Philippians 1

Philippians 1:1-30

Division 1. (Philippians 1:1-30.)Christ, the governing principle of the Christian life. To reach the end that we have here, we must begin aright. Christ as the governing principle of the life is the starting point in the Christian race, and the necessary condition of the final result: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It would be altogether wrong to suppose that every Christian can say this. It is open to him, surely; but as practical attainment, how far often from being reached! The result here is found only by the man to whom Christ is the governing principle of his life, the pattern of his way, and the Object for his heart. We must put these things together or we misplace the truth. It is a truth of experience; and experience alone can give it to us.

Thus here, we have something more indeed than Christ being our life. It is rather the result which the epistle to the Galatians gives us, of Christ living in one. Christ our life is the necessary basis-truth; but Christ living in us is the actual power for the life, -Christ objectively present to the soul, governing it entirely: “To me to live is Christ;” and notice how this clears the sight as to all the way itself. The apostle is able to decide, as it were, whether he shall live or die, by these interests of Christ which govern him. He longs to depart and be with Christ, but he sees that his remaining in the flesh is necessary for Christ’s interests, for the sake of His people, and thus he knows he shall remain and abide with them all. How thoroughly will a principle like this clear the sight as to all details!

It is, in fact, the single eye; and if the eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light. It is the practical result of the exhortation in Colossians, to do whatever we do, in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus; that is, as representing Him upon the earth. Thus, then, we start in the epistle before us.

1. The epistle begins with the state of the Philippians themselves. He is exceedingly happy about them. There has been with them an abiding fellowship with the gospel, that is, with the interests of Christ on earth, which has given them a necessary participation with the apostle in that defence and confirmation of the gospel which was entrusted to him. Here he finds the strongest encouragement to believe in their steady progress. (1) He associates with himself Timothy, as together bond-servants of Jesus Christ. We now that this bond-service is the height of liberty, -that it is the language which love uses in the realization of the love which has sought us and gained us for God. He does not speak as an apostle here: he is a saint amongst other saints. The experience which we find in the epistle is plainly not to be thought of as if it belonged to men of eminence or in some noted place, officially. So also he writes to them not as the assembly in Philippi, but as saints in Christ Jesus; that is to say, therefore, as individuals, for all experience is individual; conscience and heart are individual also, and these are the things with which we have to do here. It does not affect this that he specially names the overseers and ministers (or deacons, perhaps,) of the assembly.

These, as we find in the first epistle to Timothy, were ordained for piety, to promote the practical welfare of those who were learning how to behave themselves “in the house of God,” as the apostle said to Timothy himself. The house of any one tells its story of, and gives its character to, the man whose house it is; and the house of God is that surely which holiness becomes. Thus, the holy ones in Christ that are in Philippi are seen here with those who have their place amongst them for the help of holiness; and it is evident that while, as already said, conscience, heart, and experience are all individual things, yet that does not mean that we are independent of each other, that we cannot receive help from each other with regard to them. Thus, the overseers and ministers are fully in place in this epistle, and to them all he wishes grace and peace, the ever abiding necessity, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2) He now reviews their history morally. We have seen, in the Acts that the principle developed in the work in Philippi is progress through conflict. The progress characterizes them all through; and the conflict, as we shall see, abides for them also, and does not daunt them. Thus the apostle is able to thank his God for his whole remembrance of them. There is nothing to hinder his heart going out towards them in the fullest way. This does not, of course, hinder his continual supplication for them also.

He does not want this brightness to be clouded in the least, but he is able to make the supplication with joy and not with sorrow, as he realizes how thoroughly their spirit had been with the gospel, from the first day until the present time. They were men not satisfied with their own salvation, and not simply content with their individual blessing. They felt that so much, that they must have, if possible, all men share with them in it; and they felt their debt to Christ in such sort as to identify them with His interests upon the earth. These are necessary signs of real happiness and apprehension of our individual blessing. There cannot be the proper realization of it in the soul, unless as one is carried by it outside of one’s self, and filled with the energy which faith and hope and love combine to inspire. He prophesies, therefore, for them a steadfast progress, not indeed as having confidence in the flesh; but he realizes that this good work which God has begun in them is a work which will continue on to its completion in the day of Christ. Brightness and happiness merely, as we reckon these, might have been found with the Galatians, who, as we know, were soon in a very different condition, but it is Christ enjoyed that their conduct here declares. One may enjoy one’s blessing, enjoy the comfort of one’s security, without rightly enjoying Christ; but there is nothing that promotes stability and progress of the soul short of this. The evidence of it he saw in their earnest fellowship with him self. He was in their hearts, not simply as one to whom they owed a debt of gratitude, but as one who was set for the confirmation and defence of the gospel, and who was suffering even to bonds on this account. It was this that drew out their earnest sympathy, and on the apostle’s side towards them; he longed after them, in the bowels," that is, the tender affections of Christ Jesus. (3) He prays that this love which they manifest may abound more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence. This is what in fact love manifested in this manner is on the way to. The love of Christ is, as has already been said, the true condition of knowledge, -the eye single and the whole body full of light. Christ becomes the test of everything for the soul, and everything, therefore, is seen in its true character. They could approve thus the things that were more excellent, see things in their proper proportion to one another; and this too is needed in order to be perfectly right and without offence. It is an unhappy sign to see small things made comparatively much of, and externals take the place which only belongs to that which is inward and spiritual.

While nothing, of course, is to be neglected, small as it may seem, yet a disproportionate zeal for externals, which are the smaller things, will naturally and necessarily accompany a comparative displacement of what, before God, is more excellent. He desires, therefore, that the fruit of righteousness in them may be complete and that thus, through Jesus Christ, there may be glory and praise to God from their life on earth. 2.(1) He now turns to his own circumstances in order to show how thoroughly that which seemed to be not merely against him, but against that truth for which he stood, which he represented, had been overruled of God really for the spread of the gospel and for its entrance, it may be, into places which otherwise would have been closed to it. Those bonds which were manifestly for Christ and for Christ only, (which proclaimed him a martyr, not a malefactor,) could not but draw attention to him, and make men realize what Christ must be to His own, who could thus make competent His people to suffer, and to suffer joyfully in His behalf. Thus, in all the praetorium, in the places of rule in imperial Rome, and in all other places around, the tidings went abroad; and the effect upon those themselves Christians, was to increase confidence in the Lord, instead of depressing and discouraging. Their mouths were opened to speak with more fearless confidence the word of God. (2) But there was not unmixed comfort as to this. Even here, alas, the enemy could come in. There were those who for envy and strife could preach, as well as for good will. On the one hand, there were those who redoubled their own efforts as they sought to supply, as far as might be, the place of him who was now shut up. On the other hand, there were those who, in the spirit of contention even, could announce Christ; exalting themselves at his expense, who was now removed from any power of hindrance. These were the bright, early days of the gospel, and yet such a thing could even then be seen.

How clear that where the Spirit works we must not expect but that the enemy will work also! Here, in fact, is that which would excite his enmity, and amongst Christians themselves there are always those who, through some lack of devotedness on their own parts, will be in his hands to promote his schemes. (3) But the apostle triumphs over it all. At any rate, he says, it is Christ who is preached, and that he can rejoice in. Christ would do His own work, would testify for Himself, whatever the spirit of His professed heralds. How blessed a thing to know, in the terrible failure which has come in since then, that, nevertheless, Christ remains the true and faithful Witness, and that for every soul with whom there is earnestness and simplicity, the witness that He gives will not really be clouded by the failure of others. For himself, the apostle realized that this was turning out for his own salvation; a strange term, as it might seem, for one like the apostle, -but only strange because we misconceive so much what “salvation” for such an one as himself should signify. To think of it as implying any lack of absolute security with regard to his eternal blessing, would be indeed to lower the Christian in the fullest possible way; but if we realize the condition of conflict which the world presents and what it means for one to be set for Christ in the world, (set to magnify Him, as he says directly by life or death), “salvation” will have a totally different meaning from that which is perhaps almost exclusively attached to it.

We are apt to use it, in fact, in too technical a way and as if it meant only the one thing; that is to say, deliverance from. guilt and condemnation. This is a salvation which is of God entirely and which we start with.

No incidents of the way, no attainments that we can. make, can either imperil this or increase its blessedness. God has saved us. That is the starting point; but then, on the other hand, salvation is used in other senses in the New Testament. It is used, of course, for that final salvation as to which at present we are only “saved in hope,” when there will be complete deliverance from all that now makes one groan, “waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body;” but in this final form salvation is again a salvation of God entirely. We have no part in it ourselves, except to receive it. It is Christ, as the apostle tells us here afterwards, whom we wait for as Saviour who Himself change our body of humiliation into the likeness of His glorious body; so that in this also we have that of which the apostle cannot possibly be speaking here. There is a third application of the term, however, which the second chapter will introduce us fully to, a salvation in which we have our part; God working in us and we working out. This is salvation from all the perils of the way, and what perils to one to whom to live is Christ! The peril is never to be made light of and was what he felt, that after all, Christ might not, (at least as He should be,) be magnified in His own, This was what was before the apostle. The circumstances of which he speaks here, that seemed most against him, were things which really tended to help him in this direction, to deliver him from self-confidence, to make him realize that it was God, after all, who had all things in His hand; and that, apostle as he was, he was only the humble instrument of God’s will who could as well set him aside and carry on His work without him as use him for His purpose. This was, in fact, to such as the apostle a manifest help and encouragement; and here the prayers of the saints counted for something, and he solicits them; while the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ could not be wanting for one set for Him. He shows us directly here what is in his thought. His earnest expectation and his hope was that he should be ashamed in nothing, but that with all boldness. as always, Christ should be magnified in his body, whether by life or death. Salvation in such a case must necessarily have its significance from the point of view of him who speaks of it, and his earnestness to realize it only shows him the more manifestly to be the man he was. 3. He now explicitly assures us of what is before him. The principle of his life was this: to him to live was Christ. Necessarily, for such an one, to die, on the other hand, would be gain. He would go to Christ; and he represents himself in a certain difficulty with regard to these two things whether to choose life or death. To die was gain; to live was worth his while. He could not possibly want motive to live, as he looked around him and realized the condition of men and the labor of Christ Himself in their behalf. Thus there were two motives which would lead him in different directions.

He could not but desire to depart and be with Christ; which, for himself, personally, would be very much better; but if he looked at the saints and thought of them, then his remaining in the flesh was more necessary, and the simple heart for Christ which carried him through all perplexities could decide for him, that, therefore, he would remain, that their progress and joy in the faith might be ministered to. It was not in the power of that Rome in which he was, head of the whole world, and with no apparent possibility for anything to thwart her will, -it was impossible for Rome to decide as to this poor prisoner. Death for him, or life, was not found by any imperial decree. Christ was the Lord of all; and. thus he can prophesy not merely with regard to his continuing to live, but even his return to them again, that “your glorying may abound in Christ Jesus through me, by my presence with you again.” How simply is the one, for whom Christ is the light upon the path, delivered from perplexity, just in proportion to the simplicity of his soul in this respect! This by itself would assure us that there was, in fact, a way for the apostle out of that Roman prison-house in which he was just now shut up, and that he did have for a time that liberty which has been so much questioned on the ground of historical evidence. Here is something more than history. It is the confidence of a soul for whom Christ decides absolutely his path, and such confidence, clear sighted as he assures us it was, could not possibly be disappointed. 4. He turns to them once more in his earnest desire for them, that they may still conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, that, present with them or absent, he may find them standing firm in one spirit, with one heart, unwearyingly laboring in that same conflict which in his person the gospel was experiencing. Opposers there would be and were. They had realized this from the very beginning of their Christian course. It was a thing which they had taken account of, and which, therefore now would not frighten them. A joyful spirit of confidence in this respect was itself an evidence that these adversaries would meet destruction, and that they themselves were heirs of that salvation which is from God alone.

The suffering was as much a gift from God to them as their believing on Christ had been. It was a privilege not something to be mourned over or regretted. They were partaking of that which they had seen in him when he was amongst them, and still heard to be his portion.