_UNDAUNTED AND UNITED STEADFASTNESS._
At ver. 27 the letter begins to be hortative. Up to this point the
Apostle has been taking the Philippians into his confidence, in order
that they may share his point of view and see things as He sees them.
Now he begins more directly to call them to the attitude and work which
become them as Christians; but up to ver. 30 the sense of the dear tie
between him and them is still very present, colouring and controlling
his exhortations.
"Be assured," he has been saying, "that by the grace of God, abounding
amid trials, it is well with me; and I have very good hope of yet again
enjoying this honour, that through my means it may be well with
you:--_only_ fix you on this, let this be your concern, to walk as it
becomes the gospel: this is the ground on which you must win your
victory; this is the line on which alone you can make any effectual
contribution to our common welfare, and that of all the Churches." So
the Apostle urges. For, let us be assured of it, while we debate with
ourselves by what efforts and in what lines we can do some stroke of
service to the good cause, or to some special representative of it,
after all the greatest and weightiest thing by far that we can do is to
be thoroughly consistent and devoted in our own Christian walk, living
lives answerable to the gospel.
The original suggests that the Apostle thinks of the Philippians as
citizens of a state, who are to carry on their life according to the
constitution and laws of the state to which they belong. That
citizenship of theirs, as we shall afterwards see, is in heaven (ch.
iii. 20), where Christ their head is gone. The privilege of belonging to
it had reached them through the call of God. And it was their business
on the earth to act out the citizenship, to prove the reality of it in
their conduct, and to manifest to the world what sort of citizenship it
is. Now the standard according to which this is to be done is the gospel
of Christ--the gospel, not only as it contains a code of rules for
practice, but as it reveals the Saviour to whom we are to be conformed,
and discloses a Divine order of holiness and grace to the influence of
which our souls are to bow. And indeed, if our thinking, and speaking,
and acting held some proportion to the gospel we profess to believe; if
they corresponded to the purity, the tenderness, the Divine worth of the
gospel; if from step to step of life we were indeed building ourselves
on our most holy faith, what manner of persons should we be? This opens
more fully in the next chapter.
But we are tried by circumstances; and the same Christianity will take
different manifestations according to the circumstances in which it is
unfolded. For every Christian and for every Christian community much
depends on the shaping influence of the providences of life. The
Apostle, therefore, must have regard to the circumstances of the
Philippians. We are all ready, commonly, to exert ourselves, as we say,
to "improve our circumstances"; and, in one view, it is natural and
fitting enough. Yet it is of more importance--much more--that in the
circumstances as they stand we should bear ourselves in a manner worthy
of the gospel. Some of us are ready to stir heaven and earth in order
that certain unwelcome conditions of our lot may be altered or
abolished. It would be more to the point to walk with God under them as
long as they last. When they have passed away, the opportunity for
faith, love, and service which _they_ have furnished will have passed
away for ever.
The Apostle, therefore, specifies what he wished to see or hear of in
the Philippian Church, as proper to the circumstances in which they
stood. He calls for steadfastness as against influences that might shake
and overthrow, put in motion against them by the enemies of the gospel.
The words suggest the strain of the situation as it was felt in those
small early Churches. It is difficult for us adequately to conceive it.
There was the unfriendly aspect both of Roman law and of public opinion
to unauthorised religious fraternities; there was the hostility of
ardent Jews, skilful to stir into activity enmities which otherwise
might have slumbered; there was the jealousy of religious adventurers of
all kinds with whom that age was becoming rife. But besides, there was
the immense pressure of general unbelief. Christianity had to be
embraced and maintained against the judgment and under the cool contempt
of the immense majority, including the wealth, the influence, the
wisdom, the culture--all that was brilliant, imposing, and conclusive.
This temper was disdainful for the most part: it became bitter and
spiteful if in any instance Christianity came near enough to threaten
its repose. It found, no doubt, active interpreters and representatives
in every class, in every family circle. Christianity was carried forward
in those days by a great spiritual power working with the message. It
needed nothing less than this to sustain the Christian against the
deadweight of the world's adverse verdict, echoing back from every
tribunal by which the world gives forth its judgments. Then, every
feeling of doubt, or tendency to vacillate, created by these influences,
was reinforced by the consciousness of faults and failings among the
Christians themselves.
Against all this faith held its ground, faith clinging to the unseen
Lord. In that faith the Philippians were to stand fast. Not only so;
looking on "the faith" as if it were a spiritual personality, striving
and striven with, they were to throw their own being and energy into
the struggle, that the cause of faith might make head and win fresh
victories. The faith is knocking at many doors, is soliciting many
minds. But much depends on ardent and energetic Christians, who will
throw their personal testimony into the conflict, and who will exert on
behalf of the good cause the magic of Christian sympathy and Christian
love. So they should be fellow-athletes contending on the side of faith,
and in the cause of faith.
In our own day a livelier sense has awakened of the obligation lying
upon Christians to spend and be spent in their Master's cause, and to be
fellow-helpers to the truth. Many voices are raised to enforce the duty.
Still, it cannot be doubted that in most cases this aspect of the
Christian calling is too languidly conceived and too intermittently put
in practice. And many in all the Churches are so little qualified to
labour for the faith, or even stand fast in it, that their Christianity
is only held up externally by the consent and custom of those about
them.
At this point and in this connection the Apostle begins to bring forward
the exhortation to peace and unity which goes forward into the following
chapter. Apparently no steadfastness will, in his view, be "worthy of
the gospel," unless this loving unity is added. If there was a common
instinct of worldliness and unbelief, giving unity to the influences
against which the Philippians had to contend, the operation of a mighty
uniting influence was to be expected on the other side, an influence
Divine in its origin and energy. The subject is brought forward, one
can see, in view of tendencies to disagreement which had appeared at
Philippi. But it was a topic on which the Apostle had intensely strong
convictions, and he was ever ready to expatiate upon it.
We need not be surprised at the earnestness about peace and unity
evinced in the Epistles, nor think it strange that such exhortations
were required. Consider the case of these early converts. What varieties
of training had formed their characters; what prejudices of diverse
races and religions continued to be active in their minds. Consider also
what a world of new truths had burst upon them. It was impossible they
could at once take in all these in their just proportions. Various
aspects of things would strike different minds, and difficulty must
needs be felt about the reconciliation of them. In addition to theory,
practice opened a field of easy divergence. Church life had to be
developed, and Church work had to be done. Rules and precedents were
lacking. Everything had to be planned and built from the foundation. The
very energy of the Christian faith tended to produce energetic
individualities. If all these things are weighed, instead of being
surprised at the rise of difficulties we may rather wonder how
interminable disagreement was averted. The temper of "standing fast"
might seem perhaps likely rather to aggravate than to alleviate some of
these sources of discord.
On the other hand, to the Apostle's mind a glorious unity was one
especial mark of the triumph of the Kingdom of God. That expressed the
victory in all the members of the new society of one influence
proceeding from one Lord; it expressed the prevalence of that new life
the chief element of which is the uniting grace, the grace of love. It
should not be difficult to understand the value which the Apostle set on
this feature in the life of Churches, how he longed to see it, how he
pressed it so ardently on his disciples. Sin, dividing men from God, had
divided them also from one another. It introduced selfishness,
self-seeking, self-worship, self-assertion, everything that tends to
divide. It rent men into separate interests, societies, classes,
worships; and these stood over against one another isolated, jealous,
conflicting. Men had long ago ceased to think it possible to have things
otherwise ordered. They had almost ceased to desire it. How eminently
then did the glory of the redemption in Christ appear in the fact that
by it the dispersed out of all kinds of dispersion were gathered into
one. They were bound to one another as well as to Christ: they became
more conscious of oneness than ever they had been of separation. It
testified to the presence and working of Him who made all, and from whom
all, by different paths, had gone astray.
The means by which this unity was to be maintained was chiefly the
prevalence of the Christian affections in the hearts of believers--the
presence and power of that mind of Christ, of which more must be said in
connection with the following chapter. Certainly the Apostle regards
this as, at any rate, the radical security for unity in life and work,
and without it he does not suppose the unity for which he cares can
exist at all. In this connection it is worth observing that the unity he
is thinking of is chiefly that which should bind together the members of
those little communities which were rising up in various places under
his ministry. It is the harmony of those whose lot is cast in the same
place, who can influence one another, whose plain business it was to
confess Christ together. Wider unity was supposed indeed, and was
rejoiced in; but the maintenance of it had not yet become so much a
practical question. This continued to be the case for some time after
the Apostolic period. Men were anxious to hold each local congregation
together, and to avert local splits and quarrels. If that were done, it
seemed as though nothing further were urgently needed.
Yet the same principles establish the unity of the visible Church
throughout the world, and indicate the discharge of the duties which are
necessary in order to the expression of it. Christians differ indeed
among themselves upon the question how far the Church has received
organic institutions fitted to give expression or embodiment to her
unity; and diversity of judgment on that point is not likely soon to be
removed. For the rest the main thing to observe is that Christ's Church
_is_ one, in root and principle. This applies not only to the Church
invisible, but to the Church visible too. Only the latter, as she falls
short in all service and attainment, falls short also in expressing her
own unity and in performing the duties connected with it. On the one
hand they err who think that because the state of the visible Church is
marred by divisions, therefore unity in her case is a dream, and that
the unity of the Church invisible is alone to be asserted. On the other
hand they err who, on much the same grounds, conclude that only one of
the organised communions can possess the nature and attributes of the
visible Church of Christ. The visible Churches are imperfect in their
unity as they are in their holiness. In both respects their state is
neither to be absolutely condemned nor to be absolutely approved. And no
one of them is entitled to throw upon the rest all the blame of the
measure of disunion. Any one that does so becomes a principal fomenter
of disunion.
This is too wide a subject to follow further. Meanwhile it may be
gathered from what has been said that the most direct application of the
Apostle's language must be, not to the mutual relations of great
communions, but to the mutual relations of Christians in the same local
society. There is great room for such an application of it. Exaggerated
statements may sometimes be made as to the indifference of Christians in
modern congregations to one another's weal or woe; but certainly very
often self-will and bitter feeling are allowed to prevail, as if the
tender ties and solemn obligations of Christian fellowship had been
forgotten. And very often mutual ignorance, indifference, or silent
aversion mark the relations of those who have worshipped God together
for long years. Certainly there is either some element lacking in the
Christianity which is supposed to sustain Church life of this kind, or
else the temperature of it must be low. Hence it comes, too, that the
edification of Christians has so largely dissociated itself from the
fellowship of the Churches to which they still resort, and seeks support
on other lines. It was not so in those earliest Churches. The life and
growth of the Christians were nursed in the Church meetings. There they
gathered to read and sing and pray and break bread; to strengthen one
another against Pagan violence and seduction; to love one another, as
bound together by ties which Pagans never knew; to endure together the
scorn and wrong which Christ's name might bring upon them; and not
impossibly, after they had thus fought side by side, to die together one
triumphant martyr death. Similar conditions have more or less returned
again whenever the Churches have been tolerably pure and united, and
have at the same time been subjected to some sharp pressure of
persecution.
They were to stand fast then in one spirit, cherishing that "spirit of
the mind" which is the immediate fruit of the working of the One Spirit
of God, the common gift of the Father. It is supposed that Christians
know what this is and can recognise it. But they might not be solicitous
enough to maintain it, and they might be betrayed into preferring a
spirit of their own. The Holy Spirit's influence, creating in each of
them the new spirit of the mind, would be the key to right conduct in
their common life. It would inspire a purer wisdom and a higher motive
than the flesh supplies. Recognising it in one another, they would find
themselves confirmed and cheered, established against external
opposition and internal strife. Too easily we content ourselves with
thoughts, words, and deeds which come only from our own private "spirit"
and which are governed by that. We are too careless of living in a
higher region. For the want of this some persons among us are infidels.
They think they can account for all they see in Christians from the
men's own spirit. Their cavil is by no means always true or fair; yet it
finds too much plausible support.
The same unity in the one spirit, with its accompanying vitality,
gladness, and courage, was to characterise their active labours in the
gospel. Let it be remembered that men do not make this attainment in a
moment by stepping across some definite line. They grow into it by
sincerity of aim, and by steadfast endeavour in the strength of Christ.
In this way the "fellowship unto the gospel" (ver. 5), already so
happily characteristic of the Philippians, was to grow yet more in
cordiality, devotedness, and power.
Meanwhile, what were they to make of the attacks directed against them
by those who hated the gospel? This was no doubt a very practical
question. Although persecution of the Christians had not yet revealed
the energy it was afterwards to assume, their lot was often hard
enough. The first burst of trial of this kind exerts a very depressing
influence on some minds: with others the prolonged endurance of it,
wearing out the spirit, is the more dangerous experience. Either way the
dark cloud is felt, suddenly or gradually, shutting out the sky. This
feeling of depression and dismay is to be steadfastly resisted. Enmity,
unpleasant and ominous as it may be, is not to perturb or move you. It
is not to be regarded as a reason for depression or an augury of defeat.
Far otherwise: here should be discerned and grasped a token of salvation
given by God Himself.
It has been said that earthly prosperity was the promise of the Old
Covenant, but adversity that of the New. This is, at least, so far true,
that the necessity and benefit of chastening are very plainly set before
us. Such discipline is part of the salvation secured for us; it is
necessary to lead us aright to final well-being; and it will be
administered to God's children as He sees fit. When it comes, it does
not necessarily indicate special Divine displeasure, still less Divine
ill-will. It does indicate that we have lessons to learn, attainments to
make, and faults to be purged out; it indicates also that God is taking
loving pains with us for these ends. All these things ought to be very
certain to Christians. Yet some Christians, when their own turn comes,
find it very hard to believe so much. Pains, losses, and
disappointments, coming in the very forms they most deprecate, wear
such an unfriendly aspect, that they can only feel scorched and
affronted; and the hurt spirit breaks out in a querulous "Why?" To be so
thrown off our balance is a failure of faith.
But Paul is occupied here with the spirit in which one special form of
trial is to be dealt with. Antipathy, contempt, and persecution are
bitter, very bitter to some sensitive souls; but when they come upon us
as followers of Christ, and for His sake, they have a consolation proper
to themselves. They are to be borne gladly, not only because all
chastening is guided by fatherly love and wisdom, but because this kind
of suffering is our glory. It comes to believers as part of their
fellowship with Christ; and it is such a part of that fellowship as
carries with it a peculiar power of assurance and confirmation.
Christians share with Christ the enmity of the world's unbelief, because
they share with Him the knowledge and love of the Father. If, indeed, by
indulging self-will and passion (though perhaps under religious forms)
we bring enmity on ourselves, then we suffer as evil-doers. But if we
suffer for righteousness, the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us.
Some share of suffering for Christ comes, therefore, as God's gift to
His children, and ought to be valued accordingly.
As to the exact point of the Apostle's remark on the "token" of
perdition and of salvation, two views may be taken. In the line of what
has just been said, he may be understood to mean simply that when God
allows believers to suffer persecution for Christ's sake, it is a sign
of their salvation; just as, on the contrary, to be found opposing and
persecuting God's children is a sign and omen of destruction. As if he
said: "It is not you but they who have cause to be terrified: for lo!
thine enemies, O Lord, for lo! thine enemies shall perish."
This is a scriptural view. Yet both here and in 2 Thess. i. 6 it is
perhaps more precise to say that for the Apostle the special sign of
salvation on the one side, and destruction on the other, is the patience
and calmness with which Christians are enabled to endure their trials.
This patience, while it is a desirable attainment on their part, is also
something secured for them and given to them by their Lord. It is very
precious and should be earnestly embraced. In this view the Apostle
says: "In no wise be terrified by your adversaries; and this
tranquillity of yours shall be a sign, on the one part, of your
salvation, and also, on the other part, if they repent not, of their
destruction. For this tranquillity is a victory given to you by God,
which endures when their malice is exhausted. Does it not tell of a
power working for you which mocks their malice, a power which is well
able to perfect your salvation as well as to overthrow the enemies of
God? So you find coming into experience that which beforehand was given
you by promise. It _was_ given you to believe in Christ, and also to
suffer for Him. Now that you find yourselves enabled to suffer for Him
so calmly, will not that become a sign to confirm all you have
believed?" For the tranquillity of spirit into which faith rises under
persecution is an evidence of the source from which it comes. Much may
be borne by resolute men for any cause in which they have embarked. But
very different from this striving of the human heart hardening itself to
bear, in order that an enemy's malice may not spy out its weakness, are
the calmness and patience given to God's children in the hour of trial.
That bespeaks an inward support more mighty than all sorrow. The
Divineness of it becomes still more conspicuous when it approves itself
as the One Spirit, triumphing in persons of diverse tempers and
characters. This has been a sign to many an unbeliever filling him with
rage and fear. And to the children of God it has been the Spirit
witnessing with their spirit that they _are_ His children.
The Apostle will not allow it to be overlooked that in this point as in
others his Philippian friends and he are tied together in closest
fellowship. This conflict of theirs is the same which they had heard of
and seen as proceeding in his case too. Perhaps we may say of this that
it admonishes us not to think too meanly of our own Christian
experience, and of the questions and decisions which it involves. The
Apostle knew that his Philippian friends regarded his conflict as
something conspicuous and great. He was a standard bearer, on whom much
depended; and then, all the movements of his soul were magnanimous and
grand. But their own experience might seem petty--almost mean; their
trials not very serious, and their way of dealing with them at times so
halting and half-hearted, that it seemed an offence against humility to
make much account of them. If this was the true view, then also it must
be Christ's view; and so a very depressed way of looking at their
calling and their encouragements might set in. The Apostle will not
allow this. He thinks, and they are to think, that it is the same
question that is being fought out in their case as in his--the same
forces are arrayed against one another in both cases--and the victory in
both cases will be equally momentous. So he would quicken their sense of
the situation by the energy and vivacity of his own convictions. It is
unquestionable that Christians suffer much loss by indulging a certain
bastard humility, which leads them to underrate the solemnity of the
interest attaching to their own history. This renders them inattentive
to the serious eyes with which Christ their Master is looking down upon
it.
_THE MIND OF CHRIST._
"If there is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of
love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and
compassions, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having
the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing
through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each
counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his
own things, but each of you also to the things of others."--PHIL.
ii. 1-4 (R.V.).