Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Philippians 2:1

Clarke's Commentary

CHAPTER II.

The apostle beseeches them by various considerations, to live

in unity and in the spirit of the Gospel, loving each other;

and each to prefer his brother to himself, 1-4.

He exhorts them to be like-minded with Christ, who, though in

the form of God, and equal with God, made himself of no

reputation, and humbled himself to the death of the cross for

the salvation of man; in consequence of which he was highly

exalted, and had a name above every name; to whose authority

every knee should bow, and whose glory every tongue should

acknowledge, 5-11.

They are exhorted to work out their own salvation through his

power who works in them, that they may be blameless, and that

the apostle's labour may not be in vain, 12-16.

He expresses his readiness to offer his life for the Gospel,

17,18.

Intends to send Timothy to them, of whom he gives a very high

character; yet hopes to see them himself shortly, 19-24.

In the meantime sends Epaphroditus, who had been near death, and

whom he begs them to receive with especial tenderness, 25-30.

NOTES ON CHAP. II.

Verse Philippians 2:1. If there be therefore any consolation — The ει, if, does not express any doubt here, but on the contrary is to be considered as a strong affirmation; as there is consolation in Christ, as there is comfort of love, c.

The word παρακλησις, translated here consolation, is in other places rendered exhortation, and is by several critics understood so here as if he had said: If exhorting you in the name of Christ have any influence with you, c. It is extremely difficult to give the force of these expressions they contain a torrent of most affecting eloquence, the apostle pouring out his whole heart to a people whom with all his heart he loved, and who were worthy of the love even of an apostle.

If any comfort of love — If the followers of Christ, by giving proofs of their ardent love to each other in cases of distress, alleviate the sufferings of the persecuted;

If any fellowship of the Spirit — If there be an intimate relation established among all Christians, by their being made mutual partakers of the holy Ghost;

If any bowels and mercies — If you, as persons whom I have brought to God at the hazard of my life, feel sympathetic tenderness for me now, in a farther state of suffering;

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Christ’s example of humility (2:1-11)

Paul gives four reasons why Christians should have greater unity between them: the encouragement given them by Christ; the power of Christ’s love working in them; the common sharing they have in the same Spirit; and the sympathetic kindness that God’s children should show to each other. Although the Philippians bring Paul much joy, that joy will not be complete till there is genuine unity among them (2:1-2). They are not to be concerned solely with their own spiritual progress, for this can lead to self-satisfaction and pride. They must learn to look for and admire the good points in others (3-4).
If they are indeed ‘in Christ Jesus’, they should share his spirit of humility; and humility means denying self for the sake of serving others. Christ did not selfishly grasp for the supreme glory of heaven, even though it was his by right (for he was God). Rather he became a servant for the sake of sinful humankind. He became a man, and accepted the restrictions and hardships that human nature placed upon him. But, unlike all other members of the human race, he did not sin. He entered the world of human beings in order to save human beings from their sins. As a servant he spent his earthly life doing whatever his Father required, even though it meant that he suffered and eventually died on a cross (5-8).
Only after this humility, suffering and death was Christ raised to the place of supreme glory. The honour that he refused to seek by selfish ambition was given to him in even greater measure because of his humility and obedience. One day all people, angels and demons will acknowledge that he is Lord (9-11).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions.

Collectively, the fourfold premise of this verse adds up to this: "Look, if there is anything at all to your Christianity …!"

If … "This is rhetorical and in no way expresses doubt. James William Russell, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964). Paul was here appealing to those very things which he considered most certain in the area of Christian experience. This was a common Hebrew method of making a statement in the affirmative, as when Jesus said, "If I go, I shall come again" (John 14:3), making the certainty of his going the pledge also of his Second Coming.

Lightfoot paraphrased this quadruple list of "if’s" thus:

If your experiences in Christ appeal to you with any force, if love exerts any persuasive power upon you, if your fellowship in the Spirit is a living reality, if you have any affectionate yearnings of heart, any tender feelings of compassion, listen and obey! J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963), p. 107.

Thus, it is clear that Paul here based this appeal for unity upon all of the sacred elements of true Christianity and upon their highest and best impulses as human beings.

Fellowship of the Spirit … Martin is no doubt correct in his comment on this that "The meaning must be ’fellowship with participation in the Spirit’ rather than ’fellowship wrought by the Spirit’. R. P. Martin, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Philippians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959), p. 91. Thus the admonition is that the Philippians should be "in the Spirit," not that the Spirit should be "in them"! See under Philippians 2:5.

Hendriksen pointed out that Paul’s stirring appeal here has a "fourfold incentive and a three-fold directive, the latter being: (i) oneness (Philippians 2:2); (ii) lowliness of mind or disposition (Philippians 2:3); and (iii) helpfulness (Philippians 2:4)." William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary, Philippians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1962), p. 99.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ - This, with what is said in the remainder of the verse, is designed as a motive for what he exhorts them to in Philippians 2:2 - that they would be of the same mind, and would thus fulfill his joy. To urge them to this, he appeals to the tender considerations which religion furnished - and begins by a reference to the consolation which there was in Christ. The meaning here may be this: “I am now persecuted and afflicted. In my trials it will give me the highest joy to learn that you act as becomes Christians. You also are persecuted and afflicted Philippians 1:28-30; and, in these circumstances, I entreat that the highest consolation may be sought; and by all that is tender and sacred in the Christian religion, I conjure you, so to live as not to dishonor the gospel. So live as to bring down the highest consolation which can be obtained - the consolation which Christ alone can impart We are not to suppose that Paul doubted whether there was any consolation in Christ but the form of expression here is one that is designed to urge upon them the duty of seeking the highest possible. The consolation in Christ is that which Christ furnishes or imparts. Paul regarded him as the source of all comfort, and earnestly prays that they might so live that he and they might avail themselves in the fullest sense of that unspeakable enjoyment. The idea is, that Christians ought at all times, and especially in affliction, so to act as to secure the highest possible happiness which their Saviour can impart to them. Such an object is worth their highest effort; and if God sees it needful, in order to that, that they should endure much affliction, still it is gain. Religious consolation is always worth all which it costs to secure it.

If any comfort of love - If there be any comfort in the exercise of tender affection. That there is, no one can doubt. Our happiness is almost all centered in love. It is when we love a parent, a wife, a child, a sister, a neighbor, that we have the highest earthly enjoyment. It is in the love of God, of Christ, of Christians, of the souls of people, that the redeemed find their highest happiness. Hatred is a passion full of misery; love an emotion full of joy. By this consideration, Paul appeals to them, and the motive here is drawn from all the joy which mutual love and sympathy are fitted to produce in the soul Paul would have that love exercised in the highest degree, and would have them enjoy all the happiness which its mutual exercise could furnish.

If any fellowship of the Spirit - The word “fellowship - κοινωνία koinōnia - means that which is common to two or more; that of which they partake together; Ephesians 3:9 note; Philippians 1:5 note. The idea here is, that among Christians there was a participation in the influences of the Holy Spirit; that they shared in some degree the feelings, views, and joys of the Sacred Spirit Himself; and that this was a privilege of the highest order. By this fact, Paul now exhorts them to unity, love, and zeal - so to live that they might partake in the highest degree of the consolations of this Spirit.

If any bowels and mercies - If there is any affectionate bond by which you are united to me, and any regard for my sorrows, and any desire to fill up my joys, so live as to impart to me, your spiritual father and friend, the consolation which I seek.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

1If there is therefore any consolation. There is an extraordinary tenderness in this exhortation, ⁽⁹³⁾ in which he entreats by all means the Philippians mutually to cherish harmony among themselves, lest, in the event of their being torn asunder by intestine contentions, they should expose themselves to the impostures of the false apostles. For when there are disagreements, there is invariably a door opened for Satan to disseminate impious doctrines, while agreement is the best bulwark for repelling them.

As the term παρακλήσεως is often taken to mean exhortation, the commencement of the passage might be explained in this manner: “If an exhortation which is delivered in the name and by the authority of Christ, has any weight with you.” The other meaning, however, corresponds better with the context: “If there is among you any consolation of Christ, ” by means of which you may alleviate my griefs, and if you would afford me any consolation and relief, which you assuredly owe me in the exercise of love; if you take into view that fellowship of the Spirit, which ought to make us all one; if any feeling of humanity and mercy resides in you, which might stir you up to alleviate my miseries, fulfill ye my joy, etc. From this we may infer, how great a blessing unity in the Church is, and with what eagerness pastors should endeavor to secure it. ⁽⁹⁴⁾ We must also at the same time take notice, how he humbles himself by beseechingly imploring their pity, while he might have availed himself of his paternal authority, so as to demand respect from them as his sons. ⁽⁹⁵⁾ He knew how to exercise authority when it was necessary, but at present he prefers to use entreaties, because he knew that these would be better fitted to gain an entrance into their affections, ⁽⁹⁶⁾ and because he was aware that he had to do with persons who were docile and compliant. In this manner the pastor must have no hesitation to assume different aspects for the sake of the Church. ⁽⁹⁷⁾

(93) “Ceste exhortation est plene d’affections vehementes;” — “This exhortation is full of intense affections.”

(94) “Et que les pasteurs le doyuent procurer d’vne affection vehemente et zele ardent;” — “And that pastors should endeavor to procure it with intense desire and ardent zeal.”

(95) “Il peust vser d’authorite paternelle, et demander que pour la reuerence qu’ils luy deuoyent comme ses enfans, ils feissent ce qu’il enseigne yci;” — “He might have exercised paternal authority, and have demanded that in consideration of the respect which they owed him as his children, they should do what he here inculcates.”

(96) “Pour entrer dedans leurs cœurs, et es mouuoir leurs affections;” — “For entering into their hearts, and moving their affections.”

(97) “Ne doit faire difficulte de se transformer selon qu’il cognoistra que ce sera le proufit de l’Eglise;” — “Should have no hesitation in transforming himself according as he may perceive that this will be for the advantage of the Church.”

Smith's Bible Commentary

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if [there is] any comfort of love, if [there is] any fellowship of the Spirit, if [there is] any bowels [compassion] and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind ( Philippians 2:1-2 ).

And so Paul's appeal to them now, a very powerful appeal: if there is any consolation in Christ, if there is any comfort in love, and surely there is consolation in Christ, how we are consoled by Him, how we are comforted in the love, and especially the time of death, the fellowship in the Spirit, the compassion and the mercy fulfill my joy. As John said, "I have no greater joy than to hear that the children walk in truth" ( 3 John 1:4 ). Fulfill my joy, that you be likeminded having the same love, being of one accord and one mind.

And let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves ( Philippians 2:3 ).

You want to be great in God's kingdom? Learn to be the servant.

It is interesting to me, how that these words of Paul are so often disregarded by the church. I have shared with you before how my break came with the denomination, over the fact that they announced to the pastors that competition was carnal motivation, but we must realize that the majority of the people we minister to are carnal, and thus, have to be carnally motivated. So we have to use competition to motivate them. Well, competition is striving, because we were to call another pastor and challenge his church to an attendance contest. "We are going to strive with you to see who can have the largest attendance." And then the church that lost was going to have to treat the church that won to a dinner. And the church that won was going to be honored. You know, "We want to be first so we can be honored." Vainglory and strife, or striving for vainglory. And how many times, that is the motive that is being used with people within the church: get them into competition, get them into striving, and get them into vainglory. "We are going to put the names up here on the wall. In each windowpane we are going to inscribe your name. We are going to put stained glass in. The Lord has told me we should have stained glass windows, and you know, you can buy your window and put your name or the name of your loved one in a window." And everybody that comes, as they look down the window, they will see your name. Vainglory.

Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory. Those are wrong motivations for serving God. But in lowliness of mind, just esteem others better than yourself.

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others [or the needs of others]( Philippians 2:4 ).

Don't just look at your own needs, but look at the needs of others around you.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus ( Philippians 2:5 ):

And God minister to us now by Your Spirit, because we are treading in the Holy of Holies. We are getting down to the heart now of the whole issue. The issue of Christianity: my attitudes, my attitudes toward myself and my attitudes towards others. What is the mental attitude that I have towards myself? What is my mental attitude towards others? Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

"Do you know what he had the nerve to ask me to do? I told him I wanted to serve the Lord, and Romaine gave me a broom and told me to sweep the sidewalk. I hire people to sweep my sidewalks. Doesn't he know who I am? How much I have contributed to the church?" Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery [something to be grasped] to be equal with God ( Philippians 2:6 ):

He didn't grasp, have to grasp equality with God; He was with God. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God" ( John 1:1 ). So being in the form of God, and not something to be grasped to be equal with God.

Now you talk about, "Hey, don't they know who I am? Don't they know how important I am? They didn't even offer to carry my suitcase. Don't they know?" Who, being in the form of God, and thought it not something to be grasped to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation [or in the Greek, emptied Himself], and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men ( Philippians 2:7 ):

Well, we see now the steps downward as He emptied Himself: starting with God, equal with God, and yet, He emptied Himself and He came in the form of a servant, and was made like men.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross ( Philippians 2:8 ).

And so, from glory and equality with God to that cruel Roman cross, hanging there with the jeers and the anger of the crowd, despised and rejected by man. What a tremendous downward, I mean from the highest height, down to death on a cross, surrounded by murderers. That tremendous plunge Jesus was willing to take for you. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him ( Philippians 2:9 ),

Now we see the steps out. For God said, "I will not leave your soul in hell, neither will I allow the Holy One to see corruption" ( Psalms 16:10 ). And God has highly exalted Him.

and [He has] given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father ( Philippians 2:9-11 ).

So from the glory to the glory, but the cross in between. He emptied Himself. Now let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. That willingness to set aside what you are, to become a servant to others. Not esteeming yourself more highly than you should, just considering yourself privileged to be a servant of Jesus Christ. "Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up" ( James 4:10 ). Christ the example, humbling Himself, but wherefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, Jehoshua, every knee will one day is going to bow, every tongue one day is going to confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord.

Now, you may not want to make that confession now. You may say that you are the lord of your own life. "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. My head is bloody but unbowed." One day you are going to confess Jesus Christ is the Lord. Those people who speak so despairingly of Him now, those people who still mock His name, those who use His name so carelessly in their profanity, those who have spoken out so adversely against Him, one day they too shall bow their knee, and they shall confess Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The problem is that in that day their confession will not be unto salvation. You see, Paul tells us that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead, we will be saved, for with the mouth man confesses unto salvation. But that will not be so in that day, the confession will not be to salvation. It will be of condemnation of themselves. "Yes, He is Lord. I was wrong in rejecting Him as Lord of my life."

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ( Philippians 2:12 ):

Now, unfortunately many people stop right there, and we get a tremendous exhortation on works and the importance of you working out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And rather than working out your salvation, it is usually interpreted, "work for your salvation with fear and trembling," and you're exhorted into all the works that you ought to be doing for God in order to be saved. And those who are emphasizing a "works" gospel, which is not a gospel, because you tell me I have to work to be saved, that is not good news, that is bad news. They use this text so often, but they don't go into the very next verse where He declares:

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure ( Philippians 2:13 ).

That is what it is all about. You see, God said to Jeremiah when Israel had totally failed in the keeping of the law, "There is going to come a day, Jeremiah, when I am no longer going to write the law on these tables of stone, but I am going to write my law in the fleshly tablets of their heart." It is He who works in you to will.

How does God reveal His will to me? He reveals His will by the desires that He places in my heart, not the desires that I necessarily have in my heart that come from me. But He places in my heart His desires, so it is He that works in you both to will. God puts it in my heart to do something. God gives me the desire, the yearning to do a particular work, to go to a particular place. And I discover that that which I desire is actually God's revealing to my heart, that which He is wanting me to do. And so, He puts it in me to will, and then He gives me the capacity to do of His good pleasure.

Several years ago I was supposed to speak in Ventura on a Sunday evening, and I decided to go up on Saturday and spend the night with my aunt in Santa Barbara. My Aunt Lois, in fact, who is now moved down into the area that we can be near her. And she made such fabulous enchiladas, and I called her and said, "Put the enchiladas on. I will be up for dinner, spend the night with you, and then I will come back to Ventura tomorrow night and speak." So, I took off for Santa Barbara. Heading up towards the Ventura freeway, when I got to Sunset Boulevard I thought, "Oh, this is such a beautiful day. I might as well drive along the coast, drive along Sunset Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway. It is such a beautiful day I will just put the top down on my car, and I will cruise up through Malibu and go up Santa Barbara that way and just look at the ocean, because I love to stop up there at Point Magu and watch the surf come in and just the beauty of that drive." And I thought, "I just want to go the coast." I am such a water nut, and just enjoy the beach. So, I wound all the way down Sunset Boulevard, and as I was winding down Sunset Boulevard, I thought, "My, I don't remember it being this far down Sunset to the Coast. I probably made a mistake. I probably should have stayed on the inland route. Oh, well."

And as I pulled on to the Coast Highway, there was a couple there hitchhiking, and I felt rather selfish in this convertible all by myself and all, and here they are hitchhiking, and so I don't pick up hitchhikers as a rule, but I stopped and I picked them up. And I started to share with them about Jesus Christ. By the time we got to Ventura, we pulled over and they accepted the Lord. And I took them by the church where I would be speaking the next night, and I said, "Look, if you show up here tomorrow night, I will be glad to meet you." The fellow was looking for a job. He was a farmer, and he had been looking in Los Angeles for a job. I said, "They don't have any farms in Los Angeles." So I bid them farewell, drove on up to Santa Barbara, and like so many experiences, you think, "Well, probably I will never see them again." But the next night when I was at the church speaking and I gave the invitation, they came forward to accept Jesus Christ publicly. And the man in the church, the elder who came down to pray with them, happened to be the foreman of the Del Mar Lymanair Ranch, and happened to be needing an extra hand. It had housing and everything else. So, they came up afterwards and they came up with Mr. Jenkins, and they said, "Oh, guess what has happened to us? This man who prayed with us, he is the foreman of this ranch." I knew that, and he had given them a job, and then I thought back yesterday, as I was driving up and I got that sudden inspiration, "Why not go by the coast," I realized it was He who puts it into my heart to will. That thought was actually planted by the Lord, because He knew that that couple from Montana, really desperate and in need, basically for a real experience with Jesus Christ, were waiting for someone to come and share the truth with them.

And so, it is God who works in you both to will and then to do. He gives you the capacity to do, but He plants first of all the will in your heart. And this is the way that God leads us. So often it is by a sudden inspiration, a thought, an idea, God is working in you to will, and then to do. And so again, it is initiated by God. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, but it is God who is actually working in you. It is God who has put that yearning in your heart. It is God that has given you that desire. And now God will work out the ways by which that might be fulfilled. For He works in you both to will and then to do of His good pleasure.

So, the net result is that my pleasure is doing His pleasure because He put the desire in my heart to do it, and so it becomes, really, the desire of my heart or my life, and thus the pleasure of my life, and thus I can say with Jesus, "I delight to do thy will O Lord." Why? Because He has planted it in my heart. It is God who is working in you.

Therefore,

Do all things without murmurings and disputings ( Philippians 2:14 ):

Now, I have to confess that I don't always succeed in this particular injunction. There are certain tasks that I do that I catch myself murmuring. "I wonder where Romaine is, you know, I have to clean up this mess. Where is Romaine, you know, he is not around to clean up this mess." You know, and I think, "Hum, I have got better things to do than to sweep up this mess here, you know." And so I don't always pass with an "A" on this particular phase. I do catch myself at times murmuring over some of the pressures, over some of the things. But God is working in my heart in that. Because when I do things and I am murmuring, He usually speaks to me and says, "Why are you doing it?" And, of course, I have to respond, "I am doing it for You, Lord." And then He says, "Quit your murmuring, or quit doing it."

You know, God doesn't want any griping service. Whatever you do in word or deed, do for the glory of God, and do it as unto the Lord, and do all things without murmuring or disputing.

That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation [generation], among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain ( Philippians 2:15-16 ).

So, Paul is exhorting them on how they are to serve the Lord. And the effect of their service to the Lord is the rejoicing in the heart of Paul, realizing that his ministry to them has been an effective ministry, for he has brought them into the attitude and the mind of Christ, who was willing to step from His glory into this sin-cursed world to hang on a cross. Let this mind be in you. And when you see the work and the effect of the work of God in the ministry in the hearts of the people, it creates great rejoicing. Paul said,

Yea, and if I be offered [if they take my life] upon the sacrifice and service of your faith [if I die for this], I joy, and rejoice with you all ( Philippians 2:17 ).

I rejoice because of what God has done with you. I die happy knowing that God has worked in your life through my ministry.

For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me ( Philippians 2:18 ).

If they take my life, rejoice with me, don't weep.

But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know of your state. For I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state ( Philippians 2:19-20 ).

Now, this is very interesting statement of Paul, for he is sending Timothy because Timothy shares his heart, his burden. And Paul said, "I don't have any one else who really has the same heart that I have, for you and for the work." It is really very difficult to find someone who has the same heart as Paul the apostle. One who is willing to give himself so freely. One who is really looking so little for himself, but always looking for the needs and the welfare of others. It is hard to find that kind of a minister, one that is really so careful and circumspect about the things of the Lord. Paul said, "I really don't have anyone other than Timothy who has the same mind, the same heart and concern for your state as I have."

For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's ( Philippians 2:21 ).

What sad indictment against the ministers, even those that were accompanying Paul, and with Paul. "I send Timothy because he has my heart for you; he cares for you as I do. Most everybody else really care for themselves more than they care for you. They are seeking their own welfare above your welfare." That is, the mind that was in Christ is not in them, who emptied Himself.

But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel. Him therefore I hope to send [him] presently [soon], so soon as I shall see how it will go with me ( Philippians 2:22-23 ).

As soon as I am able to free him, I am going to send him to you.

But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly ( Philippians 2:24 ).

You know, if Caesar lets me out of here, I hope that I will be able to come.

Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labor, and the fellow soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants ( Philippians 2:25 ).

In other words, he brought to me the offering that you sent, and ministered to my needs.

For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick. For indeed he was sick nigh [he was near] death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow ( Philippians 2:26-27 ).

So Epaphroditus almost died. He was extremely sick, and they had heard of his sickness and were worried about him. And so Epaphroditus was concerned, they were worried for him, because of that sickness.

Interesting, Paul had a tremendous ministry of healing. Miracles were wrought, and yet, he speaks of Epaphroditus almost dying with his sickness. Why doesn't God heal everybody? Why is it that God heals some and does not heal others? Hey, we will never know the answers to that. Beware of those who have pat answers on the subject of healing, on the subjects of the works of God or the whys of God. God says, "My ways are not your ways, they are beyond your finding out." We really don't know, and it is wrong to place the guilt upon the sick person. That's the last thing they need, for you to come in and say, "Well, brother, there must be something wrong with you, some sin in your life that you are so sick. You just don't have enough faith, and if you only believed God, you could get up out of this bed and walk. You have been making the wrong confession. Don't say you feel bad, say, 'I feel great.'" It is not going to do it.

God does heal; I believe that. I have been healed many times, I know that. But God doesn't heal everybody, I recognize that. And why, I don't know. I have known reprobates who have been healed; I have known extremely godly people who were not healed, but died. It has nothing to do with a person's righteousness. It has nothing to do with a person's faith. Healing is a work of God, and it is sovereign with God and it is in God's hands. It is wrong to put the burden upon the people who are sick or upon your relatives. And I thoroughly discount as junk the messages that God wills that everybody should be healed.

So Paul said,

I sent him [Epaphroditus] therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation: because for the work of Christ he was nigh [near] unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me ( Philippians 2:28-30 ).

So, he hazarded his own life in order to bring their help to Paul, and Paul appreciates it, and is sending him back with the commendation for his faithfulness.

We can finish the book of Philippians next Sunday, and these next two chapters are classic. I'll tell you, they are so much. I just love them.

Now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit rest and abide with each of you through this week, that you might be strengthened by His Spirit in your inner man, that you might receive the Spirit of understanding and enlightenment, that you might be able to understand how much God does love you, and His plan for your life, that you might live your life for Christ, and share with Him in His kingdom forever. God bless you, children of the King. May you walk in His love, and in His grace, in Jesus' name. "

Contending for the Faith

A Call for Unity and Mutual Consideration (2:1-4)

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,

If there be therefore: This chapter begins with a series of four clauses that summon the Philippians to unity and mutual consideration. Paul has just spoken to them concerning the opposition they are facing from the world, and now he deals with the dangers that arise from within. They have been exhorted to walk worthily of the gospel of Christ. This walking involves their "standing firm in one spirit without being frightened by non-Christian opponents (1:27) and being one in aim or direction with other members of the congregation (2:1)" (O’Brien 164). Verses 1-4 are a call to unity, love, and humility. They are to be united against their enemies and united in heart and mind with one another. Congregations today should become acquainted with Paul’s words here and take preventive measures against division that so frequently attacks them. It is nothing less than ignorance and negligence of God’s word that leads churches into division.

Each of the clauses begins with the word "If," making the statements appear to be conditional; actually they are affirmative statements that are true. A better translation of the word would be "since." This fourfold appeal in verse 1 is to have a fourfold result that is found in verse 2.

The Greek text has no verb expressed in these four clauses, and the New American Standard Bible supplies "there is." This translation is of course grammatically correct but it may leave the impression that the apostle is appealing to the (general) existence of these qualities, whereas he surely has in mind the Philippians’ specific experience of them (NIV "if you have") (Silva 102).

Lightfoot’s paraphrase is:

If then your experiences in Christ appeal to you with any force, if love exerts any persuasive power upon you, if your fellowship in the Spirit is a living reality, if you have any affectionate yearnings of heart, any tender feelings of compassion, listen and obey (107).

any consolation in Christ: The word "consolation" (KJV) is rendered "encouragement" by most translators and can mean comfort (ASV) or exhortation. "The context seems to favor the meaning of helping, encouraging, or strengthening" (Loh and Nida 48). O’Brien says, "The majority of exegetes render the word by ’exhortation’ in the sense of Hebrews 13:22, regarding it as an ’urgent appeal’" (168). However, O’Brien prefers "consolation" or "comfort" (170). Lightfoot likewise prefers "encouragement" (107). Therefore, this first clause to which Paul appeals refers to the encouragement, consolation, or comfort they have in Christ. This is certainly a powerful appeal to unity. It contemplates the very life that Christians live in Christ. To contemplate life in Christ should stir up Christians and make them strong. It should bind brethren together.

if any comfort of love: The second clause makes appeal to the "comfort of love." The word for "comfort" occurs only here in the New Testament and can be translated "persuasion" (JB), "consolation" (ASV), or "incentive" (RSV). It probably means comfort or consolation.

It speaks of gentle cheering or tender counsel. It depicts an individual coming close and whispering in another’s ear and is used in the New Testament in the context of friendship and intimate love" (J. MacArthur 28).

The "love" is a "subjective genitive (the consolation of love) and refers not to the brotherly love of Christians, nor to Paul’s love for his Philippian readers, but to Christ’s love" (Spicq 294). It is "the loving tenderness of God in Christ experienced by every Christian" (MacArthur 27). Because of the love that God manifested through His Son Jesus Christ, unity should abound among Christians. There is no place for the sinful attitudes that bring about division in hearts ruled by the love of Christ.

if any fellowship of the Spirit: Paul’s third appeal to unity among the Philippians is based on the "fellowship of the Spirit." Koinonia (from which "fellowship" is derived) and its cognates are found six times in this letter. The exact same word is found not only here but in Philippians 1:5 and Philippians 3:10. This word appears nineteen times in the New Testament, thirteen of which are used by Paul. As earlier noted in Philippians 1:5, the word refers to partnership, communion, contribution, sharing, or having something in common with someone.

Although the word pneumatos:

...could possibly denote the human spirit (NAB "fellowship in spirit"; Bruce "spiritual fellowship"), suggesting "fellowship of spirits among themselves," it is almost universally agreed by commentators, on contextual grounds and the similar expression at 2 Corinthians 13:14, that the reference is to the Holy Spirit (O’Brien 172-173).

Some have taken the phrase to be "the Spirit’s fellowship" and, therefore, understand this phrase to refer to "the partnership and fellowship, which only the Holy Spirit can give" (Barclay 40). Others believe it means "participation in the Spirit" (Campbell 25-26). Others, such as W. Hendriksen, say "the marvelous Spirit-fellowship," therefore, believing it denotes a fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

This phrase evidently refers to the fellowship Christians have "in the Spirit." The unity of the church is called "the unity of the Spirit" (Ephesians 4:3). "We have all been baptized by the Spirit into one body and made to drink of the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13). All baptized believers have received the "gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). The Spirit desires unity, is the source of unity, and is in fellowship with all of the saved. Division violates one’s relationship with the Spirit.

if any bowels and mercies: The fourth and final appeal for unity that Paul makes in this verse is "if any bowels and mercies." These two words appear together in Colossians 3:12 as well, and there the King James Version translates "bowels of mercies." The noun "bowels" is found in Philippians 1:8, where it refers to the "bowels" (entrails, heart) of Christ. Splanchnon is treated under 1:8 and simply refers to the emotions of the heart of man. It is translated here "affection" (Gpd; RSV; NEB), "tenderness" (JB), "compassion" (NAB), and "kindness" (Phps).

The word "mercies" is usually rendered "sympathy" (Gpd; RSV; JB) or "compassion" (Today’s English Bible; New English Bible). In Romans 12:1, it denotes God’s compassion and in 2 Corinthians 1:3 God’s acts of mercy through His Son. In light of the first three appeals Paul makes, he is probably referring to the tender mercy and compassion of Christ experienced by the Philippians. Paul’s plea to them is simply based on the goodness of God.

Paul’s appeal to unity is based on things the Philippians know for certain: God’s comfort they experience in Christ; the consolation of Christ’s love for them in every situation; the sharing of the Holy Spirit who is in their hearts; and the tender mercy and compassion they have felt as God has worked in their lives.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The apostle introduced his comments on submissiveness by giving his readers four incentives. He stated each one in a conditional clause that he introduced with the word "if." He assumed each one to be true for the sake of his argument (a first class condition in Greek). The translators have supplied the verb that Paul did not state. The NASB has "there is," but the NIV gives a better sense of Paul’s meaning with "you have." We could read each of the four clauses, "Since you have . . ."

The first reason Christians can and should be submissive to God and to one another is that Jesus Christ has exhorted (Gr. parakalesis) us to do so. His teachings while on the earth, as well as those that followed through His apostles after He returned to heaven, specifically Paul, encourage us to be humble. Jesus’ personal example during His earthly ministry also encourages us similarly.

Second, Paul’s love for the Philippians, which came as a comforting gift from God, should impel them to respond positively to his request also.

Third, the fellowship that the Holy Spirit creates should also make Christians submissive (cf. 2 Corinthians 13:13; Ephesians 4:3). It seems best to take this reference as including both our participation in the Spirit and the common life that He has created for us. [Note: Kent, p. 121; William Hendricksen, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of Philippians and Exposition of Colossians and Philemon, p. 98, footnote 73.] We should probably regard the genitive as both objective and subjective rather than just objective. The former incentives also come from being in Christ and from love. Another option is just our participation in the Spirit. [Note: Martin, pp. 48-49, 91.]

Fourth, the tenderness (affection) and compassion, or the affectionate sympathy, of God and Christ toward the Philippians would make unity normal and expected for this congregation.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The foundation for unity 2:1-4

Paul advocated humility, namely, concern for the needs of others, not just one’s own needs, as the basis for unity in the church (cf. Philippians 1:22-26; Philippians 2:21).

". . . someone well said: ’Love begins when someone else’s needs are more important than my own,’ which is precisely what Paul will urge in the elaboration that follows." [Note: Fee, p. 185.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 2

THE CAUSES OF DISUNITY ( Php_2:1-4 )

2:1-4 If the fact that you are in Christ has any power to influence you, if love has any persuasive power to move you, if you really are sharing in the Holy Spirit, if you can feel compassion and pity, complete my joy, for my desire is that you should be in full agreement, loving the same things, joined together in soul, your minds set on the one thing. Do nothing in a spirit of selfish ambition, and in a search for empty glory, but in humility let each consider the other better than himself Do not be always concentrating each on your own interests, but let each be equally concerned for the interests of others.

The one danger which threatened the Philippian church was that of disunity. There is a sense in which that is the danger of every healthy church. It is when people are really in earnest and their beliefs really matter to them, that they are apt to get up against each other. The greater their enthusiasm, the greater the danger that they may collide. It is against that danger Paul wishes to safeguard his friends.

In Php_2:3-4 he gives us the three great causes of disunity.

There is selfish ambition. There is always the danger that people should work not to advance the work but to advance themselves. It is extraordinary how time and again the great princes of the Church almost fled from office in the agony of the sense of their own unworthiness.

Ambrose was one of the great figures of the early Church. A great scholar, he was the Roman governor of the province of Liguria and Aemilia, and he governed with such loving care that the people regarded him as a father. The bishop of the district died and the question of his successor arose. In the midst of the discussion, suddenly a little child's voice arose: "Ambrose--bishop! Ambrose--bishop!" The whole crowd took up the cry. To Ambrose it was unthinkable. He fled by night to avoid the high office the Church was offering him; and it was only the direct intervention and command of the Emperor which made him agree to become bishop of Milan.

When John Rough publicly from the pulpit in St. Andrews summoned him to the ministry, John Knox was appalled. In his own History of the Reformation he writes: "Thereat the said John, abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears, and withdrew himself to his chamber. His countenance and behaviour, from that day until the day that he was compelled to present himself in the public place of preaching, did sufficiently declare the grief and trouble of his heart. No man saw in him any sign of mirth, nor yet had he pleasure to accompany any man, for many days together."

Far from being filled with ambition, the great men were filled with a sense of their own inadequacy for high office.

There is the desire for personal prestige. Prestige is for many people an even greater temptation than wealth. To be admired and respected, to have a platform seat, to have one's opinion sought, to be known by name and appearance, even to be flattered, are for many people most desirable things. But the aim of the Christian ought to be not self-display, but self-obliteration. He should do good deeds, not that men may glorify him, but that they may glorify his Father in heaven. The Christian should desire to focus men's eyes not upon himself but on God.

There is concentration on self. If a man is for ever concerned first and foremost with his own interests, he is bound to collide with others. If for him life is a competition whose prizes he must win, he will always think of other human beings as enemies or at least as opponents who must be pushed out of the way. Concentration on self inevitably means elimination of others; and the object of life becomes not to help others up but to push them down.

THE CURE OF DISUNITY ( Php_2:1-4 continued)

In face of this danger of disunity Paul sets down five considerations which ought to prevent disharmony.

(i) The fact that we are all in Christ should keep us in unity. No man can walk in disunity with his fellow-men and in unity with Christ. If he has Christ as the companion of his way, he is inevitably the companion of every wayfarer. A man's relationships with his fellow-men are no bad indication of his relationship with Jesus Christ.

(ii) The power of Christian love should keep us in unity. Christian love is that unconquered good-will which never knows bitterness and never seeks anything but the good of others. It is not a mere reaction of the heart, as human love is; it is a victory of the will, achieved by the help of Jesus Christ. It does not mean loving only those who love us; or those whom we like; or those who are lovable. It means an unconquerable good-will even to those who hate us, to those whom we do not like, to those who are unlovely. This is the very essence of the Christian life; and it affects us in time and in eternity. Richard Tatlock in In My Father's House writes: "Hell is the eternal condition of those who have made relationship with God and their fellows an impossibility through lives which have destroyed love.... Heaven, on the other hand, is the eternal condition of those who have found real life in relationships-through-love with God and their fellows."

(iii) The fact that they share in the Holy Spirit should keep Christians from disunity. The Holy Spirit binds man to God and man to man. It is the Spirit who enables us to live that life of love, which is the life of God; if a man lives in disunity with his fellow-men, he thereby shows that the gift of the Spirit is not his.

(iv) The existence of human compassion should keep men from disunity. As Aristotle had it long ago, men were never meant to be snarling wolves but to live in fellowship together. Disunity breaks the very structure of life.

(v) Paul's last appeal is the personal one. There can be no happiness for him so long as he knows that there is disunity in the Church which is dear to him. If they would complete his joy, let them complete their fellowship. It is not with a threat that Paul speaks to the Christians of Philippi but with the appeal of love, which ought ever to be the accent of the pastor, as it was the accent of his Lord.

TRUE GODHEAD AND TRUE MANHOOD ( Php_2:5-11 )

2:5-11 Have within yourselves the same disposition of mind as was in Christ Jesus, for he was by nature in the very form of God, yet he did not regard existence in equality with God as something to be snatched at, but he emptied himself, and took the very form of a slave, and became like men. And when he came in appearance as a man for all to recognise, he became obedient even to the extent of accepting death, even the death of a cross. And for that reason God exalted him, and granted to him the name which is above every name, in order that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things upon the earth, and things below the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

In many ways this is the greatest and most moving passage Paul ever wrote about Jesus. It states a favourite thought of his. The essence of it is in the simple statement Paul made to the Corinthians that, although Jesus was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor ( 2 Corinthians 8:9). Here that simple idea is stated with a fulness which is without parallel. Paul is pleading with the Philippians to live in harmony, to lay aside their discords, to shed their personal ambitions and their pride and their desire for prominence and prestige, and to have in their hearts that humble, selfless desire to serve, which was the essence of the life of Christ. His final and unanswerable appeal is to point to the example of Jesus Christ.

This is a passage which we must try fully to understand, because it has so much in it to awaken our minds to thought and our hearts to wonder. To this end we must look closely at some of its great Greek words.

Greek is a far richer language than English. Where English has one word to express an idea, Greek has often two or three or more. In one sense these words are synonyms, but they never mean entirely the same thing; they always have some special flavour. That is particularly so of this passage. Every word is chosen by Paul with meticulous care to show two things--the reality of the manhood and the reality of the godhead of Jesus Christ. Let us take the phrases one by one. We will set them down both in the King James Version and in our own translation, and then try to penetrate to the essential meaning behind them.

Php_2:6 : Being in the form of God; he was by nature in the very form of God. Two words are most carefully chosen to show the unchangeable godhead of Jesus Christ. The word which the King James Version translates being is from the Greek verb huparchein ( G5225) which is not the common Greek word for "being." It describes that which a man is in his very essence and which cannot be changed. It describes that part of a man which, in any circumstances, remains the same. So Paul begins by saying that Jesus was essentially and unalterably God.

He goes on to say that Jesus was in the form of God. There are two Greek words for form, morphe ( G3444) and schema ( G4976) . They must both be translated form, because there is no other English equivalent, but they do not mean the same thing. Morphe ( G3444) is the essential form which never alters; schema ( G4976) is the outward form which changes from time to time and from circumstance to circumstance. For instance, the morphe ( G3444) of any human being is humanity and this never changes; but his schema ( G4976) is continually changing. A baby, a child, a boy, a youth, a man of middle age, an old man always have the morphe ( G3444) of humanity, but the outward schema ( G4976) changes all the time. Roses, daffodils, tulips, chrysanthemums, primroses, dahlias, lupins all have the one morphe ( G3444) of flowers; but their schema ( G4976) is different. Aspirin, penicillin, cascara, magnesia all have the one morphe ( G3444) of drugs; but their schema ( G4976) is different. The morphe ( G3444) never alters; the schema ( G4976) continually does. The word Paul uses for Jesus being in the form of God is morphe ( G3444) ; that is to say, his unchangeable being is divine. However his outward schema ( G4976) might alter, he remained in essence divine.

Jesus did not think it robbery to be equal with God; he did not regard existence in equality with God as something to be snatched at. The word used for robbery, which we have translated a thing to be snatched at, is harpagmos ( G725) which comes from a verb meaning to snatch, or to clutch. The phrase can mean one of two things, both of which are at heart the same. (a) It can mean that Jesus did not need to snatch at equality with God, because he had it as a right. (b) It can mean that he did not clutch at equality with God, as if to hug it jealously to himself, but laid it willingly down for the sake of men. However we take this, it once again stresses the essential godhead of Jesus.

Php_2:7 : He emptied himself, he made himself of no reputation. The Greek is the verb kenoun ( G2758) which means literally to empty. It can be used of removing things from a container, until the container is empty; of pouring something out, until there is nothing left. Here Paul uses the most vivid possible word to make clear the sacrifice of the Incarnation. The glory of divinity Jesus gave up willingly in order to become man. He emptied himself of his deity to take upon himself his humanity. It is useless to ask how; we can only stand in awe at the sight of him, who is almighty God, hungry and weary and in tears. Here in the last reach of human language is the great saving truth that he who was rich for our sakes became poor.

He took upon him the form of a servant; he took the very form of a slave. The word used for form is morphe ( G3444) , which we have seen means the essential form. Paul means that when Jesus became man it was no play-acting but reality. He was not like the Greek gods, who sometimes, so the stories ran, became men but kept their divine privileges. Jesus truly became man. But there is something more here. He was made in the likeness of men; he became like men. The word which the King James Version translates made and which we have translated became is a part of the Greek verb ginesthai ( G1096) . This verb describes a state which is not a permanent state. The idea is that of becoming, and it describes a changing phase which is completely real but which passes. That is to say, the manhood of Jesus was not permanent; it was utterly real, but it passed.

Php_2:8 : He was found in fashion as a man; he came in appearance as a man for all to recognise. Paul makes the same point. The word the King James Version has translated fashion and which we have translated appearance is schema ( G4976) , and we have seen that this indicates a form which alters.

Php_2:6-8 form a very short passage; but there is no passage in the New Testament which so movingly sets out the utter reality of the godhead and the manhood of Jesus and makes so vivid the sacrifice that he made when he laid aside his godhead and took manhood upon him. How it happened, we cannot tell, but it is the mystery of a love so great that, although we can never fully understand it, we can blessedly experience it and adore it.

HUMILIATION AND EXALTATION ( Php_2:5-11 continued)

It is always to be remembered that when Paul thought and spoke about Jesus, his interest and his intention were never primarily intellectual and speculative; they were always practical. To him theology and action were always bound together. Any system of thought must necessarily become a way of life. In many ways this passage is one of the greatest reaches of theological thought in the New Testament, but its aim was to persuade the Philippians to live a life in which disunity, discord, and personal ambition had no place.

So, then, Paul says of Jesus that he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of a cross. The great characteristics of Jesus' life were humility, obedience, and self-renunciation. He did not desire to dominate men but only to serve them; he did not desire his own way but only God's way; he did not desire to exalt himself but only to renounce all his glory for the sake of men. Again and again the New Testament is sure that only the man who humbles himself will be exalted ( Matthew 23:12; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14). If humility, obedience, and self-renunciation were the supreme characteristics of the life of Jesus, they must also be the hall-marks of the Christian. Selfishness, self-seeking and self-display destroy our likeness to Christ and our fellowship with each other.

But the self-renunciation of Jesus Christ brought him the greater glory. It made certain that some day, soon or late, every living creature in all the universe, in heaven, in earth and even in hell, would worship him. It is to be carefully noted whence that worship comes. It comes from love. Jesus won the hearts of men, not by blasting them with power, but by showing them a love they could not resist. At the sight of this person who laid his glory by for men and loved them to the extent of dying for them on a cross, men's hearts are melted and their resistance is broken down. When men worship Jesus Christ, they fall at his feet in wondering love. They do not say "I cannot resist a might like that," but, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all." Worship is founded, not on fear, but on love.

Further, Paul says that, as a consequence of his sacrificial love, God gave Jesus the name which is above every name. One of the common biblical ideas is the giving of a new name to mark a new stage in a man's life. Abram became Abraham when he received the promise of God ( Genesis 17:5). Jacob became Israel when God entered into the new relationship with him ( Genesis 32:28). The promise of the Risen Christ to both Pergamos and to Philadelphia is the promise of a new name ( Revelation 2:17; Revelation 3:12).

What then is the new name given to Jesus Christ? We cannot be quite certain what exactly was in Paul's mind, but most likely the new name is Lord.

The great title by which Jesus came to be known in the early Church was kurios ( G2962) , Lord, which has an illuminating history. (i) It began by meaning master or owner. (ii) It became the official title of the Roman Emperors. (iii) It became the title of the heathen gods. (iv) It was the word by which the Hebrew Jehovah was translated in the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. So, then, when Jesus was called kurios ( G2962) , Lord, it meant that he was the Master and the Owner of all life; he was the King of kings; he was the Lord in a way in which the heathen gods and the dumb idols could never be; he was nothing less than divine.

ALL FOR GOD ( Php_2:5-11 continued)

Php_2:11 is one of the most important verses in the New Testament. In it we read that the aim of God, is a day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. These four words were the first creed that the Christian Church ever had. To be a Christian was to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (compare Romans 10:9). This was a simple creed, yet all-embracing. Perhaps we would do well to go back to it. Later men tried to define more closely what it meant and argued and quarrelled about it, calling each other heretics and fools. But it is still true that if man can say, "For me Jesus Christ is Lord," he is a Christian. If he can say that, he means that for him Jesus Christ is unique and that he is prepared to give him an obedience he is prepared to give no one else. He may not be able to put into words who and what he believes Jesus to be; but, so long as there is in his heart this wondering love and in his life this unquestioning obedience, he is a Christian, because Christianity consists less in the mind's understanding than it does in the heart's love.

So we come to the end of this passage; and, when we come to its end, we come back to its beginning. The day will come when men will call Jesus Lord, but they will do so to the glory of God the Father. The whole aim of Jesus is not his own glory but God's. Paul is clear about the lonely and ultimate supremacy of God. In the first letter to the Corinthians he writes that in the end the Son himself shall be subject to him who put all things under him ( 1 Corinthians 15:28). Jesus draws men to himself that he may draw them to God. In the Philippian Church there were men whose aim was to gratify a selfish ambition; the aim of Jesus was to serve others, no matter what depths of self-renunciation that service might involve. In the Philippian Church there were those whose aim was to focus men's eyes upon themselves; the aim of Jesus was to focus men's eyes upon God.

So the follower of Christ must think always, not of himself but of others, not of his own glory but of the glory of God.

CO-OPERATION IN SALVATION ( Php_2:12-18 )

2:12-18 So then, my beloved, just as at all times you obeyed not only as in my presence, but much more, as things now are, in my absence, carry to its perfect conclusion the work of your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God, who, that he may carry out his own good pleasure, brings to effect in you both the initial willing and the effective action. Do all things without murmurings and questionings, that you may show yourselves blameless and pure, the spotless children of God in a warped and twisted generation, in which you appear like lights in the world, as you hold forth the word which is life, so that on the day of Christ it may be my proud claim that I have not run for nothing and that I have not toiled for nothing. But if my own life is to be poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and I do rejoice with you all. So also do you rejoice, and share my rejoicing.

Paul's appeal to the Philippians is more than an appeal to live in unity in a given situation; it is an appeal to live a life which will lead to the salvation of God in time and in eternity.

Nowhere in the New Testament is the work of salvation more succinctly stated. As the Revised Standard Version has it in Php_2:12-13 : "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God's at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." As always with Paul, the words are meticulously chosen.

Work out your own salvation; the word he uses for work out is katergazesthai ( G2716) , which always has the idea of bringing to completion. It is as if Paul says: "Don't stop halfway; go on until the work of salvation is fully wrought out in you." No Christian should be satisfied with anything less than the total benefits of the gospel.

"For God is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The word Paul uses for work and do is the same, the verb energein ( G1754) . There are two significant things about it; it is always used of the action of God, and it is always used of effective action. God's action cannot be frustrated, nor can it remain half-finished; it must be fully effective.

As we have said, this passage gives a perfect statement of the work of salvation.

(i) Salvation is of God. (a) It is God that works in us the desire to be saved. It is true that "our hearts are restless till they rest in him," and it is also true that "we could not even begin to seek him unless he had already found us." The desire for the salvation of God is not kindled by any human emotion but by God himself The beginning of the process of salvation is awakened by God. (b) The continuance of that process is dependent on God. Without his help there can be no progress in goodness; without his help no sin can be conquered and no virtue achieved. (c) The end of the process of salvation is with God, for its end is friendship with God, in which we are his and he is ours. The work of salvation is begun, continued and ended in God.

(ii) There is another side to this. Salvation is of man. "Work out your own salvation," Paul demands. Without man's co-operation, even God is helpless. The fact is that any gift or any benefit has to be received. A man may be ill and the doctor able to prescribe the drugs that will cure him; but the man will not be cured until he takes them and he may stubbornly refuse all persuasion to take them. It is so with salvation. The offer of God is there; without it there can be no such thing as salvation. But no man can ever receive salvation unless he answers God's appeal and takes what he offers.

There can be no salvation without God, but what God offers man must take. It is never God who withholds salvation; it is always man who deprives himself of it.

THE SIGNS OF SALVATION ( Php_2:12-18 continued)

When we examine the chain of thought in this passage, we see that Paul sets down five signs of salvation, as we may call them.

(i) There is the sign of effective action. The Christian must give continual evidence in his daily life that he is indeed working out his own salvation; day by day it must be more fully accomplished. The great tragedy of so many of us is that we are never really any further on. We continue to be victims of the same habits and slaves of the same temptations, and guilty of the same failures. But the truly Christian life must be a continual progress, for it is a journey towards God.

(ii) There is the sign of fear and trembling. This is not the fear and trembling of the slave cringing before his master; nor fear and trembling at the prospect of punishment. It comes from two things. It comes, first, from a sense of our own creatureliness and our own powerlessness to deal with life triumphantly. That is to say, it is not the fear and trembling which drives us to hide from God, but rather the fear and trembling which drives us to seek God, in the certainty that without his help we cannot effectively face life. It comes, second, from a horror of grieving God. When we really love a person, we are not afraid of what he may do to us; we are afraid of what we may do to him. The Christian's great fear is of crucifying Christ again.

(iii) There is the sign of serenity and certainty. The Christian will do all things without murmurings and questionings. The word which Paul uses for murmurings (goggusmos, G1112) is unusual. In the Greek of the sacred writers it has a special connection. It is the word used of the rebellious murmurings of the children of Israel in their desert journey. The people murmured against Moses ( Exodus 15:24; Exodus 16:2; Numbers 16:41). Goggusmos ( G1112) --pronounced gongusomos--is an onomatopoetic word. It describes the low, threatening, discontented muttering of a mob who distrust their leaders and are on the verge of an uprising. The word Paul uses for questionings is dialogismos ( G1261) which describes useless, and sometimes ill-natured, disputing and doubting. In the Christian life there is the serenity and the certainty of perfect certainty and perfect trust.

(iv) There is the sign of purity. Christians, as the Revised Standard Version has it, are to be blameless and innocent and without blemish. Each of these words makes its contribution to the idea of Christian purity.

(a) The word translated blameless is amemptos ( G273) and expresses what the Christian is to the world. His life is of such purity that none can find anything in it with which to find fault. It is often said in courts of law that the proceedings must not only be just but must be seen to be just. The Christian must not only be pure, but the purity of his life must be seen by all.

(b) The word translated innocent is akeraios ( G185) , and expresses what the Christian is in himself. Akeraios ( G185) literally means unmixed, unadulterated. It is used, for instance, of wine or milk which is not mixed with water and of metal which has no alloy in it. When used of people, it implies motives which are unmixed. Christian purity must issue in a complete sincerity of thought and character.

(c) The word which is translated without blemish is amomos ( G299) and describes what the Christian is in the sight of God. This word is specially used in connection with sacrifices that are fit to be offered on the altar of God. The Christian life must be such that it can be offered like an unblemished sacrifice to God.

Christian purity is blameless in the sight of the world, sincere within itself, and fit to stand the scrutiny of God.

(v) There is the sign of missionary endeavour. The Christian offers to all the word of life, that is to say, the word which gives life. This Christian missionary endeavour has two aspects: (a) It is the proclamation of the offer of the gospel in words which are clear and unmistakable. (b) It is the witness of a life that is absolutely straight in a world which is warped and twisted. It is the offer of light in a world which is dark. Christians are to be lights in the world. The word used for lights (phosteres, G5458) is the same as is used in the creation story of the lights (the sun and the moon) which God set in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth ( Genesis 1:14-18). The Christian offers and demonstrates straightness in a twisted world and light in a dark world.

THE PICTURES OF PAUL ( Php_2:12-18 continued)

This passage concludes with two vivid pictures, which are typical of Paul's way of thinking.

(i) He longs for the Christian progress of the Philippians so that at the end of the day he may have the joy of knowing that he has not run or laboured in vain. The word he uses for to labour is kopian ( G2872) . There are two possible pictures in it. (a) It may paint a picture of the most exacting toil. Kopian ( G2872) means to labour to the point of utter exhaustion. (b) It may be that kopian ( G2872) describes the toil of the athlete's training and that what Paul is saying is that he prays that all the discipline of training that he imposed upon himself may not go for nothing.

One of the features of Paul's writing is his love of pictures from the life of the athlete. And there is little wonder. In every Greek city the gymnasium was far more than a physical training-ground. It was in the gymnasium that Socrates often discussed the eternal problems; it was in the gymnasium that the philosophers and the sophists and the wandering teachers and preachers often found their audience. In any Greek city the gymnasium was not only the physical training-ground but also the intellectual club of the city. In the Greek world there were the great Isthmian Games at Corinth, the great Pan-Ionian Games at Ephesus, and, greatest of all, the Olympic Games, held every four years. The Greek cities were often at variance and frequently at war; but when the Olympic Games came round, no matter what dispute was raging, a month's truce was declared that there might be a contest in fellowship between them. Not only did the athletes come, but the historians and the poets came to give readings of their latest works, and the sculptors, whose names are immortal, came to make statues of the winners.

There can be little doubt that, in Corinth and in Ephesus, Paul had been a spectator of these games. Where there were crowds of men, Paul would be there to seek to win them for Christ. But, apart from the preaching, there was something about these athletic contests which found an answer in the heart of Paul. He knew the contests of the boxers ( 1 Corinthians 9:26). He knew the foot-race, most famous of all the contests. He had seen the herald summoning the racers to the starting-line ( 1 Corinthians 9:27); he had seen the runners press along the course to the goal ( Php_3:14 ); he had seen the judge awarding the prize at the end of the race ( 2 Timothy 4:8); he knew of the victor's laurel crown and of his exultation ( 1 Corinthians 9:24; Php_4:1 ). He knew the rigorous discipline of training which the athlete must undertake, and the strict regulations which must be observed ( 1 Timothy 4:7-8; 2 Timothy 2:5).

So his prayer is that he may not be like an athlete whose training and effort have gone for nothing. For him the greatest prize in life was to know that through him others had come to know and to love and to serve Jesus Christ.

(ii) But in Php_2:17 Paul has another picture. He had a special gift for speaking in language that people could understand. Again and again he took his pictures from the ordinary affairs of the people to whom he was speaking. He has already taken a picture from the games; now he takes one from heathen sacrifice. One of the commonest kinds of heathen sacrifice was a libation, which was a cup of wine poured out as an offering to the gods. For instance, every heathen meal began and ended with such a libation, as a kind of grace before and after meat. Paul here looks upon the faith and service of the Philippians as a sacrifice to God. He knows that his death may not be very far away, for he is writing in prison and awaiting trial. So he says, as the Revised Standard Version has it, that he is quite ready "to be poured as a libation upon the sacrificial offering" of their faith. In other words what he is saying to the Philippians is: "Your Christian fidelity and loyalty are already a sacrifice to God; and if death for Christ should come to me, I am willing and glad that my life should be poured out like a libation on the altar on which your sacrifice is being made."

Paul was perfectly willing to make his life a sacrifice to God; and, if that happened, to him it would be all joy, and he calls on them not to mourn at the prospect but rather to rejoice. To him every call to sacrifice and to toil was a call to his love for Christ, and therefore he met it not with regret and complaint but with joy.

THE FAITHFUL HENCHMAN ( Php_2:19-24 )

2:19-24 I hope in the Lord Jesus soon to send Timothy to you, that I may find out how things are going with you and take heart. I have no one with a mind equal to his, for he is the kind of man who will genuinely care for your affairs; for all men are concerned with their own interests, and not with the interests of Jesus Christ. You know his tried and tested character, and you know that, as a child serves a father, so he has shared my service in the work of the gospel. So then, I hope to send him, as soon as I see how things go with me. But I am confident in the Lord that I myself too will soon come to you.

Since Paul cannot himself come to Philippi, it is his intention to send Timothy as his representative. There was no one so close to him as Timothy was. We know very little detail about Timothy but the record of his service with Paul shows his fidelity.

He was a native either of Derbe or of Lystra. His mother Eunice was a Jewess and his grandmother's name was Lois. His father was a Greek and the fact that he was not circumcised would seem to show that he was educated in Greek ways ( Acts 16:1; 2 Timothy 1:5). We cannot tell how or when he was converted to Christianity, but on his second missionary journey Paul met him and saw in him one whom he could clearly use in the service of Jesus Christ.

From that time Paul and Timothy were very close. Paul could speak of him as his child in the Lord ( 1 Corinthians 4:17). He was with Paul in Philippi ( Acts 16:1-40); he was with him in Thessalonica and Berea ( Acts 17:1-14); he was with him in Corinth and in Ephesus ( Acts 18:5; Acts 19:21-22); and he was with him in prison in Rome ( Colossians 1:1; Php_1:1 ). He was associated with Paul in the writing of no fewer than five of his letters--1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, Colossians and Philippians; and when Paul wrote to Rome Timothy was joined with him in sending greetings ( Romans 16:21).

Timothy's great use was that, whenever Paul wished for information from some Church or wished to send advice or encouragement or rebuke and could not go himself, it was he whom he sent. So Timothy was sent to Thessalonica ( 1 Thessalonians 3:6); to Corinth ( 1 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 16:10-11); to Philippi. In the end Timothy, too, was a prisoner for Christ's sake ( Hebrews 13:23).

Timothy's great value was that he was always willing to go anywhere; and in his hands a message was as safe as if Paul had delivered it himself. Others might be consumed with selfish ambition; but Timothy's one desire was to serve Paul and Jesus Christ. He is the patron saint of all those who are quite content with the second place, so long as they can serve.

THE COURTESY OF PAUL ( Php_2:25-30 )

2:25-30 I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier, your messenger and the servant of my need, because he is longing for you all, and he is very distressed because you heard that he had been ill, so ill that he nearly died. But God had pity on him, and not on him only, but on me too, that I might not have grief upon grief. So, then, I send him to you with the more despatch, that, when you see him, you may be glad again, and that I may be less grieved. Welcome him in the Lord with all joy, and hold such men in honour, because he came near to death because of his work for Christ, hazarding his life, that he might fill up that part of your service to me which you were personally unable to supply.

There is a dramatic story behind this. When the Philippians heard that Paul was in prison, their warm hearts were moved to action. They sent a gift to him by the hand of Epaphroditus. What they could not personally do, because distance prevented them, they delegated to Epaphroditus to do for them. Not only did they intend him to be the bearer of their gift; they also intended him to stay in Rome and be Paul's personal servant and attendant. Clearly Epaphroditus was a brave man, for any one who proposed to offer himself as the personal attendant of a man awaiting trial on a capital charge was laying himself open to the very considerable risk of becoming involved in the same charge. In truth, Epaphroditus risked his life to serve Paul.

In Rome Epaphroditus fell ill, perhaps with the notorious Roman fever which sometimes swept the city like a scourge, and was near to death. He knew that news of his illness had filtered back to Philippi, and he was worried because he knew that his friends there would be worried about him. God in his mercy spared the life of Epaphroditus and so spared Paul yet more sorrow. But Paul knew that it was time that Epaphroditus went back home, and in all probability he was the bearer of this letter.

But there was a problem. The Philippian Church had sent Epaphroditus to stay with Paul, and if he came back home, there would not be lacking those who said that he was a quitter. Here Paul gives him a tremendous testimonial, which will silence any possible criticism of his return.

In this testimonial every word is carefully chosen. Epaphroditus was his brother, his fellow-worker, and his fellow-soldier. As Lightfoot puts it, Epaphroditus was one with Paul in sympathy, one with him in work, one with him in danger. He in truth had stood in the firing-line. Then Paul goes on to call him your messenger and the servant of my need. It is impossible to supply the flavour of these words in translation.

The word Paul uses for messenger is apostolos ( G652) . Apostolos literally means anyone who is sent out on an errand, but Christian usage had ennobled it and by using it Paul by implication ranks Epaphroditus with himself and all the apostles of Christ.

The word he uses for servant is leitourgos ( G3011) . In secular Greek this was a magnificent word. In the ancient days in the Greek cities there were men who, because they loved their city so much, at their own expense undertook certain great civic duties. It might be to defray the expenses of an embassy, or the cost of putting on one of the dramas of the great poets, or of training the athletes who would represent the city in the games, or of fitting out a warship and paying a crew to serve in the navy of the state. These men were the supreme benefactors of the state and they were known as leitourgoi ( G3011) .

Paul takes the great Christian word apostolos ( G652) and the great Greek word leitourgos ( G3011) , and applies them to Epaphroditus. "Give a man like that a welcome home," he says. "Hold him in honour for he hazarded his life for Christ."

Paul is making it easy for Epaphroditus to go home. There is something very wonderful here. It is touching to think of Paul, himself in the very shadow of death, in prison and awaiting judgment, showing such Christian consideration for Epaphroditus. He was facing death, and yet it mattered to him that Epaphroditus should not meet with embarrassment when he went home. Paul was a true Christian in his attitude to others; for he was never so immersed in his own troubles that he had no time to think of the troubles of his friends.

There is a word in this passage which later had a famous usage. The King James Version speaks of Epaphroditus not regarding his life; the Revised Standard Version uses risking his life; we have translated it hazarding his life. The word is the verb paraboleuesthai ( G3851) ; it is a gambler's word and means to stake everything on a turn of the dice. Paul is saying that for the sake of Jesus Christ Epaphroditus gambled his life. In the days of the Early Church there was an association of men and women called the parabolani, the gamblers. It was their aim to visit the prisoners and the sick, especially those who were ill with dangerous and infectious diseases. In A.D. 252 plague broke out in Carthage; the heathen threw out the bodies of their dead and fled in terror. Cyprian, the Christian bishop, gathered his congregation together and set them to burying the dead and nursing the sick in that plague-stricken city; and by so doing they saved the city, at the risk of their lives, from destruction and desolation.

There should be in the Christian an almost reckless courage which makes him ready to gamble with his life to serve Christ and men.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Philippians 2:1

The Secret of JOY in Spite of PEOPLE is a Self-Emptying Life (The Submissive Mind.)

Ch. 2 Self-Emptying Life (v.7 ASV) Self-Yielding, Self-Giving;

    1) Enquires v. 3-4 "others"

    2) Exemplified in Christ - v. 5-11

    3) Illustrated in two saints, Timothy and Epaphroditus

Problem today is being "ME deep in self".

Ch. 1 Teaches us to put Christ first.

Ch. 2 Teaches us to put Others before ourselves.

- - - -

If ... Since

Consolation -- encouragement

Bowels -- tender compassion

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

If [there be] therefore any consolation in Christ,.... Or "exhortation", as the word is sometimes rendered; that is, either if there is any exhortation of Christ to love and unity, as there is in

John 13:34, and this is of any weight and value; or if an exhortation hereunto made in the name of Christ, by any of his ministers, messengers, and ambassadors, will be regarded, as it ought to be, then fulfil ye my joy, c. Philippians 2:2, but as the word is frequently translated "consolation", as it is here in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions the sense may be either, if there is any comfort to be given to them that are in Christ Jesus, as every converted man is, and as the apostle was, and especially to them that are afflicted and persecuted for the sake of Christ, are prisoners in him, and on his account, which was the apostle's case, then he desired they would attend to his following request: or if there was any consolation for them, and they had had any comfort in and from Christ; as all true, solid, strong, and everlasting consolation is only in Christ, and is founded on the greatness of his person, as God our Saviour, on the fulness of his grace, the efficacy of his blood, the perfection of his righteousness and sacrifice, and on the great salvation he is the author of: agreeably the Syriac version renders it, "if therefore ye have any consolation in Christ"; and the Arabic version, "if therefore ye enjoy any consolation from the grace of Christ"; which is displayed in the Gospel, as undoubtedly they did; and since then all this comfort was enjoyed by them, through the Gospel the apostle preached to them, the argument from hence must be strong upon them, to attend to what he desired of them:

if any comfort of love; in it, or from it; as from the love of God the Father, which is everlasting and unchangeable, and must be comforting, when shed abroad in the heart by the Spirit; and from the love of the Son, which is the same, and equally immovable and lasting, and which passeth knowledge; and from the love of the Spirit, in applying the grace of the Father, and of the Son, whereby he becomes a glorifier of them, and a comforter of his people; and from the love of the saints to one another, which renders their communion with each other comfortable, pleasant, and delightful: or the apostle's sense is, if they had so much love for him, as to wish and desire he might be comforted in his present situation, and that they would be willing to make use of any methods to comfort him, then he desires this; and this is all he desires, mutual love, peace, harmony, and agreement among themselves:

if any fellowship of the spirit: of the spirit of one saint with another; if there is such a thing as an union of spirits, an oneness of souls, a tasting of each other's spirits, and a communion with one another, then care should be taken to keep this unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace, Ephesians 4:3: or if there is any fellowship of the Holy Spirit of God, any communion with him, any such thing as a witnessing of him to, and with our spirits, or as fellowship with the Father and the Son by him, and saints are baptized into one body by one Spirit, and have been made to drink of the same Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:13, then it becomes them to be of one mind, and to stand fast in one Spirit, Philippians 1:27:

if any bowels and mercies; as there are in God, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, moving towards the saints; or such as become Christians, who, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, ought to put on bowels of mercies to one another; express the most hearty, inward, tender, and compassionate concern for each other's welfare, temporal and spiritual. Thus the apostle premises the most moving and pathetic arguments, leading on to the exhortations and advice, to love, harmony, and unity, given in Philippians 2:2.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,   2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.   3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.   4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.   5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:   6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:   7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:   8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.   9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:   10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;   11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

      The apostle proceeds in this chapter where he left off in the last, with further exhortations to Christian duties. He presses them largely to like-mindedness and lowly-mindedness, in conformity to the example of the Lord Jesus, the great pattern of humility and love. Here we may observe,

      I. The great gospel precept passed upon us; that is, to love one another. This is the law of Christ's kingdom, the lesson of his school, the livery of his family. This he represents (Philippians 2:2; Philippians 2:2) by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. We are of a like mind when we have the same love. Christians should be one in affection, whether they can be one in apprehension or no. This is always in their power, and always their duty, and is the likeliest way to bring them nearer in judgment. Having the same love. Observe, The same love that we are required to express to others, others are bound to express to us. Christian love ought to be mutual love. Love, and you shall be loved. Being of one accord, and of one mind; not crossing and thwarting, or driving on separate interests, but unanimously agreeing in the great things of God and keeping the unity of the Spirit in other differences. Here observe,

      1. The pathetic pressing of the duty. He is very importunate with them, knowing what an evidence it is of our sincerity, and what a means of the preservation and edification of the body of Christ. The inducements to brotherly love are these:-- (1.) "If there is any consolation in Christ. Have you experienced consolation in Christ? Evidence that experience by loving one another." The sweetness we have found in the doctrine of Christ should sweeten our spirits. Do we expect consolation in Christ? If we would not be disappointed, we must love one another. If we have not consolation in Christ, where else can we expect it? Those who have an interest in Christ have consolation in him, strong and everlasting consolation (Hebrews 6:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:16), and therefore ought to love one another. (2.) "Comfort of love. If there is any comfort in Christian love, in God's love to you, in your love to God, or in your brethren's love to us, in consideration of all this, be you like-minded. If you have ever found that comfort, if you would find it, if you indeed believe that the grace of love is a comfortable grace, abound in it." (3.) "Fellowship of the Spirit. If there is such a thing as communion with God and Christ by the Spirit, such a thing as the communion of saints, by virtue of their being animated and actuated by one and the same Spirit, be you like-minded; for Christian love and like-mindedness will preserve to us our communion with God and with one another." (4.) "Any bowels and mercies, in God and Christ, towards you. If you expect the benefit of God's compassions to yourselves, be you compassionate one to another. If there is such a thing as mercy to be found among the followers of Christ, if all who are sanctified have a disposition to holy pity, make it appear this way." How cogent are these arguments! One would think them enough to tame the most fierce, and mollify the hardest, heart. (5.) Another argument he insinuates is the comfort it would be to him: Fulfil you my joy. It is the joy of ministers to see people like-minded and living in love. He had been instrumental in bringing them to the grace of Christ and the love of God. "Now," says he, "if you have found any benefit by your participation of the gospel of Christ, if you have any comfort in it, or advantage by it, fulfil the joy of your poor minister, who preached the gospel to you."

      2. He proposes some means to promote it. (1.) Do nothing through strife and vain glory,Philippians 2:3; Philippians 2:3. There is no greater enemy to Christian love than pride and passion. If we do things in contradiction to our brethren, this is doing them through strife; if we do them through ostentation of ourselves, this is doing them through vain-glory: both are destructive of Christian love and kindle unchristian heats. Christ came to slay all enmities; therefore let there not be among Christians a spirit of opposition. Christ came to humble us, and therefore let there not be among us a spirit of pride. (2.) We must esteem others in lowliness of mind better than ourselves, be severe upon our own faults and charitable in our judgments of others, be quick in observing our own defects and infirmities, but ready to overlook and make favourable allowances for the defects of others. We must esteem the good which is in others above that which is in ourselves; for we best know our own unworthiness and imperfections. (3.) We must interest ourselves in the concerns of others, not in a way of curiosity and censoriousness, or as busy-bodies in other men's matters, but in Christian love and sympathy: Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others,Philippians 2:4; Philippians 2:4. A selfish spirit is destructive of Christian love. We must be concerned not only for our own credit, and ease, and safety, but for those of others also; and rejoice in the prosperity of others as truly as in our own. We must love our neighbour as ourselves, and make his case our own.

      II. Here is a gospel pattern proposed to our imitation, and that is the example of our Lord Jesus Christ: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,Philippians 2:5; Philippians 2:5. Observe, Christians must be of Christ's mind. We must bear a resemblance to his life, if we would have the benefit of his death. If we have not the Spirit of Christ, we are none of his,Romans 8:9. Now what was the mind of Christ? He was eminently humble, and this is what we are peculiarly to learn of him. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,Matthew 11:29. If we were lowly-minded, we should be like-minded; and, if we were like Christ, we should be lowly-minded. We must walk in the same spirit and in the same steps with the Lord Jesus, who humbled himself to sufferings and death for us; not only to satisfy God's justice, and pay the price of our redemption, but to set us an example, and that we might follow his steps. Now here we have the two natures and the two states of our Lord Jesus. It is observable that the apostle, having occasion to mention the Lord Jesus, and the mind which was in him, takes the hint to enlarge upon his person, and to give a particular description of him. It is a pleasing subject, and a gospel minister needs not think himself out of the way when he is upon it; any fit occasion should be readily taken.

      1. Here are the two natures of Christ: his divine nature and his human nature. (1.) Here is his divine nature: Who being in the form of God (Philippians 2:6; Philippians 2:6), partaking of the divine nature, as the eternal and only begotten Son of God. This agrees with John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God: it is of the same import with being the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), and the brightness of his glory, and express image of his person,Hebrews 1:3. He thought it no robbery to be equal with God; did not think himself guilty of any invasion of what did not belong to him, or assuming another's right. He said, I and my Father are one,John 10:30. It is the highest degree of robbery for any mere man or mere creature to pretend to be equal with God, or profess himself one with the Father. This is for a man to rob God, not in tithes and offerings, but of the rights of his Godhead, Malachi 3:8. Some understand being in the form of God--en morphe Theou hyparchon, of his appearance in a divine majestic glory to the patriarchs, and the Jews, under the Old Testament, which was often called the glory, and the Shechinah. The word is used in such a sense by the LXX. and in the New Testament. He appeared to the two disciples, en hetera morphe--In another form,Mark 16:12. Metemorphothe--he was transfigured before them, Matthew 17:2. And he thought it no robbery to be equal with God; he did not greedily catch at, nor covet and affect to appear in that glory; he laid aside the majesty of his former appearance while he was here on earth, which is supposed to be the sense of the peculiar expression, ouk harpagmon hegesato. Vid. Bishop Bull's Def. cap. 2 sect. 4 et alibi, and Whitby in loc. (2.) His human nature: He was made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man. He was really and truly man, took part of our flesh and blood, appeared in the nature and habit of man. And he voluntarily assumed human nature; it was his own act, and by his own consent. We cannot say that our participation of the human nature is so. Herein he emptied himself, divested himself of the honours and glories of the upper world, and of his former appearance, to clothe himself with the rags of human nature. He was in all things like to us,Hebrews 2:17.

      2. Here are his two estates, of humiliation and exaltation. (1.) His estate of humiliation. He not only took upon him the likeness and fashion of a man, but the form of a servant, that is, a man of mean estate. He was not only God's servant whom he had chosen, but he came to minister to men, and was among them as one who serveth in a mean and servile state. One would think that the Lord Jesus, if he would be a man, should have been a prince, and appeared in splendour. But quite the contrary: He took upon him the form of a servant. He was brought up meanly, probably working with his supposed father at his trade. His whole life was a life of humiliation, meanness, poverty, and disgrace; he had nowhere to lay his head, lived upon alms, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, did not appear with external pomp, or any marks of distinction from other men. This was the humiliation of his life. But the lowest step of his humiliation was his dying the death of the cross. He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He not only suffered, but was actually and voluntarily obedient; he obeyed the law which he brought himself under as Mediator, and by which he was obliged to die. I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again: this commandment have I received of my Father,John 10:18. And he was made under the law,Galatians 4:4. There is an emphasis laid upon the manner of his dying, which had in it all the circumstances possible which are humbling: Even the death of the cross, a cursed, painful, and shameful death,--a death accursed by the law (Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree)--full of pain, the body nailed through the nervous parts (the hands and feet) and hanging with all its weight upon the cross,--and the death of a malefactor and a slave, not of a free-man,--exposed as a public spectacle. Such was the condescension of the blessed Jesus. (2.) His exaltation: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him. His exaltation was the reward of his humiliation. Because he humbled himself, God exalted him; and he highly exalted him, hyperypsose, raised him to an exceeding height. He exalted his whole person, the human nature as well as the divine; for he is spoken of as being in the form of God as well as in the fashion of man. As it respects the divine nature, it could only be the recognizing of his rights, or the display and appearance of the glory he had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5), not any new acquisition of glory; and so the Father himself is said to be exalted. But the proper exaltation was of his human nature, which alone seems to be capable of it, though in conjunction with the divine. His exaltation here is made to consist in honour and power. In honour; so he had a name above every name, a title of dignity above all the creatures, men and angels. And in power: Every knee must bow to him. The whole creation must be in subjection to him: things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, the inhabitants of heaven and earth, the living and the dead. At the name of Jesus; not at the sound of the word, but the authority of Jesus; all should pay a solemn homage. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord--every nation and language should publicly own the universal empire of the exalted Redeemer, and that all power in heaven and earth is given to him,Matthew 28:18. Observe the vast extent of the kingdom of Christ; it reaches to heaven and earth, and to all the creatures in each, to angels as well as men, and to the dead as well as the living.--To the glory of God the Father. Observe, It is to the glory of God the Father to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; for it is his will that all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father,John 5:23. Whatever respect is paid to Christ redounds to the honour of the Father. He who receiveth me receiveth him who sent me,Matthew 10:40.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Consolation in Christ

A Sermon

(No. 348)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 2nd, 1860, by the

REV. C. H. Spurgeon

At Exeter Hall, Strand.

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"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies." Philippians 2:1 .

THE language of man has received a new coinage of words since the time of his perfection in Eden. Adam could scarce have understood the word consolation, for the simple reason that he did not understand in Eden the meaning of the word sorrow. O how has our language been swollen through the floods of our griefs and tribulations! It was not sufficiently wide and wild for man when he was driven out of the garden into the wide, wide world. After he had once eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as his knowledge was extended so must the language be by which he could express his thoughts and feelings. But, my hearers, when Adam first needed the word consolation, there was a time when he could not find the fair jewel itself. Until that hour when the first promise was uttered, when the seed of the woman was declared as being the coming man who should bruise the serpent's head, Adam might masticate and digest the word sorrow, but he could never season and flavour it with the hope or thought of consolation, or if the hope and thought might sometimes flit across his mind like a lightning flash in the midst of the tempest's dire darkness, yet it must have been too transient, too unsubstantial, to have made glad his heart, or to soothe his sorrows. Consolation is the dropping of a gentle dew from heaven on desert hearts beneath. True consolation, such as can reach the heart, must be one of the choicest gifts of divine mercy; and surely we are not erring from sacred Scripture when we avow that in its full meaning, consolation can be found nowhere save in Christ, who has come down from heaven, and who has again ascended to heaven, to provide strong and everlasting consolation for those whom he has bought with his blood.

You will remember, my dear friends, that the Holy Spirit, during the present dispensation, is revealed to us as the Comforter. It is the Spirit's business to console and cheer the hearts of God's people. He does convince of sin; he does illuminate and instruct; but still the main part of his business lies in making glad the hearts of the renewed, in confirming the weak, and lifting up all those that be bowed down. Whatever the Holy Ghost may not be, he is evermore the Comforter to the Church; and this age is peculiarly the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in which Christ cheers us not by his personal presence, as he shall do by-and-bye, but by te indwelling and constant abiding of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Now, mark you, as the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, Christ is the comfort. The Holy Spirit consoles, but Christ is the consolation. If I may use the figure, the Holy Spirit is the Physician, but Christ is the medicine. He heals the wound, but it is by applying the holy ointment of Christ's name and grace. He takes not of his own things, but of the things of Christ. We are not consoled to-day by new revelations, but by the old revelation explained, enforced, and lit up with new splendour by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. If we give to the Holy Spirit the greek name of Paraclete, as we sometimes do, then our heart confers on our blessed Lord Jesus the title of the Paraclesis. If the one be the Comforter, the other is the comfort.

I shall try this morning, first, to show how Christ in his varied positions is the consolation of the children of God in their varied trials; then we shall pass on, secondly, to observe that Christ in his unchanging nature is a consolation to the children of God in their continual sorrows; and lastly, I shall close by dwelling awhile upon the question as to whether Christ is a consolation to us putting it personally, "Is Christ a present and available consolation for me."

I. First, CHRIST IN HIS VARIED POSITIONS IS A CONSOLATION FOR THE DIVERS ILLS OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

Our Master's history is a long and eventful one; but every step of it may yield abundant comfort to the children of God. If we track him from the highest throne of glory to the cross of deepest woe, and then through the grave up again the shining steeps of heaven, and onward through his meditorial kingdom, on to the day when he shall deliver up the throne to God even our Father, throughout every part of that wondrous pathway there may be found the flowers of consolation growing plenteously, and the children of God have but to stoop and gather them. "All his paths drop fatness, all his garments which he wears in his different offices, smell of myrrh, and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby he makes his people glad."

To begin at the beginning, there are times when we look upon the past with the deepest grief. The withering of Eden's flowers has often caused a fading in the garden of our souls. We have mourned exceedingly that we have been driven out to till the ground with the sweat of our brow that the curse should have glanced on us through the sin of our first parent, and we have been ready to cry, "Woe worth the day in which our parent stretched forth his hand to touch the forbidden fruit." Would to God that he had rested in unsullied purity, that we his sons and daughters might have lived beneath an unclouded sky, might never have mourned the ills of bodily pain or of spiritual distress. To meet this very natural source of grief, I bid you consider Christ in old eternity. Open now the eye of thy faith, believer, and see Christ as thine Eternal Covenant-head stipulating to redeem thee even before thou hadst become a bond-slave, bound to deliver even before thou hadst worn the chain. Think, I pray thee, of the eternal council in which thy restoration was planned and declared even before thy fall, and in which thou wast established in an eternal salvation even before the necessity of that salvation had begun. O, my brethren, how it cheers our hearts to think of the anticipating mercies of God! He anticipated our fall, foreknew the ills which it would bring upon us, and provided in his eternal decree of predestinating love an effectual remedy for all our diseases, a certain deliverance from all our sorrows. I see thee, thou fellow of the Eternal, thou equal of the Almighty God! Thy goings forth were of old. I see thee lift thy right hand and engage thyself to fulfil thy Father's will "In the volume of the book it is written of me, 'I delight to do thy will, O God.'" I see thee forming, signing, and sealing that eternal covenant by which the souls of all the redeemed were there and then delivered from the curse, and made sure and certain inheritors of thy kingdom and of thy glory. In this respect Christ shines out as the consolation of his people.

Again, if ever your minds dwell with sadness upon the fact that we are at this day absent from the Lord, because we are present in the body, think of the great truth that Jesus Christ of old had delights with the sons of men, and he delights to commune and have fellowship with his people now. Remember that your Lord and Master appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre under the disguise of a pilgrim. Abraham was a pilgrim, and Christ to show his sympathy with his servant, became a pilgrim too. Did he not appear also to Jacob at the brook Jabbok? Jacob was a wrestler, and Jesus appears there as a wrestler too. Did he not stand before Moses under the guise and figure of a flame in the midst of a bush? Was not Moses at the very time the representative of a people who were like a bush burning with fire and yet not consumed? Did he not stand before Joshua Joshua the leader of Israel's troops, and did he not appear to him as the captain of the Lord's host? And do you not well remember that when the three holy children walked in the midst of the fiery furnace, he was in the midst of the fire too, not as a king, but as one in the fire with them? Cheer then thy heart with this consoling inference. If Christ appeared to his servants in the olden time, and manifested himself to them as bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, in all their trials and their troubles, he will do no less to thee to-day; he will be with thee in passing through the fire; he will be thy rock, thy shield, and thy high tower; he will be thy song, thy banner, and thy crown of rejoicing. Fear not, he who visited the saints of old will surely not be long absent from his children to-day; his delights are still with his people, and still will he walk with us through this weary wilderness. Surely this makes Christ a most blessed consolation for his Israel.

And now to pursue the Master's footsteps, as he comes out of the invisible glories of Deity, and wears the visible garment of humanity. Let us view the babe of Bethlehem, the child of Nazareth, the Son of Man. See him, he is in every respect a man. "Of the substance of his mother" is he made; in the substance of our flesh he suffers; in the trials of our flesh he bows his head; under the weakness of our flesh he prays, and in the temptation of our flesh he is kept and maintained by the grace within. You to-day are tried and troubled, and you ask for consolation. What better can be afforded you than what is presented to you in the fact that Jesus Christ is one with you in your nature that he has suffered all that you are now suffering that your pathway has been aforetime trodden by his sacred foot that the cup of which you drink is a cup which he has drained to the very bottom that the river through which you pass is one through which he swam, and every wave and billow which rolls over your head did in old time roll over him. Come! art thou ashamed to suffer what thy Master suffered? Shall the disciple be above his Master, and the servant above his Lord? Shall he die upon a cross, and wilt not thou bear the cross? Must he be crowned with thorns, and shalt thou be crowned with laurel? Is he to be pierced in hands and feet, and are thy members to feel no pain? O cast away the fond delusion I pray thee, and look to him who "endured the cross, despising the shame," and be ready to endure and to suffer even as he did.

And now behold our Master's humanity clothed even as ours has been since the fall. He comes not before us in the purple of a king, in the garb of the rich and the respectable, but he wears a dress in keeping with his apparent origin; he is a carpenter's son, and he wears a dress which becomes his station. View him, ye sons of poverty, as he stands before you in his seamless garment, the common dress of the peasant; and if you have felt this week the load of want if you have suffered and are suffering this very day the ills connected with poverty, pluck up courage, and find a consolation in the fact that Christ was poorer than you are that he knew more of the bitterness of want than you ever yet can guess. You cannot say, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but I have not where to lay my head;" or if you could go as far as that, yet have you never known a forty-day's fast. You have some comforts left to you; you do know at least the sweet taste of bread to the hungry man, and of rest to the weary; but these things were often denied to him. Look at him, then, and see if there be not to you comfort in Christ.

We pass now, O Jesus, from thy robe of poverty to that scene of shame in which thy garments were rent from thee, and thou didst hang naked before the sun. Children of God, if there be one place more than another where Christ becomes the joy and comfort of his people, it is where he plunged deepest into the depths of woe. Come, see him, I pray you, in the garden of Gethsemane; behold him, as his heart is so full of love that he cannot hold it in so full of sorrow that it must find a vent. Behold the bloody sweat as it distils from every pore of his body, and falls in gouts of gore upon the frozen ground. See him as all red with his own blood, wrapped in a bloody mantle of his own gore, he is brought before Herod and Pilate, and the Sanhedrim. See him now as they scourge him with their knotted whips, and afresh encrimson him, as though it were not ehough for him to be dyed once in scarlet, but he must again be enwrapped in purple. See him, I say, now that they have stripped him naked. Behold him as they drive the nails into his hand and into his feet. Look up and see the sorrowful image of your dolorous Lord. O mark him, as the ruby drops stand on the thorn-crown, and make it the blood-red diadem of the King of misery. O see him as his bones are out of joint, and he is poured out like water and brought into the dust of death. "Behold and see, was there ever sorrow like unto his sorrow that is done unto him?" All ye that pass by, draw near and look upon this spectacle of grief. Behold the Emperor of woe who never had an equal or a rival in his agonies! Come and see him; and if I read not the words of consolation written in lines of blood all down his side, then these eyes have never read a word in any book; for if there be not consolation in a murdered Christ, there is no joy, no peace to any heart. If in that finished ransom price, if in that efficacious blood, if in that all-accepted sacrifice, there be not joy, ye harpers of heaven, there is no joy in you, and the right hand of God shall know no pleasures for evermore. I am persuaded, men and brethren, that we have only to sit more at the Cross to be less troubled with our doubts, and our fears, and our woes. We have but to see his sorrows, and lose our sorrows; we have to see his wounds, and heal our own. If we would live, it must be by contemplation of his death; if we would rise to dignity it must be by considering his humiliation and his sorrow.

"Lord, thy death and passion give

Strength and comfort in my need,

Every hour while here I live,

On thy love my soul shall feed."

But come now, troubled heart, and follow the dead body of thy Master, for though dead, it is as full of consolation as when alive. It is now no more naked; the loving hands of Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, and the Magdalene and the other Mary, have wrapped it in cerements, and have laid it in the new tomb. Come, saints, not to weep, but to dry your tears. You have been all your lifetime subject to fear of death: come, break your bonds asunder; be free from this fear. Where your Master sleeps, you may surely find an easy couch. What more could you desire than to lie upon the bed of your royal Solomon? The grave is now no more a charnel-house or a dark prison; his having entered it makes it a blessed retiring-room, a sacred bath in which the King's Esthers purify their bodies, to make them fit for the embraces of their Lord. It becomes now not the gate of annihilation, but the portal of eternal bliss, a joy to be anticipated, a privilege to be desired. "Fearless we lay us in the tomb, and sleep the night away, for thou art here to break the gloom, and call us back to day."

I am certain, brethren, that all the consolations which wise men can ever afford in a dying hour will never be equal to that which is afforded by the record, that Jesus Christ ascended from the tomb. The maxims of philosophy, the endearments of affection, and the music of hope, will be a very poor compensation for the light of Jesus' grave. Death is the only mourner at Jesus' tomb, and while the whole earth rejoices at the sorrow of its last enemy, I would be all too glad to die, that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection. Heir of heaven! if thou wouldst be rid once for all of every doubting thought about the hour of thy dissolution, look, I pray thee, to Christ risen from the dead. Put thy finger into the print of the nails, and thrust thy hand into his side, and be not faithless but believing. He is risen; he saw no corruption; the worms could not devour him; and as Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, he has become the first fruits of them that slept. Inasmuch as he has risen, thou shalt rise. He has rolled the stone away, not for himself alone, but for thee also. He has unwrapped the grave-clothes, not for his own sake, but for thy sake too, and thou shalt surely stand in the latter day upon the earth, when he shall be here, and in thy flesh thou shalt see God.

Time would fail us, if we should attempt to track the Master in his glorious pathway after his resurrection. Let it suffice us briefly to observe that, having led his disciples out unto a mountain, where he has delighted often to commune with them, he was suddenly taken up from them, and a cloud received him out of their sight. We think we may conjecture, by the help of Scripture, what transpired after that cloud had covered him. Did not the angels

"Bring his chariot from on high

To bear him to his throne,

Clap their triumphant wings and cry,

His glorious work is done?"

Do you not see him, as he mounts his triumphal chariot,

"And angels chant the solemn lay,

Lift up your heads, ye golden gates,

Ye everlasting doors give away?"

Behold angels gazing from the battlements of heaven, replying to their comrades who escort the ascending Son of Man. "Who is the King of Glory?" And this time those who accompany the Master sing more sweetly and more loudly than before, while they cry, "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in." And now the doors

"Loose all their bars of massy light,

And wide unfold the radiant scene,"

and he enters. "He claims those mansions as his right," and all the angels rise to "receive the King of Glory in." Behold him, as he rides in triumph through heaven's streets; see Death and Hell bound at his chariot wheels. Hark to the "Hosannas" of the spirits of the just made perfect! Hear how cherubim and seraphim roll out in thunders their everlasting song "Glory be unto thee; glory be unto thee, thou Son of God, for thou wast slain and thou hast redeemed the world by thy blood." See him as he mounts his throne and near his Father sits. Behold the benignant complacency of the paternal Deity. Hear him as he accepts him and gives him a name which is above every name. And I say, my brethren, in the midst of your tremblings, and doubtings, and fearings, anticipate the joy which you shall have, when you shall share in this triumph, for know you not that you ascended up on high in him? He went not up to heaven alone, but as the representative of all the blood-bought throng. You rode in that triumphal chariot with him; you were exalted on high, and made to sit far above principalities and powers in him; for we are risen in him, we are exalted in Christ. Even at this very day in Christ that Psalm is true "Thou hast put all things under his feet; thou madest him to have dominion over all the works of thy hands." Come, poor trembler, thou art little in thine own esteem, and but a worm and no man! Rise, I say, to the height of thy nobility; for thou art in Christ greater than angels be, more magnified and glorified by far. God gives you grace, ye who have faith, that ye may now, in the fact of Jesus Christ's exaltation, find consolation for yourself!

But now to-day methinks I see the Master, as he stands before his Father's throne, dressed in the garments of a priest; upon his breast I see the Urim and Thummim glittering with the bejewelled remembrances of his people. In his hand I see still the remembrance of his sacrifice, the nail mark; and there I see still upon his feet the impress of the laver of blood in which he washed himself not as the priest of old with water but with his own gore. I hear him plead with authority before his Father's face, "I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." O my poor prayers, ye shall be heard! O my faint groans, ye shall be answered! Oh, my poor troubled soul, thou art safe, for

"Jesus pleads and must prevail,

His cause can never, never fail."

Come, my poor heart, lift up thyself now from the dunghill; shake thyself from the dust; ungird thy sackcloth and put on thy beautiful garments. He is our advocate to-day, our eloquent and earnest pleader, and he prevails with God. The Father smiles he smiles on Christ; he smiles on us in answer to Jesus Christ's intercession. Is he not here also the consolation of Israel?

I only remark once more that he who has gone up into heaven shall so come in like manner as he was seen to go up into heaven. He ascended in clouds, "Behold he cometh with clouds." He went up on high with sound of trumpet and with shout of angels. Behold he cometh! The silver trumpet shall soon sound. 'Tis midnight: the hours are rolling wearily along; the virgins wise and foolish are all asleep. But the cry shall soon be heard "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him." That same Jesus who was crucified shall come in glory. The hand that was pierced shall grasp the sceptre. Beneath his arm he shall gather up all the sceptres of all kings; monarchies shall be the sheaves, and he shall be the kingly reaper. On his head there shall be the many crowns of universal undisputed dominion. "He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth." His feet shall tread on the mount of Olivet, and his people shall be gathered in the valley of Jehoshaphat. Lo, the world's great battle is almost begun; the trumpet sounds the beginning of the battle of Armageddon. To the fight, ye warriors of Christ, to the fight; for it is your last conflict, and over the bodies of your foes ye shall rush to meet your Lord he fighting on the one side by his coming, you on the other side by drawing near to him. You shall meet him in the solemn hour of victory. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and you that are alive and remain shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last triumphant sounding of the dread tremendous trump. Then shall you know to the full how Christ can console you for all your sorrows, all your shame, and all your neglect which you have received from the hand of men. Ay, to-day bethink you, there awaits the recompense of an earthly splendour for your earthly poverty; there awaits you earthly dignity for your earthly shame. You shall not only have spiritual, but you shall have temporal blessings. He who takes away the curse will take it away not only from your soul, but from the very ground on which you tread. He who redeems you shall redeem not only your spirit, but your body. Your eyes shall see your Redeemer; your hands shall be lifted up in acclamation, and your feet shall bear your leaping joys in the procession of his glory, in your very body in which you have suffered for him you shall sit with him upon the throne and judge the nations of the earth. These things, I say, are all full of the purest and highest consolation to the children of God.

II. Having taken nearly all my time upon the first point, I can only say a word or two upon the second and on the third. The second point was to be this CHRIST IN HIS UNCHANGING NATURE; a consolation for our continual sorrows.

Christ is to his people a surpassing consolation. Talk of the consolations of philosophy? We have all the philosopher can pretend to; but we have it in a higher degree. Speak of the charms of music which can lull our sorrows to a blessed sleep?

"Sweeter sounds than music knows,

Charm us in our Saviour's name."

"Jesus, the very thought of thee,

With rapture fills my breast."

Speak we of the joys of frienship? and sweet they are indeed; but "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother" "a brother born for adversity." There is one who is better than all friends, more able to cheer than those who are darest and nearest to our hearts. Or, speak we of the joys of hope? and certainly hope can console us when nothing else can do it. He is our hope. We cast the anchor of our hope into that which is within the veil, whither the forerunner hath for us entered. The consolations of Christ are unrivalled by any which can be offered by wit, by wisdom, by mirth, by hope itself; they are incomparable, and can never be surpassed.

Again, the consolations of Christ, from the fact of his unchanging nature, are unfailing.

"When every earthly prop gives way,

He still is all our strength and stay."

Look you at Job, and see the picture of how Christ can console. The messenger rushes in "The Sabeans have taken away the oxen and the asses!" "Well, well," Job might console himself and say, "but the sheep are left." "But the fire of God hath fallen on the sheep! and the Chaldeans have carried away the camels and slain the servants!" "Alas!" the good man might say, "but my children are left, and if they be spared, then I can still have joy." "The wind has come from the wilderness, and smitten the four corners of the house, and all thy sons and daughters are dead!" Ah! well-a-day, penniless and childless, the patriarch might weep; but, looking on his wife, he would say, "There still remaineth one sweet comforter, my well-beloved spouse." She bids him "curse God and die;" "speaking as one of the foolish women speaketh." Yet might Job say, "Though my wife hath failed me, there remaineth at least three friends; there they sit with me on the dunghill, and they will console me." But they speak bitterness, till he cries, "Miserable comforters are ye all." Well, but at least he has his own body in health, has he not? No, he sits down upon a dunghill, and scrapes himself with a potsherd, for his sores become intolerable. Well, well, "skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." He may at least cheer himself with the fact, that he lives. "Why should a living man complain?" Yes, but he fears he is about to die. And now comes out the grandeur of his hope: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though the worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." All the other windows are darkened; but the sun shines in at the oriel window of redemption. All the other doors are shut; but this great door of hope and joy still stands wide open. All other wells are dry; but this flows with an unceasing stream. Brothers and sisters, when all things else depart, an unchanging Christ shall be your unchanging joy.

Furthermore, the consolations of Christ are all powerful consolations. When a poor soul is so deep in the mire that you cannot lift it with the lever of eloquence, nor draw it up with the hands of sympathy, nor raise it with wings of hope, he can touch it with his finger and it can spring up from the mire, and put his feet upon a rock, and feel the new song in its mouth and its goings well established. There is no form of melancholy which will not yield before the grace of God; there is no shape of distress which will not give way before the divine energy of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, when he uses Christ as the consolation.

Again: this consolation is everlasting consolation. It consoled you, O aged sire, when as a youth you gave your heart to Christ; it was your joy in the mid-winter of your manhood; it has become your strength and your song in the days of your old age; when tottering on your staff you shall go down to Jordan's brink, he will be your consolation then. In the prospect of your coming dissolution, yea, when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you shall fear no evil, for he is with you; his rod and his staff shall comfort you. All other things shall pass away as a dream when you awaketh; but this substantial support shall abide with you in the midst of the swellings of Jordan, in the hour of the departure of your spirit from your body.

And then remember that this is a consolation which is always within the believer's reach. He is "a very present help in time of trouble." Ye may always cheer your heart with Christ when other things are far away. When a friend visits you not, and your chamber becomes lonely when spouse has forgotten to speak the kind word to you, and children have become ungrateful, he will make your bed in your sickness, he will be your never-failing friend and abide with you in every dark and gloomy hour, till he brings you into his dear arms, where you will be emparadised for ever and ever.

III. I close now with my last point the grave and serious question, IS CHRIST AN AVAILABLE CONSOLATION FOR ME?

Who art thou, friend? Art thou one who needs no consolation? Hast thou a righteousness of thine own? Let me put it in thine own words. You are a good man, kind to the poor, charitable, upright, generous, holy. You believe there may be some faults in yourself, but they must be very few, and you trust that what with your own merits and with God's mercy you may enter heaven. In the name of God, I do solemnly assure you, that Christ is not an available consolation for you. Christ will have nothing to do with you, so long as you have anything to do with yourself. If you are trusting in any measure whatever upon aught that you have ever done or hope to do, you are trusting in a lie, and Christ will never be friends with a lie. He will never help you to do what he came to do himself. If you will take his work as it is, as a finished work, well and good; but if you must needs add to it your own, God shall add unto you the plagues which are written in this Book, but he shall by no means give to you any of the promises and the comforts which Christ can afford.

But instead thereof, I will suppose that I address myself this morning to a man who says, "I was once, I think, a believer in Christ; I made a profession of religion, but I fell from it, and I have lost for years all the hope and joy I ever had; I think I was a presumptuous man, that I pretended to have what I never had, and yet at the time I really thought I had it. May I think that there is consolation in Christ for a backslider and a traitor like me? Often, sir, do I feel as if the doom of Judas must be mine as if I must perish miserably, like Demas, who loved this present world." Ah! backslider, backslider, God speaks to thee this morning, and he says, "Return ye backsliding children of men, for I am married to you;" and if married, there has never been a divorce between Christ and you. Has he put you away? Unto which of his creditors has he sold you? Where do you read in his Word, that he has divided from the affection of his heart one whose name was ever written in his Book? Come, come, backslider, come again to the cross. He who received you once will receive you again. Come where the flood is flowing; the blood that washed you once, can wash you yet once more. Come, come, thou art naked, and poor, and miserable; the raiment which was given to thee once, shall array thee again with beauty. The unsearchable riches which were opened up to thee aforetime, shall be thine again.

"To thy Father's bossom press'd,

Once again a child confess'd,

From his hand no more to roam,

Come, backsliding sinner, come."

But I hear another say, "I am not a backslider, but simply one who desires to be saved. I can say honestly, I would give my right arm from its socket if I might but be saved. Why, sir, if I had ten thousand worlds I would freely cast them away as pebble stones, and worthless, if I might but find Christ." Poor soul, and does the devil tell thee thou shalt never have Christ? Why, thou hast a warrant to lay hold on Christ to-day. "No," sayest thou, "I have no right whatever." The fact that thou sayest thou hast no right should at least comfort the minister in addressing himself freely to thee. The right of a sinner to come to Christ does not lie in the sinner, nor in any feelings which the sinner may have had; it lies in the fact that Christ commands him to come. If one of you should receive as you went out of younder door a command to go at once to Windsor, and have an interview with the Queen, as soon as you had received the order and were sure it came from her, you might say, "Well, but if I had known this, I should have put on other clothes;" but the order is peremptory, "Come now; come just as you are;" you would, I think, without any very great doubt, though greatly wondering, take your place and ride there at once. When you came to the gate, some tall grenadier might ask you what you were at. "Why," he might say, "you are not fit to come and see Her Majesty; you are not a gentleman; you have not so many hundreds a year; how can you expect to be admitted?" You show the command, and he lets you pass on. You come to another door, and there is an usher there. "You are not in a court dress," says he; "you are not properly robed for the occasion." You show the command, and he lets you pass on. But suppose when at last you should come into the ante-room you should say, "Now I dare not go in; I am not fit; I feel I shall not know how to behave myself." Suppose you are silly enough not to go, you would be disobedient and ten times more foolish in disobeying than you could have been by any blunders in behaviour if you had obeyed. Now it is just so with you to-day. Christ says, "Come unto me." He does not merely invite you, because he knows you would think you did not deserve the invitation; but he gives the command, and he bids me say to you, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you;" he bids me command you in his name, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Of his grace and mercy he puts it as a command. "But," you say. Ah! what right have you to say "but" to the Lord's commands? Again,I say, away with your "buts." What right have you to be "butting" at his laws and his commands. "But," you say, "do hear me for a moment." I will hear you then. "Sir, I cannot imagine that if such a hard-hearted sinner as I am were really to trust Christ I should be saved." The English of that is, that you give God the lie. He says you shall be, and do you think he speaks an untruth? "Ah!" says another, "but it is too good to be true. I cannot believe that just as I am, if I trust in Christ, my sin shall be forgiven." Again, I say, the simple English of that is, that you think you know better than God; and so you do in fact stand up and say to his promise, "Thou art false." He says, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." "Ah!" you say, "but that does not mean me?" Can any language speak more plainly? "Him. What him? Why, any "him" in the world.

"Yes," says one, "but the invitations are made to character 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden;' I am afraid I am not heavy laden enough?" Yes, but you will mark, while the invitation is given to character, yet the promise is not given to the character; it is given to those who come "Come unto me, and I will give you rest;" and while that one invitation may be confined to the weary and heavy laden, yet there are scores of others that stand as wide and free as the very air we breathe. If you have that qualification, do not come even with it, because you are unqualified when you think you are qualified; you are unfit when you think you are fit; and if you have a sense of need, which you think makes you fit to come to Christ, it shows you are not fit and do not know your need; for no man knows his need till he thinks he does not know his need, and no man is in a right state to come to Christ till he thinks he is not in a right state to come to Christ. But he who feels that he has not one good thought or one good feeling to recommend him, he is the man who may come. He who says, "But I may not come," is the very man that is bidden to come. Besides, my friends, it is not what you think, or what I think; it is what Christ says; and is it not written by the hand of the Apostle John, "This is the commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent?" Men who say it is not the duty of sinners to believe, I cannot think what they make out of such a text as that "This is the commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent;" and that one where God expressely says, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he believeth not." Why, I should think I was addressing heathens, if I addressed a company of men who thought that God did not command men to repent; for Scripture is so plain upon the point, and I say, if God commands thee to do it, thou mayest do it. Let the devil say "Nay," but God says "Yes." Let him stand and push you back; but say to him, "Nay, Satan, nay, I come here in God's name;" and as devils fear and fly before the name of Christ, so will Satan and thy fears all fly before his command. He commands thee to believe that is, to trust him. Trust him, soul, trust him; right or wrong, trust him.

But some of you want a great temptation, and a great deal of despair, before you will trust him. Well, the Lord will send it to you, if you will not trust him without it. I remember John Bunyan says he had a black temptation, and it did him a great deal of good; for, said he, "Before I had the temptation I used always to be questioning a promise, and saying, 'May I come, or may I not come?'" But at last he said, "Yea, often when I have been making to the promise, I have seen as if the Lord would refuse my soul for ever: I was often as if I had run upon the pike, and as if the Lord had thrust at me, to keep me from him as with a flaming sword." Ah! and perhaps you may be driven to that. I pray you may; but I would infinitely rather that the sweet love and grace of God would entice you now to trust Jesus Christ just as you are. He will not deceive you, sinner; he will not fail you. Trusting him, you shall build on a sure foundation, and find him who is the consolation of Israel and the joy of all his saints.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

There is no epistle in the New Testament which gives so little space to the development of. doctrine as this to the Philippians. Need it be said that it has not the less its own proper office on that account? And what is this but the unfolding of the truth in the heart and in the ways of the Christian? Hence it is that, although doctrine is sparse, if not almost excluded, nevertheless what little appears comes in as ancillary to the main purpose. It is interwoven with practical appeal, and indeed the chief development of doctrine (namely, in the second chapter) forms a ground of exhortation.

Accordingly, from the very starting-point, we are prepared for a difference of tone and character. The apostle drops entirely his official status in addressing the saints at Philippi. He associates Timothy with himself, not merely, as elsewhere, himself apostle and Timothy in some other relation, but here conjointly "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ." He thus takes a common place with his beloved son in the gospel. This place throughout is one of promoting, enlarging, deepening, and purifying the experience of the saints themselves in that which filled his own heart with joy in the Lord. We shall see the importance of this elsewhere. It is what enabled him to look at the saints, as he called them to look at one another, esteeming others, as he says, better than themselves. Had it been a question of his apostolic dignity, this could not have been; but an apostle even could, and did, and loved to, take the place of one that served others whom he viewed directly in their relationship to Christ. His own place toward them was but to serve them in love. Such did, such was, Christ. There is nothing so high as that which we all have been made in our blessed Lord.

So here at the beginning he simply takes the place of servant with Timothy, owning all the saints as well as the officials in their place: "To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." This last is but a confirmation of the same truth. It is not at all a question of ecclesiastical order, in which naturally the chief guides would have front rank. The apostle is here contributing to that which shall never pass away, and hence begins with the "saints in Christ Jesus" as such. These Philippians will not be less saints in heaven, where there can be no such charges as "bishops or deacons." I do not say that the fruits of the loving service of any one of them will be forgotten there; nor that even glory will not bear the impress of that which has been really of the Holy Ghost here. Nevertheless there is that which is suited only to the conditions of time; there is that which, given here, survives all change. The apostle loved to give God's place and value to everything; and here it is the mingling of Christ with the circumstances of every day. It is the forming of the heart with the affections and the judgments of the Lord. It is the imbuing of the Christian with that which is life everlasting, but the life that he is now living by "the faith of the Son of God, who loved him and gave himself for him." Hence he at once begins, not with a doctrinal preparation after the introduction, but the introduction brings us as usual into the general spirit if not special object of the epistle. "I thank my God for my whole remembrance of you," says he, after his usual salutation and wish, "always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy."

There is no epistle that so abounds in joy. This is the more remarkable because it is so intensely practical. For we can all understand joy in believing; we can readily feel how natural is joy to the Christian who dwells on his eternal portion. The trial is to keep that joy undimmed in the midst of the difficulties and sorrows that every day may bring. This epistle treats of daily sorrows and difficulties, yet does it manifestly overflow with joy, which all the dangers, sufferings, and trials only made the more triumphant and conspicuous.

So he brings before them another remarkable feature of it their fellowship; and this fellowship too with the gospel. Their happy and bright state in Christ did not dim their fellowship with the gospel. But whatever might be their own proper joy, whatever might be their delight in that which God works in the church, they had full and simple-hearted fellowship with His good news. It had always been so, as the apostle gives us to learn. It was not some sudden fit, if one may so say, nor was it the influence of passing circumstances. It was a calm, fixed, cordial habit of their souls, which indeed had distinguished them from the first. This was now among the last outpourings of the apostle's heart, as he himself had almost arrived at the end of his active labours, if indeed it was not absolutely their end. He was in prison, long shut out from that which had been his joyful service, though in constant toil and suffering for so many years. But his spirit was as bright as ever, his joy perfectly fresh, deep, and flowing. And now he would have them looking to Christ, that no damp should gather round their hearts from anything that might befall him, that nothing which happened, whether to themselves, to other saints, or even to the apostle, should interfere for a moment with their unclouded and abounding confidence in the Lord. So he tells them that he always thus remembered them for their "fellowship with the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."

There is not even the allowance of the possibility of their turning aside from the bright career both of possessing a Saviour they knew, and of enjoying Him increasingly. He had no theory that first love must necessarily wane and cool down, but the very reverse. Himself the striking witness to the contrary, he looked for nothing less in the saints he so dearly loved. Indeed that which had drawn out the epistle was the proof that the trying circumstances of the apostle had but called out their affections. His being out of sight rather made the remembrance of his words and ways the more distinct, and imparted a chastened earnestness to their desires of pleasing the Lord. "Being confident," he therefore says, "of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ, even as it is meet for me to think this of you all." It is not one who cherished a trust in the Lord's fidelity spite of what was visible. This counting on the Lord the apostle might have even where things were wrong. It was so as to the Corinthians; nay, it was not wholly wanting for the Galatians, though that which they allowed imperilled the foundations of grace and faith. But the practical ways and spirit of the Philippians were the living evidence not only of life, but, so to speak, of vigorous health in Christ. So it was right for him to anticipate good and not evil, not as in the authorized version and other translations, because "I have you in my heart," which would be no ground of assurance for them, but because "ye have me in your heart," which showed their spiritual feelings to be true and sound. This seems to me the real meaning, which the margin gives rightly.

It is a thing more important in practice than many suppose. There is no more common device of Satan than to seek the destruction of the power of testimony by the allowance of evil insinuations against him who renders it. Of course, the enemy would have desired above all and at any cost to lower such an one as the apostle Paul in the loving esteem of God's saints, more particularly where all had been sweet and happy; but, notwithstanding every effort, grace hitherto had prevailed, and these saints at Philippi felt the more for the apostle when he was a prisoner. When God does not interpose, men are apt to allow reflections and reasonings. Not seldom do they begin to question whether it can be possible that such a one is really of value to the church of God. Would God in this case let His servant be so long kept away from the gospel or the church? Surely there must have been something seriously wrong to judge in him!

It was not thus that the true-hearted Philippians felt; and spiritual feeling is worth more than all reasoning. Their affections were right. Reasonings on such matters are in general miserably wrong. Their sympathies, drawn out by the afflictions of the apostle in his work, were the workings of the Holy Spirit in their souls at least the instincts of a life that was of Christ, and that judged in view of Him, and not according to appearances. They had him in their heart, as he says, "Inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers with me of grace," or "of my grace." "For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." For his was a heart deeply sensible of love, and consequently he was not one that had sought either to make the saints dependent upon him, and still less did the apostle depend on the saints for anything that was the fruit of grace in them. He desired not anything for himself, but only what should abound to their account in the day of Jesus Christ. This he must wish for them, if he wished them well. Accordingly he prays for them, that as they had shown this true and unabated love for himself as Christ's servant, so their love might abound yet more and more, and this too in knowledge and in all judgment.

This is the great value of Christian experience. It is not love growing less but more, and this abounding in intelligence and knowledge, which could not be looked for in saints just beginning their career. There is no necessity and where is the epistle that more thoroughly disproves the thought of any necessity? that a saint should decline. To abound in love is far from declension. To "abound yet more and more," to have that love tempered by divinely given wisdom and divinely exercised judgment, is the very reverse of going back. Their true and constant progress was what the apostle had before his own soul in prayer for them, instead of coolly giving up the saints, as if the new nature must grow feebler day by day as if the things of the world must overcome faith, and the things which are seen outweigh those which are unseen and eternal. Is this your measure of the love of Christ? Is He really so far from any of those that call upon Him?

Thus, then, he prays for them, and to this end, not that they might become more intelligent merely not that they might grow more able to discourse of divine things, though I doubt not that there would be growth in these respects also; but all here has an eminently practical form, "that ye may approve things that are more excellent; that ye may be pure and without offence till the day of Christ." Such is the thought that the apostle had before his soul of that which became the Christian. He would have one who begins with Christ to (so on with Christ, have nothing but Christ before his eyes, and pursue this path without a stumble till the day of Christ. It is a blessed and refreshing picture even in thought. Oh that the Lord might make it true of His own! This is certainly what the apostle here puts before these saints. "Filled," says he, "with the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ;" for it is all supposed to be fruit, not isolated fruits here and there, but as a whole, which adds greatly to the strength of it. It should be "the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."

Then he turns, not to doctrine after this opening, but to circumstances, to circumstances, however, illumined with Christ The most ordinary details are taken out of their own pettiness (though it is really a little mind which counts them petty), and are made simple and genuine, and this through Christ Jesus intermingled with them. Oh, it is a blessed thing, that in the midst of the sorrows of this world, the Holy Spirit knows how thus to blend the name of Christ, as the sweetest balm, with the sorrow, however bitter, and to make the very memory of the grief pleasant because of Christ, who deigns to let Himself into it all. It was this that so cheered the apostle's heart in his loneliness often, in his desertion sometimes, when the sight of a brother would have given fresh courage to his heart. Looking to the Lord, as it is the life-breath of love, so it adds to the value of brotherly kindness in its season. Thus we know how on approaching Rome Paul was lifted up and comforted, as he saw those who came to greet him. But there he was soon to experience the faltering of brethren; there he was to see not one standing by him in the hour of his shame and need. He must be conformed to his Master in all things; and this was one of them. But out of the midst of bitter experience he had learned Christ, as even he had never known Him before. He had proved long the power and the joy of Christ for every day, and for every circumstance of it.

It was such an one, truly the servant of Jesus Christ, and so much the more their servant because His, even their servant for Jesus' sake it was such an one that wrote from Rome to the tried saints at Philippi. Nor was he in that which he was about to write without deep feeling; but he had learned Christ for all; and this is the key-note of the epistle from the first, though only uttered distinctly at the last. He had learned practically what Christ is, and what He does, and what He can enable even the least to do, (as he says himself, "less than the least of all saints,") and so much the more, because the least in his own eyes.

Thus then he writes, telling them, "I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel." He knew well how much they might be tried by the report of his own imprisonment, and no deliverance coming as yet. But he had himself gone through the trial; he had weighed it all; he had brought it into the presence of God. He had put all, as it were, into the hands of Christ, who had Himself given him His own comfort about it. "I would, then, that ye should understand, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel." Once you are right about Christ, you are right about everything while He is before you. There is nothing assuredly right, on the other hand, where Christ is not the object of the soul. With Him you will be right about the gospel, right about the church, right about doctrine, walk, and service. There is not one of these things but may in itself become the veriest snare; and so much the more dangerous because each looks fair. What looks and sounds better than the saints of God? what than the ministry of Christ? what than the testimony for God? Yet there is not one of these things that has not become the ruin of souls; and there are none that ought to know this better than those I am addressing this night. Who have had more mournful proofs of the danger of putting saints practically in the place of Christ? Who have had more palpable witness that service may become the object rather than Christ? Has it not been the rock on which many a gallant bark has made shipwreck?

But now the apostle was shut out from every labour apparently. Surely he, most of all, must have felt the change the heart that took in the Gentiles, that swept the circle of lands from Jerusalem to Illyricum, that yearned over Spain, ever going out farther and farther, boundless in his desires for the salvation of souls. He was for a considerable time a prisoner. He is at Rome, where he desired to be, no doubt, but which he had never expected to visit as one in bonds. And that he ever was anything but a prisoner there, man at least cannot say. A prisoner he was; and such is all that Scripture tells about him there. We may see the moral harmony of that lot with his testimony, and how suitable it seems that he, who was above all men identified with the gospel of the glory of Christ, should be a prisoner, and nothing but a prisoner in Rome. At any rate, such is the picture that the Holy Spirit gives of him there. And now as he had Christ before his soul, in this way the gospel itself, he can feel, is only promoted so much the more. Far from him was the vanity of being the man first to preach Christ in the great metropolis. He forgot himself in the gospel. His desire above all was that Christ's name might go forth. This was very dear to him, let God use whom he would. The things that happened to him he could therefore judge calmly and clearly. What seemed to some the death of the gospel was in point of fact distinctly for the furtherance of it.

The manner, too, in which these things happened seemed to make all as remote as possible from furthering the gospel; but here again he brings in Christ. This disperses all clouds from the soul. This filled Paul with sunshine; and he would have others to enjoy the same bright light which the name of Christ cast on every object. And mark, it is not the anticipation of light with Christ in heaven, but His light now while He is in heaven shining on the heart, and on the circumstances of the pathway here below. He says that they had happened rather for the furtherance of the gospel, "so that my bonds in Christ are manifest;" for this is the way in which he looks at it "my bonds in Christ." Oh, how honourable, how sweet and precious, to have bonds in Christ! Other people would have merely thought of or seen bonds under the Roman emperor, the bonds of that great city that ruled over the kings of the earth. Not so Paul. They were bonds in Christ; how then could he be impatient under them? How could any murmur who believed they were really bonds in Christ? "My bonds in Christ," he says, "are manifest in all the palace." Strange way of God! but so it was that thus the gospel, the glad tidings of His grace, should reach the highest quarters. They were "manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by, my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear."

Blessed is this confidence in Christ, and wondrous are His ways! Who would have expected that the timid man Nicodemus, and the honourable councillor Joseph of Arimathea, would have been brought out at the very time when even the apostles themselves had fled trembling with fear? Yet they were the witnesses of Christ whom God had put forth at the close; for it was manifestly of Him. God never can fail; and the very trials that would seem to crush all hope for the glory of Christ on the earth are the precise occasions in which God proves that after all it is He alone who triumphs, while man always fails even if he be an apostle. But the weakest of saints (how much more this greatest of the apostles!) cannot but be conqueror, more than conqueror, where the heart is filled with Christ. There was victory to his faith by the grace of God. And so, too, he could now read and interpret all things in that bright light around him. Had he occupied himself with the persons that were so preaching the gospel, how disconsolate he must have been! What might you and I have thought of such? Is it too much to say that many a groan would have gone forth from us that are here? Instead of this a song of joy and thanks comes from the blessed man of God at Rome; for, as he says here, "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will. The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely," nor was this all, but "supposing to add affliction to my bonds."

Not only was an utterly wrong spirit indulged in the work itself, and toward others engaged actually in it; but even as to the apostle, shut out from such service, a desire to pain and wound was not wanting. "The one preach Christ of contention supposing to add affliction to my bonds: but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached." Christ is the sovereign balm for every wound; and it was the apostle's joy, whatever men's spirit might be, not only to enjoy Christ himself, but that His name was being proclaimed far and wide by many lips, that souls might hear and live. Whatever the motives, whatever the manner, the Lord would surely deal with these in His own day; but, at any rate, Christ was now preached, and God would use this both for His own glory and for the salvation of souls.

Hence, says he, "I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus." We must carefully remember throughout all this epistle that "salvation" never means acceptance. If this be borne in mind a large part of the difficulty that some have found completely disappears. Impossible that anything done by other saints should turn to one's acceptance any more than what is done by himself The apostle uses salvation throughout his letter to the Philippians (nor is it confined to this scripture only) in the sense of the complete and final triumph over all the power of Satan. Hence it may be remarked that in the epistle to the Philippians it is not a question of lusts of the flesh; the flesh is not so much as named here, except in a religious way; not in its gross sins, as man would judge, but in its pretensions to religion. See for instance Philippians 3:1-21. Hence the conflict is never with internal evil, but rather with Satan. For such conflict we need the power of the Lord and the whole armour of God. But that power displays itself not in our strength, or wisdom, or any conferred resources. The supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus shows itself in dependence, and this expresses itself therefore in prayer to God. And observe, too, that the apostle felt the value of others' prayers. They contributed to his. victory over the foe. How lovely that even such a man should speak, not merely of his own prayers, but of theirs, turning all to such account. "This shall turn," says he, "to my salvation through your prayers, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." There is nothing so unaffectedly humble as real faith, and, above all, that character of faith which lives on Christ, and which consequently lives Christ. Such was the apostle's faith. To him to live was Christ.

"According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed." If he desired for them that they should be without one stumble till the day of Christ, it was the purpose to which grace had girded up his own loins. But "that in nothing I shall be ashamed." What a word, and how calculated to make us ashamed! It is not a question of acceptance in Christ. No; it is practical. It is his state and experience every day, as to which his hope was that in nothing he should be ashamed; "but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ. shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death."

And what is it that gave such a hope to one that owns himself the chief of sinners and less than the least of all saints? There was but one spring of power even Christ. And, let me observe, it is not merely that Christ is my life. Sweet and wondrous word to say that Christ is our life; but the question is, how are we living? Are we living out that life which we have? Is this the life that is practically exercised? or are there mingled ways and mixed motives? Is there the struggle of the old with the appearance sometimes of the new? Does this content our hearts? Or is it, on the settled judgment of the old as altogether and only self and sin, that we are habitually manifesting Christ? Have we that one blessed person as the hope, motive, beginning, end, way, and power of all that occupies us from day to day? It was so with the apostle. May it be so with us! " To me," may each say truly, "to live is Christ."

Habitually, indeed throughout this epistle, we find the word " me," and a very different "me" from the "me" of Romans 7:1-25. There it was an unhappy "me," though distinct from the flesh: "O wretched man that I am" Here it would be, O happy man that I am! He is one who has his joy exclusively from and in Christ. When first he tasted it, he found it so sweet that he cared for none other. And thus it was the power of the Spirit of God that gave him to look out in the midst of all that he passed through day by day, that all, whatever it might be, should be done to Christ, and so too all by Christ, the Holy Ghost working it, so to speak, in his soul to give him simply and settledly in everything that occurred an opportunity of having Christ Himself as the substance of his living and serving, no matter what might come in the course of duty. "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." In any case, indeed, to the Christian, death is gain; but he could best say it who could say, "To me to live is Christ," who could say it not merely as the faith of Him, but as a matter of simple, unconstrained, spontaneous enjoyment of Christ in practical ways.

Now he proceeds to give his reason. It is his own personal experience; and this is the reason why we have "I" so often here. It is not legal experience, for which you must turn to the chapter spoken of inRomans 7:1-25; Romans 7:1-25, the only bit of a saint's experience under law, as far as I know, that the New Testament affords (certainly in the epistles). But here is the proper experience of a Christian. It is the apostle giving us what his heart was occupied with when he could not go forth in the activities of work, and when it seemed as if he had nothing to do. Now we all know that when a man is carried on the top of the wave, when the winds fill the sails and all goes prosperously, when hearts are gladdened in sorrow, when one witnesses the joy of fresh deliverance from day to day, it is a comparatively easy thing. But to one cut off from such work it was, in appearance at least, a heavy burden and an immense trial; but Christ changes all for us. His yoke is easy, and His burden light. It is Christ, and Christ only, that thus disposes of grief and pressure. And so accordingly His servant says here, "If I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour."

It is needless to recount the comments on these words. They really mean, this is worth my while, a well-known phrase in Latin too. He puts it as a matter left for him to judge of and decide by Christ. "if I live in the flesh, it is worth my while." But if not, what then? Why, it was gain. As far as he was concerned, therefore, why could he choose? In a certain sense too he could not, and in another he would not choose. Christ was so truly before his heart, that in fact there was no self left unjudged to warp the choice. This is what brings him, if one may so say, into the dilemma of love. If he left this world, he would be with Christ; if he lived longer in this, world, Christ was with him. In short, he was so living Christ, that it was only a question of Christ here, and of Christ there. After all it was better for Christ to choose, not for him. But the moment he has Christ before him thus, he judges according to the affections of Christ, and he looks at the need of saints here below.

The question is at once settled as a matter of faith. Though he wist not to choose what between the two before, when the need of souls rises before him, he says that he shall live, and is not yet going to die. Through the wonderful sight of the love of Christ, this answered the question to his faith, leaving all circumstances entirely aside. Witnesses, prosecutors, judges, emperor, everybody, became, in point of fact, nothing to him. "I can do all things," as he says elsewhere, "through him that strengtheneth me." So he could settle now about his life and death. "Therefore," says he, though I am in a strait betwixt two," as he had said before, "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again."

Only he desires that their conversation should be as it became the gospel of Christ. It was not merely their calling in Christ, their being Christians, that was before him, but a walk as it became the gospel of Christ. It is not at all as the objects of the gospel, but as having fellowship with it, their hearts bound up and identified with all the trials and difficulties that the gospel was sustaining in its course throughout the world. "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ." Thus fervour of desire for others is the happy index of this whenever coupled with adequate knowledge of ourselves. But how can this be unless the heart is perfectly at ease as to itself? "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ." Let me press this, because alas! there is no small tendency whenever people know the gospel well, if this be all, to settle down, thinking they have nothing more to do with the matter. It was not so with the Philippians. They had so much the more to do because Christ had done all for their souls. They were coupled with the gospel in all its conflict and progress. It was not because of their own personal interest, though this was great and fresh, but they loved that it should go forth. They identified themselves, therefore, with all who were declaring it throughout the world. Hence he desired that their conversation should be as became such zeal; "that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God."

This is the more important, because such fear is the main weapon of Satan. It is always the power of Satan that is in view here. He is regarded as the true adversary, working, of course, by human means; but none the less is it his power. It may be remarked here, that from an expression often misunderstood in Philippians 2:1-30 it might seem as if the apostle wished somehow to weaken their confidence. So unbelief interprets, but most assuredly it is wrong. The apostle does call for "fear and trembling" on the part of the saints in that chapter; but there is not an atom of dread or doubt in it. He would have them realize the solemnity of the strife that is going on. He desires for them, not anxiety about the issue of it, but true gravity of spirit, because of feeling that it is a question between God and the devil, and that we have to do with that struggle in the most direct way. We need to draw from God, the spring and the only supplier of power that can resist the devil; but, at the same time, that we have the devil to resist in His power is a conviction that may well demand "fear and trembling;" and this, lest in such a conflict we should let in anything of self, which would at once give a handle to the devil. In Him, we, know, who was the perfect model in the same warfare, which He fought single-handed, conquering for God's glory and for us, the prince of this world came, and had nothing in Him, absolutely nothing. With us it is far otherwise; and only as we live on Christ do we remove, as it were, from the enemy's hand that which would furnish him abundant occasion.

In rich measure did the apostle live thus himself it was the one thing he did; and he would have the saints to be living in it too. "In nothing," says he, "terrified by your adversaries [this is the other side]: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." Thus the very suffering which unbelief might interpret wrongly, and regard as a severe chastening, and so cause the heart to be cast down, instead of taking comfort before God, the suffering for Christ's sake is a gift of His love, as much a gift as the believing in Christ for the salvation of the soul. For, in point of fact, through this epistle salvation is seen as going on from first to last, and not yet complete, being never viewed as such till the conflict with Satan is altogether closed. Such is the sense of it here. Hence he speaks of the conflict which they once saw to be in him, and now heard to be in him.

Next, not only did he exhort them not to be terrified by the power of Satan, which is itself an evident and solemn sign of perdition to those that oppose the saints of God; but he calls on them to cast out the sources of disunion among themselves; and this he does in the most touching way. They had been manifesting their mindful love for the apostle, who on his part was certainly not forgetful of its least token. If, then, they really loved him, "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if there be any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies," he would venture to seek another proof of it. That there was all this abundantly in these saints he did not doubt; they had just shown him the fruit of love personally. Did he want more for himself? Far from it. There was another way which would best prove it to his heart; it was not something future secured to Paul in his need, which would be the way of nature, not of love or faith. Not so: Christ is always better; and so says he, "Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory." There is always danger of these, and the more so where there is activity among souls. There was evidently energy among these Philippians. This commonly is apt to give occasion for strife as well as vain-glory. No saints are outside the danger.

Nothing, then, would the apostle have done in strife or vain-glory; "' but in lowliness of mind each esteeming other better than themselves." Let me look at another as he is in Christ. Let me think of myself as one that is serving Him (oh, how feebly and failingly!) in this relationship, and it is an easy thing to esteem others better than myself. It is not sentiment, but a genuine feeling, thus "looking not each at his own things, but each also at the things of others." Now the saint that has Christ Himself before him looks abroad with desires according to the activity of divine love.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself." There are two chief stages of His humiliation flowing out of His perfect love. First of all He emptied Himself, becoming a slave and a man; and having thus come down, so as to take His place in the likeness of men, He, found in figure as a man, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to the lowest point of degradation here below. He "became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

It will be observed that there is no such thing in the first instance as "to the glory of God," when we hear of all bowing in the name of Jesus. To the confession of His Lordship is added "to the glory of God the Father." The reason is, in my judgment, perfectly beautiful. "Jesus" is His own name, His personal name. Jesus is Jehovah, although a man; consequently the bowing in that name to the glory of God the Father does not occur to the apostle. Why, then, is it so in the next instance? Because he looks at Jesus, not in His own personal right and glory, where necessarily all must bow, but rather at Him in His official place as Lord the place He has righteously acquired as man. This is wholly distinct from His own intrinsic eternal glory. He was made Lord and Christ. The moment you look at what He is made, then it is to the glory of Him who thus exalted Him. It was God the Father that made Him Lord and Christ, but God the Father never made Him Jehovah. He was Jehovah, equal with God the Father. Impossible that He could be made Jehovah. Reason and sense are out of the question, though reason must reject a creature's becoming God. Such a notion is unknown to scripture, and revolting to the spiritual mind. Hence we see the great importance of this truth. All error is founded on a misuse of a truth against the truth. The only safeguard of the saints, of those that love the truth and Himself, is simple subjection to the word of God to the whole truth He has revealed in scripture.

Evidently, therefore, two glories of Jesus are referred to here. There is His own personal glory; and this first. The other is what suits it, but a conferred position. If Jehovah so served, it was but natural that He should be made Lord of all, and so He is. It was due to His humiliation and obedience; and so it is here treated.

Thus, in both parts of the history of Christ, presented to us in no obscure contrast with the first Adam, we have first of all His own glory, who humbled Himself to become a servant. The very fact, or way of putting it, supposes Him to be a divine person. Had He not been God in His own being and title, it would have been no humiliation to be a servant, nor could it be indeed a question of taking such a place. The archangel is at best but a servant; the highest creature, far from having to stoop in order to become a servant, can never rise above that condition. Jesus had to empty Himself to become a servant. He is God equally with the Father. But having deigned to become a servant, He goes down lower still. He must retrieve the glory of God in that very death which confessedly had brought the greatest shame on God outwardly. For God had made the world full of life; He "saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good," and Satan apparently won the victory over Him in it. All here below was plunged under the sentence of death through Adam's sin; and God's word could but seal it till redemption.

The Lord Jesus not only comes down into the place of servant in love among men, but goes down into the last fortress of the enemy's power. He breaks it completely, becomes conqueror for ever, wins the title for God's grace to deliver righteously every creature, save only those who, far from receiving Christ, dare to reject Him because of that very nature which He took on Him, and that infinite work on the cross which had caused Him suffering to the utmost in working all out for the glory of God. Oh, is it not awful to think, that the best proof of the love of Christ and of His glory is the very ground which the base heart of man turns into a reason for denying both His love and His glory? But so it is; and thus the food of faith becomes the poison of unbelief. But the day is coming when every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." Not that all shall be delivered and centred in Him, but that all must bow. All who believe shall surely shine in His glory; and the universal creation, which, belonging to Him as His inheritance, He will share with His own, shall be reconciled and delivered in due time. But there are the things, or if you will, the persons under the earth which can never be delivered. Yet these shall bow, no less than those in heaven, or on earth. In His name all must bow. Thus the difference between reconciliation and subjection is manifest. The lost must bow; the devils must bow; the lake of fire must own the glory of Him who has power to cast them there, as it is said, "unto the glory of God the Father." But all in heaven and on earth shall be in reconciliation with God and headed up in Christ, with whom the Church shall share the unbounded inheritance. (Compare Ephesians 1:1-23 and Colossians 1:1-29) But all, even these in hell, must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

But now the apostle turns to the use that he makes of so blessed a pattern, "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence." It was the exact reverse in good of what the Galatians were in evil, for they had been cordial and bright when the apostle was with them; but directly his back was turned, their hearts were alienated. Even he who knew them well marvelled that they were so soon shifting, not only from him, but from the gospel, after he left them. But with the Philippians there was increased jealousy for Christ. They were more obedient in his absence than in his presence. Hence he calls upon them, as one that could not be with them to help them in the conflict, to work out their own salvation. Such is the force of the exhortation. This epistle is therefore eminently instructive to those who could not have an apostle with them. God was pleased, even whilst the apostle was alive, to set him aside and to prove the power of faith where he was not.

Hence he says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." It is not the dread of losing the Saviour of their souls, but because they felt for His name; "for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Therefore he intreated them to "do all things without murmurings and reasonings, that they might be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom they shone as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life." It is a description that might almost do for Christ himself, so high is the standard for those that belong to Christ. Christ was surely blameless in the highest sense, as His ways were harmless, "holy, harmless, undefiled," as it is said elsewhere. Christ was Son of God in a sole and supreme sense. Christ was "without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation." Christ shone as the true light in the world the light of life. Christ held it forth; nay, more, He was it. For what believer would deny that, however close the conformity, there is always that dignity and perfection which is proper to Christ, and exclusively His? Let us uphold the glory of His person, but, nevertheless, let us not forget how the apostle's picture of the saint resembles the Master! Like, another apostle (2 John 1:8) he does not hesitate to blend with all this an appeal to their hearts for his own service in their well-being.

"That" (says he, after he had exhorted the Philippians thus to stand,) "I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith." How truly he accounted himself less than the least of them! How gladly would he be a libation upon the sacrifice of their faith! He esteemed men better than himself. He too in love still keeps up the servant-character, and gives them as it were the Christ-character. This is the unfailing secret of it all the true source of humility in service. "For the same cause also do ye joy and rejoice with me. But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state."

And now there is the most lovely picture of Christ again; for it is always Christ here, and this again practically. Timothy was very dear to him, and was then with him; but he is going to part with the one that was so much the more valued by him in his solitariness and sorrow because of his circumstances at Rome. Indeed he esteemed others better than himself. He is just about to send Timothy from himself that he might know about them. "For I have no man like-minded, who will naturally care for your state." Timothy shared the unselfishness of the apostle's heart. "For they all seek their own." It might have been thought that so much the more would Paul need his love and services. Whatever he needed, love is never itself but in unselfish action and suffering. I speak of Christian love, of course. "For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel. Him therefore I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me. But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly. Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants."

He loves, we see, to couple with the relationship to himself what was related to them. Epaphroditus was his fellow-servant, and indeed more than that "my brother, and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants. For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness." Why? because he. himself had been sick? No; but "because that ye had heard that he had been sick." How lovely that this it was that pained him unselfish love! the love of Christ everywhere! "For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him." Was this all the apostle had to say? Not so. "And not on him only, but on me also," (what a difference is made when love interprets!) "lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be [not rejoicing here, but] the less sorrowful." He did feel it. Love feels acutely nothing so much; but it triumphs. "Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation" (he would turn it again to practical profit as to others): "because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me."

This chapter then looks for the working of the gracious feelings of Christ Himself in the Christian individually, showing us, first, the fulness of them all in Christ in contrast with the first Adam. But it gives us also the effect of Christ in the saints eventually of Paul himself, of Timothy, of Epaphroditus, and indeed of the Philippian saints. It shows us grace practically in different measures and forms. But the (trace of Christ wrought in them all; and that was the great joy and delight of the apostle's heart.

In Philippians 3:1-21 it is not the display of intrinsic affection in Christ, or the gracious dispositions of Christ in the saints. Not the passive side of the Christian as being in the world, but the active comes before us. Accordingly, this being not so directly the subject of the epistle though a Very important part of it, it comes in parenthetically in a large measure, not now in any wise as a question of truth or development of the mystery of Christ, as we saw in Ephesians 3:1-21, but, nevertheless, as a parenthesis; for he resumes afterwards the internal side again, as we shall see inPhilippians 4:1-23; Philippians 4:1-23. Energy is not the best or highest aspect of Christianity. There is real power, there is strength from God that works in the saint; but the feelings of Christ, the mind of Christ morally, is better than all energy. Nevertheless, energy there is, and this assuredly judges what is contrary to Christ.

Here, accordingly, it is not the outgoings of love, but the zeal that burns indignantly as to what dishonours the Lord. This is one of the main features of our chapter. "Finally," says he, "my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of doers." InMatthew 23:1-39; Matthew 23:1-39 we have woe upon woe pronounced upon scribes and Pharisees, and so it is here. As it was a true though distressing part for Christ to judge religious evil, something akin could not be absent here; but at the same time it was by no means a prominent characteristic of Christ's task here below far from it. It was a necessary duty sometimes as things are on the earth, but nothing more; and so it is still. "Beware of evil workers; beware of the concision."

"For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." This is the only allusion, as far as I know, to flesh in this epistle, but it is flesh in its religious form, and not as a source of evil lusts and passions. It is all judged, and its religious form not least, by Christ "Though," says he, "I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other" carrying on the same thought of the flesh "if any other man thinketh that he hath matter of trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." And what did the apostle do with all this roll of fleshly advantages? It was seen laid in the grave of Christ. "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Will it be said that this is what the apostle felt, and did, and suffered in the freshness of his first acquaintance with Christ? It was also what he carried up to the moment of writing to the Philippians as ardently as ever. "Yea," said he, "and I count all things but loss." It is not only his reckoning in the first fervour of love for the Saviour. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

Such experience is both a real and a precious boon. Let us not mistake in this; let us not be driven from it by a too common misuse. That which men call by this name is really the trial of what flesh is under law much more than experience of Christ. But let us not be turned aside, and think that it is merely a question of believing and of knowing our place secure; but let us live of that very Christ who is our life. This is what he did, and accordingly this is the source, not merely of a firm faith and confidence as to the issue, but of present joy and all-overcoming power. This is what gives force to our affections, and rivets them on Christ. This is, accordingly, what flows forth in praise from himself, and in calling out praise from other hearts. So he says here, "For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung." Thus the two things are repeated the past judgment and the present power: "and do count them but dung, that I may, win Christ." This will be, no doubt, at the end of the journey: the faithful win Christ where He is. For it is not meant looking to Him now, or having Him as one's life: to win Christ means having Him at the other side. He always looks there in Philippians.

It is not at all a question of what one has here. This has its most weighty place elsewhere; but when it is a question of experience, the end cannot be here. There is the present joy of Christ; but this does not content the soul. The more one enjoys Christ here, the more one wants to be with Him there. "That I may win Christ," therefore he says; "and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law." This was precisely what he desired when a Jew. Now, having seen Christ, if he could even bring his own righteousness into heaven, he would not. It would be mere independence of Christ if he could have stood without a single flaw, as blameless, in fact, as in a certain sense outwardly he was under the law, until the Spirit of God gave him to see what he was in God's mind. Then he found himself a dead man condemned and powerless. But supposing it possible to be clothed with the righteousness of the law, he would not have it now. He had got a better righteousness, and he desired nothing so much as to be found in Christ, having that which is through faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Nothing but the righteousness that was of God as its source satisfied him. It is the only place in Scripture where the phrase means, not simply the righteousness of God in point of character, but the righteousness of God in point of source. Such is the meaning here. Elsewhere it is God's or divine righteousness. Here the object seems to be to make its difference from legal obedience more felt the contrast with the law more complete.

"That I may know him." Now here we have what is present; so that the passage presents some difficulty to souls because of intermingling the present with the future. Thus easily do we fall into error, because the human mind likes to have either one thing or another, and thus avoid all difficulty in Scripture, having each squared according to our notions. But it is not so that God has written His word. Nevertheless, God will surely teach His own, and knows how to clear up what is hidden from them. He has written His word not to perplex, but to enlighten. Thus the true bearing of the passage is, that from the first the eye of faith is fixed steadily on the end of the journey. "That I may win Christ, and be found in him" where not a vestige of self remains, but all will be Christ, and nothing but Christ. This is the righteousness whose source is in God; it is also by faith of Christ, and not through the law, which, of course, would have man's righteousness if it could.

But now he adds, "That I may know him" (speaking of entrance by faith into communion with Christ)" that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." This is open to the heart now. "And the fellowship of his sufferings" again and certainly a present thing, not relating to heaven. "Being made conformable to his death:" this too is clearly in the world now. "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead."* Clearly we here look out of the world and into a state to come, when we have the consummation of our hopes and the end of the journey. This is what he calls "salvation." It cannot be till the Christ is risen according to the pattern of Christ Himself.

*There is no reasonable doubt that the received text is wrong, followed by the Authorised Version ("of," instead of "from" the dead). The Alexandrian, Vatican, Sinai, Clermont, and St. Germain Uncials, supported by some ten cursives, very many versions, and the chief Greek and Latin ecclesiastical writers read τὴν ἐξανάσταιν τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν . Codd. F and G, by manifest error, read τῶν ἐκ , and this seems to have been corrected (or rather corrupted) in order to make sense into τῶν (omitting ἐκ ) in K and L and the mass of cursives. But in my opinion the sense, and even the Greek, seems bad; for on the one hand both ἐξανάστασιν and the drift of the argument point to a resurrection of favour and blessedness, not to that in which the unjust must rise to judgment; while on the other hand τῶν νεκρῶν would imply the dead, i.e. all the dead, as a class. Hence I cannot but consider it a surprising error in Griesbach that he edited the received text in this place. Alter and Matthaei followed according to their plan the manuscripts before them; but the latter was too good a scholar not to feel the difference, though he appears to impute it to a corrector for the sake of elegance in his second edition. Long before them, Mill had given his judgment in favour of the more ancient reading; and Wetstein repeated it apparently with approval. Bengel hesitated; but Dr. Wells in this, as in many other instances, showed his sound judgment and quiet courage in rejecting the common text, and adopting that which has by far the best authorities.

Dr. S. T. Bloomfield indeed (Addit. Annotations in loc.) admits that the external testimony is quite in its favour, though it is hard to see what he means by the internal evidence being in this case denied; for he suggests himself that τὴν ἐκ may have been a correction proceeding from those who thought that the sense which the context requires, "the resurrection from the dead," could not be extracted from ἐξαν . τῶν νεκρῶν . The critical reading he owns has force and propriety; but he does "not see why ἐξανάστ . τῶν νεκρῶν should not of itself have the same sense as that conveyed, with more propriety of expression (and for that reason likely to be adopted in the early Uncial MSS.), ἐξαν . τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν . Little probable is it that the reading, ἐξανάστ . τὴν ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν should have been altered to ἐξ τῶν νεκρ . There is great reason to think that the ἐξ arose from those who thought it necessary to the sense, and did not see that it could be fetched from the ἐξ in ἐξανάστ . Hence I am inclined to retain ἐξαν . τῶν νεκρ . as a popular and familiar mode of expression (suitable to the persons addressed), according to which the expressions ἐξαν . τῶν advert as at Romans 4:16, and elsewhere to the state of the persons in question, that state or kind of resurrection unto life of those who have died in the Lord, and whose resurrection will be a resurrection unto life and glory, their bodies being raised incorruptible, and both body and soul united for ever with the Lord. See 1 Thessalonians 4:6-18."

I have transcribed this note at length, because it is a fair sample of Dr. B.'s critical, scholastic, and exegetic manner. Enough has been already said above, before I even knew of his reasoning, to prove how unfounded it is in every point of view. The internal evidence ( i.e. the scope of the context) is as decidedly for τὴν ἐκ as the weightiest external witnesses. How the text got gradually changed from the most correct form (not correction) in the early Uncials has been explained. When the distinction of the resurrection of the just from that of the unjust got lost in Christendom, and all were merged in the error of one general indiscriminate resurrection, one can understand that people would not feel the impropriety of substituting τῶν for τὴν ἐκ (for as to τὴν ἐκ τῶν , of which Dr. B. speaks, it exists in no document whatever). There is therefore not the slightest ground to countenance the rather dangerous idea, that the apostle did not employ a phrase analogous to the correct one which is found elsewhere in the New Testament, and adopted "a popular and familiar mode of expression," i.e. a really inaccurate mode. And why should our Lord adopt a correct form to the Sadducees (Luke 20:1-47 repeated inActs 4:1-37; Acts 4:1-37), and Paul an incorrect one to the Philippians? Who can understand why it should be "suitable to the persons addressed," on Dr. B's showing? Of the two, the converse would be more intelligible; but my conviction is that both the Lord and His apostle used similar and correct phraseology, as did the Holy Spirit elsewhere. And as to Romans 4:17 (which was probably meant rather than 16), it has no bearing on the matter, as it is there merely a question of God's power displayed in quickening the dead, and calling things that are not in being as in being, and in no way distinguishing the resurrection of life from that of judgment. When the state or kind of resurrection is meant to be expressed, the anarthrous form is requisite, as we see in verse 24 of this very chapter, and regularly so. (See Romans 1:4.) I believe, therefore, that ἐξανάστασιν , especially if ἐκ be supposed to be fetched (as Dr. B. says) from ἐξανάστ , is incompatible with τῶν νεκρῶν , the one conveying the notion of a selected company, and the other of the dead universally. Modern editors of value, however differing in their system of recension agree in the ancient as against the received reading; so Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Ellicott, Alford, Tregelles, Wordsworth, etc.

Thus we see here the power of a risen and a heavenly Christ, not now treated doctrinally as in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 or 2 Corinthians 5:1-21 and elsewhere, but as that which bears on the Christian for the constant experience of every day. Hence that which judged and put aside religion after the flesh, righteousness after the law, all that was now left completely and for ever behind, and the saint is set on the road that nothing can satisfy him but being in the same glorious condition with Christ Himself. Hence he says, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind." This, carefully remember, does not mean forgetting sins. Far from losing sight of our past ways, it is a very wholesome thing indeed to remember them: we are never safe in forgetting what we are and have been. What he means by forgetting the things that are behind is, that we should not think of any progress we may have made in following Christ, that we should lose sight of everything calculated to give us self-satisfaction. This were to spoil all, because it would please the flesh.

It is our progress then that we are to forget. Let us be humbled on account of our sins. Self-judgment, where grace is known, is a most wholesome exercise of soul; and we shall have it in perfection even in heaven itself before the judgment-seat of Christ. One of the elements of heavenly happiness will be the calm and settled knowledge of all that we have been here below. This will not detract for an instant from the perfect enjoyment of Christ, but rather promote it so much the more, making it more evidently and always pure grace even in glory. Thus "forgetting those things which are behind" refers to the progress that we may make. True experience is still the great theme which the apostle has in hand here as well as in his own personal history. He was too much bent on what was before to be occupied with calling to mind what was behind him; it must have impeded him in the race. "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise [ i.e. differently] minded, this also will God reveal to you." Differences there may be among the saints, and especially when we come to the question of experience. But in truth it may betray itself in doctrine and practice in various shapes.

And what is the true divine rule? Is it agreeing to differ? This is but a poor human resource, as unworthy of the saints as of the truth of God, who would not have us to wink at any mistake. It is no rule, but an evasion. There is, however, a sure and only divine standard: as far as we have attained, our call is to walk in the same path. And this is true from the first moment of our career as God's children. For, let me ask, what is our title to communion? What is it that brings us into the blessed fellowship that we enjoy? There is but one title, there can be no sufficient ground but the name of Christ Christ known and confessed in the Holy Ghost; and where He is simply before us, the progress is most real, if not always easy and sensible. It is not meant that there are no difficulties, but that Christ makes the burden light and all happy to the praise of God's grace; whereas any other means or measure detracts from His glory and draws attention to self.

Supposing, for instance, we mingle with Christ knowledge or intelligence about this truth or that practice, does it not give a necessary prominence to certain distinctive points, which so far must make Christ of less account? Even, therefore, if you could have (what is impossible) ever so much real spiritual knowledge along with Christ, who would so much as notice these acquisitions in comparison with Christ? Let us merely take up a single point of the primary ground of fitness for fellowship, which is often a difficulty with the saints. Yet the truth as to this abides, not only at the starting-point, but all the way through. What is there that you can rightly plead but Christ's own name? And this ground is one which always brings in the strength of the Holy Ghost, as it is based on God's mighty work of redemption. If right here, we are at one, so to speak, with His present purposes. What is the Spirit now doing? He is exalting Christ. It is not merely exalting His work, or His cross; it is not so much His blood, as Christ Himself. The name of Christ Himself is the true centre of the saints; unto this the Spirit gathers. As he had said elsewhere before, so he says here, "Be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." Thus, as at the beginning of the chapter, there was the energy that went out against the evil workers, with a religious mind after the flesh, so now there is the energy that bursts forth against those that were misusing Christianity, making it an earthly system, setting their mind on things here below, under the name of the Lord Jesus; and between the two, is set forth the positiveness, if one may so speak, of Christ Himself.

It is plain, then, that inPhilippians 2:1-30; Philippians 2:1-30 the great spring of power is the love and the glory of Him who came down; who, even when He did so come, went down still lower, where none could accompany Him. Yet we may follow, and seek conformity unto His death; but there was that in His death on the cross which could be His alone.

In Philippians 3:1-21 there is no coming down from glory in the power of divine love, resulting in His exaltation by and for the glory of God the Father after a new sort. Here we see One who is in glory, and on whom the eye of the believer is set; and accordingly the judgment of evil is from the side of heaven. The one thing that suits is to pursue the glory before him, till he is in the same glory along with Christ. This is the object set before us inPhilippians 3:1-21; Philippians 3:1-21. The one therefore, I say, is the passive side of the Christian; the other is his activity. The passive shines in Christ coming down; the active is realized by the eye that is fixed on Christ, who is actually in glory. This separates from all, and judges the best of man to be dung, as the former conforms the heart after His love.

Philippians 4:1-23 is founded on both. The apostle takes up, no doubt, the sweet affections of chapter 2, but then they are strengthened by the energy that Christ seen in glory imparts, as in chapter 3. Hence he thus opens, "Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown." One cannot overlook the amazing strength with which he speaks even of his affections. "My joy and crown," "my dearly beloved." Not that there were not difficulties; there were many. "I beseech Evodia" (we may just notice the true form in passing; Euodias sounds like a man's name, whereas here it is really a woman). "I beseech Evodia, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. Yea [not and], I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which labour with me." According to the true meaning it is not others, but those very sisters that he commends to Epaphroditus in desire for their blessing, "which labour with me in the gospel [or seeing that they shared the conflict of the gospel with me]." "Laboured" gives a wrong sense. Many hence have wrongly gathered that they were preachers. There is really no reason to suppose that they preached at all. What they did seems a much more proper thing, in my judgment, for a woman. They shared the conflict of the gospel; they partook of the reproach that covered those who preached it. This is lost in the idea of labouring in it. We must think rather of the conflict of the gospel: there was often for all concerned disgrace, and pain, and scorn.

Let nobody suppose me to insinuate that a woman is not in place when exercising, according to the Scripture, any gift God has given her. Women may have gifts as well as men. We are not to suppose that, because we are men, we monopolise all the gifts of Christ. Let us see to it that we walk according to the place which God has given us. At the same time, God's word is to me plain as to the manner in which the gifts are to be exercised. And is there not evidently a path of unobtrusiveness (for the veil or sign of power on the woman's head is no vain figure) which most befits a woman? I believe that a woman shines most where she does not appear. Hers is a more delicate place than that which becomes the man, and one which a man attempting it would awkwardly fill. But while a man is quite unfit to do a woman's work, can it be doubted that a woman brings no honour to herself, or to the Lord, by attempting to do a man's task? The Lord has laid down their places respectively with distinctness. It is ignorance and absurdity to answer such scriptures by the text, that in Christ there is neither male nor female. We do not speak of standing in Christ now, but of their allotted services. In this we hear of difference; and scripture does not obliterate but contrariwise asserts it, and treats the practical denial of it as a scandal brought in by Corinthian headiness. No doubt the new creation is essentially neither male nor female; it is not a race perpetuated in a fleshly way; but all things are of God and in Christ. Notwithstanding, it has been already explained that the man has a relative place as the image and glory of God, being set in a remarkable position between God and the woman in matters of outward decorum.

Returning, however, to the women Evodia and Syntyche, they had devoted themselves to an exceedingly happy and prized service. They joined with those who preached the truth and partook of their obloquy. They helped them, and in that sense "laboured" if you will. At any rate they endured the conflicts of the gospel in its earlier days at Philippi. Why should women expose, themselves? Why go in the way of crowds of soldiers or civil officers? Why should such as they face the unmannerly officials that took advantage of the imperial government to treat with injury those identified with the gospel? Love does not calculate these costs and dangers, but goes calmly forward, come what will, trouble, scorn, or death. No wonder the apostle was grieved to think of differences among such women as these. "Help them" (says he) "with Clement also, and with my other fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life."

Finally, he calls them again to rejoice, and now with more emphasis than ever. "Rejoice in the Lord alway." in sorrow? Yes. In affliction, in prison, everywhere. "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice." He did not make a mistake. He did not forget, but meant what he said. "Again I say, Rejoice." Let your moderation go along with it, because along with this joy there might be a certain enthusiastic spirit that would hinder calm judgment. But this is not the character of Christian joy. "Let your moderation be known unto all men;" that is, the meekness and gentleness which bends to the blow, instead of resisting it in the spirit that ever asserts its rights and fights for them. Have rather that spirit which counts nothing as a right to be claimed, but all one has as gifts of grace to be freely used in this world, because one has Christ in view. "Let your moderation be known unto all men," strengthened by this consolatory truth, "the Lord is at hand."

And this nearness of Christ I take simply to be the blessed hope here made a practical power. It is not the Lord at hand to succour one now and here from time to time. No one denies this, which is, or ought to be, no new thing for a Christian. He means the Lord, really, personally, at hand; as he had said in the end of the last chapter, that this was what we look for. "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence we wait for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour" for this is the true meaning of it. And this puts the doctrine, as far as there is doctrine in the epistle, in a very clear light. There is no looking at Him as Saviour on the cross merely; but when He comes for us, there will be in the filial sense (as ever in our epistle) "salvation." Thus he anticipates the removal of the last trace of the first Adam; he looks for our being brought fully, even as to the body, into the likeness of the Second Man, the last Adam. This is salvation in truth. Hence he says, "We look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour: who shall change our vile. body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." It does not matter how unlike they may be, or how opposed; it does not matter what vessels of shame and misery they may have been now; "He is able to subdue all things unto himself."

Then, as to our practical every-day expectation, "the Lord is at hand." And, accordingly, why should one be a prey to care, if this be really so? "Be anxious [or be careful] for nothing; but in everything" this is the resource "in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." Better not make them known to men; it is a dangerous snare. By all means let them be made known unto God. There is something which ought to be made known unto men, namely, the not fighting for your rights. "Let your moderation be made known unto men." "Let your requests be made known unto God." It is not that you have failed, perhaps, or broken down in some particular. Certainly this is painful and humbling. But it is better for you to lose your character, than for Christ through you to lose His; for you are responsible to display the character of Christ. "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand." "Let your requests," whatever they may be, "be made known unto God;" and not only so, but "with thanksgiving." You may be perfectly sure of an answer when you make known your requests: therefore let it be with thanksgiving. And what is the result? "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus," feeling, judgment, everything, guarded and governed by this precious peace of God. The peace which God has in everything He will communicate to keep you in everything; and not only so, but the heart, being free from care, will enter into what pleases Him. And therefore, "whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Instead of occupying oneself with all one hears that would cast down, now that we have committed all. that is miserable to God, we can go on delighting in the goodness of God, as well as in its fruits. In God there is ample supply. All we want is, that the eye of faith be a little open; but it is only Christ before the eye that keeps it open.

Then he turns to what had drawn out the epistle. "I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity." So tender, so delicate is his sense, that he would not spare what was needful if there had been any want of thought, but at the same time he hastens to make whatever apology love could suggest. "Not," says he, "that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am," this is the great design of the epistle; it was not truth that was made known simply, but experience that was grown into "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through him who strengtheneth me." At the same time he intimates his value for their love, and takes care that his was independence founded on dependence, an independence of circumstances which finds its strength in simple and absolute dependence upon God.

So the apostle lets them know that he owned their hearty love; "not," he says, "because I desire a gift." For no personal end did he mention their grace; "but I desire fruit that may abound to your account." It was not that he wanted more. We know well that as men have sarcastically said, gratitude is a kind of fishing for fresh favours. There was the very reverse in Paul's case. As he tells them, fruit that might abound to their account was all that his heart really yearned after. Their gift to him was "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." What a God is ours, so to treat that which, connected with the world, Christ Himself calls "unrighteous mammon!" His goodness can even take this up and thus make it fragrant even to Himself. "But my God shall supply all your need." How rich and full he was of the goodness of the God he had proved so long and could recommend so well! And there is not now merely His riches of grace, but he looks forward into the glory where he was going, and can say, "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

Thus with salutations of love he closes this most characteristic and cheering even of Paul's epistles.