'Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and
mark them which so walk even as ye have us for an
ensample. For many walk, of whom I told you often,
and now tell you even weeping, that they are the
enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is
perdition, whose God is the belly, and whose glory
is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For
our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we
wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who
shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation,
that it may be conformed to the body of His glory,
according to the working whereby he is able even
to subject all things unto Himself.'--PHIL. iii.
17-21 (R.V.).
There is a remarkable contrast in tone between the sad warnings which
begin this section and the glowing hopes with which it closes, and that
contrast is made the more striking when we notice that the Apostle binds
the gloom of the one and the radiance of the other by 'For,' which makes
the latter the cause of the former.
The exhortation in which the Apostle begins by proposing himself as an
example sounds strange on any lips, and, most of all, on his, but we
have to note that the points in which he sets himself up as a pattern
are obviously those on which he touched in the preceding outpouring of
his heart, and which he has already commended to the Philippians in
pleading with them to be 'thus minded.' What he desires them to copy is
his self-distrust, his willingness to sacrifice all things to win
Christ, his clear sense of his own shortcomings, and his eager straining
towards as yet unreached perfection. His humility is not disproved by
such words, but what is remarkable in them is the clear consciousness of
the main direction and set of his life. We may well hesitate to take
them for ours, but every Christian man and woman ought to be able to say
this much. If we cannot in some degree declare that we are so walking,
we have need to look to our foundations. Such words are really in sharp
contrast to those in which Jesus is held forth as an example. Notice,
too, how quickly he passes to associate others with him, and to merge
the 'Me' into 'Us.' We need not ask who his companions were, since
Timothy is associated with him at the beginning of the letter.
The exhortation is enforced by pointing to others who had gone far
astray, and of whom he had warned the Philippians often, possibly by
letter. Who these unworthy disciples were remains obscure. They were
clearly not the Judaisers branded in verse 2, who were teachers seeking
to draw away the Philippians, while these others seem to have been
'enemies of the Cross of Christ,' not by open hostility nor by
theoretical errors, but by practical worldliness, and that in these
ways; they make sense their God, they are proud of what is really their
disgrace, namely, they are shaking off the restraints of morality; and,
most black though it may seem least so, they 'mind earthly things' on
which thought, feeling, and interest are concentrated. Let us lay to
heart the lesson that such direction of the current of a life to the
things of earth makes men 'enemies of the Cross of Christ,' whatever
their professions, and will surely make their end perdition, whatever
their apparent prosperity. Paul's life seemed loss and was gain; these
men's lives seemed gain and was loss.
From this dark picture charged with gloom, and in one corner showing
white waves breaking far out against an inky sky, and a vessel with torn
sails driving on the rocks, the Apostle turns with relief to the
brighter words in which he sets forth the true affinities and hopes of a
Christian. They all stand or fall with the belief in the Resurrection of
Christ and His present life in His glorified corporeal manhood.