It is of vast importance—whether for our fellowship with God in the gospel of His Son, or for our service to Christ in the Spirit, or in hope of the coming glory of the Lord—to see that the confidence and assurance of the apostles for each of these objects rested entirely on the sufficiency of God, and the supply of the grace of Christ. This is remarkably seen in the forefront of the epistle to the Corinthians: “I thank my God always on: your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by, Jesus Christ; that in everything ye are enriched by—Him.” And we may remark that this confidence in the faithfulness of God ran along side by side, and to: the extent of His own calling and purpose about them, “who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Moreover, it is added, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord”—thus establishing and completing the entire circle of their Christian privileges and final blessing, as well as confirming them by the assurance of “grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” as their present portion.
The epistle to the Philippians shows likewise— that the confidence of the apostle rested on the same basis for himself and for them, and affords us another example of the sufficiency of the supply of the Spirit for the furtherance of the gospel which he preached. Through this too even “the mind of Christ” was to be manifested in Paul, as the new rule for life and walk, in all the danger and opposition that surrounded him in his service for the saints. Accordingly, he speaks to them of his earnest expectation and hope— “That in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” Nor is this sufficiency of God and grace of Christ limited to himself; but, on the contrary, he says, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.” Once more, and on a yet larger scale (which will open up to us the immediate subject of this paper), he writes, “Being confident of this very thing, that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” After this manner it is that Paul encourages these saints to rest their confidence and faith and hope upon the same foundation as his own, and for similar purposes, and to the same extent; namely, “that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christi being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” This plantation on earth, and this right hand planting, and these plants with their flowers and fruits, only reach their perfection in the garden of the Lord at their transplanting in the day of Jesus Christ, “Because I live, ye shall live also.”
Moreover, it is well to observe that “the work” spoken of here, or in the quotations from 1 Corinthians, alike embrace the coming of Jesus Christ and His appearing, and cannot be limited to our existence in this world, or to what is theologically called, the final perseverance of the saints. Maintaining such a notion as this, is only the last enthronement of self (and by the abuse of Christianity too), where it is excluded and brought to its end by the death of Christ. It is in fact only making oneself (as a saint) the object around which new ideas and expectations cling, though false ones; and in this way, and to this extent, excluding Christ as the only but all-sufficient One, for the revelation of God’s intentions concerning us, as well as the way “which it becomes Him” to adopt for their accomplishment. The spring of all present service in communion with the Father, and the Father’s love to us, must be in Christ and Christ alone, and He is the glorified object of revelation to us in the Spirit’s power now, and for the display of the Father’s counsels eternally. Indeed it is out from the secret of God’s presence, where the exalted Son of man has been raised “by the glory of the Father,” that Paul received his commission from the Lord to be a minister and a witness of the things “thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear to thee.” It is in accordance with this heavenly revelation from the Lord in glory, and according to this new order and rule from the Son of man, at the right hand of God, that this apostle dates his mission, and opens out his testimony to the Christ of God, who had appeared to him “above the brightness of the sun,” and as such he addresses himself to “all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, or Corinth, or elsewhere.”
By such ways and means another and a new-born company of God’s elect (believers in Christ, and indwelt by the Spirit) are being gathered out from this world as “new creatures in Christ;” and so identified in life and righteousness, and in the hope of glory with the risen Lord, that Paul refuses to know them after any other pattern and name. Nor will he reckon on any other wisdom or power for the work below, than that which has been wrought in Christ on high, and “which power is to usward who believe.” On such a foundation as this is—for another creation, and with the Second Man as the head and beginning thereof, to whose image we are predestinated to be conformed “that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” —what wonder is it that Paul should make his boast in the Lord for the accomplishment of this, and all besides in which Christ appeared to him— “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Primarily in this Philippian epistle, Christ is presented in chapter 2 in the grace and perfection of His own humiliation and obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, followed by the glory of His exaltation, in which God has given Him a name which is above every name. He has also issued his decree, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” God has set man for Himself on high, for every end and purpose; but all the unfoldings of the glory of His person, whether upon the earth in humiliation, or in the heavens by ascension, take their rise and spring from who and what he essentially is “as equal with God;” for who besides He could make death a new measuring reed, for His perfect obedience before God as Man, the servant Son? The hidden mystery of Christ unveils itself in this epistle, and He comes forth like the rising sun of a new system to make all plain, which else would be inexplicable as to the purposes of God, and to reveal Himself in His own light to us for their, accomplishment. Under the anointing of the Spirit, how well we understand the mystery, “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but Made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”
This Second Man—for-ordained of God—is become the firstfruits of another beginning for the new heavens and the new earth, in whom we are created anew, in righteousness and true holiness. Besides this there are changes as regards ourselves down here, which correspond to the nature and character of Christ, not only as the Second Man before God, to whose image we shall be conformed eternally, but as our example while we are upon this earth, from which He has been rejected. For instance, Paul says of himself, “For me to live is Christ;” and again, as to these Philippians, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake; having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.”
The changes and differences between this economy, which is characterized by Christ in humiliation and rejection, of which we are speaking; and the previous one which was distinguished by Solomon upon his throne in outward splendor and prosperity, can be easily understood when compared, or rather contrasted, with each other. Such an one as our Lord Jesus Christ, having come forth from the Father, and come into this world to glorify God, and to finish the work which was given Him to do, became a new center for the display of the hidden wisdom and power of God before all the dwellers in heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, as our Kinsman-Redeemer. He entered upon this marvelous work by the mystery of His incarnation; and by the further mystery of redemption through His precious blood, accomplished in His death and resurrection, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him. Moreover, as “the Word made flesh” in Him was life, and the life was the light of men while here below, and He was led by the Spirit, through the length and breadth of this mission, that finally by atonement and propitiation He might reach His appointed place as “the Lamb of God, the taker away of the sin of the world.” Lastly, as the fruit and measure thereof, according to the counsels of God, He was declared as “the same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.”