's\nvery body into glory.  The Christ of history, the Christ of the\nsoul--it was \"this same Jesus\" then; it is \"this same Jesus\" now.\n\n  \"Can length of years on God Himself exact,\n  Or make that fiction which was once a fact?\n  Fix'd in the rolling flood of endless years\n  The pillar of the eternal plan appears;\n  The raging storm and dashing wave defies,\n  Built by that Architect who built the skies.\" [3]\n\n\nFor me and for my reader may the two aspects of \"this same Jesus,\" the\nhistorical and the spiritual, ever combine in one mighty harmony of\ncertainty; faith's resting-place to the end, \"the rock of our heart,\nand our portion for ever\"; at once our peace and our power, in life and\nin death, and through the eternal day also, in which we shall need Him\nstill in the experiences of heaven.\n\n\nWhat shall we say of the place to which the Epistle was sent, and of\nthat from which it was written; and of the writer, the bearer, the\nreaders; and of the occasion and the time?\n\nPhilippi now, so travellers tell us, is a scene of beautiful and silent\nruin.  Near the head of the fair Archipelago, amidst scenery of\nexquisite beauty, near the range of Pangaeus, now Pirnari, on the banks\nof the quiet Gangas, lie the relics of the once busy city, visited only\nby the herdsman and the explorer.  By it or through it ran a great road\nfrom West to East, called by the Romans the Egnatian Way.  The double\nbattle of Philippi, B.C. 42, when the Oligarchy fell finally before the\nrising Empire, made the plain famous.  Augustus planted a _colonia_ in\nthe town.  It thus became a miniature Rome, as every \"colony\" was.  It\nhad its pair of petty consuls (_duumviri_; the _strategoi_ of Acts xvi.\n20) and their lictors (A.V. \"serjeants,\" _rhabdouchoi_).  And it\nfaithfully reproduced Roman pride in the spirit of its military\nsettlers.  It had its Jewish element, as almost every place then had;\nbut the Jews must have been few and despised; their place of worship\nwas but a \"prayer-house\" (_proseuche_), outside the walls, on the\nriver's bank (Acts xvi. 13).  We need not recount in detail the history\nof the first evangelization (A.D. 52) of the difficult place.  We\nrecollect sufficiently the address to the pious Jewesses and\nproselyte-women in the \"prayer-house\"; the conversion and baptism of\nLydia; the rescue of the poor girl possessed with the \"spirit of\nPytho\"; the tumult, and the trial before the duumvirs; the scourge, the\ninner prison, the hymn at midnight, the earthquake, and the salvation\nof the jailor's life and soul; the message sent through the lictors in\nthe morning, then the respectful approach of the magistrates\nthemselves, and the retirement of the Missionaries \"to another city,\"\nalong the Egnatian road.  It is enough now to remember, what the very\nexistence of the Epistle reveals to us, the growth and life of the\nlittle mission-church planted amidst such storms, and in a climate, so\nto speak, full of possible tempests at any hour.  In the Epistle, we\narrive at a date some nine years later than the first visit of St Paul.\nTwice during that period, and perhaps only twice, we find him at\nPhilippi again; late in A.D. 57 (Acts xx. 1) and early (it was the\nsweet spring, the Passover time) in A.D. 58; this last may have been a\nvisit arranged on purpose (in Lightfoot's words: _Philippians_, p. 60)\n\"that he might keep the Paschal feast with his beloved converts.\"  No\ndoubt, besides these personal visits, Philippi was kept in contact with\nits Missionary between A.D. 52 and A.D. 61 by messages and by the\noccasional visits of the Apostle's faithful helpers.  But on the whole\nthe Church would seem in a very large degree to have been left to its\nown charge.  And what do we find as the issue when we come to the\nEpistle?  A community large enough to need a _staff_ of Christian\nministers, \"bishops and deacons,\" \"overseers and working-helpers\"\n(_episkopoi kai diakonoi_); full of love and good works; affectionately\nmindful of St Paul in the way of practical assistance; and apparently\nshewing, as their almost only visible defect or danger, a tendency to\nseparate somewhat into sections or cliques--a trouble which in itself\nindicates a considerable society.  If we may (as we may, looking at the\nordinary facts of human nature) at all estimate the calibre of\nPhilippian Christianity by the tone in which the Apostle addresses the\nPhilippians, we gather that on the whole it was a high tone, at once\ndecided and tender, affectionate and mature.  The converts were capable\nof responding to a deep doctrinal teaching, and also to the simplest\nappeals of love.  Such was the triumph of the mysterious Gospel over\nplace, and circumstance, and character; the lily flowered at its\nfairest among the thorns; grace shone and triumphed in the immediate\npresence of its \"adversaries.\"\n\nBut the evil we indicated just above was present in the otherwise happy\nscene.  When Epaphroditus crossed the mountains and the sea to carry a\ngenerous gift of money to St Paul, risking his life (ii. 27) somehow by\ndangerous sickness in the effort, he had to carry also news of\ndifferences and heart-burnings, which could not but cloud the Apostle's\nloving joy.  The envoy found it needful to speak also of the emissaries\nof error who at Philippi, as everywhere, were troubling the faith and\nhope of the believers; \"turning the grace of God into lasciviousness\";\nprofessing a lofty spirituality, and worshipping their appetites all\nthe while.  And side by side with them, apparently, might be found\nPharisaic disputants of an older type (iii. 3, 18, etc.).\n\nSuch was the report with which Epaphroditus found his way from\nMacedonia to Rome.  Where, in Rome, did he find St Paul, and at what\nstage of his Roman residence?  Our answer must begin with affirming the\nconviction that it _was_ to Rome, not elsewhere, that Epaphroditus\nwent.  The reader is aware that the Epistle itself names no place of\norigin; it only alludes to a scene of _imprisonment_.  And this does\nnot of itself decide the locality; for at Caesarea Stratonis, in\nPalestine, as well as at Rome, St Paul spent two years in captivity\n(Acts xxiv. 27).  Some modern critics have favoured the date from\nCaesarea accordingly.  They have noticed e.g. the verbal coincidence\nbetween Herod's _praetorium_ (A.V. \"judgment-hall\") of Acts xxiii. 35,\nand the _praetorium_ (A.V. \"palace\") of Phil. i. 13.  But Lightfoot[4]\nseems to me right in his decisive rejection of this theory and unshaken\nadherence to the date from Rome.  He remarks that the oldest Church\ntradition is all for Rome; that the Epistle itself evidently refers to\nits place of origin as to a place of first-rate importance and extent,\nin which any advance of the Gospel was a memorable and pregnant event;\nand that the allusion to \"Caesar's household\" (though it is not so\nquite decisive as it might at first sight appear to be) \"cannot without\nmuch straining of language and facts be made to apply to Caesarea.\"\n\nIf now the Epistle was written from Rome, during the \"two whole years\"\nof Acts xxviii. 30, at what point in that period may we think that the\nwriting fell?  Here again is a problem over which much thought and\nlabour has been spent.  A majority of opinions no doubt is in favour of\na date towards the end of the imprisonment, so that Philippians would\nfollow after Colossians and Ephesians.  It is held that (1) the tone of\nthe Epistle betokens the approach of a closing crisis for St Paul; and\nthat (2) it seems to indicate an already developed Christian mission\nwork at Rome, as if St Paul had worked there some while; and that (3)\nEpaphroditus' visit cannot be adjusted with any probability if we do\nnot allow a good time for previous communications between Rome and\nPhilippi.  But here again Lightfoot's view commends itself to my mind\ndecisively.  He holds that Philippians was _the first_ of the \"Epistles\nof the Captivity,\" and was written perhaps within the first few months\nof the \"two whole years.\"  Two of his reasons seem adequate of\nthemselves to make this likely.  The first is, that St Paul's allusion\nto the profound _impression made on the Roman Christians_ by his \"bonds\nin Christ\" (i. 13, 14) goes well with the hypothesis of his recent\narrival as a prisoner for Christ's sake, but not with that of his\nhaving been long present on the scene.  The other is that the great\ndoctrinal passage (iii. 4-9), where he repudiates \"his own\nrighteousness\" and commits himself to \"the righteousness which is of\nGod by faith,\" is evidently akin to the group of Epistles to which\nRomans belongs; and that it seems more likely that the divine Inspirer,\nin His order of revelation, led His servant so to write while the\noccasion for the writing of Romans was still comparatively recent, than\nlong after, when the different (though kindred) sides of saving truth\ndealt with in Ephesians and Colossians had become prominent in his\nteaching.  With reason, I think, Lightfoot \"cannot attach any weight\"\nto the argument from Epaphroditus' visit, which may well have been\nplanned at Philippi before St Paul actually reached Rome, and planned\nthus early on purpose, so as to reach him promptly there with the\ncollected gifts of love.  Nor are the allusions to a probable impending\ncrisis in the trial before the Emperor important for the date; for\nquite early in the imprisonment it may well have seemed likely that the\ncase would be soon decided.  As for the comparatively advanced state of\nRoman Christianity, the Epistle to the Romans is evidence enough that a\nvigorous and extensive mission-church, however it was founded, existed\nat Rome some years before St Paul arrived.\n\nI will venture then to take it for granted that it was some time in\nA.D. 61, or at latest early in A.D. 62, that Epaphroditus came, with\nhis collection and his reports, and struggled through his illness, and\nthen prepared to return to Macedonia, carrying this precious Letter\nwith him.  We seem to see the scene as he converses day by day with St\nPaul, and as at length he takes his leave, in charge of this Message of\n\"faith and love.\"  We see a large chamber in one of those huge piles of\nbuilding, storey over storey, of which imperial Rome was full.  The\nwindow looks perhaps north-westward, up the stream of the Tiber,\ntowards the distant hills of which Soracte is the most prominent.  The\nsentinel, perhaps himself a convert to the Lord, sits motionless at a\nlittle distance, chained to the Apostle.  The saints pray, converse,\nand embrace; and then Epaphroditus descends to set out for Ostia, or\nfor Puteoli, on his way home to Philippi.\n\n\n\"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of the Lord\nendureth for ever.\"  The graves of the blessed ones who worked for the\nheavenly Master then are more than eighteen centuries old now.  But the\nLetter to Philippi is to-day as new as ever.  It is addressed to us,\nthat we too may \"believe, unto life everlasting,\" on \"that same Jesus.\"\n\n\n\n[1] Preserved by Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, ii.\n\n[2] Written early in 1896.\n\n[3] Cowper, _Conversation_.\n\n[4] _Philippians_ (ed. i.), p. 30, note.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Man, like the grass of morning,\n    Droops ere the evening hour;\n  His goodliness and beauty\n    Fade as a fading flower;\n  But who may shake the pillars\n    Of God's unchanging Word?\n  Amen, Himself hath spoken;\n    Amen,--thus saith the Lord.\n          BISHOP E. H. BICKERSTETH.\n\n\n\n\n_THE INTIMACY OF HUMAN HEARTS IN CHRIST_\n\n\n\n\"I learned without booke almost all Paules Epistles, yea and I weene\nall the Canonical!  Epistles, save only the Apocalyps.  Of which study,\nalthough in time a great part did depart from me, yet the sweete smell\nthereof I trust I shall cary with me into heaven.\"\n\n      BISHOP RIDLEY, 1555.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE INTIMACY OF HUMAN HEARTS IN CHRIST\n\nPHILIPPIANS i. 1-11\n\nThe Apostle and his converts one--The possible isolation of\nhearts--Union with and in Christ--Christ and the personality--Christ\nthe secret of intimacy--Is the secret ours?--Reserve in Christian\nintercourse\n\n\nLet us begin our verbal study of the Letter which Epaphroditus carried\nto Philippi.  We attempt first a translation of its first main section,\ninterspersed with an explanatory paraphrase.  This will be followed by\na brief meditation upon one of the main \"Lessons in Faith and Love\"\nsuggested by the section.\n\nVer. 1.  +Paul and Timotheus, bondservants of Christ Jesus, to all the\nholy ones+ in union with +Christ Jesus who are living at Philippi,\nOverseers, Workers, and all+.[1]\n\nVer. 2.  +Grace to you, and peace+--all the free favour of acceptance\nand of divine presence, and all the repose which it brings, within you\nand around you--from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,\n\nVers. 3, 4.  +I give thanks to my God+ (He is mine, as I am His) +over\nmy whole memory of you; always in each request of mine on behalf of you\nall forming and expressing+ (_poioumenos_[2]) +that+ (_ten_) +request\nwith joy+;\n\nVer. 5.  +on account of your participation with me in regard of the\nGospel+, your active co-operation with me, by prayer, by work, by\ngifts, in the Gospel work,\n\nVer. 6.  +from the first day up to this present.  For+ (the thought of\nyour long consistency suggests the assertion) +I am quite sure of just\nthis, that He who inaugurated+ (_enarkamenos_: the word has solemn,\nceremonial connexions) +in you the[3] good work will perfect it+, will\nevermore put His finishing touches to it (_epitelesei_), up to +Christ\nJesus' Day+, the Day of His promised Return, and of our glorification\nwith Him.  But this is by the way; I return to my joy and my\n\nVer. 7.  thanksgivings over you: +Even as it is just that I+, I above\nall men (_emoi_, emphatic, not _moi_), +should feel+ (_phronein_) +like\nthis over you all, on behalf of you all,[4] because of my having you in\nmy heart, as those who, alike in my imprisonment+ (_desmois_) +and in\nthe vindication and establishment of the Gospel+, the defence of it\nagainst its enemies, the developement of its truths and its power in\nthe believing, +are copartners, all of you, of my grace+; my grace, the\ngrace granted me, the glorious privilege of suffering and of doing as a\nMissionary of Christ.  Your loving, working sympathy has inextricably\nunited you and me, alike in my prison and in my apostolate.\n\nVer. 8.  Yes, I feel this in my inmost being.  +For God is my witness,\nhow I yearn+, as with a homesick affection (_epipothia_), +for you all,\nin the heart+ (_splagchna_) +of Christ Jesus+; for to His members His\nheart is as it were theirs; our emotions are, by the Spirit, in contact\nwith His.\n\nVer. 9.  +And+ what are those \"requests\" which I make for you with joy?\n+This is my prayer, that your love+, in the fullest Christian sense,\nbut above all in the sense of your love to one another, +may abound yet\nmore and more+ in the attendant and protective blessing of +spiritual\nknowledge+ (_epignosis_) and all needed\n\nVer. 10.  +discernment; so that+, amidst life's many temptations to\ncompromises of conviction or inconsistency of spirit, +you may test the\nthings that differ+ (_ta diapherona_), sifting truth and holiness from\ntheir counterfeits; +in order to be singlehearted+ (_eilikrineis_[5])\n+and without a stumbling-block+, such as error and inconsistency so\neasily lay in our further path, +against+, in view of, +Christ's Day+;\nso that when that Day dawns you may be found to be not servants whose\ntime has been half lost for their Lord's work and will, but\n\nVer. 11.  rather those +who have been filled with the fruit+ (_karpon_,\nnot _karpon_) of righteousness--the result, in witness and service, of\nyour reconciliation and renewal,[6] fruit which is borne +through Jesus\nChrist+, the Procurer and the Secret of your fruit-bearing life, to\n+God's praise and glory+, the true goal and end of all our blessings\nand of all our labours.\n\n\nSo the Letter opens; with greeting, with benediction, and then with an\noutpouring, of sympathies full at once of the warmest and tenderest\n_humanity_ and of the inmost secrets of divine truth and life.  It is a\npreamble beautifully characteristic not only of St Paul but of the\nGospel.  It illustrates from many sides the happy fact that there is\nnothing which so effectually opens human hearts to one another as the\nlove of Christ.  We are all sadly familiar with the possibilities of\nisolation between heart and heart.  Poets have written with eloquent\nmelancholy of our personalities as islands which lie indeed near\ntogether, but in an unfathomable ocean, over whose channels no boat has\never passed.  Schools of pessimistic thought have positively affirmed\nthat never really has one _ego_ found its way into another through the\nhermetic seal of individuality; all that we seem to know of others is\nbut the action of our own mind within itself, occasioned by a blind\ncollision with a something not itself, which we can strike upon but can\nnever really know.  Such lucubrations are artificial, not natural; a\ndistortion of mysterious facts, not an exposition of them; the result\nof an arbitrary selection from the data of our consciousness, and then\nthe treatment of the selection as if it were the whole.  Quite apart\nfrom the Gospel, the facts of human intercourse are full of evidence to\nwonderful and beautiful possibilities of insight and intercourse\nbetween human spirit and spirit.  But if we want to read the best\npossible negative to the gloomy dream of impenetrable isolation, we\nmust come to the Lord Jesus Christ.  We must make experiment of what it\nis, in Him, to know and love others who are in Him too.  Then indeed we\nshall find that we can, in the common possession of a living Lord who\ndwells in our hearts by faith, see as it were from heart into heart, in\nthe warm light of His presence.  We shall find how wonderful is the\nfriendship with one another to which the friends of Jesus are called,\nand for which they are enabled in Him.\n\n\"IN HIM\": those words are the key to this deep, tender, healthful\nunion, and as it were fusion, of souls.  We have the truth which they\nconvey prominent already in the Philippian Letter.  It is addressed\n(ver. 1) to \"the holy ones in Christ Jesus.\"  That is to say, it comes\nto men and women who, taken on their profession, assumed to be in fact\nwhat they were denoted to be in baptism, were separated from self and\nsin to God by their union in covenant and life with their Redeemer.  It\nregards them as personalities so truly annexed by Jesus Christ, in the\nmiracle of converting grace, so articulated spiritually into Him, that\nno language short of this wonderful \"in Him\" will worthily express\ntheir relation to Him.  Later (ver. 11), they are regarded as so united\nto Him that \"the fruit of righteousness\" which they are to bear in rich\nabundance is to be borne only \"_through_ Him\"; He, the Vine, is the one\npossible secret by which they, the branches, can possibly be productive\nof the sweet cluster of \"the fruit of the Spirit.\"  And between those\ntwo places comes a sentence (ver. 8) where, just in passing, in a mere\nallusion to his own experience, the Apostle takes for granted this\nprofound \"continuity with Christ\" in a peculiarly impressive way:\n\n\"I long after you all in the heart of Jesus Christ.\"  As we have seen\nabove, he regards himself (not as an Apostle but simply as a believer)\nas so \"joined unto the Lord\" that, if I may dare so to expand the\nphrase, the heart of Jesus Christ is the true organ and vehicle of his\nown regenerate emotions.  The whole Scripture, and particularly the\nwhole Pauline Scripture, assures us what this does _not_ mean.  It does\nnot mean the least suspension or distortion of the humanity or of the\npersonality of Paul.  It means no absorption of his _ego_, and nothing\nwhatever _un_-natural in either the nature or the exercise of his\naffections.  His \"homesick longing\" to see the dear Philippian people\nagain is quite as simple, natural, personal, as any longing he ever\nfelt in his boyhood for his home at Tarsus when he was absent from it.\nYes, but this personality, working so freely and truly in its every\nfaculty, is now, by the Holy Ghost, so put into spiritual contact with\nthe will and heart of Jesus Christ, who now \"dwells in it by faith,\"\nthat the whole action moves, so to speak, in the sphere, in the\natmosphere, of HIM.  The love which passes so freely through and out of\nthe believer to his brethren would not be what it is if the believer\nwere not \"in Christ.\"  He is still all himself; nay, he is more than\never himself, being in the Lord; for indeed that blessed union has a\ngenial and developing power upon its happy subject.  But such is that\npower that it deeply qualifies the mental and spiritual action of the\nbeing who enters into it; never violates but always qualifies.\n\nThe fact, the experience, of course transcends our analysis.  But it is\nnot beyond our faith, nor beyond our reception and inward verification.\n\n  \"Thy love, Thy joy, Thy peace,\n      Continuously impart\n      Unto my heart;\n  Fresh springs that never cease,\n      But still increase.\" [7]\n\n\nOur immediate purpose meanwhile is not to discuss the believer's union\nwith his Lord, but to remark on this one precious result of it, the\nopening of his inmost sympathies to the sharers of the same blessing.\nWe see that result displayed in all its brightness in this first\nparagraph of the Epistle; and we shall see it to the end.  In the\nparticular case of St Paul and the Philippians it was indeed a\nremarkable phenomenon.  Here on the one side was a man who, not very\nmany years before, had been the devotee of the Pharisaic creed, a creed\nwhich tended powerfully not to expand but to annihilate every sympathy\nwhich could touch \"the Gentiles.\"  Here on the other side were people\nwhose life and thought had been moulded in the proud political and\nnational ideas of a Roman _colonia_; no kindly atmosphere for the\ngrowth of affections which should be at once intense and comprehensive.\nBut these two unlikely parties are now one, in the strongest and most\nbeautiful union of thought and heart.  If we may use again a word\nventured just above, they are mutually (not confused but) fused\ntogether.  Their whole beings have come into living touch, not on the\nsurface merely but most of all in their depths.  An interchange of\nidea, of sympathy, of purpose has become possible between them in\nwhich, while self-respect is only deepened and secured, reserve is\nmelted away in the common possession of the life and love of Jesus\nChrist.  The Apostle writes to his friends as one whose whole soul is\nopen to them, is at their command.  His memory and reflexion are full\nof them.  He not only prays and gives thanks for them but delights in\ntelling them that he is doing so.  He says without difficulty exactly\nwhat he is sure of about them, and exactly what things he is asking for\nthem as yet more developed blessings.  Above all, the name of Him who\nis everything to himself and to them flows from his heart with a holy\nfreedom which is impossible except where the parties in religious\nintercourse are indeed \"one\" in Him.  Seven times in these eleven short\nverses \"Christ Jesus\" is explicitly named; as the writer's Possessor;\nas the Philippian saints' Life and Head; as the Giver to them, with His\nFather, of grace and peace; as the Lord of the longed-for \"Day,\" that\ndear goal of hope; as the mighty Sphere of regenerate family-love; as\nthe Cause and Condition of the Christian's fruitfulness for God.  His\npresence, as it were, moves in the whole message, in the whole\nintercourse of which the message is the expression.  Writer and readers\nperfectly \"understand each other,\" for they both know Christ, and are\nfound in Him.\n\nThe same divine Cause tends always to similar effects.  Unhappily it\ndoes not always act without obstruction--obstruction which need not be.\nThere are no doubt obstructions to its action which are inherent in our\nmortality; things which have to do really with physical temperament, or\nagain with external circumstances which we may be helpless to modify.\nBut the Cause, _in itself, tends always_ to the effects visible in this\nnoble passage of Christian affection.  The possession and knowledge of\nJesus Christ, in spirit and in truth, tends always, by an eternal law,\nto warm and open as well as to purify the human heart; to anchor it\nindeed immoveably to God, but also to suffuse it with a gracious\nsympathy towards man, and first and most of all towards man who is\nalso, in Christ, cognizant of the \"free-masonry\" of faith.\n\nLet this be our first main Lesson in Faith and Love in our Philippian\nstudies.  The section which we have traversed is full of points of\ninterest and importance otherwise; but this aspect of it is so truly\ndominant that we may rightly take it for the true message of the whole.\nLet us welcome it home.  Let us question ourselves, in presence of it,\nand before our Lord, first about our personal possession of the Cause,\nand then about our personal manifestation of the effects.  Let us put\nto our own hearts some very old-fashioned interrogations: _Am I indeed\nin Jesus Christ?  Is He to me indeed Possessor, Lord, Giver of grace\nand peace?  Is my life so lived and my work so done in contact with Him\nthat through Him, and not merely through myself, \"my fruit is found\"?\nIs His promised Day the goal and longing of my heart, as I submit\nmyself to Him that He may perfect His work in me by the way, and watch\nover myself that I may meet Him single-hearted and \"without offence\" at\nthe end?  Is He the pervading and supreme Interest of my life?  Is He\nthe inward Power which colours my thought and gives direction and\nquality to my affections?_\n\nNo answer which a heart fully wakeful to God can give to such\ndeliberate inward questionings can possibly be an easy or\n\"light-hearted\" answer.  The gladdest and most thankful utterance of\nsuch a heart will carry along with it always the prayer, \"Search me, O\nGod, and try my heart\"; \"Enter not into judgment with Thy servant.\"\nYet we are assuredly meant, if we are in Christ, so to know the fact as\nto rejoice in it, and to be strong in it; we are invited, without a\ndoubt, so to know Him as to know we know Him, and to find in Him \"all\nour salvation, and all our desire.\"  Let us not rest till, in great\nhumility but with perfect simplicity, we so see Him as to leave behind\nour doubts about our part and lot in Him, and, \"believing, to rejoice.\"\n\nAnd then let us covet the developement of those results of possession\nof Christ, of union with Christ, which we have specially studied in the\nopening section of our Epistle.  Let us welcome the Lord in to \"the\nsprings of thought and will,\" with the conscious aim that He should so\nwarm and enrich them with His presence that they shall overflow for\nblessing around us, in the life of Christian love.  I do not mean for a\nmoment that we should set ourselves to construct a spiritual mannerism\nof speech or of habit.  The matter is one not of manufacture but of\nculture; it is a call to \"nourish and cherish\" the gift of God which is\nin us, and to give to it the humble co-operation of our definite wish\nand will that it may be _manifested_ in the ways commended in His Word.\nIt is a call to desire and intend to \"_adorn_ the doctrine of God our\nSaviour,\" in the outcoming of His presence in us in our tone, temper,\nand converse, towards those around us, and especially where we know\nthat a common faith and common love do subsist.\n\nIf I mistake not, there is far too little of this at present, even in\ntrue Christian circles.  A  certain  dread of \"phraseology,\"  of\n\"pietism,\" of what is foolishly called \"goody-goody,\" has long been\nabroad; a grievously exaggerated dread; a mere parody of rightful\njealousy for sincerity in religion.  Under the baneful spell of this\ndread it is only too common for really earnest Christians to keep each\nother's company, and even to take part in united religious work, and to\nbe constantly together as worshippers, aye, perhaps as ministers of the\nWord and Ordinances of Christ, and yet never, or hardly ever, to\nexchange a word about HIM, heart to heart; still less to \"speak often\none to another,\" and share fully together their treasures of experience\nof what He is and what He has done for them.  The very dialect of the\nChristian life has greatly lost in holy depth and tenderness, so it\nseems to me, since a former generation in which this over-drawn fear\n(it is a mere fashion) of \"phraseology\" was less prevalent.  It ought\nnot so to be.\n\nLet us each for himself come closer to our eternal FRIEND, converse\nmore fully with Him, \"consider HIM\" much more than many of us do.  And\nthen we too shall discover that \"our mouth is opened, our heart\nenlarged,\" for holy converse with our fellow-servants, in that\nwonderful interchange of souls which is possible \"in the heart of Jesus\nChrist.\"\n\n\n  \"Oh days of heaven, and nights of equal praise,\n  Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days,\n  When souls, drawn upwards in communion sweet,\n  Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat;\n  Discourse, as if releas'd and safe at home,\n  Of dangers past and wonders yet to come,\n  And spread the sacred treasures of the breast\n  Upon the lap of covenanted rest.\" [8]\n\n\n\n[1] _Sun episcopois kai diakonois_.  I render the words as literally as\npossible, not to discredit the distinctive functions of the Christian\nministry, but to remind the reader of the natural origin of the titles\nby which Christian ministers are designated.  And it is important here\nto remember that our word _bishop_, while derived from _episkopos_,\ncannot properly translate it _as it is used in the New Testament_.  For\n_episkopos_ is not used there as the special title of a superintendent\npastor set over other pastors.  Such superintendents, however the\noffice originated, are found in the New Testament, and early in the\nsecond century are called distinctively _episkopoi_: but the term so\nused is later, on any theory, than the origin of the office.  But I do\nnot purpose in these devotional chapters to discuss at length such a\nquestion as that raised here.  The reader should by all means consult\nBishop Lightfoot's Excursus in his Commentary on this Epistle, _The\nChristian Ministry_.  The views advanced in that essay were, as I\npersonally know, held by the writer to the last.\n\n[2] The middle suggests a certain fulness of action.\n\n[3] I think the definite article should be supplied in English; the\nreference is to the work of works.\n\n[4] I give both the possible renderings of _huper_.  Both would\ncertainly be in place, as he thought of them and prayed and gave thanks\nfor them.\n\n[5] The derivation is doubtful, but the idea of the word in usage is\nclearness, freedom from complication.\n\n[6] With some hesitation I assign to _dikaiosune_ here the meaning of\nthe righteousness of justification, as in iii. 9.\n\n[7] F. R. Havergal.\n\n[8] Cowper, _Conversation_.\n\n\n\n\n_THE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES_\n\n\n\n  \"Yield to the Lord, with simple heart,\n  All that thou hast and all thou art,\n  Renounce all strength but strength divine,\n  And peace shall be for ever thine.\"\n        MME DE LA MOTHE GUYON, _translated by_ COWPER.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES\n\nPHILIPPIANS i. 12-20\n\nDisloyal \"brethren\"--Interest of the paragraph--The victory of\npatience--The Praetorian sentinel--Separatism, and how it was met--St\nPaul's secret--His \"earnest expectation\"--\"Christ magnified\"--\"In my\nbody\"\n\n\nSt Paul has spoken his affectionate greeting to the Philippians, and\nhas opened to them the warm depths of his friendship with them in the\nLord.  What he feels towards them \"in the heart of Christ Jesus,\" what\nhe prays for them in regard of the growth and fruit of their new life,\nall has been expressed.  It is time now to meet their loving anxieties\nwith some account of his own position, and the circumstances of the\nmission in the City.  Through this passage let us follow him now; we\nshall find that the quiet picture, full of strong human interest in its\ndetails, is suffused all over with the glory of the presence and the\npeace of Christ.\n\n\nVer. 12.  +Now I wish you to know, brethren, that my position and\ncircumstances+ (_ta kat eme_, \"_the things related to me_\") +have come\nout+, have resulted, +rather for the progress of the Gospel+ message\nand enter-\n\nVer. 13.  prise, than otherwise; +so that my bonds+, my imprisonment,\nwith its _custodia militaris_, +are become unmistakable+ (_phanerous_)\nas being +in Christ+; as due to no social or political crime, but to\nthe name and cause of the Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world.\nThis is the case in the +whole Praetorium+,[1] in all ranks of the\nImperial Guard, +and among other people in general+ (_tois loipois\npasi_[2]).  And\n\nVer. 14.  another result is[3] +that the majority+ (_tous plaionas_)\n+of the brethren in the Lord+, the converts of the Roman mission,\n+feeling a new confidence in connexion with my bonds+,[4] animated by\nthe fact of my imprisonment, realizing afresh the glory of the cause\nwhich makes me happy to suffer, +venture more abundantly+, more\nfrequently, more openly, +fearlessly to speak the Word+, the message of\nChrist, of the Cross, of Truth, of Life.  There is a drawback in this\n\nVer. 15.  welcome phenomenon: +some indeed actually+ (_kai_) +for envy\nand strife, while others as truly+ (_kai_) +for goodwill, are\nproclaiming the Christ+.  The latter[5]\n\nVer. 16.  are at work thus +from+ motives of love, love to the Lord and\nto me His captive Messenger, +knowing+ that on purpose +for the\nvindication+ (_apologian_) +of the Gospel I am posted+ (_keimai_, as a\nsoldier, fixed by his captain's order) here.  The former from\n\nVer. 17.  motives of +faction+, partizanship (_eritheia_) in a\nself-interested propaganda of their own opinions, +are announcing the\nChrist, not purely, thinking+ and meaning +to raise up+ (_egeirein_, so\nread) +tribulation for+ me in +my bonds+; as so easily they can do, by\ndetaching from me many converts who would otherwise gather round me,\nand generally by the mortifying thought of their freedom and activity\nin contrast to my enforced isolation.  Shall I give way to the trial,\nand lose patience and peace?  Must I?  Need\n\nVer. 18.  I?  Nay; +what matters it+ (_ti gar_)?  Is not the fiery\narrow quenched in Christ for me?  Is it not thus nothing to me?\nYes--yet not nothing, after all; for it brings a gain; it spreads the\nGospel so much further; so that to my \"What matters it?\"  I may add,\n+Only, in every way+, fair or foul, +Christ is being announced; and in\nthis I rejoice, aye, and rejoice I shall+; the future can only bring me\nfresh reasons for a joy which lies wholly in the triumphs of my Lord,\nand can only bring fresh blessings to\n\nVer. 19.  me His vassal.  +For I know that I shall find+ (_moi_) this\nexperience +result in salvation+, in the access of saving grace to my\nsoul, +through your supplication+ for me, which will be quickened by\nyour knowledge of my trials, +and+ through a resulting +full supply+\n(_epichoregia_: the word suggests a supply which is ample) +of the\nSpirit of Jesus Christ+; a developed presence in me of the Holy Ghost,\ncoming from the exalted Saviour, and revealing Him, and applying Him.\nSuch blessing will be exactly\n\nVer. 20.  +according to my eager expectation+ (_apokaradokia_) and\nhope, that in no respect shall I be disappointed (_aiochunthesomai_:\nwith the \"shame\" of a miscalculation), +but that in all outspokenness+\n(_parresia_) of testimony, whether in word or deed, +as always, so also\nnow, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by means of life or\nby means of death+.\n\n\nThe passage is full of various points of interest.  It is interesting,\nas we saw in our first chapter, in regard of the historical criticism\nof the Epistle.  It gives a strong suggestion (I follow Lightfoot in\nthe remark) in favour of dating the Epistle early in the \"two years\" of\nActs xxviii.  For it implies that the fact of the Apostle's\nimprisonment was a powerful stimulant to the zeal of the Roman\nChristians; and this is much more likely to have been the case when the\nimprisonment was still a new fact to them, than later.  St Paul's\narrival and first settlement, in the character (totally new in Rome, so\nfar as we know) of a \"prisoner of Jesus Christ,\" would of itself give a\nquickening shock, so to speak, to the believing community, which had\nsuffered, so we gather, from a certain decadence of zeal.  But when he\nhad been some time amongst them, and the conditions of the \"hired\nhouse\" had become usual and familiar in their thoughts, it would be\notherwise; whatever else about St Paul might rekindle their ardour, the\nmere fact of his imprisoned state would hardly do so.\n\nThe passage is further interesting as it indicates one particular\ndirection of the Apostle's influence upon the pagans around him.  It\nwas felt, primarily, \"in all the Praetorium,\" that is to say, in the\nlarge circle of the Imperial Life-guards.[6]  We gather here, with\nreasonable certainty, that from the Life-guards were supplied, one by\none, \"the soldiers that kept him\" (Acts xxviii. 16); mounting guard\nover him in turn, and fastened to him by the long chain which clasped\nat one end the wrist of the prisoner, at the other that of the\nsentinel.  It needs only a passing effort of imagination to understand\nsomething of the exquisite trial to every sensibility which such a\ncustody must have involved, even where the conditions were favourable.\nLet the guardian be ever so considerate and civil, it would be a\nterrible ordeal to be literally never alone, night or day; and too\noften, doubtless, the guardian would be not at all complaisant.  To\nmany a man, certainly to any man of the refined mental and moral nature\nof St Paul, this slow fire of indescribable annoyance would be far\nworse to endure than a great and sudden infliction of pain, even to\ndeath.  It is a noble triumph of grace when such a test is well borne,\nand turned by patience into an occasion for God.  When Nicholas Ridley,\nfor a long year and a half (1554-5) was committed at Oxford to the\nvexatious domestic custody of the mayor and his bigoted wife, Edmund\nand Margaret Irish, it must have been nothing less than a slow torture\nto one whose fine nature had been used for years to the conditions of\ncivil and ecclesiastical dignity and of a large circle of admirable\nfriends.  And it was a spiritual victory, second only to that of his\nglorious martyrdom (Oct. 16, 1555), when the close of that dreary time\nfound the once obdurate and vexatious Mrs Irish won by Ridley's life to\nadmiration and attachment, and also, as it would seem, to scriptural\nconvictions.[7]  But it was a still nobler result from a still more\npersistent and penetrating trial when St Paul so lived and so witnessed\nin the presence of this succession of Roman soldiers that the whole\nGuard was pervaded with a knowledge of his true character and position,\nevidently in the sense of interest and of respect.  It must have been a\ncourse of _unbroken_ consistency of conduct as well as of openness of\nwitness.  Had he only sometimes, only rarely, only once or twice,\nfailed in patience, in kindness, in the quiet dignity of the Gospel,\nthe whole succession of his keepers would have felt the effect, as the\nstory passed from one to another.  As a fact, the \"keeping power of\nChrist\" was always with him, and always used by him, and the men went\nout one after another to say that here was a prisoner such as never was\nbefore.  Here was no conspirator or criminal; his \"bonds\" were\nevidently (ver. 13) due only to his devotion to a God whom he would not\nrenounce, and whose presence with him and power over him were visibly\nshewn in the divine peace and love of his hourly life.\n\nWe can please ourselves if we will by imagining many a scene for the\nexercise of that influence.  Sometimes the Saint would be left much\nalone with the Praetorian.  Sometimes a long stream of visitors would\nflow in, and for a whole day perhaps the two would scarcely exchange a\nword; the Guardsman would only watch and listen, if he cared to do so.\nSometimes it would be a case where ignorant and ribald blasphemies\nwould have to be met in the power of the peace of God.  Sometimes a\nreally wistful heart would at once betray its presence under the Roman\ncuirass.  Perhaps the man would attack the Apostle with ridicule, or\nwith enquiries, after some long day of religious debate, such as that\nrecorded in Acts xxviii., and the silent night would see St Paul\nlabouring on to win this soul also.\n\n  \"These ears were dull to Grecian speech;\n    This heart more dull to aught but sin;\n  Yet the great Spirit bade thee reach,\n    Wake, change, exalt, the soul within:\n  I've heard; I know; thy Lord, ev'n He,\n  JESUS, hath look'd from heaven on me.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n  \"A Christian, yes--for ever now\n    A Christian: so our Leader keep\n  My faltering heart: to Him I bow,\n    His, whether now I wake or sleep:\n  In peace, in battle.  His:--the day\n  Breaks in the east: oh, once more pray!\" [8]\n\n\nThe passage before us is interesting again because of the light it\nthrows on the very early rise of a separatist movement in the Roman\nmission-church, and on the principles on which St Paul met it.\nExtremely painful and perplexing the phenomenon was, though by no means\nnew in its nature to St Paul, as we well know.  It was a trouble\naltogether from within, not from without.  The men who \"preached Christ\nof envy and strife\" bore evidently the Christian name as openly as\ntheir sincerer brethren.  They were baptized members of the community\nof the Gospel.  And their evangelization was such that St Paul was able\nto say, \"Christ is preached\"; though this does not mean, assuredly,\nthat there were no doubtful elements mingled in the preaching.  Now for\nthem, as for all the Roman Christians, he had every reason to regard\nhimself as the Lord's appointed centre of labour and of order.  There\nhe was, the divinely commissioned Apostle of Christ, at once the\nTeacher and the Leader of the Gentile Churches; only a few short years\nbefore he had written to these very people, in his inspired and\ncommissioned character, the greatest of the Epistles.  Yet now behold a\nseparation, a schism.  That such the movement was we cannot doubt.\nThese \"brethren,\" he tells us, carried on their missionary efforts in a\nway precisely intended to \"raise up trouble\" for him in his prison.\nThe least that they would do with that object would be not only to\nteach much that he would disapprove of, but to intercept intercourse\nbetween their converts and him; to ignore him altogether as the central\nrepresentative of the Church at Rome; to arrange for assemblies, to\nadminister Baptisms, to practise the Breaking of Bread, wholly apart\nfrom the order and cohesion which he would sanction, and which he had\nthe fullest right to enjoin.  All this was a great evil, a sin,\ncarrying consequences which might affect the Christian cause far and\nwide.  Is it not true that no deliberate schism has ever taken place in\nthe Church where there has not been grievous sin in the matter--on one\nside, or, on the other, or on both?\n\nYet how does the Apostle meet this distressing problem?  With all the\nlarge tolerance and self-forgetting patience which come to the wise man\nwho walks close to God in Christ.  No great leader, surely, ever prized\nmore the benefits of order and cohesion than did St Paul.  And where a\nfundamental error was in view, as for example that about Justification\nin Galatia, no one could meet it more energetically, and with a\nstronger sense of authority, than he did.  But he \"discerned things\nthat differ.\"  And when, as here, he saw around him men, however\nmisguided, who were aiding in the \"announcement\" of the Name and\nsalvation of Christ, he thought more of the evangelization than of the\nbreach of coherence, which yet most surely he deplored.  He speaks with\nperfect candour of the unsound spiritual state of the separatists,\ntheir envy, strife, and partizanship.  But he has no anathema for their\nmethods.  He is apparently quite unconscious of the thought that\nbecause he is the one Apostle in Rome grace can be conveyed only\nthrough him; that his authority and commission are necessary to\nauthenticate teaching and to make ordinances effectual.  He would far\nrather have order, and he knows that he is its lawful centre.  But \"the\nannouncement of Christ\" is a thing even more momentous than order.  He\ncannot stay to speak of that great but inferior benefit, while he\n\"rejoices, aye, and is going to rejoice,\" in the diffusion of the Name\nand salvation of the Lord.\n\nIt is an instructive lesson.  Would that in all the after ages the\nChurch had more watchfully followed this noble precedent!  The result\nwould have been, so I venture to hold, a far truer and stronger\ncohesion, in the long run, than we see, alas, around us now.\n\nWhat was the secret of this happy harmony of the love of order and the\ncapacity for tolerance in the mind of St Paul?  It was a secret as deep\nbut also as simple as possible; it was the Lord Jesus Christ.  Really\nand literally, Jesus Christ was the one ruling consideration for St\nPaul; not himself, his claims, position, influence, feelings; not even\nthe Church.  To him the Church was inestimably precious, but the Lord\nwas more.  And all his thoughts about work, authority, order, and the\nlike, were accordingly conditioned and governed by the thought, What\nwill best promote the glory of the Lord who loved us and gave Himself\nfor us?  If even a separatist propaganda will extend the knowledge of\nHIM, His servant can rejoice, not in the separatism, not in the unhappy\nspirit which prompted it, but in the extension of the reign of Jesus\nChrist in the human hearts which need Him.  Surely, even in our own\nday, with its immemorial complications of the question of exterior\norder, it will tend more than anything else to straighten the crooked\nplaces and level the rough places, if we look, from every side, on the\nglory of the blessed Name as our supreme and ruling interest.\n\nThis view of the supremacy of the Saviour in the thoughts of St Paul\nabout the Church leads us to a view, as we close, of that supremacy in\nall his thoughts about his own life.  Our paragraph ends with the words\nwhich anticipate a great blessing, a new developement of \"salvation,\"\nin the writer's soul, in answer to the believing prayers of the\nPhilippians; and then comes the thought that this result will carry out\nhis dearest personal ambition--\"that Christ may be magnified in my\nbody, whether by life or by death.\"  Let us take up those final words\nfor a simple study, before God.\n\n\"According to my eager expectation,\" my _apokaradokia_, my waiting and\nwatching, with outstretched head, for some keenly wished-for arrival,\nor attainment.  Such is this man's thought and feeling with regard to\nthe \"magnification\" of Christ through his life and death.  It is his\n\"hope,\" it is his absorbing \"expectation.\"  It is to him the thing with\nwhich he wakes up in the morning, and over which he lingers as he\nprepares to sleep at night.  It is the animating inner interest which\ngives its zest to life.  What art is to the ambitious and successful\npainter, what literature is to the man who loves it for its own sake\nand whose books have begun to take the world, what athletic toil and\ntriumph is to the youth in his splendid prime, what the fact of\nextending and wealth-winning enterprise is to the man conscious of\nmercantile capacity--all this, only very much more, is the\n\"magnification of Christ in his body\" to the prisoner who sits, never\nalone, in the Roman lodging.  It is this which effectually forbids him\never to find the days dull.  Its light falls upon everything; comforts,\ntrials, days of toil, hours of comparative repose, prospects of life,\nprospects of death.  It quickens and concentrates all his faculties, as\na great and animating interest always tends to do; it is always present\nto his mind as light and heat, to his will as rest and power.  It\nsecures for him the quiet of a great disengagement and liberty from\nselfish motives; it continually drives him on, with a force which does\nnot exhaust him (for it is from above) in the ambition and enterprise\nwhich is for Christ; giving him at once an impulse toward great and\narduous labours, and a patience and loving tact which continually\nadjusts itself to the smallest occasions of love and service.\n\nReader, this is admirable in St Paul.  But after all, the ultimate\nsecret of the noble phenomenon resides not in St Paul but in Jesus\nChrist.  \"It pleased God to reveal His Son in me\" (Gal. i. 15, 16).\nThe man had seen his Saviour with his whole soul.  And because of--not\nthe man who saw but--the Saviour who was seen, behold, the life is\nlifted off the pivot of self-will and transferred to that of \"the glory\nof God in the face of Jesus Christ.\"  The same \"revealing\" grace can\nlift us also.  We are not St Pauls; but the Jesus Christ of St Paul is\nabsolutely the same, in Himself, for us.  We will, in His name, place\nourselves in the way of His working, that He may so shew us His fair\ncountenance that we may _not be able not_ to live, quite really, for\nHim as the enthralling Interest of life.\n\nLet us look at the words again: \"That Christ may be _magnified_,\" may\nbe made great.  In what respect?  Not in Himself; for He is already\n\"all in all\"; \"filling all things\"; \"higher than the heavens.\"  Such is\nHe that \"no man knoweth the Son but the Father\"; the mind of Deity is\nalone adequate to comprehend His glory.  But He may be\nmagnified--relatively to those who see Him, or may see Him.  To eyes\nwhich find in Christ only a distant and obscure Object, however sacred,\nHe may be made to occupy the whole field of the soul with His love and\nglory.  As when the telescope is directed upon the heavens, and some\n\"cloudy spot\" becomes, magnified, a mighty planet perhaps, or perhaps a\nuniverse of starry suns; so it is when through a believer's life\n\"Christ is magnified\" to eyes which watch that life and see the reality\nof the power within.\n\nAh, have we not known such lives ourselves?  Has not the Lord been made\nvery near to us, and very luminous, in the face of father, mother,\nbrother, sister, friend, or pastor?  Have we not seen Him shining large\nand near us in their holy activities, and in their blessed sufferings,\nshedding His glory through all they were and all they did?  He has been\nmagnified to us by saints in high places, whose dignity and fame have\nbeen to them only so much occasion for the exercise of their \"ruling\npassion\"--the glory of Christ.  And He has been magnified to us also by\nsaints in comfortless cottages, imprisoned upon sick-beds in gloomy\nattics, but finding in everything an occasion to experience and to\nmanifest the power of their Lord.  May He make it always our ambition\nto be thus His magnifiers.  But may He keep it a really pure ambition.\nFor even this can be distorted into the misery of self-seeking; an\nambition not that Christ may be magnified, but that His magnifier may\nbe thought \"some great one\" in the spiritual life.\n\n\"In my _body_.\"  Because through the body, and only through it,\npractically, can we tell on others for the Lord.  Do we speak to them?\nDo we write to them?  Do we make home comfortable and happy for them?\nDo we \"meet the glad with joyful smiles and wipe the weeping eyes\"?  Do\nwe travel to those who want us?  Do we nurse them?  Do we think for\nthem?  All has its motives in the regenerate spirit, but all has its\neffect through the body.  Without brain, eyes, ears, lips, hands,\nfeet--how could we serve, how could we shine?  Our life would have no\narticulation to others, nor our death.\n\n\"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye\npresent _your bodies_ a living sacrifice.\"  So be it, for writer and\nfor reader.  Then blessed will be our life, as day by day brings\nceaseless occasions for the pursuit of our dear ambition--\"that Christ\nmay be magnified.\"\n\n--------\n\n*** _En holo to praitorio_ (ver. 13).--The word _praitorion_ occurs in\ne.g. Matt. xxvii. 27.  Acts xxiii. 35, in the sense of the residence of\na great official, regarded as _praetor_, or commander.  The A.V. here\nevidently reasons from such passages, and takes the word to mean the\nresidence at Rome of the supreme _praetor_, the Emperor; the\n_Palatium_, the vast range of buildings on the Mons Palatinus which has\nsince given a name to all \"palaces.\"  Bishop Lightfoot however has made\nit clear (_a_) that such a use at Rome, by Romans, of the word\n_Praetorium_ was probably not known; (_b_) that the word _Praetorium_\nwas a familiar word for the great body of the Imperial Life-guards; and\nthat it would probably be often so used by the (praetorian) \"soldiers\nwho kept him.\"  On the whole it seems clear that, at Rome, the word\nwould denote a body, not a place.  It never appears as a name for the\ngreat _camp_ of the Praetorians, outside Rome at the east.\n\n\n\n[1] See note at the end of this chapter.\n\n[2] The A.V. rendering \"in all other _places_\" is obviously due to the\nbelief that _praitorion_ signified a place, not a body of men.\n\n[3] I thus convey the force of _hoste_, across the break we have made\nin the original sentence.\n\n[4] Literally perhaps, \"relying on my bonds,\" as a new _ground_ for\ntheir assurance of the goodness of the cause.--It is possible to render\nhere, \"the brethren, _having in the Lord confidence_, are, in view of\nmy bonds, much more bold,\" etc.  But the rhythm of the Greek is in\nfavour of our rendering (which is essentially that of A.V. and R.V.).\n\n[5] I adopt here the order of the Greek clauses which is best attested.\n\n[6] See note at the end of this chapter.\n\n[7] I venture to refer to my book, _Bishop Ridley on the Lord's Supper_\n(Seeley), pp. 54, 55, 72.\n\n[8] See the close of the volume.\n\n\n\n\n_THE CHRISTIAN'S PEACE AND THE CHRISTIAN'S CONSISTENCY_\n\n\n\nO God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just\nworks do proceed; Give unto Thy servants that peace which the world\ncannot give; that both our hearts may be set to obey Thy commandments,\nand also that by Thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies\nmay pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus\nChrist our Saviour.  Amen.\n\n_The Second Collect at Evening Prayer_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN'S PEACE AND THE CHRISTIAN'S CONSISTENCY\n\nPHILIPPIANS i. 21-30\n\nHe will be spared to them--Spiritual wealth of the paragraph--Adolphe\nMonod's exposition--Charles Simeon's testimony--The equilibrium and its\nsecret--The intermediate bliss--He longs for their full\nconsistency--The \"gift\" of suffering\n\n\nVer. 21.  +For to me, to live is Christ+; the consciousness and\nexperiences of living, in the body, are so full of Christ, my supreme\nInterest, that CHRIST sums them all up; +and to die+, the act of\ndying,[1] +is gain+, for it will usher me in from an existence of\nblessing to an existence of more blessing still.  +But+\n\nVer. 22.  +if living+ on, +in the flesh+, be my lot; if the present\nsuspense issues in my being acquitted at the Roman tribunal, +this will\nprove to me+ (_touto moi_) +fruit of work+; it will just mean so much\nmore work for the Lord, and so much more fruit; I shall welcome it not\nas being the best thing in itself, as if I chose mortal life for its\nown sake, but because of its ceaseless opportunities for my Lord.  +And\nwhich+ alternative +I shall choose, I do not know+, I do not\n_recognize_ (_gnorizo_, as one who seeks to be sure of the face of\n\nVer.  23.  a friend amidst other faces).  +Nay+ (_de_), +I am held in\nsuspense on both sides+;[2] +my+ personal +desire being[3] in the\ndirection of departing+, striking my tent, weighing my anchor\n(_analysai_),[4] +and being with Christ+ (for this is what \"departing\"\nmeans for us Christians, on its other side); +for it is far, far\nbetter+, by far more preferable, _pollo mallon kreisson_--aye even than\na \"life in the flesh\" which \"is Christ\"!  +But+\n\nVer. 24.  then +the abiding by+ (_epimenein_) +the flesh+, the brave,\nfaithful, holding fast to the conditions of earthly trial, +is more\nnecessary+, more obligatory, more of the nature of duty as against\npleasure, +on account of you+, and your further need of me in the Lord.\nAnd +feeling+\n\nVer. 25.  +confident of this, I know that I shall remain+--aye +and\nshall remain side by side+ (_parameno_) +with you all+, as your\ncomrade, your helper, +in order to your progress and joy in your\nfaith+;[5] so as to promote your growth in the exercise of loyal\nreliance on your Lord, and in the deep joy which is the natural issue\nof such\n\nVer. 26.  reliance; +so that your exultation may be overflowing in\nChrist Jesus+, in your living union with Him, +in me+ (_en emoi_), \"in\"\nwhom you see a living example of your Lord's love, shewn to you +by\nmeans of my+\n\nVer. 27.  +coming back to you again+.  +Only+, whether I am thus\nactually restored to you or not, +order your life[6] in a way worthy of\nthe Gospel of Christ+ (above all, worthy of the unifying, harmonizing\npower of the Gospel); +so that whether coming and seeing you, or+\nremaining +absent, I may hear[7] about your circumstances+, your\ncondition, +that you are standing firm in One Spirit+,[8] in the power\nof the One Strengthener, and, +with one soul+, one life and love, the\nresultant of the One Spirit's work in you all, +wrestling side by\nside+, with enemies and obstacles, +for [9]the faith of the Gospel+,\nfor the maintenance and victory of that reliance which embraces\n\nVer. 28.  the truth of Christ; +and refusing to be+ (_me_) +scared out\nof that attitude in anything by your+ (_ton_) +opponents+, the\nunconverted world around you.  +Such+ (_hetis_) calm united courage +is\nto them an evidence+, a sure token, an omen, +of+ the +perdition+ which\nawaits the obstinate foes of holiness, +but to you of+ the +salvation+\nwhich awaits Christ's faithful witnesses.  +And this, this+ condition\nof conflict and courage, +is from God+; no mere blind result of\naccidents, but His purpose.\n\nVer. 29.  Yes, +because to you there has been granted[10] as an+ actual\n+boon--for the sake of Christ not only the believing on Him but also\nthe suffering for His sake+;[11] a sacred privilege when it is involved\nby\n\nVer. 30.  loyalty to such a Master!  So you will be +experiencing+[12]\n(_echontes_) +the same conflict in kind+ (_oion_) (as you wrestle side\nby side for your Lord against evil) +as that which you saw in me+, in\nmy case, when I was with you in those first days (Acts xvi.), _and_\nwhich _you now hear of in me_, as I meet it in my prison at Rome.\n\n\nThe translation of our present section is completed.  It has presented\nrather more material than usual for grammatical remark and explanation;\nconstructions have proved to be complex, contracted, or otherwise\nslightly anomalous; and points of order and emphasis have claimed\nattention.  But I trust that this handling of _the texture_ has only\nbrought more vividly into sight the holy richness and brightness of\n_the design_.  Sentence by sentence, we have been reading a message of\nthe first order of spiritual importance, as St Paul has spoken from his\nown experience of the Christian's wonderful happiness in life and\ndeath, and then, in his appeal to the Philippians, of the Christian's\npath of love and duty.\n\nLet us listen anew to each part of that precious message.\n\n\ni.  The Christian's Happiness in Life and Death.\n\nIn Adolphe Monod's volume of death-bed addresses, his _Adieux a ses\nAmis et a l'Eglise_, one admirable chapter, the second, is devoted to\nthe passage before us, Phil. i. 21-26.  From the borderland of eternity\nthe great French Christian looks backward and forward with St Paul's\nletter in his hand, and comments there upon this divine possibility of\n\"Happiness in Life and in Death.\"  \"The Apostle,\" he says, \"is asking\nhere which is most worth while for him, to live or to die.  Often has\nthat question presented itself to us, and perhaps we, like the Apostle,\nhave answered that 'we are in a strait.'  But I fear we may have used\nthe words in a sense far different from St Paul's.  When we have wished\nfor death, we meant to say, 'I know not which alternative I ought most\nto dread, the afflictions of life, from which death would release me,\nor the terrors of death, from which life protects me.'  In other words,\nlife and death look to us like two evils of which we know not which is\nthe less.  As for the Apostle, they look to him like two immense\nblessings, of which he knows not which is the better.  Personally, he\nprefers death, in order to be with Christ.  As regards the Church and\nthe world, he prefers life, in order to serve Jesus Christ, to extend\nHis kingdom, and to win souls for Him.  What an admirable view of life\nand of death!--admirable, because it is all governed (_dominiee_), all\nsanctified, by love, and is akin to the Lord Jesus Christ's own view of\nlife and death.  Let us set ourselves to enter into this feeling\n(_sentiment_).  Life is good; death is good.  Death is good, because it\nreleases us from the miseries of this life, but above all because, even\nwere life full for us of all the joys which earth can give, death bids\nus enter into a joy and a glory of which we can form no idea.  We are\nthen to consider death as a thing desirable in itself.  Let us not shun\nwhat serves to remind us of it.  Let all the illnesses, all the sudden\ndeaths, all that passes round us, remind us that for each one of us\ndeath may come at any moment.  But then life also is good, because in\nlife we can serve, glorify, imitate, Jesus Christ.  Life is not worth\nthe trouble of living for any other object.  All the strength we\npossess, all the breath, the life, the faculties, all is to be\nconsecrated, devoted, sanctified, crucified, for the service of our\nLord Jesus Christ.  This crucified life is the happy life, even amidst\nearth's bitterest pains; it is the life in which we can both taste for\nourselves and diffuse around us the most precious blessings.  Let us\nlove life, let us feel the value of life--but to fill it with Jesus\nChrist.  In order to such a state of feeling, the Holy Spirit alone can\ntransform us into new men.  But observe; it is not only that _our\nspirit_ must be sustained, consoled, fortified; _the Spirit of God_\nmust come to dwell in us.  We often set ourselves to work on ourselves,\nto set our spirit in order; this is well, but it is not enough.  We\nwant more.  Jesus Christ Himself must dwell in our hearts by the Holy\nSpirit.\n\n\"My friends, let us reflect upon the character of the promises of the\nGospel, and we shall see how far we are from possessing and enjoying\nthem.  May God open the heavens above our heads; revealing all to us,\nfilling us with all wisdom, granting us to see that even here below we\nmay attain to perfect joy, while looking forward to possess hereafter\nthe plenitude of bliss and of victory.  May He teach us how to gather\nup the blessings which the heavens love to pour upon the earth which\nopens to receive them.  And so may He teach us to know that if earth is\nable to bear us down and trouble us, it is unable to quench the virtues\nof heaven, to annul the promises of God, or to throw a veil, be it even\nthe lightest cloud, over the love with which God has loved us in Jesus\nChrist.\"[13]\n\n\"He being dead yet speaketh.\"  On his bed of prolonged and\ninexpressible sufferings Monod, called comparatively early to leave a\nlife and ministry of singular fruitfulness and rich in interests, found\nin Jesus the inexhaustible secret of this blessed _equilibrium_ of St\nPaul.  And what a cloud of witnesses have borne their testimony to that\nsame open secret, as the most solid while most supernatural of\nrealities!  As I write, the memory comes up before me of a beloved\nfriend and kinsman, my contemporary at Cambridge, called unexpectedly\nto die in his twenty-second year.  Life to him was full of the\nstrongest interests and most attractive hopes, alike in nature and in\ngrace.  He had no quarrel with life; it had poured out before him a\nrich store of social and mental blessings, and a large wealth of\nsurrounding love, and the Lord Jesus, taking early and decisive\npossession of the young man's heart, had only augmented and glorified,\nnot rebuked or stunted, every interest.  But a slight fever, caught in\nthe Swiss hotel, was medically mismanaged, and when perfect skill was\nsummoned in, it was too late.  His mother came to her son on his sofa\nto tell him that he was not only, as he knew, very poorly; he was about\nto die.  In a moment, without a change of colour, without a tremor,\nwithout a pause, smiling a radiant smile, he looked up and answered,\n\"Well, to depart and to be with Christ is far better!\"\n\nSo the young Christian passed away, exchanging life which was sweet for\ndeath which, because of the life it would reveal, was sweeter.  And\n\"the veterans of the King\" say just the same.  If ever a man enjoyed\nlife, with a vigorous and conscious joy, it was Simeon of Cambridge.\nAnd till the age of exactly seventy-seven he was permitted to _live_\nwith a powerful life indeed; a life full of affections, interests,\nenterprises, achievements, and all full of Christ.  Yet in that\nenergetic and intensely human soul \"the _desire_ was to depart and to\nbe with Christ.\"  It was no dreamy reverie; but it was supernatural.\nIt stimulated him to unwearied work; but it was breathed into him from\neternity.  \"I cannot but run with all my might,\" he wrote in the midst\nof his youthful old age, \"_for I am close to the goal_.\"\n\nIt is indeed a phenomenon peculiar to the Gospel, this view of life and\ndeath.  It is far more than resignation.  It is different even from the\n\"holy indifference\" of the mystic saints.  For it is full of warmth,\nand sympathy, and all the affections of the heart, _in both\ndirections_.  The man who is the happy possessor of this secret does\nnot on the one hand go about saying to himself that all around him is\n_maya_, is a dream, a phantasm of the desert sands counterfeiting the\nwaters and the woods of Eden.  He is as much alive in human life as the\nworldling is, and more.  He cordially loves his dear ones; he is the\nopen-hearted friend, the helpful neighbour, the loving and loyal\ncitizen and subject, the attentive and intelligent worker in his daily\npath of duty.  Time with its contents is full of reality and value to\nhim.  He does not hold that the earth is God-forsaken.  With his Lord\n(Ps. civ.), he \"rejoices in the works\" of that Lord's hands; and, with\nthe heavenly Wisdom (Prov. viii.), \"his delights are with the sons of\nmen.\"  But on the other hand, he does not banish from his thoughts as\nif it were unpractical the dear prospect of another world.  He is not\nfoolish enough to talk of \"other-worldliness,\" as if it were a selfish\nthing to \"lay up treasure in heaven,\" and so to have \"his heart there\nalso.\"  For him the present could not possibly be what it is in its\ninterests, affections, and purposes, if it were not for the revealed\ncertainties of an everlasting future in the presence of the King.  \"He\nfaints not,\" in the path of genuine temporal toil and duty, because \"he\nlooks at the things which are not seen.\"\n\nBut now, what is the secret of the equilibrium?  We saw in our last\nchapter what was the secret of the unruffled peace with which St Paul\ncould meet the exquisite trials occasioned by the separatist party at\nRome.  It was the Lord Jesus Christ.  And the secret of the far more\nthan peace with which here he meets the alternative of life and death\nis precisely the same; it is the Lord Jesus Christ.  He has no\nphilosophy of happiness; he has something infinitely better; he has the\nLord.  What gives life its zest and charm for him?  It is, that life\n\"is Christ.\"  What makes death an object of positive personal \"desire\"\nfor him, matched, let us remember, against a \"life\" with which he is so\ndeeply contented?  It is, that \"to depart\" is to be with Christ, which\nis \"far, far better.\"  On either side of the veil, Jesus Christ is all\nthings to him.  So both sides are divinely good; only, the conditions\nof the other side are such that the longed-for companionship of his\nMASTER will be more perfectly realized there.\n\nWe might linger long over this golden passage.  It would give us matter\nfor more than one chapter to unfold adequately, for example, its clear\nwitness to the conscious and immediate blessedness in death of the\nservants of God.  We may ponder long what it implies in this direction\nwhen we remember that its \"far, far better\" means \"better\" not than our\npresent life at its worst but than our present life at its holiest and\nbest; for, as we have observed already, it is \"far, far better\" than a\nlife here which \"is Christ.\"  Whatever mysteries attend the thought of\nthe Intermediate State, and however distinctly we remember that the\n_disembodied_ spirit must, as such, be circumstanced less perfectly\nthan the spirit lodged again in the body, \"the body of glory,\" yet this\nat least we gather here; the believer's happy spirit, \"departing\" from\n\"this tabernacle,\" finds itself not in the void, not in the dark, not\nunder penal or disciplinary pain, but in a state \"far, far better\" than\nits very best yet.  It is, in a sense so much better in degree as to be\nnew in kind, \"with Christ.\"\n\n\n  \"Yes, think of all things at the best; in one rich thought unite\n  All purest joys of sense and soul, all present love and light;\n  Yet bind this truth upon thy brow and clasp it to thy heart,\n  And then nor grief nor gladness here shall claim too great a part--\n  All radiance of this lower sky is to that glory dim;\n  Far better to depart it is, for we shall be WITH HIM.\" [14]\n\n\nii.  But even on this theme I must not linger now.  Not only because\n\"the time would fail me,\" but because we have to remember that _the\nmain_ incidence of the Apostle's thought here is not upon the\nblessedness of death but upon the joy of duty, the \"fruit of labour,\"\nin continued life.  He looks in through the gate, not to sigh because\nhe may not enter yet, but \"to run with all his might,\" in the path of\nunselfish service, \"because he is close to the goal\"--the goal of being\nwith Christ, to whom he will belong for ever, and whom he will serve\nfor ever, \"day and night in His temple.\"  He \"knows that he shall\nremain, and that, side by side with\" his dear converts at Philippi.\nAnd his \"meat is to do the will of Him that sent him, and _to finish_\nHis work.\"\n\nThe remainder of our chosen portion is altogether to this purpose.  He\nhas said enough about himself now, having just indicated how much\nChrist can be to him for peace and power in the great alternative.  Now\nhis thoughts are wholly at Philippi, and he spends himself on\nentreating them to live indeed, to live wholly for Christ; and to do so\nin two main respects, in self-forgetting unity, and in the recognition\nof the joy and glory of suffering.\n\n\"Only let them order their life in a way worthy of the Gospel of\nChrist.\"  \"_Only_\"; as if this were the one possible topic for him now.\nThis will content him; nothing else will.  He \"desires one thing of the\nLord\"--the practical holiness of his beloved converts; and he cannot\npossibly do otherwise, coming as he has just come from \"the secret of\nthe presence,\" felt in his own experience.  Will they be watchful and\nprayerful?  Will they renounce the life of self-will, and entirely live\nfor their Lord's holy credit and glory?  Will they particularly\nsurrender a certain temptation to jealousies and divisions?  Will they\nrecollect that Christ has so committed Himself to them to manifest to\nthe world that it is the \"only\" thing in life, after all, in the last\nresort, to be _practically_ true to Him?  Then the Missionary will be\nhappy; his \"joy will be fulfilled.\"\n\nWhat pastor, what evangelist, what worker of any true sort for God in\nthe souls of others, does not know something of the meaning of that\n\"only\" of the Apostle's?\n\nThen he passes, by a transition easy indeed in the case of the\nPhilippian saints, to the subject of suffering.  In that difficult\nscene, the Roman _colonia_, to be perfectly consistent, must mean, in\none measure or another, to suffer; it must mean to encounter\n\"adversaries,\" such open adversaries, probably, as those who had\ndragged Paul and Silas to the judgment seat and the dungeon, ten years\nbefore.  How were they to meet that experience, or anything resembling\nit?  Not merely with resignation, nor even with resolution, but with a\nrecognition of the joy, nay of the \"_gift_,\" of \"suffering for His\nsake.\"\n\nCircumstances infinitely vary, and so therefore do sufferings.  The\nMaster assigns their kinds and degrees, not arbitrarily indeed but\nsovereignly; and it is His manifest will that not all equally faithful\nChristians should equally encounter open violence, or even open shame,\n\"for His sake.\"  But it is His will also, definitely revealed, that\nsuffering in some sort, \"for His name's sake,\" should normally enter\ninto the lot of \"all that will live godly in Christ Jesus.\"  Even in\nthe Church there is the world.  And the world does not like the\nallegiance to Christ which quite refuses, however modestly and meekly,\nto worship its golden image.  To the end, pain must be met with in the\ndoing here on earth of the \"beloved will of God.\"\n\nBut this very pain is \"a gift\" from the treasures of heaven.  Not in\nitself; pain is never in itself a good; the perfect bliss will not\ninclude it; \"there shall be no more pain.\"  But in its relations and\nits effects it is \"a gift\" indeed.  For to the disciple who meets it in\nthe path of witness and of service for his Master amongst his fellows,\nit opens up, as nothing else can do, the fellowship of the faithful,\nand the heart of JESUS.\n\n\n\n[1] Observe the aorist infinitive, _to apothanein_, of _the crisis_,\ndying, contrasted with the present infinitive, _to zen_, of _the\nprocess, living_.--It may be noticed that the renderings of Luther,\n_Christus ist mein Leben_, and Tindale, _Christ is to me lyfe_, are\nuntenable, though expressing as a fact a deep and precious truth.  The\nApostle is obviously dealing with the characteristics, not the source,\nof \"living.\"\n\n[2] _Sunechomai_: literally, \"I am confined, restricted from the two\n(sides)\"; as if to say, \"I am hindered as to my choice, whichever side\nyou view me from.\"\n\n[3] Literally, \"having the desire\"; not \"a desire,\" which misses the\npoint of the words.  He means that his _epithymia_ lies in one\ndirection, his conviction of call and duty in the other.  _The_ desire,\nthe element of personal longing in him, is for \"departing.\"\n\n[4] The Vulgate renders here, _cupio dissolvi_, as if _analysai_ meant,\nso to speak, to \"analyse\" myself into my elements, to separate my soul\nfrom my body.  But the usage of the verb, in the Greek of the\nApocrypha, is for the sense given in our Versions, and above; to \"break\nup,\" in the sense of \"setting out.\"\n\n[5] Literally, \"your progress and joy of the faith.\"  The Greek\nsuggests the connexion of both \"progress\" and \"joy\" with \"faith.\"  And\nSt Paul's general use of the word _pistis_ favours its reference here\nnot to the objective _creed_ but to the subjective _reliance_ of the\nholder of the creed.\n\n[6] _Politeuesthe_: literally, \"live your citizen-life.\"  But in its\nusage the verb drops all _explicit_ reference to the _polites_, and\nmeans little more than \"live\"; in the sense however not of mere\nexistence, or even of experience, but of a course of principle and\norder.  See Acts xxiii. 1, the only other N.T. passage where it occurs;\nand 2 Macc. vi. 1, xi. 25.\n\n[7] The words suggest to us that the Apostle might have written, more\nfully and exactly, _hina ido_, _ean eltho_, _kai hina akouso_, _ean\napo_.  But it is best to retain in translation the somewhat lax\ngrammatical form of the Greek.\n\n[8] The parallels, 1 Cor. xii. 13, Eph. ii. 18, strongly favour the\nreference of _pneuma_ here to the Holy Spirit of God.\n\n[9] It is of course possible to translate _synathlountes te piotei_,\n\"wrestling side by side with the faith,\" as if \"the faith\" was the\nComrade of the believers.  But the context is not favourable to this;\nthe emphasis seems to lie throughout on the believers' fellowship _with\none another_.\n\n[10] _Echaristhe_: the English perfect best represents here the Greek\naorist.\n\n[11] The Greek may be explained as if the Apostle had meant to write,\n_echaristhn to uper Christou paschein_, and then freely inserted the\nantecedent fact of _to pioieuein_.\n\n[12] _Echontes_: the nominative participle takes us back grammatically\nto the construction previous to the sentences beginning _hetis eotin\nk.t.a._; which sentences may be treated as a parenthesis.  I have\nattempted to convey this in a paraphrase.\n\n[13] _Adieux_, ed. 1857, pp. 10-12.\n\n[14] From the writer's volume of verse, _In the House of the\nPilgrimage_.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Lord, we expect to suffer here,\n    Nor would we dare repine;\n  But give us still to find Thee near,\n    And own us still for Thine.\n\n  \"Let us enjoy, and highly prize,\n    These tokens of Thy love,\n  Till Thou shalt bid our spirits rise\n    To worship Thee above.\"\n          NEWTON.\n\n\n\n\n_UNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD_\n\n\n  \"Our glorious Leader claims our praise\n    For His own pattern giv'n;\n  While the long cloud of witnesses\n    Shew the same path to heav'n.\"\n          WATTS.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nUNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD\n\nPHILIPPIANS ii. 1-11\n\nDissensions incident to activity--Arguments for heart-union--\"No\nplunderer's prize\"--\"The name\"--The tone of the great passage--What the\n\"Kenosis\" cannot be--It guarantees the infallibility--Doctrine and\nlife--\"Only thou\"\n\n\nIn the section which we studied last we found the Apostle coming to the\nweak point of the Christian life of the Philippians.  On the whole, he\nwas full of thankful and happy thoughts about them.  Theirs was no\nlukewarm religion; it abounded in practical benevolence, animated by love\nto Christ, and it was evidently ready for joyful witness to the Lord, in\nface of opposition and even of persecution.  But there was a tendency\ntowards dissension and internal separation in the Mission Church; a\ntendency which all through the Epistle betrays its presence by the stress\nwhich the Apostle everywhere lays upon holy unity, the unity of love, the\nunity whose secret lies in the individual's forgetfulness of self.\n\nSuch dangers are always present in the Christian Church, for everywhere\nand always saints are still sinners.  And it is a sad but undeniable fact\nof Christian history that the spirit of difference, dissension,\nantagonism, within the ranks of the believing, is not least likely to be\noperative where there is a generally diffused life and vigour in the\ncommunity.  A state of spiritual chill or lukewarmness may even favour a\ncertain exterior tranquillity; for where the energies of conviction are\nabsent there will be little energy for discussion and resistance in\nmatters not merely secular.  But where Christian life and thought, and\nthe expression of it, are in power, there, unless the Church is\nparticularly watchful, the enemy has his occasion to put in the seeds of\nthe tares amidst the golden grain.  The Gospel itself has animated the\ndisciples' affections, and also their intellects; and if the Gospel is\nnot diligently used as guide as well as stimulus, there will assuredly be\ncollisions.\n\nAlmost every great crisis of life and blessing in the Church has shewn\nexamples of this.  It was thus in the period of the Reformation, the\nmoment the law of love was forgotten by the powerful minds which were so\nwonderfully energized as well as liberated by the rediscovery of eternal\ntruths long forgotten.  It was thus again in the course of the\nEvangelical Revival in the last century, when holy men, whose whole\nnatures had been warmed and vivified by a new insight for themselves into\nthe fulness of Christ, were betrayed into discussions on the mysteries of\ngrace carried on in the spirit rather of self than of love.  \"We that are\nin this tabernacle do groan, being burthened.\"  The words are true of the\nbelieving individual; they are true also of the believing Church.  That\nwhich is perfect is not yet come.  In the inscrutable but holy progress\nof the plan of God in redemption towards its radiant goal, it is\npermitted that temptation should connect itself with our very blessings,\nboth in the person and in the community.  And our one antidote is to\nwatch and pray, looking unto Jesus, and looking away from ourselves.\n\nIt was thus in measure at Philippi.  And St Paul cannot rest about it.\nHe plies them with every loving argument for the unity of love, ranging\nfrom the plea of attachment to himself up to the supreme plea of \"the\nmind that was in Christ Jesus\" when He came down from heaven.  He has\nbegun to address them thus already.  And in the wonderful passage now\nbefore us he is to develope his appeal to the utmost, in the Lord's name.\n\n\nVer. 1.  +If therefore+, in connexion with this theme of holy oneness of\nlove and life, +there is such a thing as comfort+, encouragement\n(_paraklesis_), +in Christ+, drawn from our common union with the Lord,\nif +there is such a thing as love's consolation+, the tender cheer which\nlove can give to a beloved one by meeting his inmost wish, +if there is\nsuch a thing as Spirit-sharing+,[1] +if there are such things as hearts+\n(_splagchna_, _viscera_) +and compassions+, feelings of human tenderness\nand attachment, through which I may appeal to you simply as a friend, and\na friend in trouble,\n\nVer. 2.  calling for your pity; +make full my joy+, drop this last\ningredient into the cup of my thankful happiness for you, and bring the\nwine to the brim, +by being[2] of the same mind+ (_phronma_, feeling,\nattitude of mind), +feeling+ (_echontes_) +the same love+, \"the same\" on\nall sides, soul and soul together (_sympsychoi_) +in a+\n\nVer. 3.  +mind which is unity itself+.[3]  +Nothing+ (_muden_, implying\nof course prohibition) +in the way of+ (_kata_) +personal or party\nspirit;[4] rather+ (_alla_), +as regards your+ (_tu_) +humblemindedness+,\nyour view of yourselves learnt at the feet of your Saviour, +reckon[5]\neach other superior to yourselves+; as assuredly you will do, with a\nlogic true to the soul, when each sees himself, the personality he knows\nbest, in the light of eternal holiness\n\nVer. 4.  and love.  +Not to your own+ interests +look+ (_skopountes_),\n+each circle of you, but each circle[6] to those+\n\nVer. 5.  +of others also.  Have this mind+ (_phroneite_) in +you+, this\nmoral attitude in each soul, +which+ was, and is,[7] +also in Christ\nJesus+, (in that eternal Messiah whom I name already with His human Name,\nJESUS; for in the will of His Father, and in the unity of His own Person,\nit was as it were His Name already\n\nVer. 6.  from everlasting,) +who in God's manifested Being[8]\nsubsisting+,[9] _seeming_ divine, because He _was_ divine, in the full\nsense of Deity, in that eternal world, +reckoned it no plunderer's\nprize[10] to be on an equality with God+;[11] no, He viewed His\npossession of the fulness of the Eternal Nature as securely and\ninalienably His own, and _so_ He dealt with it for our sakes with a\nsublime and _restful_ remembrance of others; far from thinking of it as\nfor Himself alone, as one who claimed it unlawfully would have done,\n\nVer. 7.  +He rather (_alla_) made Himself void by His own act+,[12] void\nof the manifestation and exercise of Deity as it was His on the\nthrone,[13] +taking[14] Bond-servant's+ (_doulou_) +manifested being+\n(_morphe_), that is to say, the veritable Human Nature which, as a\ncreaturely nature, is essentially bound to the service of the Creator,\nthe _bond_service of the Father; +coming to be+, becoming, _genomenos_,\n+in men's similitude+, so truly human as not only to be but _to seem_\nMan, accepting all the conditions involved in a truly human _exterior_,\n\nVer. 8.  \"pleased _as Man with men_ to appear.\"  +And+ then, further,\n+being found+, as He offered Himself to view, +in respect of guise+\n(_scheati_), in respect of outward shape, and habit, and address, +as\nMan+, He went further, He stooped yet lower, even from Humanity to Death;\n+He humbled Himself, in becoming obedient+,[15] obedient to Him whose\nBondservant He now was as Man, +to the length[16] of death, aye+ (_de_),\n+death of Cross+, that death of unimaginable pain and of utmost shame,\nthe death which to the Jew was the symbol of the curse of God upon the\nvictim, and to the Roman was a horror of degradation which should be \"far\nnot only from the bodies but from the imaginations of citizens of\nRome.\"[17]\n\nSo He came, and so He suffered, because \"He\n\nVer. 9.  looked to the interests of others.\"  +Wherefore also God+, His\nGod (_ho theos_), +supremely exalted Him+, in His Resurrection and\nAscension, +and conferred upon Him+, as a gift of infinite love and\napproval (_echarisato_), +the Name which is above every name+; THE NAME,\nunique and glorious; the Name Supreme, the I AM; to be His Name now, not\nonly as He is from eternity, the everlasting Son of the Father, but as He\nbecame also in time, the suffering and risen Saviour of sinners.[18]  In\nHis whole character and work He is invested now with the transcendent\nglory and greatness of divine dignity; every thought of the suffering\nManhood is steeped in the fact that He who, looking on the things of\nothers, came down to bear it, is now enthroned where only the Absolute\nand Eternal King\n\nVer. 10.  can sit; +so that in the Name of Jesus+,[19] in presence of the\nrevealed majesty of Him who bears, as Man, the human personal Name,\nJesus, +every knee should bow+, as the prophet (Isa. xlv. 23) foretells,\n+of things celestial, and terrestrial, and subterranean+, of all created\nexistence, in its heights and depths; spirits, men, and every other\ncreature; all bowing, each in their way, to the _imperium_ of the exalted\nJesus,\n\nVer. 11.  JEHOVAH-JESUS; +and that every tongue should confess+, with the\nconfessing of adoring, praising, worship (_exomologesetai_), +that Jesus\nChrist is+ nothing less than +Lord+, in the supreme and ultimate sense of\nthat mighty word, +to God the Father's glory+.  For the worship given to\n\"His Own Son\" (Rom. viii. 32), whose Nature is one with His, whose\nglories flow eternally from Him, is praise given to Him.[20]\n\n\nSo closes one of the most conspicuous and magnificent of the dogmatic\nutterances of the New Testament.  Let us consider it for a few moments\nfrom that point of view alone.  We have here a chain of assertions about\nour Lord Jesus Christ, made within some thirty years of His death at\nJerusalem; made in the open day of public Christian intercourse, and made\n(every reader must feel this) not in the least in the manner of\ncontroversy, of assertion against difficulties and denials, but in the\ntone of a settled, common, and most living certainty.  These assertions\ngive us on the one hand the fullest possible assurance that He is Man,\nMan in nature, in circumstances and experience, and particularly in the\nsphere of relation to God the Father.  But they also assure us, in\nprecisely the same tone, and in a way which is equally vital to the\nargument in hand, that He is as genuinely Divine as He is genuinely\nHuman.  Did He \"come to be in Bondservant's Form\"?  And does the word\nForm, _morphe_, there, unless the glowing argument is to run as cold as\nice, mean, as it ought to mean, reality in manifestation, fact in sight,\na Manhood perfectly real, carrying with it a veritable creaturely {98}\nobligation (_douleia_) to God?  But He was also, antecedently, \"in God's\nForm.\"  And there too therefore we are to understand, unless the\nwonderful words are to be robbed of all their living power, that He who\ncame to be Man, and to seem Man, in an antecedent state of His blessed\nBeing was God, and seemed God.  And His \"becoming to be\" one with us in\nthat mysterious but genuine Bondservice was the free and conscious choice\nof His eternal Will, His eternal Love, in the glory of the Throne.  \"When\nHe came on earth abased\" He was no Victim of a secret and irresistible\ndestiny, such as that which in the Stoic's theology swept the Gods of\nOlympus to their hour of change and extinction as surely as it swept men\nto ultimate annihilation.  \"_He made Himself_ void,\" with all the\nforesight and with all the freewill which can be exercised upon the\nThrone where the Son is in the Form of the Eternal Nature.  Such is the\nChristology of the passage in its aspect towards Deity.\n\nThen in regard of our beloved Lord's Manhood, its implications assure us\nthat the perfect genuineness of that Manhood, which could not be\nexpressed in a term more profound and complete than this same _morphe\ndoulou_, Form of Bondservant, leaves us yet perfectly sure that He who\nchose to be Bondservant is to us only all the more, even in His Manhood,\nLORD.  Was it not His own prescient choice to be true Man?  And was it\nnot His choice with a prescient and infallible regard to \"the things of\nothers,\" to \"us men and our salvation\"?  Then we may be sure that,\nwhatever is meant by the \"made Himself void,\" _heauton ekenosen_, which\ndescribes His Incarnation here, one thing it could never possibly\nmean---a \"Kenosis\" which could hurt or distort His absolute fitness to\nguide and bless us whom He came to save.  That awful and benignant\n\"Exinanition\" placed Him indeed on the creaturely level in regard of the\nreality of human experience of growth, and human capacity for suffering.\nBut never for one moment did it, could it, make Him other than the\nabsolute and infallible Master and Guide of His redeemed.\n\nWe are beset at the present day, on many sides, with speculations about\nthe \"Kenosis\" of the Lord which in some cases anyhow have it for their\nmanifest goal to justify the thought that He condescended to be fallible;\nthat He \"made Himself void\" of such knowledge as should protect Him from\nmistaken statements about, for example, the history, quality, and\nauthority of the Old Testament Scriptures.  I have said once and again\nelsewhere[21] that such an application of the \"made Himself void,\"\n_heauton ekenosen_, of this passage (from which alone we get the word\nKenosis for the Incarnation) is essentially beside the mark.  The Kenosis\nhere is a very definite thing, as we see when we read the Greek.  It is\njust this--the taking of \"Bondservant's Form.\"  It is--the becoming the\nabsolute Human Bondservant of the Father.  And the Absolute Bondservant\nmust exercise a perfect Bond-service.  And this will mean, amidst all\nelse that it may mean, a perfect conveyance of the Supreme Master's mind\nin the delivery of His message.  \"_He whom God hath sent, speaketh the\nwords of God_.\"  The Kenosis itself (as St Paul meant it) is nothing less\nthan the guarantee of the Infallibility.  It says neither yes nor no to\nthe question, Was our Redeemer, as Man, \"in the days of His flesh,\"\nomniscient?  It says a profound and decisive yes to the question, Is our\nRedeemer, as Man, \"in the days of His flesh,\" to be absolutely trusted as\nthe Truth in every syllable of assertion which He was actually pleased to\nmake?  \"_He whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God._\"\n\n\nThe dogmatic treasures of this wonderful passage are by no means\nexhausted, even when we have drawn from it what it can say to us about\nthe glory of the Lord Christ Jesus.  But it is not possible to follow the\nresearch further, here and now; this imperfect indication of the main\nteachings about Him must be enough.\n\nBut now, in closing, let us remember for our blessing how this passage of\ndidactic splendour comes in.  It is no lecture in the abstract.  As we\nhave seen, it is not in the least a controversial assertion.  It is\nsimply part of an argument to the heart.  St Paul is not here, as\nelsewhere in his Epistles, combating an error of faith; he is pleading\nfor a life of love.  He has full in view the temptations which threatened\nto mar the happy harmony of Christian fellowship at Philippi.  His\nlonging is that they should be \"of one accord, of one mind\"; and that in\norder to that blessed end they should each forget himself and remember\nothers.  He appeals to them by many motives; by their common share in\nChrist, and in the Spirit, and by the simple plea of their affection for\nhimself.  But then--there is one plea more; it is \"the mind that was in\nChrist Jesus,\" when \"for us men and for our salvation He came down from\nheaven, and was made Man, and suffered for us.\"  Here was at once model\nand motive for the Philippian saints; for Euodia, and Syntyche, and every\nindividual, and every group.  Nothing short of the \"mind\" of the Head\nmust be the \"mind\" of the member; and then the glory of the Head (so it\nis implied) shall be shed hereafter upon the member too: \"I will grant to\nhim to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down\nwith My Father in His throne.\"\n\nWhat a comment is this upon that fallacy of religious thought which would\ndismiss Christian doctrine to the region of theorists and dreamers, in\nfavour of Christian \"life\"!  Christian doctrine, rightly so called, is\nsimply the articulate statement, according to the Scriptures, of eternal\nand vital facts, that we may live by them.  The passage before us is\ncharged to the brim with the doctrine of the Person and the Natures of\nChrist.  And why?  It is in order that the Christian, tempted to a\nself-asserting life, may \"look upon the things of others,\" for the reason\nthat this supreme Fact, his Saviour, is in fact thus and thus, and did in\nfact think and act thus and thus for His people.  Without the facts,\nwhich are the doctrine, we might have had abundant rhetoric in St Paul's\nappeal for unselfishness and harmony; but where would have been the\nmighty lever for the affections and the will?\n\nOh reason of reasons, argument of arguments--the LORD JESUS CHRIST!\nNothing in Christianity lies really outside Him.  His Person and His Work\nembody all its dogmatic teaching.  His Example, \"His Love which passeth\nknowledge,\" is the sum and life of all its morality.  Well has it been\nsaid that the whole Gospel message is conveyed to us sinners in those\nthree words, \"Looking unto Jesus.\"  Is it pardon we need, is it\nacceptance, free as the love of God, holy as His law?  We find it, we\npossess it, \"looking unto Jesus\" crucified.  Is it power we need, victory\nand triumph over sin, capacity and willingness to witness and to suffer\nin a world which loves Him not at all?  We find it, we possess it, it\npossesses us, as we \"look unto Jesus\" risen and reigning, for us on the\nThrone, with us in the soul.  Is it rule and model that we want, not\nwritten on the stones of Horeb only, but \"on the fleshy tables of the\nheart\"?  We find it, we receive it, we yield ourselves up to it, as we\n\"look unto Jesus\" in His path of love, from the Throne to the Cross, from\nthe Cross to the Throne, till the Spirit inscribes that law upon our\ninmost wills.\n\nBe ever more and more to us, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Thy answer, to our\nboundless needs.  Let us \"sink to no second cause.\"  Let us come to Thee.\nLet us yield to Thee.  Let us follow Thee.  Present Thyself evermore to\nus as literally our all in all.  And so through a blessed fellowship in\nThy wonderful humiliation we shall partake for ever hereafter in the\nexaltations of Thy glory, which is the glory of immortal love.\n\n\n\n[1] _Koinunia pneumatos_: \"participation in the Spirit\"; sharing and\nsharing alike in the grace and power of the Holy Ghost.  I venture to\nrender _pneumatos_ as if it were _tou Pneumatos_, having regard to the\ngreat parallel passage, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, _he koinonia tou hagiou\nPneumatos_.  With a word so great and conspicuous as _pneuma_ it is\nimpossible to decide by the mere absence of the article that the\nreference is not to _the_ (personal) Spirit.  _Kurios_, _Theos_,\n_Christos_, are continually given without the article where the reference\nis definite; because they are words whose greatness tends of itself to\ndefine the reference, unless context withstands.  _Pneuma_ in the N. T.\nis to some extent a parallel case with these.\n\n[2] _Ina_ . . . _phronute_: my English is obviously a mere paraphrase\nhere.  More exactly we may render, \"make full my joy, so as to be,\" etc.;\nwords which come to much the same effect, but are less true to our common\nidioms.\n\n[3] _To en phronountes_: a difficult phrase to render quite adequately.\nWe may paraphrase it either as above, or, \"possessed with the idea, or\nsentiment, of unity.\"  But the paraphrase above seems most satisfactory\nin view of the similar phrase just before, _to auto phronete_.  This\nphrase seems to echo that, only in a stronger and less usual form.  The\nthought thus will be not so much of unity as the object of thought or\nfeeling as of unity as (so to speak) the substance or spirit of it.\n\n[4] _Kata eritheian_: my long paraphrase attempts to give the suggestion\nthat the _eritheia_ might be either purely individual self-assertion or\nthe _animus_ of a clique.\n\n[5] _Hegoumenoi_: the participle practically does the work of an\nimperative.  See Rom. xii. for a striking chain of examples of this\npowerful and intelligible idiom.\n\n[6] _Hekastoi_, not _hekastos_, should probably be read in the first\nclause here, and certainly in the second.  By Greek idiom, the plural\ngives the thought of a _collective_ unity under \"each.\"\n\n[7] The Greek gives no verb.  I have written \"was, and is,\" in the\nparaphrase, because the _limitation_ of the reference of our blessed\nLord's _phronema_ to the pre-incarnate past is not expressed in the Greek.\n\n[8] _En morphe_: _morphe_ is imperfectly represented by our common use of\nthe word \"form,\" which stands often even in contrast to \"reality.\"\n_Morphe_ is _reality in manifestation_.\n\n[9] _Uparchon_: R.V. margin, \"originally being.\"  The word lends itself\nto such a reference, but not so invariably as to allow us to press it\nhere.\n\n[10] _Arpagmon_: the word is extremely rare, found here only in the Greek\nScriptures, and once only in secular Greek.  Strictly, by form (_-mon_),\nit should mean, \"_a process_ of plunder\" rather than \"an object of\nplunder\" (_-ma_).  But parallel cases forbid us to press this.  The A.V.\nrendering here suggests the thought that our Lord \"thought it no\nusurpation to be equal with God, _and yet_ made Himself void,\" etc.  But\nsurely the thought is rather, \"_and so_ made Himself void.\"  So sure was\nHis claim that, so to speak, with a sublime _un-anxiety_, while with an\ninfinite sacrifice, He made Himself void.\n\n[11] _Isa Theo_: the neuter plural calls attention rather to the\nCharacteristics than to the Personality.--Through this whole passage we\ncannot too distinctly remember that it occurs in the Scriptures, and in\nthe writings of one who was trained in the strictest school of Pharisaic\nMonotheism.  _St Paul_ was not the man to use such terms of his Saviour\nand Master had he not seen in Him nothing less than the very \"Fellow of\nJEHOVAH\" (Zech. xiii. 7).\n\n[12] _Eauton ekeose_: _Heauton_ is slightly emphatic by position; I\nattempt to convey this by the words \"by His own act.\"\n\n[13] See further below, pp. 98, etc.  [Transcriber's note: page 98 is\nindicated in this text with \"{98}\".]\n\n[14] _Labon_: the aorist participle, in Greek idiom, unites itself\nclosely in thought with the aorist verb _ekenose_ just previous.  The\nresulting idea is not \"He made Himself void, and then took,\" but \"He made\nHimself void _by taking_.\"  The \"Exinanition\" was, in fact, just\nthis--_the taking the form of the_ _doulos_: neither less nor more.\n\n[15] Note again the aorist verb and aorist participle: _etapeinose_ . . .\n_genomenos_.\n\n[16] The Greek, _mechri thanatou_, makes it plain that the Lord did not\n_obey death_ but _obeyed the Father_ so utterly as even to die.\n\n[17] Cicero, _pro Rabirio_, c. 5.\n\n[18] Bishop Lightfoot has well vindicated this reference of the _onoma_\nhere.  I venture to refer the reader also to my commentary on\nPhilippians, in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges_.\n\n[19] Not \"the Name Jesus,\" but \"the Name of, belonging to, Jesus.\"  The\ngrammar admits either rendering, but the context, if I explain it aright,\nis decisive.  \"The Name\" is still the Supreme Name, JEHOVAH, as just\nabove.--\"_In_ the Name\" should be explained, in view of the context, not\nof worship _through_ but worship yielded _to_ the Name.  See Lightfoot\nfor examples of this usage.\n\n[20] Chrysostom brings this great truth nobly out in his homiletic\ncomments here (_Hom._ vii. on Philippians, ch. 4): \"A mighty proof it is\nof the Father's power, and goodness, and wisdom, that He hath begotten\nsuch a Son, a Son nowise inferior in goodness and wisdom . . . like Him\nin all things, Fatherhood alone excepted.\"  Nothing but the orthodox\nCreed, with its harmonious truths of the proper Godhead and proper\nFiliation of the Lord Christ, can possibly satisfy _the whole_ of the\napostolic language about His infinite glory on the one hand and His\nrelation to the Father on the other.\n\n[21] In my _Veni Creator_ and _To my Younger Brethren_, and more recently\nin a University Sermon quoted at the close of a little book published\nEaster, 1896, by Seeley: _Prayers and Promises_.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Make my life a bright outshining\n    Of Thy life, that all may see\n  Thine own resurrection power\n    Mightily shewn forth in me;\n  Ever let my heart become\n  Yet more consciously Thy home.\"\n          MISS J. S. PIGOTT.\n\n\n\n\n_THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE_\n\n\n\n\n  \"O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,\n    And all things else recede;\n  My heart be daily nearer Thee,\n    From sin be daily freed.\n\n  \"More of Thy glory let me see,\n    Thou Holy, Wise, and True;\n  I would Thy living image be\n    In joy and sorrow too.\"\n          H. B. SMITH, _from the German of_ C. LAVATER.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE\n\nPHILIPPIANS ii. 12-18\n\n\"Your own salvation\"--Stars in the midnight sky--Truth and\nholiness--The atonement and the indwelling--Mystery and need of the\nindwelling--Indifference in God--Spiritual power shewn in\nlove--Aggression and witness--The witnesses and the martyr\n\n\nWe have just followed the Apostle as he has followed the Saviour of\nsinners from the Throne to the Cross, and from the Cross to the Throne.\nAnd we have remembered the moral motive of that wonderful paragraph of\nspiritual revelation.  It was written not to occupy the mind merely, or\nto elevate it, but to bring the believer's heart into a delightful\nsubjection to Him who \"pleased not Himself,\" till the Lord should be\nreflected in the self-forgetting life of His follower.\n\nIn the passage now opening before us we find St Paul's thought still\nworking in continuity with this argument.  He has still in his heart\nthe risks of friction at Philippi, and the need of meeting them in the\npower of the Lord's example.  This will come out particularly in the\nfourteenth and fifteenth verses, where he deprecates \"murmurings and\ndisputings,\" and pleads for a life of pure, sweet light and love.  But\nthe line of appeal, though continuous, is now somewhat altered in its\ndirection.  The divine greatness of the love of the Incarnation has,\nduring his treatment of it, filled him with an intense and profound\nrecollection of the greatness of the Christian's connexion with his\nGod, and of the sacred awfulness of his responsibility, and of the\nfulness of his resources.  So the appeal now is not merely to be\nlike-minded, and to be watchful for unity.  He asks them now to use\nfully for a life of holiness the mighty fact of their possession of an\nIndwelling God in Christ.  The details of precept are as it were\nabsorbed for the time into the glorious power and principle--only to\nreappear the more largely and lastingly in the resulting life.\n\n\nVer. 12.  +So, my beloved ones+, (he often introduces his most\npractical appeals with this term of affection: see for example 1 Cor.\nx. 14, xv. 58; 2 Cor. vii. 1,) +just as you always obeyed+[1] me, obey\nme now.  +Not+ (_me_, the _imperative_ negative) as in my presence\nonly, influenced by that immediate contact and intercourse, +but now\nmuch more in my absence+, (\"much more,\" as my absence throws you more\ndirectly on your resources in the Lord,) +work out+, develope, +your\nown salvation+, your own spiritual safety, health, and joy, +with fear\nand trembling+; not with the tortures of misgiving, not driven by a\nshrinking dread of your gracious God, but drawn by a tender reverence\nand solemn watchfulness, lest you should grieve the eternal Love.  Yes,\n\"work out _your own_ salvation\"; do not depend upon _me_; take _your\nown_ souls in hand, in a faith and love which look, without the least\nearthly intermediation, straight to GOD and to Him alone.[2]  For\nindeed He is near to you; far nearer than ever a Paul could be; \"a very\npresent help,\" for\n\nVer. 13.  your safety, and for your holiness.  +For God it is who is\neffecting+ (_energos_) +in you+, in your very being, in \"the first\nsprings of thought and will,\" +both your+ (_to_) +willing and your\neffecting+, your carrying out the willing, +for His+ (_tes_) +good\npleasure's sake+; in order to the accomplishment through you of all His\nholy purposes.  Here, in this wonderful immanence, this divine\nindwelling, and in its living, operative power, you will find reason\nenough alike for the \"fear and trembling\" of deepest reverence, and for\nthe calm resourceful confidence of those who can, if need be, \"walk\nalone,\" as regards dependence upon even an apostolic friend beside\nthem.  Live then as those who carry about with them the very life and\npower of God in Christ.  And what will that life be?  A life of\nspiritual ostentation?  Nay, the beautiful and\n\nVer. 14.  gentle opposite to it.  +Do all things without+, apart from\n(_choris_), in a definite isolation from, +murmurings and disputes+,\nthoughts and utterances of discontent and self-assertion towards one\nanother, grudgings of others' claims, and contentions for your\n\nVer. 15.  own; +so that you may become+ (_genesthe_), what in full\nrealization you scarcely yet are, +unblamable and simple+ (_akeraioi_,\n\"unadulterated\"), single-hearted, because self-forgetting; +God's\nchildren+ (_tekna_), shewing what they are by the unmistakable\n_family-likeness_ of holy love; +blameless+ as such, true to your\ncharacter; +in the midst of a race+ (_geneas_) +crooked and distorted+,\nthe members of a world whose will always crosses the will of God who is\nLove; +among whom you are appearing+, like stars which come out in the\ngloom, +as luminaries+ (_phosteres_), light-bearers, kindled by the\nLord of Light, +in the world+; in which you dwell; not of it, but in\nit, walking up and down \"before the sons of men\" (Ps. xxxi. 19), that\nthey may see, and seek,\n\nVer. 16.  your blessed Secret; +holding out+ (_epechontes_[3]), as\nthose who offer a boon for acceptance, +the word of life+, the Gospel,\nwith its secret of eternal life in Christ; at once telling and\ncommending His message; +to afford me+, even me (_emoi_), +exultation,\nin view of+ (_eis_) +Christ's Day+, in anticipation of what I shall\nfeel then; +because not in vain did I run, nor in vain did I toil+.[4]\nBut let me not speak of \"toil\" as if I sighed over a hard lot, or\nwished to suffer less on your behalf.\n\nVer. 17.  +Nay, even if I am being poured out as a drink-offering+\n(_spendomai_) +on the sacrifice and ritual+ (_leitourgia_) +of your\nfaith+--on you, so to speak, as you in faith offer yourselves a living\nsacrifice to God[5]--+I rejoice, and I congratulate+ (_sugchairo_) +you\nall+, on your faith and holiness, for which it was well worth my while\nto die as your helper and example.  +And in+\n\nVer. 18.  +the same way+ (_to de auto_) +do you too rejoice, and\ncongratulate me+,[6] as true partners with me in the martyr-spirit and\nits joys.\n\n\n\n\nHere let us pause in our paraphrasing version, and sit down as it were\nto gather up and weigh some of the treasures we have found.\n\ni.  We have had before us, in the whole passage, that ever-recurring\nlesson, Holiness in the Truth, as Truth--\"the Truth as it is in\nJesus\"--is the living secret of Holiness.  We have still in our ears\nthe celestial music, infinitely sweet and full, of the great paragraph\nof the Incarnation, the journey of the Lord of Love from glory to glory\nby the way of the awful Cross.  May we not now give ourselves awhile\nwholly to reverie, and feast upon the divine poetry at our leisure?\nNot so; the immediate sequel is--that we are to be holy.  We are _to\nact_ in the light and wonder of so vast an act of love, in the wealth\nand resource of \"so great salvation.\"  We are to set spiritually to\nwork.  We are to learn that all-important lesson in religion, the holy\nand humble energy and independence which come to the man who \"knows\nwhom he has believed,\" and is aware that he possesses \"all spiritual\nblessing\" (Eph. i. 3) in Him.  We are to rise up and, if need be, walk\nalone, alone of human help, in the certainty that Christ has died for\nus, and reigns for us, and in us.  Our Paul may be far away in some\ndistant Rome, and we may sorely miss him.  But we have at hand Jesus\nChrist, who \"took Bondservant's Form,\" and obeyed even unto death for\nus, and who is on the eternal throne for us, and who lives within us by\nHis Spirit.  Looking upon Him in the glory of His Person and His Work,\nwe are not only to wonder, not only even to worship; we are to work; to\n\"work out\" our spiritual blessings[7] into a life which shall be full\nof Him, and in which we shall indeed be \"saved\" ourselves, and help\nothers around us to their salvation.  In the \"fear and trembling\" of\nthose who feel the blissful awfulness of an eternal Presence, we are to\nset ourselves, with the inexhaustible diligence of hope, to the\nbusiness of the spiritual life.  We are to bring all the treasures of a\nmanifested and possessed Redeemer to bear upon the passing hour, and to\nlet Him be seen in us, \"Christ our Life,\" always formative and\nempowering.\n\nii.  We have here in particular that deep secret of the Gospel,\nunspeakably precious to the soul which indeed longs to be holy--the\nIndwelling of God in the believer.  It here appears in close and\nsignificant connexion with the revelation of the love and work of the\nIncarnate and Atoning Lord; as if to remind us without more words that\nHe who gave Himself for us did so not only to release us (blessed be\nHis Name) from an infinite peril, from the eternal prison and death of\na violated law, but yet more that He might bring His rescued ones into\nan unspeakable nearness in Him to God.  His was no _mere_ compassion,\nwhich could set a guilty captive free.  It was eternal love, which\ncould not be content without nearness to its object, without union with\nit, without a dwelling in the very heart by faith.  As if it was a\nmatter of course in the plan of God, St Paul passes from the Cross and\nthe Glory of Jesus to the Indwelling of God in the Christian, and to\nall the rest and all the power which that Indwelling is to bring.\n\n\"It is God who is working in you, effecting alike your willing and your\nworking; for the sake of His good pleasure.\"  These are words of deep\nmystery.  They contain matter which has exercised the closest thought\nof some of the greatest thinkers of the Church.  _Operatur in nobis\nvelle_; \"He worketh in us to will.\"  How is this to be reconciled with\nthe reality, and in that sense the freedom, of the human will?  What\nrelation does it bear to human responsibility, and to the call to\nwatch, and pray, and labour?  Very soon, over such questions, we have,\nin the phrase of the Rabbis, to \"teach our tongue to say, _I do not\nknow_.\"  But the words appear _in this context_ with a purpose\nperfectly simple and practical, whatever be their more remote and\nhidden indications.  They do indeed intimate to us a reality and energy\nin the divine sovereignty which may well correct those dreams of\nself-salvation which man is so ready to dream.  But their more\nimmediate purpose is as simple as it is profound.  It is on the one\nhand to solemnize the disciple with the remembrance of such an inward\n_Presence_, and on the other hand to make him always glad and ready,\nrecollecting that such an inward _Power_ is there, altogether for his\nhighest good, and altogether in the line of the eternal purpose\n(_eudokia_).  For the while at least let us drop out of sight all hard\nquestions of theoretical adjustment between the finite will and the\nInfinite, and rest quite simply in that thought:--God is in me, working\nthe willing and the doing.  The willing is genuine, and is mine.  The\nworking is genuine, and is mine.  _My_ will chooses Him, and _my_\nactivity labours for Him; both are real, and are personally mine.  But\nHe is at the back; He is at \"the pulse of the machine\"; I, His personal\ncreature, am held in no less a hold than His, to be moulded and to be\nemployed; His implement, His limb.\n\nNot very long ago I was in conversation with a young but deeply\nthoughtful Christian, who, placed on a difficult social height, was\nseeking with deep desire not only to \"follow the Lamb whithersoever He\ngoeth\" but to lead others similarly circumstanced to do the same.  I\nwas struck with the strong consciousness which possessed that heart,\nthat the religious life must inevitably be a weary and exhausting\neffort on any other condition than this--\"God working in us, to will\nand to do.\"  \"Ah, they all say that it is so hard; no one can really do\nit; no one can keep it up.  But we must speak to them about the\nindwelling Spirit of God, about the Lord's power in us; _then_ they\nwill find that it is possible, and is happy.\"\n\n_Choris emou_--\"isolated from Me (John xv. 5)--_ye can do nothing_\";\nand what seems our \"doing\" will, in such isolation, be only too sorely\nfelt to be a weary toil.  But let us accept it as true, at the foot of\nthe atoning Cross, that the Indwelling of God in Christ is as much a\nfact as our pardon and adoption in Him, and we shall know something of\nthe blessed life.  Only, we must not only accept it as true, but use\nit.  \"_Work out_--for it is God who is _working in_ you.\"\n\nAnd, let us remember it once more, we shall learn in that quiet School\nnot only a restful energy but also that holy independence (_ten heauton\nsoterian_) which is, in its place, the priceless gain of the Christian.\nOur spiritual life is indeed intended to be social in its issues--but\nnot at its root.  We accept and thankfully use every assistance given\nus by our Lord's care, as we live our life in His Church; yet our life,\nas to its source, is to be still \"hidden with Christ in God.\"  We are\nto be so related to Him, in faith, that our soul's health, growth,\ngladness, shall depend not on the presence of even a St Paul at our\nside, but on the presence of God in our hearts.  Let us cherish this\nblessed certainty, and develope it into experience, in these strange\ndays of unrest and drift.  That secret independence will do anything\nbut isolate us from our fellows.  It will make us fit, as nothing else\ncould make us, to be their strength and light, in truest sympathy, in\nkindest insight, in the fullest sense of loving partnership.  But we\nmust learn independence in God if we would be fully serviceable to man.\n\niii.  We have in this passage one of the richest and most beautiful\nexpressions found in the whole New Testament of that great principle,\nthat at the very heart of a true life of holiness there needs to lie\nthe law of holy kindness.  The connexion of thought between ver. 13 and\nver. 14 is deeply suggestive here.  In ver. 13 we have the power and\nwonder of the operative Indwelling of God.  In ver. 14 we have depicted\nthe true conduct of the subjects of the Indwelling; and it shines with\nthe sweet light of humility and gentleness.  It is a life whose hidden\npower, which is nothing less than divine, comes out first and most in\nthe absence of the grudging, self-asserting spirit; in a watchful\nconsistency and simplicity; in the manifestation of the\n_child_-character, as the believer moves about \"in the midst of\" the\nhard and most unchildlike conditions of an unregenerate world.  There\nis to be action as well as patience; this we shall see presently.  The\ndisciple is to be aggressive, in the right way, as well as submissive.\nBut the first and deepest characteristic of his wonderful new life is\nto be the submission of himself to others, \"in the Lord, and in the\npower of His might.\"  We have this aspect of practical holiness\npresented to us often in the general teaching of the New Testament; but\nseldom is it so explicitly connected as it is here with that other\nspiritual fact, the presence in us of the divine _power_.  Perhaps our\nbest parallels come from the two other Epistles of the Roman Captivity,\nEphesians and Colossians.  In Ephesians, the third chapter closes with\nthe astonishing prayer that the Christian (the everyday Christian, be\nit remembered) may be, through the Indwelling of Christ, \"filled unto\nall the fulness of God\"; and then the fourth chapter begins at once\nwith the appeal to him to live \"_therefore_\" a life of \"all lowliness,\nmeekness, longsuffering, and forbearance in love.\"  In Colossians we\nhave the same sequence of thought in one noble sentence (ver. 11) of\nthe first chapter: \"Strengthened with all strength, according to the\nmight of His glory, _unto all patience and longsuffering, with\njoy_.\"[8]  In all three passages comes out the same deep and beautiful\nsuggestion.  \"The Lord is not in the wind\" so much as in \"the still\nsmall voice.\"  Omnipotent Love, in its blessed immanence in the\nbeliever's soul, shews its presence and power most of all in a life _of\nlove_ around.  It is to come out not only in self-sacrificing energy\nbut in the open sympathies of an affectionate heart, in the \"soft\nanswer,\" in the generous first thought for the interests of others--in\nshort, in the whole character of 1 Cor. xiii.  The spiritual \"power\"\nwhich runs rather in the direction of harshness and isolation, which\nexpends itself rather in censures than in \"longsuffering, gentleness,\ngoodness, and meekness,\" is not the kind of \"power\" which most accords\nwith the apostolic idea.  Nothing which violates the plain precepts of\nthe law of love can take a true part in that heavenly harmony.\n\n  \"On earth, as in the holy place,\n  Nothing is great but charity.\" [9]\n\n\niv.  Meanwhile the \"charity\" of the saints is not by any means the mere\namiability which makes itself pleasant to every one, and forgets the\nsolemn fact that we who believe are the servants of a Master whom the\nworld knows not, the messengers of a King against whom it is in revolt.\nThe Philippian disciple was to renounce the spirit of unkindness, of\nself; he was to live _isolated_ from (_choris_) \"murmurings and\ndisputings.\"  But he was not to hide the sacred Light, for the sake of\nso-called peace, from the world around.  He was to \"hold out the word\nof life\"; confessing his blessed Lord as the life of his own soul, and\nso commending Him to the souls of his fellows.  He was to make this a\npart of his very existence and its activities.  As truly as it was to\nbe his habit to live a life of sweet and winning consistency, it was to\nbe his habit to offer (_epechein_) the water of life to the parched\nhearts around him, the lamp of glory to the dark and bewildered whom he\nencountered upon the difficult road.  The truth and beauty of a _life_\npossessed by Christ was to be the basis of his witnessing activities.\nBut the witness was to be articulate, not merely implied; he was to\n\"hold out _the word_ (_logon_) of life\"; he was to seize occasion to\n\"give _a reason_ (_logon_) of the hope that was in him, with meekness\nand fear\" (1 Pet. iii. 15).  To be, in his way, an evangelist was to be\none main function of his life.  In benignant and gracious conduct he\nwas to be as a \"luminary\" (_phoster_), moving calm and bright in the\ndark hemisphere of the world.  But he was to be a voice as well as a\nstar.  He was not only to shine; he was to speak.\n\nHere is one of the passages, by the way, in which the Apostle assumes,\nand stimulates, the \"missionary consciousness\" of the converts.  It is\nremarkable that neither he nor his brethren have much to say in the\nEpistles about the duty of enterprises of evangelization, as laid upon\nall believers.  The stress of their appeals is directed above all\nthings on the supreme importance of holiness, at any cost, in common\nlife.  But a passage like this shews us how entirely they take it for\ngranted all the time that the Churches would never concentrate\nthemselves upon merely their own Christian life; they would go out\ncontinually, with the beauty of holiness and with \"the word of life,\"\nto bring the wanderers in, and to extend the knowledge of the blessed\nName.  So, and so only, would their Apostle feel, in his prison at\nRome, that his \"running\" (_edramon_) on the great circuit of his\nevangelistic journeys, and his pastoral \"toil\" (_ekopiasa_) for the\nsouls of his converts, had not been thrown \"into the void\" (_eis to\nkenon_).\n\nSo, and so only, would his life and death of sacrifice for them be\ncrowned with its perfect joy.  Let him see his beloved converts living\nand speaking as indeed the Lord's _witnesses_, and then with what\ninward \"gladness\" (_chairein_), with what a call for \"congratulation\"\n(_sugchairein_) on their part, would he go out to death as the Lord's\n_martyr_!\n\n\n\n[1] _Upekousate_: the aorist.  It gathers into one thought the whole\nrecollection of his work at Philippi.\n\n[2] \"There is not the slightest contradiction here to the profound\ntruth of the Justification by Faith only; that is to say, only for the\nmerit's sake of the Redeemer, appropriated by submissive trust; that\njustification whose sure issue is glorification (Rom. viii. 30).  It is\nan instance of independent lines converging on one goal.  From one\npoint of view, that of justifying merit, man is glorified because of\nChrist's work alone, applied to his case through faith alone.  From\nanother point, that of qualifying capacity, and of preparation for the\nLord's individual welcome (Matt. xxv. 21; Rom. ii. 7), man is glorified\nas the issue of a process of work and training, in which in a true\nsense he is himself operant, though grace lies below the whole\noperation.\"  (Note on this verse in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools\nand Colleges_).\n\n[3] It is possible to render _logon xoee epechontes_, \"serving as life\n(to the world).\"  But it is unlikely.  See Philippians in _The\nCambridge Greek Testament_, Appendix.\n\n[4] The aorists obviously are anticipatory; giving the review of the\npast as he will then make it.  Cp. e.g. _kathos epegnosthen_, 1 Cor.\nxiii. 12.\n\n[5] \"He views the Philippians, in their character of consecrated\nbelievers (cp. Rom. xii. 1), as a holocaust to God; and upon that\nsacrifice the drink-offering, the outpoured wine, is his own\nlife-blood, his martyrdom for the Gospel which he has preached to them.\nCp. Num. xv. 5 for the Mosaic libation, _oinon eis sponden_ . . .\n_poisete epi tes holokautoseos_.  Lightfoot thinks that a reference to\npagan libations is more likely in a letter to a Gentile mission.  But\nsurely St Paul familiarized all his converts with Old Testament\nsymbolism.  And _his own_ mind was of course full of it (Note here in\n_The Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools_).--This and Rom. xv. 16 are\nthe only two passages where St Paul connects the language of\n\"sacerdotalism\" with the distinctive work of the Christian ministry;\nand both passages speak obviously in the tone of figure and, so to say,\npoetry.\n\n[6] _Chairete_: _sugchairete_.  The form leaves us free to render\neither _indicative_ or _imperative_.  But the latter is most likely in\nthe context.\n\n[7] _Soteria_ must here include not only final glory but the whole\nblessing possessed now and always in the _Soter_.\n\n[8] \"Observe the holy paradox of the thought here.  The fulness of\ndivine power in the saints is to result primarily not in 'doing some\ngreat thing' but in enduring and forbearing, with heavenly joy of\nheart.  The paradox points to one deep characteristic of the Gospel,\nwhich prepares the Christian for service by the way of a true\nabnegation of himself as his own strength and his own aim.\" (Note on\nCol. i. 11 in _The Cambridge Bible_).\n\n[9] A. Vinet, _Hymn on the Crucifixion_, translated by C. W. Moule.\n\n\n\n\n  \"O thou who makest souls to shine\n    With light from brighter worlds above,\n  And droppest glistening dew divine\n    On all who seek a Saviour's love,\n\n  \"Do Thou Thy benediction give\n    On all who teach, on all who learn,\n  That all Thy Church may holier live,\n    And every lamp more brightly burn.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n  \"If thus, good Lord, Thy grace be giv'n\n    Our glory meets us ere we die;\n  Before we upward pass to heav'n\n    We taste our immortality.\"\n            J. ARMSTRONG.\n\n\n\n\nTIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS\n\n\n\n  \"Puisse la meme foi qui consola leur vie\n  Nous ouvrir les sentiers que leurs pas ont presses,\n  Et, dirigeant nos pieds vers la sainte patrie\n  Ou leur bonheur s'accroit de leurs travaux passes,\n  Nous rendre ces objets de tendresse et d'envie\n  Qui ne sont pas perdus, mais nous ont devances.\"\n          A. VINET\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS\n\nPHILIPPIANS ii. 19-30\n\nEpaphroditus--The variety of Scripture--Contrasts in context--Henry\nMartyn's letter--\"The human element\"--\"His letters I have read\"--The\ntwo aspects of Scripture--Divine messages in human context--\"Together\nwith them\"\n\n\nVer. 19.  +But I hope in the Lord Jesus+, with an expectation\nconditioned by my union with Him in all things, and with you in Him,\n+promptly to send to you Timotheus,[1] that I too+, I as well as you,\nwho will of course be gladdened by his presence, +may be of good cheer,\ngetting+, through him, +a knowledge+ (_gnous_) +of your circumstances+\n(_ta peri humon_).  I send him, and not\n\nVer. 20.  another, +for I have+--at hand, and free to move--+no one\nequal-souled+ with him,[2] +one who+ (_hootis_) +will genuinely take\nanxious care about your circumstances+; the \"care\" which is not a weary\nburthen, better cast upon the Lord (iv. 6), but a sacred charge,\nundertaken in and for Him, and absorbing all the\n\nVer. 21.  thought.  +For all of them+ (_oi pantes_), all from whom I\ncould in this case select, +are bent on+ (_xetousi_: cp. Col. iii. 1)\n+their own interests, not the interests of Jesus Christ+; they plead\nexcuses which indicate a preference of their own ease, or reputation,\nor affections, to a matter manifestly and wholly HIS.\n\nVer. 22.  +But the test through which he+, Timotheus, +passed+ (_ten\ndokimen autou_) you remember (_ginoskete_, \"you recognize,\" as you look\nback); you know +that as child with father+ so +he with me+, in closest\ncompanionship and sympathy, +did bondservice[3] for the Gospel+, _eis\nto euaggelion_, \"_unto_ it,\" for the furtherance\n\nVer. 23.  of its enterprise and message.  +So him then+ (_touton men\noun_[4]) +I hope to send, immediately upon+ (_hos an_ . . . _exautes_)\n+my getting a view of+ (_apido_) +my circumstances+, my position with\nregard to my trial\n\nVer. 24.  and its result.  +But+ (though I thus allude to external\nuncertainties) +I feel sure, in the Lord+, in the light of union and\ncommunion with Him, +that I too in person shall speedily arrive+, in\nthe track of this my messenger and forerunner.\n\nVer. 25.  +But I count[5] it obligatory+ (_anagkaion_), and not merely\na matter for hopes and personal satisfaction, +to send to you+, as I\nnow do, in charge of this Letter, another person, +Epaphroditus, my\nbrother, fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier+, a man who has toiled and\ncontended at my very side for the Lord and against the Enemy, +while he\nis+ also +your missionary and ministrant[6] for my need+.  Yes, I feel\nthat I _ought_\n\nVer. 26.  to send him, and to send him _now_; +since he has been\nsuffering from home-sickness for[7] all of you+, (all, without\nexception; his affection knows no party or partiality,) +and from the\ndistraction+ (_ademonon_) of over-wrought feeling, because you have\nheard that he\n\nVer. 27.  fell ill[8] (_esthenese_).  +And+ so it was; +for he did fall\nill, almost fatally+ (_paraplesion thanato_).  +But our+ (_ho_) +God\npitied him+, sparing him the grief of broken hopes and purposes in the\nLord's work on earth, and the grief of being a cause of tears to you;\n+and not only him but also me, that I might not have[9] sorrow upon\nsorrow+.  For had he died, I should have had a sore bereavement, and\nthe sad consciousness that you, in a loving effort for my benefit, had\nlost a beloved friend; and all this added to, heaped upon (_epi_ _c.\nacc._), the antecedent pain of my captivity and the trials which it\ninvolves.\n\nVer. 28.  +With the more earnestness therefore I have sent him,[10]\nthat seeing him you may be glad again, and that I may feel less\nsorrow+, finding my imprisonment, and also my loss of this dear\nfriend's company, softened to my heart by the thought of your joy in\n\nVer. 29.  welcoming him back.  +Receive him therefore in the Lord+, in\nall the union and sympathy due to your common share in Him, +with all\ngladness, and+\n\nVer. 30.  +hold in high value such men as he is; because on account of\nChrist's work he was at death's very door,[11] playing+ as it were the\n+gambler with his life,[12] that he might+ (lit., \"may\") +supply your\nlack+, do the service which you could not do, and so complete your\nloving purposes, in regard +of the ministration+ you designed +for me+.\n\n\nOur present section illustrates well the inexhaustible variety of\nScripture.  That pregnant Christian thinker, the late Dr John Ker, has\nsome good sentences on this subject: \"What varieties are in the Bible,\nside by side!  The Book of Ruth, with its pastoral quiet after the wars\nof the Judges, like an innocent child which has crept between the ranks\nof hostile armies; the intense devotion of the Psalms after the\nspeculative discussions of Job, and before the practical wisdom of\nProverbs; the gloom of Ecclesiastes, and then the sweetness of the Song\nof Solomon, as sharply divided as the eastern morning which leaps from\nthe night, or, as an old Greek might have said, silver-footed Thetis\nrising from the bed of old Tithonus; Isaiah's majestic sweep of eagle\npinion, with Jeremiah's dovelike plaint; the cloudlike obscurities of\nEzekiel, to be solved, as one might expect, by piercing light from the\nsky; and the perplexities of Daniel, to be opened by the movements of\nthe nations.\"[13]\n\nWhat a variety lies before us here!\n\n  \"Into the heaven of heavens we have presumed,\n  And drawn empyreal air\";\n\nwhile the Apostle has told us (only fourteen verses above) how Christ\nJesus, in the glory of the Throne, in the Form of God, cared for us men\nand for our salvation, and made Himself void, and took the\ncreature-nature, and died; and how He is now on the Throne again in His\nIncarnation, to receive supreme and universal worship.  And then again\nwe came back to earth, yet so as to be led into the deep secrets of the\nLord in the inner life of His saints below; \"God is working in you, to\nwill and to do, for His good pleasure's sake.\"  And then we have seen\nthis inner life expanding and shewing itself in the holy life without,\nwhich shines as a star in the dark, and speaks like a voice from the\nunseen.  And then again we have watched the Apostle's martyr-joy as he\nthinks of dying for his Philippians, if need be.  Close upon all these\nheights and depths now comes in this totally different passage about\nTimotheus and Epaphroditus, with its quiet, practical allusions to\nindividual character, and to particular circumstances, and to personal\nhopes and duties; its words of sympathy and sorrow; the dear friend's\nagitated state of mind; his recent almost fatal illness; the mercy of\nhis recovery; the pleasurable thought of his restoration to the loving\ncircles at Philippi.\n\nNothing could be more completely different than this from the grand\ndogmatic passage traversed a little while before, nor again from the\npassages to follow in the next chapter, where the believer's inmost\nsecrets of acceptance and of life are in view, and his foresight of\nglory.  We are placed here not in the upper heaven, nor before the\njudgment-throne, nor in the light of the resurrection-morning.  We are\njust in the \"hired rooms\" at Rome, and we see the Missionary seated\nthere, studying the characters of two of his brethren, and weighing the\nreasons for asking them, at once or soon, to arrange for a certain\njourney.  He reviews the case, and then he puts down, through his\namanuensis, for the information of the Philippians, what he thinks of\nthese two men, and what he has planned about them.\n\nAll is perfectly human, viewed from one side.  I or my reader may at\nany time, in the course of life and duty, be called upon to write about\nChristian friends and fellow-workers of our own in a tone neither less\nnor more human and practical than that of this section.  In any\ncollection of modern Christian letters we may find the like.  I open at\nthis moment the precious volume of Henry Martyn's correspondence,\npublished (1844) as a companion to the Memoir.  There I read as\nfollows, in a letter to Daniel Corrie, dated Shiraz, December 12, 1811:\n\"Your accounts of the progress of the kingdom of God among you are\ntruly refreshing.  Tell dear H. and the men of both regiments that I\nsalute them much in the Lord, and make mention of them in my prayers.\nMay I continue to hear thus of their state; and if I am spared to see\nthem again, may we make it evident that we have grown in grace.\nAffectionate remembrances to your sister and to S.  I hope they\ncontinue to prosecute their labours of love.  Remember me to the people\nof Cawnpore who enquire.  Why have I not mentioned Colonel P.?  It is\nnot because he is not in my heart, for there is hardly a man in the\nworld whom I love and honour more.  My most Christian salutations to\nhim.  May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit,\ndearest brother.  Yours affectionately, H. MARTYN.\"\n\nWhat is the difference in quality and character between this extract\nand our present section of Philippians, or between it and many another\npassage in the Pauline Epistles?  From one point of view, I repeat it,\nnone--none that we either can, or should care to, affirm.  Of the\nletters compared, one is as purely human as the other, in the\nsimplicity of its topics, in its local and personal scope, in its\nnatural and individual manner.  I would add that, so far as we can\ntell, the one was written under just as much or little consciousness of\na supernatural prompting as the other.  I feel sure that when St Paul\nwrote thus (whatever might be his sense of an _afflatus_ at other\ntimes, when he wrote, or spoke, or thought, abnormally) he \"felt\"\nexactly as we feel when writing a quiet letter; he was thinking,\narranging topics, choosing words, considering the needs of\ncorrespondents, just as simply as we might do.\n\nAnd all this is an element inestimably precious in the structure and\ntexture of the Bible.  It is that side or aspect of the Bible which, at\nleast to innumerable minds, brings the whole Book, in a sense so\ngenuine, _home_; making it felt in the human heart as a friend truly\nconversant with our nature and our life.  \"Thy testimonies,\" writes the\nBible-loving Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 24), \"are the men of my counsel,\"\n_an'shey 'atsathi_; a pregnant phrase, which puts vividly before us\n\"the human element\" of the blessed Word, its varieties and\nindividualities, its _living_ voice, or rather voices, and the\nsympathetic confidence which it invites as it draws close to us to\nadvise and guide.  How perfectly in contrast are the Bible on the one\nside, with this humanity and companionship, and such a \"sacred book\" as\nthe Koran on the other, with its monotonous oracles!  Strange, that the\nman-made \"sacred book\" should be so little _humane_ and the God-made\nBook so deeply and beautifully so!  Yet not strange, after all.  For\nGod knows man better than man knows himself; and when He prepares a\nBook of books for man, we may expect it to correspond to the deep\ninsight of Him who is Maker of both the volume and the reader.\n\nFor now on the other part we have to remember that this Book, so\nnaturally and humanly written, as to a very large proportion of its\ncontents, is yet God-made all through.  It is, in a sense quite\npeculiar to itself, divine.  I quoted a passage from a letter of Henry\nMartyn's just now, on purpose to place it beside this letter of St\nPaul's, with a view to shewing the likeness of the two.  But are they\nlike in all respects?  No; they present a radical difference from\nanother side.  It is just this, that the biblical letter is not only\nhuman as to its type and utterance; as to its message, it is\nauthoritative, it is from God.  Henry Martyn writes as a Christian man,\nand it helps us spiritually to be in contact with his affectionate and\nholy thoughts.  Paul writes as a Christian man, but also as \"a chosen\nvessel to bear the Name\" of his Lord; as the messenger of the mind of\nChrist; as he who received \"his Gospel\" \"not of man, nor by man, but by\nthe revelation of Jesus Christ\" (Gal. i. 12).  From his own days to\nthese he has been known in the Church of God as the divinely\ncommissioned prophet and teacher.  Clement of Rome in the first century\nrefers to him as having written to Corinth by divine inspiration.[14]\nSimon Peter, earlier than Clement, refers to Paul (2 Pet. iii. 16) as\nthe writer of \"Scriptures,\" _graphai_: that solemn word, restricted in\nthe language of Christianity to the oracles of God.\n\nThe simplest and seemingly most naturalistic passage occurring in a\nPauline letter is a \"Scripture\"; and as such it speaks to me only not\nlike the utterances of a Martyn but with the voice of the Lord of the\nGospel.  \"Paul, Paul--his letters I have read, but not always I agree\nwith him!\"  So, according to the story, said a German literary visitor\nin an Oxford common-room, fifty years ago; the words shocked the\nAnglican company.  Very many people think with the German now, whether\nor no they have really \"_read_ Paul's letters.\"  But their thought is\nnot that of the Church of God; and the soul that will indeed make\nexperiment of what \"Paul's letters\" can be when they are read as\ndivine, and before God, will surely find itself in harmony in this\nmatter with the Church.  It will be little disposed to take up the cry\n(true enough in itself), \"Back to Christ,\" in that false sense which\ndiscredits the servant's words as if the Master was not committed to\nthem.  \"If they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.\"\n\nIn a passage like the present therefore we feel the two elements or\naspects, the human and the divine, each real and powerful, and both\nworking in perfect harmony.  The human is there, not in the least as a\nnecessary element of error; rather as an element of delicate and\nbeautiful truth, the truth of justest thought and feeling.  The divine\nis there, as the message from Christ Himself through His servant;\nsacred, authoritative, binding on belief, giving solid ground for the\nsoul's repose.  We study here St Paul's watchful and unselfish\nremembrance of the Philippians, in the case of Timothy and his mission,\nand still more in that of Epaphroditus.  We recognize of course the\nactings of a noble human heart, and we are right to do so.  But we find\nmore than this; we see JESUS CHRIST informing us, in the concrete\nexample of His servant, exactly how it behoves us, as His servants, to\nfeel and act under our responsibilities.  St Paul's thought and action\nis \"written for our learning.\"  True, the \"learning\" comes not as a\nmere code, or lecture.  It takes the form of a living experience,\nrecorded, in the course of correspondence, by the man who is going\nthrough it.  But the man is a vehicle of revelation.  He writes about\nhimself; but his Master is behind him, and is taking care that his\nwhole thought shall be the well-adjusted conveyance of a thought\ngreater than his own.\n\nAs we come to the incidental details of the passage, we find the same\ndouble aspect of Scripture everywhere.  St Paul speaks about people who\nare \"seeking their own interests, and not the interests of Jesus\nChrist\" (ver. 21).  He says this quite naturally, and with a reference\nquite local and in detail.  But on the other side the words are an\noracle; they convey the message of the Master of His people; they\nimplicitly claim _on His part_ that we shall seek not our own\ninterests, but His.  Again, quite in passing, the Apostle speaks of\nthis or that \"hope\" or \"trust\" as being formed \"in the Lord.\"  He does\nso with no conscious dogmatic purpose, surely; it is because it comes\nas naturally to him to do it as for an ordinary correspondent to say\nthat he hopes to do this or that \"if all goes well.\"  But in the\nepistolary _Scripture_ these brief phrases have another side; they are\nauthority and oracle; they convey the mind of Christ about _our_ right\nrelations with Him; they tell _us_, from Him, that it is His will that\nwe too, as His, should form our hopes and plans \"in Him,\" in conscious\nrecollection of our being His members.\n\nSt Paul speaks again of his human sensibilities.  He tells us of his\nsorrows, and his longings for encouragement, and his thankfulness that\nan aggravation of trial, \"sorrow upon sorrow,\" has been spared him.  He\nspeaks of Epaphroditus, and of his generous carelessness of his own\nhealth and life, and of the illness he had contracted, and of his\nmerciful recovery, and of his home-sick longing for Philippi, and of\nhis \"bewilderment\" of regret as he thinks of the Philippians' anxiety\nabout him.  All this is quite as naturally and \"humanly\" conceived and\nwritten on St Paul's part as anything that I or my reader ever wrote\nabout joys and griefs, our own or of our friends.  But not one whit the\nless is this all a message, an oracle, from our Lord Jesus Christ, in a\nsense in which no letter of ours could possibly be such.  For it is a\n\"Scripture.\"  And so it tells me _from above_ that the free and loving\nexercise of human sympathies is entirely according to the will of God;\nthat human tears and longings are in perfect harmony with holiness.  It\nassures me that from one point of view it is right to speak of the\nprolongation of the believer's life as a \"mercy,\" even though \"to\ndepart is to be with Christ, which is far better.\"  It assures me, let\nme notice by the way, that bodily sickness is not by any means\nnecessarily a direct result or index of sinfulness in the sufferer.\nThere are those who think and say that it is.  But this is not the view\nof the \"chosen vessel.\"  He sees no sin in Epaphroditus' \"falling ill,\nnigh unto death,\" \"drawing near, up to death.\"  It is for him only an\noccasion for fresh gratitude and affection towards the sufferer, and\nfor deep thanksgivings to Him who in His mercy has granted the\nrecovery.  All this is not only an experience, recorded with beautiful\nnaturalness; it is a revelation, an oracle.  We learn by it, as by the\nvoice of Christ, that although \"He took our infirmities and bare our\nsicknesses,\" His servants do not therefore of necessity fail in either\nfaith or love when they suffer \"in this tabernacle,\" and \"groan, being\nburthened.\"  Let them look indeed with great simplicity, in humble\nfaith, for the healing power of their Lord, whether or not it may\nplease Him to apply it through human agency.  But do not let them think\nit an act of faith to dictate to Him, as it were, the necessity of\ntheir physical recovery.  \"If it be Thy will,\" is never out of place in\nsuch appeals.  Faith can breathe its most absolute and restful reliance\ninto that \"If.\"\n\n\nWe close the section of Timotheus and Epaphroditus.  We have given our\nmain thought to the light which it throws upon the nature of the\nScriptures, those blessed \"men of our counsel.\"  We have scarcely\nturned aside to think of the actual \"men\" of the passage; Timotheus,\nand his self-forgetting devotion to the Lord and to St Paul, overcoming\nthe sensitiveness of a tender nature; Epaphroditus, at once brave and\naffectionate, yearning for the old friends in the old scene, restless\nin the thought of their trouble about him, yet ready to \"throw his life\ndown as a die\" in the cause of God and of His people.  But if we have\nsaid little about them, it is not that we do not love their very names,\nand feel our union with them.\n\n  \"Once they were mourning here below\";\n\nfinding then, as we find now, that the day's burthen is no dream.  But\nwe shall see them hereafter, in the mercy of God, \"changed and\nglorified,\" yet the same, where there will be leisure to learn all the\nlessons that all the saints can teach us from their experience of the\nlove of Jesus.\n\nMeanwhile let us pray, with the Moravians in their beautiful Liturgy:\n\n_Keep us in everlasting fellowship with our brethren of the Church\ntriumphant, and let us rest together in Thy presence from our labours._\n\n\n\n[1] _Timotheon_ is slightly emphatic by its place in the Greek; as if\nto say, \"Though _I_ must still be absent, _he_ will soon be with you.\"\n\n[2] Not \"equal-souled _with myself_\"; which would demand rather, in the\nGreek, _oudena allon echo isopsychon_.\n\n[3] Possibly, \"_entered on_ bondservice,\" \"_took up_ the slave's life,\"\nwith a reference to Timothy's earliest connexion with St Paul (Acts\nxvi. 1-3).  But the reference to the memories of _Philippi_ is much\nmore likely.  The aorist, _edouleusen_, will in this case gather up\ninto one the whole recollection.\n\n[4] The _touton_ is slightly emphatic by position, for St Paul is about\nto speak of other persons also, himself and Epaphroditus.\n\n[5] _Egesamen_: I render the epistolary past by a present tense, which\nis the English idiom.\n\n[6] So I render _apostolon_, to represent something of the _sacredness_\nattaching by usage to the word.  If I read aright, we have here an\ninstance of gentle pleasantry, quite in harmony with the gravity of the\nEpistle at large.  He takes the Philippians' message of love and gift\nof bounty as a sort of _gospel_ to himself, and so regards their\nmessenger as a _missionary_ to him.  So also with the word\n_leitourgos_: its usual associations in New Testament Greek are sacred,\nor at least solemn; and so St Paul seems to employ it here.\nEpaphroditus was no mere agent; he was a \"_ministrant_,\" commissioned\nfrom a high quarter--the Philippians' love.\n\n[7] _epeide epidothon en_: the epistolary past (_en_) is rendered in\naccordance with English idiom.  _Epipothon_ is perhaps too _heavily_\nrendered above; but the phrase is certainly a little stronger than\n_epepothei_ would have been.\n\n[8] Perhaps it was an attack of Roman fever.\n\n[9] _Ina me_ . . . _scho_: lit., \"that I _may_ not.\"  But the English\nidiom asks for \"might.\"  The Greek puts the past intention into what\n_was_ its present aspect.\n\n[10] _Epempsa auton_: the epistolary aorist.\n\n[11] Quite literally, \"up to death he drew near.\"  It is as if St Paul\nhad been about to write, _mechri thanatou esthense_, and then varied\nthe expression by writing _eggise_.\n\n[12] _Paraboleusamenos te psyche_: so read, not _paraboleusamenos_\n(which would mean, \"taking evil counsel for his life,\" neglecting its\ninterests).  _Paraboleusamenos_ is a well-attested reading; the verb is\nnot found elsewhere, but the form is abundantly likely.  It would be\ndeveloped from the adjective _parabolos_, \"reckless,\" connected with\nthe verb _paraballesthai_, \"to cast a die.\"\n\n[13] _Thoughts for Heart and Life_, by John Ker, D.D. (1888), p. 92.\n\n[14] See Ep. i. _ad. Cor._, Sec. 47: \"Take up the Epistle of the\nblessed Paul, the Apostle. . . .  He wrote to you in the Spirit\n(_pneumatikos_) about himself, and Cephas, and Apollos.\"\n\n\n\n\n  \"One family we dwell in Him,\n    One Church, above, beneath,\n  Though now divided by the stream,\n    The narrow stream of death.\n\n  \"One army of the living God\n    To His command we bow;\n  Part of His host hath cross'd the flood,\n    And part is crossing now.\"\n          C. WESLEY.\n\n\n\n\n_JOY IN THE LORD AND ITS PRESERVING POWER: \"THAT I MAY KNOW HIM\"_\n\n\n\nO Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life; Grant us\nperfectly to know Thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and\nthe life; that, following the steps of Thy holy Apostles, we may\nstedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the\nsame Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.\n\nCollect for St Philip and St James.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nJOY IN THE LORD AND ITS PRESERVING POWER \"THAT I MAY KNOW HIM\"\n\nPHILIPPIANS iii. 1-11\n\nDoctrinal perils at Philippi--\"Be glad in the Lord\"--The true\nIsrael--An ideal legalist--Position and experience--The spiritual power\nof holy joy--Acceptance and holiness--Atoning Cross and Risen Life\n\n\nWith the section just closed the Epistle reaches its middle point and\nalready looks towards its end.  We may lawfully think of St Paul as\npausing here in his dictation; he returns to it after some considerable\ninterval, with new topics, or rather with one important new topic, in\nhis mind.  Hitherto, if we have read him aright, we have seen him\noccupied, from one side or another, with the thought of Christian Unity\nat Philippi.  That thought has been either explicitly developed, as in\nthe close of the first chapter, and in the opening of the second, and\nagain in the passage embracing ii. 14-16; or it has been rather implied\nthan expounded.  The Apostle's assurances of love and prayer have been\noften worded so as to suggest it.  The grand passage of doctrine, ii.\n5-11, has been occasioned directly by it, and is made to bear\nimmediately upon it; the Lord's wonderful self-abnegation (if the word\nmay be tolerated) is revealed and asserted there, not in an isolated\nway, but as it speaks to the believer of the spirit which should\nanimate _him_, and which will preclude jealousies and separations as\nnothing else can.  And even the paragraph where Timotheus and\nEpaphroditus are before us is tinged with the same feeling; what the\nApostle says about both these dear friends is so said as _to unite_ the\nsympathies of the Philippians.\n\nBut he has more to speak of than this sacred call to union of spirit\nand of life in Christ.  We gather that Epaphroditus, talking over the\ncondition of the Mission with his leader, had alluded to the presence\nthere of serious doctrinal perils, which must ultimately affect\nChristian holiness.  That ubiquitous difficulty, the propaganda of\nanti-Pauline Christian Judaism, had come on the scene, or was just\ncoming.  The teachers who affirmed, or insinuated, that Jesus Christ\ncould be reached only through the ceremonial law, were now to be\nreckoned with.  The converts were disturbed, or soon might be\ndisturbed, by being told that proselytism to Moses, sealed by\ncircumcision, was a _sine qua non_ in order to a valid hope of\nsalvation through the Gospel; that the man awakened from his paganism\nmust be at least something of a Jew to be anything of a Christian; that\nthe door was _not_ absolutely open between the sinner's soul and the\nSaviour, to be passed through by the one step of a living trust in the\nPromise.\n\nLet us remember that assertions like these, which to Christians now may\nseem obviously futile, by no means necessarily seemed so then.  Then,\nmuch more than now, pagan enquirers after JESUS would be sure to be\nconscious that the true salvation offered was, in one sense,\nemphatically a Jewish salvation.  It was the message which told of the\nlife and death, the person and work, of One who _was_, \"after the\nflesh,\" a Jew.  It was the announcement that the long hope of _Israel_\nwas fulfilled in Him.  Its terminology was full of words and ideas\naltogether Jewish.  And its messengers--above all, for the Philippians,\nSt Paul--were Jews, of unmistakable nationality, training, and\n(doubtless) appearance.  On a first view, on a hasty and shallow view\ncertainly, it may have seemed a quite natural incident in such a\nmessage when some of its propagandists asserted that to reach this\nHebrew Deliverer and King the enquirer must form a connexion in\nreligion which should be definitely Hebrew.\n\nIt is conceivable that even yet, in the history of the Church, this\nphase of error may in some form assert itself again.  We look in the\nfuture, it may be in the near future, for the keeping to the old Israel\nof promises which have never been revoked.  We believe that Rom. xi.\nshall yet find its fulfilment, and that the \"receiving of them again\nshall be life from the dead\" to the world.  In that great period of\nblessing, the work of missions may (shall we not say, probably will?)\nbe very largely taken up by Hebrew Christians.  And if any of these,\nlike some of their predecessors of the first age, should have only a\ndistorted view of the Gospel of Christ, their intense national\ncharacter may tell not a little on the form of their message.  But this\nis by the way.  All that is really before us here is the fact that--not\nthe open hostility of unconverted Jews but--the sidelong counter-action\nof Judaistic Christians was threatening Philippi, and must be met by\nthe Apostle.\n\nNor was this, if we explain rightly the close of ch. iii., the only\nsuch danger in the air.  The antinomian traitor was also within the\ngates.  There were those who could assert that the Gospel, the Pauline\nGospel, the wonderful message of Justification by Faith only, and of a\nlife lived in the Spirit as its sequel, was the very truth they held\nand rejoiced in; but they taught it so as to reason from it that\npractical holiness did not matter; the justified, the accepted, the man\nof the Spirit, lived in a transcendental religious region; he was not\nto be bound in conduct by common rules.  Was he not in grace?  And was\nnot grace the antithesis of works?  Was not grace, before everything\nelse, the condonation of sin?  And the more it did that work, was it\nnot the more glorious?  \"Shall we not continue in sin then, that grace\nmay abound?\"  What does it signify, though the perishable and\nburthensome body defiles itself?  The emancipated spirit of the\n\"spiritual\" man lives on another plane; the sensual and the mystical\nelements may approach, may run parallel, but can never meet.  The body\nmay sin; the spirit must be pure--if only the man is in grace.\n\nSuch assuredly were some of the conditions of error and evil to be\nconsidered when on that far-off day, in his Roman chamber, St Paul\nturned his soul again to Philippi, and asked his scribe to write.\nThere is a solemn comfort in the thought.  In our days of trial, when\nagain and again it is as it \"the foundations were destroyed,\" it is\nsomething to remember the awful mental and moral trials of the\napostolic age.  It was indeed an \"age of faith\"; but, as the other side\nof that very fact, it was an age of clouds and darkness, from the point\nnot of \"faith\" but of \"sight.\"  It had a glorious answer to the\ntremendous questions that beset it.  But that answer was not human\nreasoning, or material successes; it was the Lord Jesus Christ.  And so\nit is for us to-day.\n\nBut now St Paul is at work; let us listen, and we shall hear how\npromptly he brings that answer to bear in his letter to Philippi.[1]\n\n\nVer. 1.  For the rest (_to loipon_), my brethren, to turn now to\nanother topic, as I draw towards an end, let me give you this\ncomprehensive watchword +Be glad in the Lord+.[2]  +To write the same\nthings to you+, to reiterate that one thought, that CHRIST is our glory\nand our joy, \"+to me not irksome, it is safe for you+.\"[3]  Safe,\nbecause there are spiritual dangers around you from which this will be\nthe best preservative; false teachings which can only be fully met with\nthe gladness of the truth of Christ.  +Beware of+,\n\nVer. 2.  keep your eyes open upon (_blepete_), +the \"dogs,\"+ the men\nwho would _excommunicate_ all who hold not with their half-Christian\nPharisaism and its legal burthens, but who are themselves thus\nself-excluded from the covenant blessing.  +Beware of the evil\nworkmen+, the teachers whose watchword is \"works, works, works,\" a\nweary round of observances and would-be merits, but who are sorry\n_work-men_ indeed, spoiling the whole structure of \"Heaven's easy,\nartless, unencumber'd plan.\"  +Beware of the concision+, the apostles\nof a mere physical wounding, which, as enjoined according to their\nprinciples, is nothing better than a mutilation (_katatome_), a parody\nof what circumcision was meant to be, as the sacrament of a preparatory\ndispensation now terminated in its\n\nVer. 3.  fulfilment.  +For+ not they but +we are the circumcision+, the\ntrue Israel of the true covenant, sealed and purified by our God; +we\nwho by God's Spirit worship+,[4] doing priestly service in a spiritual\ntemple[5] in a life, love, and power, which is ours by the presence in\nus of the Holy Ghost, the promise of the Father; +and who exult+, not\nin tribal, national, ceremonial prerogatives, but +in Christ Jesus+,\nour refuge and our crown, our righteousness and glory, with an\nexultation infinitely warmer than the legalist's can be, and meanwhile\npure, for its source is altogether not ourselves; +and who+, in Him,\n+not in the flesh+,[6] not in self and its workings, +are confident+\n(for confident we are, but it is a \"confidence in self-despair,\" the\nconfidence of those who have been driven by self-discovery to Christ\nalone).[7]  I speak with a general reference, of all true disciples;\nbut let me instance myself as a case peculiarly in point.  I speak thus,\n\nVer. 4.  +though having+ (_echon_), I, myself (_ego_), from _their_\nview-point, +confidence even in flesh+.  +Whoever else thinks of\nconfiding in flesh+, of building a legal standing-place on his\nprivilege and merit, +I+ may do so +more+ than he; for I have reached\nthe _ne plus ultra_ in that\n\nVer. 5.  direction.  +As for circumcision+,[8] I was an +eight-day+\nchild; no proselyte, operated upon in later life, but a son of the\nCovenant; descended +from Israel's race+, one of the progeny of him who\nwas a prince with God (Gen. xxxii. 28); +of Benjamin's tribe+, the\ntribe which gave the first God-chosen king to the nation, and which\nremained \"faithful among the faithless\" to the house of David at a\nlater day; +Hebrew+ offspring +of Hebrew ancestors+,[9] child of a home\nin which, immemorially, the old manners and the old speech were\ncherished; _in respect of the law,[10] a Pharisee_--the votary of\nreligious precision, elaborate devotion, exclusive privilege, and\nenergetic prose-\n\nVer. 6, lytism; +in respect of zeal+, intense and perfectly sincere,\n+persecuting the Church; in respect of the righteousness which+ resides\n+in the Law+, as its terms are understood by the Pharisee, +found+\n(_genomenos_) +blameless+.[11]  Such was my position.  I possessed an\nideal pedigree; full sacramental position from the first; domestic\ntraditions pure and strict; an absolute personal devotion to the cause\nof my creed; the most rigorous observance of its rules; the most\nenergetic\n\nVer. 7.  efforts to maintain and extend its power.  +But the kind of\nthings which+ (_hatina_) +I felt+ (_moi en_) so many _gains,[12] these\nthings I have come to consider_ (_hegemai_, perfect), +because of our+\n(_ton_) +Christ+ (discovered at last in His glory, as the slain and\nrisen Jesus), just one +loss+, one +deprivation+; not merely a\nworthless thing, but a ruinous one; a robbery of the true Blessing\n\nVer. 8.  from my soul.  +Aye more, I actually+ (_kai_) now +consider\nall things+, from all points of view, all possessions, all ambitions,\n+to be+ similarly +loss+, deprivation, +because of the surpassingness\nof the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord+, because of the immeasurable\nbetterness of a spirit-sight of what HE is, in Himself, and as my own;\n+because of whom+--on account of what He now was to me--+I suffered\ndeprivation+ (_exemiothen_) +of my all+ (_ta panta_), in the crisis of\nmy change; +and I consider it+ only +refuse+,[13] rubbish, that +I may\ngain+[14] (in a blessed exchange of profit against loss, the loss of\nwhat I thought my \"gains\") +Christ+, nothing less than HIM, my\nboundless Wealth (_ploutos_\n\nVer. 9.  _anexichniaston_, Eph. iii. 8), +and be found+, at any and\nevery \"time of finding\" (Ps. xxxii. 7, Heb.) by the Holy One, +in Him+,\none with Him, in His precious merits and in His risen life, but now\nespecially in His merits; +not having a righteousness of my own, that\nderived from the Law+, a title to acceptance drawn from my own supposed\nperfect correspondence to the Law, +but that which+ comes +through\nfaith in[15] Christ+, through reliance wholly reposed in Him, +the\nrighteousness which is derived+ not from the Law but +from God+, coming\nwholly out of His uncaused and sacred mercy, +on terms of our (_te_)\nfaith+, conditioned[15]\n\nVer. 10.  to us by simply our accepting reliance; +in order to know\nHim+, HIM, my Lord, with an intuition possible only to the soul which\naccepts Him for its All; +and the power of His Resurrection+, as that\nResurrection assures His people of their justification (Rom. iv. 24,\n25), and of their coming glory (1 Cor. xv. 20), and yet more as He, by\nHis life-giving Spirit, shed forth from Him the risen Head, lives His\n\"indissoluble life\" (Heb. vii. 16) in His members; and +the partnership\nof His sufferings+, that deep experience of union with Him which comes\nthrough daily \"taking up the cross,\" in His steps, for His sake, and in\nHis strength; growing into conformity (_summorthi-xomenos_, a present\nparticiple) +with His Death+, drawn evermore into spiritual harmony\nwith Him who wrought my salvation out by an ineffable surrender\n\nVer. 11.  of Himself to suffer; if +somehow I may arrive+, along the\nappointed path of the believer's obedience, +at the resurrection which\nis out from the dead+ (_ten exanastasin ten ex nekron_: so read); \"that\nblessed hope\" for all who sleep in Him, when their whole existence,\nredeemed and perfected, shall leave the world of \"the dead\" behind for\never.\n\n\nHere is a piece of consecutive rendering and paraphrase longer than\nusual.  And meanwhile the passage before us is one of extraordinary\nfulness and richness, alike in its record of experience and its\nteaching of eternal truths.  But it seemed impossible to break into\nfragments the glorious wholeness of the Apostle's thought and\nutterance.  And then, the utterance is so rich, so detailed, so\nexplanatory of itself, that I could not but feel that, for very much of\nit at least, my best commentary was the closest rendering I could\noffer, with a few brief suggestions by the way.\n\nDrawing now to a close, I can only indicate, under one or two headings,\nsome main messages to the mind and soul.\n\ni.  I gather from the connexion of the passage, as we have traced it,\nthe supreme importance of a true joy in the Lord, a true personal sight\nof \"the King in His beauty,\" in order to our spiritual orthodoxy.  Let\nme quote again from the Prayer Book of the Moravians, from which I gave\none short extract in the last chapter.  In their \"Church Litany,\" among\nthe first suffrages, occur these petitions: \"_From coldness to Thy\nmerits and death.  From error and misunderstanding, From the loss of\nour glory in Thee, Preserve us, gracious Lord and God._\"  The words are\nthe very soul of St Paul, as it conveys the Spirit's oracle to us here.\nSt Paul dreads exceedingly for the Philippians the incursion of \"error\nand misunderstanding\"; the advent of a mechanical rigorism of rule and\nordinance, and (as we shall see in later pages) the subtle poison also\nof the specious antinomian lie.  How does he apply the antidote?  In\nthe form of an appeal to them to be sure to not to \"lose their glory in\nthe Lord\"; and then he writes a record of his own experience in which\nhe shews them how his own Pharisaic treasures had all been cast away,\nor willingly given up to the spoiler; and why?  Not for abstract\nreasons, but \"because of the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ\nJesus my Lord\"; because of the irresistible and infinite _betterness_\nof His discovered glory, seen in the atoning Cross and the Resurrection\npower.\n\nLet us \"arm ourselves likewise with the same mind.\"  We have countless\nperils about us in our modern Christendom, things which only too easily\ncan trouble the reason and sway the will away from the one \"hope set\nbefore us.\"  Let us meet them, whatever else we do, with the Moravians'\nprayer.  Let us meet them with obedience to the Apostle's positive\ninjunction, \"Rejoice in the Lord.\"\n\nii.  The passage bids us remember the profound connexion between a true\n\"knowledge\" of the Lord Jesus as our Atonement and a true \"knowledge\"\nof Him as our Life and Power.  Both are here.  In ver. 9, so it seems\nto me, any unprejudiced reader of St Paul's writings must see language\nakin to those great passages of Romans and Galatians which put before\nus the supreme question of our Justification, and which send us for our\nwhole hope of Acceptance before the eternal Judge, whose law we have\nbroken, to the Atoning Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In those\npassages, demonstrably as I venture to think, the word \"Righteousness\"\nis largely used as a short term for the Holy One's righteous way of\naccepting us sinners for the sake of the Sinless One, who, in our\nnature, was \"made a curse for us,\" \"made sin for us,\" \"delivered for\nour offences,\" \"set forth for a propitiation,\" that we might be\n\"justified from all things\" in our union with Him by faith.  If so,\nthis is the purport of similar phrases here also.  St Paul is thinking\nhere first of the discovered glory of Christ as the propitiation for\nhis sins, his peace with God, his refuge and his rest for ever against\nthe accuser and the curse.  That comes first, profoundly first.\n\nBut then we have also here the sequel truth, the glorious complement.\nHere is Acceptance, wholly for Jesus Christ's most blessed sake.  But\nthis is but the divine condition to another divine and transcendent\nblessing; it is revealed as the way in to a knowledge of this Lord of\nPeace, a deep and unspeakable knowledge of Him, such as shall infuse\ninto His disciple the power of His Risen Life, and the secret of an\ninward assimilation of the soul to the very principle of His Death, and\nshall be the path whose end shall be His glory.\n\nSt Paul here bids us never put asunder what God hath joined together.\n\"Never further than the Cross, never higher than Thy feet\"; there may\nwe be \"found,\" \"in Him\"; unshaken by surrounding mysteries, and meekly\nresolute against fashions of opinion.  Let us be recognized for those\nwho truly know for themselves, and truly commend to others, that\nblessed \"Justification by Faith\" which is still, as ever, the Beautiful\nGate of the Gospel.\n\n  \"'Tis joy enough, my All in All,\n    Before Thy feet to lie;\n  Thou wilt not let me lower fall,\n    And who can higher fly?\"\n\n\nBut then let us be known as those who, accepting Christ Jesus as our\nAll for peace, (whatever we may have to \"consider to be loss\" that we\nmay do so,) have clasped Him also as our Hidden Life, our Risen Power,\nour King within.\n\n\n  \"O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,\n    And all things else recede;\n  My heart be daily nearer Thee,\n    From sin be daily freed.\" [17]\n\n\nAlways at the atoning Cross;--yes, every day and hour; \"knowing no\nother stand\" before the face of the Holy One.  Always receiving there\nthe Risen Life, the presence inwardly of the Risen One, the secret\npower to suffer and to serve in peace;--yes, for ever yes; \"to the\npraise of the glory of His grace.\"\n\nSo, and only so, shall we live the life of real sinners really saved;\n\"worshipping by the Spirit of God, exulting in Christ Jesus, and\nconfident, but not in the flesh.\"\n\n\n\n[1] The reader may be aware that Bishop Lightfoot's theory of the\nconnexion of thought at the beginning of ch. iii. is different from\nthat advocated here.  He thinks that St Paul dictated on continuously\n_till the close of_ iii. 1, and was interrupted there, and then began\n_de novo_ with iii. 2, entirely on another line.  In this view, the\nwords about \"writing _the same things_ unto you\" refer still to\n_Christian unity_, on which St Paul was going to dilate further, but a\nsudden pause occurred, and the theme was dropped.  With reverence for\nthe great expositor, I cannot but think this unlikely.  It assumes that\nSt Paul was curiously indifferent to the sequence of thought in an\nimportant apostolic message, which assuredly he would _read over again_\nbefore it was actually sent.  A theory which fairly explains the\npassage, and meanwhile avoids the thought of such indifference, seems\nto me far preferable.\n\n[2] The words obviously may be rendered, \"_Farewell_ in the Lord\"; and\nso some take them, explaining that St Paul was intending to close\nimmediately, and so wrote his \"Adieu\" here; but then changed his plan.\nThis is very unlikely however.  See below, iv. 4: _Chairete en Kurio\npantote_.  The \"always\" there scarcely suits a formula _of farewell_,\nwhile it perfectly suits an injunction _to be glad_.  And that passage\nis the obvious echo of this.--A.V. and R.V. both render \"rejoice,\"\nthough R.V. writes \"or, _farewell_\" in the margin.  St Chrysostom in\nhis comments here explains the passage as referring to the Christian's\njoy (_chara_).  The ancient Latin versions render _Gaudete_ (not\n_valete_) in _Domino_.\n\n[3] I thus render _rhythmically_ the rhythmical Greek (it is an iambic\ntrimeter): _emoi men ouk okneron, humin d asphales_.  It is probable\nthat the words are a quotation from a Greek poet, perhaps a \"comic\"\npoet; the \"comedies\" being full of neatly expressed reflexions.  For\nsuch a quotation, probably from the \"comedian\" Menander, see 1 Cor. xv.\n33: _phtheirousin ethe chresth homiliai kakai_: \"_Ill converse cankers\nfair morality._\"\n\n[4] The reading _pneumati Theou_ (not _Theo_) _latreuontes_ is to be\npreferred.\n\n[5] _Datreuien_ means first to do servants' work, then to do religious\n\"service\" (so almost always in LXX. and N.T.) and sometimes specially\n_priestly_ duty (see e.g. Heb. xiii. 10).  This latter may be in view\nhere: we Christians, born anew of the Spirit, are the true _priests_,\nand we little need to be made Jewish proselytes first.\n\n[6] The _sarx_ in St Paul is very fairly represented by the word \"self\"\nas used popularly in religious language.  It is man taken as apart from\nGod, and so man _versus_ God; then by transition it may mean, as here,\nthe products of such a source, the labours of the self-life to\nconstruct a self-righteousness.  It is hardly necessary to say that, in\nsuch contexts as this, where it stands more or less distinguished from\nthe _pneuma_, it is not a synonym for \"the body.\"  Sins of \"the flesh\"\nmay be sins purely of the mind, as e.g. \"emulation\" (Gal. v. 20).\n\n[7] I thus attempt to convey the emphasis of the words _ouk en sarki\npepoithotes_, which is not precisely as if he had written _en sarki_.\n\n[8] _Peritoue_: a dative of reference, a frequent construction with St\nPaul.  See Rom. xii. 10-12 for several examples together.\n\n[9] See Trench, _Synonyms_, Sec. xxxix., for the special meanings of\n_Israelites_, the member of the Covenant-people; _Ebraios_, the Jew who\nwas true to his inmost national traditions; and _Ioudaios_, the Jew\nmerely as other than the Gentile.\n\n[10] The article is absent; but context leaves no doubt of the special\nreference here.\n\n[11] In solemn contrast but with perfect consistency, from another\npoint of view--that not of the Pharisee but of GOD--he can point out\nelsewhere that \"no flesh\" can possibly claim \"righteousness\" on the\nground of fulfilment of code and precept.  See especially Rom. iii. 19,\n20.  But his business here is to meet the legalist on the legalist's\nown ground.\n\n[12] Notice the _plural_; as if, miser-like, he had counted his bags of\ntreasure.  And then see the contrasted _singular_, _Xemian_: he finds\nthem all _one mass of loss_.\n\n[13] _Skubala_: the Greek etymologists derived the word from _kusi\nbalein_, \"to cast to dogs.\"  Otherwise it is traced to a connexion with\n_skor_, \"excrement.\"\n\n[14] Practically, he means \"that I _might_ gain,\" in the past\ntransaction of conversion and surrender.  He thinks the past over again.\n\n[15] Lit., \"faith of,\" _pisteos Christou_.  This use of the genitive\nwith _pistis_, to denote its object, is frequent.  Cp. e.g. Mark xi.\n22; Gal. ii. 16, 20.\n\n[16] Even as the benefit of food is conditioned to us by our (not\nbuying but) eating it.\n\n[17] See the whole hymn (rendered from Lavater's _O Jesu Christe, wachs\nin mir_) in _Hymns of Consecration_, 295.\n\n\n\n\n  \"We will dwell on Calvary's mountain\n    Where the flocks of Zion feed,\n  Oft resorting to that fountain\n    Open'd when our Lord did bleed;\n          Thence deriving\n    Grace, and life, and holiness.\"\n          _From the Moravian Hymn-book_.\n\n\n\n\n_CHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS_\n\n\n\n  \"I want that adorning divine\n    Thou only, my God, can'st bestow;\n  I want in those beautiful garments to shine\n    Which distinguish Thy household below.\n\n  \"I want, as a traveller, to haste\n    Straight onward, nor pause on my way,\n  Nor forethought nor anxious contrivance to waste\n    On the tent only pitch'd for a day.\n\n  \"I want--and this sums up my prayer--\n    To glorify Thee till I die,\n  Then calmly to yield up my soul to Thy care,\n    And breathe out, in faith, my last sigh.\"\n          CHARLOTTE ELLIOTT.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCHRISTIAN STANDING AND CHRISTIAN PROGRESS\n\nPHILIPPIANS iii. 12-16\n\nChristian exultation--Christian confidence--\"Not in the flesh\"--\"In\nJesus Christ\"--The prize in view--No finality in the progress--\"Not\nalready perfect\"--The recompense of reward--What the prize will be\n\n\nIn a certain sense we have completed our study of the first section of\nthe third chapter of the Epistle.  But the treatment has been so\nextremely imperfect, in view of the importance of that section, that a\nfew further remarks must be made.  Let us ponder one weighty verse,\nleft almost unnoticed when we touched it.\n\nObserve then the brief, pregnant _account of the true Christian_, given\nin ver. 3: \"We are the circumcision, we who by God's Spirit worship,\nand who exult in Christ Jesus, and who, not in the flesh, are\nconfident.\"  This is a far-reaching description of the true member of\nthe true Israel, the man of the Covenant of grace.\n\nNote first its positive lines.  \"_We worship_,\" \"_we exult_,\" \"_we are\nconfident_.\"  Every affirmation is full of divine principles of truth.\n\"_We worship_\"; ours is a hallowed, dedicated, and reverent life.  It\nis spent in a sanctuary.  Whatever we have to be, or to do, as to\nexternals; whether to rule a province, a church, a school, a home;\nwhether to keep accounts, or sweep a room; whether to evangelize the\nslums of a city, or the dark places of heathenism, or to teach\nlanguage, or science, or music; whether to be active all day long, or\nto lie down alone to suffer; whatever be our actual place and duty in\nthe world, \"_we worship_.\"  \"We have set the Lord always before us.\"\nWe have \"sanctified Christ as LORD in our hearts\" (1 Pet. iii. 15; so\nread).  We belong to Him everywhere, and we recollect it.  We owe\nadoring reverence to Him everywhere, and we recollect it.  Let us\nreiterate the fact; ours is a hallowed life, for it belongs to a divine\nMaster; it is a reverent life, for that Master in His greatness is to\nus an abiding Presence.  The fact of Him, the thought of Him, has\nexpelled from our lives the secular air and the light and flippant\nspirit.  We are nothing if not _worshippers_.\n\nThen, secondly, \"_we exult_.\"  Ours is a life of gladness, so far as it\nis the true Christian life.  Constantly and profoundly chastened by its\nworshipping character, it is constantly quickened and illuminated by\nthis element of exultation.  The word is strong, _kauchomenoi_,\n\"exulting.\"  We observe that the Apostle does not say that we are\nresigned, that we are at peace, that there is a calm upon us.  This is\ntrue; but he says that \"we _exult_.\"  The \"still waters,\" the _mey\nm'nuchoth_ of Ps. xxiii. 2, are anything but stagnant.  They are a\nlake; but it is a lake upon a river, like the fair waters of Galilee,\nreceiving and giving, and therefore alive with pure movement, while yet\nsurrounded by the \"rest,\" _m'nuchah_, which means repose not _from_\naction but _underneath_ it.  \"We exult.\"  Ours is not an autumn of\nfeeling; not a state of the soul in which the characteristics are the\nsighs and starting tears of memory and apprehension.  It is an\neverlasting spring, in which the mighty but temperate Sun of Salvation\nis shining, and will not set; not parching but quickening all day long.\n\"We exult.\"  It is a happy life, not only with the happiness of a\ncheerful contentment, beautiful as that is; ours is the happiness of\nwondering discovery, and rich possession, and ever-opening prospects;\nit is \"quick and lively\"; it is \"exultation.\"\n\nThen, \"_we are confident_.\"  If I traced the bearing of this clause\naright, in the last chapter, we shall feel that the word _pepoithotes_\nis meant to carry a _positive_ message.  It is not only that \"we do not\nrely on the flesh\"; it is that \"we are reliant, though not on the\nflesh.\"  Even so, in the true idea of the Christian life.  \"_We are\nconfident_.\"  We are not wanderers from one peradventure to another; we\nare reliant, we are assured, we know where we are, and what we are, and\nwhither we are bound.  True, we, are intensely conscious of the limits\nof our knowledge; it is only here and there that we can absolutely say,\n\"We know.\"  But then, the points where we _can_ say so are points of\nsupreme importance.  \"We know that the Son of God is come.\"  \"We know\nthat our sins are forgiven us for His name's sake.\"  \"We know that all\nthings work together for good to them that love God.\"  \"We know that if\nour earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building\nof God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; therefore\nwe are always _confident_.\"  And all this is summed up in the thought\nthat \"we know WHOM we have believed, and that HE is able to keep what\nwe have committed unto Him.\"  Our certainty is a confiding certainty.\nIt does not reside in our courage, or our mental insight; it is lodged\nin a Person, who is such that He claims our entire reliance on His\nwork, His word, Himself.\n\nThen from its other side this wonderful verse gives us the cautions,\nthe negatives, of the Christian life; though even here it speaks the\nlanguage of the highest positive truth.  \"We worship _by God's\nSpirit_\"; our reverence, our adoration, the hallowing and religiousness\nof our lives, is not a form imposed from without; it is a power\nexerting itself from within, having come to our poor hearts from above.\nAssuredly we do not neglect or slight actions and rites of worship; He\nwho has made each of us soul and body, one man, does not mean us to\ndespise the outward and physical in devotion.  But we watchfully\nremember that no such actions or rites are, for one moment, the soul of\nworship, or its formative power.  _That_ soul and power is \"God's\nSpirit\" only; the Holy Ghost dwelling in the renewed being, and\nteaching the man \"to cry Abba, Father,\" and \"making intercession for\nhim with groanings which cannot be uttered,\" and \"taking of the things\nof Christ, and shewing it unto us.\"  We pray, and it is \"in the Holy\nGhost.\"  We worship, and it is \"in Spirit, and in truth.\"\n\nAgain, \"we exult _in Christ Jesus_.\"  Our glad and animated happiness\nlies in nothing short of HIM as its cause.  We are thankful for noble\nreligious traditions and institutions, and for holy parentage, and for\nall which makes Christianity correspond in practice to its name.  But\nwe are watchful not to let even these blessings take the unique place\nof \"Christ Jesus\" in our \"exultation.\"  \"In all things He must have the\npre-eminence.\"  Piety itself without Him, if it can be found, is not a\nbody but a statue.  All the privileges of the Church of God, without\nHim, though we reverently cherish every teaching and every ordinance\nthat is Christian indeed, are but the frame without the picture, the\ncasket without the stone.\n\nThen again, \"_not in the flesh_ are we confident.\"  We have learnt a\ndeep distrust of everything which St Paul classes under that word\n\"flesh.\"  It is always offering itself to us, in one Protean shape or\nanother, to be our comfort and our repose.  Sometimes it takes the form\nof our supposed usefulness and diligence; sometimes of our strict and\nexemplary observances; sometimes, putting on a disguise still more\nsubtle, it sets before the Christian the depth, or the length, of his\nspiritual experience.  Or it grows bolder, and is content with coarser\nmasks; it tempts us to a miserable reliance on some imagined betterness\nwhen we compare ourselves, forsooth, with some one else.  I knew long\nago an old shepherd, in my father's parish, who based a hope for\neternity on the fact (if such it was) that he was never tipsy on a\nSunday.  We are amused, or we are shocked.  But this was only an\nextreme type of a vast phenomenon, to be found lurking in countless\nhearts, when God lets in the light; the \"reliance\" on our being\nsomehow, so we think, \"not as other men are.\"  And from this whole\nworld of delusion, in all its continents and islands, the Lord calls us\naway here by His Apostle.  He bids us migrate as it were to another\nplanet, laying our _whole_ confidence, not part of it, on HIM; let that\nother world, our old world, roll along without us.\n\nChrist presents to us Himself (as we follow out this rich Philippian\npassage) as _all_ our Righteousness, in His precious justifying Merit,\noffered for the acceptance of the very simplest faith.  And He presents\nHimself as _all_ our Power, for deliverance and for service, in His\nresurrection Life; coming to reveal Himself to us in the divine beauty\nof His sufferings, His death, through which he has passed for us into\n\"indissoluble life\" (Heb. vii. 16).  Our Righteousness--it is HE, \"the\npropitiation for our sins.\"  Our Sanctification--it is still HE, in\n\"the power of His resurrection, and fellowship with His sufferings, and\nassimilation to His death.\"  Our Redemption, from the power of the\ngrave--it is still \"this same Jesus,\" in union with whom alone we\n\"attain unto the resurrection which is out from the dead.\"\n\nEven so, Lord Jesus Christ; let us thus be \"found in Thee\";\nworshipping, exulting, confiding; resting on Thee, abiding in Thee,\nwith an accepting faith which only grows more simple and single as the\nyears move on and gather \"since we believed.\"\n\n  \"Help us, O Christ, to grasp each truth\n    With hand as firm and true\n  As when we clasp'd it first to heart\n    A treasure fresh and new;\n\n  \"To name Thy name, Thyself to own,\n    With voice unfaltering,\n  And faces bold and unashamed\n    As in our Christian spring.\" [1]\n\n\nBut St Paul is again dictating, and we must follow.  He has confessed\nand affirmed, once for all, his standing and fixity in the Lord, and in\nHim alone.  Now he must emphasize another aspect of the living truth,\nhis progress in the Lord; the non-finality of any given attainment in\nunion with Him.\n\n\nVer. 12.  +Not as though I had already received+ (_elabon_) the crown\nof accomplished glory, +or had been already perfected+, with the\nperfection which shall be when \"we shall be like Him, for we shall see\nHim as He is.\"  +No, I am pressing on+ (_dioko de_), as on the racer's\ncourse, +if indeed+, if as a fact, in blessed finality, +I may seize+\n(_katalabo_) +that+ promised crown +with a view to which[2] I was\nactually+ (_kai_) +seized by Christ Jesus+, when in His mercy He as it\nwere laid violent hands upon me, to pluck me from ruin, and to\nconstrain me into His salvation and His service.  Yes, \"I press on\" to\n\"seize\" that crown, with the animating thought that it was on purpose\nthat I might \"seize\" it that the Lord \"seized\" me; and that so every\nstage in the upward and onward course of faith runs straight in the\nline of His will whose mighty, gracious grasp is on me as I go.\n+Brethren+,\n\nVer. 13.  (I speak the word of pause and of appeal, as if I could stand\nby you, and lay my hand upon your arm,) +I+ (_ego_), whatever others\nmay think and do about _them_selves, +do not account myself+\n(_emauton_, emphatic like _ego_) +to have seized+ the crown as yet; no,\none thing (_en de_)--my thoughts, my purposes, are all concentrated on\nthis _one_ thing--+the things behind forgetting+, as one experience\nafter another falls behind me into the past, +and towards the things in\nfront stretching out and onward+ (_epekteinomenos_), like the eager\nracer, with head thrown forward and body bent towards his object,\nseeking for more and yet more, in the grace and power of my unchangeable\n\nVer. 14.  Saviour, +goal-ward I press on+ (_kata skopon dioko_), \"not\nuncertainly,\" with no faltering or divided aim, +unto+ (_eis_), till I\nactually touch, +the prize+ (_brabeion_, 1 Cor. ix. 24), the victor's\nwreath,[3] the prize +of+, offered by, made possible through, +the high\ncall of God+, the voice of His prevailing grace[2] coming from _the\nheights_ (_ano_) of glory and leading the believer at length up\nthither, +in Christ Jesus+; for through Him comes the \"call,\" and its\nblessed effect is to unite the \"called,\" the converted, sinner _to_\nHim, so that he lives here and hereafter in Him.  +So let all+\n\nVer. 15.  +us perfect ones+ (_hosoi oun teleioi_), with the perfection\nnot of ideal attainment but of Christian maturity and entirety of\nexperience, +be of this mind+; the \"mind\" of those who rest in Christ\nimmoveably for their acceptance, and press forward in Christ\nunrestingly in their obedience, ever discovering fresh causes for\nhumility and for progress, as they keep close to Him.  +And if you are\ndiversely+ (_eteros_) +minded in any thing+, if in any detail of theory\nor statement you cannot yet see with me, +this also God shall unveil to\nyou+.  Sure I am that \"the Spirit of God speaketh by me,\" and that\nultimately therefore you will, in submission to Him, see as I have\ntaught you.  But I am not therefore commissioned in this matter to\ndenounce and excommunicate; I lay the truth before you, and in love\nleave it upon your reverent thoughts.  +Only, as to+\n\nVer. 16.  +what we have succeeded in reaching+,[5] so far as our\ninsight into Christ has actually gone, up to our full present light in\nthe Gospel, +let us step in the same path+ (_to auto stoichein_[6]), on\nthe unchanging principles of faith, love, and holiness, and with a\nwatchful desire to cherish to the utmost a holy harmony of spirit and\nconduct.\n\n\nHere, in suggestive contrast or complement to the section we studied\nlast, the Christian appears in full and energetic movement, animated\nwith a sacred discontent, repudiating all thought of finality in his\nconformity to his Lord, and in his actual spiritual condition; running,\npressing on, remembering at every step that, although grace is present\nin power, and glory is in view, still this is the journey, not the\nhome; the race, not the goal;\n\n  _Nil actum reputans dum quid sibi restat agendum._\n\n\nThe passage contains of course much divine teaching in detail.  But two\nmain points come up conspicuously \"for our learning.\"\n\ni.  We have here a strong, and at the same time a most tender, warning\nagainst all approaches to a theoretical \"perfectionism.\"  Under that\nword, as I am well aware, many varieties of opinion in detail may be\nfound.  And again, few who hold opinions commonly called perfectionist\nlike the word \"perfectionism.\"  But I speak with practical accuracy\nwhen I give that title to such views as on the whole affirm the\nattainableness here below of a spiritual condition in which man needs\nno longer confess himself as now a sinner, and in which his attention\ntends to be drawn more to his perfectness than to his imperfections of\ncondition.  That such views are held, and strongly held, by many\nearnest Christians, is a familiar fact.  As far as my own observation\ngoes, such views are not uncommonly attended, in those who hold them,\nby a certain oblivion to personal shortcomings and inconsistencies; by\nan obscuration of consciousness, and of conscience, more or less\nmarked, towards the sinfulness of ordinary, everyday violations of the\nlaw of holiness in respect of \"meekness, humbleness of mind,\nlongsuffering,\" sympathy, and other quiet graces.\n\nIn the present passage the Apostle's whole spirit moves in just the\nopposite direction.  His complete repose in Christ as the Righteousness\nof God for him, and then his deep nearness to his Lord as the Power of\nGod in him, alike seem not so much to banish as utterly to preclude any\nthought about himself but that of his own imperfection.  He writes as\none whose very last feeling is that of complacency in his spiritual\ncondition.  I deliberately do not say \"self-complacency\"; for all\nChristians would repudiate that word; I say, complacency in his\nspiritual condition.  His spiritual _position_, in Christ, as he is\n\"found in Him,\" fills him with much more than complacency; it is his\nglory and his boast.  But when he comes to speak of his spiritual\n_condition_, the possessing thought is that all is imperfect and\nprogressive.  He has a perfect blessing; but he is an imperfect\nrecipient of it; he has \"not attained.\"  He is deeply happy.  But he is\nthoroughly humble.  As we read the passage, we feel very sure that the\nman who wrote it would lie very tenderly and candidly open to reproofs,\nand to painful truths told him about himself.  For his Lord, he is\nready to bear rejoicing witness to the whole world.  For himself, even\nas in Christ, he holds no brief; nay, he takes the other part.\n\nHe has had a vision of absolute holiness which has completely guarded\nhim from the delusion of thinking that he is himself absolutely holy,\neven in the fullest state of grace.  He is so genuinely \"perfect\" in\nthe sense of mature knowledge of his Lord that he is incapable of\nthinking himself \"perfected.\"\n\nAll the while, this does not for a moment leave him in the miserable\nplight of acquiescing in sin because he knows he is still a sinner.  If\nhe were merely going by a theory, it might be so.  But he is going by\nthe Lord Jesus Christ; he is using HIM, daily and hourly, as not only\nhis always abasing standard, but as \"all his salvation, and all his\ndesire\"; as the infinitely blissful Object of his affections and of his\nknowledge; as his _Summum Bonum_.  While Christ is fully this to the\nChristian, he will be little likely on the one hand to say, \"I am\nperfect\" (Job ix. 20); on the other he will be always seeking, in the\nmost practical of all ways, watching, praying, believing, for a closer\nconformity and yet closer (_summorphixomenos_) to his Lord's bright\nimage.\n\nAnd at the back of all his thoughts about defect and progress will lie\nthe restful certainties to which no ideas of defect attach, and from\nwhich the idea of progress is absent, because it is out of place--the\ncertainties of the Righteousness of God, \"of peace with God through our\nLord Jesus Christ\"; the being \"found in Him.\"\n\nii.  The passage puts very distinctly before us the thought of the\nReward of Grace.  The writer is living, loving, working, in view of a\n\"prize,\" _brabeion_: he looks forward to the Master's hand as it will\nextend the wreath of victory, and to His voice as it will utter the\nlonged-for words, \"Well done, good and faithful Servant.\"  This same\nman has laboured, in many an hour of public and private teaching, and\nin many an inspired page, to emphasize the magnificent truth that grace\nis grace; that God owes man nothing; that \"all things are of God\"; that\n\"to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the\nungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.\"  He well knows that\nthere is a side of truth from which the one possible message is the\nLord's own solemn question and answer (Luke xvii. 9), \"Doth he thank\nthat servant?  I trow not.\"  The most complete and laborious service\ncannot possibly outrun the obligation of the rescued bondservant to the\nPossessor, of the limb to the blessed Head.  But then, this absolute\nservitude is to One who is, as a fact, eternal Love.  The work is done\nfor a Master who, while His claims are absolute, is such that He\npersonally delights in every response of love to His love, of will to\nHis will.  His servant _cannot_ serve Him with a grateful heart without\nthereby pleasing the heart of his Lord.  And so, at the close of the\nday's work, while, from the side of law and claims, the Lord \"doth not\nthank that servant,\" from the side of love and of moral sympathy He\nwill welcome him in with \"Well done, good and faithful servant; enter\nthou into the joy of thy Lord.\"  And that holy \"prize\" does, and must,\nprove a magnet to the Christian's will and hopes.  What is he looking\nfor?  Not an accession of personal dignity in heaven, but a word from\nhis beloved Master's heart.  There is nothing mercenary in this.  True,\nit \"has respect unto the recompense of reward.\"  But the \"reward\" is\nwhat only love can give, and only love can take.  It is love's approval\nof the service of love.\n\nMuch discussion has been spent upon the theory of reward, in the matter\nof our service rendered to \"our King who has saved us.\"  The theme no\ndoubt is one which admits of much interesting and important enquiry;\nand it has many sides.  But after all the true philosophy of it lies in\n\"the truth as it is _in Jesus_.\"  Let the Christian be seeking the\nreward of personal aggrandizement in heaven, \"to sit on His right hand,\nor on His left, in His glory\"; and the motive is as earthly as if the\nscene of its fulfilment were to be an earthly palace.  Let him be\nseeking the \"well done\" of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ has\nredeemed him, and is dear to him; and he is in the line of the will,\nand of the love, of God.\n\n\n\n[1] Dr H. Bonar.\n\n[2] _Heth o katelephthen_: grammatically we may render, \"inasmuch as I\nwas seized\"; cp. the Greek of Rom. v. 12; 1 Cor. v. 4.  But the\nconnexion of thought seems to be best met by the above rendering, which\nis practically that of A.V. and R.V.\n\n[3] _Stephanos_, as in 1 Cor. ix. 25, Rev. iii. 11, and often.\n_Stephanos_ is properly the victor's wreath, _diadema_ the king's crown\n(Rev. xix. 12).--For a short essay on St Paul's use of athletic\nmetaphors see this Epistle in _The Cambridge Greek Testament_, Appendix.\n\n[4] _Klesis_, _kalein_, _kletoi_, in the Epistles will be found\nregularly to refer not to the general _invitations_ of the Gospel, but\nto the actually prevailing power of God over the wills of His people.\nSee particularly 1 Cor. i. 23, 24, where the \"call\" is clearly\ndistinguished from the general proclamation, which alas so many\n\"Greeks\" and \"Jews\" heard, but only to reject it.\n\n[5] _Hephthasamen_: the verb seems always to indicate not merely\nreaching, but reaching _with some difficulty_.  I attempt to express\nthis in the translation.\n\n[6] There is good evidence for omitting the words _kanoni, to auto\nphronein_.--_Stoichein_ is more in detail than _peripatein_: \"to\n_step_,\" not only \"to walk.\"  See the Greek of Rom. iv. 12.\n\n\n\n\n  \"Sovereign Lord and gracious Master,\n    Thou didst freely choose Thine own,\n  Thou hast call'd with holy calling,\n  Thou wilt save, and keep from falling;\n    Thine the glory, Thine alone!\n  Yet Thy hand shall crown in heaven\n  All the grace Thy love hath given;\n  Just, though undeserv'd, reward\n  From our glorious, gracious Lord.\"\n          F. R. HAVERGAL.\n\n\n\n\n_THE BLESSED HOPE AND ITS POWER_\n\n\n\n  \"We are waiting, we are yearning for Thy voice\n    Through the long, long summer day and winter night;\n  We are mourning till Thou bid'st our souls rejoice,\n    Till Thy coming turns our darkness into light:\n        Come, Lord Jesus, come again;\n        We shall see Thee as Thou art,\n          Then, and not till then,\n        In Thy glory bear a part;\n          Then, and not till then,\n        Thou wilt satisfy each heart.\"\n          J. DENHAM SMITH.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE BLESSED HOPE AND ITS POWER\n\nPHILIPPIANS iii. 17-21\n\nThe problem of the body--Cautions and tears--\"That blessed hope\"--The\nduty of warning--The moral power of the hope--The hope full of\nimmortality--My mother's life--\"He is able\"--The promise of his coming\n\n\nThe Apostle draws to the close of his appeal for a true and watchful\nfidelity to the Gospel.  He has done with his warning against Judaistic\nlegalism.  He has expounded, in the form of a personal confession and\ntestimony, the true Christian position, the acceptance of the believer\nin \"the righteousness which is of God by faith,\" and the sanctification\nof the believer through union with his Lord and in an always growing\ncommunion with Him.  Throughout this deep and most tender argument has\nrun everywhere the truth with which it began, that the sure antidote to\nthe spiritual errors in question is \"joy in the Lord.\"  The glad use of\nJesus Christ in His personal glory and perfection, as He merited for\nus, and as we abide in Him--this is the way.\n\nAlready another class of mistake and danger has risen before his mind,\nand occupies it now exclusively.  From ver. 12 onward, if I read the\npassage aright, he has been thinking not of the legalist only, who\nopposed and denounced his doctrine of grace and faith, but of the\nschool or schools which rather would applaud it--and then distort it.\nThere was the teacher who would assert a premature and delusive\npersonal perfection, proclaiming himself so close to Christ that he had\nalready reached the holy goal.  And there was the teacher who would\nreason so upon the perfectness of the atoning merits as to disclaim the\nneed of seeking with all his soul a personal conformity to the Lord of\nthe Atonement.  Such a man would conceivably affirm for himself an\nexperience of intense spiritual insight, a communion with God profound\nand direct, an exaltation into a celestial atmosphere of consciousness;\nwhile yet, and on his own avowed theory, he was living a life in which\nsin was allowed to reign in his mortal body, What did it matter?  The\nspirit soared and expatiated in a higher region.  The true man lived in\nthe world above, \"commercing with the skies\"; it was but the body, soon\nto perish, which went its own way, and might be allowed to do so, for\nit could never be other than the uncongenial burthen of the real man.\n\nSuch theories, as all are aware, were largely developed and widely\nspread in the sub-apostolic age.  The word Gnosticism, so familiar to\nthe reader of the early history of thought in and around the Church,\nreminds us of this; for while many Gnostics were severe ascetics,\nothers were practical libertines; and the divergent practices sprang\nfrom one deep source of error, dishonour of the body.  To both schools,\nspirit was good, matter was evil.  By both therefore the body was\nviewed not as a subject of redemption, but as a barrier in its way.\nThe one aimed to wear out the barrier, to help it to disappear.  The\nothers left it, as they thought, alone; leapt, as they thought, over\nit; as if they could pursue a spiritual life which should be\nirrespective of the body's hopeless evils.\n\nThe embryo, at least, of this latter type of thought was beyond doubt\napparent in St Paul's day, and had begun to be felt at Philippi.\nThere, in that loving and beloved community, the plague had begun, or\nat least the infection was imminent.  \"Many walked\" (perhaps not\nactually at Philippi yet, but they might soon come) in the foul broad\nroad which they asserted to be clean and narrow.  Very probably they\nused the terms of the Pauline Gospel, and said much of grace, and\nfaith, and the Spirit, and the things above.  But none the less they\nwere the victims of an awful self-delusion; teachers whose doctrine led\ndownwards to the pit.  To them he comes at length, explicitly and\nfinally.  In view of them he places before the Philippians once more\nthe fact of his own and his brethren's examples, and then the\nsanctifying power of that blessed hope, the Redemption of the Body.\n\n\nVer. 17.  +United imitators of me become ye, brethren+; taking me, your\nlong-known guide in the Lord, for your moral pattern, and strengthening\nyour mutual cohesion (_summimetai_) by so doing (an appeal prompted not\nby egotism or self-confidence, but by single-hearted certainty about my\nmessage and my purpose); +and mark+, watch, in order to tread in their\nsteps,[1] +those who so walk as you have us+, me and my\nmissionary-brethren, +for a model+; those whose practical conduct in\nhuman life and intercourse (_peripatein_), seen among you day by day in\nits wholesomeness and truth, plainly reproduces what you remember of\nours.  There is need for this attention, and for this\n\nVer. 18.  discrimination.  +For there are many men walking+, pursuing a\nline of conduct and practice, +whom I often used to tell you of+, in\nthe days of our direct intercourse, +but+ (_de_) +now tell you of\nactually+ (_kai_) +with cries and tears+ (_klaion_), (so much has the\nevil grown, in extent and in depth, so awfully apparent are its issues,\nfor this world and the world to come,) +as the enemies+, _the_ personal\nenemies (_tous echthrous_), as if in a bad pre-eminence, +of the Cross\nof our+ (_tou_) +Christ+, that Cross of whose virtues they can say\nmuch, but whose power upon the soul they utterly ignore; +of+\n\nVer. 19.  +whom the end is perdition+, ruin of the whole being,[2]\nfinal and hopeless; +of whom the god is the belly+, (the sensual\nappetites, the body's degradation, not its function,) while they claim\nan exalted and special intimacy with the Supreme; +and their+ (_he_)\n+glory+, their boast to see deeper and to soar higher than others, +is\nin their shame; men whose mind is for+ (_phronouten_) +the things on\nearth+, not, as they dream, or as at least they say, for the things of\nan upper and super-corporeal world.  No; their subtle doctrine of\nspirit and body--what is it when tested in its issues?  It is but a\nphilosophy of sin; a gossamer robe over the self-indulgence which has\ncome to be the real interest of the theorist, the real occupation of\nhis will.  All is really, with them, of the earth, earthy.  Far other\nis the doctrine we have learned, and have striven to exemplify, at the\nfeet of Christ.\n\nVer. 20.  For our city-home, the seat of our citizenship, and of the\nconduct which it demands and inspires,[3] +subsists in the heavens+, is\nalways there, an antecedent and abiding fact (_huparchei_), on which we\nare to act in life; in that heavenly world, where the Lord is, and for\nwhich He is training us; the eternal Country of this eternal City and\nHome; +out of which+ (city)[4] +we are actually+ (_kai_) +waiting for,\nas our Saviour+, in the full and final sense, the +Lord Jesus Christ,\nwho will+\n\nVer. 21.  +transfigure+--not annihilate, not cast away as essentially\nevil, but wonderfully change in its conditions, and so in its guise, in\nits semblance (_schema_)--+the body of our humiliation+, this body, now\ninseparably connected with the burthens and abasements of our\nmortality, _humbling_ us continually in the course of its necessities,\nand of its sufferings, but not therefore, in its essence, other than\nGod's good handiwork; +to be conformed+, with a resemblance based on an\nessential assimilation (_summorphon_, _morphe_), +to the body of His\nglory+, as He resumed His blessed Body when He rose, and as He wears it\nnow upon the Throne, and in it manifests Himself to the happy ones in\ntheir bliss; +according to+, in ways and measures conditioned only by,\n+the forth-putting+ (_energeia_) +of His ability actually to subdue to\nHimself all things that are+ (_ta panta_).\n\n\nSo the great passage, the pregnant chapter, ends.  As it began so it\ncloses--with Jesus Christ.  With Him His servant can never have done;\n\"Him first, Him midst, Him last, and without end.\"  Jesus Christ is the\npresent joy, and the everlasting hope.  His perfected righteousness is\nthe believer's actual deep safety and repose.  His unsearchable riches\nof personal grace and glory are the constant animation and ever-rising\nstandard of the believer's spiritual progress.  He is the eternal\nAntidote to our fears, and also to our sins.  He is the infinite\nContradiction to the least compromise, under any pretext, with evil;\nand He is this, among other ways, by being Himself \"that blessed Hope\";\n\"the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Hope\" (1 Tim. i. 1); so that the\nprospect of His Return, and of what He will do for us, and for Himself\n(_eauto_), when He returns, is to be our mighty motive in the matter of\npractical, aye of bodily, cleanness and holiness of life.\n\nThe whole passage now before us is strongly characteristic of the New\nTestament way of dealing with sin.  In the first place, there is no\nlack of urgent and explicit warning.  The moral and spiritual evil is\nlabelled unmistakably.  It is pointed out as a danger not hypothetical\nbut actual; not floating in the air, but embodied in lives and\ninfluences: \"_Many persons walk_ whom I tell you of with tears as the\nenemies of the cross of Christ.\"  And of these persons, as such, it is\nunflinchingly said that their end is _atoleia_, \"ruin,\" \"perdition\";\ndread and hopeless word.  In all this lies a lesson for our day.  In\nmany quarters the solemn utterance of warning is now almost silent; it\nis regarded as almost unchristian to warn sinners, even open sinners,\nto do anything so much out of the fashion as \"to flee from the wrath to\ncome,\" \"the wrath which is coming upon the children of disobedience.\"\nBut this is not the apostolic way, nor the Lord's way.\n\nYet this passage, this heart-searching appeal, while it deals with\nwarning, does not end with it.  Its strongest and chosen argument is\nnot fear but hope; not perdition but \"the coming again of our Lord\nJesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him.\"  St Paul has to\nguard the Philippians against a most subtle form of sensual temptation,\na masterpiece of the Enemy.  In passing, and with bitter tears, he\npoints to the gulph where that path ends.  In closing, and with his\nwhole heart, he points to the coming Lord in His benignant glory, and\nto the unutterable joy of our being then, finally and even in our\nmaterial being, transfigured for ever into His likeness.\n\nFor our own blessing, and for that of others, let us follow this\nexample.  Whether in the pulpit to a listening throng, or in more\nindividual approaches to other men, or when we turn in upon ourselves,\nand, like the Psalmists, speak to our own souls, in the most secret\npossible hour, let us seek to speak thus.  Let us not take an opiate\nagainst the ideas of judgment, wrath, perdition--unless, with our\nBibles quite open, we are quite sure that such things are only dreams\nof a past religious night.  Let us take urgent heed, above all for\nourselves, lest we _lose faith in the warnings_ of God.  But all the\nwhile let us present to ourselves, and to others, as the great argument\nof all for saying \"No\" to specious sin, \"that blessed Hope.\"  Let us\nconsider Jesus Christ, till He shines upon us in something of the glory\nof His Person and His Work.  Let us wait for Him from heaven.  More and\nmore, as the years roll, and the suns set, and \"that day\" is\napproaching, let us take our place among those who \"love His\nappearing.\"  And as for our bodies, and His call to be pure in body as\nin spirit, let us continually remember that \"the body is for the Lord,\nand the Lord for the body\" (1 Cor. vi. 13).  Let us not merely try to\nreason down temptation, or to order it down, in the name of abstract\nrightness, or of concrete peril.  Let us recollect as a glorious fact\nthat the body is the purchased property of the Lord Jesus; that He\ncares for it, as His dear-bought possession; that He can, by His own\nSpirit, sanctify it now, through and through; and that He is coming,\nperhaps very soon indeed, to \"transfigure it to be conformed to the\nbody of His glory.\"\n\nThe whole genius of the Gospel tends to connect together, as closely as\npossible, holiness and happiness.  They are to act and react in\nmanifold ways in the Christian life.  Holiness lies at the root of\nhappiness, as its deep condition.  But also happiness, from another\npoint of view, waters the root of holiness, and expands its flowers,\nand brings its sweet fruit to fulness.  \"The joy of the Lord is your\nstrength\"--your strength to say to temptation a \"No\" which shall be\nentirely willing and simple.  Never shall we so tread down the tempter,\nand the traitor, as when we are \"rejoicing in Christ Jesus,\" and \"in\nthe hope of the glory of God.\"\n\nThen let us cultivate this blessed secret.  Let us prove the power of\nChrist loved and looked for.  In a very special sense let St Paul teach\nus here to apply to our present needs the force of a heavenly future,\nthe future of His coming, and of our meeting Him and being transfigured\nby Him.  In many directions, in the Church, this rule is being\npractised now with great earnestness, and with happy issues; the\nlooking for the Lord's Return is indeed a reality to many.  But in many\ndirections it is otherwise.  Christian thought and labour too often\nseem to limit themselves to the sphere of the present, and to forget\nthat the goal of the Gospel is not a state of social _bien-etre_\ndeveloped by philanthropy under the auspices, so to speak, of Christ,\nbut an immortality of holy power and service, won for us by His merits,\nprepared for us by His exaltation, while we are prepared for it by His\nSpirit working in us.  Again and again we need to remember this.  The\nGospel showers along its path, upon the mortal life of man, personal\nand social blessings of the philanthropic kind which nothing else can\npossibly bring down.  It makes to-day infinitely important by\nconnecting it with the eternal to-morrow.  But the path is towards that\nto-morrow.  \"We look at the things not seen, for the things which are\nnot seen are eternal.\"  We \"desire a better country, that is, an\nheavenly.\"  \"It doth not yet appear what we shall be; we shall be like\nHim, for we shall see Him as He is.\"\n\nMuch current Christian teaching practically tends to drop immortality\nvery nearly out of sight.  The Lord's Return, the heavenly Life, \"the\nliberty of the glory of the sons of God\"--these topics are either\nlittle mentioned, or treated too much as luxuries and ornaments of the\nGospel.  But it was not so for the Lord Jesus, and for His Apostles.\nAnd we shall find that to follow Him and them in this, as in other\nthings, is best.  It \"hath the promise of the life that now is, and of\nthat which is to come.\"  Their doctrine of the future is much more than\nan antidote to death.  It is the mighty animation of life.  It makes\naltogether for present purity, and righteousness, and self-sacrificing\nlove, in the concrete circumstances of this generation.  It is the\nthought in which alone man can live his true life _now_, as a being who\nis made \"to glorify God--and to enjoy Him fully _for ever_.\"\n\nAs a matter of fact, no human life is so true, full, and beautiful as\nthat which is at once assiduously attentive to present duty and\nservice, and full of the everlasting hope.  Such lives are being lived\nall around us.  Which of my readers has not known at least one such?\nFor me, one among many shines out in my heart radiant with a brightness\nall its own; it is the life of my blessed Mother.  She has now been a\ngreat while with the Lord, on whom she so long believed.  But the\nimpression of what that \"conversation\" was is not only indelible; it\nlives and moves, as fresh to-day as ever.  It was a busy life--the life\nof a wife, a mother of many sons, a friend of many friends, the\npastor's help-mate in a poor parish.  It was a life of minute and\ndevoted attention to every duty, large and little.  It was a life of\nwarm and ready sympathies, and manifold interests.  But it was a life\nall the while of divine communion, and of an unwavering \"hope full of\nimmortality.\"  Dear to that heart indeed were husband, children,\nfriends, neighbours, suffering and sinning world.  Very fruitful was\nthat life for individual and social blessing, just such as the\nphilanthropist seeks to convey.  Side by side with my Father, who\nlaboured incessantly through a long life for God and man, and for men's\nhealth as well as their salvation, my Mother lived for others in all\ntheir present needs.  But the springs of what she was, and did, were\nwithin the veil.  And the choice and the longing were always, in\nperfect harmony with every strong human affection, directed towards\nheaven  She did indeed \"wait, as for her Saviour, for the Lord Jesus\nChrist.\"  And the whole result, for those whom that life affected, was\na deep, strong evidence of Christianity.  In her we saw the Gospel\nbeautify the present by lifting the veil of the blessed future.  We\nrecognized the reality of Jesus Christ now by converse with one who so\nmuch desired the sight of His glory _then_.\n\n\nAs we draw to an end, let us take up the closing words of our\nparagraph, and read them as a special \"lesson of faith.\"  St Paul is\ntelling us of a change yet to pass over us, over these our bodies,\naltogether inconceivable in kind and degree.  They are to be\n\"transfigured into conformity to the body of our Saviour's glory.\"\nYes, it is inconceivable; in modern parlance, it is \"unthinkable.\"\n\"How can these things be?\"  Well, Scripture does not invite us to\n\"conceive\" it, to \"think\" it, in the sense of thinking it out.  It\nhelps us indeed elsewhere (1 Cor. xv.) with intimations and\nillustrations, up to a certain point; but this is not to explain, or to\nask us to explain.  What it does is something better; it invites us to\ntrust a personal Agent, who understands all that He has undertaken, and\nwho is able.  \"How can these things be?\"  Not according to this or that\nlaw, principle, or tendency, which we can divine.  No; but \"according\nto the mighty working whereby HE is able to subdue all things unto\nHimself.\"\n\nThe method of the Bible is to give us ample views of what Jesus Christ\nis, and then (not before) to ask us to trust Jesus Christ to DO what he\nsays He can.  He says, \"I will raise you up at the last day.\"  And He\ndoes not go on to explain.  He says nothing in detail of His _modus\noperandi_.  We are in absolute ignorance of it, as much as the\nChristians of five, or ten, or eighteen centuries ago.  We do not know\nhow.  But we know Him.  And He has said, \"I will\"--and has died and\nrisen again.\n\nShall we not rest here?  It is good ground.  \"I know whom I have\nbelieved; and am persuaded that He is able.\"\n\nAnd what is true of His power and promise in this great matter of our\nresurrection and our glory, is true of course all round the circle of\nHis undertakings.  \"He can subdue all things.\"  And therefore, not only\ndeath, and the grave, and the mysteries of matter, but also our hearts,\nour affections, our wills.  He can \"bring every thought into captivity\"\nto the holy rule of His thought.  He can \"subdue our iniquities.\"  And\nhe can subdue also all that we know as circumstance and condition;\nmaking the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.  How, we may\nbe wholly ignorant beforehand; only, \"according to the mighty working.\"\n\nLastly, it is _heauto_,[5] \"unto HIMSELF.\"  What a word of rest and\npower!  Our expectation of His victories in us and for us does not\nterminate upon ourselves; it is never safe to terminate things there.\nIt rises and rests in Himself.  Our glorification, body and soul, is,\nultimately, \"unto Him\"; therefore the prospect, and the desire, are\nboundlessly right and safe.  \"To subdue all things _unto Himself_\"; so\nas to serve Him, to promote His ends, to do His will.  Our absolute\nemancipation from all the limitations of both moral and material evil\nis \"unto Himself.\"  Emancipation on this side, it is an entire and\neternal annexation on the other.  The being will be fully liberated\nthat it may fully serve--\"day and night in His temple.\"\n\n\"Even so, come, Lord Jesus.\"  Come, to our full and final salvation.\nCome, that we, the beings whom Thou hast made, and remade, may enjoy\n\"the liberty of the glory\" (Rom. viii. 21) for which we were destined\nin Thy love.  Come, that we may be for ever happy, and strong, and\nfree, in that wonderful world of the resurrection.  Come, that we may\nmeet again with exceeding joy the beloved ones who have gone before us,\nand all Thy saints, and may with them inherit the everlasting kingdom.\nBut oh come yet more for Thyself, and for Thy glory, and to take Thy\nfull possession.  \"Subdue all things,\" Lord Jesus, \"unto Thyself.\"\nSubdue our death for ever, that our endless life may be, in all its\nfulness, spent for Thee.\n\n  \"For Thou hast met our longings\n    With words of golden tone,\n  That we shall serve for ever\n    Thyself, Thyself alone;\n\n  \"Shall serve Thee, and for ever,\n    Oh hope most sure, most fair;\n  The perfect love outpouring\n    In perfect service there.\" [6]\n\n\n\n[1] _skopeite_: _skopein_ usually has reference to the attention which\nresults in avoidance; so Rom. xvi. 17: _parakalo skopein tous ta\nskandala poiountas kai ekklinate k.t.l._  But here obviously the\n\"looking\" is for imitation.--The Philippians knew St Paul's teaching,\nand in his attached leading disciples among them they could _see_ it\nembodied.\n\n[2] Cp. Matt. vii. 13; Rom. vi. 21; 2 Cor. xi. 15; Heb. vi. 8; 1 Pet.\niv. 17.\n\n[3] I thus attempt to give the meaning of _politeuma_, so far as I\nunderstand it.  The R.V. renders it \"_citizenship_,\" and\n\"_commonwealth_\" in the margin.  The usage of the word in Greek\nliterature amply justifies either, and either well suits the general\ncontext.  The Apostle means that Christians are citizens of the\nheavenly City as to their _status_, and are therefore \"obliged by their\nnobility\" to live, however far from their home, as those who belong to\nit, and represent it.  What seems lacking however in the rendering of\nthe R.V. is the idea of _locality_, which (to me) was clearly present\nto St Paul's mind in his use of _politeuma_ here.  The proof of this\nlies in the words _ex ou_ just below; not _ex on_ (_ouranon_) but _ex\nou_ (_politeumatos_): I can find _no proof_ of the assertion (Moulton's\n_Winer_, p. 177) that _ex ou_ is a mere equivalent for _hothen_, and so\nmay refer to the plural _ouranoi_.  The rendering \"_seat_ of\ncitizenship\" seems fairly to represent _politeuma_ thus.--The A.V.\n\"_conversation_\" (Lat. _conversatio_, \"intercourse of life\") probably\nrepresents an impression of the translators that the Apostle is as it\nwere echoing i. 27, _axios tu euaggeliou politeuesthe_.  But the\nimagery here is different, and definite.\n\n[4] See note just above on _ex ou_.\n\n[5] Perhaps read _auta_.  But the translation must remain the same.\n\n[6] F. R. Havergal.\n\n\n\n\n_PURITY AND PEACE IN THE PRESENT LORD_\n\n\n\n\"Now the Christians, O King, as men who know God, ask from Him\npetitions which are proper for Him to give and for them to receive; and\nthus they accomplish the course of their lives.  And because they\nacknowledge the goodnesses of God towards them, lo! on account of them\nthere flows forth the beauty that is in the world.\"--_Apology of\nAristides, about_ A.D. 130; _translated by_ MRS RENDEL HARRIS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPURITY AND PEACE IN THE PRESENT LORD\n\nPHILIPPIANS iv. 1-9\n\nEuodia and Syntyche--Conditions to unanimity--Great uses of small\noccasions--Connexion to the paragraphs--The fortress and the\nsentinel--A golden chain of truths--Joy in the\nLord--Yieldingness--Prayer in everything--Activities of a heart at rest\n\n\nVer. 1.  +So, my brethren beloved and longed for+, _missed_ indeed, at\nthis long distance from you, +my joy and crown+ of victory\n(_stephanos_), +thus+, as having such certainties and such aims, with\nsuch a Saviour, and looking for such a heaven, +stand firm in the Lord,\nbeloved ones+.\n\n\nThe words are a link of gold between the passage just ended and that\nwhich is to follow.  They sum up the third chapter of the Epistle into\none practical issue.  In view of all that can tempt them away to alien\nthoughts and beliefs St Paul once more points the converts to Jesus\nChrist; or rather, he once more bids them remember that in Him they\nare, and that their safety, their life, is to stay there, recollected\nand resolved.  There is the point of overwhelming advantage against\nerror, and against sin; and only there.  \"Standing in the Lord,\" in\nremembrance and _in use_ of their vital union with Him, they would be\narmed alike against the pharisaic and the antinomian heresy.\nCounterfeits and perversions would be seen, or at least _felt_, to be\nsuch while they were thus in living and working contact with the\nREALITY.  There, with a holy instinct, they would repudiate utterly a\nmerit of their own before God, and a strength of their own against sin.\nThere, with equal inward certainty, they would detect and reject the\nsuggestion that they \"should not surely die,\" though impurity was\ncloaked and loved.\n\nBut the words we have just rendered look forward also.  St Paul is\nabout to allude, for the last time, and quite explicitly, to that blot\non the fair Philippian fame, the presence in the little mission Church\nof certain jealousies and divisions.  One instance of this evil is\nprominent in his thoughts, no doubt on Epaphroditus' report.  Two\nChristian women, Euodia[1] and Syntyche, evidently well-known Church\nmembers, possibly officials, \"deaconesses,\" like Phoebe (Rom. xvi. 1),\nwere at personal variance.  Into their life and work for Christ (for\nworkers they were, or however had been; they had \"wrestled along with\nPaul in the Gospel,\") had come this grievous inconsistency.  Somehow\n(modern experiences in religious activity supply illustrations only too\neasily) they had let the spirit of self come in; jealousy and a sense\nof grievance lay between them.  And out of this unhappy state it was\nthe Apostle's deep desire to bring them, quickly and completely.  He\nappeals to them personally about it, with a directness and explicitness\nwhich remind us how homelike still were the conditions of the mission\nChurch.  He calls on his \"true yoke-fellow,\" and on Clement, and on his\nother \"fellow-labourers,\" to \"help\" the two to a better mind, by all\nthe arts of Christian friendship.  But surely first, in this verse, he\nleads not only the Philippians generally but Euodia and Syntyche in\nparticular up to a level where the self-will and self-assertion must,\nof themselves, expire.  \"Stand firm in the Lord.\"  In recollection and\nfaith surround yourselves with Jesus Christ.  The more you do so the\nmore you will find that so to be in Him is to \"be of one mind in Him.\"\nIn that PRESENCE self is put to shame indeed.  Pique, and petty\njealousies, and miserable heart-burnings, and \"just pride,\" die of\ninanition there, and heart meets heart in love, because in Christ.\n\nIt is not guaranteed to us, I think, that we shall certainly be brought\nhere on earth to perfect intellectual agreement by a realized union\nwith Christ all round.  Such agreement will certainly be promoted by\nsuch a realization; we all know how powerfully, in almost all matters\noutside number and figure, feeling can influence reasoning; and to have\nfeeling rightly adjusted, \"in Him that is true,\" must be a great aid to\njust reasoning, and so a great contribution to mental agreement.\nThomas Scott, in his _Force of Truth_, (a memorable record of\nexperience,) maintains that vastly more doctrinal concord would be\nattained in Christendom if all true Christians unreservedly and with a\nperfect will sought for \"God's heart\" (and mind) \"in God's words.\"[2]\nBut it is a law of our present state, even in Christ, that \"we know in\npart\"; and while this is so, certain discrepancies of inference would\nseem to be necessary, where many minds work each with its partial\nknowledge.  It is otherwise with \"_the spirit_ of our mind,\" the\nattitude of will and affection in which we think.  In the Lord Jesus\nChrist _this_ is meant to be, and can be, rectified indeed, as \"every\nthought is brought into captivity\" to Him.  If so, to \"stand firm in\nHim\" is the way of escape out of all such miseries of dissension\n(whether between two friends, or two Churches, or two enterprises) as\nare due not to reasoning but to feeling.  \"In Him\" there is _really_ no\nroom for envy, and retaliation, and \"the unhappy desire of becoming\ngreat,\" and the eager combat for our own opinion _as such_.  \"Standing\nfirm in Him\" the Euodias and Syntyches of all times and places _must\ntend_ to be of one mind, one attitude of mind (_phronein_).  So far as\nthey are, in a sinful sense, not so \"minded,\" it is because they are\nhalf out of Him.\n\nBut now St Paul comes to them, name by name.  What must the tender\nweight of the words have been as they were first read aloud at Philippi!\n\n\nVer. 2.  +To Euodia I appeal+ (_parakalo_),[3] +and to Syntyche I\nappeal, to be of the same mind, in the Lord+; to lay aside differences\nof feeling, born of self, in the power of their common union in\nChrist.[5]  +Aye+ (read\n\nVer. 3.  _nai_, not _kai_), +and I beg thee also+, thee in _thy_ place,\nas I seek to do in mine, +thou genuine yoke-fellow,[5] help them+\n(_autais_)--these sisters of ours thus at variance, +women who+\n(_aitines_) +wrestled along with me+, as devoted and courageous\nworkers, +in the+ cause of the +Gospel+, when the first conflicts with\nthe powers of evil were fought at Philippi; yes, do this loving\nservice, +with Clement[6] too, and my other fellow-workers, whose names\nare in the Book of Life+; the Lord's own, \"written in heaven,\" His for\never.[7]\n\n\nWonderful is the great use of small occasions everywhere in Scripture.\nMinor incidents in a biography are texts for sentences which afford\noracles of truth and hope for ever.  Local and transitory errors, like\nthat of the Thessalonians about their departed friends, give\nopportunity for a prophecy on which bereaved hearts are to rest and\nrejoice till the last trumpet sounds.  The unhappy disagreement of two\npious women at Philippi is dealt with in words which lead up to the\nthought of the eternal love of God for His chosen; as if the very\nunworthiness of the matter in hand, by a sort of repulsion, drove the\ninspired thought to the utmost height, without for one moment diverting\nit from its purpose of peace and blessing.  And now, in the passage\nwhich is to follow, the thought still keeps its high and holy level.\nIt says no more indeed of the Book of Life.  But it unfolds in one\nsentence after another the manifestation here below of the eternal life\nin all its holy loveliness.  It invites Euodia, and Syntyche, and us\nwith them, to the sight of what the believer is called to be, and may\nbe, day by day, as he rejoices in the Lord, and recollects His\npresence, and tells Him everything as it comes, and so lives \"in rest\nand quietness,\" deep in His peace; and finds his happy thoughts\noccupied not with the miseries of self-esteem and self-assertion, but\nwith all that is pure and good, in the smile of the God of peace.\n\nThe passage now to be translated has surely this among its other\nprecious attractions and benefits, that it stands related to what has\ngone just before.  The precepts and promises are not given as it were\nin the air; they are occasioned by Euodia and Syntyche, or rather by\nwhat they have suggested to St Paul's mind, the crime and distress of\nan unchristian spirit in Christians.  It is with this he is dealing.\nAnd he deals with it not by an elaborate exposure of its obvious wrong,\nbut by carrying it into the sanctuary of holiness and peace, there to\ndie.\n\nWith this recollection let us read the words now before us.\n\n\nVer. 4.  +Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say+ (_ero_),\n+Rejoice+; I have said it above, as my antidote-word to every subtle\nerror; I come back (_palin_) to say it again, as my antidote to\nself-will.  Your\n\nVer. 5.  +yieldingness+, your selflessness, the spirit which will yield\nin _anything_ that is only of self, for Christ's sake, +let it be known\nto all men+, let it be proved a reality in real life, by all and sundry\nwho have to do with you; +the Lord is near+, always beside you, to\n\nVer. 6.  know, to love, to elevate, to calm.[8]  +About nothing be\nanxious+ (_merimnate_); _never_ let yourselves be burthened and\ndistracted _as those who are alone from your Lord_; +but in\neverything+, however great, however little, +by your+ (_te_) +prayer+,\nyour whole worshipping approach to Him, +and your+ (_te_)\n+supplication+, your definite petitions of Him, +with thanksgiving+,\nthanks at least for this, that you have Him to speak to and to trust,\n+let your requests be made known towards our God+ (_pros ton Theon_),\nwith perfect simplicity of detail, putting aside all the mysteries of\nprayer in the\n\nVer. 7.  recollection that He bids you pray.  +And+, and thus, not\nanyhow, but thus, in adoring, trusting communion with Him, +the peace\nof God+, the innermost tranquillity caused by contact with Him,\nbreathed by His Spirit into ours, the peace +which transcends all\nmind+, for no reasoning can explain and define its nature and its\nconsciousness, +shall+ (it is nothing less than a promise) +safeguard+,\nas garrison, as sentinel (_phrouresei_), +your hearts+, in all their\ndepths of will, affection, and reflexion, +and your thoughts+, the very\nworkings of those hearts in detail, +in Christ Jesus+.  In Him you are,\nas your Fortress of rest and holiness; and, while there you rest, this\nsacred keeper watches the door; the peace of God is sentinel.\n\n\nSuch was to be the condition for the true play of the inner life; such,\nnot in a dream but at Philippi, were to be their \"hearts and thoughts,\nin Christ Jesus\"; thus happy, gentle, unanxious, prayerful, thankful,\nall the day.  And now, what is to be the matter for such conditions,\nthe food for such thinking and such willing?  There is to be no vacuum,\ncalled peace.  These \"hearts and thoughts\" are to be active,\ndiscursive, reflective; \"reckoning,\" \"calculating,\" \"reasoning out\"\n(_logixesthai_) innumerable things--all with a view, of course, to the\nlife-long work of serving God and man.\n\n\nVer. 8.  For, +finally, brethren, all things that are true, all things\nthat are honourable+, serious, sacred, venerable, self-respectful, +all\nthings that are righteous+, as between man and man in common life, +all\nthings that are pure+, clean words, clean deeds, +all things that are\namiable+, gracious, kindly; for manner as well as matter falls under\nthe will of God; +all things that are sweet to speak of+, things\nprompting a loving and noble tone of conversation; +whatever virtue\nthere is+, truly so called, not in the pagan sense of self-grounded\nvigour, even in right directions, but in that of the energy for right\nwhich is found in God; +and whatever praise there is+, given rightly by\nthe human conscience to deeds and purposes of good; +these things think\nout+, reckon, reason on (_logixesthe_).  Let _right_ in all its\npractical, all its noble forms, be the subject-matter of your\nconsidering and designing activities within.  Strong, not in yourselves\nbut in your Lord's presence and His peace, use His strength in you to\nwork out every precept of His Word, every whisper of His Spirit, every\ndictate of the conscience He has given.\n\n\nThen follows one word of a more personal kind; it is no egotism, but as\nif he would remind them amidst these great generalities of principle\nthat they well knew a human life which strove to realize them in\npractice.\n\n\nVer. 9.  +The things you learnt+ of me, +and received+ as revealed\ntruth from me, and +heard and saw in me, these things practise+\n(_prassette_), make them the habits of your lives; and so +the God of\npeace+, Author and Giver of peace within, and of harmony around, +shall\nbe with you+; your Companion and Guardian, \"Lord of the Sabbath\" of the\nsoul, secret of the true unity of the group, and of the Church.\n\n\nThus we read over again this golden chain of \"commandments which are\nnot grievous\" and \"exceeding precious promises.\"  Few passages of equal\nlength, even in St Paul's Epistles, at once invite more attention to\ndetails of language and convey richer spiritual messages.  Very\npassingly and partially I have noted the more important details of word\nand phrase, in the course of the translation.  It remains to say not\nwhat I would but what I can, in brief compass, upon the messages to the\nChristian's soul.\n\nLet us be quite practical, and let our study take the simplest form.\nIn this wonderful paragraph let us not only wonder; let us take its\nsentences as revelations of fact.  Here the Holy Spirit through the\nApostle sets before us some of the intended facts of the normal\nChristian life.  These precepts were not meant to dissolve into bright\ndreams; they were to be obeyed in Philippi then, and in England now;\nthey were spoken for not ideal but actual human beings, the rank and\nfile of the followers of the Lord.  These promises were not meant to be\nmet with an aspiration, followed by a sigh.  They were to be received\nand used, as certainties of the grace of God, \"before the sons of men.\"\n\nCome then to the paragraph once again, to study it with real life in\nimmediate view, and in the full consciousness of our own sin and\nweakness.  Here are some of the normal \"possibilities of grace,\" not\nfor the strong and holy but for the very weak, for those who know that\n\"in their flesh dwelleth no good thing,\" but who come to Jesus, and (if\nonly for very fear and need) stay by Him.\n\nHere then is the fact, first, that the Christian life, as such, is to\nbe, and may be, a life of \"joy in the Lord always.\"  Such is \"the Lord\"\nthat He is indeed able to be a perpetual cause of joy.  The believer\nhas but to recollect HIM, to consider HIM, to converse with HIM, to\nmake use of HIM, in order to have in himself (not _of_ himself) \"a well\nof water, springing up unto eternal life.\"  \"In joy and sorrow, life\nand death, His love is still the same\"; for HE is still the same; and\nthe believing man is His.\n\nHe will henceforth covet, and cultivate, this life of holy \"joy in the\nLord always.\"  It is not a boisterous mirth; it is pure and chastened;\nbut it _is joy_.  It is an unfigurative happiness, a deep practical\ncheerfulness, full of health for him who has it, and a most powerful\nsecret for influence over those who have to do with him.  Think of the\ntrack of light left behind by lives of holy joy which we have watched!\nIt was good to be near them.  The very things and places round them\nwere warmed and beautified by them.  And their source and strength lay,\nnot in the believer, but in \"the Lord\"; therefore the way is open for\nus too; we may be bearers of such sunshine too, happy and making happy.\n\n  \"By influence of the light divine\n  Let thy own light to others shine;\n  Reflect all heaven's propitious rays\n  In ardent love and cheerful praise.\" [9]\n\n\nAgain, here is the fact that the normal Christian life is, as such, a\nlife of \"moderation known unto all men,\" in the controlling calm of the\nnearness of the Lord.  The meaning of this \"moderation\" (_to epieikes_)\nwe have seen; it is that blessed facility, that unselfish yieldingness,\nwhich is not weakness at all but the outcome of the meekness of a heart\nwhich Christ has overcome.  It is the instinctive spirit, where He is\nin full command of thought and will, when personal \"grievances\" cross\nus, when our personal claims are slighted, our feelings disregarded,\nand even our legitimate rights overridden.  Of course more\nconsiderations than one have to be taken as to our action when our\nrights are overridden.  We have to ask whether our yielding will be\nhelpful or hurtful _to others_; we have even to ask whether to yield\nmay not do harm to the invader.  But these questions, if honestly\nasked, stand clear of the spirit of self; they regard others.  And\nwherever they can be so answered as to leave us free to yield in view\nof others, we, if Christians indeed, living really our Christian life,\nshall find it quite possible, in the Lord Jesus, to let our\n\"yieldingness be known unto all men,\" in the deep calm of \"the Lord at\nhand.\"  Yes, this can be so, in the most complicated life, and with the\nmost irritable character, if we will fully \"receive the grace of God\"\n(2 Cor. vi. 1).  And the \"all men\" who \"know\" it will note it, and will\nrecognize, sooner or later, the Master in the servant.\n\nYet again, the normal Christian life is given here as a life free from\ncare, from that miserable anxiety, _merimna_, which blights and withers\nhuman happiness far and wide, whether it comes in the form of a weight\nof large responsibilities or of the most trifling misgivings.  \"Be\ncareful for nothing\"; \"care-ful\" in the antique sense of the word;\n\"burthened with care.\"  In the modern sense of careful, no one should\nbe more careful than we; \"faithful in the least,\" \"shewing all good\nfidelity in all things,\" \"walking circumspectly,\" accurately, _akribos_\n(Eph. v. 15), \"pleasing the neighbour for his good unto edification,\"\n\"whether we eat or drink, doing all to the glory of God,\" \"watching and\npraying always.\"  But in the other sense we are, we positively are,\nenjoined to live \"without carefulness\"; to take pains, but in peace; to\nwork and serve, but at rest within; to \"provide,\" to think beforehand\n(_pronoeisthai_, Rom. xii. 17), but in the repose of soul given by the\nfact that with the morrow will come the Lord, or rather that He will\nwalk with us and lead us into it.  It is a great triumph to live such a\nlife; but it is His triumph, not ours.  Let us leave Him free (may the\nword be used in reverence?) to win it; to \"do this mighty work,\" to\n\"bear our burthen daily\" (so we may render Ps. lxxviii. 19).  Nothing\nwill much more glorify Him in eyes that notice our daily walk than to\nsee us always taking care, yet always unanxious while we take it.\n\n  \"In the calm of sweet communion\n    Let thy daily work be done;\n  In the peace of soul-outpouring\n    Care be banish'd, patience won.\" [10]\n\n\nThe sweet hymn leads us straight to the next point.  The normal\nChristian life, according to this paragraph, is a life of perpetual,\nhabitual, converse with God, converse about everything.  And such\nconverse has everything to do with the unanxious life.  The man who\nwould be unanxious is to cultivate the practice of reverent,\nworshipping (_proseuche_), thankful, _detailed prayer_; so shall he\nenter into peace.  Here is a large subject; it is inexhaustible; from\nevery aspect prayer is wonderful; and there are many kinds and types of\nprayer, as regards the act and exercise of it.  But the all-important\nthing to remember here is that we are called _to pray_ as the great\nmeans to a divine unanxious peace; and that we are called to pray in\nthe sense of \"making our requests known _in everything_.\"  Shall we, in\nthe grace of God, set ourselves to do it?  Shall we remember the\npresence of the Hearer, and \"practise the Presence\"?  Shall we act upon\nit?  More, and more, and always more, shall we really \"_in everything_\"\nturn to Him, and tell Him?  Thought is good, but prayer is better; or\nrather, thought in the form of prayer is, in ten thousand cases, the\nbest thought.  Let us make it a rule, God helping, \"in everything\"\nwhich calls for pause, for consideration, for judgment, to pray first\nand then to think.  Innumerable futile thoughts will thus be saved,\nthoughts made fruitless by a hurry of spirit, or a heat, or a hardness,\nwhich puts all our view out of order.  We shall indeed need to take\npains.  For while nothing is simpler in idea than the act of speaking\nto the unseen Friend, nothing is more easy, alas, to let slip in\npractice.  But the pains will be infinitely worth the while; it will be\nall applied at the right point.  Wonderful result, guaranteed here by\nthe Hearer of prayer; His \"peace shall safeguard our hearts and our\nthoughts, in Christ Jesus,\" in the living Sanctuary of security and\nstrength.  There all our powers shall be active, yet at rest; dealing\nwith a thousand things, yet always conditioned by Him who is \"the One\nThing Needful.\"  Unity will lie at the heart of multiplicity; Christ\nwill rule life from the centre.\n\nLastly, the normal Christian life, thus conditioned, is a life whose\nmental energies (_logixesthe_) are fully at work, always gravitating\ntowards purposes and actions true, pure, gracious, virtuous,\ncommendable; \"sowing the fruit of righteousness in peace,\" at the side\nof \"the God of peace.\"  True, the man may have many things to think of\nwhich are either perfectly secular in themselves (he may be a servant,\nhe may be a man of business, he may be a physician, he may be a\nminister of state); or which are evil in themselves (he may be an\ninvestigator, or a judge, of crime).  Nevertheless, this will not\ndeflect the true current of the mind.  These \"thinkings\" will all find\nplace and direction in the \"thought\" which remembers that the thinker\nis the Lord's, and that in his _whole_ life he is to be true to the\nLord's glory and the good of man.  \"The God of peace will be with him\"\nwherever he goes, whatever he does; deep below the surface, but so as\nto control the whole surface all the while.\n\nSuch is the Christian life, where the Christian \"stands firm in the\nLord.\"  It was thus at Philippi.  In the early generations of the\nChurch (let the _Apology of Aristides_ alone be adequate witness) it\nwas thus, to a degree and to an extent most memorable, in at least very\nmany Christian circles.  It is thus still, in many an individual life.\nBut is it in any sense whatever thus in the rule and average or even\nearnest Christian lives?  Is it thus in ours?\n\n\"Henceforth, let us _live_--not unto ourselves, but unto Him who died\nfor us, and rose again.\"  To Him, in Him, by Him, we are bound to live\nso (Rom. viii. 12, _opheileta_), we are able to live so.  Let us\n\"present ourselves to God\" (Rom. vi. 13), watching and praying, and it\nshall be.\n\n  \"Two arms I find to hold Thee fast,\n    Submission meek and reverent faith;\n  Held by Thy hand that hold shall last\n    Through life and over death.\n\n  \"Not me the dark foe fears at all,\n    But hid in Thee I take the field;\n  Now at my feet the mighty fall,\n    For Thou hast bid them yield.\" [11]\n\n\n\n[1] So certainly read, not _Euodias_, which would be a man's name, a\ncontraction of Euodianus.  Euodias as a fact is not found in\ninscriptions.  Euodia on the other hand is a known feminine name; and\nthe words just following (\"help these women\") make it practically\ncertain that the two persons just named were both female converts.\n(_Euodian_ of course may be the accusative of either _Euodias_ or\n_Euodia_.)\n\n[2] _Cor Dei in verbis Dei_; Gregory the Great's noble description of\nthe Bible, in a letter to the courtier Theodoras, begging him to study\ndaily \"the Letter of the heavenly Emperor.\"\n\n[3] \"I exhort,\" R.V.  A slightly tenderer word seems better to\nrepresent _parakalein_ in this personal connexion.  \"I beseech\" (A.V.)\nis _perhaps_ rather too tender.\n\n[4] \"As a curiosity of interpretation, Ellicott (see also Lightfoot, p.\n170) mentions the conjecture of Schwegler, that Euodia and Syntyche are\nreally designations of _Church-parties_ [the imagined Petrine and\nPauline parties], the names being devised and significant\n[Euodia='_Good-way_,' Orthodoxy; Syntyche='_Combination_,' of Gentiles\nand Jews on equal terms].  This theory of course regards our Epistle as\na fabrication of a later generation, intended as an _eirenicon_.  'What\nwill not men affirm?'\"  (Note on ver. 2 in _The Cambridge Bible for\nSchools_).\n\n[5] We know nothing for certain of this person.  Lightfoot suggests\nthat it was Epaphroditus, whom St Paul would thus commission not only\norally but in writing, as a sort of credential.  One curious and most\nimprobable conjecture is that it was _St Paul's wife_.  Renan (_Saint\nPaul_, p. 148) renders here _ma chere epouse_.\n\n[6] Perhaps the bishop of Rome of a later day.  So Origen and Eusebius.\nBut we cannot be certain of the identity.\n\n[7] \"Cp. Rev. iii. 5, xiii. 8, xvii. 8, xx. 12, 15, xxi. 27; and Luke\nx. 20.  And see Exod. xxxii. 32, 33; Ps. lxix. 28, lxxxvii. 6; Isa. iv.\n3; Ezek. xiii. 9; Dan. xii. 1.  The result of the comparison of these\npassages with this seems to be that St Paul here refers to the Lord's\n'knowledge of them that are His' (2 Tim. ii. 19: cp. John x. 27, 28),\nfor time and eternity.  All the passages in the Revelation, save iii.\n5, are clearly in favour of a reference of the phrase to the certainty\nof the ultimate salvation of all true saints . . . so too Dan. xii. 1\nand Luke x. 20.  Rev. iii. 5 appears to point in another direction (see\nTrench on that passage).  But in view of the other mentions of the\n'Book' in the Revelation the language of iii. 5 may well be only a\nvivid assertion that the name in question _shall be found_ in an\nindelible register. . . .  Practically, the Apostle here speaks of\nClement and the rest as having given illustrious proof of their part\nand lot in that 'life eternal' which is 'to know the only true God, and\nJesus Christ whom He hath sent' (John xvii. 3).--The word '_names_'\npowerfully suggests the individuality and speciality of divine love.\"\n(Note in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools_.)\n\n[8] I think the Apostle has in mind Ps. cxix. 151, where the Septuagint\nversion has _su eggus ei, Kurie_.  He is thinking of \"the secret _of\nthe Presence_\" (Ps. xxxi. 20).  We need not shut out the calming\nthought of the Lord's approaching _Return_; but it does not seem to be\nthe leading thought here.\n\n[9] Bishop Ken.\n\n[10] G. M. Taylor, in _Hymns of Consecration_, 349.\n\n[11] _In the House of the Pilgrimage_.\n\n\n\n\n_THE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE FAREWELL_\n\n\n\n  \"Is thy cruse of comfort wasting? rise and share it with another,\n  And through all the years of famine it shall serve thee\n      and thy brother.\n\n  \"Is thy burthen hard and heavy? do thy steps drag wearily?\n  Help to bear thy brother's burthen; God will bear both it and thee.\n\n  \"Is the heart a living power? self-entwin'd, its strength sinks low;\n  It can only live in loving, and by serving love will grow.\"\n          E. RUNDLE CHARLES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE FAREWELL\n\nPHILIPPIANS iv. 10-23\n\nThe Philippian alms--His sense of their faithful love--He has received\nin full--A passage in the Scriptural manner--The letter closes--\"Christ\nis preached\"--\"Together with them\"\n\n\nThe work of dictation is nearly done in the Roman lodging.  The\nmanuscript will soon be complete, and then soon rolled up and sealed,\nready for Epaphroditus; he will place it with reverence and care in his\nbaggage, and see it safe to Philippi.\n\nBut one topic has to be handled yet before the end.  \"Now concerning\nthe collection!\"  Epaphroditus, who had brought with him to Rome the\nloving alms of the Philippian believers, must carry back no common\nthanks to them.  All honour shall be done by the Lord's great servant\nto those who have done the Lord this service in him; they shall know\nhow it has rejoiced and warmed his heart; they shall be made very sure\nthat \"inasmuch as they have done it to\" their Missionary \"they have\ndone it to\" their KING.\n\nWe do not know how much the money amounted to.  It was not improbably a\nsubstantial sum.  Among the contributors might be Lydia, whose means\nmay well have been comfortable; and the Keeper of the Prison would be\nby no means a beggar: what gratitude to St Paul glowed in both those\nhearts!  But not in theirs only; the rank and file of the mission would\ndo all that love could do for the man who had manifested JESUS to them.\nAnd when that is the spirit, the liberality will often be surprising.\nNot long ago in one of our North American missions a small meeting of\npoor Christian Indians apologized for the scantiness of their\ncollection for _missionary objects_; it was worth only L7; they would\ndo better the next time!\n\nBut small or large, the Philippian gift was precious with the weight of\nlove.  And no doubt it was exceedingly useful practically.  It would\nsecure for the imprisoned missionary many alleviating personal\ncomforts, and part of it would probably be spent upon the work of\nevangelization in Rome and its neighbourhood; for then as now work\ninevitably meant expense.\n\n\nVer. 10.  +But+, to turn now from teaching to thanking--+I rejoice+\n(_echaren_: the English present best gives the point of the\n\"epistolary\" aorist) +in the Lord+, in our union of heart and life with\nHim, +greatly, that now at length+, after an interval which was no\nfault of yours, +you have blossomed, out[1] into+ loving +thought on my\nbehalf+.  +With a view to this+ (_eph o_), this effort to aid me, you\n+were, I know+ (_kai_), +taking thought+ (_ephroneite_), even when you\nmade no sign; +but you were at a loss for opportunity+ for the\ntransmission; no bearer for your bounty could be spared, or found.\n\nVer. 11.  +Not that I speak thus in the tone of need+ (_kath\nusteresin_), as if I had been wondering, and fretting, and suspecting\nyou of forgetfulness or of parsimony; no, I have been in a happier mood\nthan that; +for I, for my part+ (_ego_: slightly emphatic), have learnt\n(_emathon_: our perfect tense best gives this aorist) +to be, in my\nactual circumstances, self-sufficing+ (_autarkes_); \"carrying with me\nall I have\"; independent, not of grace, but of surroundings.\n\nVer. 12.  +I know both+ (_kai_, not _de_) +how to run low,[2] and how\nto run over+, as I do now, with your bounty; and both experiences need\na teaching from above if they are to be rightly borne.  +In everything\nand in all things+, in the details and in the total, I have been let\ninto the secret, I have been initiated into the \"mystery,\"[3] +of being\nfull fed and of being hungry, of+\n\nVer. 13.  +running over and of coming short.  For all things I am\nstrong in Him who makes me able.+[4]\n\n\nBut not even this joyful testimony to the enabling presence of his Lord\nmust divert his thought from the loving act of the Philippians.  He\nseems about to dilate on the glorious theme of what he can be and do in\nChrist; the wonder of that experience on which he entered at the crisis\ndetailed in 2 Cor. xii. is surely powerfully upon him; the \"My grace is\nsufficient for thee\"; the sense of even exultation in weakness and\nimperfection, \"that the power of Christ may overshadow\" him.  But all\nthis leaves perfectly undisturbed his delicate sympathy with the dear\nMacedonian converts.  And so he will assure them that no spiritual\n\"sufficiency\" can blunt the sense of their generous kindness.\n\n\nVer. 14.  +Yet you did well+, you did a fair, good deed, +when you\njoined together+ (_sunkoinonesantes_) +in participating in my\ntribulation+, with the partnership of a sympathy which feels the\nsuffering it relieves.  +But you\n\nVer. 15.  +know+, (to add a thought on your previous bounties, which\nmay as it were correct (_de_) the thought that I needed this last\nbounty to assure me of your love,) you know, +Philippians,[5] that in\nthe beginning of the Gospel+, in the early days of the mission in your\nregion, +when I left Macedonia+, parting from you on my way south, in\norder to quit Macedonia (Roman Northern Greece) for Achaia (Roman\nSouthern Greece), _via_ Thessalonica and Beroea,[6] +no church\nparticipated with me+, helped me in my labours, +in the matter of\ngiving and taking+, (they giving and I taking the needed monetary aid,)\n+but you alone+.  But\n\nVer. 16.  you did so; +because even in Thessalonica+; even when I was\nstill there, in a place which was but ninety miles away,[7] and in the\nsame province still; twice over (_kai hapax kai dis_) +you sent+ aid\n+to my need+, within the few weeks which I spent at Thessalonica.\n\n\nAgain he will not be misunderstood.  This warmly expressed gratitude\nmay conceivably be mistaken for an indirect petition, \"thanks for\nfavours to come.\"  So with sensitive delicacy he pursues:\n\n\nVer. 17.  +Not that I am in quest of+ (_epizeto_: almost, \"I am hunting\nfor\") +the gift+, the mere sum of money, in and for itself; +but I am\nin quest of the interest that is accumulating to your account+;[8] I am\nbent upon just such a developement of your generosity as will win from\nthe heavenly Master more and yet more of that supreme reward, His own\n\"Well done, good and\n\nVer. 18.  faithful.\"  +But+ (he is still anxious, lest this too should\nbe mistaken for a personal bid for more) +I have received in full+\n(_apecho_); you have amply discharged love's obligations, in the gift\nnow sent; +and I run over+; the largeness of your bounty makes an\noverflow.  +I have been filled full, in accepting from Epaphroditus\nwhat+ came +from you; an odour of fragrancy, a sacrifice acceptable,\npleasing to God+, to whom you have really presented what you have sent\nto the man who serves Him--this evidence of your sacrifice to Him of\nyourselves and your possessions, a burnt offering (Lev. i. 9) of\nsurrender, a peace offering (Lev. ii. 2, iii. 5) of thanksgiving.[9]  I\ncannot\n\nVer. 19.  requite you; +but my God shall fill up every need of yours+\n(_pasan chreian_, not _p._ten chr._), making up to you in His own\nloving providence the gap in your means left by this your bounty, and\nenriching you the while in soul, +according to+, on the scale of, +His\nwealth, in glory, in Christ Jesus+.  Yes, He will draw on no less a\ntreasury than that of \"His glory,\" His own Nature of almighty Love, as\nit is manifested to and for you \"in Christ Jesus,\" in whom \"all the\n\nVer. 20.  Fulness dwells.\"[10]  +But now to our God and Father+, to Him\nof whom I and you are alike the dear children, +be the glory+, the\npraise for this and for all like acts of His children's love, +for ever\nand ever+; \"to the ages of the ages,\" the endless cycles of eternal\nlife, in which shall it be fully seen how He was the Secret of all the\nholiness of all His saints.  _Amen_.\n\nSo the utterance of thanks for a loving and liberal collection closes.\nHere is another case of the phenomenon we have seen already--the\nbeautiful skill with which a local and personal incident is used as the\noccasion for a whole revelation of grace and truth.  We can easily\nimagine a gift like that which came from Philippi acknowledged with a\nfew cordial words which would adequately express gratitude and\npleasure, but would otherwise terminate wholly in themselves.  How\ndifferent is this paragraph!  Throughout it, side by side, run at once\nthe most perfect and delicate human courtesy and considerateness, and\nsuggestions of eternal and spiritual relations, in which \"the gift\"\ntouches at every point the heart of the Lord, and the promises of\ngrace, and the hope of glory.  This message of thanks gives us, just in\npassing, such oracles of blessing as, \"I can do all things in Him that\nstrengtheneth me,\" and \"My God shall supply all your need.\"  It is on\none side a model of nobility and fineness of human thought and feeling,\non the other an oracle of God.  This is just in the manner of\nScripture.  \"Never book spake like this Book.\"\n\nNow the close comes.  The greetings which those who are one in the Lord\ncannot but send to one another in His name, have to be spoken, and then\nthe scribe's pen will rest.\n\n\nVer. 21.  +Salute every saint in Christ Jesus+, every holy one of your\ncircle, holy because in Him; pass the greetings round from my heart to\neach member of the Church.  And as I write, the Christians now around\nme, my personal friends upon the spot, must send their message too;\n+there salute you all the brethren who are with me+.  And not they\nonly, but all the believers of the Roman mission, represented around me\nin my chamber as I dictate, do the same; and among them one class asks\nto join with special warmth; +there+\n\nVer. 22.  +salute you all the saints, but particularly those who belong\nto+ (_oi ek_) +the household of the Emperor+ (_kaisaros_); the\nChristians gathered from the retainers of the Palace; peculiar in their\ncircumstances of temptation, and quickened thereby to a special warmth\nof faith and love.[11]\n\nNothing is left now but the final message from the Lord Himself; the\ninvocation of that \"grace\" which means in fact no abstract somewhat but\nHis living Self, present in His people's inmost being, to vivify and to\nbless.\n\n\nVer. 23.  +The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.[12]\nAmen.+\n\n\nThe voice is silent; the pen is laid aside.  In due time the papyrus\nroll, inestimable manuscript, is made ready for its journey.  And\nperhaps as it now lies drying the Missionary and his brethren turn to\nfurther conversation on the beloved Philippian Church, and recall many\na scene in the days that are over, and which are now gliding far into\nthe past of the crowded years; and they speak again of the brightness\nof Philippian Christian life, and the shadows that lie on it here and\nthere; and then, while the Praetorian sentinel looks on in wonder, or\nperhaps joins in as a believer, they pray together for Philippi, and\npour out their praises to the Father and the Son, and anticipate the\nday of glory.\n\n\nIt is all over now; it all happened very long ago.  But though that\nblessed group of our elder brethren \"are all gone into the world of\nlight\" these many more than eighteen hundred human years, that Letter\nis our contemporary still.  \"The word of God _liveth_ and _abideth for\never_\" (1 Pet. i. 23); it is never out of date, never touched by the\npathetic glamour of the past, with the suggestion of farewells, and\nwaxings old, and vanishings away.  To us to-day, so near the twentieth\ncentury, the Epistle to the Philippians is immortal, modern, true for\nour whole world and time.\n\nAnd what is its secret, its elixir of undying life?  It is the Name of\nJesus Christ.  It is that these pages are the message of \"the chosen\nVessel\" about that Name.\n\n\nOur studies in the Epistle shall close with that reflexion.  The\nincidental topics and interests of the document are numerous indeed;\nbut the main theme is one, and it is Jesus Christ.  From first to last,\nunder every variety of reference, \"Christ is preached.\"\n\nLet me quote from a Sermon preached many years ago, the last of a\nseries in which I attempted to unfold the Epistle to a Christian\ncongregation in the beloved Church of Fordington, Dorchester, then my\nFather's cure and charge.\n\n\n\"The mere number of mentions of the Saviour's name is remarkable.  More\nthan forty times we have it in this short compass; that is to say, it\noccurs, amidst all the variety of subjects, on an average of about once\nin every two or three verses.  This is indeed perfectly characteristic,\nnot of this Epistle only but of the whole New Testament.  What the\nApostles preached was not a thing but a Person; Christ, Christ Jesus,\nChrist Jesus the Lord.\n\n\"But let us not look only on this frequency of mention.  Let us gather\nup something of what these mentions say 'concerning the King.'\n\n\"The writer begins with describing himself and his associates as the\nservants, the absolute bondmen, _of Jesus Christ_.  And truly such\nservants witness to the worthiness of their Master.\n\n\"He addresses those to whom he writes as saints, as holy ones, _in\nJesus Christ_.  Their standing, their character, their all, depends on\nHim; on union with Him, on life in Him.  Without Him, apart from Him,\nthey would not be saints at all.\n\n\"The writer speaks of his imprisonment at Rome; the subject is full of\nJesus Christ.  'My bonds _in Christ_' is his remarkable description of\ncaptivity.  And the result of that captivity was, to his exceeding joy,\njust this, amidst a great variety of conditions in detail, including\nsome exquisite trials to patience and peace: '_Christ_ is being\npreached'; 'that _Christ_ may be magnified in my body, whether by life\nor death.'  He is kept absolutely cheerful and at rest; and the secret\nis Jesus Christ.\n\n\"He has occasion to speak of his trial, with its delays, and its\nsuspense between life and death.  The whole is full of Jesus Christ.\n'To me to live is _Christ_'; He fills, and as it were makes, life for\nme.  'And to die is gain'--why?  Because 'to depart and to be with\n_Christ_ is far, far better.'  The dilemma in which he stands (for he\nis 'in a strait betwixt the two') is a dilemma between Christ and\nChrist, Christ much and Christ more, Christ by faith and Christ by\nsight.\n\n\"He dwells, in various places, on the life and duties of the\nPhilippians.  His precepts are all this, in effect--Christ applied to\nconduct.  'Let your life-walk be as it becometh the Gospel of\n_Christ_'; 'Filled with the fruit of righteousness which is through\n_Jesus Christ_'; 'It is granted to you not only to believe in _Christ_\nbut also to suffer for His sake.'\n\n\"In particular, he has to press on them the homely duty of practical\nself-forgetfulness.  He takes them for model and motive to the heaven\nof heavens, and shews them 'Christ Jesus' there, as for us men and for\nour salvation He prepares to come down, and comes.  'Let this mind be\nin you,' as you contemplate the original Glory, the amazing\nIncarnation, the atoning Death, of _Christ Jesus_.\n\n\"He expresses hopes, intentions, resolutions, as to his own actions.\nAll is still 'in Jesus Christ.'  'I trust in _the Lord Jesus_ to send\nTimotheus,' 'I trust in _the Lord_ to come myself shortly.'\n\n\"Does he speak of the believer's joy?  'We rejoice in _Christ Jesus_,'\n'Rejoice in _the Lord_ alway, and again I say, Rejoice.'  Does he speak\nof pardon and of peace?  'I counted all things but loss that I might\nwin _Christ_, and be found in Him, having the righteousness which is of\nGod by faith.'  Does he speak of knowledge, and of power?  'That I\nmight know _Christ_, and the power of His resurrection, and the\nfellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death';\n'I can do all things in _Christ_ which strengtheneth me.'\n\n\"He speaks of a holy immortality, of eternal glory, and of pleasures\nfor evermore.  It is no vague aspiration; it is a sure and certain\nhope; and it is altogether in Jesus Christ.  'Our home, our\ncitizenship, is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour,\nthe Lord _Jesus Christ_, who shall change the body of our humiliation\ninto likeness to the body of His glory, according to the working\nwhereby He is able even to subdue all things unto--Himself.'\n\n\"He bids his beloved converts stand fast; it is 'in _the Lord_.'  He\nbids them be of one mind; it is 'in _the Lord_.'  He bids them be\nalways calm, always self-forgetting; '_the Lord_ is at hand.' He\nassures them of an all-sufficient resource for their every need; 'My\nGod shall supply all, according to His riches, in glory, in _Christ\nJesus_.'\n\n\"His last message of blessing brings together their inmost being and\nthis same wonderful Person; 'The grace of our Lord _Jesus Christ_ be\nwith your spirit.  Amen.' . . .\n\n\"What a witness it all is to the glory of our beloved Redeemer; to the\nmajesty of His Person; to the fulness and perfection of His Work; to\nthe solidity, the sobriety, the strength, of the faith which is in Him!\nThere is no inflation or rhetoric in the language of the Epistle about\nHim.  Glowing with love, it is all clear and calm.  Yes, for Christ\nJesus is not a phantom of the fancy; a hope floating on the thick waves\nof a wild enthusiasm.  He is an anchor, sure and steadfast.  Blessed\nare they who ride secure on the deep, held fast by Him.\n\n\"The Epistle witnesses to Him as to a Treasure worth all our seeking,\nat any cost; infinitely precious to our joyful finding; infinitely\ndeserving of our keeping, of our holding, our 'apprehending,' as He in\nHis mercy has laid hold of us, and will keep hold of us, even to the\nend; 'unto the day of Jesus Christ.'  As then, so now;\n\n  'He help'd His saints in ancient days\n    Who trusted in His name;\n  And we can witness to His praise,\n    His love is still the same.'\n\n\n\"May the Spirit bring home to our spirit this great witness of the\nEpistle; it has its perfect adaptation to each heart, to every life, to\nevery hour.\n\n\"Then hereafter we shall give God thanks yet better for 'Philippians,'\nas we too enter, late or soon, into that world where the Apostle, and\nTimotheus, and Epaphroditus, and Euodia, and Syntyche, and Clement, and\nthe saints of Caesar's household, have so long beheld the Lord.  In\nthat land of light we, who have believed, shall rest with them.  We\nshall know them.  In the long leisure of endless life we shall enjoy\ntheir company, amidst the multitudinous congregation of the just made\nperfect.  There we shall understand how, under the infinite differences\nof our earthly conditions, the one Hand led them and led us along the\none way of salvation to the one end of everlasting life.  Above all, we\nthere, with them, shall know JESUS CHRIST, even as we are known.  There\nwe, with them, shall realize how to Him, and to Him alone, from all His\nservants, from Hebrew, and Roman, and Philippian, and Englishman, and\nAfrican, from ancients and moderns, wise and ignorant, of all kinds and\ntimes, was due the whole praise of their whole salvation.\n\n    'Conflicts and trials done\n    His glory they behold,\n  Where JESUS and His flock are one,\n    One Shepherd and one fold.'\"\n\n\n\n[1] _Anethalete to huper emou phronein_.  Literally, \"_you shot forth_\n(as a branch) _thought in my behalf_.\"  (The English perfect best\nrepresents this aorist.)  The phrase is unmistakably pictorial,\npoetical.  If I read it aright, it is touched with _a smile_ of gentle\npleasantry; the warm heart comes out in a not undesigned quaintness of\nexpression.\n\n[2] _tapeinousthai_ is used in classical Greek of the falling of a\nriver in drought.  Perhaps such an image is present in the language\nhere.\n\n[3] _Memuemai_: the verb whose root is that of _mysterion_,\n_mysterium_, \"mystery.\"  In the Greek world \"mysteries\" were systems of\nreligious belief and practice derived, perhaps, from pre-Hellenic\ntimes, and jealously guarded from common knowledge by their votaries.\nAdmission into their secrets, as into those of Freemasonry now, was\nsought by people of all kinds, from Roman consuls and emperors\ndownwards; with the special hope of freedom from evil in this life and\nthe next.  St Paul's use of this phenomenon to supply language for\nChristian experience is beautifully suggestive.  The knowledge of the\npeace of God is indeed an _open_ secret, open to \"whosoever will\"\n\"learn of Him.\"  But it is a secret, a mystery, none the less.\n\n[4] The word _Christo_ should be omitted from the reading, though\nperfectly right as a note or explanation.--The _iochus_ is the\nforth-putting of the _dunamis_--the _action_ of the _faculty_.  He is\nready to act (or to bear) in a power always latent, always present,\nthrough his union with his Lord.  The \"all things\" so met are, of\ncourse, the all things of the will of God, the choice of the Master for\nthe servant in the way of circumstance and trial; not the all things of\nthe mere wish or ambition of the servant.\n\n[5] _Philippesioi_: the Greek form represents a Latin _Philippenses_,\nby which the residents in the _Roman \"colony\"_ would call themselves.\nSo _Corinthiensis_ means not a born Corinthian but a settler at\nCorinth.--Greek tends to represent a Latin syllable -_ens_ by -_es_: so\n_Klemes_, _Clemens_.\n\n[6] See Acts xvii. 1-15.\n\n[7] On the Egnatian road.  He made three stages of the distance;\nAmphipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica.\n\n[8] _Ton karpon ton pleonazonta eis logon hymon_.  I venture to render\nthese words as above, as a monetary phrase, relating to principal and\ninterest.  It is true that _karpos_ is not found used in the sense of\ninterest, for which the regular word is _tokos_.  But it would easily\nfit into the language of the money-market.  And St Chrysostom's comment\nhere seems to show that he, a Greek, understood it thus: _horas hoti\nekeinois ho karpos tiktetai_ (_tokos_).\n\n[9] For _osme euodias_ see Eph. v. 2.  The phrase is common in the\nSeptuagint to render the Hebrew \"savour of rest,\" the fume of the altar\npictorially represented as smelt by the Deity.\n\n[10] This reference of _doxa_ seems better than that which would\nconnect it only with the eternal future, the glory of heaven, and make\nthe sentence mean that He would hereafter requite them there.  He would\nindeed do so.  But the phrase _pleroun pasan chreian_ hardly suggests\nthat thought here.\n\n[11] \"Bishop Lightfoot . . . (_Philippians_, pp. 171-178) has shewn\nwith great fulness of proof that 'the household of Caesar' was a term\nembracing a vast number of persons, not only in Rome but in the\nprovinces, all of whom were either actual or former slaves of the\nEmperor, filling every possible description of office more or less\ndomestic.  The Bishop illustrates his statements from the . . . burial\ninscriptions of members of the 'Household' found . . . near Rome. . . .\nThese inscriptions afford a curiously large number of coincidences\n_with the list in Rom. xvi._ . . .  Amplias, Urbanus, Apelles,\nTryphaena, Tryphosa, Patrobas, Philologus. . . .  Bishop Lightfoot\ninfers from this whole evidence the great probability that the 'saints'\ngreeted in Rom. xvi. were, on the whole, the same 'saints' who here\nsend greeting _from_ Rome. . . .  Their associations and functions, not\nonly in the age of Nero but in the precincts of his court, and probably\n(for many of them) within the chambers of his palace, give a noble view\nin passing of the power of grace to triumph over circumstances, and to\ntransfigure life where it seems most impossible\" (Note in _The\nCambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges_).  See also the writer's\ncommentary on the Ep. to the Romans (_Expositor's Bible_), pp. 423-425.\n\n[12] Read _meta tou pneumatos huon_, not _m. panton humon_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRAETORIAN AND THE APOSTLE\n\nACTS xxviii. 16, 31\n\n\"Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept\nhim. . . .  preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things\nwhich concern the Lord Jesus Christ.\"\n\n\n  (THE SOLDIER loquitur.)\n\n  Father, the dawn is near! the shield\n    Of Luna sinks remote and pale\n  O'er Tiber and the Martial field;\n    The breeze awakes; the cressets fail:\n  This livelong night from set of sun\n  Here have we talk'd: thy task is done.\n\n  But yesterday I smil'd or frown'd\n    To watch thy audience, soon and late,\n  With scroll and style embattl'd round\n    In barbarous accents ply debate;\n  While this would chide, and that would start\n  Sudden, as sword-struck in the heart.\n\n  I laugh'd aside, or, tir'd, withdrew\n    From the strange sound in waking dreams\n  To Umbrian hills--the home I knew--\n    The cottage by Mevania's streams:\n  'Twas hush'd at length: the guests were flown,\n  And thou wast left and I alone.\n\n  Thou hast forgiven (I know thee now)\n    The insults of this heathen tongue;\n  The taunting questions why and how;\n    The songs (oh madness!) that I sung:\n  Thou hast forgiv'n the hateful strain\n  Of dull defiance and disdain.\n\n  Thy gaze, thy silence, they compell'd\n    My own responsive: aw'd I stood\n  Before thee; soften'd, search'd, and quell'd;\n    The evil captive to the good:\n  Half conscious, half entranc'd, I heard\n  (While the stars mov'd) thy conquering word.\n\n  These ears were dull to Grecian speech,\n    This heart more dull to aught but sin;\n  Yet the great Spirit bade thee reach,\n    Wake, change, exalt, the soul within:\n  I've heard; I know; thy Lord, ev'n He,\n  JESUS, hath look'd from heaven on me.\n\n  Thou saw'st me shake, and (spite of pride)\n    Weep on thy hand: so stern thy truth:\n  I own'd the terrors that abide\n    Dread sequel to a rebel's youth:\n  But soon I pour'd a happier shower\n  To learn thy Saviour's dying power.\n\n  Ah, speechless, rapt, I bent, to know\n    Each wonder of that fateful day\n  When midst thy zeal's terrific glow\n    He met thee on the Syrian way:\n  I saw, I felt, the scene: my soul\n  Drank the new bliss, the new control.\n\n  Father, the dawn is risen! the hour\n    Is near, too near, when from this hand\n  Thy chain must fall--from yonder tower\n    Another guard must take my stand:\n  The City stirs: I go, to meet\n  The foe, the world, in camp and street;\n\n  A Christian--yes, for ever now\n    A Christian: so our Leader keep\n  My faltering heart: to Him I bow,\n    His, whether now I wake or sleep:\n  In peace, in battle, His:--the day\n  Breaks in the east: oh, once more pray!\n\n1869.","title":"Philippian Studies: Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":50110}