_OUR CITY AND OUR COMING KING._
To live, amid the things of earth, and in constant converse with them, a
life in the power of Christ's resurrection, and in the fellowship of His
sufferings, was the Apostle's chosen course; in which he would have the
Philippians to follow him. For a moment he had diverged to sketch, for
warning, the way of the transgressors, who spend their lives intent on
the things that pass away. Now he brings the argument to a close, by
once more proclaiming the glory of the high calling in Christ. As the
Christian faith looks backward to the triumph of Christ's resurrection,
and to the meekness of His suffering, and receives its inspiration from
them, so also it looks upward, and it looks forward. It is even now in
habitual communion with the world on high; and it reaches on towards the
hope of the Lord's return.
"Our citizenship is in heaven." The word here used (comp. i. 27) means
the constitution or manner of life of a state or city. All men draw much
from the spirit and laws of the commonwealth to which they belong; and
in antiquity this influence was even stronger than we commonly find it
to be in our day. The individual was conscious of himself as a member of
his own city or state. Its life enfolded his. Its institutions set for
him the conditions under which life was accepted and was carried on. Its
laws determined for him his duties and his rights. The ancient and
customary methods of the society developed a common spirit, under the
influence of which each citizen unfolded his own personal peculiarities.
When he went forth elsewhere he felt himself, and was felt to be, a
stranger. Now in the heavenly kingdom, which had claimed them and had
opened to them through Christ, the believers had found their own city;
and finding it, had become, comparatively, strangers in every other.
A way of thinking and acting prevails throughout the world, as if earth
and its interests were the whole sphere of man; and being pervaded by
this spirit, the whole world may be said to be a commonwealth with a
spirit and with maxims of its own. We, who live in it, feel it natural
to comply with the drift of things in this respect, and difficult to
stand against it; so that separation and singularity seem unreasonable
and hard. We claim for our lives the support of a common understanding;
we yearn for the comfort of a system of things existing round us, in
which we may find countenance. It was urged against the Christians of
the early ages that their religion was unsocial--it broke the ties by
which men held together; and doubtless many a Christian, in hours of
trial and depression, felt with pain that much in Christian life offered
a foundation for the reproach. On the other hand, those who, like the
enemies of the cross, refer their lives to the world's standard, rather
than to Christ's, have at least this comfort, that they have a tangible
city. The world is their city: therefore also the prince of it is their
king. But the Apostle, for himself and his fellows, sets against this
the true city or state--with its more original and ancient sanctions;
with its more authoritative laws; with its far more pervading and mighty
spirit, for the Spirit of God Himself is the life which binds it all
together; with its glorious and gracious King. This commonwealth has its
seat in heaven; for there it reveals its nature, and thence its power
descends. We recognise this whenever we pray, "Thy will be done in earth
as it is in heaven." This, says the Apostle, is our citizenship. The
archaism of the Authorised Version, "Our conversation" (that is, our
habitual way of living) "is in heaven," expresses much of the meaning;
only the "conversation" is referred, by the phrase employed in the text,
to the sanctions under which it proceeds, the august fellowship by which
it is sustained, the source of influence by which it is continually
vitalised. Our state, and the life which as members of that state we
claim and use, is celestial. Its life and strength, its glory and
victory, are in heaven. But it is ours, though we are here on earth.
Therefore, according to the Apostle, the standard of our living, and its
sanctions, and its way of thinking and proceeding, and, in a word, our
city, with its interests and its objects, being in heaven, the earnest
business of our life is there. We have to do with earth constantly and
in ways most various; but, as Christians, our way of having to do with
the earth itself is heavenly, and is to be conversant with heaven. What
we mainly love and seek is in heaven; what we listen most to hear is the
voice that comes from heaven; what we most earnestly speak is the voice
we send to heaven; what lies next our heart is the treasure and the hope
which are secure in heaven; what we are most intent upon is what we lay
up in heaven, and how we are getting ready for heaven; there is One in
heaven whom we love above all others; we are children of the kingdom of
heaven; it is our country and our home; and something in us refuses to
settle on those things here that reject the stamp of heaven.
Does this go too high? Does some one say, "Something in this direction
attracts me and I reach out to it, but ah! how feebly"?--then how
strongly does the principle of the Apostle's admonition apply. If we own
that this city rightfully claims us, if we are deeply conscious of
shortcoming in our response to that claim, then how much does it concern
us to allow no earthly thing that by its own nature drags us down from
our citizenship in heaven.
It is in heaven. Many ways it might be shown to be so; but it is enough
to sum up all in this, that One has His presence there, who is the Life
and the Lord of this city of ours, caring for us, calling us to the
present fellowship with Him that is attainable in a life of faith, but
especially (for this includes all the rest) whom we look for, to come
forth from heaven for us. He has done wonders already to set up for us
the grace of the kingdom of heaven, and He has brought us in to it; He
is doing much for us daily in grace and in providence, upholding His
Church on earth from age to age; but this "working" is proceeding to a
final victory. He is "able to subject all things to Himself." And the
emphatic proof of it which awaits all believers, is that the body
itself, reconstituted in the likeness of Christ's own, shall at last be
in full harmony with a destiny of immortal purity and glory. So shall
the manifestation of His power and grace at last sweep through our whole
being, within and without. That is the final triumph of salvation, with
which the long history finds all its results attained. For this we await
the coming of the Saviour from heaven. Well therefore may we say that
the state to which we pertain, and the life which we hold as members of
that state, is in heaven.
The expectation of the coming of Christ out of the world of supreme
truth and purity, where God is known and served aright, to fulfil all
His promises,--this is the Church's and the believer's great hope. It is
set before us in the New Testament as a motive to every duty, as giving
weight to every warning, as determining the attitude and character of
all Christian life. In particular, we cannot deal aright with any of the
earthly things committed to us, unless we deal with them in the light of
Christ's expected coming. This expectation is to enter into the heart of
every believer, and no one is warranted to overlook or make light of it.
His coming, His appearing, the revelation of Him, the revelation of His
glory, the coming of His day, and so forth, are pressed on us
continually. In a true waiting for the day of Christ, is gathered up the
right regard to what He did and bore when He came first, and also a
right regard to Him as He is now the pledge and the sustainer of our
soul's life: the one and the other are to pass onward to the hope of His
appearing.
Some harm has been done, perhaps, by the degree in which attention has
been concentrated on debatable points about the time of the Lord's
coming, or the order of events in relation to it; but more by the
measure in which Christians have allowed the world's unbelieving temper
to affect on this point the habit of their own minds. It must be most
seriously said that our Lord Himself expected no man to succeed in
escaping the corruption of the world and enduring to the end, otherwise
than in the way of watching for his Lord (see Luke xii. 35-40--but the
passages are too numerous to be quoted).
And the Apostle lays an emphasis on the character in which we expect
Him. The word "Saviour" is emphatic. We look for a Saviour; not merely
One who saved us once, but One who brings salvation with Him when He
comes. It is _the_ great good, in its completeness, that the Church sees
coming to her with her Lord. Now she has the faith of it,--and with the
faith an earnest and foretaste,--but then salvation comes. Therefore the
coming is spoken of as redemption drawing nigh, as the time of the
redemption of the purchased possession. So also in the Epistle to the
Galatians the end of Christ's sacrifice is said to be to "deliver us
from this present evil world."
Doubtless it is unwise to lay down extreme positions as to the spirit in
which we are to deal with temporal things, and especially with their
winning and attractive aspects. Christian men, at peace with God, should
not only feel spiritual joy, but may well make a cheerful use of passing
mercies. Yet certainly the Christian's hope is to be saved out of this
world, and out of life as he knows it here, into one far better--saved
out of the best and brightest state to which this present state of
things can bring him. The Christian spirit is giving way in that man
who, in whatever posture of his worldly affairs, does not feel that the
present is a state entangled with evil, including much darkness and much
estrangement from the soul's true rest. He ought to be minded so as to
own the hope of being saved out of it, looking and hasting to the coming
of the Lord.
If we lived out this conviction with some consistency, we should not go
far wrong in our dealings with this present world. But probably there
is no feature in which the average Christianity of to-day varies more
from that of the early Christians, than in the faint impressions, and
the faint influence, experienced by most modern Christians in connection
with the expectation of the Lord's return.
As far as individual life goes, the position of men in both periods is
much the same; it is so, in spite of all the changes that have taken
place. Then, as now, the mirage of life tempted men to dream of
felicities here, which hindered them from lifting up their heads to a
prospect of redemption. But now, as then, counter influences work; the
short and precarious term of human life, its disappointments, its cares
and sorrows, its conflicts and falls, conspire to teach even the most
reluctant Christian that the final and satisfying rest is not to be
found here. So that the difference seems to arise mainly from a secret
failure of faith on this point, due to the impression made by long ages
in which Christ has not come. "Where is the promise of His coming? All
things continue as they were."
This may suggest, however, that influences are recognisable, tending to
form, in modern Christians, a habit of thought and feeling less
favourable to vivid expectation of Christ's coming. It does not arise so
much in connection with individual experience, but is rather an
impression drawn from history and from the common life of men. In the
days of Paul, general history was simply discouraging to spiritual
minds. It led men to think of all creation groaning together.
Civilisation certainly had made advances; civil government had conferred
some of its benefits on men; and, lately, the strong hand of Rome,
however heavily it might press, had averted or abridged some of the
evils that afflicted nations. Still, on the whole, darkness, corruption,
and social wrong continued to mark the scene, and there was little to
suggest that prolonged effort might gradually work improvement. Rather
it seemed that a rapid dispensation of grace, winning its way by
supernatural energy, might well lead on to the winding up of the whole
scene, sweeping all away before the advent of new heavens and a new
earth. But, for us, nineteen hundred years have well-nigh passed. The
Christian Church has been confronted all that time with her great task;
and, however imperfect her light and her methods have often been, she
has set processes agoing, and pressed on in lines of action, in which
she has not been without her reward. Also the public action of at least
the European races, stimulated and guided by Christianity, has been
inspired by faith in progress and in a reign of justice, and has applied
itself to improve the conditions of men. How much of sin and pain still
afflict the world is too sadly evident. But the memory of the successive
lives of saints, thinkers, men of public spirit and devoted public
action, is strong in Christian minds to-day--it is a long, animating
history. And never more than at the present time did the world press
itself on the Christian mind as the sphere for effort, for helpful and
hopeful achievement. All this tends to fix the eye on what may happen
_before_ Christ comes; for one asks room and time to fight the battle
out, to see the long co-operant processes converge upon their goal. The
conflict is thought of as one to be bequeathed, like freedom's battle,
from sire to son, through indefinite periods beyond which men do not
very often look. And, indeed, the amelioration of the world and remedy
of its ills by works of faith and love is Christlike work. The world
cannot want it; the fruit of it will not be withheld; and the hopeful
ardour with which it is pursued is Christ's gift to His people. For
Christ Himself healed and fed the multitudes. Yet all this shall not
replace the coming of Christ, and the redemption that draws nigh with
Him. The longing eyes that gaze into the prospects of public-spirited
beneficence and Christian philanthropy, do well; but they must also look
higher up and further on.
One thing must be said. It is vain for us to suppose we can adjust
beforehand, to our own satisfaction, the elements which enter into the
future, so as to make a well-fitted scheme of it. That was not designed.
And in this case two ways of looking at the future are apt to strive
together. The man who is occupied with processes that, as he conceives,
might eventuate in a reign of goodness reached by gradual amelioration,
by successive victories of the better cause, may look askance on the
promise of Christ's coming, because he dislikes catastrophe and
cataclysm. First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear,
is his motto. And the man who is full of the thought of the Lord's
return, and deeply persuaded that nothing less will eradicate the
world's disease, may look with impatience on measures that seem to aim
at slow and far results. But neither the one mode of view nor the other
is to be sacrificed. Work is to be done in the world on the lines that
promise best to bless the world. Yet also this faith must never be let
down--The Lord is coming; the Lord shall come.
* * * * *
How decisive the change is which Christ completes at His coming--how
distinctive, therefore, and unworldly, that citizenship which takes its
type from heaven where He is, and from the hope of His appearing--is
last of all set forth. Paul might have dwelt on many great blessings the
full meaning of which will be unfolded when Christ comes; for He is to
conform all things to Himself. But Paul prefers to signalise what shall
befall our bodies; for that makes us feel that not one element in our
state shall fail to be subjected to the victorious energy of Christ. Our
bodies are, in our present state, conspicuously refractory to the
influences of the higher kingdom. Regeneration makes no improvement on
them. In our body we carry about with us what seems to mock the idea of
an ethereal and ideal life. And when we die, the corruption of the
grave speaks of anything but hope. Here, then, in this very point the
salvation of Christ shall complete its triumph, saving us all over and
all through. He "shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it
may be conformed to the body of His glory."
* * * * *
For the Apostle Paul the question how the body is to be reckoned with in
any lofty view of human life had a peculiar interest. One sees how his
mind dwelt upon it. He does not indeed impute to the body any original
or essential antagonism to the soul's better life. But it shares in the
debasement and disorganisation implied in sin; it has become the ready
avenue for many temptations. Through it the man has become participant
of a vivid and unintermittent earthliness, contrasting all too sadly
with the feebleness of spiritual impressions and affections, so that the
balance of our being is deranged. Nor does grace directly affect men's
bodily conditions. Here, then, is an element in a renewed life that has
a peculiar refractoriness and irresponsiveness. So much is this so that
sin in our complex nature easily turns this way, easily finds resources
in this quarter. Hence sin in us often takes its denomination from this
side of things. It is the flesh, and the minding of the flesh, that is
to be crucified. On the other hand, just because life for us is life in
the body, therefore the body with its members must be brought into the
service of Christ, and must fulfil the will of God. "Yield your bodies
a living sacrifice." "Your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost." A
disembodied Christianity is to the Apostle no Christianity. There may be
difficulties, indeed, in carrying this consecration through, elements of
resistance and insubordination to be overcome. If so, they must be
fought down. "I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest I
prove a castaway." To be thorough in this proved hard even for Paul.
"Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"--a text in which one
sees how the "body" offered itself as the ready symbol of the whole
inward burden and difficulty. So the body is dead because of sin: dying,
fit to die, appointed to die, and not now renewed to life. "But if the
Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, He that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by
His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Then, limits now imposed on right
thinking, right feeling, right acting, shall be found to have passed
away. Till then we groan, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of
the body; but then shall be the manifestation of the sons of God. To
Paul this came home as one of the most definite, practical, and decisive
forms in which the triumph of Christ's salvation should be declared.
The body, then, by which we hold converse with the world, and by which
we give expression to our mental life, has shared in the evil that comes
by sin. We find it to be the body of our humiliation. It is not only
liable to pain, decay, and death, not only subject to much that is
humbling and distressing, but it has become an ill-adapted organ for an
aspiring soul. The bodily state weighs down the soul, when its
aspirations after good have been rekindled. It is not wholly unconnected
with our physical state that it is so hard to carry the recognition of
God and the life of faith into the comings and goings of the outward
life; so hard to wed the persuasions of our faith to the impressions of
our sense. But we look forward to our Lord's coming with the expectation
that the body of our humiliation shall be transfigured into the likeness
of the body of His glory. In this we discern with what a pervading
energy He is to subdue all things to Himself. Love in righteousness is
to triumph through all spheres.
We have more than once acknowledged how natural it is to dream of
constructing a Christian life on earth with all its elements, natural
and spiritual, perfectly harmonised, each having its place in relation
to each so as to make the music of a perfect whole. And in the strength
of such a dream, some look down on all Christian practice as blind and
narrow, which seems to them to mar life by setting one element of it
against another. It must be owned that narrow types of Christianity have
often needlessly offended so. Nevertheless we have here a new proof that
the dream of those who would achieve a perfect harmony, in the present
state and under present conditions, is vain. A perfect Christian harmony
of life cannot be restored in the body of our humiliation. The nobler
part is to own this, and to confess that amid many undeserved good
gifts, yet, in relation to the great hope set before us, we groan,
waiting for the redemption; when Christ who now fits us to run the race
and bear the cross shall come and _save_ us out of all this, changing
the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory.
Against the ways of Jewish self-righteousness, and against the impulses
of fleshly minds, the Apostle had set the true Christianity--the methods
in which it grows, the influences on which it relies, the truths and
hopes by which it is mainly sustained, the high citizenship which it
claims and to the type of which it resolutely conforms. All this was
possible in Christ, all this was actual in Christ, all this was theirs
in Christ. Yet this is what is brought into debate, by unbelief and sin;
this against unbelief and sin has to be maintained. Some influences come
to shake us as to the truth of it--"It is not so real after all." Some
influences come to shake us as to the good of it--"It is not after all
so very, so supremely, so satisfyingly good." Some influences come to
shake us as to our own part in it--"It can hardly control and sustain my
life, for after all perhaps--alas, most likely--it is not for me, it
cannot be for me." Against all this we are to make our stand, in and
with our Lord and Master. He is our confidence and our strength. How the
Apostle longed to see this victory achieved in the case of all these
Philippians, who were the treasure and the fruit of his life and
labour! Be decided about all this, be clear about it, cast every other
way of it from you. "Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, my joy and
crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved."
_PEACE AND JOY._
"I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche, to be of the same mind in
the Lord. Yea, I beseech thee also, true yokefellow, help these
women, for they laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also,
and the rest of my fellow-workers whose names are in the book of
life.
"Rejoice in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice. Let your
forbearance be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. In nothing
be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your
hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."--PHIL. iv. 2-7 (R.V.).