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           Title: The Scriptural Expositions of Dr. Augustus Neander: I. The
                  Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, Practically Explained.
      Creator(s): Neander, Augustus (1789-1850)
     Print Basis: New York: Lewis Colby and Company (1853)
          Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All;
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    THE

                                EPISTLE OF PAUL

    TO THE

                                  PHILIPPIANS,

  PRACTICALLY EXPLAINED,

    BY

  DR. AUGUSTUS NEANDER.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

BY

MRS. H. C. CONANT.

New York:

  LEWIS COLBY AND COMPANY

    122 NASSAU STREET.

  1853.
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   Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,
   By LEWIS COLBY,,
   In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.
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INTRODUCTION

   IN offering the following work of Neander to the American public, some
   brief explanation of its character seems to be necessary. Many, who
   have only heard of the author as one of the most profound scholars and
   thinkers of the age, might otherwise be deterred from reading it, by
   the supposition that it was merely a work of learned criticism. Such,
   however, is far from being the case. It was the beginning of a series
   of popular practical commentaries, intended to embrace the more
   important portions of the Bible. Next to the Epistle of James, which
   was completed, and a translation of which we expect shortly to present
   to the public, were to follow the Epistles of John, then the Gospels,
   the Psalms, &c., as rapidly as the public duties of the author would
   allow. The surpassing excellence of the beginning makes us deeply
   lament the loss to the church, through the recent death of the great
   and good Neander, of so rich an addition to its means of understanding
   the Scriptures, and one so happily adapted to the wants of common
   Christians. This, however, does not impair the value of the separate
   parts, each division being complete in itself; and we cannot but
   rejoice that, as he was not permitted fully to carry out his plan, he
   should have executed a part so appropriate as the closing labor of his
   life. Had he foreseen that these were to be his last words of counsel
   to his brethren in Christ, he could nowhere have found freer scope for
   all he wished to say for their instruction, comforting, and
   edification, than in a commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians.
   One might almost believe, such a fulness of pious feeling pours through
   its pages, that he had some such presage. Whether this were so or not,
   doubtless He to whom all events are known guided him in the selection;
   and we may receive it as the dying legacy of one of the greatest
   Christian teachers with which God has ever blessed his church. May its
   instructions sink deep into the heart of the church, and bring forth
   fruit to the honor and glory of God!

   In reading this commentary, one cannot but be forcibly struck with the
   strong affinity between the character of Paul and that of his
   expounder. Different as were their outward circumstances and course of
   life, Neander seems to have had, in his own nature and spiritual
   sympathies, a perfect key to those of the Apostle. Hence it is that he
   has surpassed all others in giving the spirit of this Epistle. The
   grandeur of Paul's spiritual conceptions, his personal aspirations, his
   inward conflicts, his magnanimity, tenderness, and humility, his
   all-absorbing love for Christ and for man, are delineated with a life
   and power which only a kindred soul in the writer could have inspired.
   His very manner bears the same stamp of resemblance. Impatient of the
   niceties of minute criticism, he breaks through the mere outward form,
   the shell of words and phrases, into the very heart of the Epistle; and
   develops its contents, not by a petty weighing of particles, but by one
   broad, extended view of the whole scope of the Apostle's design and
   meaning. This he illustrates from Paul's history and character, his
   present circumstances and those of the infant churches; and the whole
   glows with the light and warmth of a deep personal experience of the
   Gospel. Thus, though the work is rich in the results of a learning as
   profound as it was various, the earnest and intelligent, but unlearned
   reader, can pursue his way unimpeded by any obtrusive lumber of
   scholarship. It is indeed a beautiful illustration of what his friend
   and colleague, the evangelical Strauss, says of him in his funeral
   discourse: "He did not despise human knowledge; he sought for it with
   unwearied diligence; he was a master in it; but he laid all the
   surprising treasures of his learning at the foot of the cross." To
   edify the members of Christ's body was with him a greater object, than
   to make a vain parade of his own superiority; as to be one with Christ
   was to himself, personally, an immeasurably greater object than all
   human learning or honor.

   One characteristic of the work, which adds greatly to its practical
   value, has also a special interest as showing the author's character
   under a new aspect;--we mean the comprehensive and accurate knowledge
   it exhibits of men and their relations. It shows that he was no mere
   recluse scholar, buried in the past, with no eyes nor ears for the
   living world around him. It is indeed a problem, how a man who so
   seldom went beyond his study and his lecture room, whose own relations
   to society were so few, and his associations almost exclusively among
   the learned, could have gained so much acquaintance with human nature,
   and with the various forms and phases of Christian experience. The
   solution is to be found in the fact, that Neander had a heart as well
   as intellect; a heart gifted by nature with the largest human
   sympathies, and from early life penetrated by the spirit of Christian
   benevolence. Man his brother, man whom God had created and for whom
   Christ had died, was to him an object of unspeakable interest, and
   nothing was unimportant which affected his character and prospects.
   Hence, from the little that he mingled with men he learned much of man;
   and he applies the inspired instructions with a discrimination and
   point, which show that no generic differences in human character had
   escaped him. It is a matter of no little interest, to know what views
   of man were received from this study by a mind like Neander's. It is
   plain that he cherished no high-wrought notions of the natural goodness
   and perfectibility of the race. Yet he did not turn from the weak and
   erring being with philosophic contempt, or thank God that he was not as
   other men are. His was the earnest, penetrating scrutiny of a Christian
   philanthropist, seeking to know his brother's wants in order that
   Christian love might supply them. Though he was no believer in inherent
   human goodness, he was a firm believer in the efficacy of the great
   remedy for man's moral diseases. Hence the clearer perception of his
   ruined and lost state, only awoke more strongly the love which yearned
   to bring relief. The spirit of Neander's life and writings furnish
   sufficient proof, if proof were still wanting, that the clear
   recognition of man's entire moral perversion is the basis for all true
   love of humanity. His practical wisdom, as well as the tenderness of
   his heart, are beautifully exhibited in his treatment of the yet
   immature believer. The germ of divine life, planted in a human heart,
   is an object which engages all his interest. The causes which may
   obstruct its free development, as found in the various forms of
   self-deception, in the power of early prejudice, and not less in the
   over-hasty zeal or unchristian harshness of brethren, are touched with
   admirable skill. If his lessons of rigid self-scrutiny, trying as by
   fire every thought and motive of our own hearts, and of a fraternal
   charity, quick to discern and acknowledge and tenderly to cherish the
   faintest signs of grace in others, were carried into practice by every
   disciple of Christ, who can doubt the speedy increase of spiritual
   life, of unity, and of moral power in the church!

   Another not less interesting point is the simply scriptural character
   of his theology, of the exhibition here given of the essential
   doctrines of the Gospel. Christ, the Crucified and the Risen, as the
   one foundation of the church, the living root from whom proceeds all
   spiritual life and growth; man as a sinful and lost being, depending
   for regeneration and sanctification on the influences of the Holy
   Spirit; the utter insufficiency of human works as the ground of
   salvation; a holy life as the necessary fruit of holy love; these, no
   man since Paul has more eloquently enforced than Neander. In developing
   Paul's theology, deep religious experience supplied to him that light,
   for the lack of which so many have misunderstood and perverted the
   meaning of the great Apostle. The natural man, and the spiritual man,
   designate with him radical distinctions of character. The tendencies of
   the natural man, however beautiful his social and even religious
   virtues to human view, are yet, as springing from self and ending in
   self, radically wrong; the tendencies of the spiritual man, as
   springing from God and ending in God, are radically right. But the
   spiritual man, and the perfect man, are not with him interchangeable
   terms. The Christian life is an unceasing conflict with inward
   depravity; that we persevere in this conflict to the end, the only
   reliable proof that we belong to Christ. The Christian's standard of
   character is perfection, is Christ; his ever increasing sense of
   unlikeness to this faultless model, the strongest evidence that he is
   becoming more and more assimilated to it. This sense of unlikeness,
   while it humbles and stimulates, does not disquiet the believer; for
   his confidence and his affections are placed on a nobler object than
   self, were it in a state of absolute perfection. The incarnate Word,
   the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his
   person, once humbled in humanity, now reigning in divine glory, is the
   centre of all his aspirations and hopes, the life of his life, his all
   in all. An affecting proof of Neander's personal consciousness of these
   truths, was given on the evening of his last year's birth-day. His
   pupils having, as is customary in German universities on such
   occasions, honored their beloved teacher with a torch-light procession
   and a eulogistic address, he replied by a pathetic confession of human
   weakness, and spoke of himself as a sinner needing forgiveness through
   the blood of Christ. The whole course of his inward and outward
   religious life corresponded fully to this expression. "As to be a
   Christian," says Strauss, "nothing but a Christian saved by grace, was
   all his desire in his inward experience, so in his calling he desired
   only to be a servant of Christ." The love of Christ to his people, as
   developed in the past history of the church, was his most interesting
   subject of contemplation. In his hands, Church History became not a
   mere record of the mistakes of the human spirit, but primarily, a
   record of the miracles of the love of Jesus. And often, says his
   friend, his voice trembled and his whole heart gushed forth, when
   narrating individual experiences of grace, exemplifying the love of
   Christ. What a beautiful illustration of his own favorite maxim, "It is
   the heart that makes the Theologian!" The modesty of his Theology is
   not less marked than its scriptural character. Our knowledge of God and
   divine things, though all-sufficient for our present need, in his view
   is necessarily fragmentary and imperfect; "to be cast aside when we are
   raised to the full vision of the life above, as the conceptions of
   childhood are cast aside, by the mature man." How habitually this
   conviction was present to his mind, is pleasingly illustrated by the
   circumstance, that when called on for an autograph to accompany his
   engraved portrait, he wrote for the purpose the words: "Now we see
   through a glass darkly, but then face to face."

   The closing scenes in the life of this eminent servant of Christ, seem
   like the reflection of that conflict which he so admirably depicts in
   the heart of Paul, between the longing to depart and be with Christ,
   and the desire still to live that he may labor for the salvation of his
   brethren. To labor for Christ was, as with Paul, his life on earth.
   Apart from this work, life had no value, no significance. While he
   lived he must labor; and even after the hand of death had touched his
   long diseased body, he still strove to compel its services in his
   appointed calling in God's kingdom. This calling was one which enlisted
   all the energies and affections of his soul. To be the instructor of
   youth in the Holy Scriptures, and the historian of the Church, was a
   high destiny; and his devotion to it had all the ardor of a ruling
   passion. His history he had now brought down to the period of the
   Reformation; and with a mind unimpaired by age or disease, and glowing
   with his theme, he was about entering on the development of that
   central epoch of modern Christianity, when the summons came to lay
   aside the earthly for the heavenly. How his heart clung to his
   life-work, is affectingly shown in the sketch of his last hours by his
   attached friend and pupil Rauh. We give the substance of the account.

   He was at his desk in his lecture room, on Monday, when the attack came
   upon him. Inured to pain, and accustomed to master it by his powerful
   will? he persevered in completing the exercise; though the broken tones
   of his voice, at times almost inaudible from debility, forced upon his
   affectionate auditors the conviction expressed in the touching language
   of one of their number: "This is the last lecture of our Neander!" He
   reached home in a state of great exhaustion. But after some slight
   refreshment, he immediately resumed his usual afternoon employments.
   For three successive hours, though often interrupted by increasing
   weakness, he dictated on his Church History. Late in the afternoon, the
   symptoms of dangerous illness becoming more and more marked, his
   anxious sister insisted that he should give himself rest. But he could
   not be persuaded to quit his work. "Nay, let me go on!" he exclaimed:
   "can every day-laborer work as much as he will, and would you deny it
   to me!" At length he was obliged to yield, and allow himself to be
   conveyed to bed. The next morning he was forced, by the increased
   violence of his malady, to consent that his usual lecture should be
   deferred; " but," as he expressly added, "only for to-day!" From this
   time it was an incessant struggle for supremacy between the mind and
   the body. In the afternoon, he called imperatively for his reader; [1]
   and blamed his over-anxious friends for having sent him away, and thus
   interrupted his progress in a work with which he was engaged, Ritter's
   Palestine. He then listened to the reading of the newspaper by another
   pupil, with earnest attention; selected what he wished to hear, and
   commented on this and that of its contents, till at length a heavy
   slumber overpowered him. The next day also, the daily paper being read
   to him as usual, the mention of some occurrence in the Church drew from
   him an exclamation of humorous contempt at the modish spirit of the
   day; an expressive shrug indicated his dissatisfaction at another. This
   day he experienced a little relief, from the refreshment of a more
   quiet night, which encouraged his desponding friends. But on Friday
   evening the last ray of hope was extinguished. Paralysis, the result of
   his exhausting disease, seized upon the kidneys. The fatal hiccough set
   in, and allowed not a moment's sleep. This scene of distress continued
   four hours, without mitigation. Groans were forced from him by the
   extremity of his anguish; and he was heard praying in a weak and
   plaintive tone, which drew tears from every eye, "Oh God! that I might
   sleep!" But the energy of his spirit was not yet quenched. The next
   afternoon, though in an agony of pain, the longing to be again at work
   in his great calling seemed to awaken in full force. He insisted that
   he would no longer be confined in bed; and with a feverish impatience,
   never seen in him before, ordered a servant to bring his clothes that
   he might rise. A pupil who was at hand vainly tried to soothe him. Even
   his sister's entreaties were of no avail, till she said to him:
   "Remember, dear Augustus, your own words to, me, when I resisted the
   physician's orders,--It is all from God, and we must yield cheerfully
   to his will!'" "True," he gently replied in an altered tone; "it all
   comes from God, and we must thank him for it!" Through all the
   variations of his sickness, his wonted tender consideration for his
   friends did not forsake him, He would not allow his pupils to neglect
   their duties in order to attend upon him; watched lest his sister
   should not take needful rest, and received every slight service with
   the most touching gratitude. Even when scarcely able to speak, from
   pain and weakness, he would make the utmost effort to express his
   thankfulness. One little characteristic trait deserves to be mentioned.
   His large income, always devoted more to others than himself, was yet
   insufficient for his multiplied charities, so that he was often
   perplexed and distressed when he found a new object of compassion which
   he had not the means of relieving. He practised the most rigid economy
   in his own personal expenses, that he might have more for others. Every
   luxury was in his view a robbery of the poor. So fixed were his habits
   in this respect, that when a little champagne was offered him during
   this last sickness, he promptly refused it with the expression, "O that
   is a foolish indulgence!"

   The final scene is one most characteristic of the man, as well as one
   of the most striking ever witnessed in the chamber of death. A wine
   bath had been prepared for him, as a last resort. Refreshed and
   strengthened by it, he was borne from the darkened room where he had
   lain hitherto into his study, that cheerful little apartment opening to
   the sun, which had been so long the workshop and the paradise of the
   man of thought. Here for nearly twenty years' he had studied and
   written. From this spot had gone forth those great works which have
   delighted and instructed Christendom. With thirsty glances he drank in
   the full golden sunlight, of which he was always so fond. [2] A
   spoonful of choice wine being offered him, he did not reject it,--"a
   significant omen," says Rauh, "that the old order of things approached
   its end." Ere long he murmured dreamily, as if at the close of a long
   fatiguing walk with his sister, "I am weary; let us now make ready to
   go home!" Just then the rich sunset glow, pouring through the window,
   lighted up the shelves from which looked down upon him the masters of
   thought, with whom for so many years he had held silent but high and
   endearing communion. Raising himself by a sudden effort from his
   pillow, he commenced a regular lecture upon New Testament exegesis.
   Soon a new image passed before his restless fancy. Imagining himself at
   the weekly meeting of his beloved Seminarium, surrounded by his fondly
   attached theological pupils, he called for the reading of a
   dissertation, shortly before assigned, on the material and formal
   principle of the Reformation. He then dictated the titles of the
   different courses of lectures to be delivered by him during the next
   session; among them, "The Gospel of John, from its true historical
   point of view." His last thoughts amid the struggles of death, were,
   devoted to the great labor of his life. Beginning at the very passage
   of his Church History where sickness had arrested his progress, he
   resumed the thread of thought, and in spite of interruptions, continued
   to dictate in regular periods for some time. At the close of each
   sentence he paused, as if his amanuensis were taking down his words,
   and asked, "Are you. ready?" Having closed a division of his subject,
   he inquired the time. Being told that it was half past nine, the
   patient sufferer repeated once more: "I am weary; I will now go to
   sleep!" Having by the aid of friendly hands stretched himself in bed
   for his last slumber, he whispered in a tone of inexpressible
   tenderness, which sent a strange thrill through every heart: "Good
   night!" It was his last word. He immediately fell into a sleep, which
   continued four hours; when his great spirit, in the quiet of a Sabbath
   morning, passed gently into the land of peace.--What a commentary on
   his own exhortation so lately uttered; that "the Christian should ever
   remember that here all is fragmentary, nothing reaches completion; that
   even service in the cause of Christ on earth, is but the beginning of
   an activity destined for eternity; that we must therefore not be so
   absorbed, even in labors consecrated to God, as to be unprepared to
   obey, at any moment, the summons to the higher life and service of
   Heaven!" He was so prepared, that when his ear caught the summons, he
   could drop the great labor of his life unfinished, lay himself down
   quietly upon his bed, and with a child-like "Good Night" to those whom
   he left behind, slumber over (as the German beautifully expresses it)
   into that higher life of heaven.

   Before closing, the translator would beg of those conversant with the
   author's manner in the original, as favorable a judgment of her work as
   justice will allow. They can best appreciate the difficulty of the
   task. It has been her aim, not merely to give a faithful rendering of
   the author's ideas, in an easy English style, but to reproduce them, so
   far as possible, in their original form and mould. The elephantine
   march of his style suits, as no other could, to the great burden of his
   thoughts; which, moreover, are so combined and massed together, that
   not only would the manner be lost by much breaking up of his sentences,
   but the connection and relation of the different parts be seriously
   impaired.

   H. C. C.

   ROCHESTER, N. Y.

   Sept. 1851.
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   [1] An affection of the eyes, which had increased almost to blindness,
   had for some two years rendered such assistance necessary.

   [2] In this also, "a child of the light," as he sportively called
   himself (opados tou heliou) a few days before. "This I have,"--said he
   on that occasion,--"in common with the emperor Julian; but that," he
   added, "Strauss must not know!"
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  EPISTLE OF PAUL

    TO

THE PHILIPPIANS.

   IF the Spirit of God has revealed to holy men of old the word of truth,
   that they might proclaim it for the salvation of mankind; if God has
   revealed himself through their lives, their discourses, their writings,
   as the depositaries of his Spirit; this is not to be regarded merely as
   an isolated fact belonging solely to the past. To us as living members
   of the body of Christ, as partakers in that fellowship of his Spirit,
   which unites the instant of the present with the whole progressive
   development since the first outpouring of the same Spirit by the
   glorified Son of man, to us, this should be no external, no foreign
   thing. The past must become to us the present. We need no further
   revelations. On the contrary, it must be to us as if the Lord had
   himself at this moment spoken to us, inasmuch as he has given us the
   instruction required for all the higher necessities of the present; as
   if he had himself said to us all which it concerns us to know, in order
   to find consolation under present sufferings, the means of certain
   victory in all conflicts, the clue to guide us out of all the
   perplexities of a distracted age safely to our goal. For the attainment
   of this object, we must carefully investigate the precise historical
   conditions and relations under which these depositaries of the Divine
   Spirit spoke and acted. We must transfer ourselves into that past time,
   so as to live, as it were, in the midst of the circumstances under
   which these holy men acted, and in reference to which they spoke. The
   objects of divine wisdom in its guidance of the Church, we perceive in
   this, viz., that divine truth has been revealed to us, not in a law of
   the letter, not in a digested summary of specific articles of faith,
   but in this historical embodiment, in this application to individual
   cases, to specific historical circumstances and social relations,
   imparted through the instrumentality of individual men, who lived as
   depositaries of divine truth among their fellow-men; who, in the common
   intercourse of human life, testified of and revealed the divine,
   speaking and acting as men, each in his own peculiar human manner,
   though hallowed indeed by the Spirit of God. Thus was divine truth to
   be brought humanly near to us. Thus to our own spiritual activity,
   under the guiding and quickening influence of the Spirit of God,
   without whom nothing divine can be received or understood, was to be
   left the work of investigating the divine in its connection with the
   human; from the particular to deduce the universal; and again, by an
   application of this to the peculiar circumstances of the age and
   society in which we live, to reconvert it into the particular for
   ourselves; to detect in that which was said or done by the organs of
   Christ's Spirit, under the peculiar circumstances of the past, whatever
   is applicable for our use to the circumstances and relations of the
   present. Whilst, therefore, an humble dependence on that Divine Spirit,
   who alone leads into all truth, and unlocks the depths of his word, is
   an indispensable condition to the right understanding and application
   of the Divine Word in its human embodiment; so also is a careful
   attention to all the human relations. The word of God allows no
   slothful hearers; it demands all the powers of the mind and soul. Only
   thus can its treasures be brought to light. If we fail of discovering
   these treasures, and lament over the want of light to illumine the
   darkness of the present state, it is because we have not met the
   required conditions. We have none to reproach but ourselves. We may
   here apply those weighty words of our Lord, adapted no less to
   stimulate and encourage diligent inquiry, than for warning and rebuke:
   "He that hath, to him shall be given."

   In an especial manner is this true of the Letters of the Apostles. In
   these we should find far more to instruct, edify, and guide us in all
   the relations of life, if we thus weighed the import of every word. May
   the Spirit of the Lord enlighten and guide us, that we may in this
   manner understand, and learn to apply, one of the noblest epistles of
   the Apostle Paul, written as no other could write, and presenting to
   our eyes the living image of the Apostle to the Gentiles!

   First, then, we must bring before our view the peculiar circumstances
   and relations, under which Paul wrote this epistle. Zeal for the
   salvation of the heathen world had drawn, upon him the extremest
   persecution of the enraged Jews, who grudged to the Gentiles an equal
   participation and equal privileges with themselves, in the kingdom of
   God. To this was owing his apprehension at Jerusalem, his long
   imprisonment in Cesarea Stratonis, and finally, through his appeal to
   Cæsar, his captivity at Rome. The issue of his fate was still
   uncertain. In his imprisonment, he was far less occupied with anxiety
   for his own life, than for the welfare of the churches, scattered
   through various regions, who through the dangers which beset their
   Apostolic teacher might become unsettled in their faith, deprived, as
   they were, of his personal guidance in this dark and troubled period.
   Through his pupils and associates in the preaching of the gospel, who
   now formed the living link between him and these churches, and through
   his letters, must the want be supplied. Among these churches was that
   of Philippi in Macedonia. It was the first church which Paul had
   founded in that country. Its members had been witnesses of the ignominy
   and suffering endured by Paul, on account of the gospel, as recorded in
   the Acts of the Apostles. They had witnessed the example he gave of
   boldness in the faith, of devotion to the Lord, of triumphant
   enthusiasm in his service, his joyfulness in suffering, and the
   wonderful deliverances wrought for him by the Lord. This had served, in
   a special manner, to give greater depth and ardor to their love for
   him, who was ready to sacrifice all that he might bring them: the glad
   tidings of salvation. They followed the example of their faithful
   teacher. As yet, indeed, Christianity had not drawn upon itself the
   attention of the Roman civil power; nor had it become an object of
   persecution through the state laws, as from its opposition to the
   national religion must soon be the case, under a civil constitution
   with which this was intimately interwoven. Accordingly no general
   persecution had arisen, and the churches in most regions enjoyed peace.
   In this respect, however, Macedonia formed an exception. Here, from the
   very first, the malignant hatred of the Jews, who were scattered in
   great numbers through the commercial cities, had been excited against
   the preachers of the gospel, and all who embraced it; and they had not
   wanted means for producing discord between the believers and their
   fellow-citizens and associates among the heathen. Although no civil
   laws as yet existed against Christianity, still there were means by
   which the heathen could, in many ways, disquiet quiet and injure its
   new converts, distinguished by their life and conversation in so
   striking a manner from themselves. In the history of modern missions
   the same thing is repeated, in the intercourse between the new converts
   and their former heathen associates. The church at Philippi remained
   steadfast under all these persecutions. Their faith and love had been
   approved thereby. Neither could they be unsettled in their faith, by
   the persecutions which had now befallen their Apostolic teacher. They
   were conscious of that higher fellowship with him under all his
   conflicts and sufferings. His sufferings, and the dangers which hung
   over him, but added new fuel to their love and sympathy. To manifest
   this to him they had sent one of their own number, Epaphroditus, who
   might also bring back to them more exact information of his
   circumstances. We know that although the right had been given to the
   Apostles, by the Lord, to depend for their temporal necessities upon
   those for whose spiritual welfare they labored, yet Paul never availed
   himself of this privilege. As the attracting and recovering grace of
   the Lord had been exhibited towards him in so peculiar a manner; as it
   had transformed him from the bitterest persecutor into the preacher of
   the gospel; he felt himself constrained to do more than others, called
   by Christ in the ordinary way, and gradually fitted for his service,
   and to forbear the exercise of a right to which he was equally entitled
   with them. Thrust, as it were, by force into the work, he would, by
   more abundant labor, endurance, privation, manifest his unconstrained
   love for his appointed calling.--(1 Cor. ix. 17-19.) It is to be
   accounted his gift, growing out of his peculiar nature sanctified by
   the Holy Spirit, that he was able to number himself among those whom
   Christ pronounces blessed, for having forborne marriage for the kingdom
   of God's sake. Not that he would call them blessed on account of the
   state of celibacy, in and for itself; as if Paul could claim any
   advantage over Peter, who in a marriage consecrated by the Lord,
   labored for the advancement of the same cause; but on account of the
   spirit which led them to abstain from marriage, that love which would
   offer up all to the kingdom of God. It was this which animated Paul,
   and impelled him to contemplate as a duty whatever might, under his
   special circumstances, serve for the advancement of his work, and to
   undertake it with joyful zeal. It was for this also, that amidst the
   labors of preaching, he sustained himself with his own hands as a
   tent-maker. He experienced in himself the truth of the Lord's words,
   "It is more blessed to give than to receive." In order to avoid every
   appearance of self-seeking, and to take from the opposers among the
   Jews and Judaizing Christians every occasion of suspicion, he himself
   assumed the whole charge of his temporal support. Still the church at
   Philippi were moved, by their heartfelt love to him, to anticipate his
   wants; and knowing how difficult he must often find it to earn a
   maintenance, they had several times sent sums of money for his
   necessities. Paul, though he sought no gift, yet, in view of the
   feeling which prompted it, could not reject the free-will-offering of
   love. This church had now once more manifested in this way their active
   sympathy for Paul, by sending to him Epaphroditus. This circumstance,
   and what he learned through their messenger of the condition of the
   Philippian church, occasioned the writing of this epistle. Its object
   was to express to the church at Philippi his gratitude and love; to
   relieve their anxiety respecting his own situation; to give them a view
   of his Christian state and temper in the midst of his conflicts and
   dangers; and to bestow upon them the counsels and encouragements suited
   to their peculiar circumstances.

   We must now, therefore, direct our view to Paul's situation in his
   imprisonment at Rome; to his demeanor in his captivity, as the mirror
   of the state of his soul, so far as we can learn it from this letter;
   and to his counsels to the Philippian church, in reference to their
   peculiar relations, as furnishing suggestions applicable in numerous
   ways to similar circumstances.

   Looking first then at Paul's situation, we shall perceive that this was
   adapted to produce great variations of feeling. He had given his public
   testimony for the Lord Jesus, and had made his own defence. This
   defence had produced the general impression, that it was not as a
   disturber of the public peace that this imprisonment had befallen him,
   nor for any other crime; but only as the preacher of a religion hated
   by the Jews. [3] Against this new faith, as we have already remarked,
   there existed as yet no state law. If now Paul could triumphantly
   establish his innocence in this respect, it would seem that his safety
   was secured. But the Roman civil laws ever regarded an individual as in
   some degree criminal, who should seduce the citizens and subjects of
   the empire to apostasy from the state religion; and should attempt to
   make proselytes to a new faith, which, if not condemned by an express
   law, was yet in its nature opposed to the religion of the state, and
   was not of the number recognized by it as tolerated religions. Paul's
   case was, therefore, by no means so simple a one. Many difficult
   questions were involved in it. At times, the impression made by his
   public defence would awaken in him the expectation of a happy
   deliverance, and that he might be permitted to visit the churches
   founded early in his ministry, and among these the church at Philippi.
   Again, the prospect of death was before his mind. What then? Do we find
   his soul divided between fear and hope, despondency and joy, dependent
   upon the external impression of these changeful circumstances, as is
   wont to be the case with others in like situations? No; one deep
   undertone of cheerful tranquillity, of surrender to the will of the
   Lord, pervades the whole epistle. We see the man, whose confidence
   rests on an immovable foundation unaffected by change of circumstances,
   a foundation which no waves or storms can shake. He is certain that, in
   one way or another, the Lord will conduct him through these conflicts
   triumphantly to a glorious end. [4] With joyful confidence, he
   approaches the termination of a life singly consecrated to one holy
   service. He is conscious of not having labored. in vain, as a faithful
   preacher of the truth, which he sees bringing forth fruit in the
   churches. These, as for instance the church at Philippi, are the living
   memorial of his devoted labors for the Lord, as he himself expresses it
   in this epistle; the witness that he has preached the word of the Lord
   in purity; his glory before the Lord when, at the day of judgment, that
   shall be by Him brought to light which was here concealed; when much,
   which here seemed to be somewhat, shall be exposed in its nothingness;
   and when much, that was misjudged and condemned by the world, shall be
   acknowledged by the Lord as his own. How nobly does this spirit of Paul
   express itself in the words of this epistle, where he exclaims: [5]
   "And even if I be offered [6] upon the sacrifice and priestly service
   of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all; in like manner should ye
   also joy and rejoice with me." We must endeavor to make clear the full
   import of these weighty words.--The Lord Christ is the one Mediator,
   between God and the sinful human race redeemed by him. Through him all,
   who believe on him and enter into fellowship with him, are taken out of
   the ungodly world and consecrated as a holy community to God. Thus do
   they all become one priestly generation. There is no longer the
   distinction of Priests and Laity. All are become, through him and in
   fellowship with him, what he himself is,--Priests before the God of
   Jesus Christ who is also their God, before his Father who is also their
   Father. Their whole life is a priestly calling; as Paul represents it,
   Rom. xii. 1, "a reasonable service," that is, a spiritual worship
   proceeding from the rational nature, the soul. Herein the whole
   spiritual life manifests itself as a God-devoted, to God presented
   self-sacrifice; every inward and outward act as done in fellowship with
   Christ, as performed in his name, pervaded by his Spirit, enstamped
   with his image, a thank-offering and a praise-offering of the redeemed,
   well pleasing in the sight of God. This being true of all the acts of
   each Christian in his proper vocation, Paul regards as his own priestly
   calling the Apostolic work; as his own acceptable offering to God, the
   faith planted by him among the Gentiles and the Christian life of the
   converted heathen world. It is in this sense he speaks, in these words
   to his Philippian brethren, of "the sacrifice and priestly service of
   their faith" as his offering to God. It was customary, moreover, to
   pour out wine upon the altar, a so-called libation, as a seal of the
   offering. Paul, foreseeing that his own blood might be poured out in
   his priestly office of proclaiming the Gospel among the heathen, that
   he might be called to testify to what he preached in the very. face of
   death, and to put the seal of martyrdom upon his life's work, here
   speaks of the outpouring of his own blood as a libation,--an offering
   of himself upon the sacrifice. Thus, with joyful confidence, the
   Apostle advances towards so glorious a consummation of his work. Far
   from needing solace from others, he could call on the Philippians to
   rejoice with him. Uncertain whether he was to finish his captivity by
   the martyr's death, or whether his life would be preserved to labor
   still for the advancement of the kingdom of God upon the earth, he was
   prepared for both, submissive in either case to the divine will. The
   will of the Lord was his will. The result would show, in what way it
   was the purpose of the Lord to make his life most subservient to His
   own glory. He was in a strait betwixt two,--longing to depart, out of
   the conflicts of the earthly life, into the peace of the spirit's
   heavenly home; from where the Lord is seen only by the eye of faith, to
   where in blissful nearness he becomes an object of sight. Although Paul
   was certain even in this his earthly life of union with the Lord, he
   was far from feeling himself satisfied with what he already enjoyed.
   Not merely from external conflicts had he learned, that this is not the
   land of peace promised to the Christian, and sought for by his longing
   spirit. To those internal conflicts, yet more severe, which the life of
   faith must ever sustain, he was no stranger. Herein also had his
   Saviour led the way; he who cried "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even
   unto death!" and, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" One of
   his sore trials he calls "a thorn in the flesh;" comparing it to the
   anguish inflicted by a thorn fixed and rankling in the flesh. It was
   the painful experience of his own human weakness, in contrast with the
   revelation of the divine glory, which at times was imparted to him.
   Thus was he taught to distinguish what is divine and what is human,
   what belongs to this life and what to the life beyond. Thus too was he
   to learn, that the land of heavenly peace, after which the renewed
   spirit sighs, is not to be found on earth. Although Paul, as his life
   and his epistles testify, had made great advances in personal
   sanctification, yet he was far from wishing to separate himself from
   the number of those, who as sinners seek in Christ for justification;
   far from holding himself to be a sinless saint., He knew well that he
   had still to maintain the conflict with sin, and that he must
   persevere, in that conflict faithfully to the end, if he would stand
   before the Lord. We need only to hear his own professions, as when
   warning the Corinthians against a false security he writes (1 Cor. ix.
   27): "But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest,
   having preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away." By these
   words he describes his unceasing conflict with himself, lest after
   having brought others to salvation by the preaching of the word, which
   through the indwelling divine power works independently of the
   preacher, and brings forth fruit to eternal life, he should himself be
   overcome by temptation and fall short of that goal to which he has
   conducted others. The figure, of which Paul here makes use, is taken
   from the boxing combats of the ancients. The body is represented as the
   antagonist with whom the boxer contends; implying a still continued
   resistance of the body, once the servant of sin, against the divine
   life in the spirit. Paul describes himself as one, who by unremitting
   effort makes his body, the organ of sanctification entrusted to him,
   serviceable to himself as the servant of Christ. This conflict with the
   body of sin, inasmuch as the whole outward life of man manifests itself
   in the body, designates in general the entire conflict still to be
   waged by the spiritual against the fleshly man, by the new man against
   the old;--and this in the case even of a Paul. Thus Paul, instructed by
   his rigorous self-examination, is far from supposing when he
   contemplates his own life, that he has already reached the limit of
   heavenly perfection, or that he could build his confidence thereon as
   if it were a life of perfected sanctification. "Not as if I had already
   attained, or were already perfect," is his own beautiful expression of
   his conviction, in a passage of this epistle which we shall presently
   consider. Paul, then, was conscious that the blessings pronounced by
   the Lord: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
   for they shall be filled!" "Blessed are the pure in heart for they
   shall see God!" were not as yet completely fulfilled in him, but were
   still, in a certain sense, a promise looking into the future. Moreover,
   although Paul had been elevated, in his perception of divine things,
   above others of his own time and of all time; although he could claim
   that single higher revelations, over and above that which was to be the
   subject of general proclamation, had been vouchsafed to him; yet he
   well knew that all this was but partial and fragmentary, far from that
   completeness of knowledge before whose light all which is called in
   this life higher perception, prophecy, the gift of tongues, shall
   vanish away. He reckons himself among those, whose knowledge of divine
   things is like objects obscurely reflected in a mirror, where much
   still remains uncertain; a knowledge which, in relation to that of the
   eternal world, is as the knowledge of the child, to that of the mature
   man. He was fully conscious, that when he should be raised to the full
   vision of the life above, that which he knew of divine things in this
   life must be cast aside by him, as the mature man casts aside the
   conceptions of childhood. The twilight of the earthly life of faith did
   not satisfy the aspirations of his soul, which thirsted after
   knowledge; and he longed to pass into that pure day of heavenly
   clearness, where our knowledge of God and divine things will be inward,
   immediate, a direct perception of that which is present, a knowing as
   we are known. We see then that, in all these respects, Paul was
   penetrated with the full consciousness that the hope which has
   reference to the future, not less than the present exercise of faith,
   constitutes the life of the Christian. Apart from this undoubting
   prospect into the future, the whole Christian life seems to him an
   effort without aim, a chase after a phantom, a deceptive show; as he
   expresses it 1 Cor. xv. 19, "If in this life only we have hope in
   Christ, we are of all men most miserable." For the life of others is
   directed towards some aim, higher or lower, of the sensual or spiritual
   life, which may actually be attained on earth. But the life of the
   Christian, with all its conflicts, labors, and privations, has
   reference to an object which has no reality, if it be not found in the
   eternal life of the future. It is from this point of view that Paul
   reproaches the proudly secure Corinthians, with having lost the
   consciousness of this distinction between the present and the
   hereafter, between the conflict of the earthly and the triumph of the
   eternal life. In their spirit and conduct they seemed as if already in
   possession of all riches, enjoying full satisfaction, the contentment
   of all necessities, with no farther warfare from within or from
   without. With this he contrasts the wholly different image of the
   Apostle's life (1 Cor. 4: 8). "Ye are," says he, "already become full,
   ye are already become rich, ye reign without us." They were in spirit
   and conduct, as if the kingdom of Christ had with them already reached
   its consummation; and they, as partakers therein, had attained to all
   riches, to the satisfaction of all their desires. And would this were
   so, says he; would they had already attained to this participation in
   the perfected kingdom of Christ; for then, assuredly, the Apostles
   would not have been excluded therefrom, nor would their circumstances
   be such as they now are. Thus he holds up before them his own life of
   conflict, in contrast with their false security, their unauthorized and
   groundless exultation. (1 Cor. iv. 9-13.)

   Thus there was reason sufficient even for Paul, though rejoicing in
   conflicts for Christ's sake, and finding therein his glory, still to
   long after that perfect union with the Lord in the life to come. In
   earlier years, indeed, we find him constantly referring to the contrast
   between the earthly life of faith, and the consummation not to be
   enjoyed till the resurrection. But at a later period, especially from
   the date of his second, epistle to the Corinthians, we remark in him an
   ever increasing consciousness, that, as a necessary result of the
   inseparable union of believers with their Lord, both in his sufferings
   and his exaltation, they also shall on their departure from the earthly
   existence enter at once on a higher life of vision, into a higher, more
   undisturbed fellowship with Him. Thus in the fifth chapter of the
   second epistle to the Corinthians, he in this view represents the
   abiding in the flesh as an absence from the Lord, that is, from the
   immediate vision of Christ; while the state which follows, entered
   through death, through the laying off of the earthly life, is a being
   at home with the Lord--(2 Cor. v. 8). He expresses the same conviction
   in this epistle to the Philippians. Christ is his life. [7] He
   distinguishes life in this sense from his life in the flesh. [8] Christ
   is his true life; he has no life except in him, none apart from him. In
   him that which alone he calls life, has its being; it has its root in
   union with Him. And as Christ, having laid aside human infirmity,
   having risen and ascended to Heaven, now reigns triumphant in the
   Divine Life, living in the power of God a life exalted above the reach
   of death; so also is this true of the life of the believer, as being
   one with His own, yea one with Himself. And hence Paul concludes, that
   although even now, while abiding in the flesh, he has Christ for his
   true life; yet death is for him gain, inasmuch as through the laying
   off of the earthly existence, this true life, which has its being in
   Christ, shall be freed from the checks, hindrances, and disturbances by
   which it is still clogged, and shall attain to its complete
   development. He knows, that with his departure from the earthly life,
   will commence his "Being with Christ" [9] in that more perfect sense,
   his presence with Him as an object of immediate vision. Hence this is
   the goal of his desires.

   But there are two mistakes, against which the example of the Apostle
   warns us, viz.: the declension, on the one hand, of that longing after
   the blessedness to come, which, as we have seen, is inseparable from
   the very nature and essence of the Christian life; and on the other,
   Such a one-sided morbid predominance of this desire, as to weaken the
   exercise of patient submission to the will of the Lord. As to the
   first, we remark, that it is not alone in the enjoyment of earthly
   gratifications, which we should ever remember are in their nature
   transitory and but a shadow and pledge of those higher, eternal,
   heavenly joys, that the Christian may suffer the loss of this
   heavenward desire. Even his activity, in a calling entrusted to him for
   the promotion of the kingdom of God, may likewise so absorb him as to
   obscure the consciousness that he has here no abiding home, that his
   native country is in Heaven. He labors as if this work upon earth,
   which is but the beginning of a higher activity destined for eternity,
   were to be consummated here, as if it were already the work of
   eternity. Hence the thought that here all remains fragmentary, that
   nothing reaches completion, nothing attains to its end, withdraws
   itself from him; and death surprises him in the midst of his labors,
   consecrated though they be to God, as an unexpected unwelcome guest,
   who finds him unprepared. He is called away before he has finished his
   account; and instead of following joyfully the summons to a release
   from the sufferings of time, his heart clings fast to that earthly
   scene of labor which he too reluctantly quits, to those happy results
   of his labors on which he has set too high a value. Here may be applied
   the admonition of the Lord: "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject
   unto you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in Heaven."
   This heavenward longing is ever the salt of the Christian life, amidst
   all sorrows, all joys; in every season of repose, in every labor. But
   on the other hand, this very desire, in itself perfectly right, but
   needing to be restrained by submission to the holy will of God, and by
   fidelity to the calling appointed us in this earthly life, becomes
   itself an error when it oversteps these boundaries. Thus arises a
   one-sided direction of feeling, an impatient haste for the call, which
   should be waited for with a steadfast unfaltering patience. In this
   undue, all-engrossing longing after the eternal, the importance of the
   earthly life and of its duties, connected as they are with the eternal,
   is forgotten. Earthly joy, and earthly labor, lose the proper value
   assigned them in the divine arrangement. That which the goodness of God
   has given us for the moment, as an earnest and a preparation for the
   higher joys of the future, is impatiently and unthankfully contemned.
   The consciousness is wanting, which should be ever present with the
   Christian, that for the redeemed united in fellowship with Christ, even
   here below, the earthly of whatever name, whether it consist in
   receiving or in doing, whether it be enjoyment or labor, is transformed
   into the heavenly. The temper of mind, which Paul's words exhibit,
   holds the just medium between these two extremes. The longing after the
   life of eternity, after the immediate society of the Lord, continues to
   be the ground-tone of his soul, which no other can overpower. Through
   all the pressure of his labors in the service of God, this longing
   after the heavenly rest is not smothered, is not crowded from his
   heart. But he is far from an over-hasty impatience, which cannot await
   the end of the earthly conflict; far also from that more refined
   selfishness, which cannot endure to strive and labor longer for the
   salvation of others, and be still deprived of the quiet enjoyment of
   heavenly blessedness. Though to depart from the earthly life, and to be
   present with the Lord in a perfect personal union, be the goal of his
   desires; he is yet ready to deny this desire, the offspring of what is
   noblest in man, in order to labor still upon the earth and to strive
   for the salvation of his brethren. If it may serve for the advancement
   of the work entrusted to him by the Lord, he is willing yet longer to
   forego the object of his wishes, and to be still a wanderer upon the
   earth. Love to his brethren, who may need him for their salvation,
   enables him to present this offering willingly; and thus drawn hither
   and thither by these two directions of his desires, he remains
   submissive in either event to the will of the Lord. But one desire
   remains fixed and unwavering, to which all others must yield,
   viz.:--That Christ may be glorified through him, be it by life or by
   death. Let us hear his own noble words:--"As I earnestly expect and
   hope, that in nothing I shall be put to shame; but that with all
   boldness, as at all other times so also now, Christ may be glorified in
   my body, whether it be by life or by death. For Christ is my life, and
   death is gain. But if my life in the flesh is fruitful for my
   work,--then I know not which to choose. For I am in a strait betwixt
   the two; desiring to depart and to be with Christ, for this is far
   better." [10] Still he gives that the preference, which may most
   subserve the welfare of the churches which he has founded; and hence he
   adds: "But to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake." His
   love to the churches inspires him, at this moment, with the confident
   expectation (which indeed as he well knew might prove illusive, but
   which as we have reason to believe, was fulfilled by his release from
   his first imprisonment at Rome) that God would again restore him to
   their society, for the strengthening of their faith and the furtherance
   of their joy. "And having this confidence, I know that I shall remain,
   and shall continue with you all, for your furtherance and joy in the
   faith; that your glorying on my account may abound in Christ Jesus (i.
   e. the exulting joy which Christ should bestow upon them by the
   restoration of Paul to their society)--through my coming again to you."

   We here observe in Paul the example of submission to the divine will,
   both in doing and in suffering, in self-sacrifice and
   self-preservation. Surrendering his own will, he is ready for whatever
   God may appoint, be it life or death, as may best promote the work
   committed to him. Filled with longing after the home of heaven, he yet
   seeks not death. For the good of the churches he willingly remains on
   earth. Only in the faithful performance of the duties of his calling is
   death to him a divine gift, to be joyfully received from the. hand of
   his Heavenly Father. Thus, in life and in death, it is alike the same
   operation of self-denying love. This example of Paul has primary and
   immediate reference to the martyr's death, the genuine Christian
   martyrdom purified from all admixture of fanaticism. But is it not also
   applicable to death under all circumstances, and in the ordinary course
   of nature? In that case too, there may be either that spirit of selfish
   impatience, which, though it ventures not presumptuously to sever the
   thread of the earthly life, is not willing to endure it longer; or that
   selfish love to the earthly life, which clings to this with its whole
   strength, which cannot let it go when the call of God requires. Thus,
   in both these respects, does Paul's example of a love consecrated to
   God in self-sacrifice and self-preservation, find an application here.
   Thus should each Christian become, in respect to living and dying, one
   with him in spirit, though his calling may not lead to the martyr's
   death.

   Furthermore, we here observe in Paul that higher degree of
   self-renunciation, which manifests itself not in the relinquishment of
   temporal earthly interests, which could have no attraction for a Paul,
   but in the relinquishment of the higher interests of the immortal
   spirit. It is a heavenly aspiration, which enkindles the lofty soul of
   the Apostle. His desires reach beyond the narrow limits and
   perplexities of the earthly existence after the immediate vision of
   Christ, in him to find the full satisfaction of all the wants of the
   higher life. This to his spirit would be the highest good. Yet even
   this he foregoes. He is ready to relinquish what is dearest to himself,
   to forego the satisfaction of that heaven-born desire, to abide still
   longer in the strange country, to labor still upon earth, striving and
   suffering for the welfare of others. What is best for the churches, for
   the furtherance of God's kingdom upon the earth, is more to him than
   what is best for himself. Now this example is not to be restricted to
   its merely literal application to a precisely similar case, viz.: when
   one who is penetrated with longing for the heavenly father-land, is yet
   obliged to bear the load of the earthly life for the welfare of others.
   It may in its spirit be applied to every case, where the Christian is
   called on to relinquish a course of life most favorable to his own
   spiritual interests, a life of tranquil and collected thought
   consecrated to devotion; and to plunge into a whirl of business, toil,
   and conflict alien to the higher inclinations of his soul, but where he
   is appointed to labor because the salvation of others requires it. In
   this respect also, Paul furnishes for our imitation an example of
   self-denying love, which shuns no sacrifice for the good of others. How
   often have Christians, who should be the salt of the earth, by
   withdrawing themselves from its corruption acted in Contrariety to this
   example!

   Let us present still another view in which all Christians have an
   interest. While Paul stands thus between life and death, whereon is his
   confidence grounded? He, if any one, was a faithful laborer in the work
   of the Lord. He was conscious of having labored more than all others in
   the proclamation of the gospel. But he knew at the same time that this
   was not his own work, but the grace of God accomplishing all through
   him; as he himself says: "I have labored more abundantly than they all;
   yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." When higher
   considerations demanded his self-justification, against suspicions
   which might shake the confidence of the churches in him, he could
   indeed recount what he had done and suffered above others for the cause
   of the Lord (2 Cor. xi. 22, 23). He could appeal to the memorials of
   what he had endured in the cause of Christ, in whose fellowship he
   suffered, and whom he followed in his sufferings; to the marks
   enstamped in his body by the Lord himself (such as soldiers and
   servants were accustomed to bear) as proofs that he was Christ's
   servant. (Gal. vi. 7). Still, when looking towards the close of his
   earthly course, he reviewed his life so abundant in labors and
   sufferings for the Lord, as it now spread out before him, he felt that
   he could not rest his confidence on what he had himself done. All
   seemed marked with imperfection. He was constrained to forget what he
   had already accomplished, and to fix his eye upon what still remained
   for him to do. It was with him a law, to forget what was already done,
   what lay behind, and to press continually forward towards the prize of
   the heavenly calling. It may, at first view, seem strange, that Paul
   expresses himself so doubtfully on the great point, whether he shall
   attain to the victor's crown of life, shall share in the blessedness of
   the resurrection. It seems to be in conflict with that divine
   confidence which breathes through the whole epistle, and which he
   expresses elsewhere in regard to the object of his hope; as e. g. in 2
   Tim. iv. 8: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I
   have kept the faith." But this conflict belongs to the nature of the
   Christian life, and is ever recurring in the experience of the
   believer. Does the Christian look away from himself to his Redeemer, to
   the delivering grace assured to him, the unchangeable word of promise;
   the goal towards which, all his efforts tend, seems then an object of
   perfect certainty. Does he, on the other hand, test his own life by the
   standard of perfect holiness; his confidence then finds no firm ground.
   Defects and blemishes present themselves everywhere to his view; and
   this all the more the farther he has advanced in holiness, the more his
   sight has been sharpened by the power of the Holy Spirit, to recognize
   the model of divine holiness in its application to himself, to test by
   comparison with this pattern his inner and outer life in its nakedness
   and poverty, to penetrate into the hidden windings of his own heart.
   Hence Paul expresses himself so doubtfully in reference to what he is
   in himself, and has himself accomplished. What he has performed seems
   to him nothing, and he only looks forward to that which remains to be
   done. He is penetrated with the consciousness, that he is yet far from
   having attained perfection. But the ground of his confidence is
   this--that Christ has taken him into fellowship with himself, that
   Christ has apprehended him; and hence he hopes, that as he has been
   apprehended of Christ, he also shall apprehend the prize set before him
   by Christ. He knows that Christ, by whom he has been apprehended, will
   not leave unfinished the work he has himself begun in him; but, if he
   truly surrenders himself to his hands, will conduct it through all
   conflicts to a glorious completion. Let us hear his own brief,
   expressive words: "Not as though I had already attained, or were
   already perfect; but I follow after, if I may apprehend that for which
   I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." So important does Paul deem it to
   set forth, in the clearest light, this truth drawn from his own
   self-consciousness and from his Christian experience, and to bring it
   home to the Christian as a warning against self-satisfaction,
   self-righteousness, and spiritual pride! Hence he adds yet again: "My
   brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended. But this one thing I
   do; forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the
   things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the
   high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Paul was conscious in himself of
   the utter insufficiency of man's own righteousness, not merely of that
   to which the vital principle is yet wanting, that which precedes
   regeneration and exists independently of Christianity; but of that also
   which possesses already in faith the true element of sanctification,
   without having as yet brought this to complete development and
   realization. Hence, the only immovable ground of his confidence is
   Christ, by whom he has been apprehended; and whom he, surrendering
   himself wholly to his hands, seeks ever more to apprehend and to
   appropriate as his own. Looking away from himself to Christ, his
   assurance is complete; looking back upon himself, he must doubt and
   waver; and thus he is driven to look away from himself, and to cling
   more and more firmly to Christ, from whose love nothing can separate
   him. It is the righteousness of God in Christ which alone avails for
   him, and is all-sufficient for him; as expressed in the words of this
   epistle, "The righteousness which is of God by faith." To him Christ is
   all. All centres in this one point, that we enter into his fellowship
   and make it more and more our own; that we follow him by bearing the
   cross, thus following him as crucified for us; that in fellowship with
   him we die to sin, to self, and to the world; following him in the
   entire renunciation of selfish and earthly interests, not shunning to
   partake in the fellowship of his sufferings; and following him also as
   the Risen One, experiencing in ourselves the power of his
   resurrection--the resurrection to an imperishable and divine life above
   sin, death, and nature, proceeding from him to us, inasmuch as he has
   apprehended us and we apprehend him. So Paul expresses it, in a passage
   which we must more particularly consider hereafter: "That I may know
   him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his
   sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I
   might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." We have already
   explained how the Apostle could here express himself with so much
   apparent doubtfulness, consistently with his divine assurance of faith.

   It was the greatest joy of the Apostle, that his imprisonment must
   necessarily serve for the furtherance of the Gospel; since it was
   becoming more and more known, that no guilt of any kind could be
   imputed. to him, that it was but his zeal for the. faith which he
   preached that had drawn upon him all his sufferings. A cause, to which
   a man like Paul felt constrained to offer up everything, could not fail
   to command attention.. To this was added the impression necessarily
   made upon those, who were witnesses of the enthusiasm with which he
   testified in behalf of the Gospel, of his steadfastness, and of his
   whole course of life. The knowledge of this had spread, as he
   intimates, by means of the soldiers from the imperial guard (the
   castris praetorianis) who held watch by turn in his dwelling, among
   their comrades and from these still more widely. Other Christians were
   stimulated by Paul's example to preach the Gospel with similar zeal,
   and to bear their testimony with like fearlessness. Thus increased the
   proclamation of the truth.

   But Paul himself makes a great distinction among these preachers of the
   Gospel. Thus, when expressing his joy at the increasing promulgation of
   the Gospel, he says, "Some indeed preach Christ from envy and strife;
   but others also from goodwill: the one out of love, knowing that I am
   set for the defence of the Gospel." The latter, he means to say,
   connect with their love to the Gospel also love to himself. They know
   that they can cause him no greater joy, than by laboring that the
   Gospel may be promoted by his imprisonment; for they well know that
   this is the one object of his life, and that he himself regards it as
   the divinely appointed end of all that he is to do and to suffer in
   life. "But the others," he proceeds to say, "out of party spirit, not
   sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds." The first is
   clear. But who are those who sought, by the preaching of the Gospel, to
   add affliction to Paul's imprisonment, and whom he charges with
   insincerity? We must here take into view what he afterwards says in
   reference to this distinction, viz. that by the one class Christ was
   preached in truth, by the other only in appearance. Are we to suppose
   that these men, without personal love to the Gospel, without personal
   conviction of its truth, preached Christ for no other reason than to
   add, to the hardship of Paul's situation, and to bring him into greater
   danger by the wider extension of the Gospel in Rome; thus rendering
   him, as the origin of it all, more obnoxious to the Roman civil power?
   It appears at once how unnatural, and intrinsically improbable, is such
   a supposition. If they could thus bring Paul into greater peril, they
   would by so doing plunge themselves into equal danger. Can it be
   imagined that one would play so hazardous a game, simply from hatred to
   another? He who at that time did not himself believe in the Gospel,
   must be enlisted against it; and would certainly not have given himself
   up to the business of preaching it, merely as the means to another end.
   We must seek, then, another explanation of this difficulty. When it is
   said of an individual that he preaches the Gospel only in appearance,
   this need not be understood as necessarily meaning that he has no
   concern whatever in regard to the subject of his preaching; that he has
   no personal interest in it, no conviction of its truth, that he makes
   use of it only as a means to another end. It may mean that he preaches
   it, not in its purity and completeness, but mingled with foreign
   elements; that although an interest in it cannot be denied him, yet
   this is not perfect and unalloyed. In this sense it might be said of
   such an one, that he does not preach the Gospel sincerely. Paul might
   therefore express himself thus, in regard to persons who testified of
   the Gospel of Christ from real conviction; yet did not preach the
   whole, unmixed, pure Gospel in its completeness, but an adulterated,
   mutilated Gospel. And when, moreover, he says of such, that they were
   actuated by party zeal and hatred against him, desiring to add new
   affliction to his sufferings; it is not necessary to understand by
   this, that their witness for the Gospel was mere pretence, a form of
   hypocrisy to which the circumstances of the time afforded no occasion
   and no ground; but that their ruling motive in preaching was not pure
   love to the Lord. that it was their aim, consciously or unconsciously
   to themselves, by their manner of preaching to give offence to Paul,
   and to raise up for themselves a party against him.

   If now we look farther into the history of the development of
   Christianity in this its earliest period, and investigate more
   minutely, in the history of the Apostolic church, the peculiar
   relations and opposing influences under which Paul's labors were
   prosecuted, we shall soon be in a position to determine with greater
   exactness what we have here remarked in general. We know that Paul had
   to contend with opposers, to whom all that has here been said is
   applicable. There were those who did indeed acknowledge and preach
   Jesus as the Messiah, but a Messiah in the Jewish sense; who
   acknowledged him, not as that which he has revealed himself to be, the
   only ground of salvation for man; who in connection with the one
   article of faith, that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old
   Testament, still adhered to the Jewish legal position; who understood
   nothing of the new creation of which Christ was the author, and to whom
   faith in Jesus as the Messiah was only a new patch upon the old garment
   of Judaism. These were the opposers, with whom we so often find Paul
   contending in his Epistles. Of such he might justly say, that they
   preached the Gospel not purely and sincerely, but only in appearance;
   for they were indeed far more concerned for Judaism than for
   Christianity, and their converts became rather Jews than Christians. Of
   such he might also say, that they sought to form a party against him,
   and to add affliction to his bonds; for these persons everywhere seem
   chiefly animated by jealousy of Paul, through whom the Gospel was
   preached to the heathen world as freed from all dependence upon
   Judaism, and standing upon its own foundation. They oppose themselves
   to him on all occasions, contest his Apostolic dignity, seek to
   encroach on his sphere of labor, to draw over the people from him to
   themselves, from that pure and complete Gospel to their own mutilated
   one. And it need not surprise us to meet such even in Rome; for Paul's
   Epistle to the church at Rome, written some years previous to his
   imprisonment there, shows us in this church, consisting chiefly of
   Gentile converts, a small party of such judaizing Christians who were
   in conflict with the rest. It was a matter of course, then, that when
   the pure Gospel in the sense of Paul was preached by the one party, the
   other, provoked to rivalry, should rise up in opposition and seek to
   give currency to their own corrupted form of the Gospel.

   We must now endeavor to understand fully Paul's position towards these
   opposers. Rightly understood, it will furnish an important rule for our
   own application in many cases. In the first place, it is clear that
   these men were personal enemies of Paul; and that in their efforts to
   promote the Gospel, their object was to frustrate the labors of the
   Apostle, and to form a party of their own in opposition to him. What
   self-renunciation must it then have required, to enable Paul to rise so
   entirely above this personal relation, that forgetting the design
   against himself he can rejoice with his whole heart that the One
   Christ, whom it is his sole desire to glorify, is preached, even though
   it be by his personal enemies! Thus everything pertaining to self gives
   place to that all-absorbing love to the Lord, and to those for whom He
   gave his life. How rare are the examples of a love so heaven-like, so
   purified from all selfishness! One may even be animated by real zeal
   for the cause of the Lord, and yet that zeal be impaired by personal
   considerations. If others, who from unfriendly designs against him
   personally labor to frustrate his efforts, are used as instruments for
   the promotion of the same holy cause,--he cannot rejoice over it. That
   this is accomplished not through himself, but through those who are
   acting against him, weighs more with him than the common interest of
   Christ's cause; and instead of giving him joy, it becomes a source of
   vexation, jealousy, and envy. He is not concerned alone that Christ
   should be preached, but that He should be preached through him; or at
   least through his followers, through those who in every respect
   harmonize with him, and acknowledge him as their teacher in
   Christianity. Least of all can he endure it, when Christ is preached by
   those who take a hostile attitude towards himself; whose most zealous
   effort it is to lessen his reputation, to throw suspicion on him as a
   teacher, to draw men away from him. To this course of conduct, which we
   so frequently observe among men, the Apostle's self-denying zeal forms
   the most striking contrast. He acted in accordance with the principle
   which he himself lays down in 1 Cor. iii. 21, showing in what light the
   preachers of the Gospel should be regarded. "Let no man," says he,
   "glory in men;" the highest, the only concern is the honor of Christ,
   and the salvation of believers.

   Thus would the case be easily understood, and thus might Paul's conduct
   serve as a pattern for us, if it were merely a matter of personal
   variance and not a strife respecting the nature of the doctrine itself.
   But, as we have already seen, this was by no means the case. It is a
   false form of doctrine, placing itself in competition with the
   preaching of Paul and in opposition to it, a mutilated and corrupted
   Gospel that is here spoken of. Those opposers, it is true, acknowledged
   Jesus to be the Christ, but not in the sense in which Paul received
   him. It was not in his full character as the sole ground of salvation,
   the central point of the whole Christian life, as he was regarded by
   Paul. Hence, we might naturally suppose, Paul could not rejoice that
   Christ was preached through them, since it was not in his pure complete
   character. And indeed, we see Paul dealing elsewhere quite differently
   with such persons. How indignantly does he combat them in the Epistle
   to the Galatians! He does not acknowledge them as preachers of the same
   Gospel; he declares that there is no other Gospel than that preached by
   him; that they do but pervert the Gospel of Christ. In opposition to
   those who would connect with the Gospel the righteousness of the law,
   he says: "If righteousness come by the Law, then has Christ died in
   vain" (Gal. ii. 21). And in this Epistle also he expresses himself, as
   we shall see hereafter, with equal severity in regard to this false
   tendency. How then is Paul's manner of speaking in this passage, to be
   reconciled with what he says in those other cases? It is only necessary
   to discriminate carefully the different relations, presupposed by this
   diversity of judgment and conduct. Paul manifests this warmth of
   displeasure, only in cases where the Gospel had already gained a
   foothold among the Gentiles, and where that judaizing tendency
   threatened to pervert it, by intermingling so much of Judaism as wholly
   to obscure its peculiar nature. For it could only cause him grief, that
   the blessing of which a people were already in full possession, should
   be marred and taken from them. But it was otherwise here, where he
   speaks in relation to the heathen who as yet knew nothing of
   Christianity. Those preachers bore witness at least to the fact, that
   Jesus had appeared to found the kingdom of God in man; they testified
   of his history, the facts of his life, his resurrection, his ascension
   to heaven; although they did not themselves comprehend, nor were able
   to unfold to others, how much was involved in all this. Now Paul could
   not but rejoice that the common foundation of the Gospel, a knowledge
   of the person and history of Christ, should be made known to those who
   as yet had heard nothing of them. This was the first thing; the
   starting-point from which all the rest must proceed. If this personage,
   these facts, became once known and could be made objects of attention,
   here was a basis for still further labors. If Christ, the crucified,
   the risen, the ascended Christ, could but once be known and
   acknowledged, those who had gone thus far might, from this
   starting-point, be led onward to find still more in him; might be
   assisted to search deeper and deeper into the inexhaustible riches
   which are in Christ. Paul could therefore rejoice that Christ was
   preached, even though it was in this defective manner; though the
   doctrine of Christ were not presented in its purity and completeness.
   There are, it must be remembered, different degrees in the knowledge of
   Christ. More or less may be found in him. We must therefore deal with
   no one as an enemy, because he has at first but little; but must help
   him on from this point that he may gain more, that he may become
   conscious of those greater treasures, which he needs but rightly to
   develop out of that which he has already received; "till," as Paul
   expresses it in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, "we
   all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
   God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
   of Christ." Paul's conduct, in this case, is in accordance with the
   principle indicated by Christ himself. When the disciples met with one,
   who attributed to Christ's name a power whereby evil spirits might be
   cast out, they refused to allow the use of that name by one who had not
   as yet become his professed disciple, and who had not made common cause
   with them by uniting himself to their company. But Christ rebuked them,
   in those memorable words: "He who is not against us, is on our part."
   "Not to be against Christ" contained in itself the germ, from which the
   positive, "to be for Christ," might yet be developed. Though he did not
   as yet know Christ as the Apostles knew him, though he was still
   ignorant of the true significance and power of this name, and connected
   many errors with his belief in its efficacy; still it was a germ of
   faith not to be despised, a germ from which more might develope itself
   and. be developed. It was a point of connection, from which one who had
   gained so much could be led still farther. It needed only that he
   should be brought to perceive what was implied in this, what must be
   presupposed in the strange efficacy of the invocation of Christ's name.
   Who must He be, from whose name such power proceeds! In what relation
   must He stand to the kingdom of evil, when his name exercises such sway
   over evil spirits! It is clear that he who had once acknowledged so
   much was already in a position, from which, with patience and love, he
   might be conducted farther and farther in knowledge and faith. From him
   who as yet was only not an opposer of Christ, who knew and recognized
   Christ in some single point of view, might be formed by building upon
   that which he had already attained, a positive disciple of Christ. But
   he might also, if not thus dealt with, if too much was required of him
   with his present attainments, be wholly repelled. Not only might he be
   hindered from farther progress by such harsh treatment, but be
   unsettled in regard to what he had already gained; and thus the germ of
   truth, in its yet imperfect development, might be wholly destroyed.
   Against such a course we are warned by those words of Christ; and with
   these Paul accords when he rejoices that Christ was preached and
   acknowledged, even though in an obscured and defective manner.

   We have already, before we saw clearly the relation which these
   opposers held to Paul, and regarding them merely in general as his
   personal enemies, felt ourselves constrained to acknowledge him as a
   model of self-denying zeal for the cause of Christ. We are now, after a
   more full and careful development of this relation, called upon to
   contemplate this great model under a new light. It implies a love
   purified from selfishness far above what is common, to be able to
   recognize and with joy to acknowledge the work of the Lord, when
   performed through the agency of a personal enemy. But the power of this
   purified and exalted love reveals itself under still another view, when
   the truth lying at the basis of even an erroneous representation of the
   Gospel is recognized and welcomed; when the seed of truth is not
   rejected and spurned on account of the error, even though this may
   oppose itself to a purer, more complete, unmutilated conception of the
   Gospel as preached by ourselves, but is welcomed as one step towards
   the farther advancement of the Gospel. But how seldom do we find a like
   example! One who is capable, it may be, of joyfully welcoming the work
   of the Lord when advanced by means of a personal enemy, might yet not
   be able so far to forget self as to accept with cordial love, and to
   use for the common cause of the Lord, the truth lying at the bottom of
   the errors promulgated by his opponent, especially when in direct
   opposition to the pure truth which he is himself conscious of
   preaching. How different would it have been in the church, how many
   divisions might have been avoided, how many who have labored only to
   oppose each other might have labored together for the spread of the
   Gospel; how many who have hardened themselves in their errors, and have
   lost by degrees even so much of divine truth as they had embraced,
   might from that partial view have been led farther and farther in the
   knowledge of the truth, and have been gradually made free from the
   bondage of error; if Christians, instead of demanding everything at
   once, with the impatient zeal of a love not sufficiently purified from
   self, had been more observant of the various grades of faith and
   knowledge, and had nurtured them with a forbearing charity!

   The principle here expressed and acted on by Paul admits of numerous
   applications. But to what form of Christian labor is the immediate
   reference here? To that which most exactly corresponds to Paul's
   peculiar vocation, that where the first concern is to establish the
   church upon the one foundation, which is Christ; we mean the missionary
   work. Here should all, after Paul's example, fix their aim upon this
   single point, to make Christ everywhere known, to testify only of Him.
   Here, then, should the strife respecting differences in the form of
   representation and differences of creed find no place; and amidst all
   diversities on these points, there should be a union of labor for the
   one object of proclaiming Christ. Whatever differences may exist on
   other points, should all be made an offering to his cause. To each one
   it should be matter of rejoicing that through others also, and even
   such as in his view have a less perfect knowledge of Christ, He, the
   great centre of all, is made more and more widely known. We may apply
   this example of Paul in still another view. There are times in which
   the church, even where it is already firmly established, is called on
   to exercise anew a missionary activity; times in which the ideas and
   tendencies to which Christianity first gave being and currency, though
   still exerting their influence upon society, yet deny their connection
   with Christianity, and even array themselves against it. Such are times
   of wide-wasting apostasy; when the culture, which has grown up under
   the fostering care of Christianity, rises up in opposition to it,--an
   opposition which may, however, have been first called forth by the
   impure mixture of human institutions with Christianity. Such periods
   occur in the history of all religions, when reason, matured to
   self-dependence, disunites itself from the faith under whose
   guardianship it has been nurtured. Nor could Christianity escape this
   fate. It is subject to the same laws and conditions as all things
   human; and distinguishes itself only in the manner in which, by virtue
   of its divine nature and character, it rises victorious from all such
   conflicts. For whilst other religions find in such conflicts their
   grave, to Christianity they prove but the transition points to a
   resurrection, in increased purity and glory, in the energy of a renewed
   youth. In such times; as well as in periods of missionary labor, does
   the principle "that Christ alone be preached" find anew its
   application. The sole concern then is, that Christ should first of all
   be brought near to the souls estranged from him, that he may draw them
   to himself and make them subject to him. Here too, all cannot be
   achieved at once; but gradually, from the common relation to the one
   Christ, must the way be opened for a union among souls reclaimed to him
   from the most diverse forms of error. Here must Paul's example of
   magnanimous denial of self be our guide. Here every one, who is
   animated by the same spirit with the Apostle, must rejoice if "in every
   way Christ is preached," even when he cannot but feel that the manner
   leaves much to be desired.

   Still another trait of Paul's Christian character is presented to us,
   in his manner of accepting the gifts sent to him by the Philippian
   church. There is in the natural man a false striving after independence
   and self-reliance; a pride of self-will, which not seldom decks itself
   with noble names, the influence of which is to make one ashamed to
   accept from others gifts of which he stands in need, lest he should
   humble himself before them. A still worse development of the same
   radical fault of the natural man is seen, when the gifts indeed are
   accepted and enjoyed, but there is a disposition to forget them again,
   to shun the remembrance of them, to acknowledge no indebtedness to
   others through fear of seeming dependent, of humbling one's self before
   them. But the Apostle is penetrated by the consciousness, that all are
   related to each other as the members of one body, and should abide in
   this mutual dependence upon one another as members under one head,
   Christ Jesus. He knows that the growth of the whole body, from the one
   head which guides animates and connects all the members, can only then
   be truly promoted, when all the single members are ready, as
   instruments of the one head, mutually to sustain and forward each other
   in spiritual and in temporal things, to work together in love and
   unity. This is beautifully expressed by Paul in the Epistle to the
   Ephesians (iv. 15, 16): "That we grow up into him in all things, which
   is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined
   together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according
   to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase
   of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." Christ is here
   presented as the one to whom the whole development must tend; the aim
   of all is to grow up into true fellowship with him, to receive him
   wholly into themselves, to become full of him. He is equally the one,
   from whom the whole growth up into him can alone proceed; from whom
   issue all the vital energies, the living juices; from whom alone all
   the members can receive life and direction. Christ so works upon the
   whole body, that by means of the different members through which his
   vitalizing influence flows, using each in its appropriate manner, he
   works through the whole. And hence the growth, proceeding from him and
   tending up to him, can truly prosper only when all the members alike
   yield themselves to him; and under his guidance, in mutual dependence
   and mutual influence upon each other, abide together in closest union.
   The Christian should ever bear in mind, that our various necessities,
   and the means of supplying them, are distributed in varying modes and
   proportions through the different members, in order to keep them in a
   state of mutual dependence and reciprocal influence; so that no one may
   break loose from his connection with the whole, thinking to maintain an
   existence by himself, and that mutual necessities may serve continually
   for the furtherance of mutual love. The Christian will not be ashamed,
   therefore, of a dependence upon others springing from such a
   connection; but will recognize it as the law naturally arising from.
   the relation of the members to one another. As he who gives rejoices in
   having received from God means which he may use for the aid of the
   other members; regarding it as a loan for this purpose from their
   common Lord, as a medium for the manifestation of that love which. the
   Spirit of God has poured into the hearts of believers, that being the
   mark by which the disciples of the Lord, the members of his body, are
   to be known: so he that receives rejoices far less in the brief
   temporal service of the gift, than in the heavenly temper expressed in
   the bestowal,--in the love, that vital principle of the church, which
   manifests itself therein. He knows that it is for the highest good of
   the giver himself; who thus, by deeds of love, sows in the earthly life
   what he shall reap in life eternal; who thus manifests in his works the
   spirit which makes him meet for life eternal. So Paul represents the
   Christian relation, in his own manner of accepting the gifts of the
   Philippian church, when he says: "I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that
   now at length your care for me hath flourished again,"--rejoiced, that
   now after long-endured privation, they are placed once more in a
   condition to fulfil the wish they had ever felt, to care for his
   temporal wants;--"because ye have ever cared for me, but ye lacked
   opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want." And in conclusion he
   says: "Not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit"--the fruit
   which springs for them out of such manifestations of love--"which may
   abound to your account"--may be laid up for life eternal.

   Again: Paul here gives us a model of the genuine Christian character,
   in his demeanor in respect to external things. The Christian, in the
   power of the Lord through which he is able to do all things, proves his
   independence of the world, and his supremacy over it, by his ability to
   endure joyfully all the privations which the Lord lays upon him, in the
   circumstances of his lot, in what is required of him by his calling.
   His soul, filled with the divine life, cannot be bowed down by earthly
   want. Subjected to privation, he so much the more feels and proves his
   inward mastery of the world. But the Christian is far also from that
   self-imposed mortification of the flesh, in an imaginary spirituality,
   which nevertheless only serves for the satisfaction of the fleshly
   mind; for in the Holy Scriptures, all which does not proceed from the
   divine Spirit, all which comes from our own will, therefore every form
   of vanity and spiritual pride is ascribed to the flesh. (Coloss. ii.
   23. [11] ) He is far from imposing upon himself privations, in order
   thereby to merit anything before God or man, though submitting joyfully
   to those which God lays upon him; but accepts with humble gratitude
   whatever God may bestow upon. him above what is required for his
   absolute wants. The Christian's greatness is ever built upon humility.
   His independence of the world, his supremacy over it, consists in just
   this, that in every condition of want or abundance he is the same,
   neither depressed by want nor seduced by prosperity into worldliness
   and vain-glory; that he uses both alike in order to make known that
   divine life by which he is raised above the world. This is the spirit
   which Paul here exhibits when he says, that though he needs not the
   Philippians' gifts of love, he still rejoices in that love which
   prompted them; and when to this he adds the testimony, that he has
   accustomed himself to all changes of condition; that he knows how to
   adapt himself equally to all circumstances, whether of want or
   abundance, through the power of Him who animates him. "I have learned,"
   says he, "in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know
   both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in every respect and
   in all things I am fully instructed, both to be full and to be hungry,
   both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ
   which strengtheneth me." Such is true Christian fortitude and greatness
   of soul, whose basis is humility.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [3] Chap. i. 13.

   [4] Chap. i. 19, 20.

   [5] Chap. ii. 17, 18.

   [6] Literally, poured out.

   [7] Chap. i. 21.

   [8] Ver. 22.

   [9] Chap. i. 23.

   [10] Chap. i. 20-23.

   [11] This passage, incorrectly translated by Luther, stands thus in the
   original: "which (namely, the principles spoken of in vss. 21 and 22)
   have indeed a show of wisdom in self-chosen spirituality and humility
   and mortification of the body, but have no worth, serving only for the
   satisfying of the flesh." Ex. MSS.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECTION SECOND.

   AFTER having thus carefully considered Paul in his then existing
   circumstances and temper of mind, let us now turn our attention to the
   state of the Philippian church, and to what Paul has to say in
   reference to this, by way of warning and counsel for the future.

   We will first take a general view, and from this pass to particulars.

   It is customary with Paul to commence his letters, with a recognition
   of whatever is praiseworthy in the church to which he is writing. In
   this appears his wisdom as a spiritual guide. The confidence of men is
   far more easily won, and a hearing secured for whatever one has to say
   in the way of admonition and rebuke, if it appears that he nowise
   overlooks or undervalues what is good in them, that he does not
   willingly find fault, but is ready to acknowledge every real excellence
   with cordial approbation. Good and bad, moreover, stand frequently in
   close connection with each other. The good lies at the foundation; but
   the evil mingles its disturbing influence with the good, and hence it
   is through the latter that we can best reach and remedy the former. It
   is in the clear perception of this relation, and in the skilful use of
   it for the correction of error, that Paul manifests his wisdom. Of this
   a striking example is furnished in the first epistle to the
   Corinthians. Thus Paul regards whatever of real value he finds already
   existing in the churches, not as something produced in them from
   themselves and by their own agency, but wrought in them by the Spirit
   of God, that Spirit which has begun to transform them into new men.
   Hence he feels himself constrained to thank God for that which He has
   wrought in their hearts and in their lives by his grace, before he
   offers to Him the prayer, that what He has already wrought in them He
   will more and more purify, carry it forward, and bring it to
   perfection. Upon the good which already exists in them he builds the
   hope, that they will ever continue to advance in goodness, even unto
   perfection. Not indeed upon the good as a work of man can he rest such
   a hope. He knows too well the weakness of man, too well how subject is
   everything human to constant change. But this is the ground of his
   hope, that in this beginning of the Christian life he sees not the work
   of man but the work of God. He thus builds his hope upon the truth and
   faithfulness of God, who will certainly carry forward what He has
   begun, through all conflicts and trials, safely to its consummation. It
   is not God's way to do things by halves. Thus too does Paul begin his
   letter to the Philippians; thanking God for their living fellowship in
   the gospel from the beginning up to the present hour; and then
   expressing the confidence, that He who has begun in them the good work
   will also carry it on to its completion. In this it is indeed always
   presupposed by Paul, that they likewise will do what belongs to them,
   by yielding themselves to the power of God which works nothing without
   man, albeit man without it can work nothing; as in the eleventh chapter
   of the epistle to the Romans (v. 22), he represents the continued
   manifestation of God's goodness in men as conditioned on their
   continuing in His goodness, and thus susceptible of the grace of God.
   by truly yielding themselves up to its influence. It is on this
   connection between the divine and the human he founds the exhortation,
   "to work out their salvation with fear and trembling; for," he adds,
   "it is God who worketh in you both the willing and the doing, of his
   own good pleasure." It is here assumed that the salvation of man is
   conditioned upon his own conduct. He is himself to work out his
   salvation. And yet Paul always represents the salvation of man as
   something which can be accomplished only through the grace of God, as
   the work of God in man. But he adds, in this passage, a more exact
   designation of the temper of heart with which they should work out
   their salvation, viz., "with fear and trembling." This would not be
   appropriate if he were speaking of what lay merely in the hand of man,
   in which case all would depend upon his own strength. It is because
   Paul is conscious of the weakness and insufficiency of all human
   strength, because he presupposes that man can do nothing without God,
   and must constantly watch over himself, lest through his own fault he
   lose the aid of divine grace, without which all human efforts are in
   vain; it is for this reason that he designates this temper of mind as
   one of fear and trembling, as the feeling of personal accountability
   and helplessness, of insecurity and instability in ourselves, by which
   we may be ever admonished to continual watchfulness, and to
   ever-renewed waiting upon God as the fountain of all our strength.
   Hence, as the ground of such an admonition, he appeals to this
   consciousness that we can of ourselves do nothing, that it is God who
   alone bestows upon us the power to will and to perform what is needful
   to our salvation; that all, indeed, depends upon his sovereign will.
   This feeling of dependence, the ground-tone of the Christian life, is
   ever to be maintained. It is this which must combat the presumption of
   a vain human self-reliance, which, finding itself deceived in the
   result, so easily gives place to dejection and despair.

   All the admonitions which Paul gives the Philippians in reference to
   the Christian walk, are comprehended in this one; that they should
   "walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ." And what is required
   of them in their position, in the midst of a corrupt world, he points
   out in chapter ii. 15-16. Inasmuch, he says, as they are called to live
   as children of God in the midst of a corrupt world, they are called to
   maintain unsullied, amidst all the defilements of surrounding
   pollution, that divine life of which, as children of God, they have
   become participants, and to show forth its glory in contrast with the
   perverse generation in which they live. The terms "crooked and
   perverse," in which Paul describes this wicked generation, have
   reference to the perversion of the original godlike nature, which can
   be restored only through the new creation. So also, as children of God,
   they are to shine as lights, as radiant luminaries in the world of
   darkness. Whilst all around them is darkness, here alone shall all be
   light. So indeed does Christ say to those who belong to his kingdom,
   that they are to be the lights of the world, just as He is the Sun who
   sends his light into this dark world, its light in the highest and only
   true sense. Thus what He is, is communicated to those who enter into
   fellowship with him, and they too through him become the light of the
   world. This light shines in the holy walk of Christians, and thereby do
   they testify of Him who is light itself, and in whom is no darkness;
   thereby do they glorify him and lead others to acknowledge and honor
   him; as Christ himself has said, "Let your light so shine before men,
   that they seeing your good works may glorify your Father which is in
   Heaven." They are to testify of that which is life, to show forth the
   true life in this world of death. [12] Everything which men, in
   accordance with the revelation of the law written in their consciences
   through the impulses of their moral nature, are accustomed to account
   moral and virtuous, belongs also to the peculiar stamp of this new
   divine life, in which the children of God manifest themselves as such.
   All must find its fulfilment here; only that is done away which
   proceeds from the disturbing influence of sin; as Christ says, that he
   "came not to destroy but to fulfil." Hence it is the conclusion of
   Paul's exhortation, [13] that their minds be directed only to "what is
   true"--(true and good being in the biblical sense one and the same, the
   truth here appears as that which penetrates and gives direction to the
   whole life; all has its root in the truth, the true is the divine)--to
   "what is becoming, what is upright, what is chaste, what is lovely,
   what is of good report, whatever is virtue and whatever is praise."
   Thus it is implied by Paul, that the divine life must manifest itself
   in an amiable form before men; and he appeals to what they had learned
   from his instructions, and had witnessed in the example of his own
   life. Although, as we have seen above, he was far from holding his life
   to be entirely pure and perfect, yet he could with confidence assume
   the essential correspondence between his life and teachings, and that
   his conduct did not give the lie to his instructions. And thus he was
   able, without untruth or self-exaltation, to hold up to the Philippians
   the example of his own course among them as an admonition to them.
   Self-exaltation is the less to be attributed to him here, as he was
   himself fully conscious, that whatever in his own conduct he proposed
   as their example was only the work of grace, the fruit of the new
   creation in him. So may the Christian when made aware, by a comparison
   of his earlier and later life, of having gained the victory over the
   old nature in any of its sinful tendencies, be fully conscious of this
   and freely rejoice over it; for this is no self-exaltation. He knows
   that it is not to his own nature or his own strength that he is
   indebted for it; that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ has
   wrought this in him; and therefore the consciousness of his victory
   only impels him to praise and to thank Him, through whose power he has
   attained it. And at the same time, he feels himself constrained to
   acknowledge how much still remains for him to contend with. and with
   the Apostle, whose words we have quoted, to forget what is behind and
   press continually forward.

   The church at Philippi, as we have already remarked, had been called to
   endure many forms of persecution. It was necessary that Paul should
   exhort them to steadfastness under these trials. How then does he
   express himself? It is important for us to bring this out clearly, for
   it is applicable to all the conflicts which Christianity has to
   encounter in all times. They should in no wise suffer themselves to be
   terrified by their adversaries; [14] "which to them is an evident token
   of perdition, but to you of salvation and that of God. For to you it is
   given, for the sake of Christ--not only to believe on him--but for his
   sake to suffer also." What is the full import of these words? This is
   best shown by contrast. Had the opposers of the gospel succeeded in
   terrifying the Philippians, it would thereby have been made manifest
   how much these opposers could effect, what power they possessed; the
   weakness of the Philippians would have appeared, and the cause which
   they served might have seemed an impotent one. Or it might have seemed
   merely a contest between man and man, their opponents being the
   stronger and they the weaker party. Their demeanor would have been a
   testimony, how much was still wanting to them of that divine power
   which was to manifest its efficacy in believers; how much, therefore,
   they still lacked of the genuine life of faith. But while they did not
   suffer themselves to be terrified by those who warred with weapons of
   the flesh, this was a proof that they were in the service of a divine
   cause, victorious over all human opposition; that a power of God
   wrought in them against which no human force could avail. The conflict
   with their adversaries served but to test and to approve their faith,
   and their power through faith. It was a proof of the vanity of their
   opposers' efforts; even as Christ reckons it as one of the works of the
   Holy Spirit, to lead men to the conviction that the Prince of this
   world has been judged, and hence can accomplish nothing farther through
   his instruments (Jno. xvi. 11). Thus through them is this power of the
   Holy Spirit manifested. So far, it was an evidence of the condemnation
   drawn upon themselves by those who warred in the service of the Prince
   of this world. But for the Philippians, it was for that very reason a
   certain proof, a pledge, of their salvation; for the faith which
   remains steadfast in conflict is indeed assured of salvation. It was
   the pledge that the power of God, through which they were able to hold
   themselves unterrified by their adversaries, would also lead them
   through all conflicts to final salvation; as in the works of God one
   thing answers to another, one guaranties the other. And thus Paul gives
   special prominence to the thought, that this is not of man; that it is
   no illusive human proof, but a factual proof given by God himself. It
   is one part of this proof, that to them it was given of God to suffer
   for Christ's sake. For whoever follows Christ in his sufferings, must
   needs follow him also in his glorification. Paul had said, "for
   Christ's sake;" intending at first only to say, "for Christ's sake to
   suffer." But he would bring out the full meaning of this with a
   stronger emphasis. He therefore interrupts himself, and says, "not
   merely to believe on him, but for his sake to suffer also." He who
   believes in Christ is, so far as his faith approves itself to be
   genuine, certain of the blessedness of heaven. But it is also requisite
   that this faith approve itself to be genuine, by assuring its
   possessors against all fear of their adversaries; and by giving them
   the power to follow Christ in his sufferings, as in general its office
   is, in all things, to bring them into fellowship with Christ. And
   therefore, although with faith in Christ, as the root of all else
   pertaining to the Christian life, all else is given so far as regards
   the principle whence it springs, the germinating power which produces
   it; yet to suffer for Christ is more than merely to believe on him,
   inasmuch as through these sufferings the power of faith makes itself
   manifest, approves itself to be genuine. For one might suppose himself
   the possessor of that genuine faith, and yet the result, when he was
   found to shun a participation in the sufferings of Christ, would prove
   the contrary. In another view, indeed, suffering is of less account
   than faith. For there might be a suffering too, which was not true
   Christian suffering, as not proceeding from the life of faith, that
   faith which works by love. As Paul says in 1 Cor. xiii. 3; "And though
   I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me
   nothing." The same is true, in general, of the relation of faith to the
   entire course of Christian life in its outward manifestation, of the
   relation of faith to good works. It everywhere finds an application, in
   a greater or less degree, in respect to the relation of the inward to
   the outward, of the internal feeling to its manifestation in action.

   The Christian life is no instinctive, unconscious one. It follows not
   feeling alone; but demands, everywhere and in all things an intelligent
   discrimination between what is of God and what is not, in respect to
   all the relations of life; between what accords to the will of the
   Lord, to the spirit and nature of Christianity, and what is in
   contrariety thereto. It cannot subsist, cannot fulfil its mission,
   without a considerate conscious process of scrutiny and discrimination.
   As flesh and spirit are still coexisting in the Christian, and are ever
   in conflict with each other; so the power of discriminating what
   proceeds from the one or the other, what is in accordance with the one
   or the other, is continually needed, in order that the Christian may
   not yield to the suggestions of the flesh, when he thinks he is acting
   according to the impulses of the spirit. Of such a testing and
   discriminating process there was especial need, in churches established
   in the midst of the Pagan or Jewish world; since there, Christianity,
   contending with existing customs relations and views of life which were
   the product of another spirit and principle, was now first to bring
   into existence a new creation, in which Christ should be all in all.
   Here of course the question must often arise: What does Christianity
   require? In what respects does the heathen or Jewish point of view
   stand opposed to it? Wherein may the Christian conform himself to the
   world, wherein may he not? For this reason Paul, in his practical
   admonitions to this church, desires for them especially increase in
   knowledge, [15] in the faculty of perception; that they might test
   things which differ, the good and the bad, the true and the false, that
   thus they might avoid the one and choose the other. Paul assumes that,
   for this work, the diligent exercise of the faculty of perception is
   necessary; that such a power of discernment is the fruit of unremitting
   exercise of the Christian judgment. In like manner in the epistle to
   the Hebrews (v. 14), it is accounted one of the attributes of the state
   of Christian maturity, that, through the exercise of the organs of
   spiritual perception, a readiness had been attained for distinguishing
   good and evil. But if, on the one hand, there are objects of knowledge
   and judgment where all depends on the exercise of the understanding,
   where he who is most practised in thinking possesses also the best
   judgment, and is most fully guarded against error; yet in regard to the
   objects which the Apostle has in mind, those pertaining to moral
   duties, this is by no means the case. In general, we shall often find
   how much the judgment is here biassed by the direction of the will. The
   mistakes which lie at the basis of action, and errors in conduct, arise
   not so much from defect in the thin2king faculty, as from selfish
   inclinations which sway the judgment. And this is particularly the case
   with Christianity, which assigns wholly new objects as the aim of life.
   To know what is in harmony with it, Love must be the controlling and
   directing principle of the whole life. The more entirely one is
   animated by love, the more will his moral judgment be in harmony with
   Christianity. A soul, however well practised in thinking, will miss the
   right, if not thus quickened and the eye of the spirit made single by
   love. To this we must add, that Christianity is no mere law of the
   letter, which establishes only single general rules of duty, according
   to which all single cases of conduct are to be determined; but it is a
   law of the Spirit, which makes known to each individual his peculiar
   mission in life, that very one which the Lord has appointed him to
   fulfil, and what is needed for its fulfilment. No one can prescribe to
   another, what from his standpoint, under his appointed relations, it is
   his duty to do; but it is Love, that spirit common to all, which makes
   known to each in particular what is duty for him, and in reference to
   this leads him to make the necessary discrimination. To love,
   therefore, Paul here gives the first place, and ascribes to its
   quickening presence the knowledge and capacity required for
   distinguishing the good and the bad, the true and the false; as he
   himself expresses it, "that your love may more and more abound in all
   knowledge;" meaning, that therein its effect is seen,--that increase of
   knowledge in the fruit of more abundant love. But as here the
   theoretical proceeds from the practical, the new direction of the
   judgment from the new direction of the will, of the moral disposition;
   so is the theoretical in like manner to react upon the practical, the
   enlightened judgment upon the conduct. Hence Paul adds, as the object
   to be thus attained, that they should continue "pure and
   irreproachable" in their Christian walk, until all shall appear before
   the Lord; "being filled with the fruit of righteousness, which is by
   Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." Thus Paul here
   designates righteousness, not as something to be gradually acquired;
   but on the contrary, it is presupposed as something inherent in their
   fellowship with Christ, flowing out to them from him, as produced in
   them by his Spirit. He contemplates the entire Christian life as the
   fruit of this righteousness; not speaking, as in other passages, of
   single fruits in single works, but of the whole Christian course in its
   connected unity as one fruit, and that the fruit which is produced by
   Jesus Christ. That from him all proceeds, that through him all is
   accomplished, is the very thing which gives to such a life its peculiar
   stamp. This it is which is truly well-pleasing unto God, and by which
   God is truly glorified, even as the whole life of Christ was a
   glorifying of God in our nature. But it is also clear from what has
   been said, that though, as a whole, the Christian life is thus
   represented as a fruit of righteousness produced by Jesus Christ, yet
   with this are presupposed many different stages of development, many
   separate results of the reciprocal working of the practical and
   theoretical, of the moral disposition and the judgment, as necessary to
   the production of this sum total; just as the fruit of the tree, to
   follow the image chosen by Paul, does not attain to its full form and
   maturity at once, but through many preparatory stages in the natural
   process of development and growth.

   We have already observed Paul's manner of contemplating the church as a
   whole consisting of various members, whose growth is dependent on the
   harmonious co-operation of all. But many hindrances stood opposed to
   this harmonious action; and these could only be overcome gradually by
   the subduing power of the Christian spirit. Only by degrees, and
   through the power of that spirit, could this higher unity be formed out
   of the conflicting elements existing in the church. Some of these
   originated in national differences, in the modes of thought peculiar to
   those of Jewish or of pagan parentage. From these arose those opposite
   leading tendencies, of which we shall speak more particularly
   hereafter. There was also the difference of rank and wealth, which
   threatened to impair the spirit of oneness and equality in the
   Christian body. And, finally, there were differences arising from
   peculiarities in constitution and mental endowments, all which had been
   brought by Christianity into its service. Hence the diversities in the
   operations of the Holy Spirit, animating these different natural gifts;
   and hence too the diversity of spiritual gifts, and of offices
   connected with them, in the church. From all these diversities
   collisions might arise, disturbing the unity and harmony of the church;
   each might wish to magnify what was peculiar to himself, and thus
   self-exaltation and disunion follow, occasioning strife among the
   members. Here then, in order to secure that unity in the church which
   belongs to its nature, all must be harmonized by the victorious spirit
   of love. It is clear how important and necessary, under these
   relations, were Paul's reproofs and admonitions, his warnings against
   self-exaltation and disunion, his exhortations to humility and harmony.
   Let us examine this point more particularly. If they would make his joy
   complete, [16] they must be of the same mind, having the same love,
   being of one accord, of one mind; nothing must be done through party
   spirit or vain ambition, but in humility each must esteem others better
   than himself. But how are we to understand this? One's judgment of
   another is not within the control of his own will. How can he esteem
   his brother higher than himself, if this is not in accordance with the
   truth; if he cannot but perceive in himself excellencies which are
   ranting to the other, and defects in the other from which he is himself
   free? How can it be required of him to do violence to his judgment? Is
   he to practise deception upon himself? Is humility to be grounded upon
   falsehood? Most certainly not. If one should endeavor to work himself
   into such a judgment of others in comparison with himself, or should
   express such a judgment without really thinking so, this would be mere
   hypocrisy in a grosser or more refined form. But there is here
   pre-supposed, as resulting from the full development of the Christian
   life, a pervading temper of heart, of which such a judgment of one's
   self in comparison with others is but the necessary and natural
   expression. The Christian's love will lead him first of all to discern
   what is good in another, to discover even in his blemishes his peculiar
   gifts, that in which he is really superior to himself; while, on the
   other hand, through a self-scrutiny sharpened by the Spirit which
   quickens him, he detects with rigorous exactness his own faults. And
   this self-rigor, united with love, will give leniency to his judgment
   of whatever may obscure the divine life in others. Thus a readiness to
   take such a position, in respect to others, as is here represented,
   will not be a mere casual thing with the Christian, something produced
   in him from without by external influence; but is the spontaneous
   result of the internal process of Christian development. And this
   manner of viewing one's self, in relation to others, will appear
   likewise in his whole conduct in regard to them. The idea is of course
   excluded that one should make himself the centre of all, referring
   everything to himself, and thus regarding all others as existing but
   for him. It is clear how greatly others will in this way rise in his
   estimation. This spirit of love and humility will manifest itself in
   his deportment towards others; and hence it is added: "Look not each
   one upon his own things, but also on the things of others." Let each
   one be ready to subordinate his own interest to that of others, to deny
   himself for the welfare of others. Paul says, "also," although the form
   of the first clause would not lead us to expect such a limitation. But
   he adds this "also" because it is not his aim wholly to exclude the
   care for our own interests, but only to oppose the tendency to make
   this predominant, to allow it to swallow up all else. Of course he here
   speaks only of human, worldly interests, which one is bound to
   sacrifice for the best good of others; for in regard to that which is
   the highest and properly real interest of each one personally, his own
   soul's welfare, the cultivation of the inner man for the life of
   eternity, no such contrariety can exist, no such requirement of
   self-denial can be made. But does this seem to conflict with what we
   have previously remarked of self-denial in reference even to the higher
   interests of the spirit? By no means. The true, the highest interest of
   the spirit, that it should be ever growing in self-denying love, in
   purification from all selfishness, thereby becoming ever more meet for
   the kingdom of God and eternal life, this must always be promoted by
   such sacrifices, even in reference to what we call the higher interests
   of the soul, which yet are not its highest interest. In reference to
   such a temper and course of conduct, Paul now presents, as the type and
   pattern, Him after whom the whole Christian life in its spirit and
   conduct should be moulded, Christ himself. "Let the same mind be in you
   which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, did not
   eagerly claim equality with God; [17] (so, we think the Greek is more
   truly expressed than in Luther's version;) but emptied himself, taking
   the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being
   found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto
   death, even the death of the cross. Therefore also hath God exalted him
   over all, and hath given him a name which is above every name, that in
   the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of beings in heaven and upon
   the earth and underneath the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
   Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

   That we may rightly understand the use here made of the example of
   Christ, as the model after which the Christian life is to be formed, we
   must first endeavor to bring the model itself clearly and distinctly
   before our minds. Before the eye of the Apostle stands the image of the
   whole Christ, the Son of God appearing in the flesh, manifesting
   himself in human nature. From the human manifestation he rises to the
   Eternal Word (as John expresses it), that Word which was, before the
   appearance of the Son of God in time, yea, before the worlds were made;
   in whom before all time God beheld and imaged himself; as Paul in the
   Epistle to the Colossians calls him, in this view, the image of the
   invisible, i. e. of the incomprehensible God. Then, after this upward
   glance of his spiritual eye, he descends again into the depths of the
   human life, in which the Eternal Word appears as man. He expresses this
   in the language of immediate perception, beholding the divine and human
   as one; not in the form of abstract truth, attained by a mental
   analysis of the direct object of thought. Thus he contemplates the
   entrance of the Son of God into the form of humanity as a
   self-abasement, a self-renunciation, for the salvation of those whose
   low estate he stooped to share. He whose state of being was divine, who
   was exalted above all the wants and limitations of the finite and
   earthly existence, did not eagerly claim this equality with God which
   he possessed; but, on the contrary, he concealed and disowned it in
   human abasement, and in the forms of human dependence. And as the whole
   human life of Christ proceeded from such an act of self-renunciation
   and self-abasement, so did his whole earthly life correspond to this
   one act even to his death; the consciousness on the one hand of divine
   dignity which it was in his power to claim, and on the other the
   concealment, the renunciation of this, in every form of humiliation and
   dependence belonging to the earthly life of man. The crowning point
   appears in his death,--the ignominious and agonizing death of the
   cross. Paul now proceeds to show what Christ attained by such
   self-renunciation, thus carried to the utmost limit, by such submissive
   obedience in the form of a servant; the reward which he received in
   return, the dignity which was conferred upon him.

   Here too is presented the universal law, laid down by Christ himself,
   that whoso humbles himself, and in proportion as he humbles himself,
   shall be exalted. Now it is of itself apparent that He who, according
   to Paul's teaching, was in his own nature elevated above all, the
   first-born over the whole creation, He through whom and in whom all was
   created, could not as such be exalted. But, as already intimated, it is
   the image of the One Christ uniting in himself the divine and human,
   which is here before the mind of Paul. Of this Christ in humanity it
   might be predicated, that lie is as man exalted above all,--the
   glorified Son of man. And this his exaltation subserves no selfish
   interest. He finds his exaltation in the salvation of fallen beings.
   This was its end, in this indeed it should consist, that by the
   universal acknowledgment of Him as Lord and Saviour and subjection to
   Him as such, God might be glorified in Him and through Him; glorified
   in the triumphant establishment of his kingdom. What application then
   is to be made of this example, in the connection in which the Apostle
   introduces it? As Christ aimed only to subserve the salvation of men,
   so should Christians be ready to labor thus for the salvation of their
   brethren. As Christ offered up all for the salvation of men, so should
   Christians also be ready to offer up all for the salvation of their
   brethren; to give up everything for others, in order to secure their
   highest welfare; thus in self-humiliation and self-renunciation
   following their Lord. So shall the life of the Christian too, from its
   first spiritual beginning, from the first act of faith, be a continuous
   self-abasement and self-renunciation. And this being the ground and
   condition of Christ's exaltation as the Son of man, so shall the same
   be, for believers who thus follow Christ, the ground and condition of
   their exaltation, till they come to share the full glory of Him whom
   they follow. We may compare this with a similar development of the same
   thought by Paul in 2 Cor. viii. 9, where he says of Christ: "Though he
   was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor." To the "being rich"
   corresponds the "being in divine form," the "being equal with God," in
   the passage before us; to the "becoming poor," the self-renunciation
   and self-abasement in the human servant-form, in its full extent as
   exhibited above. In the passage just quoted, this is used as an
   exhortation to that benevolence which sacrifices its own, subjects
   itself to privations, in order to relieve the necessities of others. It
   is based on the general thought, arising from a contemplation of the
   life of Christ, that each one should be ready to give up and to
   renounce all that he has for the highest good of others; the beneficent
   and condescending spirit of self-denying Christian love, which pervades
   the whole Christian life in all its acts. And in this general form is
   the thought conceived in the passage before us. It is this which
   characterizes Paul as a moral teacher; that with him the specific is in
   all cases carried back to the highest, deepest, most comprehensive;
   that his special admonitions, in regard to the Christian life and
   character, have for their basis the general fundamental ideas of the
   whole Christian life, all centering in the example of Christ.

   The church at Philippi needed the Apostle's admonitions and warnings,
   especially in reference to the obstacles with which Christianity, in
   its process of development, then had chiefly to contend. This process
   has in every age its peculiar obstacles to overcome; and it would be
   easy to show a certain affinity between these opposing influences,
   although different periods give rise to different forms. But here an
   important distinction is to be made. There may be spiritual tendencies
   and teachings, which come into direct conflict with the peculiar
   essence of Christianity; a case where no reconciliation is possible,
   but the choice must be for the one or for the other; and where the
   decision for the pure Christian tendency, must manifest itself in firm
   adherence to the one and steadfast rejection of the other. Somewhat
   different is it with those tendencies, which unite with the sincere
   acknowledgment of Christian truth only a slight remaining influence of
   former views, and which form in their successive stages the gradual
   transition to pure Christian truth. This is especially true of the
   obstacles, with which Christianity had then to contend in its process
   of development. As it was from Judaism the transition was made to
   Christianity, so did the first important obstacle to its process of
   development, arise from the intermixture of views brought from the
   Jewish standpoint. It is to these views that the distinction above
   stated must be applied.

   Such a predominance of the Jewish spirit did exist, through which the
   consciousness of the peculiar nature of Christianity was essentially
   repressed and stifled. Jesus was indeed outwardly acknowledged as the
   Messiah; but there was wanting the true import and power of such a
   conviction. He was made, after the Jewish conception, a carnal Messiah
   with carnal hopes. As Christ, after the miracle of the loaves, said to
   those who followed him with false views (John vi. 26), that it was not
   because they had seen the miraculous signs,--tokens of the
   manifestation of the divine in the world of sense, intended to point to
   a nature in itself divine made known through these tokens,--that not
   for these did they seek him, but because they had eaten of the loaves
   and were filled, that only sensual want attached them to him; so in
   these Jews of whom we are now speaking, there was the same lack of the
   divine sense, of the feeling of higher, inward, spiritual need. With
   them too it was only a mere sensual want, which led them to believe on
   Jesus. And though they differed from the Jews to whom Christ spoke in
   this respect, that they were not led by this similar fleshly tendency
   to open opposition against Jesus as the Messiah, but sought on the
   contrary to be outwardly united to him, yet no important advantage was
   thus gained. For while the former would not believe on a Jesus, who did
   not satisfy their physical necessities; the latter, believing in Jesus
   as the Messiah, yet made him nearly such an one as those had desired,
   and such as Jesus refused to be. With this one article, of faith in
   Jesus as the Messiah in the sense here given, they united, as we have
   already seen, a strict adherence to the entire legal position. Not
   Jesus the Messiah was to them the sole ground of salvation; but in the
   observance of the whole Law, and in circumcision, they sought for
   righteousness and salvation. Not the righteousness which comes from
   within, from faith, was the object of their desire; but a righteousness
   which comes to man from without.

   It is clear that where an opposition of this kind existed, there could
   be no agreement, no reconciliation. The true Christian spirit alone
   could make the decision, between a carnal or a spiritual Messiah;
   between a righteousness grounded on faith in the Redeemer alone, or in
   the Law and its works; between the transformation effected by the
   divine life, working from within the reformation of the whole man, or a
   mere external change in outward conduct; between God's work or man's
   work, humble acceptance of divine gifts, humble surrender to Jesus as
   the Saviour, or a carnal Messiah with the admission of the desert of
   one's own works. It was because the question for the new churches was
   of just such an unconditional opposition, between what was Christian
   and what was unchristian, that Paul felt himself obliged to present the
   case so strongly, and to testify so earnestly against those erroneous
   views. "Beware of dogs" (the term in the original expressing the
   shameless effrontery of these opposers of the truth); "beware of evil
   workers" (those who would supplant the Christian by the Jewish
   stand-point); "beware of the concision." But how is it that Paul here
   speaks of circumcision, which he nevertheless regarded as a divine
   ordinance for a specific period, in so contemptuous a manner?
   Circumcision was in his estimation a divine seal, by which the
   theocratic people were separated, as the divinely consecrated race,
   from the nations abandoned to idolatry and its attendant abominations,
   for the purpose of conducting to that fellowship with God which should
   one day embrace all humankind. To him it was, as he says in the Epistle
   to the Romans, an outward symbol of the new relation to God, into which
   Abraham entered by virtue of his faith (Rom. iv. 11); and emblematical
   of that inward spiritual circumcision, the circumcision of the heart in
   the spirit, of purification from the excrescences of sin, which alone
   constitutes a true people of God, through which alone the conception of
   a people of God can find its realization. But if now, as was the case
   with those Judaizers, justification and salvation were sought in this
   outward circumcision, as such; if indeed to faith in Jesus as the
   Messiah, who in his true character was the author of all righteousness,
   circumcision was to be added as something higher, as the real source of
   true righteousness; then was Paul bound to expose, in the most emphatic
   manner, the utter worthlessness of such an external act in reference to
   the object to be attained. No words could seem to him too strong to
   represent the perverseness of such a view as this; which could ascribe
   that to the external and sensuous, which can only be produced from
   within, by virtue of what is wrought within upon the spirit, through
   the imparting of a divine life. Hence he calls circumcision, in
   opposition to such an over-estimation of it, a concision, a
   self-mutilation; and in the Epistle to the Galatians, with a similar
   contemptuous allusion to the abuse of this abrogated rite, he expresses
   the wish that those who made so much account of circumcision would
   practise it to what extent they pleased on themselves, provided they
   would but leave other Christians in peace. Certainly that which seems
   to Paul as something so unchristian and perverse, and excites in him so
   much indignation, must have reference not merely to circumcision, that
   single peculiarity of Judaism, but to everything external and sensuous
   regarded as a ground of justification, of sanctification, of salvation;
   for, as such, it stands in direct opposition to that worship of God in
   spirit and in truth, which springs solely from the inward act of faith.
   This contrariety to the true Christian principle is expressed in the
   succeeding words, "For we are the circumcision." That is, they are not
   the truly circumcised, but their miscalled circumcision is a mere
   excision, a self-mutilation. We are those who really deserve this name;
   we Christians are the truly circumcised; "we," he adds in proof of the
   assertion, "who serve God in the spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and
   have no confidence in the flesh." We must endeavor to develop the
   meaning of these weighty words. "To serve God in the spirit," forms the
   direct opposite to a worship of God connected with sensible, external,
   earthly things, and dependent thereon; a worship which has not its
   spring in the spirit within; as when one supposes that he can honor God
   by receiving circumcision or by any external legal works, be they
   religious or moral, by any single acts whatever of external worship.

   The true worship of God, on the contrary, Paul describes as one which
   proceeds from the spirit; meaning by this only such as can proceed from
   the renewing and sanctifying of the human spirit, by nature estranged
   from God, through the Holy Spirit which Christ alone imparts. Only thus
   can the spirit of man, being led back to fellowship with God and made a
   temple of God, become the sanctuary where God is worshipped aright; and
   then the whole life and conduct of the spirit is one act of divine
   worship. But as the redemption attained through Christ is here
   presupposed, as faith in the Redeemer and fellowship with him is the
   root and fountain of all, Paul therefore connects therewith the
   "glorying in the Lord;" i. e. glorying in such a manner as excludes all
   pride of human glory; a glorying in self-abasement; a glorying, to wit,
   only in Christ and in that which we are in him, which has its ground in
   him, for which we are indebted to him, and hence (what is but the
   counterpart of this) not placing our confidence in anything human. Paul
   presents his own case as an example in this respect to his Philippian
   brethren,--a proof of the sincerity of his teachings and admonitions.
   lie appeals to the fact that he himself, as a born Jew brought up in
   the strictest Pharisaism, had lived in the exactest observance of the
   Law and yet had become convinced that all this could contribute nothing
   towards his cleansing from sin, his justification, sanctification and
   salvation; on which account he had renounced all this, in order to find
   all in Christ alone. He says that as respects the righteousness of the
   Law, he was blameless. This is said not merely of the requirements of
   the ceremonial law, but also of moral action so far as it meets the eye
   of man; both being comprehended under the term law. In all this Paul
   had been blameless. In the sight of men he was without blemish. What he
   says applies not less to what is called rectitude among men, than to a
   piety which consists in particular religious acts. Although Paul
   satisfied the claims which men could rightfully make on him, yet it
   availed him nothing. When, through the light of the Spirit, the true
   nature of the divine law and true self-knowledge dawned upon his mind,
   he seemed to himself, with all this blamelessness before men, not less
   a sinner on that account, wanting that true divine righteousness in
   which all flows out from God, and all has reference to Him. He is the
   true end and aim of the whole life; while all that men call rectitude
   does not rise above the world. Hence he says, implying the
   insufficiency of all this: "But what things were gain to me, those I
   counted loss for Christ. Yea, and I count all things but loss for the
   excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have
   suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dregs that I may
   win Christ." He would say here, that everything which formerly was in
   his view a distinction,--as descent from the theocratic nation, legal
   piety, blamelessness in a legal view,--all this now appears to him a
   disadvantage, so far as he should rest his confidence thereon and be
   thereby drawn away from Christ. Christ having now become all to him,
   all else must give place to Christ. All else, high as it may be in
   itself, must appear loss if it occasion the loss of Christ, whom none
   can gain but those who seek and desire Him alone; for that very
   knowledge of Christ, itself sufficing for all, in itself comprehending
   all, outshines and eclipses all beside. And hence Paul says, that for
   the sake of Christ he has willingly suffered the loss of all; that he
   casts all else away as worthless in order that he may win Christ, who
   supplies to him the place of all. It is his whole concern to be found
   in Christ, [18] to stand in fellowship with him. And he thus contrasts
   that divine righteousness, founded in this relation and proceeding from
   inward faith, with a righteousness which comes from without, proceeding
   from the works of the law, a merely human attainment secured by human
   efforts. In his view, all here depends on knowing Christ. This
   knowledge is, in the Pauline sense, not something merely intellectual,
   not a mere matter of speculation, not certain specific articles of
   faith respecting Christ as they are speculatively developed and handed
   down; but, on the contrary, as shown in the following words, it is a
   knowledge which takes root in the life, a matter of personal
   experience, the believer's inward perception of Christ as the Son of
   God and his Redeemer. Paul then brings forward into special prominence
   the power of his resurrection, which of course presupposes the
   announcement of him as the Crucified, his sufferings for the redemption
   of man from sin. This prominence he gives to the power of Christ's
   resurrection, as being the factual proof of the redemption effected by
   him;--as furnishing the evidence, in a glorified personality, of that
   imperishable divine life imparted to humanity, by virtue of the
   redemption from sin and consequent death; a life passing over from him
   to all who through faith stand in fellowship with him,--the beginning
   in them of a new divine life, to penetrate more and more their entire
   being, till they shall become wholly assimilated to it in soul and
   body. And hence he adds, "to know the fellowship of his
   sufferings;"--that is, how we are to follow him in sufferings, in order
   that we may more and more become partakers of the divine life in
   fellowship with the Risen One. He then sums up all in this, "to be made
   like unto him in his death;" to apply to one's self the image of his
   death, in order to attain to the fellowship of his resurrection. We
   must here refer back to what we have already said on this point, in
   another connection. [19] Thus we have here, in one view, all which
   pertains to the Christian life, all which constitutes the righteousness
   of the Christian, in opposition to the requirements of legal piety or
   mere human rectitude.

   The same class of persons is probably meant when, in a subsequent
   passage, [20] after having proposed his own conduct as an example to
   the Philippians, he warns them with deep sorrow against many who walk
   far otherwise, and whom he designates as enemies of the cross of
   Christ. Here, however, the reference to this class of persons cannot be
   proved with equal certainty. The words "enemies of the cross of Christ"
   may be applied to many classes of persons. They may be understood of
   such as, indeed, acknowledge Jesus the Crucified as their Saviour; but
   who still show by their manner of thinking and acting, even though
   themselves unconscious of it, that they are enemies of the cross of
   Christ. It might be of such as take their stand, consciously, as open
   enemies of the cross of Christ. This might at that period proceed from
   two different points of view, which indeed are found recurring in every
   age; viz. from the position of the wisdom-seeking Greeks, of whom Paul
   says that Jesus the Crucified was to them foolishness, and from that of
   the sign-seeking Jews, of whom he says that to them Jesus the Crucified
   was an offence. It may be the unbelief which comes from the pride of
   wisdom, from the pride of reason, from the pride of culture, or the
   unbelief of the earthly sensual man. But this open and conscious
   opposition cannot, as appears from the connection, be the one here
   meant. It is inconsistent with the manner in which Paul contrasts these
   enemies of the cross of Christ with himself. Against such open opposers
   it was not necessary thus to warn his brethren. The class first
   mentioned must therefore be the one intended. Still the words admit of
   several applications. This not open but rather Unconscious enmity to
   the cross of Christ, may be conceived as taking either a practical or
   more theoretical form; as manifesting itself only in action, or in
   doctrine as well as in action. As respects the first, this again may be
   understood in a two-fold manner. It may mean such as are wanting in
   that humility, which must spring from the belief that we owe all to the
   cross of Christ, to Jesus who was crucified for us; in whose life the
   conceit of self-righteousness, by which the cross of Christ is disowned
   and disallowed, predominates even though this may not betray itself in
   the doctrines which they preach. But it may also mean those who are far
   from taking upon them their cross, and thus following Jesus the
   Crucified; whose life, still devoted to flesh and sin, stands in direct
   contradiction with the cross of Christ, with faith in that Jesus who
   for this cause was crucified that he might free humanity from sin, so
   that all who attach themselves to him should now be crucified to sin,
   to the world, to themselves. The whole carnal, sinful life of such
   persons, who, as far as in them lay, made void the very object for
   which Jesus was crucified, might be called enmity to the cross of
   Christ. We grant that what follows might also be understood, as
   directed against men of this carnal course of life. Still we are led by
   the connection, when compared with the preceding context, to refer it
   rather to an opposition manifesting itself in the doctrines taught as
   well as in the life, to that very class of Judaizing adversaries
   indeed, against whom Paul has previously spoken. These he calls enemies
   of the cross of Christ, because their standpoint is one to which Christ
   the Crucified is an offence, a stone of stumbling--though in them this
   manifests itself not openly and consciously, but rather in an
   unconscious and covert manner; because nothing was more offensive to
   them than that preaching which required them to ascribe salvation to
   the Crucified Jesus alone as their Saviour,--to ascribe all to Him
   alone; because they held to a legal self-righteousness in opposition to
   the cross of Christ. It follows from what has already been said, that
   the views and conduct of such persons were in direct contrast to the
   worship of God in the spirit; their religious service consisting only
   in external things, their tendency being wholly to the earthly and
   sensual. Such a religion brought with it no moral transformation, might
   co-exist with sin, nay, might form a union with it, giving to the
   service of sin a false security; as often, in the history of
   Christianity, we have seen these same tendencies gain a footing under
   cover of its name. He describes them as those whose god is their belly,
   those who in all things act merely from earthly impulses, to satisfy
   their sensual wants; a reproach which Paul often casts upon the
   judaizing proselytists, that they turned their preaching into a means
   of gain, seeking to extort by it what might serve for their own
   advantage. He describes them as earthly-minded, which is explained by
   the foregoing; and all their hopes were such as corresponded to this
   earthly disposition. They expected in the future world, as they did in
   the thousand years' reign promised by them, not that divine life of
   which the true Christian even here partakes under the veil of the
   earthly; but, on the contrary, they dreamed of an increased enjoyment
   of mere earthly pleasures. "Whose glory," he says, "is in their shame,"
   i. e., who seek their honor in that which redounds rather to their
   shame; as indeed everything, which might seem to distinguish them above
   others, was in fact a derogation of the Christian life, a renunciation
   of true Christian excellence.

   In contrast with these, Paul now presents the wholly heavenward mind of
   the genuine Christian, his wholly heavenward hope purified from every
   stain of sense. This divine life, already freed from earth, forms in
   its aim and tendency the opposite of that world-ensnared religiosity,
   cleaving wholly to the earthly. This earthly mind, Paul would say, must
   be far from us who are Christians; "for our conversation is in Heaven."
   His meaning is, that Christians, as to their life, their walk, belong
   even now to Heaven; in the whole direction of their life existing there
   already. This he deduces from their relation to Christ, their
   fellowship with him to whom they are inseparably united, so that where
   he is there are they also. While here, they are sustained by the
   consciousness that Christ now lives in Heaven, manifested to believers,
   though hidden from the world. Thither is their gaze directed, as their
   longings rise towards a Saviour, who will come again from thence to
   make them wholly like himself, to fashion them wholly after his own
   glorious pattern, to transform them wholly into the heavenly. Hence
   Paul says: "From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus
   Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like
   unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able
   even to subdue all things unto himself." There is not presented here a
   resurrection, as a restoration merely of the same earthly body in the
   same earthly form; but, on the contrary, a glorious transformation,
   proceeding from the divine, the all-subduing power of Christ; so that
   believers, free from all the defects of the earthly existence, released
   from all its barriers, may reflect the full image of the heavenly
   Christ in their whole glorified personality, in the soul pervaded by
   the divine life and its now perfectly assimilated glorified organ. This
   heavenly form of the Christian hope, the fruit of faith in the risen
   and ascended Jesus, stands opposed not only to that comfortless
   unbelief, which makes man a perishable creature like to the brutes, and
   cuts off all hope of what is beyond the earth; but also, as intended in
   this passage, to that mere carnal hope which transfers the forms of
   earthly existence into the future life. Both are scions from one root,
   the tendency of the natural man; who, whether in the form of sensual
   grossness or of refined culture, can never escape beyond the narrow
   limits of time and sense; who has no organ whereby to perceive and
   comprehend the divine and heavenly. It matters not, therefore, in which
   of these two forms this tendency of the natural man develops itself;
   whether it entirely denies and rejects what it cannot perceive and
   comprehend, denies all personal duration beyond the earthly state,
   because able itself to conceive nothing beyond this earthly form of
   personality; or whether it degrades to its own sensual standard what it
   is either unable or indisposed to deny, and wholly carnalizes the hope
   which it does not reject. In every form of superstition there is
   something of unbelief, since that upward impulse of the spirit is
   wanting by which alone it is possible to rise to the superhuman and
   divine; hence the divine, as such, is in reality denied and the earthly
   set in its place. And in all the forms of unbelief there is something
   of superstition. Every form of unbelief has its idols. It seeks in the
   powers and outward phenomena of the world, what can only be found in
   God and in powers which are of God. What Paul says of the idolizing of
   worldly objects is true also of this, that it makes itself subject to
   the elements of the world. It clings with all the greater force to the
   earthly, because it is an utter stranger to all which can give true
   satisfaction to the spirit formed in the image of God. It strives all
   the more eagerly for earthly interests, because it has renounced the
   higher interests pertaining to the spirit, which are connected with its
   true home; and hence the earthly interest has swallowed up all other
   love, and all other desire, by which the God-related spirit is
   impelled. Christ, risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, whose
   life is hid in God and with whom in God our life is hidden (Col. iii.
   3), to whom as our life we shall be like in glory when He, now hidden
   from the world, shall reveal himself in glory,--this, the believer's
   hope, stands in contrast with both these tendencies of the natural man.

   We have spoken of the judaistic tendency existing at this stage of the
   development of Christianity, so far as this stood directly opposed to
   the pure Gospel and excluded all reconciliation. But there were also in
   the churches, such as were in a process of progressive development from
   Judaism, or some kindred stand-point, to the pure Gospel. These, far
   from being enemies of the cross of Christ, w ere filled with love to
   the Crucified Jesus as their Saviour; but they were still subject to
   many weaknesses in their faith, not being able to release themselves as
   yet from much which still clung to them of their former, not wholly
   extirpated Jewish views. Such persons, whom Paul is accustomed to
   contrast as "the weak" with the strong mature Christian, are often
   mentioned in his Epistles; those who still had scrupulous fears about
   partaking of meats offered to idols, and who, in regard to food and to
   the observance of certain days as holy, were still in bondage to the
   Jewish ritual. In these points they were unable to break loose at once
   from the yoke of Judaism. But did these persons then stand in the same
   relation as those first-mentioned? Should such as had come over to
   Christianity from another stand-point, the pagan; and who, though
   exposed to other dangers, could from that point make their way more
   easily to Christian freedom; or such as had advanced farther in the
   development of faith, had more nearly reached the maturity of manhood
   in Christ; should such withdraw fellowship from, and harshly repel
   these weaker, in many points less enlightened brethren? This would have
   been contrary to what Paul requires of Christian love, which bears
   patiently the infirmities of brethren. It would be to set bounds with
   impatient presumption to the operations of the Holy Spirit, who is able
   to lead on farther and farther those in whom He has begun to work; to
   sever at once the thread of development ordained by the wisdom of God,
   and alone conducting to Christ as from him it proceeded. How we are to
   regard and treat these subordinate stages of development, these minor
   differences, is taught by Paul in this epistle,--in few words indeed,
   but full of instruction. We must now endeavor to obtain a clear
   conception of their import.

   After having, in a passage already explained, presented as the standard
   for all, that stage of Christian attainment which forgets everything
   hitherto accomplished; which, beginning with Christian faith, in entire
   devotedness to Christ strives ever towards the mark of the heavenly
   calling; he adds, "As many of us now as are perfect, let us be thus
   minded." This is the stage of the mature believer who has attained to
   full Christian freedom, who presses forward without hindrance in an
   ever-progressive development. "And if in anything ye are otherwise
   minded,"--otherwise, i. e. not in harmony with this principle, "God
   will reveal also this unto you;" will also in that, wherein ye still
   think otherwise, reveal to you the right, and thus lead you to unity in
   adherence to this principle and in its application. Paul refers
   therefore to the great truth, that the Spirit of God which has revealed
   to them the light of the Gospel, will also carry on and complete this
   his revelation in them, even to that point of Christian maturity; that
   He will continually advance them in Christian knowledge; and where they
   are still in error and divided in opinion, there too will He yet make
   known to them the one true way. They should therefore not contend with
   overhasty zeal; as by this course one is easily estranged more and more
   widely from another, easily hardened in opposing views through
   obstinate adherence to what has been once adopted. Still less should
   they mutually condemn one another, but rather seek to preserve that
   unity of the Christian spirit which is above all these minor
   differences; while all submitting to the common guide, the Holy Spirit,
   should entrust themselves and one another mutually to Him, the best
   Teacher, to be led on continually under his guidance. As this work has
   in all the same divinely laid foundation, so should the farther
   development and the progressive purification of the divine work in
   each, be left to the operation of the Holy Spirit by whom it is first
   begun in each. There should be no attempt to do violence, by any
   external influence, to the peculiar development of another, which must
   follow its own laws grounded in his peculiar personality; or to
   substitute something forced on him from without, for the free
   development proceeding from within. This would be nothing else than
   attempting, by human arts of persuasion, (which yet have no power to
   penetrate to the inmost spirit, unless they find a point of connection
   in the existing attainments of the individual man) to accomplish that
   which can be wrought only by the Holy Spirit, that inward Teacher, whom
   all follow without constraint and in perfect harmony with their own
   freedom. It is only the action of the same leaven of divine truth, that
   can produce the same results in all; of that leaven which by degrees
   shall penetrate the whole spiritual life, purifying it from every
   foreign element. And if there is reference here to a revelation by the
   Holy Spirit, through which the believer is advanced in knowledge, it is
   based on the truth everywhere expressed or pre-supposed in the Holy
   Scriptures, that all divine things can become known only in the light
   of the Holy Spirit: as Paul elsewhere says, "No man can say that Jesus
   is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." But the idea of revelation in this
   passage nowise excludes the activity of human thought, which still
   farther develops and works out, according to the laws of human reason,
   what has been received by divine illumination. This activity of the
   human spirit is, however, pre-supposed to be one animated and guided by
   the Holy Spirit, who is the vital principle in the whole spiritual
   life; and hence all is here referred back to the Holy Spirit as the
   primary source, inasmuch as all is here the fruit of its illuminating,
   guiding and quickening influence; and all progressive Christian
   insight, whether immediately or mediately proceeding from the Holy
   Spirit, is comprehended in the idea of revelation.

   We must now more particularly consider that which Paul makes the
   necessary condition of this result, viz. that all should yield
   themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and thus be led on by
   him in progressive Christian knowledge. But here it is necessary to
   inquire into the original form of Paul's words. The passage has been
   corrupted, by introducing into the text marginal explanations
   erroneously supposed to be the words of Paul. Divine Wisdom has not
   seen fit to guard against such corruptions in the course of ages, by a
   series of miracles, or by the authority of a visible church enjoying
   infallible guidance. But while free course was here given to natural
   causes, and thus such corruptions might occur through misapprehension,
   this was to become the stimulus to an independent spirit of inquiry,
   and to the cultivation also of all those mental faculties whereby we
   test and discriminate. By such exercise, under the guidance of the Holy
   Spirit, by the culture and application of that capacity to which we
   give the name of criticism, and which is one of the natural endowments
   of the human mind, we were to learn to distinguish the true from the
   false, and by comparison to ascertain the original form of the
   Apostolic words. Even criticism, under the guiding and quickening
   influence of the Holy Spirit, belongs to the spiritual gifts of the
   church. By it we shall be able here to restore the true form of Paul's
   words; as by continued investigations, under the guidance of the Holy
   Spirit, a harmony of views in this respect may at length be attained
   throughout the church.

   If like Luther we follow the later reading, we shall translate with
   him,--"At least so far as we walk after one rule whereto we have
   attained, and are like-minded." According to this, unity is here
   pointed out as that condition of which we have just spoken; it is an
   exhortation to unity. Such a thought, however, is quite remote from
   this connection. Unity is not the condition which the connection would
   lead us to expect; but, on the contrary, is that which results from the
   course of conduct required of the church by Paul. When all conduct, in
   reference to minor differences, as Paul according to our explanation
   has directed, unity will be maintained unimpaired in the church.
   Moreover, what is said of "the one rule" and of "the walking together
   in accordance therewith," of "being like-minded," does not suit well
   with the words "whereto we have attained." All had not as yet attained
   to the same grade of spiritual discernment. We find here, therefore, a
   combination of words unsuited to each other; and it is easy to
   perceive, how from false glosses appended in explanation of the obscure
   words (obscure when not rightly apprehended in their connection) "if we
   do but walk after that whereto we have attained" falsely regarded as an
   exhortation to unity, all the rest may have originated. We shall,
   therefore, following the oldest manuscripts that have come down to us,
   regard these as the genuine words of Paul: "if we but walk according to
   that whereunto we have attained;" i. e. if each one but faithfully
   applies to his own life the measure of spiritual discernment bestowed
   upon him. This then is Paul's meaning: the Holy Spirit will reveal to
   all whatever is still wanting to them in true Christian knowledge, and
   thus continually promote the union of their spirits, by purging away
   whatever foreign elements may still impair it; will from still existing
   differences develop a higher unity, if first of all that Christian
   fellowship, which rests upon the one common ground of faith, is firmly
   adhered to, and each one is careful to put in practice with strict
   fidelity his own measure of Christian knowledge, without contending
   with others about matters wherein they differ from himself. All
   progressive revelation of the Spirit, all new light of which man is
   made partaker, presupposes a faithful application of what has
   previously been given. Here too apply the words of the Lord, "He that
   hath, to him shall be given." How many schisms might have been avoided
   in the church, how many differences might, much for its interest, have
   been overcome and adjusted, if all had felt the obligation rightly to
   understand and apply the principle here laid down by Paul! In Paul's
   Epistles, as everywhere in the Holy Scriptures, precepts, exhortations,
   and promises go hand in hand. This must be so, from the peculiar nature
   of the Gospel as distinguished from the Law. For as all promises are
   connected with some condition without which they cannot be fulfilled,
   and this leads to precepts and admonitions; so would these be of no
   avail were not the promise to the believer presupposed, that promise
   which ensures the power to fulfil what is required of him. Thus Paul
   begins with the words, "Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say
   rejoice." He, the prisoner of the Lord, looking it may be to a near
   approaching death, finds reason to promise and to require an
   ever-abiding joy in the consciousness of fellowship with the Lord; to
   make joy indeed the ground-tone of the Christian life, to make the
   whole Christian life a jubilee of redemption. But with this connects
   itself the requisition for a Christian walk; since that joy in the Lord
   cannot exist, if the life of the Christian does not correspond to the
   law of the Lord, does not testify of fellowship with him. And since the
   Philippians, as we have already seen, [21] were placed in circumstances
   in which they might most easily be tempted to anger and retaliation, if
   the natural man were not held in check by a higher power, Paul
   especially urges the admonition, "Let your moderation be known unto all
   men;" and adds, "The Lord is at hand," appealing to the consciousness
   that He is ever near. [22] This consciousness furnishes the motive to
   such gentleness under provocation. They walk in the sight of the Lord,
   and dare not give way to passion in the near presence of Him, who
   endured every wrong with heavenly patience and long-suffering. This
   consciousness that the Lord is near, will also restrain them from
   wishing to anticipate his justice, to take the work of retribution into
   their own hands.--But these words also form the transition to what
   follows,--to the requirement "Be careful for nothing." Here too we must
   take into account the miserable state of the oppressed Christians; and
   yet they were to be careful for nothing, in the consciousness that the
   Lord is near. Not all human care is forbidden by Paul, who himself, as
   we have already seen, [23] in this very Epistle lays claim to earnest
   human efforts. But such entanglement in cares as stands in
   contradiction with that requirement, "to rejoice always in the
   Lord,"--this is forbidden by him, from this should the conscious
   nearness of the Lord restrain the believer. Instead of indulging such
   care, he directs them rather to raise the soul to God, and all shall
   become light. The true meaning of these words appears from the contrast
   which follows: "But, in all things, make your requests known to God in
   prayer and supplication with thanksgiving." There is a carefulness
   which is inconsistent with confiding prayer to God, which excludes the
   spirit of filial supplication. Such a carefulness Paul forbids. As he
   had made the whole Christian life a joy in the Lord, so now he makes it
   also a perpetual prayer. The two stand in intimate connection. Neither
   can exist without the other. He does not require the suppression of
   those wants, the sense of which begets anxiety, but that the sense of
   want should take the form of prayer. Thus will the burdened spirit
   become lightened, and care of itself will fall away. Yet, although the
   Christian has wants to spread out before God in prayer, and much to ask
   of Him for the future, he still finds in every situation enough that
   calls for thankfulness to God, since all things work together for good
   to those who love Him. Paul had already enjoined on the Philippians,
   afflicted as they were, to rejoice always in the Lord; and in this it
   is assumed that there is nothing unreasonable in the requirement, that
   they should give thanks to God. The whole Christian life should be a
   prayer, the prayer of thanksgiving and of supplication, in the
   consciousness of grace received and the conscious need of renewed
   grace. Assuming that the Philippians followed these directions, he
   could impart to them the precious promise which assured their safety in
   all conflicts: "And the peace of God which passes all understanding,
   shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."--What does Paul
   here say? What is the sense, so far as we can indicate it in brief, of
   his deep and sublime words? If the Philippians so conduct, then will
   that peace with God, which they have received from Christ, remain with
   them; that peace which is the fountain of all other peace; which can
   exist in the midst of conflict with the world, and can be disturbed by
   no other power; that peace of which Jesus spake (John xiv. 27), "Peace
   I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth
   give I unto you." And hence he adds, for those whom he left behind
   amidst the conflicts of the world, the consoling promise, "Let not your
   heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid." This peace, as it has God for
   its author, Paul accordingly describes as a peace which is above all
   human conception. He who has this peace has more than he himself knows,
   more than he is able to set forth in thoughts and words. It is an
   overflowing heavenly repose, with which nothing earthly can be
   compared; which fills the spirit of him, who, having been reclaimed
   from disunion with the Infinite and the Holy One, is now conscious of
   being in harmony with Him. The power of this peace, says Paul, will
   conduct the souls that live in fellowship with Christ, safe and
   unharmed through all conflicts and assaults from within and from
   without. From this proceeds the ground-tone of their thoughts and
   feelings, this is their protection, which avails against all human
   care. With this may be compared the words of Paul in the Epistle to the
   Colossians: [24] "And the peace of God rule in your hearts!" The peace
   with God procured to the believer through Christ, the peace which has
   its life in God, of which they are assured in union with him,--that
   peace, amid all fluctuation, is the controlling, the determining
   element in the Christian life.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [12] As in some MSS. "holding forth the true life."

   [13] Chap. iv. 8.

   [14] Chap. i. 28, 29.

   [15] Chap. i. 9.

   [16] Chap. ii. 2, 3.

   [17] In his appearance on earth, as understood by Neander; see page
   103, line 3.--Tr.

   [18] Verse 9.

   [19] See p. 90.

   [20] Verse 18.

   [21] See p. 24.

   [22] This might indeed be understood as referring to time, viz. the
   nearness of his coming, towards which the Apostles and the apostolic
   age, overlooking all that intervened, directed their longing desire.
   But this idea, though appropriate in some points of view, is obviously
   less suited to the whole connection than the one which we have
   exhibited in the text.

   [23] See p. 77.

   [24] Chap. iii. 15.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   John

   [1]6:26   [2]14:27   [3]16:11

   Romans

   [4]6:11   [5]11:22   [6]12:1

   1 Corinthians

   [7]3:21   [8]4:8   [9]4:9-13   [10]9:17-19   [11]9:27   [12]13:3
   [13]15:19

   2 Corinthians

   [14]5:8   [15]8:9   [16]11:22-23

   Galatians

   [17]2:21   [18]6:7

   Ephesians

   [19]4:15-16

   Philippians

   [20]1:9   [21]1:13   [22]1:19-20   [23]1:20-23   [24]1:21   [25]1:22
   [26]1:23   [27]1:28-29   [28]2:2-3   [29]2:15-16   [30]2:17-18
   [31]3:9   [32]3:18   [33]4:8

   Colossians

   [34]2:21-22   [35]2:23   [36]3:3   [37]3:15

   2 Timothy

   [38]4:8

   Hebrews

   [39]5:14
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Pages of the Print Edition

   [40]i  [41]ii  [42]iii  [43]iv  [44]v  [45]vi  [46]vii  [47]viii
   [48]ix  [49]x  [50]xi  [51]xii  [52]xiii  [53]xiv  [54]xv  [55]xvi
   [56]xvii  [57]xviii  [58]xix  [59]20  [60]21  [61]22  [62]23  [63]24
   [64]25  [65]26  [66]27  [67]28  [68]29  [69]30  [70]31  [71]32  [72]33
   [73]34  [74]35  [75]36  [76]37  [77]38  [78]39  [79]40  [80]41  [81]42
   [82]43  [83]44  [84]45  [85]46  [86]47  [87]48  [88]49  [89]50  [90]51
   [91]52  [92]53  [93]54  [94]55  [95]56  [96]57  [97]58  [98]59  [99]60
   [100]61  [101]62  [102]63  [103]64  [104]65  [105]66  [106]67  [107]68
   [108]69  [109]70  [110]71  [111]72  [112]73  [113]74  [114]75  [115]76
   [116]77  [117]78  [118]79  [119]80  [120]81  [121]82  [122]83  [123]84
   [124]85  [125]86  [126]87  [127]88  [128]89  [129]90  [130]91  [131]92
   [132]93  [133]94  [134]95  [135]96  [136]97  [137]98  [138]99
   [139]100  [140]101  [141]102  [142]103  [143]104  [144]105  [145]106
   [146]107  [147]108  [148]109  [149]110  [150]111  [151]112  [152]113
   [153]114  [154]115  [155]116  [156]117  [157]118  [158]119  [159]120
   [160]121  [161]122  [162]123  [163]124  [164]125  [165]126  [166]127
   [167]128  [168]129  [169]130  [170]131  [171]132  [172]133  [173]134
   [174]135  [175]136  [176]137  [177]138  [178]139  [179]140
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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