_WORKING AND SHINING._
After his great appeal to the mind of Christ, the Apostle can pursue his
practical object; and he can do so with a certain tranquillity,
confident that the forces he has just set in motion will not fail to do
their work. But yet that same appeal itself has tended to broaden and
deepen the conception of what should be aimed at. He had deprecated the
arrogant and the selfish mind, as these are opposed to lovingkindness
and regard for others. But now, in presence of the great vision of the
Incarnation and obedience of Christ, the deeper note of lowliness must
be struck in fit accord with that of love; not only lowliness in the way
of doing ready honour to others, but deep and adoring lowliness towards
God, such as is due both from creatures and from sinners. For if
Christ's love fulfilled itself in such a perfect humility, how deeply
does it become us to bear towards God in Christ a mind of penitence and
gratitude, of loving awe and wonder, such as shall at the same time for
ever exclude from our bearing towards others both pride and
self-seeking. In this way the one practical object suggested by the
circumstances at Philippi--namely, loving unity--now allies itself
naturally with ideas of complete and harmonious Christian life; and
various views of that life begin to open. But each aspect of it still
proves to be connected with the gracious and gentle mind of Christ, in
the lowly form of that mind which is appropriate for a sinner who is
also a believer.
So then they are to apply themselves to the "calling wherewith they are
called," in a spirit of "fear and trembling." The phrase is a common one
with the Apostle (1 Cor. ii. 3; 2 Cor. vii. 15; Eph. v. 6). He uses it
where he would express a state of mind in which willing reverence is
joined with a certain sensitive anxiety to escape dangerous mistakes and
to perform duty well. And it is fitly called for here, for
1. If lowliness so became the Divine Saviour, who was full of grace,
wisdom, and power, then what shall be the mind of those who in great
guilt and need have found part in the salvation, and who are going
forward to its fulness? What shall be the mind of those who, in this
experience, are looking up to Christ--_looking up to_ lowliness? Surely
not the spirit of strife and vainglory (ver. 3), but of fear and
trembling--the mind that dreads to be presumptuous and arrogant, because
it finds the danger to be still near.
2. The salvation has to be wrought out. It must come to pass in your
case in the line of your own endeavour. Having its power and fulness in
Christ, and bestowed by Him on you, yet this deliverance from distance,
estrangement, darkness, unholiness, is given to believers to be wrought
out: it comes as a right to be realised, and as a power to be exercised,
and as a goal to be attained. Think of this,--you have in hand your own
salvation--great, Divine, and wonderful--to be _wrought out_. Can you go
about it without fear and trembling? Consider what you are--consider
what you believe--consider what you seek--and what a spirit of lowly and
contrite eagerness will pervade your life! This holds so much the more,
because the salvation itself stands so much in likeness to Christ--that
is to say, in a loving lowliness. Let a man think how much is in him
that tends, contrariwise, to self-assertion and self-seeking, and he
will have reason enough to fear and tremble as he lays fresh hold on the
promises, and sets his face to the working out of this his own
salvation.
3. This very working out, from whom does it come? Are you the
explanation and last source of it? What does it mean? Wherever it takes
place, it means that, in a very special sense, God's mighty presence and
power is put forth in us to will and to do. Shall not this thought quell
our petulance? Where is room now for anything but fear and trembling--a
deep anxiety to be lowly, obedient, compliant?
Whether, therefore, we look to the history of the Saviour, or to the
work to which our own life is devoted, or to the power that animates
that work and on which it depends--in all alike we find ourselves
committed to the lowly mind; and in all alike we find ourselves beset
with a wealth of free beneficence, which lays obligation on us to be
self-forgetting and loving. We are come into a wonderful world of
compassionate love. That is the platform on which we stand--the light we
see by--the music that fills our ears--the fragrance that rises on every
side. If we are to live here, there is only one way for it--there is
only one kind of life that _can_ live in this region. And, being, as we
are, alas, so strangely coarse and hard--even if this gospel gladdens
us, there may well thrill through our gladness a very honest and a very
contrite "fear and trembling."
Now all this is by the Apostle persuasively urged upon his Philippian
children (ver. 12): "As ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence
only, but now much more in my absence." For, indeed, it proves easy
comparatively for our human indolence to yield to the spell of some
great and forcible personality when he is present. It is even pleasant
to allow ourselves to be borne on by the tide of his enthusiastic
goodness. And when the Apostle was at Philippi, it might come easier to
many of them to feel the force and scope of their calling in Christ. And
yet now that he was gone, now was the time for them to prove for
themselves, and evince to others, the durable worth of the great
discovery they had made, and the thoroughness of the decision which had
transformed their lives. Now, also, was the time to show Paul himself,
that their "obedience" was of the deep and genuine quality which alone
could give content to him.
Such in general seems to be the scope of these two verses. But one or
two of the points deserve to be considered a little before we go on.
Mark how emphatically the Apostle affirms the great truth, that every
good thing accompanying salvation which comes to pass in Christians is
of the mighty power and grace of God. Therefore Christianity must stand
so much in asking and in thanking. It is God that worketh in you. He
does it, and no other than He; it is His prerogative. He worketh to will
and to do. The inclination of the heart and the purpose of the will are
of Him; and the striving to bring forth into act and deed what has been
so conceived--that also is of Him. He quickens those who were dead in
trespasses and sins; He gives the renewing of the Holy Ghost; He makes
His children perfect, working in them that which is well pleasing in His
sight through Jesus Christ. All this He does in the exercise of His
proper power, in the "exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who
believe"--"according to the working of His mighty power, which wrought
in Christ when He was raised from the dead." Apparently we are to take
it that in the children of God there is the new heart, or new nature, in
respect of which they are new creatures; and also the indwelling of God
by His Spirit; and also the actual working of the same Spirit in all
fruits of righteousness which they bring forth to the glory and praise
of God. And these three are so connected, that regard should be had to
all of them when we contemplate each.
He worketh to will and to do. From Him all godly desires and purposes
proceed--from Him, every passage in our lives in which the "salvation
that is in Christ Jesus" is by us received, put to proof, wrought out
into the transactions of our lives. It must be so, if we will only think
of it. For this "salvation" involves an actual, and in principle a
complete agreement with God, affirmed and embodied in each right
thought, and word, and deed. Whence could this flow but from Himself?
In their statements and explanations about this Christians have
differed. The difference has been mainly on the point, how to make it
clear that men are not dealt with as inert nor as irresponsible; that
they must not hold themselves excused from working on the ground that
God works all. For all agree that men are called to the most serious
earnestness of purpose and the most alert activity of action; but the
theorising of this activity occasions debate. It is from the motive of
trying to make more room for these indispensable elements on the human
side, that modes of statement have been suggested which limit or explain
away the Apostle's statement here. The motive is commendable, but the
method is not commonly successful. All efforts to divide the ground
between God and man go astray. In the inward process of salvation, and
especially in this "willing and doing," God does all, and also man does
all. But God takes precedence. For it is He that quickeneth the dead,
and calleth things that are not as though they were. Here we may say, as
the Apostle does in another case, "This is a great mystery." Let us
recognise it as a mystery bound up with any hope we ourselves have of
proving to be children of God. And under the sense of it, with fear and
trembling let us work, for it is God that worketh in us to will and to
do.
He worketh in us to will. When I trace back any of my actions to the
fountain where it takes its rise _as mine_, I find that fountain in my
will. The materials which I take up into my act, the impressions which
gather together to create a situation for me, may all have their
separate history going back in the order of cause and effect to the
beginning of the world; but that which makes it mine, is that _I will_,
_I choose_, and thereupon I do it. Therefore also it is that I must
answer for it, because it is mine. I willed it, and in willing it I
created something which pertains to me, and to no other; something began
which is mine, and the responsibility for it cleaves only to me. But in
the return to God through Christ, and in the working out of that
salvation, there are acts of mine, most truly mine; and yet in these
another Will, the Will of Him who saves, is most intimately concerned.
He worketh in us to will. It is not an enslaving, but an emancipating
energy. It brings about free action, yet such as fulfils a most gracious
Divine purpose. So these "willings" embody a consent, a union of heart
and mind and will, His and mine, the thought of which is enough to bow
me to the ground with "fear and trembling." This is He who gathereth the
dispersed of Israel into one.
On the other hand, the salvation is to be wrought out by us. To have
faith in the Son of God in exercise and prevalence; to have heart and
life formed to childlike love of God, and to the fulfilment of His will;
to carry this out against the flesh and the world and the devil,--all
this is a great career of endeavour and attainment. It is much to make
the discoveries implied in it: finding out at each stage the meaning of
it, and how it should take shape. It is much to have the heart brought
to beat true to it, to love it, consent to it, be set upon it. It is
much to embody it in faithful and successful practice in the rough
school of life, with its actual collision and conflict. Now the nature
and working of God's grace at each stage is of this kind, that it
operates in three ways at least. It operates as a _call_, an effectual
call, setting a man on to arise and go. It operates also in a way of
instruction, setting us to learn lessons, _teaching_ us how to live, as
it is said in Titus ii. 11, 12. And it operates as a _power_, as help in
time of need. He that sits still at the call--he that will not be
considerate to learn the lesson--he that will not cast himself on the
strength perfected in weakness, that he may fulfil and do the Father's
will--he is a man who despises and denies the grace of God.
* * * * *
Now what has been said of the believer's relation to the saving God,
prepares the way for referring to his office towards the world. Here the
moral and practical theme which is in the Apostle's mind all through
proves again to be in place: the lowly and loving mind will best
discharge that office towards the world, which the arrogant and
distempered mind would hinder. "Do all things without murmurings and
disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless."
A murmuring and disputatious temper--murmuring at what displeases us,
and multiplying debate about it--is simply one form of the spirit which
Paul deprecates all through this context. It is the sign of the
disposition to value unduly one's own ease, one's own will, one's own
opinion, one's own party, and to lie at the catch for opportunities to
bring that feeling into evidence. Now observe the harm which the Apostle
anticipates. It is your office to serve God by making a right impression
on the world. How shall that come to pass? Chiefly, or at least
primarily, the Apostle seems to say, by the absence of evil. At least,
that is the most general and the safest notion of it, with which to
begin. Some, no doubt, make impressions by their eloquence, or by their
wisdom, or by their enterprising and successful benevolence--though all
these have dangers and drawbacks attending them, in so far as the very
energy of action provides a shelter for unperceived self-will. Still,
let them have their place and their praise. But here is the line that
might suit all. A man whose life stands clear of the world's
deformities, under the influence of a light and a love from which the
world is estranged, gradually makes an impression.
Now murmuring and disputing are precisely adapted to hinder this
impression. And sometimes they hinder it in the case of people of high
excellence--people who have much sound and strong principle, who have
large benevolence, who are capable of making remarkable sacrifices to
duty when they see it. Yet this vice, perhaps a surface vice, of
murmuring and disputing, is so suggestive of a man's self being
uppermost, it so unpleasantly forces itself in as the interpretation of
the man, that his real goodness is little accounted of. At all events,
the peculiar purity of the Christian character--its blamelessness and
harmlessness, its innocence--does not in his case come to light. People
say: "Ah, he is one of the mixed ones, like ourselves. Christian
devoutness suits some people: they are sincere enough in it very likely;
but it leaves them, after all, pretty much as it found them."
I say no more about murmuring and disputing as these reveal themselves
in our relations to others. But the same spirit, and attended in its
operations with the same evil effects, may manifest itself in other
ways besides that of unkindness to men. As frequently, perhaps, it may
show itself in our behaviour towards God; and in that case it interferes
at least as seriously with the shining of our light in the world.
Just as in the camp of Israel of old on many memorable occasions there
arose a murmuring of the people against God, when His ways crossed their
will, or seemed dark to their wisdom; just as, on such occasions, there
broke out among the people the expression of doubt, dislike, and
disputation, and they criticised those Divine dealings which should have
been received with trust and lowliness,--so is it also, many a time, in
the little world within us. There are such and such duties to be
discharged and such and such trials to be encountered--or else a general
course of duty is to be pursued under certain discouragements and
perplexities. And, you submit, you do these things. But you do them with
murmuring and disputing in your heart. Why should it be thus? "How is it
fit," you say, "that such perplexities or such burdens should be
appointed? Is it not reasonable, all things considered, that I should
have more indulgence and greater facilities; or, at least, that I should
be excused from this conflict and this burden-bearing for the present?"
Meanwhile our conscience is satisfied because we have not rebelled in
practice; and it takes no strict account of the fretfulness which marred
our act, or the grumbling which well-nigh withheld us from compliance.
You are called, perhaps, to speak to some erring friend, or you have to
go on a message of mercy to some one in affliction. Indolently you
postpone it; and your heart begins to stretch out its arms and to cling
to the careless temper it has begun to indulge. At last conscience
stirs, conscience is up, and you have to do something. But what you do
is done grudgingly, with a heart that is murmuring and disputing. Again,
you are called to deny yourself some worldly pleasure; in Christian
consistency you have to hold back from some form of dissipation; or you
have to take up a position of singularity and separation from other
people. Reluctantly, you comply; only "murmuring and disputing." Now
this inward temper may never come to any man's knowledge, but shall we
suppose it does not tell on the character and the influence of the life?
Can you, in that temper, play your part with the childlike, the
cheerful, the dignified bearing, with the resemblance to Christ in your
action, which God calls for? You cannot. The duty as to the husk and
shell of it may be done; but there can be little radiation of Christ's
likeness in the doing of it.
Notice the Apostle's conception of the function which believers are to
discharge in the world. They are set in the midst of a crooked and
perverse nation. These words were applied to the children of Israel of
old on account of the stubborn insubordination with which they dealt
with God; and they were applicable, for the same reason, to the
Gentiles, among whom the gospel had come, but who had not bowed to it.
Judged by the high and true standard, these Gentiles were crooked and
perverse in their ways with one another, and still more so in their ways
with God. Among them the Christians were to show what Christianity was,
and what it could do. In the Christians was to appear, embodied, the
testimony proposed to the crooked and perverse nation, a testimony
against its perverseness, and yet revealing a remedy for it. In the
persons of men, themselves originally crooked and perverse, this was to
become plain and legible. Now how? Why, by their being blameless and
harmless, the sons of God without rebuke.
It has been remarked already that the special way in which we are to
manifest to the world the light of Christianity is here represented as
the way of blamelessness. That man aright represents the mind of Christ
to the world, who in the world keeps himself unspotted from the
world,--in whom men recognise a character that traces up to a purer
source elsewhere. As years pass, as cross lights fall upon the life,
even in its most common and private workings, if it still proves that
the man is cleansed by the faith he holds, if the unruly working of
interest, and passion, and will, give way in him to motives of a higher
strain, men will be impressed. They will own that here is something rare
and high, and that some uncommon cause is at the bottom of it. For the
world knows well that even the better sort of men have their weaker
side, often plainly enough revealed by the trials of time. Therefore
steadfast purity makes, at last, a deep impression.
Innocence indeed is not the whole duty of a Christian; active virtue is
required as well. The harmlessness called for is not a mere negative
quality--it is supposed to be exhibited in an active life which strives
to put on Christ Jesus. But the Apostle seems to lay stress especially
on a certain quiet consistency, on a lowly and loving regard to the
whole standard, which gives evenness and worthiness to the life. If you
will do a Christian's office to the "perverse nation," you have to seek
that they may have nothing against you except concerning the law of your
God; you have to seek that your reproach may be exclusively the reproach
of Christ: so that if at any time the malice of men seeks to misconstrue
your actions, and lays to your charge things which you know not, your
well-doing may silence them; and having no evil thing to say of you,
they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in
Christ.
Strong appeals are made in our day to members of the Christian Church to
engage actively in all kinds of Christian work. They are summoned to go
forth aggressively upon the world's misery and sin. This has become a
characteristic note of our time. Such appeals were needed. It is a shame
that so many Christians have absolved themselves from the obligation to
place at their Lord's service the aptitudes and the energies with which
He has endowed them. Yet in this wholesale administration diversities
are apt to be overlooked. Christians may be undervalued who do not
possess qualities fitting them for the special activities; or,
attempting these without much aptitude, and finding little success, they
may be unduly cast down. It is important to lay stress on this. There
are some, perhaps we should say many, who must come to the conclusion,
if they judge aright, that their gifts and opportunities indicate for
them, as their sphere, a somewhat narrow round of duties, mostly of that
ordinary type which the common experience of human life supplies. But if
they bring into these a Christian heart; if they use the opportunities
they have; if they are watchful to please their Lord in the life of the
family, the workshop, the market; if the purifying influence of the
faith by which they live comes to light in the steady excellence of
their character and course,--then they need have no sense of exclusion
from the work of Christ and of His Church. They, too, do missionary
work. Blameless, harmless, unrebuked, they are seen as lights in the
world. They contribute, in the manner that is most essential of all, to
the Church's office in the world. And their place of honour and reward
shall be far above that of many a Christian busybody, who is too much
occupied abroad to keep the light clear and bright at home.
Blameless, then, harmless, unaspersed, must the children of God, His
redeemed children, be. So will the light of Christian character come
clearly out, and Christians will be "luminaries, holding forth the word
of life."
The word of life is the message of salvation as it sets forth to us
Christ, and goodness and blessedness by Him. Substantially it is that
teaching which we have in the Scriptures; although, when Paul wrote, the
New Testament was not yet a treasure of the Churches, and the "word of
life" only echoed to and fro from teacher to taught, and from one
disciple to another. Still, the teaching rested on the Old Testament
Scriptures understood in the light of the testimony of Jesus; and it was
controlled and guided by men speaking and writing in the Spirit. What it
was therefore was very well known, and the influence of it as the seed
of life eternal was felt. It was for Christians to _hold by it_, and to
_hold it out_,--the expression used in ver. 16 may have either meaning;
and virtually both senses are here. In order to give light there must be
life. And Christian life depends on having in us the word, quick and
powerful, which is to dwell in us richly in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding. This must be the secret of blameless Christian lives; and
so those who have this character will give light, as holding forth the
word of life. The man's visible character itself does this. For while
the word and message of life is to be owned, professed, in fit times
proclaimed, yet the embodiment of it in the man is the main point here,
the character being formed and the practice determined by the "word"
believed. So also we are said to live by the faith of the Son of God.
The life of faith on Him, is the life of having and holding forth His
word.
Here, as everywhere, our Lord goes first. The Apostle John, speaking in
his Gospel of the Eternal Word, tells us that in Him was life, and the
life was the light of men. It was not merely a doctrine of light; the
life was the light. As He lived, in His whole being, in His acting and
suffering, in His coming and staying and departing, in His Person and in
His discharge of every office, He manifested the Father. Still we find
it so; as we contemplate Him, as His words leads us to Himself, we
behold the glory, the radiance of grace and truth.
Now His people are made like Him. They too, through the word of life,
become partakers of true life. This life does not dwell in them as it
does in their Lord, for He is its original seat and source; hence they
are not the light of the world in the same sense in which He is so.
Still they are luminaries, they are stars in the world. By manifesting
the genuine influence of the word of life which dwells in them, they do
make manifest in the world what truth and purity and salvation are. This
is their calling; and, in a measure, it is their attainment.
The view of the matter given here may be compared with that in 2 Cor.
iii. 4. Christ, the Father's Word, may also be regarded as the Father's
living Epistle. Then those who behold Him, and drink in the significance
of this message, are also themselves, in their turn, Epistles of
Christ, known and read of all men.
So to shine is the calling of all believers, not of some only; each,
according to his opportunities, may and ought to fulfil it. God designs
to be glorified, and to have His salvation justified, in this form.
Christ has said, in the plainest terms, "Ye are the light of the world."
But to be so implies separateness from the world, in root and in fruits;
and that is for many a hard saying. "Ye are a holy nation, a peculiar
people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who called you out
of darkness into His marvellous light."
In the sixteenth and following verses comes in again Paul's own share in
the progress and victory of the Christian life in his friends. "It would
be exceeding well," he seems to say, "for you; how well, you may gather
partly from learning how well it would be for me." He would have cause
to "rejoice in the day of Christ" that he had "not run in vain, neither
laboured in vain." What might be said on this has been anticipated in
the remarks made on ch. i., ver. 20 fol. But here the Apostle is
thinking of something more than the toil and labour expended in the
work. More than these was to fall to his lot. His life of toil was to
close in a death of martyrdom. And whether the Apostle was or was not
enabled to foresee this certainly, doubtless he looked forward to it as
altogether probable. So he says: "But if I be offered (or poured out as
a drink-offering) in the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and
rejoice with you all; and do ye also likewise joy and rejoice with me."
To see the force of this expression we must remember that it was an
ancient custom to seal and complete a sacrifice by the pouring out of a
libation on the altar or at the foot of it. This might be intended as
the crowning testimony of the abundant freewill with which the service
had been rendered and the sacrifice had been offered. To some such rite
the Apostle alludes when he speaks of himself--that is to say, of his
own life--as poured forth at the sacrifice and service of their faith.
And it is not hard to understand the idea which dictates this mode of
speech.
We read in Romans xii. an exhortation to the saints to yield themselves
a living _sacrifice_, which sacrifice is their reasonable _service_.
They were to do so in the way of not being conformed to the world, but
transformed by the renewing of their minds. So here: the course of
conduct which the Apostle had been exhorting the Philippians to pursue
was an act of worship or service, and in particular it was a sacrifice,
the sacrifice of their faith, the sacrifice in which their faith was
expressed. Each believer in offering this sacrifice acts as a priest,
being a member of the holy priesthood which offers to God spiritual
sacrifices (1 Peter ii. 5). Such a man is not, indeed, a priest to make
atonement, but he is a priest to present offerings through Christ his
Head. The Philippians, then, in so far as they were, or were to be,
yielding themselves in this manner to God, were priests who offered to
God a spiritual sacrifice.
Here let us notice, as we pass, that no religion is worth the name that
has not its sacrifice through which the worshipper expresses his
devotion. And in Christian religion the sacrifice is the consecration of
the man and of his life to God's service in Christ. Let us all see to it
what sacrifices we offer.
This doctrine, then, of the priesthood and the sacrifice was verified in
the case of the Philippians; and, by the same rule, it held true also in
the case of Paul himself. He, as little as they, was priest to make
atonement. But certainly when we see Paul so cordially yielding himself
to the service of God in the gospel, and discharging his work with such
willing labour and pains, we see in him one of Christ's priests offering
himself to God a living sacrifice. Now is this all? or is something more
to be said of Paul? More is to be said; and although the point now in
view is not prominent in this passage, it is present as the underlying
thought. For the whole sacrifice of holy life rendered by the
Philippians, and by his other converts, was, in a sense, the offering of
Paul also; not theirs only, but his too. God gave him a standing in the
matter, which he, at least, was not to overlook. God's grace, indeed,
had wrought the work, and Paul was but an instrument; yet so an
instrument, that he had a living and abiding interest in the result. He
was not an instrument mechanically interposed, but one whose faith and
love had wrought to bring the result to pass. To him it had been given
to labour and pray, to watch and guide, to spend and to be spent. And
when the Apostle saw the lives of many true followers of Christ unfold
as the result of his ministry, he could think that God owned his place
too in bringing all this tribute to the temple. "God grants me a
standing in the service of this offering. The Philippians bring it, each
for himself, and it is theirs; but I also bring it, and it is my
offering too. God takes it at their hand, but also at my hand, as
something which with all my heart I have laboured for and won, and
brought to His footstool. I also have my place to present to Christ the
sacrifice and service of faith of all these men who are living fruits of
my ministry. I have been minister of Christ to these Gentiles,
'ministering the gospel of the grace of God, that the offering up of
these Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
I have therefore whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ'" (Rom. xv.
16, 17).
There remains but one step to be made, to reach the seventeenth verse.
Consider the Apostle's heart glowing with the thought that God counted
the holy fruits of those believing lives to be sacrifice and service of
his, as well as theirs, and accepted it not only from their hands, but
from Paul's too. Consider the gladness with which he felt that after all
his toil and pains he had this great offering to bring, as _his_
thank-offering to his Lord. And then imagine him hearing a voice which
says: "Now then, seal your service, crown your offering; be yourself
the final element of sacrifice; pour out your life. You have laboured
and toiled, spent years and strength, very willingly, and most
fruitfully: that is over now; one thing remains; die for the worthy name
of Him who died for you." It is this he is contemplating: if I _be_
poured out at the sacrifice and service of your faith; if I am called to
go on and to complete the sacrifice and service; if one thing more alone
is left for Paul the aged and the prisoner, and that one thing be to lay
down the life whose labours are ending; if the life itself is to run out
in one final testimony that my whole heart, that all I am and have are
Christ's,--shall not I rejoice? will not you rejoice with me? That will
be the final identification of my life with your sacrifice and service.
It will be the expression of God's accepting the completed gift. It will
be the libation that crowns the service. I am not to be used, and then
set aside as having no more interest in the results. On the contrary,
your Christianity and mine, in the wonderful relation they have to one
another, are to pass to God together as one offering. If, after running
and labouring, all issues in my life being finally poured out in
martyrdom, that, as it were, identifies me finally and inseparably with
the sacrifice and service which has filled your lives, and also my life.
It becomes one complete offering.
It may give cause for thought to ministers of the gospel that the
Apostle should so vitally and vividly connect himself with the results
of his work. It was no languid, no perfunctory ministry that led up to
this high mood. His heart's blood had been in it; the strength and
passion of his love to Christ had been poured out and spent on his work
and his converts. Therefore he could feel that in some gracious and
blessed way the fruits that came were still his--given to _him_ to bring
to the altar of the Lord. How well shall it be with the Churches when
the ministry of their pastors burns with a flame like this! What an
image of the pastoral care is here expressed!
But may not all Christian hearts be stirred to see the devotedness and
the love which filled this man's soul? The constraining power of the
love of Christ so wrought in him that he triumphed and rejoiced both in
bringing and in becoming an offering,--breaking out, as it were, into
sacrifice and service, and pouring out his life an offering to the
Father and the Son. All hearts may be stirred; for all, perhaps, can
imagine such a mood. But how many of us have it as a principle and a
passion entering into our own lives?
_TIMOTHY AND EPAPHRODITUS._
"But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you,
that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state. For I
have no man likeminded, who will care truly [genuinely] for your
state. For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.
But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child serveth a father, so
he served with me in furtherance of the gospel. Him therefore I
hope to send forthwith, so soon as I shall see how it will go with
me: but I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall come shortly.
But I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother
and fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, and your messenger and
minister to my need; since he longed after you all, and was sore
troubled, because ye had heard that he was sick: for indeed he was
sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him
only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. I
have sent him therefore the more diligently, 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 joy; and hold such in
honour: because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death,
hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service
toward me."--PHIL. ii. 19-30 (R.V.).