+I. Is extensive.+--Apprehends Him in all those notions and respects
wherein the Gospel principally discovers Him.
+II. Appropriating.+--Christ Jesus _my_ Lord.
+III. Effectual.+--Has a powerful efficacy both upon heart and life,
both upon judgment, affection, and practice.
+IV. Fiducial.+--It brings the soul to rest upon Christ and His
righteousness alone for pardon, acceptance, salvation.
+V. Useful.+--He that has it studies to improve Christ, to make use
of Him for those blessed and glorious purposes for which he knows
Christ is given.
+VI. Christ Himself is most excellent.+--1. There is nothing in Him
but what is excellent. 2. All excellencies in the creatures are
eminently to be found in Christ. 3. All these excellencies are in Him
in a more excellent manner; perfectly, without any shadow of
imperfection; infinitely, without any bounds or limits; eternally and
unchangeably, they ebb not, they wane not, they are always there in
the full, they alter not, they decay not. 4. Not only all that are in
the creatures, but innumerable more excellencies than are in all the
creatures together, are in Christ alone.
+VII. Those that have attained the excellent knowledge of Christ will
not think much to lose all things to gain Christ.+--1. All outward
enjoyments and earthly possessions. 2. Personal righteousness as a
means of justification.--_David Clarkson._
_The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ._
+I. To know Christ in the Divinity of His person is excellent
knowledge.+
+II. To know Christ in the glory of His redemption is excellent
knowledge.+
+III. The comparative worthlessness of all else.+--1. _Wealth._
2. _Worldly honour._ 3. _Human learning._ 4. _Mere morality._
_The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ._
+I. Is pre-eminent excellence is to be found in its
certainty.+--Proved by--1. _Prophecy._ 2. _Miracles._
3. _Experience._
+II. In its majesty and grandeur.+
+III. It its suitableness and adaptation.+
+IV. In its comprehensiveness.+
+V. The knowledge of Christ is sanctifying.+--_R. Watson._
_Christ the Only Gain._
+I. To count Him gain.+
+II. To covet and seek Him as gain.+
+III. To appropriate Him as gain.+
+IV. To enjoy Him as gain.+--_R. S. Candlish._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 9-11.
_Features of the Believer's Life in Christ._
+I. The believer's life has its home and stronghold in Christ.+--"And
be found in Him" (ver. 9). Once lost, now found: found by Christ;
found in Him by others. Once homeless, now safely sheltered. One day
Charles Wesley was sitting by an open window looking over the bright
and beautiful fields in summertime. Presently a little bird, flitting
about in the sunshine, attracted his attention. Just then a hawk came
swooping down towards the little bird. The frightened thing was
darting here and there, trying to find some place of refuge. In the
bright sunny air, in the leafy trees or green fields, there was no
hiding-place from the fierce grasp of the hawk. But seeing the open
window and a man sitting by it, the bird, in its extreme terror, flew
towards it, and with a beating heart and quivering wing found refuge
in Wesley's bosom. He sheltered it from the threatening danger, and
saved it from a cruel death. Wesley was at that time suffering from
severe trials, and was feeling the need of a refuge as much as the
trembling bird that nestled safely in his bosom. So he took up his
pen and wrote the well-known hymn--
"Jesu, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly."
To be found in Christ means more than mere shelter, more than
external fellowship. It means a union as close and vital and abiding
as between the members of the body and the head; a union effected by
the Spirit, and being the very Spirit of Christ dwelling in us.
+II. The believing life consists of righteousness, not self-acquired,
but Divinely inspired through faith.+--"Not having mine own
righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ" (ver.
9). The apostle now touches upon a theme--justification by
faith--which he has argued out with a clearness and fulness
unequalled by any other New Testament writer. The righteousness which
was his own was out of the law, or originated by the law, and was
acquired by his own effort; but the righteousness which he finds in
Christ is not his own, but God's, and is acquired, not by his merits
or efforts, but by faith in Christ. "This righteousness, Divine in
its origin, awful in its medium, and fraught with such results, was
the essential element of Paul's religion, and the distinctive tenet
of his theology." When a friend happening to say to the Rev. John
Brown, of Haddington, "I suppose you make not your labours for the
good of the Church the ground of your comfort," he, with uncommon
earnestness, replied, "No, no no! it is the finished righteousness of
Christ which is the only foundation of my hope; I have no more
dependence on my labours than on my sins. I rather reckon it a wonder
of mercy that God took any of my labours of my hand. Righteousness
belongeth unto Him, but unto me shame and confusion of face."
+III. The believer's life is the creation of Divine power.+--1. _It
is a life communicated by the exercise of the Divine power that
raised Christ from the dead._ "That I may know Him, and the power of
His resurrection" (ver. 10). The power exerted by Christ's
resurrection is exerted in raising the Divine life in the believing
soul, and raising it to still higher developments of power and
enjoyment. The aspirations of the soul after Christ are aspirations
to know more and more the power of His resurrection.
2. _It is a life that will be consummated by the ultimate
resurrection of the body._--"If by any means I might attain unto the
resurrection of the dead" (ver. 11). Towards this consummation the
apostle yearns with intense desire. All his hopes, all his soul
longed for, seem gathered up in this: perfect freedom for ever from
sin and sorrow; knowledge of Christ up to the fullest measure of his
capacity of knowledge; perfect experimental acquaintance with the
power of His resurrection, through perfect fellowship of life with
Him; the ineffable and everlasting blessedness of being with Him and
like Him; to rise out of the ashes of the tomb and assume the
glorious body of the resurrection. We can never forget a corridor in
the Vatican Museum, exhibiting on the one side epitaphs and emblems
of departed heathens and their gods, and on the other side mementoes
of departed Christians. Face to face they stand, engaged, as it were,
in conflict, the two armies clinging to their respective standards;
hope against despair--death swallowed up in victory. Opposite to
lions seizing on horses, emblems of destruction, are charming
sculptures of the Good Shepherd bearing home the lost lamb--a sign of
salvation.
+IV. The believer's life is in sympathetic fellowship with the
suffering Christ+--"And to know the fellowship of His sufferings"
(ver. 10). The sufferings of Christ are not ended--they are prolonged
in the sufferings of His people--and of these the apostle desired to
know the fellowship. He longed so to suffer, for such fellowship gave
him assimilation to his Lord, as he drank of His cup and was baptised
with His baptism. It brought him into communion with Christ, purer,
closer, and tenderer than simple service for Him would have achieved.
It gave him such solace as Christ Himself enjoyed. To suffer together
creates a dearer fellow-feeling than to labour together. Christ
indeed cannot be known unless there be this fellowship in His
sufferings (_Eadie_). An intimate friend of Handel's called upon him
just as he was in the middle of setting the words to music, "He was
despised," and found the great composer sobbing with tears, so
greatly had this passage and the rest of the morning's work affected
the master.
+Lessons.+--1. _The soul finds its highest life in Christ._ 2. _Life
in Christ is secured by the co-operation of man's faith with Divine
power._ 3. _To live in Christ is to share the fruits of His
mysterious passion._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._