THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE
PHILIPPIANS ii. 12-18
"Your own salvation"--Stars in the midnight sky--Truth and
holiness--The atonement and the indwelling--Mystery and need of the
indwelling--Indifference in God--Spiritual power shewn in
love--Aggression and witness--The witnesses and the martyr
We have just followed the Apostle as he has followed the Saviour of
sinners from the Throne to the Cross, and from the Cross to the Throne.
And we have remembered the moral motive of that wonderful paragraph of
spiritual revelation. It was written not to occupy the mind merely, or
to elevate it, but to bring the believer's heart into a delightful
subjection to Him who "pleased not Himself," till the Lord should be
reflected in the self-forgetting life of His follower.
In the passage now opening before us we find St Paul's thought still
working in continuity with this argument. He has still in his heart
the risks of friction at Philippi, and the need of meeting them in the
power of the Lord's example. This will come out particularly in the
fourteenth and fifteenth verses, where he deprecates "murmurings and
disputings," and pleads for a life of pure, sweet light and love. But
the line of appeal, though continuous, is now somewhat altered in its
direction. The divine greatness of the love of the Incarnation has,
during his treatment of it, filled him with an intense and profound
recollection of the greatness of the Christian's connexion with his
God, and of the sacred awfulness of his responsibility, and of the
fulness of his resources. So the appeal now is not merely to be
like-minded, and to be watchful for unity. He asks them now to use
fully for a life of holiness the mighty fact of their possession of an
Indwelling God in Christ. The details of precept are as it were
absorbed for the time into the glorious power and principle--only to
reappear the more largely and lastingly in the resulting life.
Ver. 12. +So, my beloved ones+, (he often introduces his most
practical appeals with this term of affection: see for example 1 Cor.
x. 14, xv. 58; 2 Cor. vii. 1,) +just as you always obeyed+[1] me, obey
me now. +Not+ (_me_, the _imperative_ negative) as in my presence
only, influenced by that immediate contact and intercourse, +but now
much more in my absence+, ("much more," as my absence throws you more
directly on your resources in the Lord,) +work out+, develope, +your
own salvation+, your own spiritual safety, health, and joy, +with fear
and trembling+; not with the tortures of misgiving, not driven by a
shrinking dread of your gracious God, but drawn by a tender reverence
and solemn watchfulness, lest you should grieve the eternal Love. Yes,
"work out _your own_ salvation"; do not depend upon _me_; take _your
own_ souls in hand, in a faith and love which look, without the least
earthly intermediation, straight to GOD and to Him alone.[2] For
indeed He is near to you; far nearer than ever a Paul could be; "a very
present help," for
Ver. 13. your safety, and for your holiness. +For God it is who is
effecting+ (_energos_) +in you+, in your very being, in "the first
springs of thought and will," +both your+ (_to_) +willing and your
effecting+, your carrying out the willing, +for His+ (_tes_) +good
pleasure's sake+; in order to the accomplishment through you of all His
holy purposes. Here, in this wonderful immanence, this divine
indwelling, and in its living, operative power, you will find reason
enough alike for the "fear and trembling" of deepest reverence, and for
the calm resourceful confidence of those who can, if need be, "walk
alone," as regards dependence upon even an apostolic friend beside
them. Live then as those who carry about with them the very life and
power of God in Christ. And what will that life be? A life of
spiritual ostentation? Nay, the beautiful and
Ver. 14. gentle opposite to it. +Do all things without+, apart from
(_choris_), in a definite isolation from, +murmurings and disputes+,
thoughts and utterances of discontent and self-assertion towards one
another, grudgings of others' claims, and contentions for your
Ver. 15. own; +so that you may become+ (_genesthe_), what in full
realization you scarcely yet are, +unblamable and simple+ (_akeraioi_,
"unadulterated"), single-hearted, because self-forgetting; +God's
children+ (_tekna_), shewing what they are by the unmistakable
_family-likeness_ of holy love; +blameless+ as such, true to your
character; +in the midst of a race+ (_geneas_) +crooked and distorted+,
the members of a world whose will always crosses the will of God who is
Love; +among whom you are appearing+, like stars which come out in the
gloom, +as luminaries+ (_phosteres_), light-bearers, kindled by the
Lord of Light, +in the world+; in which you dwell; not of it, but in
it, walking up and down "before the sons of men" (Ps. xxxi. 19), that
they may see, and seek,
Ver. 16. your blessed Secret; +holding out+ (_epechontes_[3]), as
those who offer a boon for acceptance, +the word of life+, the Gospel,
with its secret of eternal life in Christ; at once telling and
commending His message; +to afford me+, even me (_emoi_), +exultation,
in view of+ (_eis_) +Christ's Day+, in anticipation of what I shall
feel then; +because not in vain did I run, nor in vain did I toil+.[4]
But let me not speak of "toil" as if I sighed over a hard lot, or
wished to suffer less on your behalf.
Ver. 17. +Nay, even if I am being poured out as a drink-offering+
(_spendomai_) +on the sacrifice and ritual+ (_leitourgia_) +of your
faith+--on you, so to speak, as you in faith offer yourselves a living
sacrifice to God[5]--+I rejoice, and I congratulate+ (_sugchairo_) +you
all+, on your faith and holiness, for which it was well worth my while
to die as your helper and example. +And in+
Ver. 18. +the same way+ (_to de auto_) +do you too rejoice, and
congratulate me+,[6] as true partners with me in the martyr-spirit and
its joys.
Here let us pause in our paraphrasing version, and sit down as it were
to gather up and weigh some of the treasures we have found.
i. We have had before us, in the whole passage, that ever-recurring
lesson, Holiness in the Truth, as Truth--"the Truth as it is in
Jesus"--is the living secret of Holiness. We have still in our ears
the celestial music, infinitely sweet and full, of the great paragraph
of the Incarnation, the journey of the Lord of Love from glory to glory
by the way of the awful Cross. May we not now give ourselves awhile
wholly to reverie, and feast upon the divine poetry at our leisure?
Not so; the immediate sequel is--that we are to be holy. We are _to
act_ in the light and wonder of so vast an act of love, in the wealth
and resource of "so great salvation." We are to set spiritually to
work. We are to learn that all-important lesson in religion, the holy
and humble energy and independence which come to the man who "knows
whom he has believed," and is aware that he possesses "all spiritual
blessing" (Eph. i. 3) in Him. We are to rise up and, if need be, walk
alone, alone of human help, in the certainty that Christ has died for
us, and reigns for us, and in us. Our Paul may be far away in some
distant Rome, and we may sorely miss him. But we have at hand Jesus
Christ, who "took Bondservant's Form," and obeyed even unto death for
us, and who is on the eternal throne for us, and who lives within us by
His Spirit. Looking upon Him in the glory of His Person and His Work,
we are not only to wonder, not only even to worship; we are to work; to
"work out" our spiritual blessings[7] into a life which shall be full
of Him, and in which we shall indeed be "saved" ourselves, and help
others around us to their salvation. In the "fear and trembling" of
those who feel the blissful awfulness of an eternal Presence, we are to
set ourselves, with the inexhaustible diligence of hope, to the
business of the spiritual life. We are to bring all the treasures of a
manifested and possessed Redeemer to bear upon the passing hour, and to
let Him be seen in us, "Christ our Life," always formative and
empowering.
ii. We have here in particular that deep secret of the Gospel,
unspeakably precious to the soul which indeed longs to be holy--the
Indwelling of God in the believer. It here appears in close and
significant connexion with the revelation of the love and work of the
Incarnate and Atoning Lord; as if to remind us without more words that
He who gave Himself for us did so not only to release us (blessed be
His Name) from an infinite peril, from the eternal prison and death of
a violated law, but yet more that He might bring His rescued ones into
an unspeakable nearness in Him to God. His was no _mere_ compassion,
which could set a guilty captive free. It was eternal love, which
could not be content without nearness to its object, without union with
it, without a dwelling in the very heart by faith. As if it was a
matter of course in the plan of God, St Paul passes from the Cross and
the Glory of Jesus to the Indwelling of God in the Christian, and to
all the rest and all the power which that Indwelling is to bring.
"It is God who is working in you, effecting alike your willing and your
working; for the sake of His good pleasure." These are words of deep
mystery. They contain matter which has exercised the closest thought
of some of the greatest thinkers of the Church. _Operatur in nobis
velle_; "He worketh in us to will." How is this to be reconciled with
the reality, and in that sense the freedom, of the human will? What
relation does it bear to human responsibility, and to the call to
watch, and pray, and labour? Very soon, over such questions, we have,
in the phrase of the Rabbis, to "teach our tongue to say, _I do not
know_." But the words appear _in this context_ with a purpose
perfectly simple and practical, whatever be their more remote and
hidden indications. They do indeed intimate to us a reality and energy
in the divine sovereignty which may well correct those dreams of
self-salvation which man is so ready to dream. But their more
immediate purpose is as simple as it is profound. It is on the one
hand to solemnize the disciple with the remembrance of such an inward
_Presence_, and on the other hand to make him always glad and ready,
recollecting that such an inward _Power_ is there, altogether for his
highest good, and altogether in the line of the eternal purpose
(_eudokia_). For the while at least let us drop out of sight all hard
questions of theoretical adjustment between the finite will and the
Infinite, and rest quite simply in that thought:--God is in me, working
the willing and the doing. The willing is genuine, and is mine. The
working is genuine, and is mine. _My_ will chooses Him, and _my_
activity labours for Him; both are real, and are personally mine. But
He is at the back; He is at "the pulse of the machine"; I, His personal
creature, am held in no less a hold than His, to be moulded and to be
employed; His implement, His limb.
Not very long ago I was in conversation with a young but deeply
thoughtful Christian, who, placed on a difficult social height, was
seeking with deep desire not only to "follow the Lamb whithersoever He
goeth" but to lead others similarly circumstanced to do the same. I
was struck with the strong consciousness which possessed that heart,
that the religious life must inevitably be a weary and exhausting
effort on any other condition than this--"God working in us, to will
and to do." "Ah, they all say that it is so hard; no one can really do
it; no one can keep it up. But we must speak to them about the
indwelling Spirit of God, about the Lord's power in us; _then_ they
will find that it is possible, and is happy."
_Choris emou_--"isolated from Me (John xv. 5)--_ye can do nothing_";
and what seems our "doing" will, in such isolation, be only too sorely
felt to be a weary toil. But let us accept it as true, at the foot of
the atoning Cross, that the Indwelling of God in Christ is as much a
fact as our pardon and adoption in Him, and we shall know something of
the blessed life. Only, we must not only accept it as true, but use
it. "_Work out_--for it is God who is _working in_ you."
And, let us remember it once more, we shall learn in that quiet School
not only a restful energy but also that holy independence (_ten heauton
soterian_) which is, in its place, the priceless gain of the Christian.
Our spiritual life is indeed intended to be social in its issues--but
not at its root. We accept and thankfully use every assistance given
us by our Lord's care, as we live our life in His Church; yet our life,
as to its source, is to be still "hidden with Christ in God." We are
to be so related to Him, in faith, that our soul's health, growth,
gladness, shall depend not on the presence of even a St Paul at our
side, but on the presence of God in our hearts. Let us cherish this
blessed certainty, and develope it into experience, in these strange
days of unrest and drift. That secret independence will do anything
but isolate us from our fellows. It will make us fit, as nothing else
could make us, to be their strength and light, in truest sympathy, in
kindest insight, in the fullest sense of loving partnership. But we
must learn independence in God if we would be fully serviceable to man.
iii. We have in this passage one of the richest and most beautiful
expressions found in the whole New Testament of that great principle,
that at the very heart of a true life of holiness there needs to lie
the law of holy kindness. The connexion of thought between ver. 13 and
ver. 14 is deeply suggestive here. In ver. 13 we have the power and
wonder of the operative Indwelling of God. In ver. 14 we have depicted
the true conduct of the subjects of the Indwelling; and it shines with
the sweet light of humility and gentleness. It is a life whose hidden
power, which is nothing less than divine, comes out first and most in
the absence of the grudging, self-asserting spirit; in a watchful
consistency and simplicity; in the manifestation of the
_child_-character, as the believer moves about "in the midst of" the
hard and most unchildlike conditions of an unregenerate world. There
is to be action as well as patience; this we shall see presently. The
disciple is to be aggressive, in the right way, as well as submissive.
But the first and deepest characteristic of his wonderful new life is
to be the submission of himself to others, "in the Lord, and in the
power of His might." We have this aspect of practical holiness
presented to us often in the general teaching of the New Testament; but
seldom is it so explicitly connected as it is here with that other
spiritual fact, the presence in us of the divine _power_. Perhaps our
best parallels come from the two other Epistles of the Roman Captivity,
Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians, the third chapter closes with
the astonishing prayer that the Christian (the everyday Christian, be
it remembered) may be, through the Indwelling of Christ, "filled unto
all the fulness of God"; and then the fourth chapter begins at once
with the appeal to him to live "_therefore_" a life of "all lowliness,
meekness, longsuffering, and forbearance in love." In Colossians we
have the same sequence of thought in one noble sentence (ver. 11) of
the first chapter: "Strengthened with all strength, according to the
might of His glory, _unto all patience and longsuffering, with
joy_."[8] In all three passages comes out the same deep and beautiful
suggestion. "The Lord is not in the wind" so much as in "the still
small voice." Omnipotent Love, in its blessed immanence in the
believer's soul, shews its presence and power most of all in a life _of
love_ around. It is to come out not only in self-sacrificing energy
but in the open sympathies of an affectionate heart, in the "soft
answer," in the generous first thought for the interests of others--in
short, in the whole character of 1 Cor. xiii. The spiritual "power"
which runs rather in the direction of harshness and isolation, which
expends itself rather in censures than in "longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, and meekness," is not the kind of "power" which most accords
with the apostolic idea. Nothing which violates the plain precepts of
the law of love can take a true part in that heavenly harmony.
"On earth, as in the holy place,
Nothing is great but charity." [9]
iv. Meanwhile the "charity" of the saints is not by any means the mere
amiability which makes itself pleasant to every one, and forgets the
solemn fact that we who believe are the servants of a Master whom the
world knows not, the messengers of a King against whom it is in revolt.
The Philippian disciple was to renounce the spirit of unkindness, of
self; he was to live _isolated_ from (_choris_) "murmurings and
disputings." But he was not to hide the sacred Light, for the sake of
so-called peace, from the world around. He was to "hold out the word
of life"; confessing his blessed Lord as the life of his own soul, and
so commending Him to the souls of his fellows. He was to make this a
part of his very existence and its activities. As truly as it was to
be his habit to live a life of sweet and winning consistency, it was to
be his habit to offer (_epechein_) the water of life to the parched
hearts around him, the lamp of glory to the dark and bewildered whom he
encountered upon the difficult road. The truth and beauty of a _life_
possessed by Christ was to be the basis of his witnessing activities.
But the witness was to be articulate, not merely implied; he was to
"hold out _the word_ (_logon_) of life"; he was to seize occasion to
"give _a reason_ (_logon_) of the hope that was in him, with meekness
and fear" (1 Pet. iii. 15). To be, in his way, an evangelist was to be
one main function of his life. In benignant and gracious conduct he
was to be as a "luminary" (_phoster_), moving calm and bright in the
dark hemisphere of the world. But he was to be a voice as well as a
star. He was not only to shine; he was to speak.
Here is one of the passages, by the way, in which the Apostle assumes,
and stimulates, the "missionary consciousness" of the converts. It is
remarkable that neither he nor his brethren have much to say in the
Epistles about the duty of enterprises of evangelization, as laid upon
all believers. The stress of their appeals is directed above all
things on the supreme importance of holiness, at any cost, in common
life. But a passage like this shews us how entirely they take it for
granted all the time that the Churches would never concentrate
themselves upon merely their own Christian life; they would go out
continually, with the beauty of holiness and with "the word of life,"
to bring the wanderers in, and to extend the knowledge of the blessed
Name. So, and so only, would their Apostle feel, in his prison at
Rome, that his "running" (_edramon_) on the great circuit of his
evangelistic journeys, and his pastoral "toil" (_ekopiasa_) for the
souls of his converts, had not been thrown "into the void" (_eis to
kenon_).
So, and so only, would his life and death of sacrifice for them be
crowned with its perfect joy. Let him see his beloved converts living
and speaking as indeed the Lord's _witnesses_, and then with what
inward "gladness" (_chairein_), with what a call for "congratulation"
(_sugchairein_) on their part, would he go out to death as the Lord's
_martyr_!
[1] _Upekousate_: the aorist. It gathers into one thought the whole
recollection of his work at Philippi.
[2] "There is not the slightest contradiction here to the profound
truth of the Justification by Faith only; that is to say, only for the
merit's sake of the Redeemer, appropriated by submissive trust; that
justification whose sure issue is glorification (Rom. viii. 30). It is
an instance of independent lines converging on one goal. From one
point of view, that of justifying merit, man is glorified because of
Christ's work alone, applied to his case through faith alone. From
another point, that of qualifying capacity, and of preparation for the
Lord's individual welcome (Matt. xxv. 21; Rom. ii. 7), man is glorified
as the issue of a process of work and training, in which in a true
sense he is himself operant, though grace lies below the whole
operation." (Note on this verse in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools
and Colleges_).
[3] It is possible to render _logon xoee epechontes_, "serving as life
(to the world)." But it is unlikely. See Philippians in _The
Cambridge Greek Testament_, Appendix.
[4] The aorists obviously are anticipatory; giving the review of the
past as he will then make it. Cp. e.g. _kathos epegnosthen_, 1 Cor.
xiii. 12.
[5] "He views the Philippians, in their character of consecrated
believers (cp. Rom. xii. 1), as a holocaust to God; and upon that
sacrifice the drink-offering, the outpoured wine, is his own
life-blood, his martyrdom for the Gospel which he has preached to them.
Cp. Num. xv. 5 for the Mosaic libation, _oinon eis sponden_ . . .
_poisete epi tes holokautoseos_. Lightfoot thinks that a reference to
pagan libations is more likely in a letter to a Gentile mission. But
surely St Paul familiarized all his converts with Old Testament
symbolism. And _his own_ mind was of course full of it (Note here in
_The Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools_).--This and Rom. xv. 16 are
the only two passages where St Paul connects the language of
"sacerdotalism" with the distinctive work of the Christian ministry;
and both passages speak obviously in the tone of figure and, so to say,
poetry.
[6] _Chairete_: _sugchairete_. The form leaves us free to render
either _indicative_ or _imperative_. But the latter is most likely in
the context.
[7] _Soteria_ must here include not only final glory but the whole
blessing possessed now and always in the _Soter_.
[8] "Observe the holy paradox of the thought here. The fulness of
divine power in the saints is to result primarily not in 'doing some
great thing' but in enduring and forbearing, with heavenly joy of
heart. The paradox points to one deep characteristic of the Gospel,
which prepares the Christian for service by the way of a true
abnegation of himself as his own strength and his own aim." (Note on
Col. i. 11 in _The Cambridge Bible_).
[9] A. Vinet, _Hymn on the Crucifixion_, translated by C. W. Moule.
"O thou who makest souls to shine
With light from brighter worlds above,
And droppest glistening dew divine
On all who seek a Saviour's love,
"Do Thou Thy benediction give
On all who teach, on all who learn,
That all Thy Church may holier live,
And every lamp more brightly burn.
* * * * *
"If thus, good Lord, Thy grace be giv'n
Our glory meets us ere we die;
Before we upward pass to heav'n
We taste our immortality."
J. ARMSTRONG.
TIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS
"Puisse la meme foi qui consola leur vie
Nous ouvrir les sentiers que leurs pas ont presses,
Et, dirigeant nos pieds vers la sainte patrie
Ou leur bonheur s'accroit de leurs travaux passes,
Nous rendre ces objets de tendresse et d'envie
Qui ne sont pas perdus, mais nous ont devances."
A. VINET