The general meaning of the Apostle's words is, 'If I have not only to
run and labour, but to die in the discharge of my Apostolic Mission, I
joy and rejoice, and I bid you rejoice with me.' We need only note that
the Apostle here casts his language into the forms consecrated for
sacrifice. He will not speak of death by its own ugly and threadbare
name, but thinks of himself as a devoted victim, and of his death as
making the sacrifice complete. In the figure there is a solemn scorn of
death, and at the same time a joyful recognition that it is the means of
bringing him more nearly to God, with whom he would fain be. It is
interesting, as showing the persistence of these thoughts in the
Apostle's mind, that the word rendered in our text 'offered,' which
fully means 'poured out as a drink offering,' occurs again in the same
connection in the great words of the swan song in II. Timothy, 'I am
already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.' Death
looked to him, when he looked it in the eyes, and the block was close by
him, as it had done when he spoke of it to his Philippian friends.
It is to be noted, in order to bring out more vividly the force of the
figure, that Paul here speaks of the libation being poured '_on_' the
sacrifice, as was the practice in heathen ritual. The sacrifice is the
victim, 'service' is the technical word for priestly ministration, and
the general meaning is, 'If my blood is poured out as a drink offering
on the sacrifice ministered by you, which is your faith, I joy with you
all.' This man had no fear of death, and no shrinking from 'leaving the
warm precincts of the cheerful day.' He was equally ready to live or to
die as might best serve the name of Jesus, for to him 'to live was
Christ,' and therefore to him it could be nothing but 'gain' to die.
Here he seems to be treating his death as a possibility, but as a
possibility only, for almost immediately afterwards he says, that he
'trusts in the Lord that I myself will come shortly.' It is interesting
to notice the contrast between his mood of mind here and that in the
previous chapter (i. 25) where the 'desire to depart and to be with
Christ' is deliberately suppressed, because his continuous life is
regarded as essential for the Philippians' 'progress and joy in faith.'
Here he discerns that perhaps his death would do more for their faith
than would his life, and being ready for either alternative he welcomes
the possibility. May we not see in the calm heart, which is at leisure
to think of death in such a fashion, a pattern for us all? Remember how
near and real his danger was. Nero was not in the habit of letting a
man, whose head had been in the mouth of the lion, take it out unhurt.
Paul is no eloquent writer or poet playing with the idea of death, and
trying to say pretty things about it, but a man who did not know when
the blow would come, but _did_ know that it would come before long.
We may point here to the two great thoughts in Paul's words, and notice
the priesthood and sacrifice of life, and the sacrifice and libation of
death. The Philippians offered as their sacrifice their faith, and all
the works which flow therefrom. Is that our idea of life? Is it our idea
of faith? We have no gifts to bring, we come empty-handed unless we
carry in our hands the offering of our faith, which includes the
surrender of our will, and the giving away of our hearts, and is
essentially laying hold of Christ's sacrifice. When we come empty,
needy, sinful, but cleaving wholly to that perfect sacrifice of the
Great Priest, we too become priests and our poor gift is accepted.
But another possibility than that of a life of running and labour
presented itself to Paul, and it is a revelation of the tranquillity of
his heart in the midst of impending danger, all the more pathetic
because it is entirely unconscious, that he should be free to cast his
anticipations into that calm metaphor of being, 'offered upon the
sacrifice and service of your faith.' His heart beats no faster, nor
does the faintest shadow of reluctance cross his will, when he thinks of
his death. All the repulsive accompaniments of a Roman execution fade
away from his imagination. These are but negligible accidents; the
substantial reality which obscures them all is that his blood will be
poured out as a libation, and that by it his brethren's faith will be
strengthened. To this man death had finally and completely ceased to be
a terror, and had become what it should be to all Christians, a
voluntary surrender to God, an offering to Him, an act of worship, of
trust, and of thankful praise. Seneca, in his death, poured out a
libation to Jupiter the Liberator, and if we could only know beforehand
what death delivers us from, and admits us to, we should not be so prone
to call it 'the last enemy.' What Paul's death was for himself in the
process of his perfecting called forth, and warranted, the 'joy' with
which he anticipated it. It did no more for him than it will do for each
of us, and if our vision were as clear, and our faith as firm as his, we
should be more ready than, alas! we too often are, to catch up the
exulting note with which he hails the possibility of its coming.
But it is not the personal bearing only of his death that gives him joy.
He thinks of it mainly as contributing to the furtherance of the faith
of others. For that end he was spending the effort and toil of an
effortful and toilsome life, and was equally ready to meet a violent and
shameful death. He knew that 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of
the Church,' and rejoiced, and called upon his brethren also to 'joy
and rejoice' with him in his shedding of his martyr's blood.
The Philippians might well have thought, as we all are tempted to think,
that the withdrawal of those round whom our hearts desperately cling,
and who seem to us to bring love and trust nearer to us, can only be
loss, but surely the example in our text may well speak to our hearts of
the way in which we should look at death for ourselves, and for our
dearest. Their very withdrawal may send us nearer to Christ. The holy
memories which linger in the sky, like the radiance of a sunken sun, may
clothe familiar truths with unfamiliar power and loveliness. The thought
of where the departed have gone may lift our thoughts wistfully thither
with a new feeling of home. The path that they have trodden may become
less strange to us, and the victory that they have won may prophesy that
we too shall be 'more than conquerors through Him that loveth us.' So
the mirror broken may turn us to the sun, and the passing of the dearest
that can die may draw us to the Dearer who lives.
Paul, living, rejoiced in the prospect of death. We may be sure that he
rejoiced in it no less dead than living. And we may permissibly think of
this text as suggesting how
'The saints on earth and all the dead
But one communion make,'
and are to be united in one joy. They rejoice for their own sakes, but
their joy is not self-absorbed, and so putting them farther away from
us. They look back upon earth, the runnings and labourings of the
unforgotten life here; and are glad to bear in their hearts the
indubitable token that they have 'not run in vain neither laboured in
vain.' But surely the depth of their own repose will not make them
indifferent to those who are still in the midst of struggle and toil,
nor the fulness of their own felicity make them forget those whom they
loved of old, and love now with the perfect love of Heaven. It is hard
for us to rise to complete sympathy with these serenely blessed spirits,
but yet we too should rejoice. Not indeed to the exclusion of sorrow,
nor to the neglect of the great purpose to be effected in us by the
withdrawal, as by the presence of dear ones, the furtherance of our
faith, but having made sure that that purpose has been effected in us,
we should then give solemn thanksgivings if it has. It is sad and
strange to think of how opposite are the feelings about their departure,
of those who have gone and of those who are left. Would it not be better
that we should try to share theirs and so bring about a true union? We
may be sure that their deepest desire is that we should. If some lips
that we shall never hear any more, till we come where they are, could
speak, would not they bring to us as their message from Heaven, Do 'ye
also joy and rejoice with me'?