Enemies of the Cross of Christ, and Dwellers on the Earth
THE attentive reader can scarcely have failed to notice that the third of Philippians is a chapter abounding in marked contrasts.
There is the contrast between the Judaisers, whom the apostle contemptuously styles “the concision “— the cutting off—and those whom he designates “the circumcision”— the cutting round —who have no confidence in the flesh and who rejoice in Christ Jesus (vers. 2:3). This leads him to contrast his own past religiousness—his trust in the flesh—with his present state, as having counted all loss for Christ and gladly letting everything go and esteeming it as offal, to win Him (vers. 4-9).
In verse 9 the legal righteousness which “is of the law “is contrasted with “the righteousness which is of God by faith.” This is really but carrying out the distinction noticed just above.
In verse 10 and 11 There is implied at least, the contrast between the resurrection of judgment which was all he could once look forward to, and the “out-resurrection from among the dead” in which he now looks to have part.
Perfection, in the sense of absolute holiness, — final perfection such as will be ours at the end of the way—is then contrasted with perfection (or full growth) in the sense of having apprehended the great truths of the gospel (vers. 12-16). The former he disclaims (vs. 12). Regarding the latter he can say, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.”
Lastly, he contrasts the body of our humiliation with the bodies to be ours at the Lord’s coming, “fashioned like unto the body of His glory” (vs. 21).
Just before this however he points out a contrast between two moral classes frequently brought before us again in the book of the Revelation, and in fact everywhere distinguished in Scripture. It is the contrast between earthly-and heavenly-mindedness.
“For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things.” Opposed to these we have the heavenly-minded ones, “For our conversation (citizenship, commonwealth, politics; it has been variously rendered) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (vers. 18-20). The seven-teeth verse should also be noticed in this connection: “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example.” The “walking” here doubtless refers to taking outwardly the Christian place. Those who “walk” are those who, presumably at least, have gone on pilgrimage. They profess to “seek a country.” In the Old Testament we read “The Lord.... knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness” (Deut. 2:77For the Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing. (Deuteronomy 2:7)); while in Acts 9:32,32And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda. (Acts 9:32) of anti-typical Israel we are told, “Then had the churches rest... and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.”
They too had gone out into the desert with God. They were no longer at home here. Alas, that our walk should ever be otherwise than as theirs, “in the fear of the Lord.”
Those referred to in Philippians had the outward appearance of pilgrims, and yet, unlike those who began with that of which the blood-sprinkled lintel and the divided sea spoke, they were enemies of the cross of Christ!
There were such who walked with Israel of old. The same chapter that presents the people starting on their journey, after having been sheltered by the blood of the lamb, tells us that “a mixed multitude (or a great mixture) went up also with them” (Ex. 12:3838And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle. (Exodus 12:38)). Outwardly, perhaps, one might have had difficulty in distinguishing them from the elect nation, but their real character came out in the wilderness. In Num is: 4-6, we get the cry of the people who were enemies of the cross of Christ (typically of course) who had never entered into what Red Sea judgment should have taught them, of separation from Egypt and its lusts. “And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting; and (sad result) the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic: but now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes.” And yet the manna spoke of Christ come down in grace to meet His people’s need (John 6:3232Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. (John 6:32)). But alas, His beauty, temporarily obscured by association with such as those of whom the apostle warns us “even weeping,” we lose our appreciation of it, though He be “as wafers made with honey” for sweetness, and “fresh upon the dew”— ministered in the power of the Holy Spirit.
For manna they had no heart; — far rather would they have the flesh and fish of Egypt and the fruits which they must grovel on the ground to obtain, or even dig into the earth for. So it ever is when then the cross has lost its charm for our souls; when we can no longer say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:44But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. (Galatians 6:4)).
Have we not all known something of the deadening influence of the mixed multitude who “walk” and “make a fair show in the flesh,” but whose hearts are in the world still where they would fain draw ours? Oh let us remember, leeks, onions and garlic all leave their odor behind!
You cannot feast on things like these without spiritual loss. Perhaps you fancy that a little worldliness, a little indulgence of the flesh, will not hurt your testimony, nor mar your enjoyment of divine things. You imagine it will never be noticed by others, for whose piety you have respect and who watch for your soul. If you do allow yourself to go on in measure with the world, you at least are regularly out to the meetings and manifest an interest in the gospel. Be assured it is just as impossible to dine on garlic and not have the odor on your breath, as to taste of the world’s follies in any form without manifestly lowering the tone of your spirituality.
A night in worldly company, how it tells on one. An evening at the theater, what a stench on the breath the day after! A popular and fascinating, but really pernicious novel, greedily devoured, what a garlic dish is that! Indulgence in earthly vanities, worldly dress and careless ways, how they eat out the spiritual life and cause the soul to loathe the manna! You cannot enjoy the world and Christ at the same time. One will inevitably crowd the other out.
I judge that there is a distinction, and a marked one, between the mixed multitude and murmuring Israel; just as we are called upon to distinguish between the “enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction,” (not merely chastening) and the Philippian saints who are warned against such. For even the saint is in danger of becoming in measure like them in ways, if unwatchful, though one with them actually they never can be. Forgetful of the cross of Christ, believers often are; sad that it should be so! Enemies they could not be. 1 Cor. 9:2424Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. (1 Corinthians 9:24) —10:11 is addressed to all. Wisdom’s children take heed and are kept safe; but the foolish pass on and are punished.
The great characteristic of these, “whose glory is in their shame,” is earthly-mindedness: “Whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things.” In this their connection with the mixed multitude is very marked. Lust, the desire for personal gratification (let it take what form it may) and love of the scene from which the cross has separated the Christian, are their two great marks.
Let us, dear fellow-pilgrim, beware of any who would tempt us to seek our enjoyment in the sphere that has cast out our Lord. His cross has come in between us and the world. Do we, then, want anything out of it, or a place in it? If so, in heart we go back to Egypt.
To do that, Israel had to go around the Red Sea (Jer. 43:1-71And it came to pass, that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the Lord their God, for which the Lord their God had sent him to them, even all these words, 2Then spake Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there: 3But Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they might put us to death, and carry us away captives into Babylon. 4So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the Lord, to dwell in the land of Judah. 5But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all nations, whither they had been driven, to dwell in the land of Judah; 6Even men, and women, and children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. 7So they came into the land of Egypt: for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: thus came they even to Tahpanhes. (Jeremiah 43:1‑7)); through it they could not go. It is a dreadful thing thus to set the cross aside. It is not necessarily denying our interest in the death of Christ or in the shedding of His blood.
These truths may be acknowledged and confessed in measure, where the cross—symbol of His shame and bitter sorrow—has really been ignored.
It is the cross that has stained all the glory of this world; even as of old the cedar-wood, the scarlet and the hyssop were stained with the blood of the bird of the heavens, slain in an earthen vessel over running water—Christ the heavenly One, in the body prepared for Him offering Himself through the eternal Spirit a sacrifice for our cleansing (Lev. 14). To faith all its glory has disappeared in the “burning of the heifer” (Num. 19). It has no glory since it became guilty of the murder of the Son of God; since it nailed our Lord to the tree. All its objects of beauty, its religious splendor, its society, its culture—everything in which it prides itself—all is blood-stained now.
This is what those “who mind earthly things” deny. Refusing the truth that He is outside this scene of man’s pride and folly, they seek to attach His name to the world that cast Him out. Of old they cried, “Crucify Him!” Now they would garnish His sepulcher.
They cannot utterly ignore Him; His impress is too strong and clear for that. It was impossible that God in human form could be in the world and yet not leave some evidence of His presence behind Him. So they claim Him now as one like unto themselves.
Have you noticed that—how every body wants to claim Jesus, even though they hate His cross?
They speak of Him as the great Exemplar, the Teacher, the Martyr, — anything you will, but that He died to deliver us from this present evil age—that His cross is the dividing line—this they will not have.
In contrast to these “dwellers on the earth,” how sweet to read of some” whose commonwealth is in heaven.” Here they find no continuing city. They seek one to come. His lonely path of sorrow and separation is the one they would tread in such a world as this. Identified by faith with a rejected Christ, and possessors of His life, by new birth, they cannot be at home in the scene of His deep, deep sufferings and of His awful shame. A separated, peculiar people, they confess plainly that they “seek a country,” and are content to wait for glory till the coming day of His appearing. His path of isolation and stranger-ship is dearer far than earth’s fair by-ways, just because it was His who left us “an example that we should follow His steps.”
Marked is the contrast now. Marked will it be at the close. Caught up to be forever with Himself will all those be who knew Him as Lord and Saviour. Left in the earth of their own choosing and the place of their hopes will be those who were the enemies of His cross. The future of both we have outlined in the Apocalypse.
To the assembly of a little strength, who had not denied the Name of the absent One, He says, “Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which is coming upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:1010Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)).
These last are evidently the same moral class as those whose present earthly ways we have been tracing; for that the expression does not refer merely to inhabitants of the world is clear by reference to chaps. 11:9, 10, and 14:6, where we find them distinguished from “the people and kindreds and tongues and nations.”
In the verse quoted above we see that when the Lord comes and takes His own away from the place of their toil and suffering to enter into His own rest in the glory of God, these will be left behind (despite possible Christian profession) to pass through the terrible period of judgment so graphically depicted in this closing portion of the divine oracles.
That they are identical with the false professors of every age is clear from ch. 6:10 where we hear the martyr’s crying for their blood to be avenged “on them that dwell on the earth.” Ever the enemies of the cross of Christ, they have been again and again the persecutors of those who gloried in that Cross!
We find them again specially brought before us, in the eighth chapter, immediately preceding the sounding of the last three trumpets. “And I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice; Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound” (vs. 13).
Those who cared not for a name and a place here are seen before this, represented by the twenty-four royal priests, robed and crowned in heaven; their theme of praise, the precious blood shed on the cross which had separated them from the world. How dreadful now the position of those who refused the heavenly calling which, through grace, these had learned to prize! The earth that they loved is now the scene of the hardening judgments of God, and is fast slipping from their grasp; — and heaven they have lost all hope of; though once, they fondly thought they might at least have a place there when death should snatch them from their delights here. Thus they would be making the best of both worlds. Now they have lost them both!
The testimony of God’s “two witnesses” only lacerates them into the agonies of despair; and amid the well-nigh universal joy over their death, when all the kindreds and peoples are making merry in that awful day of the divine displeasure, we are told: “And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (chap. 3:10).
But though no voice below may continue to proclaim their doom, in heaven a loud voice cries, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (chap. 12:12). How marked the contrast here, with the words immediately preceding: “Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.”
In the next chapter, while authority is given to the Roman beast “over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations,” yet it is only of the earth-dwellers that actual worship is predicated (vs. 8). For they will not be without a religion then, as they are not without one now. Twice in the seventeenth chapter are they likewise referred to, in connection with this same beast and its harlot rider. “The inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication” (vs. 2). “They that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is (or shall be present)” (chap. 17:8).
Terrible outlook for apostate Christendom! It is the false Christ “the man of the earth; “the lamb-like beast, who leads them in their worship of the first beast. “He exerciseth all the authority of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire coins down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make as image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword and did live” (ch. 13:12-14)
Strong delusion, God has given them up to! Those whose hearts were set on things down here now have a god and a christ of their own, of earth and suited to earth, but all alike soon to be destroyed at the appearing of the heavenly One in judgment.
In chapter 14 we find the 144,000 of Israel distinguished from these as a people “redeemed from the earth.” They are not the Church, nor a part of it, but during the absence of “the Lamb” their hearts had gone out to Him in the place where He was and from whence they waited expectantly for His coming, and thus they were not seduced by false Babylon or the christ of the earth.
Immediately following this vision, we have the last word from God the earth-dwellers shall ever hear until they meet the rejected One in judgment. “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea, and the fountains of waters “(vers. 6:7). It is a call to cease from their folly though the hour is late, but we hear of no response.
Their dreadful doom as beast-worshipers is given in the message that follows: “The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation (ver. 10). Solemn words! Who can conceive their awful import?
Such a cup had the Lord Jesus drained for sinners when He hung upon the cross, the truth connected with which they had hated. Now they must quaff its fearful contents themselves.
Such in brief then, is the present and future path and portion of those who mind earthly things, “whose end is destruction.”
Let us see to it, beloved, that we walk in holy separation from them now, “hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye have died and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-31If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1‑3)).
As strangers and pilgrims, may it be ours to press on in haste to the land where He has gone who has won our hearts by dying for us on the cross, and who is soon coming to take us to be with Himself in the Father’s house. How paltry and poor will Egypt’s fare look then when we feast upon the hidden manna!