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Excerpts: In Phil. 1 we see the position and life of the Christian in this scene; in chapter 2 we see the pattern of Christ; in chapter 3 the energy that carries the Christian through this world, all things being dross and dung that he may win Christ; in chapter 4 we see the Christian's superiority to all circumstances. We have in this epistle the whole character of Christian life; this assumes that our place in Christ is settled. You cannot manifest Christ if you have not Christ. Assuming that Christ has borne our sins, and that we have died with Him, we get on that foundation the unfolding of the path of the Christian, the manifestation of this life we have got from God (a thing John looks at abstractedly in itself); “He that is born of God doth not commit sin.” The Christian is to manifest the life of Christ, and nothing else. “Ye are” (not “ought to be") “the epistle of Christ,” and let Christ be read in you as plainly as the law in the tables of stone. As Christ represents us before God, so you appear in the presence of the world for Christ. It is a great thing to say that my heart is so full of Christ that nothing but Christ appears. If I am in lowliness of heart before Him, living by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, I shall manifest Christ. In these days when the word of God is so called in question, it is blessed to think how a single verse of scripture was sufficient for Him for authority, and sufficient for the devil who had not a word to say.
There is no uncertainty as to the faithfulness of Christ in bringing us through the wilderness. The moment the Christian looks at himself in Christ, there is no “if;” but the moment you get a Christian in the wilderness, there are “ifs,” not that there is the smallest doubt, but to bring in dependence. We are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” —no doubt here, but dependence. I am “the righteousness of God in him.” “If ye hold fast the beginning of your confidence;” if I hold fast, I am not to be trusted—it is positive dependence every moment; I learn that. The mischief of the state of the heart is that, as to will, man has got independent. The whole thing for us is to get to absolute dependence on infallible faithfulness, on unwearied love to carry us through. The heart is brought back to blessed dependence; the dependence is blessed, but the sense of that faithful love is unfailing joy and rest. It is not that the “if” is not true, but the Father's hand will never let it take place. We have grace to help in every time of need; without Him we can do nothing; with Him, in a certain sense, everything. We learn here that I can never excuse myself if I let the flesh act. The existence of the flesh does not give a bad conscience: otherwise we should never have a good one.
We make a mistake about the apostles, we often think of them as if they were eagles soaring above all. Paul says, “I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.” There were great people in Corinth; Paul was a blessed vessel, but the vessel must be made nothing of. What we have to learn is being nothing that Christ may be everything. If a person is humble he does not want to be humbled; but if he is not humble, he must be.
Are we content to be nothing? Are we content to walk in the secret of God? The Lord give us to learn practically what it is thus to pass through this world. You can get neither the Christian nor the church in a state that Christ is not sufficient for.
The Lord give us to know our nothingness.