'That I may have whereof to glory in the day of
Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labour
in vain. 17. Yea, and if I am offered upon the
sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and
rejoice with you all. 18. And in the same manner
do ye also joy, and rejoice with me.'--PHIL. ii.
16-18 (R.V.).
We come here to another of the passages in which the Apostle pours out
all his heart to his beloved Church. Perhaps there never was a Christian
teacher (always excepting Christ) who spoke more about himself than
Paul. His own experience was always at hand for illustration. His
preaching was but the generalisation of his life. He had felt it all
first, before he threw it into the form of doctrine. It is very hard to
keep such a style from becoming egotism.
This paragraph is remarkable, especially if we consider that this is
introduced as a motive to their faithfulness, that thereby they will
contribute to his joy at the last great testing. There must have been a
very deep love between Paul and the Philippians to make such words as
these true and appropriate. They open the very depths of his heart in a
way from which a less noble and fervid nature would have shrunk, and
express his absolute consecration in his work, and his eager desire for
their spiritual good, with such force as would have been exaggeration in
most men.
We have here a wonderful picture of the relation between him and the
church at Philippi which may well stand as a pattern for us all. I do
not mean to parallel our relations with that between him and them, but
it is sufficiently analogous to make these words very weighty and solemn
for us.