'These have I counted loss for Christ.' There is a possibility of
exaggeration in interpreting Paul's words. The things that were 'gain'
to him were in themselves better than their opposites. It is better to
to be 'blameless' than to have a life all stained with foulness and
reeking with sins. But these 'gains' were 'losses,' disadvantages, in so
far as they led him to build upon them, and trust in them as solid
wealth. The earthquake that shattered his life had two shocks: the first
turned upside down his estimate of the value of his gains, the second
robbed him of them. He first saw them to be worthless, and then, so far
as others' judgment went, he was stripped of them. Actively he 'counted
them loss,' passively he 'suffered the loss of all things.' His estimate
came, and was followed by the practical outcome of his brethren's
excommunication.
What changed his estimate? In our text he answers the question in two
forms: first he gives the simple, all-sufficient monosyllabic reason for
his whole life--'for Christ,' and then he enlarges that motive into 'the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.' The former carries
us back straight to the vision which revolutionised Paul's life, and
made him abjure all which he had trusted, and adore what he had
abhorred. The latter dwells a little more upon the subjective process
which followed on the vision, but the two are substantially the same,
and we need only note the solemn fulness of the name of 'Jesus Christ,'
and the intense motion of submission and of personal appropriation
contained in the designation, 'my Lord.' It was not when he found his
way blinded into Damascus that he had learned that knowledge, or could
apprehend its 'excellency.' The words are enriched and enlarged by later
experiences. The sacrifice of his earlier 'gains' had been made before
the 'excellency of the knowledge' had been discerned. It was no mere
intellectual perception which could be imparted in words, or by
eyesight, but here as always Paul by 'knowledge' means experience which
comes from possession and acquaintance, and which therefore gleams ever
before us as we move, and is capable of endless increase, in the measure
in which we are true to the estimate of 'gains' and 'losses' to which
our initial vision of Him has led us. At first we may not know that that
knowledge excels all others, but as we grow in acquaintance with Jesus,
and in experience of Him, we shall be sure that it transcends all
others, because He does and we possess Him.
The revolutionising motive may be conceived of in two ways. We have to
abandon the lower 'gains' in order to gain Christ, or to abandon these
because we have gained Him. Both are true. The discernment of Christ as
the one ground of confidence is ever followed by the casting away of all
others. Self-distrust is a part of faith. When we feel our feet upon the
rock, the crumbling sands on which we stood are left to be broken up by
the sea. They who have seen the Apollo Belvedere will set little store
by plaster of Paris casts. In all our lives there come times when the
glimpse of some loftier ideal shows up our ordinary as hollow and poor
and low. And when once Christ is seen, as Scripture shows Him, our
former self appears poor and crumbles away.
We are not to suppose that the act of renunciation must be completed
before a second act of possession is begun. That is the error of many
ascetic books. The two go together, and abandonment in order to win
merges into abandonment because we have won. The strongest power to make
renunciation possible is 'the expulsive power of a new affection.' When
the heart is filled with love to Christ there is no sense of 'loss,' but
only of 'exceeding gain,' in casting away all things for Him.