Paul was not only writing _to_ Philippi, but _from_ Rome, where he might
see how, even in degenerate days, the consciousness of being a Roman
gave dignity to a man, and how the idea became almost a religion. He
would kindle a similar feeling in Christians.
We do belong to another polity or order of things than that with which
we are connected by the bonds of flesh and sense. Our true affinities
are with the mother city. True, we are here on earth, but far beyond the
blue waters is another community, of which we are really members, and
sometimes in calm weather we can see, if we climb to a height above the
smoke of the valley where we dwell, the faint outline of the mountains
of that other land, lying bathed in sunlight and dreamlike on the opal
waves.
Therefore it is a great part of Christian discipline to keep a vivid
consciousness that there is such an unseen order of things at present in
existence. We speak popularly of 'the future life,' and are apt to
forget that it is also the _present_ life to an innumerable company. In
fact, this film of an earthly life floats in that greater sphere which
is all around it, above, beneath, touching it at every point.
It is, as Peter says, 'ready to be unveiled.' Yes, behind the thin
curtain, through which stray beams of the brightness sometimes shoot,
that other order stands, close to us, parted from us by a most slender
division, only a woven veil, no great gulf or iron barrier. And before
long His hand will draw it back, rattling with its rings as it is put
aside, and _there_ will blaze out what has always been, though we saw it
not. It is so close, so real, so bright, so solemn, that it is worth
while to try to feel its nearness; and we are so purblind, and such
foolish slaves of mere sense, shaping our lives on the legal maxim that
things which are non-apparent must be treated as non-existent, that it
needs a constant effort not to lose the feeling altogether.
There is a present connection between all Christian men and that
heavenly City. It not merely exists, but we belong to it in the measure
in which we are Christians. All these figurative expressions about our
citizenship being in heaven and the like, rest on the simple fact that
the life of Christian men on earth and in heaven is fundamentally the
same. The principles which guide, the motives which sway, the tastes and
desires, affections and impulses, the objects and aims, are
substantially one. A Christian man's true affinities are with the things
not seen, and with the persons there, however his surface relationship
knit him to the earth. In the degree in which he is a Christian, he is a
stranger here and a native of the heavens. That great City is, like some
of the capitals of Europe, built on a broad river, with the mass of the
metropolis on the one bank, but a wide-spreading suburb on the other. As
the Trastevere is to Rome, as Southwark to London, so is earth to
heaven, the bit of the city on the other side the bridge. As Philippi
was to Rome, so is earth to heaven, the colony on the outskirts of the
empire, ringed round by barbarians, and separated by sounding seas, but
keeping open its communications, and one in citizenship.
Be it our care, then, to keep the sense of that city beyond the
river vivid and constant. Amid the shows and shams of earth look
ever onward to the realities 'the things which _are_,' while all
else only seems to be. The things which are seen are but smoke
wreaths, floating for a moment across space, and melting into
nothingness while we look. We do not belong to them or to the
order of things to which they belong. There is no kindred between
us and them. Our true relationships are elsewhere. In this present
visible world all other creatures find their sufficient and homelike
abode. 'Foxes have holes, and birds their roosting-places'; but man
alone has not where to lay his head, nor can he find in all the width
of the created universe a place in which and with which he can be
satisfied. Our true _habitat_ is elsewhere. So let us set our thoughts
and affections on things above. The descendants of the original settlers
in our colonies talk still of coming to England as going 'home,' though
they were born in Australia, and have lived there all their lives. In
like manner we Christian people should keep vigorous in our minds the
thought that our true home is there where we have never been, and that
here we are foreigners and wanderers.
Nor need that feeling of detachment from the present sadden our spirits,
or weaken our interest in the things around us. To recognise our
separation from the order of things in which we 'move,' because we
belong to that majestic unseen order in which we really 'have our
being,' makes life great and not small. It clothes the present with
dignity beyond what is possible to it if it be not looked at in the
light of its connection with 'the regions beyond.' From that connection
life derives all its meaning. Surely nothing can be conceived more
unmeaning, more wearisome in its monotony, more tragic in its joy, more
purposeless in its efforts, than man's life, if the life of sense and
time be all. Truly it is 'like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing.' 'The white radiance of eternity,'
streaming through it from above, gives all its beauty to the 'dome of
many-coloured glass' which men call life. They who feel most their
connection with the city which hath foundations should be best able to
wring the last drop of pure sweetness out of all earthly joys, to
understand the meaning of all events, and to be interested most keenly,
because most intelligently and most nobly, in the homeliest and
smallest of the tasks and concerns of the present.
So, in all things, act as citizens of the great Mother of heroes and
saints beyond the sea. Ever feel that you belong to another order, and
let the thought, 'Here we have no continuing city,' be to you not merely
the bitter lesson taught by the transiency of earthly joys and treasures
and loves, but the happy result of 'seeking for the city which hath the
foundations.'
II. Another exhortation which our text gives is, Live by the laws of the
city.
The Philippian colonists were governed by the code of Rome. Whatever
might be the law of the province of Macedonia, they owed no obedience to
it. So Christian men are not to be governed by the maxims and rules of
conduct which prevail in the province, but to be governed from the
capital. We ought to get from on-lookers the same character that was
given to the Jews, that we are 'a people whose laws are different from
all people that be on earth,' and we ought to reckon such a character
our highest praise. Paul would have these Philippian Christians act
'worthy of _the gospel_.' That is our law.
The great good news of God manifest in the flesh, and of our salvation
through Christ Jesus, is not merely to be believed, but to be obeyed.
The gospel is not merely a message of deliverance, it is also a rule of
conduct. It is not merely theology, it is also ethics. Like some of the
ancient municipal charters, the grant of privileges and proclamation of
freedom is also the sovereign code which imposes duties and shapes life.
A gospel of laziness and mere exemption from hell was not Paul's gospel.
A gospel of doctrines, to be investigated, spun into a system of
theology, and accepted by the understanding, and there an end, was not
Paul's gospel. He believed that the great facts which he proclaimed
concerning the self-revelation of God in Christ would unfold into a
sovereign law of life for every true believer, and so his one
all-sufficient precept and standard of conduct are in these simple
words, 'worthy of the gospel.'
That law is all-sufficient. In the truths which constituted Paul's
gospel, that is to say, in the truths of the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, lies all that men need for conduct and
character. In Him we have the 'realised ideal,' the flawless example,
and instead of a thousand precepts, for us all duty is resolved into
one--be like Christ. In Him we have the mighty motive, powerful enough
to overcome all forces that would draw us away, and like some strong
spring to keep us in closest contact with right and goodness. Instead of
a confusing variety of appeals to manifold motives of interest and
conscience, and one knows not what beside, we have the one all-powerful
appeal, 'If ye love Me, keep My commandments,' and that draws all the
agitations and fluctuations of the soul after it, as the rounded fulness
of the moon does the heaped waters in the tidal wave that girdles the
world. In Him we have all the helps that weakness needs, for He Himself
will come and dwell with us and in us, and be our righteousness and our
strength.
Live 'worthy of the gospel,' then. How grand the unity and simplicity
thus breathed into our duties and through our lives! All duties are
capable of reduction to this one, and though we shall still need
detailed instruction and specific precepts, we shall be set free from
the pedantry of a small scrupulous casuistry, which fetters men's limbs
with microscopic bands, and shall joyfully learn how much mightier and
happier is the life which is shaped by one fruitful principle, than that
which is hampered by a thousand regulations.
Nor is such an all-comprehensive precept a mere toothless generality.
Let a man try honestly to shape his life by it; and he will find soon
enough how close it grips him, and how wide it stretches, and how deep
it goes. The greatest principles of the gospel are to be fitted to the
smallest duties. Indeed that combination--great principles and small
duties--is the secret of all noble and calm life, and nowhere should it
be so beautifully exemplified as in the life of a Christian man. The
tiny round of the dew-drop is shaped by the same laws that mould the
giant sphere of the largest planet. You cannot make a map of the poorest
grass-field without celestial observations. The star is not too high nor
too brilliant to move before us and guide simple men's feet along their
pilgrimage. 'Worthy of the gospel' is a most practical and stringent
law.
And it is an exclusive commandment too, shutting out obedience to other
codes, however common and fashionable they may be. We are governed from
home, and we give no submission to provincial authorities. Never mind
what people say about you, nor what may be the maxims and ways of men
around you. These are no guides for you. Public opinion (which only
means for most of us the hasty judgments of the half-dozen people who
happen to be nearest us), use and wont, the customs of our set, the
notions of the world about duty, with all these we have nothing to do.
The censures or the praise of men need not move us. We report to
headquarters, and subordinates' estimate need be nothing to us. Let us
then say, 'With me it is a very small matter that I should be judged of
men's judgment. He that judgeth me is the Lord.' When we may be
misunderstood or harshly dealt with, let us lift our eyes to the lofty
seat where the Emperor sits, and remove ourselves from men's sentences
by our 'appeal unto Cæsar'; and, in all varieties of circumstances and
duty, let us take the Gospel which is the record of Christ's life,
death, and character, for our only law, and labour that, whatever others
may think of us, we 'may be well pleasing to Him.'
III. Further, our text bids the colonists fight for the advance of the
dominions of the City.
Like the armed colonists whom Russia and other empires had on their
frontier, who received their bits of land on condition of holding the
border against the enemy, and pushing it forward a league or two when
possible, Christian men are set down in their places to be 'wardens of
the marches,' citizen soldiers who hold their homesteads on a military
tenure, and are to 'strive together for the faith of the gospel.'
There is no space here and now to go into details of the exposition of
this part of our text. Enough to say in brief that we are here exhorted
to 'stand fast'; that is, as it were, the defensive side of our warfare,
maintaining our ground and repelling all assaults; that this successful
resistance is to be 'in one spirit,' inasmuch as all resistance depends
on our poor feeble spirits being ingrafted and rooted in God's Spirit,
in vital union with whom we may be knit together into a unity which
shall oppose a granite breakwater to the onrushing tide of opposition;
that in addition to the unmoved resistance which will not yield an inch
of the sacred soil to the enemy, we are to carry the war onwards, and,
not content with holding our own, are with one mind to strive together
for the faith of the gospel. There is to be discipline, then, and
compact organisation, like that of the legions whom Paul, from his
prison among the Prætorian guards, had often seen shining in steel,
moving like a machine, grim, irresistible. The cause for which we are to
fight is the faith of the gospel, an expression which almost seems to
justify the opinion that 'the faith' here means, as it does in later
usage, the sum and substance of that which is believed. But even here
the word may have its usual meaning of the subjective act of trust in
the gospel, and the thought may be that we are unitedly to fight for its
growing power in our own hearts and in the hearts of others. In any
case, the idea is plainly here that Christian men are set down in the
world, like the frontier guard, to push the conquests of the empire, and
to win more ground for their King.
Such work is ever needed, never more needed than now. In this day when a
wave of unbelief seems passing over society, when material comfort and
worldly prosperity are so dazzlingly attractive to so many, the solemn
duty is laid upon us with even more than usual emphasis, and we are
called upon to feel more than ever the oneness of all true Christians,
and to close up our ranks for the fight. All this can only be done after
we have obeyed the other injunctions of this text. The degree in which
we feel that we belong to another order of things than this around us,
and the degree in which we live by the Imperial laws, will determine the
degree in which we can fight with vigour for the growth of the dominion
of the City. Be it ours to cherish the vivid consciousness that we are
here dwelling not in the cities of the Canaanites, but, like the father
of the faithful, in tents pitched at their gates, nomads in the midst
of a civic life to which we do not belong, in order that we may breathe
a hallowing influence through it, and win hearts to the love of Him whom
to imitate is perfection, whom to serve is freedom.