I. It is tenderness and compassion which St. Paul wants the Philippians to practise, and he endeavours to win them to the practice by the recognition and proclamation of the tenderness and compassion that were already theirs. Listen, he says-listen to the love-beatings within you, and be loving. Lo, you carry within you a proud and brotherly sensibility; expand and apply it. He would draw them on to be kinder than they are by setting before them the kindliness they feel. And this is the best way of helping and persuading men to improve, the best way in which to try and lead them from lower things to higher, from unworthy to worthier conduct, namely by fastening upon what they are, in the midst of their faultiness, that is good and beautiful, upon what they have of good and beautiful motions in their breasts, by touching these, and calling their attention to them, and demanding that they should be cultivated and followed.
II. "If there be any consolation in Christ." That there is is true enough. How many have found, and are daily finding, it in Him. But the true rendering of the word is "exhortation." When, in enjoining on the Philippians to cultivate love, the Apostle points them to Christ, it would be surely, not comfort which he meant them to find in Him, but exhortation-exhortation to the love to which he was so anxious to lead them. And the figure of Jesus in the midst of the ages-is it not just this: a perpetual exhortation to men to be a little better than they are, to be less worldly, less grovelling, less selfish, to rise from their low levels to higher ways, with a nobler and purer spirit? And have we not met with persons, too, who in their silent examples, in their beautiful lives, in the spirit that breathed from them, have been full of exhortation to us, in the presence of whose pureness and earnestness, in witnessing whose deeds, we have felt ourselves called to heights above us, have seen with a touch of shame the comparative poorness of what we were and with a sigh of wishfulness the truer thing that we might be? And is not Christ preeminently such a Person? Whenever we meet Him in thoughtful pauses by the way, in moments of quiet meditation over the Gospel page, does He not act on us thus, with rufflings of self-discontent, with a sense of being coarser and earthlier than we ought to be? He stands out an angel in the sun, for ever above us all, yet for ever moving upon and affecting us all: painted for ever upon the eye of the world, we cannot help aspiring and endeavouring the more for the grandeur of His face; it disturbs us in our worldliness and selfishness, and is always exhorting us against them, is always appealing to us to rise toward nobler things.
S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p. 197.
References: Php 2:1 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 348. Php 2:1-4 .-J. J. Goadby, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 293.
Php 2:1-11 I. "If" is not in this case a sign of doubt or hesitation, but, on the contrary, a sign of the most assured certainty. As employed by Paul, it is equivalent to "If there is any water in the sea," or "If there is any light in the sun."
II. This appeal of the Apostle is a burst of tenderness. Affection delights in repetition; love amplifies its expressions to the utmost.
III. Paul having laid his basis in the very heart of Christ, makes an appeal: "Fulfil ye my joy." It is right to interject one's personality as an element in an argument for brotherhood and consolation in the Church.
Parker, City Temple, vol. ii., p. 211.
References: Php 2:1-11 .-Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 99; Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 50. Php 2:1-14 .-Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 350.
Php 2:2 I. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be of one mind. St. Paul's happiness was not quite complete until he could see those whom he loved-and he loved these Philippians-walking in unity. There may be unity without acquaintance, and there may be unity amidst variety. These two defects (as they might appear) are not fatal to the unity of which St. Paul speaks. These things are not the real, certainly not the most formidable, impediments to Christian unity; its worst dangers lie nearer to us than these. St. Paul here shows us what they are. He points out what I may call the conditions of unity, and they are two: humility and unselfishness. (1) Humility. Act not, he says, on a principle of party spirit or vainglory; but in your humility count each superior to yourselves. Need I point out how inseparably connected are individual vanity and collective discord, how it is the assumption, and the pushing, and the arrogance, and the expectation of undue respect and deference, on the part of individuals, which cause at least half of those piques and misunderstandings and secret heart-burnings which run on at last into open dissensions? (2) Unselfishness. The two graces have their root in one. Look not each of you on your own things, but each of you also on the things of others. Vanity is a fruitful cause of dissension; but below vanity itself lies ever a foundation of selfishness.
II. Note the motives by which Christian unity is here recommended and enforced. I beseech you, Paul says in effect, by every comfort and by every privilege of the Gospel. If there be any such thing as consolation in Christ, if there be any such thing as comfort in love, if any such thing as a joint participation in the Holy Spirit, if any such thing as a heart of pitying compassion, then by all these things I beseech you to be of one soul and of one mind.
C. J. Vaughan, Lectures on Philippians, p. 87.
I. "Being of one accord" does not always mean being of the same opinion. Of course in the main there can be no good work done unless the great verities are believed by us all. We believe the vital truths, but then there are shades of opinion about many things. I do not want to see eye to eye with every one on men or things. Variety is intended by God. There are men emphatically endowed by special gifts for mission work; some have tender sympathies, and they can be friends to the fatherless and widow; some have gifts for calling out the energies of the young.
II. There must be in this one accord subordinacy of one to the other. Everything must be subservient to great ends. There must always be the chorus-leader; you know he was called so in the Greek choruses. There must be men of the same faith, all inspired by the same Spirit. By subserviency I mean everything uniting for Christ's end. You fall into your place, and subserve the interests of the Cross.
III. In this harmony there is health. It is so in a nation. A nation is in harmony when the rich sympathise with and help the poor, and the wise help the ignorant. You may live many years, but the poor you will have always to the end of time, and men must be self-disciplined who have these blessings and seek to use them aright. A prosperous Church and nation is where there is health in the body politic.
IV. We shall thus enjoy influence. The world likes harmony; it does not know always how it is attained, but it likes it.
V. Lastly, it means heaven. What does heaven mean? It means rest in God. Whose mind have we? Christ's. And that is heaven begun on earth.
W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 397.
Php 2:3-5 The Discipline of the Christian Character.
I. The Christian character is set before us in manifold and diversified ways in the Bible. The Christian character in its completeness is the result and outgrowth of all that series of events of which the Bible is in part, but in the most important part, the record, which begins in ages back beyond our ken and which comes down even to the day which is passing. This form of human character, tending from the first to the mind of Christ and at last culminating in it in His person, and less completely in His saints after the day of Pentecost, is the character put before us in the Bible and given us to study, to learn from according to our measure, to assimilate and reproduce.
II. The foundation of the religious character of the Old and New Testaments was laid in a great idea which is brought into clear and strong distinctness in the age of the Patriarchs, in God's dealings with Abraham, in what is shown to us of the discipline and guidance under which he became the father of the faithful, the first example, that is in detail, that is of feeling and action, of the religious idea. And that idea is the singleness and individuality of the soul in its relation to the God who called it into being. If the feeling of the individual being, merged and swallowed up in the aggregate, is strong and even irresistible at times now, how much more so in the infancy of the world, when that discipline of man began which was to lead at last to the mind of Christ. And so the first work of that discipline was to enforce and impress deeply another great and paramount aspect of man and life, another great side of the truth which should balance, correct, and complete the other. It was to teach and leave firmly planted the faith that God had His eye on each separable unit in these innumerable crowds; that each separate soul in them had its direct relations to its Maker, its course to follow for itself, its destiny to fulfil or to fail in, its special calls and gifts, according to its Master's purpose, to account for, its own separate hopes, its own separate responsibilities. In the history of Abraham, from his call to the last trial of his faith, we see that great and, as far as we are allowed to see at least in its greatness and depth, that new, lesson.
III. We live alone as much as we die alone, and we, "whose spirits live in awful singleness, each in his self-formed sphere of light or gloom," need to know that great conviction before we die. It may indeed come at any moment; in the hurry of business, in the hour of joy, in the misery of bereavement, in the flash and revelation of the beauty or the awfulness of the world, oh even in the very moment of temptation and the hour of sin, we may learn and feel the startling and essential singleness of the soul. But it will be well for us not to wait for its coming, but to seek it as the Psalmist long ago taught men to seek it: "O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee."
Dean Church, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 104.
Php 2:3-5 I. There are two ways of doing even the best work: through strife and through love. This was seen in the first chapter, where two classes of preachers are described.
II. Entire sympathy with Christ will always heighten man's appreciation of man.
III. Christianity is thus the only humanising and fraternising religion.
IV. Self-seeking is in utter antagonism to the spirit of Christianity.
V. Christianity never encourages a degrading view of human nature. Man is to be esteemed by man. Christians are to recognise each other's excellencies. Love's eye is quick to detect virtue in another. Up to this point Paul continues his appeal for unanimity. The spirit of this appeal is most suggestive; it is the spirit of profound and tender sympathy with Christ. Absence of union is a reflection upon the uniting force. What is the uniting force of a Christian Church? The love of Christ. Where, then, there is disunion, it is plainly to be inferred that there is either not sufficient of this love, or that this love is unequal to the exigencies of the case. The world has a right to compare the deeds of the servant with the deeds of the Master, because the connection is moral, and consequently involves responsibility. All the practices of the Church are carried back to Christ, and He is magnified or crucified afresh according to their nature.
Parker, City Temple, vol. ii., p. 212.
Php 2:4 Courtesy.
I. Courtesy is the expression in outward manner of deference for the most delicate susceptibilities of others. It is doubtless, on the one side, a habit; it is practised instinctively; its forms are caught by unconscious imitation; it is inherited like other habits, so that it seems sometimes a native characteristic of particular blood. On the other side, like other habits, it has been generated originally by the feelings and the will. While it is practised it reacts on the mind and heart, and fosters and keeps alive those feelings from which it sprang. If the feelings which renew and vivify it die away, it will become an empty shell or form: a part will drop in here, and a part there. The hasty observer may not detect the change. The gracious manner will remain as an ornament in the public eye; but those who know the man behind the scenes will know that even the manner is forgotten when he is most truly himself.
II. Courtesy, then, if it be a virtue of manner, is an essentially Christian virtue; that is, it rests on ideas Christian in origin: (1) first, on the universality of our relations to mankind, in the sense that all men are of one blood, one Father; (2) secondly, on the special claim of the weak upon the strong, the claim for sympathy inherent in pain, even in the little pains of injured susceptibility, the paramount claim to tenderest consideration of childhood, of the weaker sex, of the poor, of the wronged, of the dependent. Graft upon these the idea inherent in the highest types of the Christian character drawn in the New Testament, the idea of self-respect, pride turned inwardly as a motive and exacting standard of personal high living, and we have complete the chivalrous conception of a gentleman's courtesy. We find the best pictures of it in two characters put before us in the New Testament: (a) in the writings of St. Paul; (b) in the acts and words of One greater than St. Paul.
E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 82.
Christian Self-sacrifice.
I. Christian self-sacrifice necessarily takes two forms, for, on the one hand, there is a self-sacrifice for the sake of ourselves, as it were for our own self-discipline; there is a self-sacrifice which gives up a great deal which otherwise we might reasonably keep in order that we may more entirely devote our whole souls to God; there is a self-sacrifice the purpose of which is closer communion, the purpose of which is to live in our thoughts and in the impulses and emotions of our hearts more entirely in the Lord's presence, close to Him, drawing in, as it were, into our souls the light of His love. This self-sacrifice has high honour, and, from certain points of view, it stands above all others. But, on the other hand, our Lord's self-sacrifice was more markedly of another kind: self-sacrifice not for His own sake, but for the sake of others.
II. The commandment of the text ranges from the highest to the lowest; it embraces the largest and it embraces the smallest thing that we can do. It penetrates because it is a spiritual force; it penetrates even into all the details of life; and it bids the man be self-sacrificing as in great things, so in small things, because what is asked of men is not the self-sacrifice itself, but the self-sacrificing spirit, which is sure to issue in self-sacrifice perpetual.
III. This spirit of self-sacrifice, as it is the duty of individuals, so is it the duty of the Church as a body. The Church as a body is called upon to labour earnestly for the good of men and the good of those who have been brought by baptism within her pale, for the good of those who are still outside. The Church is called upon perpetually to that self-sacrifice which made the Lord stretch out His hand all day long to a disbelieving and gainsaying people.
Bishop Temple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 337.
Sectarianism.
I. Our first association with religion is its bearing on our own souls and their salvation. He that has been struck by a great conviction is for the time isolated from his fellows. All the world for him centres round the single question, "What must I do to be saved?" For a time the Church and general interests are lost to view, just as the whole world would be to a man who had fallen into a crevasse, and who could have leisure for no other thought than how to extricate himself and how to get others to help him into safety. Such a man must for the time look on his own things, not on the things of others. There are those who think that Christian separateness consists in being very unlike other men. Rather it should be said, Live in faith and prayer the same life that others live without them, and you have entered the true separate state of consecration to God.
II. There is the sectarianism of the congregation. We say, This is my Church; these are our forms of worship; this is our effort to do good. Without such appropriation of truth no Christian work can thrive. But if we mean that the work is ours to the exclusion of others or to the prejudice of others, sectarianism at once begins. We should try to see and to know each other's work, and to take part in common effort.
III. There is a denominational sectarianism. There are three things in which the advantage of amity among the denominations maybe seen. (1) The first is that which occurs to us all: that, while we maintain a separate and defiant attitude, we waste our energies in collisions that cannot be avoided, and we are much weakened for all good purposes. (2) If we would deal with one another in the confidence of Christian brotherhood, our mutual influence for good would be increased a hundredfold. (3) Ministers and Church rulers of all denominations should ask themselves this question: how they will answer to Christ if they build up His people into the image of their own exclusiveness, instead of the image of the world-embracing love of their Lord.
W. H. Fremantle, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 385.
References: Php 2:4 .-A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country, p. 158; W. Bennett, Church of England Pulpit, vol. v., p. 105; G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 357; T. T. Lynch, Sermons for my Curates, p. 147; Forsyth Hamilton, Pulpit Parables, p. 66; J. Fraser, Church Sermons, vol. ii., p. 209.
Php 2:5 The True Imitation of Christ.
Consider two or three simple instances of the mode in which we may catch something of the true mind of Christ, and carry out into our lives something of a true Imitatio Christi.
I. There is, first of all, the readiness to forego, for the good of others, things to which we feel we have a fair claim. It seems a very homely lesson, yet so strong is the tendency to self-assertion and pride that we find both the Apostle and his Master laying on it an exceeding stress; a homely lesson, yet one which, strange to say, may bring opportunities of drawing near to the mind of Christ, occasions in little things or in great.
II. Is not this a field in which we may seek for the mind which was in Christ Jesus? I do not mean only by being ready to do our appointed work with our whole hearts, but by recognising it as being the work set us by Him who sent us all into the world to work while it is day, by facing readily and cheerfully all that is distasteful and wearisome in the work, even as He bore the perpetual association with unsympathising dullness, with human ignorance, with scenes of misery, of disease, wretchedness, and sin.
III. Remember, too, another point in which we need the mind of Christ. Our work, our occupations, our recreations, are apt to take entire possession of us, to overwhelm us, to model us into their shape, to reduce us to their level; they cling to us like our shadows; they keep us from rising out of them or above them. Remember that He is recorded as having gone up from the crowded plain to the quiet hill, and there continued all night in prayer to God; and that we are told how the disciples went to their own home, but Jesus went to the mount of Olives. Surely we cannot fail if we wish to keep Him before our eyes to find even in the busiest life some still time for thought, for looking backwards and forwards, for withdrawing ourselves for a moment from the throng of common cares and pleasures to some peaceful hillside, from amidst the swarming and noisy flats of life, where we may snatch short times of insight and resolution which may be worked out in days of hurry or perhaps of gloom.
G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 177.
I. St. Paul sees in the Passion of our Lord the crown and climax of the stupendous act of condescension which began in His incarnation. Being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient, submitted Himself to the will of the Father, even to the point of drinking the cup, to His true human nature the bitter cup, of death. We may notice two points which St. Paul emphasises. (1) The condescension has its roots in our blessed Lord's conception of the scope and value of His own Divine prerogatives. It was He through whom all that is is, yet to Him that pre-eminence was not a thing to set store by in itself. From that infinite height He stooped to the level of the creatures of His hand, that He might serve. The Creator valued not His creative power, laid aside readily the Creator's prerogatives, that He might help, might serve, His creature. (2) The condescension was complete, not measured or stinted. The cup was drained to the dregs. He came to do His Father's will, and He did it-"felt all, that He might pity all," bore what to man is the extremity of pain and shame, that He might save man from pain and shame.
II. There is something of the sense of passing from infinite differences to infinitesimal ones, of turning the eyes from light so bright that nothing for the time is visible after it, when we pass from contemplating this infinite self-humiliation to think how we can in any true sense imitate it. Yet St. Paul bids us so pass. It is his very purpose in so painting the Divine condescension: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." The consciousness of this infinite condescension of God for us must transfigure life to us, break down once and for all our pride, show us the true proportions of things, open our hearts to Him who has done so much for us.
E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 35.
References: Php 2:5 .-E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. ii., p. 191; Church of England Pulpit, vol. v., p. 185; R. W. Church, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 181; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 323; H. D. Rawnsley, Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 298; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 273; Preacher's Monthly, vol. x., pp. 164, 180, 193, 201; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 157; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. viii., p. 107.
Php 2:5-7 The Humiliation and Glory of Christ.
Consider the practical purposes of the Apostle in bringing this subject before us.
I. Among the chief of these is the inculcation of humility. This whole marvellous passage is brought before us, not for dogmatic teaching, but for moral example. The main intention is, not to reveal Jesus Christ as the foundation of a sinner's hope (although that is implied), but it is to point out the wonderful moral beauty of His condescension and to enforce it upon the regards of His followers for their devout and diligent imitation. Because He humbled Himself, because He pleased God, expressed the very mind of God, "God also hath highly exalted Him," and we are allowed to reason that with and in Him we too shall rise. The Master and the disciple, together treading the valley of humiliation, shall together sit on the throne. To be partaker of the sufferings is the sure pledge of participation in the glory.
II. "Work out your own salvation," this moral conformity to God, by following Christ; by cross-bearing; by self-denial; by descents into darkness with your lights, into misery with your joys; by holding yourself at the service of Christ; by making life a sacrifice and yourself a living victim; by filling yourself with the tenderness and Divine passion and unutterable love of the Cross.
A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 282.
The Incarnation a Lesson of Humility.
I. Christ "emptied Himself." He, the Creator, passed by the heavenly host, delivered not them by taking their nature, but came down to us, who were lower than the angels, last in order of His rational creation, and became as one of us. He emptied Himself of His immortality, and the Immortal died; He became subject to death, the penalty of sin. Not only in birth, in life, in death, but now also in His glory, He is content to be hidden still. So did He veil His majesty that because, as man, He confessed, "My Father is greater than I," some whom He came to redeem will not believe in Him; others believe not in Him as He is.
II. God incarnate preaches humility to His creature. For this is the foundation of the whole building of Christian virtues, or rather thus alone can we reach that foundation whereon we can build securely. The heathen had semblances or images of well-nigh every virtue; the heathen had self-devotion, contentment, contempt of the world without him and of the flesh; he had fortitude, endurance, self-denial, chastity, even a sort of reverence for God, whom he knew not; but he had not humility. The first beginning of Christian virtues is to lay aside pride.
III. Dig deep, then, the foundation of humility, so only mayest thou hope to reach the height of charity; for by humility alone canst thou reach that Rock which shall not be shaken, that is, Christ. Founded by humility on that Rock, the storms of the world shall not shake thee; the torrent of evil custom shall not bear thee away; the empty winds of vanity shall not cast thee down: founded deep on that Rock, thou mayest build day by day that tower whose top shall reach unto heaven, to the very presence of God, the sight of God, and shalt be able to finish it, for He shall raise thee thither who for thy sake abased Himself to us.
E. B. Pusey, Sermons from Advent to Whitsuntide, vol. i., p. 61.
Php 2:5-8 The Humiliation of the Eternal Son.
I. In looking into these words, we observe (1) that St. Paul clearly asserts Jesus Christ to have existed before His birth into the world. By saying that Jesus Christ existed in the form of God before He took on Him the form of a servant, St. Paul would have been understood by any one who read him in his own language to mean that, when as yet Christ had no human body or human soul, He was properly and literally God, because He existed in the form, and so possessed all the proper attributes, of God. (2) St. Paul goes on to say that, being God, Jesus Christ "thought it not robbery to be equal with God." This sentence would be more closely and clearly rendered, "Christ did not look on His equality with God as a prize to be jealously set store by." Men who are new to great positions always think more of them than those who have always enjoyed them. Christ, who was God from everlasting, laid no stress on this His eternal greatness; He emptied Himself of His Divine prerogatives or glory. (3) Of this self-humiliation St. Paul traces three distinct stages. The first consists in Christ's taking on Himself the form of a servant or slave. By this expression St. Paul means human nature. Without ceasing to be what He was, what He could not but be, He wrapped around Himself a created form, through which He would hold converse with men, in which He would suffer, in which He would die. The second stage of His humiliation is that Christ did not merely take human nature on Him; He became obedient to death. The third stage in this humiliation is that, when all modes of death were open to Him, He chose that which would bring with it the greatest share of pain and shame. "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." When on the cross of shame He endures the sharpness of death, He is only completing that emptying Himself of His glory which began when, "taking upon Himself to deliver man, He did not abhor the Virgin's womb."
II. Why may we suppose that God, by His providence acting in His Church, places before our eyes this most suggestive passage of Holy Scripture on the Sunday next before Easter? (1) We stand today on the threshold of the great week which in the thought of a well-instructed Christian, whose heart is in its right place, is beyond all comparison the most solemn week in the whole year. It is of the first importance that we should answer clearly this primary question: "Who is the Sufferer?" That which gives to the Passion and death of our Lord its real value is the fact that the Sufferer is more than man; that, although He suffers in and through a created nature, He is personally God. (2) The lesson which St. Paul draws for the benefit of the Philippians from the consideration of the Incarnation and Passion is a lesson which is as valuable to us as members of civil society, as it is valuable to members of the Church of Christ. If Christ did not set store on glory which was rightfully, inalienably His, why should we? All who have lived for others rather than for themselves in His Church have been true to Him, true to the spirit of His incarnation and death, true to what St. Paul calls "the mind that was in Christ Jesus."
H. P. Liddon, Passiontide Sermons, p. 18.
The Mystery of the Cross.
I. We all agree that God is good; all, at least, do so who worship Him in spirit and in truth. We adore His majesty because it is the moral and spiritual majesty of perfect goodness; we give thanks to Him for His great glory because it is the glory, not merely of perfect power, wisdom, order, justice, but of perfect love, of perfect magnanimity, beneficence, activity, condescension, pity, in one word of perfect grace. But how much must the last word comprehend as long as there is misery and evil in the world, or in any other corner of the whole universe! Grace, to be perfect, must show itself by graciously forgiving penitents; pity, to be perfect, must show itself by helping the miserable; beneficence, to be perfect, must show itself by delivering the oppressed.
II. The Apostles believed, and all those who accepted their Gospel believed, that they had found for the word "grace" a deeper meaning than had ever been revealed to the prophets of old time; that grace and goodness, if they were perfect, involved self-sacrifice. If man can be so good, God must be infinitely better; if man can love so much, God must love more; if man, by shaking off the selfishness which is his bane, can do noble deeds, then God, in whom is no selfishness at all, may at least have done a deed as far above his as the heavens are above the earth. Shall we not confess that man's self-sacrifice is but a poor and dim reflection of the self-sacrifice of God? Shall we not find, as thousands have found ere now, in the Cross of Calvary, the perfect satisfaction of our highest moral instincts, the realisation in act and fact of the highest idea which we can form of perfect condescension, namely, self-sacrifice exercised by a Being of whom perfect condescension, love, and self-sacrifice were not required by aught in heaven or on earth save by the necessity of His own perfect and inconceivable goodness?
C. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. 1.
References: Php 2:5-8 .-G. Huntingdon, Sermons for Holy Seasons, p. 75; T. A. White, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 159; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iv., p. 88. Php 2:5-9 .-Ibid., vol. vi., p. 148.
Php 2:5-11 These delineations of Christ reveal the true method of rendering moral service to man. Human deliverance and progress will remain a theory only until men come to work upon the method here stated. Great philanthropic programmes must begin at Bethlehem and comprehend the mysteries of Golgotha if ever they would ascend from Bethany into the heavens. To serve man, Christ became man; so in serving others we must identify ourselves with them.
I. This identification of Himself with the human race made Christ accessible to all classes. We, too, in our philanthropic work must go down.
II. Christ's piety was not a mere index finger. Instead of saying, "That is the way," He said, "I am the Way." A man's whole moral vitality must constitute his redeeming power.
III. Does it not degrade a man to have this personal association with human vice and misery? The answer may be given in a question: Was Christ degraded? A man's spirit will determine his fate. Benevolence will come forth unpolluted as a sunbeam, beautiful as summer's purest flower.
IV. Condescension is not degradation. Christ speaks in monosyllables, as it were; He pronounces each word with emphasis, giving each a wide circumference, until every tone penetrates the listener's ear. Be Godlike, and come down to those whom you would save.
Parker, City Temple, vol. ii., p. 213.
References: Php 2:5-11 .-C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 193; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iii., p. 82; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 52.
Php 2:6-7 I. The Son of God was in the form of God: glorious as the Father; equal to the Father; the Creator and Upholder of the universe. Notwithstanding, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, i.e.-for the words are obscure as they now stand-He deemed not His equality with God a matter eagerly to be grasped by Him; did not think of it as the robber does of his prey, so that he would not on any account let it go; esteemed it not matter of self-enrichment or self-indulgence. He looked on His Divine glory and majesty as willing, if need be, to detach them from Himself, if He might thus the better fulfil the great end of His Divine being: the expression of the Father's will and the showing forth of the brightness of His glory. He made Himself of no reputation; literally, He emptied Himself. He laid aside, not His Divine nature-for that was His very being-not His Divine person as the Son of God, not His purity and holiness-for these were the essential elements of His Divine nature and person-but all accessories to these: all power, all majesty, all renown, yea and what is more mysterious still to our apprehension: all that infinite knowledge of all things with which as God and Creator He was clothed.
II. "He was made in the likeness of man." From being a glorious uncreated Being He became enshrined in a created nature, became as to His outward form a creature and subject to the laws of the creature: hunger; weariness; pain; death. We in vain endeavour to form any idea of this vast descent into degradation of the Son of God. When He, in His glory and His joy, took on Him the character of Redeemer, He knew what was in man; He saw all the depths of depravity, all the wonders of selfishness, all the pollutions of sin, of which this our nature was capable, and to which it would degrade itself: and He shrank not from contact with, from identification with, the vessel which had been thus defiled. We shall never know what Christ's humiliation was till we know what His exaltation and His glory are. The eye which cannot bear the light above is dazzled and misted when it contemplates the depth of darkness below.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. vi., p. 35.
References: Php 2:6-11 .-W. Harris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 276.
Php 2:7 I. We must be careful that we do not suffer our knowledge of the perfect Deity of Jesus Christ to confound or weaken our apprehension of His entire and essential manhood. A very little error on this point may lead to the worst consequences. For instance, if Christ be not absolutely a Man, if His Divinity come in in the least degree to qualify human nature, then He practically almost ceases to stand forth as an example which we are to follow. For the answer will be always ready to our lips, He is of a different and distinct order; imitation is impossible, for He was Himself holy by Deity: and besides this, unless He be perfect man, His death may carry the form of an infinite sacrifice, but it cannot be viewed in the light of a strict substitution.
II. The manhood which Christ assumed is full of the deepest comfort to His Church. For observe its consequence. All the nature of our race was gathered and concentrated into the one human life. He stood forth the great representative Man; what He did, it was as though we had done it: what He bore, it was as though we had suffered it. But were even one iota taken out of the manhood of Jesus, the parallel of the work would cease, and the provisions of the mediatorial scheme would fail. Therefore St. John twice makes the belief in it essential to our salvation. "Whosoever confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is born of God."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 1.
Php 2:7 Christ a Slave.
The word servant will convey to us in this present age a very inadequate idea of the degree of the degradation of which it is the figure. For service has been dignified since Jesus was a servant. We know nothing now more really honourable than Christian service. But let us not forget that He first taught us to call servants friends.
I. Notice one or two of the laws and customs respecting Jewish slaves, that you may see the correctness of the title and the exceeding extent of the humiliation of Jesus. (1) No slave among the Jews could have any position or right as a citizen; he had no political standing. If injured, he had no redress; if assaulted, no protection. And very accurate was the counterpart in our Saviour's life when subjected to the most outrageous violence and wrong. No arm of law was ever outstretched for His defence. (2) The slave could hold no property whatever. And what had He, the Servant of servants? Which of the world's paupers ever walked the earth as poor as the world's Creator? (3) And every slave was in the eyes of the law a mere piece of goods and chattels, which could be bought and sold. It was in the strictness therefore of the letter of the law to which He subjected Himself when for the base sum of less than three pounds Judas sold Him. (4) And when he died, the slave was still pursued by his brand; he might be scourged and tortured, and a last distinctive punishment was assigned him: the cross. So Jesus under the lash and on the tree was the slave.
II. As a servant or slave Christ had two duties to execute. The first was to His Father; (2) the second was to His people. What He did the last night in the upper chamber is only an epitome of His whole life; the girded towel and the basin in the hand characterised the Man. He is always going to persons' feet; He is always performing inferior offices; He is always in the attitude of some active ministration; He takes His Church as a charge committed to Him by God, and He honours and tends each one, as a servant does his lord's friends, and of each one He is able to give in the good account at last, "Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874.
Reference: Php 2:7 , Php 2:8 .-W. J. Knox-Little, The Mystery of the Passion, p. 3.
Php 2:8 The Humility of Christ.
I. Among the virtues of Christ's humanity brought to dwell among men was humility, a virtue which lies at the foundation of the Christian character, a virtue unknown to the moral philosophy of the ancient world. "Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself." The Apostle is not now speaking of the infinite condescension whereby He as God left the glory that He had with the Father before the worlds were made, but rather he is speaking of the humility of Christ as man, by which as a Child, though conscious that He was about His Father's business, He went down to Nazareth, and was subject to Joseph and Mary, that humility by which He became obedient unto death, even the shameful, ignominious death of the cross.
II. Humility is the direct opposite and contradiction of the spirit which, in the case of those who possessed high privileges among the sons of God, exalted them against God; and so they fell from heaven. And therefore, as humility is the groundwork and beginning of the Christian life, so it is the ingredient and accompaniment of all progress in heavenly virtue, the lowly handmaid of true charity.
III. Hard it is for human souls to keep humility and strength. According to the world's estimation, humility is at a discount. And another difficulty arises from the fact that the counterfeits of humility are so detestable. But if the counterfeits are base, genuine humility, sterling modesty, bear none the less the stamp and impress of the Divine character; and if they be not current in the world, yet surely they pass without question for their full value in the Christian life. With humility come the grace, the courage, the fortitude, necessary for the Christian warfare. The truly brave are, as a rule, modest and humble. And, finally, humility is a brave helper and comforter in sorrow, and trial, and tribulation; and when the end draws nigh, it has the peace of resignation, it has the calm assurance of the presence of the Comforter within, with whom the soul can fear no evil, though it be in the valley of the shadow of death.
E. Warre, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxiii., p. 209.
Christ Degraded.
I. Consider the manner in which Christ as a Man took the lowest place and did the meanest part. Here is the most beautiful feature in all the exquisite portraiture of His humiliation: that at the time He did any of the acts of His wonderful life the humiliation was never prominent and seldom apparent. For had you met Jesus in one of His usual walks of mercy, or sat with Him at the meal, or listened to Him as He spoke, I do not imagine that you would have been impressed at once and very consciously with the lowliness of the transaction, as though He were doing some very wonderfully condescending thing. That is what we often do-a posture, a garb, a studied word-and we call it humility. But there would have been a depth of selfforgetfulness in all which Christ said and did and was which would tell on you in a way which you could scarcely clothe in language, but when you looked quietly back upon it, it would amazingly grow upon you in the greatness of its quiet modesty. And this is the truth of the grace of a humble mind: it is too humble to look humble; it hides self so well that the act which hides it is not seen-the humility is humbled.
II. The great lesson of every Christmas is humility. The genius of the life of Jesus from its cradle to its glory was self-abandonment, the most self-denying love, robing itself in the most self-forgetting modesty. He cast His own deeds into the shade by the very light which threw a radiance on the actions of His people. If He told us to take the lowest seat, Himself chose a lower still than all His followers, and burying unparalleled glories in unequalled sufferings, He was to men only a Servant and to God nothing but a Child.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 9.
I. Christ's death was not a mere martyrdom. A martyr is one who dies for the Church, who is put to death for preaching and maintaining the truth. Christ indeed was put to death for maintaining the Gospel, yet He was not a martyr, but He was much more than a martyr. Had He been a mere man, He would have been rightly called a martyr; but as He was not a mere man, so He was not a mere martyr. Man dies as a martyr, but the Son of man dies as an atoning Sacrifice. The sufferings and death of the Word incarnate could not pass away like a dream; they could not be a mere martyrdom or a mere display or figure of something else; they must have had a virtue in them. This we might be sure of, though nothing had been told us about the result; but the result is also revealed-it is this: our reconciliation to God, the expiation of our sins, and our new creation in holiness.
II. We believe that when Christ suffered on the cross our nature suffered in Him. Human nature, fallen and corrupt, was under the wrath of God, and it was impossible that it should be restored to His favour till it had expiated its sin by suffering. In Him our sinful nature died and rose again; when it died in Him on the cross, that death was its new creation: in Him it satisfied its old and heavy debt, for the presence of His Divinity gave it transcendent merit. His presence had kept it pure from sin from the first; His personal indwelling hallowed it and gave it power. And thus, when it had been offered up upon the cross and was made perfect by suffering, it became the firstfruits of a new man; it became a Divine leaven of holiness for the new birth and spiritual life of as many as should receive it.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vi., p. 69.
References: Php 2:8 .-Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 328; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ii., p. 94; C. J. Vaughan, Words of Hope, p. 162; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 85; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 155; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1869, p. 234. Php 2:9 .-Philpot, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 265; Homilist, 2nd series, p. 541; Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 267; J. Cairns, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 315. Php 2:9-11 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 101; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 109; Ibid., vol. xviii., p. 293; Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 282; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iv., p. 222.
Php 2:10 I. Even angels are to worship in the name of Jesus. It is, however, more to the purpose for us to remember that God desires men, all men, so to worship. And it is a thought at once solemnising and comforting that not only living men, but the dead also, are required to call upon God in the name of Jesus. It is assumed in the words of our text that all God's creatures will bend the knee somehow. Prayer is an instinct of nature. God has so made us that we feel a power above us, and desire that that power should be friendly to us, and not hostile. The first element of prayer" is the calling in of that power, the praying it not to be unfriendly to us, not to exert itself to crush, but to benefit, to bless, to save. The poor idolater does that. All his miserable superstitions point that way. Prayer in some form is an instinct. But is prayer in the name of Jesus an instinct? Is it the prayer which even Christians always offer? That is the name which is our passport; that is the name which has power with God and prevails; that is the name which we must take with us if we would know what it is to be heard and to be answered.
II. And that every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the second part of the design of the exaltation of Jesus. God will have Him owned as Lord throughout the whole world. Yes, the praises of the Church as well as the prayers of the Church have a value in heaven. The religion of many Christians never gets beyond prayer. There is not a word of praise in it; there is no bold, frank, honest avowal of convictions deeply cherished as to the person and the work of Christ. The language of praise in God's worship ought to be consistent with the still more real language of the life. "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord," our Saviour Himself asks of us, "and do not the things which I say?" If the tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, ought not our acts and common words, our habits and principles, our aims and motives, to say the same thing? The acknowledgment which is frank and emphatic ought to be consistent also and harmonious.
(1) This counsel implies that something has been already done. The very phrase "Work out" suggests this. The salvation has been begun, and is in one sense a complete thing. We stand still and see the salvation of God. (2) The exhortation implies that something more is to be done: "Work out your own salvation." Then it is not only a work done for us and without us, but it is a continual process within us. There is a new life created, and the life grows, as every life does, and must grow or die.
I. We work out our own salvation by the acquisition of spiritual truth. There is a danger in resting satisfied with a faith received by tradition from our fathers. While it is unwise to break away from the past, it is equally unwise to reject the new truth that may be revealed to us and to close our minds against reasonable and honest convictions.
II. There will then be progress in character. The spiritual truth thus acquired will be the food of the soul, supporting and strengthening it; the faith that was once like a weak thread binding us to Christ will become a cable to hold the ship from drifting in the storm.
III. This work must advance even in the absence of means which are important. God may deprive you of your compass and keep the north star all the more brightly before you; He may take away the Apostle, and yet grant a fuller revelation of Christ.
IV. Think of the spirit in which we are to do the work. There is no room for presumption, but much for precaution and self-distrust. "Be not high-minded, but fear."
J. Owen, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 237.
References: Php 2:12 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1003; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. viii., p. 144; F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 337.
Php 2:12-13 I. A Christian man has his whole salvation already accomplished for him in Christ, and yet he is to work it out. Work as well as believe, and in the daily practice of faithful obedience, in the daily subjugation of your own spirits to His Divine power, in the daily crucifixion of your flesh, with its affections and lusts, in the daily straining after loftier heights of godliness and purer atmospheres of devotion and love, make more thoroughly your own that which you possess. Work into the substance of your souls that which you have. "Apprehend that for which you are apprehended of Christ," "Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure," and remember that not a past act of faith, but a present and continuous life of loving, faithful work in Christ, which is His and yet yours, is the holding fast the beginning of your confidence firm unto the end.
II. God works all in us, and yet we have to work. The Apostle did not absorb all our individuality in one great Divine cause which made men mere tools and puppets; he did not believe that the inference was, Do you sit still and feel yourselves the ciphers that you are. His practical conclusion is the very opposite; it is, God does all: therefore do you work. Work, for God works in you.
III. The Christian has his salvation secured, and yet he is to fear and tremble. Your faith can be worth nothing unless it has, bedded deep in it, that trembling distrust of your own power which is the pre-requisite and the companion of all thankful and faithful reception of God's infinite mercy.
A. Maclaren, Sermons, p. 215.
The Twofold Force in Salvation.
This sentence falls from the lips of St. Paul as easy and natural as his breath. It has no particular emphasis, no special importance; it is not a climax either of thought or feeling; it is not a definition; it shows no trace of a long or careful process of thought of which it is the conclusion. As it came from St. Paul it was a simple, natural, almost commonplace exhortation to earnestness, with the encouragement that God would cooperate, as any one of us might say to one another, Work with all your might, and God will help you. St. Paul says simply this: Strive for your salvation; work it out yourself,; do not rely on others; it is your own matter, and a very serious one: hence be earnest about it; do not trifle nor take it for granted that you will be saved; if you ever see salvation you must work for it with fear and trembling, or you may fail of it. But at the same time remember also, for your encouragement, that while you work God also works in you; He wills in your will; He acts in your act. If you are earnest in this matter and have an honest heart about it, you may rely on the fact that God is at work in you, the soul and energy of the whole process. Such, and so simple, is the thought. But, simple as it is, it teaches several important lessons.
I. That salvation is an achievement. It was a moral process that St. Paul had in mind. If a man has any sinful habits, he must overcome them; if he has any lacks or weaknesses, he must work to supply the deficiency. And then there is the great reality of character-a welded group of qualities that only comes about by elaboration. The qualities may have a natural root or ground, but each one must be worked out; it must come under the conscience and the will; it must be tried, and shaped, and fed, and worked into the substance of the character.
II. This achievement of salvation is at the cost of sharp and definite strife. All the various works that are commonly assigned to man are works of deliverance or salvation; they resolve themselves at last to that complexion, and properly take on that designation. You can have no better or truer name for the great world-work of man than salvation. And as salvation is the great world business, so is it the main thing every man has to do. When the house of his heart is swept clean, and the faulty or vicious disposition is brought under control, then there opens before him the great positive work of salvation; then he may begin to build himself up into the proportions of true spiritual manhood.
III. The world does not exist by itself; it exists in God. Man does not live, machine-like, by himself; he lives, and moves, and has and holds his being, in God. His energy and force are not his own, but flow out of God. He has, indeed, a free will, but God is the source of it; but, because it is a free will, God can only act with it and by its consent. He is not, however, excluded from the realm of our nature. God may enter the will, and fill it with power, and work with it, without impairing its nature or injuring the value of its action. Use your will; work out your salvation with fear and trembling, that is, in humble, dead earnestness; when you so work, God is working with you. It is all His; it is all yours: it is each; it is both: it is neither alone; together they are one.
T. T. Munger, The Appeal to Life, p. 169.
I. There is a sense in which salvation is not yet wrought out, not yet accomplished, not yet wrought so as to be wrought successfully. The Christian is saved; Christ has borne his sins; Christ has done all for him; Christ is his sufficient sacrifice; Christ is his availing Intercessor; Christ is charged with his soul; Christ is already his Life; and because Christ lives, he lives also: but yet, though saved, he is not safe; though all has been done for him, he is not in repose; though his true life is hid with Christ in God, yet his lower life is still lived on earth, in a world of abounding temptation, of perpetual turmoil, of overflowing iniquity, of unrest therefore, of anxiety, yes of risk. Like St. Peter walking upon the water, he is safe while he looks to Christ; but he is not safe from the danger of looking off from Christ. If he does that, he begins to sink. Perseverance is a privilege of the elect; but what sign is there of the elect, what infallible sign, save perseverance? He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved; till that endurance is completed, who shall presume upon it? The condition of the Christian is made up of various, of opposite, ingredients. There is sorrow for sin; there is peace in believing; there is the fear of God; there is the love of God; there is salvation rejoiced in; there is salvation to be wrought out.
II. Let us now turn to the opposite half of the text. A Christian must work out his own salvation; that is one truth: it is God who works in him both to will and to do; that is the other truth. Let us say then to ourselves, If it is God who works in Christians both to will and to do, to Him will I seek, for Him will I wait, with Him will I abide, day by day, that He may both lay in me the train of holy resolution, and also kindle it into action by the spark of His grace.
We have in the subject (1) a motive of warning and (2) a motive of hope.
C. J. Vaughan, Lectures on Philippians, p. 119
The Work of the Christian Life.
I. The exhortation. There is a sense in which salvation is no work of ours, but is simply the free gift of God in Christ Jesus. But salvation is a great deal more than forgiveness. It is not enough that our souls are pardoned and justified through the faith of Christ unless we are also delivered from those evil tendencies, habits, and likings, those lusts of the flesh and of the mind, which are, after all, the real ruin of our souls. In this view of it, salvation must be wrought out by us, not merely for us. For this part of it our cooperation is as essential as God's grace. Let us be up and doing, busy and earnest, patient, faithful, struggling with sinful lusts and habits, mortifying the flesh, and reaching forth and pressing on to the mark for the prize of our high calling. So let us give all diligence to work out our salvation.
II. The encouragement. God is working in us, and He is mighty to save. All the feelings you have that seem to discourage you ought to encourage you as being tokens of His working in you. Let not your heart be troubled, only let not your hand be slack, for He will have you to be working along with Him.
III. The manner of the work: "with fear and trembling." The very earnestness, the very devotion, the very eagerness, of Christian love and hope become a kind of fear. Such a responsibility we have for the grace shown to us in Christ; such a labour lies before us ere in Christ we are meet for the inheritance of the saints. The Christian must needs work on with fear and trembling, with diligence, watchfulness, and hopefulness, yielding up his soul to every impulse from on high to make his calling and election sure.
W. C. Smith, Christian World Pulpit, vol, xxiv., p. 81.
References: Php 2:12 , Php 2:13 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 820; D. Rhys Jenkins, The Eternal Life, p. 242; G. Huntingdon, Sermons for Holy Seasons, p. 199; J. H. Thom, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ, p. 80; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 180; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 131; Ibid., vol. x., p. 410; Preacher's Monthly, vol. x., p. 23; Redpath, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 301. Php 2:12-18 .-J. J. Goadby, Ibid., vol. xv., p. 345. Php 2:13 .-H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 362; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 306; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 243. Php 2:14 , Php 2:15 .-Gregory, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 49.
Php 2:14-16 The Duties of a Church towards its Neighbourhood.
I. The relation of a Church to a neighbourhood is that of salt to the land. Prejudice may be dispersed, and men be favourably disposed to the truth, (1) by the irreproachable character of the individual members of a Church; (2) by the harmony and brotherly love of a Church; (3) by the inviting aspect of the public worship and ministry of a Church; (4) by Churches forming benevolent institutions in their neighbourhood.
II. The relation of a Church to a neighbourhood is that of light to the world. A Church can testify to the truth (1) by providing and sustaining an efficient ministry; (2) by every member ministering as he hath received the gift; (3) by cherishing and exercising a spirit worthy of its vocation.
III. The individual members of any locality so circumscribed as to admit of fellowship are to that locality as separate stars in one constellation, and the Churches of such a locality are thereto as so many golden candlesticks in one holy place.
S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 491.
Reference: Php 2:14-16 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 472; Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 301.
Php 2:15 Sons of God.
I. Sons of God. Let us inquire into the nature of the relationship. (1) The sons of God are here clearly distinguished from the world. It is a title in whose honour all then living, man as man, had not a right to share. But how does this square with the doctrine of the universal fatherhood, with the right which we claim for every human spirit to say, "My Father," with the assertion which we maintain that in regeneration a relation to God is not for the first time created, but renewed, and in a higher and more glorious form restored? I think we shall see our way through the difficulty if we recognise that children and sons are not coordinate here. The one is a higher power of the other; the one is the base out of which the other is to be evolved. The children, those made in the Father's likeness, alone can become sons, children of His Spirit; but before the child grows into the son there must have been a spiritual unfolding of the Father's likeness, which makes the children sons indeed. Man universally may be a child of the great Father; but he may be a sensual child, a rebellious child, a sullen, envious child, a prodigal child; and to such God accords not the name of sons. Children He still calls them; a Father's duties He still amply fulfils; a Father's tenderness He feels; a Father's sorrows He knows: but sons they are not; they cannot be until the spirit of sonship is in them, until all the higher and heaven-born elements of their being conspire to make the relation of the child effectual to the gladdening of the Father's home, the doing of the Father's work, the blessing of the Father's heart. (2) And this is what regeneration means. It is the begetting of the spiritual sonship, the carrying up of the child's relation through all the higher powers and faculties of the human spirit, and yielding to God this child complete. And this needs a spiritual regeneration. Life must be kindled from the source of life and grow by communion with it.
II. The manifestation of sonship and its fruits. Christ first exalted goodness to the throne of the world. Force had been the Divine thing till then. It was to be the sheer force of goodness which should bear the Christian on to the spiritual conquest of mankind. There is nothing exclusive about sonship. "Holding forth the word of life." Why? That men may live also. The sons are to be magnets to draw the children to the Father, that they may be received as sons. This is the essential element of the light that they are to hold forth: the word of life, the word of sonship, the word of regeneration; they are to reveal the Father and the sons. One glimpse of a home to an exile is the sweetest attraction you can offer. That is the meaning of a Church: God's home; Christ's home for souls. And what a Church is on a large scale a home should be on a small one. This it is to be a light in the world, and to hold forth the word of life. God is calling for sons, that He may win more. Each son won home becomes a source of vital attraction and compels others. His house is filling fast. Each generation yields its elect spirits to people heaven; but there is room yet, will be room, till that great day of restitution, "the day of the manifestation of the sons of God."
J. B. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 40.
References: Php 2:15 .-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 250; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 462; F. W. Farrar, In the Days of thy Youth, p. 316. Php 2:15-16 .-Outline Sermons to Children, p. 251.
Php 2:16 In the very act of working out his own salvation, if he be rightly taught what the charge means, a man will be, incidentally at least, holding forth or applying to others the word of life. This is true in some measure. But so prone are we all to selfishness, so prone to religious selfishness when we are driven out of the selfishness which is altogether indolent and worldly, and so many are those who would foster this spiritual selfishness by precepts distorted from the Gospel, that it is necessary to give reality and prominence to the charge before us by examining it separately and in detail.
I. Your work on earth is not done when you have saved yourself from an untoward generation. You have still to hold your lamp as far as you can into the dark mass around. God does not call you to a timid, fugitive, skulking piety, a religion which has to lock its doors and bar its windows, that it may be alone by itself in the sight of a God who seeth in secret. There is a part of it which has to do this; to be worth anything even for purposes of diffusion, the lamp must be kindled in secret, and fed in secret, and trimmed in secret; we can soon tell those whose religion has no such seclusion; but the office of the lamp is to shine. Men do not light a candle to put it under a bed, but to set it on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house. Even so it is with the Christian's lamp, which is the word of life.
1. If there is therefore any consolation. There is an extraordinary tenderness in this exhortation, (93) in which he entreats by all means the Philippians mutually to cherish harmony among themselves, lest, in the event of their being torn asunder by intestine contentions, they should expose themselves to the impostures of the false apostles. For when there are disagreements, there is invariably a door opened for Satan to disseminate impious doctrines, while agreement is the best bulwark for repelling them.
As the term παρακλήσεως is often taken to mean exhortation, the commencement of the passage might be explained in this manner: “If an exhortation which is delivered in the name and by the authority of Christ, has any weight with you.” The other meaning, however, corresponds better with the context: “If there is among you any consolation of Christ, ” by means of which you may alleviate my griefs, and if you would afford me any consolation and relief, which you assuredly owe me in the exercise of love; if you take into view that fellowship of the Spirit, which ought to make us all one; if any feeling of humanity and mercy resides in you, which might stir you up to alleviate my miseries, fulfill ye my joy, etc. From this we may infer, how great a blessing unity in the Church is, and with what eagerness pastors should endeavor to secure it. (94) We must also at the same time take notice, how he humbles himself by beseechingly imploring their pity, while he might have availed himself of his paternal authority, so as to demand respect from them as his sons. (95) He knew how to exercise authority when it was necessary, but at present he prefers to use entreaties, because he knew that these would be better fitted to gain an entrance into their affections, (96) and because he was aware that he had to do with persons who were docile and compliant. In this manner the pastor must have no hesitation to assume different aspects for the sake of the Church. (97)
(93) “Ceste exhortation est plene d’affections vehementes;” — “This exhortation is full of intense affections.”
(94) “Et que les pasteurs le doyuent procurer d’vne affection vehemente et zele ardent;” — “And that pastors should endeavor to procure it with intense desire and ardent zeal.”
(95) “Il peust vser d’authorite paternelle, et demander que pour la reuerence qu’ils luy deuoyent comme ses enfans, ils feissent ce qu’il enseigne yci;” — “He might have exercised paternal authority, and have demanded that in consideration of the respect which they owed him as his children, they should do what he here inculcates.”
(96) “Pour entrer dedans leurs cœurs, et es mouuoir leurs affections;” — “For entering into their hearts, and moving their affections.”
(97) “Ne doit faire difficulte de se transformer selon qu’il cognoistra que ce sera le proufit de l’Eglise;” — “Should have no hesitation in transforming himself according as he may perceive that this will be for the advantage of the Church.”
2. Fulfil ye my joy. Here again we may see how little anxiety he had as to himself, provided only it went well with the Church of Christ. He was kept shut up in prison, and bound with chains; he was reckoned worthy of capital punishment — before his view were tortures — near at hand was the executioner; yet all these things do not prevent his experiencing unmingled joy, provided he sees that the Churches are in a good condition. Now what he reckons the chief indication of a prosperous condition of the Church is — when mutual agreement prevails in it, and brotherly harmony. Thus the 137th Psalm teaches us in like manner, that our crowning joy is the remembrance of Jerusalem. (Psa 137:6.) But if this were the completion of Paul’s joy, the Philippians would have been worse than cruel if they had tortured the mind of this holy man with a twofold anguish by disagreement among themselves.
That ye think the same thing. The sum is this — that they be joined together in views and inclinations. For he makes mention of agreement in doctrine and mutual love; and afterwards, repeating the same thing, (in my opinion,) he exhorts them to be of one mind, and to have the same views. The expression τὸ αὐτὸ, (the same thing,) implies that they must accommodate themselves to each other. Hence the beginning of love is harmony of views, but that is not sufficient, unless men’s hearts are at the same time joined together in mutual affection. At the same time there were no inconsistency in rendering it thus: — “that ye may be of the same mind — so as to have mutual love, to be one in mind and one in views;” for participles are not unfrequently made use of instead of infinitives. I have adopted, however, the view which seemed to me less forced.
3. Nothing through strife or vain-glory. These are two most dangerous pests for disturbing the peace of the Church. Strife is awakened when every one is prepared to maintain pertinaciously his own opinion; and when it has once begun to rage it rushes headlong (98) in the direction from which it has entered. Vain-glory (99) tickles men’s minds, so that every one is delighted with his own inventions. Hence the only way of guarding against dissensions is — when we avoid strifes by deliberating and acting peacefully, especially if we are not actuated by ambition. For ambition is a means of fanning all strifes. (100) Vain-glory means any glorying in the flesh; for what ground of glorying have men in themselves that is not vanity?
But by humility. For both diseases he brings forward one remedy — humility, and with good reason, for it is the mother of moderation, the effect of which is that, yielding up our own right, we give the preference to others, and are not easily thrown into agitation. He gives a definition of true humility — when every one esteems himself less than others. Now, if anything in our whole life is difficult, this above everything else is so. Hence it is not to be wondered if humility is so rare a virtue. For, as one says, (101) “Every one has in himself the mind of a king, by claiming everything for himself.” See! here is pride. Afterwards from a foolish admiration of ourselves arises contempt of the brethren. And so far are we from what Paul here enjoins, that one can hardly endure that others should be on a level with him, for there is no one that is not eager to have superiority.
But it is asked, how it is possible that one who is in reality distinguished above others can reckon those to be superior to him who he knows are greatly beneath him? I answer, that this altogether depends on a right estimate of God’s gifts, and our own infirmities. For however any one may be distinguished by illustrious endowments, he ought to consider with himself that they have not been conferred upon him that he might be self-complacent, that he might exalt himself, or even that he might hold himself in esteem. Let him, instead of this, employ himself in correcting and detecting his faults, and he will have abundant occasion for humility. In others, on the other hand, he will regard with honor whatever there is of excellences, and will by means of love bury their faults. The man who will observe this rule, will feel no difficulty in preferring others before himself. And this, too, Paul meant when he added, that they ought not to have every one a regard to themselves, but to their neighbors, or that they ought not to be devoted to themselves. Hence it is quite possible that a pious man, even though he should be aware that he is superior, may nevertheless hold others in greater esteem.
(98) “Sans pouuoir estre arrestee;” — “Without being capable of being arrested.”
(99) Κενοδόξοι persons whose object is to acquire power, and who, if they see others superior to themselves, are offended. (Gal 5:26.) This κενοδοξία vain-glory, produces contentions of all kinds; and it produces this evil besides, that persons who have gone wrong, and who might have been restored to truth and virtue by humble, friendly admonition, are often, by the interference of vain-glorious, ostentatious instructors, confirmed in error and vice.” — Storr. See Biblical Cabinet, vol. 40, p. 132, note. — Ed.
(100) “Est le sufflet qui allume toutes contentions;” — “Is the bellows that kindles up all strifes.”
(101) “Comme quelqu’vn a dit anciennement;” — “As some one has said anciently.”
5. He now recommends, from the example of Christ, the exercise of humility, to which he had exhorted them in words. There are, however, two departments, in the first of which he invites us to imitate Christ, because this is the rule of life: (102) in the second, he allures us to it, because this is the road by which we attain true glory. Hence he exhorts every one to have the same disposition that was in Christ. He afterwards shews what a pattern of humility has been presented before us in Christ. I have retained the passive form of the verb, though I do not disapprove of the rendering given it by others, because there is no difference as to meaning. I merely wished that the reader should be in possession of the very form of expression which Paul has employed.
(102) “Pourceque l’imitation d’ iceluy est la regle de bien viure;” — “Because imitation of him is the rule of right living.”
6. Inasmuch as he was in the form of God. This is not a comparison between things similar, but in the way of greater and less. Christ’s humility consisted in his abasing himself from the highest pinnacle of glory to the lowest ignominy: our humility consists in refraining from exalting ourselves by a false estimation. He gave up his right: all that is required of us is, that we do not assume to ourselves more than we ought. Hence he sets out with this — that, inasmuch as he was in the form of God, he reckoned it not an unlawful thing for him to shew himself in that form; yet he emptied himself. Since, then, the Son of God descended from so great a height, how unreasonable that we, who are nothing, should be lifted up with pride!
The form of God means here his majesty. For as a man is known by the appearance of his form, so the majesty, which shines forth in God, is his figure. (103) Or if you would prefer a more apt similitude, the form of a king is his equipage and magnificence, shewing him to be a king — his scepter, his crown, his mantle, (104) his attendants, (105) his judgment-throne, and other emblems of royalty; the form of a consul was — his long robe, bordered with purple, his ivory seat, his lictors with rods and hatchets. Christ, then, before the creation of the world, was in the form of God, because from the beginning he had his glory with the Father, as he says in Joh 17:5. For in the wisdom of God, prior to his assuming our flesh, there was nothing mean or contemptible, but on the contrary a magnificence worth of God. Being such as he was, he could, without doing wrong to any one, shew himself equal with God; but he did not manifest himself to be what he really was, nor did he openly assume in the view of men what belonged to him by right.
Thought it not robbery. There would have been no wrong done though he had shewn himself to be equal with God. For when he says, he would not have thought, it is as though he had said, “He knew, indeed, that this was lawful and right for him,” that we might know that his abasement was voluntary, not of necessity. Hitherto it has been rendered in the indicative — he thought, but the connection requires the subjunctive. It is also quite a customary thing for Paul to employ the past indicative in the place of the subjunctive, by leaving the potential particle ἄν, as it is called, to be supplied — as, for example, in Rom 9:3, ηὐχόμην, for I would have wished; and in 1Co 2:8; εἰ γὰρ ἔγνωσαν, if they had known. Every one, however, must perceive that Paul treats hitherto of Christ’s glory, which tends to enhance his abasement. Accordingly he mentions, not what Christ did, but what it was allowable for him to do.
Farther, that man is utterly blind who does not perceive that his eternal divinity is clearly set forth in these words. Nor does Erasmus act with sufficient modesty in attempting, by his cavils, to explain away this passage, as well as other similar passages. (106) He acknowledges, indeed, everywhere that Christ is God; but what am I the better for his orthodox confession, if my faith is not supported by any Scripture authority? I acknowledge, certainly, that Paul does not make mention here of Christ’s divine essence; but it does not follow from this, that the passage is not sufficient for repelling the impiety of the Arians, who pretended that Christ was a created God, and inferior to the Father, and denied that he was consubstantial. (107) For where can there be equality with God without robbery, excepting only where there is the essence of God; for God always remains the same, who cries by Isaiah, I live; I will not give my glory to another. (Isa 48:11.) Form means figure or appearance, as they commonly speak. This, too, I readily grant; but will there be found, apart from God, such a form, so as to be neither false nor forged? As, then, God is known by means of his excellences, and his works are evidences of his eternal Godhead, (Rom 1:20,) so Christ’s divine essence is rightly proved from Christ’s majesty, which he possessed equally with the Father before he humbled himself. As to myself, at least, not even all devils would wrest this passage from me — inasmuch as there is in God a most solid argument, from his glory to his essence, which are two things that are inseparable.
(103) “Car tout ainsi qu’vn homme est cognu quand on contemple la forme de son visage et sa personne, aussi la maieste, qui reluit en Dieu, est la forme ou figure d’iceluy;” — “For just as a man is known, when we mark the form of his appearance and his person, so the majesty, which shines forth in God, is his form or figure.”
(104) “Le manteau royal;” — “His royal mantle.”
(105) “La garde a l’entour;” — “The guard in attendance.”
(106) “Comme s’ils ne faisoyent rien a ce propos-la;” — “As if they had no bearing on that point.”
(107) “C’est à dire d’vne mesme substance auec le Pere;” — “That is to say, of the same substance as the Father.”
7. Emptied himself. This emptying is the same as the abasement, as to which we shall see afterwards. The expression, however, is used, ευμφατικωτέρως, (more emphatically,) to mean, — being brought to nothing. Christ, indeed, could not divest himself of Godhead; but he kept it concealed for a time, that it might not be seen, under the weakness of the flesh. Hence he laid aside his glory in the view of men, not by lessening it, but by concealing it.
It is asked, whether he did this as man? Erasmus answers in the affirmative. But where was the form of God before he became man? Hence we must reply, that Paul speaks of Christ wholly, as he was God manifested in the flesh, (1Ti 3:16;) but, nevertheless, this emptying is applicable exclusive to his humanity, as if I should say of man, “Man being mortal, he is exceedingly senseless if he thinks of nothing but the world,” I refer indeed to man wholly; but at the same time I ascribe mortality only to a part of him, namely, to the body. As, then, Christ has one person, consisting of two natures, it is with propriety that Paul says, that he who was the Son of God, — in reality equal to God, did nevertheless lay aside his glory, when he in the flesh manifested himself in the appearance of a servant.
It is also asked, secondly, how he can be said to be emptied, while he, nevertheless, invariably proved himself, by miracles and excellences, to be the Son of God, and in whom, as John testifies, there was always to be seen a glory worthy of the Son of God? (Joh 1:14.) I answer, that the abasement of the flesh was, notwithstanding, like a vail, by which his divine majesty was concealed. On this account he did not wish that his transfiguration should be made public until after his resurrection; and when he perceives that the hour of his death is approaching, he then says, Father, glorify thy Son. (Joh 17:1.) Hence, too, Paul teaches elsewhere, that he was declared to be the Son of God by means of his resurrection. (Rom 1:4.) He also declares in another place, (2Co 13:4,) that he suffered through the weakness of the flesh. In fine, the image of God shone forth in Christ in such a manner, that he was, at the same time, abased in his outward appearance, and brought down to nothing in the estimation of men; for he carried about with him the form of a servant, and had assumed our nature, expressly with the view of his being a servant of the Father, nay, even of men. Paul, too, calls him the Minister of the Circumcision, (Rom 15:8;) and he himself testifies of himself, that he came to minister, (Mat 20:28;) and that same thing had long before been foretold by Isaiah — Behold my servant, etc. (108)
In the likeness of men Γενόμενος is equivalent here to constitutus — (having been appointed.) For Paul means that he had been brought down to the level of mankind, so that there was in appearance nothing that differed from the common condition of mankind. The Marcionites perverted this declaration for the purpose of establishing the phantasm of which they dreamed. They can, however, be refuted without any great difficulty, inasmuch as Paul is treating here simply of the manner in which Christ manifested himself, and the condition with which he was conversant when in the world. Let one be truly man, he will nevertheless be reckoned unlike others, if he conducts himself as if he were exempt from the condition of others. Paul declares that it was not so as to Christ, but that he lived in such a manner, that he seemed as though he were on a level with mankind, and yet he was very different from a mere man, although he was truly man. The Marcionites therefore shewed excessive childishness, in drawing an argument from similarity of condition for the purpose of denying reality of nature. (109)
Found means here, known or seen. For he treats, as has been observed, of estimation. In other words, as he had affirmed previously that he was truly God, the equal of the Father, so he here states, that he was reckoned, as it were, abject, and in the common condition of mankind. We must always keep in view what I said a little ago, that such abasement was voluntary.
(108) Isa 42:1, — fj.
(109) See Calvin’s Institutes, vol. 2:13-15.
8. He became obedient. Even this was great humility — that from being Lord he became a servant; but he says that he went farther than this, because, while he was not only immortal, but the Lord of life and death, he nevertheless became obedient to his Father, even so far as to endure death. This was extreme abasement, especially when we take into view the kind of death, which he immediately adds, with the view of enhancing it. (110) For by dying in this manner he was not only covered with ignominy in the sight of God, but was also accursed in the sight of God. It is assuredly such a pattern of humility as ought to absorb the attention of all mankind; so far is it from being possible to unfold it in words in a manner suitable to its dignity.
(110) “Pour amplifier et exaggerer la chose;” — “For the sake of amplifying and enhancing the thing.”
9. Therefore God hath highly exalted. By adding consolation, he shews that abasement, to which the human mind is averse, is in the highest degree desirable. There is no one, it is true, but will acknowledge that it is a reasonable thing that is required from us, when we are exhorted to imitate Christ. This consideration, however, stirs us up to imitate him the more cheerfully, when we learn that nothing is more advantageous for us than to be conformed to his image. Now, that all are happy who, along with Christ, voluntarily abase themselves, he shews by his example; for from the most abject condition he was exalted to the highest elevation. Every one therefore that humbles himself will in like manner be exalted. Who would now be reluctant to exercise humility, by means of which the glory of the heavenly kingdom is attained?
This passage has given occasion to sophists, or rather they have seized hold of it, to allege that Christ merited first for himself, and afterwards for others. Now, in the first place, even though there were nothing false alleged, it would nevertheless be proper to avoid such profane speculations as obscure the grace of Christ — in imagining that he came for any other reason than with a view to our salvation. Who does not see that this is a suggestion of Satan — that Christ suffered upon the cross, that he might acquire for himself, by the merit of his work, what he did not possess? For it is the design of the Holy Spirit, that we should, in the death of Christ, see, and taste, and ponder, and feel, and recognize nothing but God’s unmixed goodness, and the love of Christ toward us, which was great and inestimable, that, regardless of himself, he devoted himself and his life for our sakes. In every instance in which the Scriptures speak of the death of Christ, they assign to us its advantage and price; — that by means of it we are redeemed — reconciled to God — restored to righteousness — cleansed from our pollutions — life is procured for us, and the gate of life opened. Who, then, would deny that it is at the instigation of Satan that the persons referred to maintain, on the other hand, that the chief part of the advantage is in Christ himself — that a regard to himself had the precedence of that which he had to us — that he merited glory for himself before he merited salvation for us?
Farther, I deny the truth of what they allege, and I maintain that Paul’s words are impiously perverted to the establishment of their falsehood; for that the expression, for this cause, denotes here a consequence rather than a reason, is manifest from this, that it would otherwise follow, that a man could merit Divine honors, and acquire the very throne of God — which is not merely absurd, but even dreadful to make mention of. For of what exaltation of Christ does the Apostle here speak? It is, that everything may be accomplished in him that God, by the prophet Isaiah, exclusively claims to himself. Hence the glory of God, and the majesty, which is so peculiar to him, that it cannot be transferred to any other, will be the reward of man’s work!
Again, if they should urge the mode of expression, without any regard to the absurdity that will follow, the reply will be easy — that he has been given us by the Father in such a manner, that his whole life is as a mirror that is set before us. As, then, a mirror, though it has splendor, has it not for itself, but with the view of its being advantageous and profitable to others, so Christ did not seek or receive anything for himself, but everything for us. For what need, I ask, had he, who was the equal of the Father, of a new exaltation? Let, then, pious readers learn to detest the Sorbonnic sophists with their perverted speculations.
Hath given him a name Name here is employed to mean dignity — a manner of expression which is abundantly common in all languages — “Jacet sine nomine truncus; He lies a headless nameless carcass.” (111) The mode of expression, however, is more especially common in Scripture. The meaning therefore is, that supreme power was given to Christ, and that he was placed in the highest rank of honor, so that there is no dignity found either in heaven or in earth that is equal to his. Hence it follows that it is a Divine name. (112) This, too, he explains by quoting the words of Isaiah, where the Prophet, when treating of the propagation of the worship of God throughout the whole world, introduces God as speaking thus: —
“I live: every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will swear to me,” etc. (Isa 45:23.)
Now, it is certain that adoration is here meant, which belongs peculiarly to God alone. I am aware that some philosophise with subtlety as to the name Jesus, as though it were derived from the ineffable name Jehovah. (113) In the reason, however, which they advance, I find no solidity. As for me, I feel no pleasure in empty subtleties; (114) and it is dangerous to trifle in a matter of such importance. Besides, who does not see that it is a forced, and anything rather than a genuine, exposition, when Paul speaks of Christ’s whole dignity, to restrict his meaning to two syllables, as if any one were to examine attentively the letters of the word Alexander, in order to find in them the greatness of the name that Alexander acquired for himself. Their subtlety, therefore, is not solid, and the contrivance is foreign to Paul’s intention. But worse than ridiculous is the conduct of the Sorbonnic sophists, who infer from the passage before us that we ought to bow the knee whenever the name of Jesus is pronounced, as though it were a magic word which had all virtue included in the sound of it. (115) Paul, on the other hand, speaks of the honor that is to be rendered to the Son of God—not to mere syllables.
(111) Virg. Æn. 2:557, 558.
(112) “Et de cela il s’en ensuit, que c’est vn nom ou dignite propre a Dieu seul;” —”And from this it follows, that it is a name or dignity that belongs to God alone.”
(113) “Comme s’il estoit deduit du nom Jehouah, lequel les Juifs par superstition disent qu’il n’est licite de proferer;” — “As if it were derived from the name Jehovah, which the Jews superstitiously say that it is not lawful to utter.”
(114) “En ces subtilitez vaines et frivoles;” —”In these empty and frivolous subtleties.”
(115) ”Duquel toute la vertu consistast au son et en la prononciation;” —”The whole virtue of which consisted in the sound and the pronunciation.”
10Every knee might bow. Though respect is shewn to men also be means of this rite, there can nevertheless be no doubt that what is here meant is that adoration which belongs exclusively to God, of which the bending of the knee is a token. (116) As to this, it is proper to notice, that God is to be worshipped, not merely with the inward affection of the heart, but also by outward profession, if we would render to him what is his due. Hence, on the other hand, when he would describe his genuine worshippers, he says that they
have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
(1Kg 19:18.)
But here a question arises — whether this relates to the divinity of Christ or to his humanity, for either of the two is not without some inconsistency, inasmuch as nothing new could be given to his divinity; and his humanity in itself, viewed separately, has by no means such exaltation belonging to it that it should be adored as God? I answer, that this, like many things else, is affirmed in reference to Christ’s entire person, viewed as God manifested in the flesh. (1Ti 3:16.) For he did not abase himself either as to his humanity alone, or as to his divinity alone, but inasmuch as, clothed in our flesh, he concealed himself under its infirmity. So again God exalted his own Son in the same flesh, in which he had lived in the world abject and despised, to the highest rank of honor, that he may sit at his right hand.
Paul, however, appears to be inconsistent with himself; for in Rom 14:11, he quotes this same passage, when he has it in view to prove that Christ will one day be the judge of the living and the dead. Now, it would not be applicable to that subject, if it were already accomplished, as he here declares. I answer, that the kingdom of Christ is on such a footing, that it is every day growing and making improvement, while at the same time perfection is not yet attained, nor will be until the final day of reckoning. Thus both things hold true — that all things are now subject to Christ, and that this subjection will, nevertheless, not be complete until the day of the resurrection, because that which is now only begun will then be completed. Hence, it is not without reason that this prophecy is applied in different ways at different times, as also all the other prophecies, which speak of the reign of Christ, do not restrict it to one particular time, but describe it in its entire course. From this, however, we infer that Christ is that eternal God who spoke by Isaiah.
Things in heaven, things on earth, things under the earth. Since Paul represents all things from heaven to hell as subject to Christ, Papists trifle childishly when they draw purgatory from his words. Their reasoning, however, is this — that devils are so far from bowing the knee to Christ, that they are in every way rebellious against him, and stir up others to rebellion, as if it were not at the same time written that they tremble at the simple mention of God. (Jas 2:19.) How will it be, then, when they shall come before the tribunal of Christ? I confess, indeed, that they are not, and never will be, subject of their own accord and by cheerful submission; but Paul is not speaking here of voluntary obedience; nay more, we may, on the contrary, turn back upon them an argument, by way of retortion, (αντιστρέφον,) in this manner: — “The fire of purgatory, according to them, is temporary, and will be done away at the day of judgment: hence this passage cannot be understood as to purgatory, because Paul elsewhere declares that this prophecy will not be fulfilled until Christ shall manifest himself for judgment.” Who does not see that they are twice children in respect of these disgusting frivolities? (117)
(116) “Vn signe et ceremonie externe;” —”An outward sign and rite.”
(117) “Qui ne voit qu’ils sont plus qu’ enfans en telles subtilitez friuoles et niaiseries qu’ils affectent ?” — “Who does not see that they are worse than children in such frivolous subtleties and fooleries which they affect?”
11Is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. It might also be read, In the glory, because the particle εἰς (to) is often used in place of ἐν (in.) I prefer, however, to retain its proper signification, as meaning, that as the majesty of God has been manifested to men through Christ, so it shines forth in Christ, and the Father is glorified in the Son. See Joh 5:17, and you will find an exposition of this passage.
12Therefore, etc. He concludes the whole of the preceding exhortation with a general statement — that they should humble themselves under the Lord’s hand, for that will very readily secure, that, laying aside all arrogance, they will be gentle and indulgent to each other. This is the only befitting way in which the mind of man may learn gentleness, when one who, while viewing himself apart, pleased himself in his hiding-places, comes to examine himself as compared with God.
As ye have always obeyed. He commends their previous obedience, that he may encourage them the more to persevere. As, however, it is the part of hypocrites to approve themselves before others, but so soon as they have withdrawn from public view, to indulge themselves more freely, as if every occasion of reverence and fear were removed, he admonishes them not to shew themselves obedient in his presence merely, but also, and even much more, in his absence. For if he were present, he could stimulate and urge them on by continued admonitions. Now, therefore, when their monitor is at a distance from them, (118) there is need that they should stir up themselves.
With fear and trembling. In this way he would have the Philippians testify and approve their obedience — by being submissive and humble. Now the source of humility is this — acknowledging how miserable we are, and devoid of all good. To this he calls them in this statement. For whence comes pride, but from the assurance which blind confidence produces, when we please ourselves, and are more puffed up with confidence in our own virtue, than prepared to rest upon the grace of God. In contrast with this vice is that fear to which he exhorts. Now, although exhortation comes before doctrine, in the connection of the passage, it is in reality after it, in point of arrangement, inasmuch as it is derived from it. I shall begin, accordingly, with doctrine.
(118) “Maintenant donc qu’il est loin d’eux, et qu’il ne les pent plus admonester en presence;” — “Now, therefore, when he is at a distance from them, and can no longer admonish them when present.”
13It is God that worketh. This is the true engine for bringing down all haughtiness — this the sword for putting an end to all pride, when we are taught that we are utterly nothing, and can do nothing, except through the grace of God alone. I mean supernatural grace, which comes forth from the spirit of regeneration. For, considered as men, we already are, and live and move in God. (Act 17:28.) But Paul reasons here as to a kind of movement different from that universal one. Let us now observe how much he ascribes to God, and how much he leaves to us.
There are, in any action, two principal departments — the inclination, and the power to carry it into effect. Both of these he ascribes wholly to God; what more remains to us as a ground of glorying? Nor is there any reason to doubt that this division has the same force as if Paul had expressed the whole in a single word; for the inclination is the groundwork; the accomplishment of it is the summit of the building brought to a completion. He has also expressed much more than if he had said that God is the Author of the beginning and of the end. For in that case sophists would have alleged, by way of cavil, that something between the two was left to men. But as it is, what will they find that is in any degree peculiar to us? They toil hard in their schools to reconcile with the grace of God free-will — of such a nature, I mean, as they conceive of — which might be capable of turning itself by its own movement, and might have a peculiar and separate power, by which it might co-operate with the grace of God. I do not dispute as to the name, but as to the thing itself. In order, therefore, that free-will may harmonize with grace, they divide in such a manner, that God restores in us a free choice, that we may have it in our power to will aright. Thus they acknowledge to have received from God the power of willing aright, but assign to man a good inclination. Paul, however, declares this to be a work of God, without any reservation. For he does not say that our hearts are simply turned or stirred up, or that the infirmity of a good will is helped, but that a good inclination is wholly the work of God. (119)
Now, in the calumny brought forward by them against us — that we make men to be like stones, when we teach that they have nothing good, except from pure grace, they act a shameless part. For we acknowledge that we have from nature an inclination, but as it is depraved through the corruption of sin, it begins to be good only when it has been renewed by God. Nor do we say that a man does anything good without willing it, but that it is only when his inclination is regulated by the Spirit of God. Hence, in so far as concerns this department, we see that the entire praise is ascribed to God, and that what sophists teach us is frivolous — that grace is offered to us, and placed, as it were, in the midst of us, that we may embrace it if we choose; for if God did not work in us efficaciously, he could not be said to produce in us a good inclination. As to the second department, we must entertain the same view. “God,” says he, “is ̔Ο ἐνεργῶν το ἐνεργεῖν he that worketh in us to do. ” He brings, therefore, to perfection those pious dispositions which he has implanted in us, that they may not be unproductive, as he promises by Ezekiel, —
“I will cause them to walk in my commandments.”
(Eze 11:20.)
From this we infer that perseverance, also, is his free gift.
According to his good pleasure. Some explain this to mean — the good intention of the mind. (120) I, on the other hand, take it rather as referring to God, and understand by it his benevolent disposition, which they commonly call beneplacitum , (good pleasure.) For the Greek word εὐδοκία is very frequently employed in this sense; and the context requires it. For Paul has it in view to ascribe everything to God, and to take everything from us. Accordingly, not satisfied with having assigned to God the production both of willing and of doing aright, he ascribes both to his unmerited mercy. By this means he shuts out the contrivance of the sophists as to subsequent grace, which they imagine to be the reward of merit. Hence he teaches, that the whole course of our life, if we live aright, is regulated by God, and that, too, from his unmerited goodness.
With fear and trembling. From this Paul deduces an exhortation — that they must with fear work out their own salvation. He conjoins, as he is accustomed, fear and trembling, for the sake of greater intensity, to denote — serious and anxious fear. He, accordingly, represses drowsiness as well as confidence. By the term work he reproves our indolence, which is always ingenious in seeking advantages. (121) Now it seems as if it had in the grace of God a sweet occasion of repose; for if He worketh in us, why should we not indulge ourselves at our ease? The Holy Spirit, however, calls us to consider, that he wishes to work upon living organs, but he immediately represses arrogance by recommending fear and trembling
The inference, also, is to be carefully observed: “You have,” says he, “all things from God; therefore be solicitous and humble.” For there is nothing that ought to train us more to modesty and fear, than our being taught, that it is by the grace of God alone that we stand, and will instantly fall down, if he even in the slightest degree withdraw his hand. Confidence in ourselves produces carelessness and arrogance. We know from experience, that all who confide in their own strength, grow insolent through presumption, and at the same time, devoid of care, resign themselves to sleep. The remedy for both evils is, when, distrusting ourselves, we depend entirely on God alone. And assuredly, that man has made decided progress in the knowledge, both of the grace of God, and of his own weakness, who, aroused from carelessness, diligently seeks (122) God’s help; while those that are puffed up with confidence in their own strength, must necessarily be at the same time in a state of intoxicated security. Hence it is a shameless calumny that Papists bring against us, — that in extolling the grace of God, and putting down free-will, we make men indolent, shake off the fear of God, and destroy all feeling of concern. It is obvious, however, to every reader, that Paul finds matter of exhortation here — not in the doctrine of Papists, but in what is held by us. “God,” says he, “works all things in us; therefore submit to him with fear. ” I do not, indeed, deny that there are many who, on being told that there is in us nothing that is good, indulge themselves the more freely in their vices; but I deny that this is the fault of the doctrine, which, on the contrary, when received as it ought to be, produces in our hearts a feeling of concern.
Papists, however, pervert this passage so as to shake the assurance of faith, for the man that trembles (123) is in uncertainty. They, accordingly, understand Paul’s words as if they meant that we ought, during our whole life, to waver as to assurance of salvation. If, however, we would not have Paul contradict himself, he does not by any means exhort us to hesitation, inasmuch as he everywhere recommends confidence and (πληροφορίαν) full assurance. The solution, however, is easy, if any one is desirous of attaining the true meaning without any spirit of contention. There are two kinds of fear; the one produces anxiety along with humility; the other hesitation. The former is opposed to fleshly confidence and carelessness, equally as to arrogance; the latter, to assurance of faith. Farther, we must take notice, that, as believers repose with assurance upon the grace of God, so, when they direct their views to their own frailty, they do not by any means resign themselves carelessly to sleep, but are by fear of dangers stirred up to prayer. Yet, so far is this fear from disturbing tranquillity of conscience, and shaking confidence, that it rather confirms it. For distrust of ourselves leads us to lean more confidently upon the mercy of God. And this is what Paul’s words import, for he requires nothing from the Philippians, but that they submit themselves to God with true self-renunciation.
Work out your own salvation. As Pelagians of old, so Papists at this day make a proud boast of this passage, with the view of extolling man’s excellence. Nay more, when the preceding statement is mentioned to them by way of objection, It is God that worketh in us, etc., they immediately by this shield ward it off (so to speak) — Work out your own salvation. Inasmuch, then, as the work is ascribed to God and man in common, they assign the half to each. In short, from the word work they derive free-will; from the term salvation they derive the merit of eternal life. I answer, that salvation is taken to mean the entire course of our calling, and that this term includes all things, by which God accomplishes that perfection, to which he has predestinated us by his gracious choice. This no one will deny, that is not obstinate and impudent. We are said to perfect it, when, under the regulation of the Spirit, we aspire after a life of blessedness. It is God that calls us, and offers to us salvation; it is our part to embrace by faith what he gives, and by obedience act suitably to his calling; but we have neither from ourselves. Hence we act only when he has prepared us for acting.
The word which he employs properly signifies — to continue until the end; but we must keep in mind what I have said, that Paul does not reason here as to how far our ability extends, but simply teaches that God acts in us in such a manner, that he, at the same time, does not allow us to be inactive, (124) but exercises us diligently, after having stirred us up by a secret influence. (125)
(119) See Institutes, vol. 1, pp. 350, 353.
(120) “Aucuns exposent le mot Grec, bon propos et bon cœur, le rapportans aux hommes;” — “Some explain the Greek word as meaning, a good purpose and a good heart, making it refer to men.”
(121) “Ingenieuse a cercher ses auantages, et quelques vaines excuses;” — “Ingenious in seeking its advantages, and some vain pretexts.”
(122) “Cerche songneusement et implore;” — “Diligently seeks and implores.”
(123) “Car celuy qui tremble, disent-ils;” — “For he that trembles, say they.”
(124) “Deuenir paresseux et oisifs;” — “To become idle and indolent.”
(125) “Mais apres nous auoir poussez et incitez par vne inspiration secrete et cachee, nous employe et exerce songneusement;” — “But, after having stimulated and incited us by a secret and hidden inspiration, he diligently employs and exercises us.”
14Without murmurings. These are fruits of that humility to which he had exhorted them. For every man that has learned carefully to submit himself to God, without claiming anything for himself, will also conduct himself agreeably among men. When every one makes it his care to please himself, two faults prevail: First, they calumniate one another; and secondly, they strive against one another in contentions. In the first place, accordingly, he forbids malignity and secret enmities; and then, secondly, open contentions. He adds, thirdly, that they give no occasion to others to complain of them — a thing which is wont to arise from excessive moroseness. It is true that hatred is not in all cases to be dreaded; but care must be taken, that we do not make ourselves odious through our own fault, so that the saying should be fulfilled in us, They hated me without a cause. (Psa 35:19.) If, however, any one wishes to extend it farther, I do not object to it. For murmurings and disputations spring up, whenever any one, aiming beyond measure at his own advantage, (126) gives to others occasion of complaint. (127) Nay, even this expression may be taken in an active sense, so as to mean — not troublesome or querulous. And this signification will not accord ill with the context, for a querulous temper (μεμψιμοιρία) (128) is the seed of almost all quarrels and slanderings. He adds sincere, because these pollutions will never come forth from minds that have been purified.
(126) “Cerchant outre mesure son proufit et vtilite particuliere;” — “Seeking beyond measure his own particular profit and advantage.”
(127) “Le vice qui est en plusieurs qu’ils sont pleins de complaints contre les autres;” — “The fault that is in very many — that they are full of complaints as to others.”
(128) The term is used by Aristotle. See Arist. Virt. et. Vit. 7. 6. — Ed.
15The sons of God, unreprovable. It ought to be rendered — unreprovable, because ye are the sons of God. For God’s adoption of us ought to be a motive to a blameless life, that we may in some degree resemble our Father. Now, although there never has been such perfection in the world as to have nothing worthy of reproof, those are, nevertheless, said to be unreprovable who aim at this with the whole bent of their mind, as has been observed elsewhere. (129)
In the midst of a wicked generation. Believers, it is true, live on earth, intermingled with the wicked; (130) they breathe the same air, they enjoy the same soil, and at that time (131) they were even more intermingled, inasmuch as there could scarcely be found a single pious family that was not surrounded on all sides by unbelievers. So much the more does Paul stir up the Philippians to guard carefully against all corruptions. The meaning therefore is this: “You are, it is true, inclosed in the midst of the wicked; but, in the mean time, bear in mind that you are, by God’s adoption, separated from them: let there be, therefore, in your manner of life, conspicuous marks by which you may be distinguished. Nay more, this consideration ought to stir you up the more to aim at a pious and holy life, that we may not also be a part of the crooked generation, (132) entangled by their vices and contagion.”
As to his calling them a wicked and crooked generation, this corresponds with the connection of the passage. For he teaches us that we must so much the more carefully take heed on this account — that many occasions of offense are stirred up by unbelievers, which disturb their right course; and the whole life of unbelievers is, as it were, a labyrinth of various windings, that draw us off from the right way. They are, however, notwithstanding, epithets of perpetual application, that are descriptive of unbelievers of all nations and in all ages. For if the heart of man is wicked and unsearchable, (Jer 17:9,) what will be the fruits springing from such a root? Hence we are taught in these words, that in the life of man there is nothing pure, nothing right, until he has been renewed by the Spirit of God.
Among whom shine ye. The termination of the Greek word is doubtful, for it might be taken as the indicative — ye shine; but the imperative suits better with the exhortation. He would have believers be as lamps, which shine amidst the darkness of the world, as though he had said, “Believers, it is true, are children of the night, and there is in the world nothing but darkness; but God has enlightened you for this end, that the purity of your life may shine forth amidst that darkness, that his grace may appear the more illustrious.” Thus, also, it is said by the Prophet,
“The Lord will arise upon thee,
and his glory will be seen upon thee.”(Isa 60:2.)
He adds immediately afterwards, “The Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy countenance.” Though Isaiah speaks there rather of doctrine, while Paul speaks here of an exemplary life, yet, even in relation to doctrine, Christ in another passage specially designates the Apostles the light of the world. (Mat 5:14.)
(129) Our Author most probably refers to what he had stated when commenting on 1Co 1:8. See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 1, pp. 58, 59. — Ed.
(130) “Mesles auec les infideles et meschans;” — “Mingled with the unbelieving and the wicked.”
(131) “Et lors mesme que S. Paul escriuoit ceci;” — “And even at the time that St. Paul wrote this.”
(132) “De la generation peruerse et maudite;” — “Of the perverse and accursed generation.”
16Holding forth the word of life The reason why they ought to be luminaries is, that they carry the word of life, by which they are enlightened, that they may give light also to others. Now he alludes to lamps, in which wicks are placed that they may burn, and he makes us resemble the lamps; while he compares the word of God to the wick, from which the light comes. If you prefer another figure — we are candlesticks: the doctrine of the gospel is the candle, which, being placed in us, diffuses light on all sides. Now he intimates, that we do injustice to the word of God, if it does not shine forth in us in respect of purity of life. This is the import of Christ’s saying,
“No man lighteth a candle,
and putteth it under a bushel,” etc. (Mat 5:15.)
We are said, however, to carry the word of life in such a way as to be, in the mean time, carried by it, (133) inasmuch as we are founded upon it. The manner, however, of carrying it, of which Paul speaks, is, that God has intrusted his doctrine with us on condition, not that we should keep the light of it under restraint, as it were, and inactive, but that we should hold it forth to others. The sum is this: that all that are enlightened with heavenly doctrine carry about with them a light, which detects and discovers their crimes, (134) if they do not walk in holiness and chastity; but that this light has been kindled up, not merely that they may themselves be guided in the right way, but that they may also shew it to others.
That I may have glory. That he may encourage them the more, he declares that it will turn out to his glory, if he has not labored among them in vain. Not as if those who labored faithfully, but unsuccessfully, lost their pains, and had no reward of their labor. As, however, success in our ministry is a singular blessing from God, let us not feel surprised, if God, among his other gifts, makes this the crowning one. Hence, as Paul’s Apostleship is now rendered illustrious by so many Churches, gained over to Christ through his instrumentality, so there can be no question that such trophies (135) will have a place in Christ’s kingdom, as we will find him saying a little afterwards, You are my crown. (Phi 4:1.) Nor can it be doubted, that the greater the exploits, the triumph will be the more splendid. (136)
Should any one inquire how it is that Paul now glories in his labors, while he elsewhere forbids us to glory in any but in the Lord, (1Co 1:31; 2Co 10:17,) the answer is easy — that, when we have prostrated ourselves, and all that we have before God, and have placed in Christ all our ground of glorying, it is, at the same time, allowable for us to glory through Christ in God’s benefits, as we have seen in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. (137) The expression, at the day of the Lord, is intended to stimulate the Philippians to perseverance, while the tribunal of Christ is set before their view, from which the reward of faith is to be expected.
(133) “Soustenus ou portez d’elle;” — “Sustained or carried by it.”
(134) “Leur turpitude et vilenie;” — “Their disgrace and villany.”
(135) “Telles conquestes et marques de triomphe;” — “Such conquests and tokens of triumph.” The term tropaea made use of by our Author, (corresponding to the Greek term πρόπαια,) properly signifies, monuments of the enemy’s defeat, (προπή.) — Ed.
(136) “Tant plus qu’il y aura de faits cheualeureux, que le triomphe aussi n’en soit d’autant plus magnifique et honorable;” — “The more there are of illustrious deeds, the triumph also will be so much the more magnificent and honorable.”
(137) See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 1, pp. 94, 95.
17If I should be offered. (138) The Greek word is σπένδομαι, and accordingly there appears to be an allusion to those animals, by the slaughter of which agreements and treaties were confirmed among the ancients. For the Greeks specially employ the term σπονδὰς to denote the victims by which treaties are confirmed. In this way, he calls his death the confirmation of their faith, which it certainly would be. That, however, the whole passage may be more clearly understood, he says that he offered sacrifice to God, when he consecrated them by the gospel. There is a similar expression in Rom 15:16; for in that passage he represents himself as a priest, who offers up the Gentiles to God by the gospel. Now, as the gospel is a spiritual sword for slaying victims, (139) so faith is, as it were, the oblation; for there is no faith without mortification, by means of which we are consecrated to God.
He makes use of the terms, καὶ λειτουργίαν — sacrifice and service, the former of which refers to the Philippians, who had been offered up to God; and the latter to Paul, for it is the very act of sacrificing. The term, it is true, is equivalent to administration, and thus it includes functions and offices of every kind; but here it relates properly to the service of God — corresponding to the phrase made use of by the Latins — operari sacris — (to be employed in sacred rites (140)) Now Paul says that he will rejoice, if he shall be offered up upon a sacrifice of this nature — that it may be the more ratified and confirmed. This is to teach the gospel from the heart — when we are prepared to confirm with our own blood what we teach.
From this, however, a useful lesson is to be gathered as to the nature of faith — that it is not a vain thing, but of such a nature as to consecrate man to God. The ministers of the gospel have, also, here a singular consolation in being called priests of God, to present victims to him; (141) for with what ardor ought that man to apply himself to the pursuit of preaching, who knows that this is an acceptable sacrifice to God! The wretched Papists, having no knowledge of this kind of sacrifice, contrive another, which is utter sacrilege.
I rejoice with you, says he — so that if it should happen that he died, they would know that this took place for their profit, and would receive advantage from his death.
(138) Paul’s statement here is interpreted by Dr. John Brown as equivalent to the following: — “If my life be poured out as a libation over your conversion to Christ, ‘I joy and rejoice with you all.’ It could not be better sacrificed than in the cause of his glory and your salvation.” — Brown’s Discourses and Sayings of our Lord illustrated, vol. 3 p. 379. — Ed.
(139) “Pour tuer les bestes qu’on doit sacrifier;” — “For killing the animals that ought to be sacrificed.”
(140) See Liv. 50:1, c. 31, ad fin. — Ed.
(141) “Pour luy offrir en sacrifice les ames des fideles;” — “To offer to him in sacrifice the souls of the believers.”
18Rejoice ye. By the alacrity which he thus discovers, he encourages the Philippians, and enkindles in them a desire to meet death with firmness, (142) inasmuch as believers suffer no harm from it. For he has formerly taught them that death would be gain to himself, (Phi 1:21;) here, on the other hand, he is chiefly concerned that his death may not disconcert the Philippians. (143) He, accordingly, declares that it is no ground of sorrow; nay, that they have occasion of joy, inasmuch as they will find it to be productive of advantage. For, although it was in itself a serious loss to be deprived of such a teacher, it was no slight compensation that the gospel was confirmed by his blood. In the mean time, he lets them know that to himself personally death would be matter of joy. The rendering of Erasmus, taking it in the present tense, Ye rejoice, is altogether unsuitable.
(142) “Les enflambe a mourir constamment, et receuoir la mort d’vn cœur magnanime;” — “Enkindles them to die with firmness, and meet death with magnanimity.”
(143) “Que sa mort ne trouble et estonne les Philippians;” — “That his death may not distress and alarm the Philippians.”
19But I hope. He promises them the coming of Timothy, that, from their expecting him, they may bear up more courageously, and not give way to impostors. For as in war an expectation of help animates soldiers, so as to keep them from giving way, so this consideration, too, was fitted to encourage greatly the Philippians: “There will one come very shortly, who will set himself in opposition to the contrivances of our enemies.” But if the mere expectation of him had so much influence, his presence would exert a much more powerful effect. We must take notice of the condition (144) — in respect of which he submits himself to the providence of God, forming no purpose, but with that leading the way, as assuredly it is not allowable to determine anything as to the future, except, so to speak, under the Lord’s hand. When he adds, that I may be in tranquillity, he declares his affection towards them, inasmuch as he was so much concerned as to their dangers, that he was not at ease until he received accounts of their prosperity.
(144) “En ces mots, au Seigneur Jesus, il faut noter la condition;” — “In these words, in the Lord Jesus, we must notice the condition.”
20I have no man like-minded. While some draw another meaning from the passage, I interpret it thus: “I have no one equally well-affected for attending to your interests.” For Paul, in my opinion, compares Timothy with others, rather than with himself, and he pronounces this eulogium upon him, with the express design that he may be the more highly esteemed by them for his rare excellence.
21For all seek their own things. He does not speak of those who had openly abandoned the pursuit of piety, but of those very persons whom he reckoned brethren, nay, even those whom he admitted to familiar intercourse with him. These persons, he nevertheless says, were so warm in the pursuit of their own interests, that they were unbecomingly cold in the work of the Lord. It may seem at first view as if it were no great fault to seek one’s own profit; but how insufferable it is in the servants of Christ, appears from this, that it renders those that give way to it utterly useless. For it is impossible that the man who is devoted to self, should apply himself to the interests of the Church. Did then, you will say, Paul cultivate the society of men that were worthless and mere pretenders? I answer, that it is not to be understood, as if they had been intent exclusively on their own interests, and bestowed no care whatever upon the Church, but that, taken up with their own individual interests, they were to some extent negligent to the promotion of the public advantage of the Church. For it must necessarily be, that one or other of two dispositions prevails over us — either that, overlooking ourselves, we are devoted to Christ, and those things that are Christ’s, or that, unduly intent on our own advantage, we serve Christ in a superficial manner.
From this it appears, how great a hinderance it is to Christ’s ministers to seek their own interests. Nor is there any force in these excuses: “I do harm to no one“ — “I must have a regard, also, to my own advantage” — “I am not so devoid of feeling as not to be prompted by a regard to my own advantage.” For you must give up your own right if you would discharge your duty: a regard to your own interests must not be put in preference to Christ’s glory, or even placed upon a level with it. Whithersoever Christ calls you, you must go promptly, leaving off all other things. Your calling ought to be regarded by you in such a way, that you shall turn away all your powers of perception from everything that would impede you. It might be in your power to live elsewhere in greater opulence, but God has bound you to the Church, which affords you but a very moderate sustenance: you might elsewhere have more honor, but God has assigned you a situation, in which you live in a humble style: (145) you might have elsewhere a more salubrious sky, or a more delightful region, but it is here that your station is appointed. You might wish to have to do with a more humane people: you feel offended with their ingratitude, or barbarity, or pride; in short, you have no sympathy with the disposition or the manners of the nation in which you are, but you must struggle with yourself, and do violence in a manner to opposing inclinations, that you may (146) keep by the trade you have got; (147) for you are not free, or at your own disposal. In fine, forget yourself, if you would serve God.
If, however, Paul reproves so severely those who were influenced by a greater concern for themselves than for the Church, what judgment may be looked for by those who, while altogether devoted to their own affairs, make no account of the edification of the Church? However they may now flatter themselves, God will not spare them. An allowance must be given to the ministers of the Church to seek their own interests, so as not to be prevented from seeking the kingdom of Christ; but in that case they will not be represented as seeking their own interests, as a man’s life is estimated according to its chief aim. When he says all, we are not to understand the term denoting universality, as though it implied that there was no exception, for there were others also, such as Epaphroditus, (148) but there were few of these, and he ascribes to all what was very generally prevalent.
When, however, we hear Paul complaining, that in that golden age, in which all excellences flourished, that there were so few that were rightly affected, (149) let us not be disheartened, if such is our condition in the present day: only let every one take heed to himself, that he be not justly reckoned to belong to that catalogue. I should wish, however, that Papists would answer me one question — where Peter was at that time, for he must have been at Rome, if what they say is true. O the sad and vile description that Paul gave of him! They utter, therefore, mere fables, when they pretend that he at that time presided over the Church of Rome. Observe, that the edification of the Church is termed the things of Christ, because we are truly engaged in his work, when we labor in the cultivation of his vineyard.
(145) “Sans estre en plus grande reputation;” — “Without being in very great reputation.”
(146) “En sorte que tu to contentes du lieu qui t’est ordonné, et que t’employes a ta charge;” — “So as to content yourself with the place that is appointed for you, and employ yourself in your own department.”
(147) See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 1, p. 249.
(148) “Car il y en auoit d’autres qui auoyent plus grand soin de l’Eglise de Dieu, que d’eux-mesmes, comme Epaphrodite;” — “For there were others of them that had greater concern as to the Church of God, than as to themselves, such as Epaphroditus.”
(149) “Qu’il y auoit si peu de gens sages et qui eussent vn cœur entier a nostre Seigneur;” — “That there were so few persons that were wise, and had devotedness of heart to our Lord.”
22But the proof. It is literally, ye know the proof of him, unless you prefer to understand it in the imperative mood, know ye; (for there had scarcely been opportunity during that short time to make trial,) but this is not of great moment. What is chiefly to be noticed is, that he furnishes Timothy with an attestation of fidelity and modesty. In evidence of his fidelity, he declares, that he had served with him in the gospel, for such a connection was a token of true sincerity. In evidence of his modesty, he states, that he had submitted to him as to a father. It is not to be wondered, that this virtue is expressly commended by Paul, for it has in all ages been rare. At the present day, where will you find one among the young that will give way to his seniors, even in the smallest thing? to such an extent does impertinence triumph and prevail in the present age! In this passage, as in many others, we see how diligently Paul makes it his aim to put honor upon pious ministers, and that not so much for their own sakes, as on the ground of its being for the advantage of the whole Church, that such persons should be loved and honored, and possess the highest authority.
24I trust that I myself. He adds this, too, lest they should imagine that anything had happened to change his intention as to the journey of which he had previously made mention. At the same time, he always speaks conditionally — If it shall please the Lord. For although he expected deliverance from the Lord, yet there having been, as we have observed, no express promise, this expectation was by no means settled, but was, as it were, suspended upon the secret purpose of God.
25I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus. After having encouraged them by the promise of his own coming and that of Timothy, he fortifies them also for the present, by sending previously Epaphroditus, that in the mean time, while he waited the issue of his own affairs, (for this was the cause of his delay,) they might not be in want of a pastor who should take care that matters were properly managed. Now, he recommends Epaphroditus by many distinctions — that he is his brother, and helper in the affairs of the gospel — that he is his fellow-soldier, by which term he intimates what is the condition of the ministers of the gospel; that they are engaged in an incessant warfare, for Satan will not allow them to promote the gospel without maintaining a conflict. Let those, then, who prepare themselves for edifying the Church, know that war is denounced against them, and prepared. This, indeed, is common to all Christians — to be soldiers in the camp of Christ, (150) for Satan is the enemy of all. It is, however, more particularly applicable to the ministers of the word, who go before the army and bear the standard. Paul, however, more especially might boast of his military service, (151) inasmuch as he was exercised to a very miracle in every kind of contest. He accordingly commends Epaphroditus, because he had been a companion to him in his conflicts.
The term Apostle here, as in many other passages, is taken generally to mean any evangelist, (152) unless any one prefers to understand it as meaning an ambassador sent by the Philippians, so that it may be understood as conjoining these two things — an ambassador to afford service to Paul. (153) The former signification, however, is in my opinion more suitable. He mentions also, among other things, to his praise, that he had ministered to him in prison — a matter which will be treated of more fully ere long.
(150) “De batailler sous l’enseigne de Christ;” — “To fight under Christ’s banner.”
(151) “S. Paul pouuoit se vanter plus que pas on des autres, que sa condition estoit semblable a celle d’vn gendarme;” — “St. Paul might boast more than any other that his condition resembled that of a soldier.”
(152) “Pour tous prescheurs de l’euangile;” — “For all preachers of the gospel.”
(153) “Ambassade pour administrer a Sainct Paul en sa necessite;” — “An ambassador to minister to St. Paul in his necessity.”
26. He longed after you. It is a sign of a true pastor, that while he was at a great distance, and was willingly detained by a pious engagement, he was nevertheless affected with concern for his flock, and a longing after them; and on learning that his sheep were distressed on his account, (154) he was concerned as to their grief. On the other hand, the anxiety of the Philippians for their pastor is here discovered.
(154) “Pour l’amour de luy;” — “From love to him.”
27But God had mercy on him. He had expressed the severity of the disease — that Epaphroditus had been sick, so that life was despaired of, in order that the goodness of God might shine forth more clearly in his restored health. It is, however, surprising that he should ascribe it to the mercy of God that Epaphroditus had had his period of life prolonged, while he had previously declared that he desired death in preference to life. (Phi 1:23.) And what were better for us than that we should remove hence to the kingdom of God, delivered from the many miseries of this world, and more especially, rescued from that bondage of sin in which he elsewhere exclaims that he is wretched, (Rom 7:24,) to attain the full enjoyment of that liberty of the Spirit, by which we become connected with the Son of God? (155) It were tedious to enumerate all the things which tend to make death better than life to believers, and more to be desired. Where, then, is there any token of the mercy of God, when it does nothing but lengthen out our miseries? I answer, that all these things do not prevent this life from being, nevertheless, considered in itself, an excellent gift of God. More especially those who live to Christ are happily exercised here in hope of heavenly glory; and accordingly, as we have had occasion to see a little ago, life is gain to them. (156) Besides, there is another thing, too, that is to be considered — that it is no small honor that is conferred upon us, when God glorifies himself in us; for it becomes us to look not so much to life itself, as to the end for which we live.
But on me also, lest I should have sorrow. Paul acknowledges that the death of Epaphroditus would have been bitterly painful to him, and he recognises it as an instance of God’s sparing mercy toward himself, that he had been restored to health. He does not, therefore, make it his boast that he has the apathy (ἀπάθειαν) of the Stoics, as if he were a man of iron, and exempt from human affections. (157) “What then!” some one will say, “where is that unconquerable magnanimity?—where is that indefatigable perseverance?” I answer, that Christian patience differs widely from philosophical obstinacy, and still more from the stubborn and fierce sterness of the Stoics. For what excellence were there in patiently enduring the cross, if there were in it no feeling of pain and bitterness? But when the consolation of God overcomes that feeling, so that we do not resist, but, on the contrary, give our back to the endurance of the rod, (Isa 50:5,) we in that case present to God a sacrifice of obedience that is acceptable to him. Thus Paul acknowledges that he felt some uneasiness and pain from his bonds, but that he nevertheless cheerfully endured these same bonds for the sake of Christ. (158) He acknowledges that he would have felt the death of Epaphroditus an event hard to be endured, but he would at length have brought his temper of mind into accordance with the will of God, although all reluctance was not yet fully removed; for we give proof of our obedience, only when we bridle our depraved affections, and do not give way to the infirmity of the flesh. (159)
Two things, therefore, are to be observed: in the first place, that the dispositions which God originally implanted in our nature are not evil in themselves, because they do not arise from the fault of corrupt nature, but come forth from God as their Author; of this nature is the grief that is felt on occasion of the death of friends: in the second place, that Paul had many other reasons for regret in connection with the death of Epaphroditus, and that these were not merely excusable, but altogether necessary. This, in the first place, is invariable in the case of all believers, that, on occasion of the death of any one, they are reminded of the anger of God against sin; but Paul was the more affected with the loss sustained by the Church, which he saw would be deprived of a singularly good pastor at a time when the good were so few in number. Those who would have dispositions of this kind altogether subdued and eradicated, do not picture to themselves merely men of flint, but men that are fierce and savage. In the depravity of our nature, however, everything in us is so perverted, that in whatever direction our minds are bent, they always go beyond bounds. Hence it is that there is nothing that is so pure or right in itself, as not to bring with it some contagion. Nay more, Paul, as being a man, would, I do not deny, have experienced in his grief something of human error, (160) for he was subject to infirmity, and required to be tried with temptations, in order that he might have occasion of victory by striving and resisting.
(155) “Par laquelle nous soyons parfaitement conioints auec le Fils de Dieu;” — “By which we are perfectly united with the Son of God.”
(156) Calvin seems to refer here to what he had said when commenting on Phi 1:21. — Ed.
(157) Calvin, in the French version, makes reference to what he has said on the subject in the Institutes. See Institutes, vol. 2, p. 281. — Ed.
(158) “Pour l’amour de Christ;” — “From love to Christ.”
(159) “Ne nous laissons point vaincre par l’infirmite de nostre chair;” — “Do not allow ourselves to be overcome by the infirmity of our flesh.”
(160) “Mesme ie ne nie pas que sainct Paul (comme il estoit homme) ne se trouué surprins de quelque exces vicieux en sa douleur;” — “Nay more, I do not deny that St. Paul (inasmuch as he was a man) might find himself overtaken with some faulty excess in his grief.”
28I have sent him the more carefully. The presence of Epaphroditus was no small consolation to him; yet to such a degree did he prefer the welfare of the Philippians to his own advantage, that he says that he rejoices on occasion of his departure, because it grieved him that, on his account, he was taken away from the flock that was intrusted to him, and was reluctant to avail himself of his services, though otherwise agreeable to him, when it was at the expense of loss to them. Hence he says, that he will feel more happiness in the joy of the Philippians.
29Receive him with all joy. He employs the word all to mean sincere and abundant. He also recommends him again to the Philippians; so intent is he upon this, that all that approve themselves as good and faithful pastors may be held in the highest estimation: for he does not speak merely of one, but exhorts that all such should be held in estimation; for they are precious pearls from God’s treasuries, and the rarer they are, they are so much the more worthy of esteem. Nor can it be doubted that God often punishes our ingratitude and proud disdain, by depriving us of good pastors, when he sees that the most eminent that are given by him are ordinarily despised. Let every one, then, who is desirous that the Church should be fortified against the stratagems and assaults of wolves, make it his care, after the example of Paul, that the authority of good pastors be established; (161) as, on the other hand, there is nothing upon which the instruments of the devil are more intent, than on undermining it by every means in their power.
(161) “Soit establie et demeure entiere;” — “Be established, and remain entire.”
30Because for the work of Christ. I consider this as referring to that infirmity, which he had drawn down upon himself by incessant assiduity. Hence he reckons the distemper of Epaphroditus among his excellences, as it certainly was a signal token of his ardent zeal. Sickness, indeed, is not an excellence, but it is an excellence not to spare yourself that you may serve Christ. Epaphroditus felt that his health would be in danger if he applied himself beyond measure; yet he would rather be negligent as to health than be deficient in duty; and that he may commend this conduct the more to the Philippians, he says that it was a filling up of their deficiency, (162) because, being situated at a distance, they could not furnish aid to Paul at Rome. Hence Epaphroditus, having been sent for this purpose, acted in their stead. (163) He speaks of the services rendered to him as the work of the Lord, as assuredly there is nothing in which we can better serve God, than when we help his servants who labor for the truth of the gospel.
(162) “Vn accomplissement, ou moyen de suppleer ce qui defailloit de leur seruice;” — “A filling up, or a means of supplying what was defective in their service.”
(163) “Faisoit en cest endroit ce qu’ils deuoyent faire;” — “Did in this matter what they ought to have done
