It is not a pedantic dissection (and vivisection) of the Apostle's
earnest words, if we point out that they fall into four clauses, of
which the first and third ('any comfort in Christ, any fellowship of the
Spirit') urge the objective facts of Christian revelation, and the
second and fourth ('any consolation of love, any tender mercies and
compassions') put emphasis on the subjective emotions of Christian
experience. We may lay the warmth of all of these on our own hearts, and
shall find that these hearts will be drawn into the blessedness of
Christian unity in the precise measure in which they are affected by
them.
As to the first of them, it may be suggested that here, as elsewhere in
the New Testament, the true idea of the word rendered 'comfort' is
rather 'exhortation.' The Apostle is probably not so much pointing to
the consolations for trouble which come from Jesus, as to the stimulus
to unity which flows from Him. It would rather weaken the force of
Paul's appeal, if the two former grounds of it were so nearly identical
as they are, if the one is based upon 'comfort' and the other on
'consolation.' The Apostle is true to his dominant belief, that in Jesus
Christ there lies, and from Him flows, the sovereign exhortation that
rouses men to 'whatsoever things are lovely and of good report.' In Him
we shall find in the measure in which we are in Him, the most persuasive
of all exhortations to unity, and the most omnipotent of all powers to
enforce it. Shall we not be glad to be in the flock of the Good
Shepherd, and to preserve the oneness which He gave His life to
establish? Can we live in Him, and not share His love for His sheep?
Surely those who have felt the benediction of His breath on their
foreheads when He prayed 'that they may all be one; even as Thou,
Father, art in Me and I in Thee,' cannot but do what is in them to
fulfil that prayer, and to bring a little nearer the realisation of
their Lord's purpose in it, 'that the world may believe that Thou didst
send Me.' Surely if we lay to heart, and enter into sympathy with, the
whole life and death of Jesus Christ, we shall not fail to feel the
dynamic power fusing us together, nor fail to catch the exhortation to
unity which comes from the lips that said, 'I am the vine, ye are the
branches.'
The Apostle next bases his appeal for unity on the experiences of the
Philippian Christians, and on their memories of the comfort which they
have tasted in the exercise of mutual love. Our hearts find it hard to
answer the question whether they are more blessed when their love passes
out from them in a warm stream to others, or when the love of others
pours into them. To love and to be loved equally elevate courage, and
brace the weakest for calm endurance and high deeds. The man who loves
and knows that he is loved will be a hero. It must always seem strange
and inexplicable that a heart which has known the enlargement and joy of
love given and received, should ever fall so far beneath itself as to be
narrowed and troubled by nourishing feelings of separation and
alienation from those whom it might have gathered into its embrace, and
thereby communicated, and in communicating acquired, courage and
strength. We have all known the comfort of love; should it not impel us
to live in 'the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace'? Men around
us are meant to be our helpers, and to be helped by us, and the one way
to secure both is to walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.
But Paul has still further heart-melting motives to urge. He turns the
Philippians' thoughts to their fellowship in the Spirit. All believers
have been made to drink into one spirit, and in that common
participation in the same supernatural life they partake of a oneness,
which renders any clefts or divisions unnatural, and contradictory of
the deepest truths of their experience. The branch can no more shiver
itself off from the tree, or keep the life sap enclosed within itself,
than one possessor of the common gift of the Spirit can separate himself
from the others who share it. We are one in Him; let us be one in heart
and mind. The final appeal is connected with the preceding, inasmuch as
it lays emphasis on the emotions which flow from the one life common to
all believers. That participation in the Spirit naturally leads in each
participant to 'tender mercies and compassions' directed to all sharers
in it. The very mark of truly possessing the Spirit's life is a nature
full of tenderness and swift to pity, and they who have experienced the
heaven on earth of such emotions should need no other motive than the
memory of its blessedness, to send them out among their brethren, and
even into a hostile world, as the apostles of love, the bearers of
tender mercies, and the messengers of pity.