Epistle to the Philippians
Various
by Arthur Pridham.
Contents.
Preface.
The Epistle to the Philippians is a part of Holy Scripture, of which it may be safely said, that it is more widely admired than discerningly appreciated by ordinary readers of God's word. The very lovely traits of Christian character which it presents, and the moving picture of both life and godliness which it offers to our view, are recognised, and even delighted in, by not a few who yet fail to receive into their own bosoms the main burden of the Spirit's teaching in this inestimable writing.
Rich, almost beyond comparison, in didactic power and expression as a testimony to the personal grace and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, this Epistle is, in its general cast and tenor, a congratulatory exhortation, mixed with tender and solemn warning, rather than a methodical statement of doctrine. It is a manual of salvation addressed to those who, as true partakers of the grace of God, are running well and hopefully the race of life. The Saviour is set before the saved as their example, yet in such terms as to kill all emulation but that which is rooted in a faith which lives only on Him who gave Himself for our sins.
Salvation, both retrospective and prospective, is the subject of Paul's letter to his dearly-loved brethren in the faith, and the means of its attainment on the part of those who, through grace, believed and had openly confessed the Saviour's name, are set forth, not only in the persuasive and encouraging tones of one who watched for their souls as having an account to give, but with an especial vividness also in the recital which it contains of the Apostle's own steadfast but unfinished efforts to achieve that aim.
How a forgiven sinner, who by virtue of his calling is already a saint, may become also, in due time, a Christian, or a final winner of Christ, is shown us with a searching yet alluring distinctness. With equal plainness of speech we are warned of the fatal issue of that groundless but self-flattering hope which rests on the airy foundation of mere doctrinal knowledge, and would make the grace of God in Christ crucified the servant of men's natural wills.
My desire, in endeavouring to put forth a faithful exposition of this Epistle, is to furnish an antidote to the very prevalent will-worship and low-toned but self-complacent evangelical profession of these busy and difficult times. I would seek to abash self-confidence, and to encourage true contrition, by holding before the view of those who read, as closely and steadily as the grace of God may enable me, a picture of genuine Christianity, in contrast to that which too often assumes with an unblushing thoughtlessness the form, while ignorant of the power, of godliness.
The class of readers chiefly contemplated in the preparation of these Notes is the same as that to which Paul's Epistle was originally addressed. My words are for 'the saints in Christ Jesus;' for those, wherever found, who have through grace obeyed the call which by the commandment of the everlasting God is now sounded by the Gospel in the ears of all who will attend. I have had also ever present to my mind that small but sincere company of true seekers after God, whose search has been mainly baffled hitherto by the spectacle of self-contradiction and spiritual disorder which Christendom on every side presents. No comfortable sectary will read these Notes with pleasure; but my hope is that no weary soul, whose ear is open to the words of God, will fail to find in them some present alleviation of its pain, and, more than this, some lasting spiritual good.
Would that my mental conception of true godliness were matched by a corresponding practical conformity to Christ! If, however, I have written to any purpose, those who read will have something of higher interest to engage their thoughts than inquiries as to who and what he is whose pen is as a voice to call them closer to the Lord.
London, *, 1879.
Verse 1. 'Paul and Timotheus,' etc. This Epistle, like all others of the same inspired authorship, is addressed to a distinct class of persons, who, while reckoned outwardly among the inhabitants of the place in which they lived, are, in name and calling, regarded by the Spirit of truth as no longer forming a part of the generation out of which they had been called, and as separate, by virtue of their new birth to God through the power of His word, from their natural habits and associations as children of Adam and inhabiters of earth. The inspired men who address them glory in the title of 'slaves of Jesus Christ,' who in His name and for His sake make their communications to them as to 'the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi.'
This distinctive title of saintship, which is common to all true believers, marks off emphatically its possessors from the world in which they are. For a 'saint' is a holy person, separate to God. But the world is not holy, nor are men naturally separate to God, but rather separate, alas, from God, so that by a new birth only can they either see or enter into the kingdom of God. Nor are any by their natural birth or choice 'in Jesus Christ,' since that description belongs to those only who have believed through grace, and learnt, as confessors of Christ crucified, to lay themselves and their expectations, as heirs of the first Adam, in the dust of death; naming now the name of Christ as the sole reason of their hope to Godward, and rejoicing in Him as the tasted fountain of the inward peace which they enjoy. A saint is, in a word, a man not raised by his personal qualities above his fellows, but one who, humbly confessing in the sight of God, and affirming boldly before men, the nullity of every natural claim to either life or honour, boasts only in Christ Jesus, and cares only to know Him.
Now Christ Jesus, the sanctifying object of His people's faith, is no longer upon earth, but is passed into the heavens as the Forerunner of those who are thus greeted by the Spirit as 'in Him.' Their calling, therefore, and their interests are no longer of the earth, on which they remain only as God's witnesses, to testify of Him who for their sakes has returned from earth to heaven,1 and are as pilgrims and strangers — without place or name among the nations — in the constant and unwearied hope of their promised bodily translation to be 'ever with the Lord.'2
It is necessary to draw attention to these facts, because, like other truths of Scripture not less plain and obvious to all who read God's sayings in His light, they are for the most part overlooked entirely in modern estimates of things Christian. Divine teaching in its clear and solemn distinctness has possession only of the ears of God's elect, nor even in their case is it always unalloyed by the vanity of human thought; while the world, no longer repudiating the name of Jesus, though in heart still the enemy of God, gives more or less attention to the teachers of its own providing,3 in whose lips the sound words of true knowledge are not found, and whose gospel is not that which pleases God.4
God's Gospel is to the true believer His power unto salvation, separating to Himself, and thus sanctifying those whose hearts respond to the quickening revelation of His truth.5 'The Christian religion,' as men speak, is, on the other hand, a discretional acknowledgment of the name of Christ, presenting to our contemplation a wide and much diversified moral area, in which truth and falsehood, faith and unbelief, sincerity and guile, lie side by side. It is a thing both social and political; of mighty moral influence among men, but by no necessity divine. It is of and for men as denizens of earth, and concerns itself with heaven (which is the home and centre of the true believer's every thought and wish, because his life is there) remotely only, and as a vague though necessary hope. It is pleased with itself, and foolishly expects God to be pleased with it. For it sports with its own deceivings, while its words are stout against the Lord as it utters thoughts and practises observances which prove that earth has clean supplanted heaven in its heart. For it is a lover of itself, a lover of money, a lover of pleasures more than of God, yet an outward honourer of God, and namer of the name of Christ.6 Its activities and interests are the fruit mainly of humanitarian sentiment and utilitarian foresight rather than of a true zeal of God. The real Church of God's elect and Christ's redeemed exists, indeed, in Christendom, but cannot be identified with it, except through an utter falsifying of God's words.
The name of Jesus — mighty once to sever those who uttered it in faith alike from Jewish blindness and from Gentile ignorance and scorn, and to hold together in the bond of perfectness the naturally heterogeneous aggregate of those who knew the grace of God in truth — has lost none of its vital power in the hearts of God's elect, but has long ceased to separate visibly the living from the dead. Hence the mingled emotions of joy and sorrow which fill the heart of every genuine disciple, as his mind opens to a right understanding of the Scriptures, and a just apprehension of his own calling as a child of God: a joy not to be told in words at his perception of the grace and glory of the Lord in whom he trusts, but shaded, while the day of evil lasts, by a grief no less intense at the spectacle of confusion and evil-working of all kinds which meets the eye and affects the heart of any who seek in modern Christianity a living witness of God, and a distinctly legible epistle of Christ.
What sanctifies God's people is His truth, and that truth has its perfect utterance only in His word. Now unchangeableness is a standing property of the word of God, since it reveals Him and His purposes, with whom is neither variableness nor shadow of turning, while in its simplicity and directness of meaning it abides, for the opened eye of the believer, as a clear shining light, amidst the delusive and ever-shifting haze of merely human thought. There is not a particle of ambiguity in the language of the Lord, or His Apostles, when speaking of the Church in its relation to the world; and the relation thus determined must remain (for a mind subject to divine teaching) unaltered, so long as the Church itself remains on earth. For Christ's disciples are not, nor ever will be, 'of the world;' nor is there, as some dream, any vital power of assimilation within the Church itself, whereby in due time the world is to become identified with that which once it hated and oppressed. The kingdoms of this world are indeed to become at the appointed time the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ,7 but that change will be effected by other means than those which are operating in the present age. To let that abide in us which we have heard from the beginning is the moral condition of our own abiding in the Son and in the Father. To keep God's faithful and true sayings, and until Christ comes to hold fast what we have received, is the mark of true discipleship to the end of our measured days on earth.8
It is in vain, therefore, that attempts are made to bring Scripture into harmony with 'modern thought.' For men's thoughts are not the thoughts of God, although it is a common and highly popular thesis of one class of the many modern corrupters of God's word that natural science — which, if referred to its origin, is seen to be the permitted growth of the original sin9 — is identical in its source and character with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. But if God be true, these men assuredly are liars; and if their error be of the heart as well as brain, they cannot have a place where truth alone is crowned.1
Discursive reflections of this kind cannot be palatable to a hasty or indifferent skimmer of religious books. They will, on the other hand, I venture to think, be endured patiently, if not at first cordially welcomed, by the only class of readers that I care to please; by those, namely, whose hearts are honestly desiring the true knowledge of God as He reveals Himself in the sure testimonies of His Spirit. Let us now return to the Apostle's words: