A similar opportunity waited him at Philippi; indeed, the path was one and the same to him who trod it with the Lord, whatever the variations were. This “demonstration of the Spirit” had also its deeper voice of instruction, by its divine mode of conquest over men and women, to Paul and Silas. He adopts these principles which he learned from the obedience unto death of his Lord, and writes, “For I know that this” (his own imprisonment) “shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” The sights of all others in the wide world were its palace, and Paul therein in bonds; and this prison in Macedonia, into which had been brought the salvation of God, and in which He had so marvelously wrought as to turn it into a habitation and temple for His worship and praise. Not a sigh nor a groan are recorded, as being heard within its walls; but, on the contrary, when they had laid many stripes upon them, and thrust them into the inner prison, “at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them.” The seaside, where prayer was wont to be made, or the jailer of the prison, where the apostle’s feet were fast in the stocks, are both alike to God, or even a Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter when on his way to Damascus. God must, by supreme power, finally put down every adversary who won’t give way, as surely as He has highly exalted the Son of man, who humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
The Lord was Himself the door into this secret highway of heavenly fellowship, by means of this world’s enmity and reproach. But we are slow of heart still, to observe and walk with Him along this divine path, though it be written again, “If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.” Paul knew no other path, and how could there be another to any who were, like himself, following the rule of chapter 2. — “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus?” To him the way of obedience in such a world, was but the sure high road of a continuous salvation, which lies between the point of present suffering and the future glory, even as resurrection to the right hand by the power of God’s might, was the actual deliverance to Christ Himself. In this way, and after this manner, He encourages these Philippians “to be in nothing terrified by their adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.”
The object in these various quotations is to mark the contrast. (which God, having sent forth His Son, makes) between this economy and the former, between Christianity and Judaism, between the first Man and the last Adam, and between Solomon the wonder of the world, and Christ the rejected from this earth—contrasts which must be drawn by any who rightly divide the word of God. To any others, may be pointed out the vast difference, morally and circumstantially, which existed between a land flowing with milk and honey; and, dispensationally, when the Word made flesh dwelt among us, and took this world as Adam had subjected it to sin and Satan, not having in it where to lay His head. It is not now a mighty interposing power, making the earth bring forth of itself, as in Immanuel’s land, when the people enjoyed its Sabbaths, and their seventh year of release, and their fiftieth year of jubilee, and when silver was of no account. Nor has it been in these nineteen centuries like it was under the leadership of Moses, when he bade Israel to rise up and take their journey; for Jehovah would “begin to put the dread of them and the fear of them upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, which shall hear the report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.”
Nor is the believer’s manner of conflict and battle after the old style and order— “Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight,” and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword—but quite otherwise, and wherefore? Because they rejected Christ, and said, “This is the heir, let us kill him, and seize upon his inheritance,” and they cast him out. But the Son of man, in the glory of God, who appeared to Saul on the way, is raised from the dead, and sitting on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, and it is this triumphant fact which changes the entire nature and character of true Christian position, and service, and warfare; for “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against wicked spirits in the heavenly places.” Conflict takes its character from where God has set Christ, and where we are seated in Him. Satan is not yet cast out of heaven, therefore the word to us is, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” The glorious power and might which Paul knew and bore witness to was that by which God had wrought in Christ, and which is to usward who believe, whether for communion, or service, or conflict in the Spirit, or devotedness in daily life, and so he writes in all his epistles.
If we turn to that of the Colossians, his prayer for them is, “That ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord,” and so forth. This glorious power of God goes in company with the life of Christ, to “strengthen with might the inner man,” so that the difficulties and dangers become bread for us, like they were to Caleb and Joshua in their day. Any such will realize in the Spirit no other fruit than “joyfulness,” through patience and long-suffering; for these fruits were but the normal product of the life of Christ in those who are His; for example, Paul writes, “Ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in the heavens a better and an enduring substance.” Another apostle writes of the same joyfulness at the day of Jesus Christ, “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”
The application of this mighty power (which first wrought in Christ) made Paul what he was, so that he could say to these Philippians, “Yea, and if I be poured forth upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me,” “losing their life in this world, that they might keep it unto life eternal.” God had begun the good work in them, and every circumstance was as right for this as could be, whether in the prison, where he was; and equally right for them in the midst of their adversaries, where they were. Interpreting these trials for them according to this new version, he says, “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” Jealous over them, lest their trials and difficulties should press upon their hearts, and be only viewed in a natural way, so as to produce fear and terror (instead of as tokens of salvation, and that of God), he brings the consolation of Christ, the comfort of love, and the fellowship of the Spirit (this unfailing well, to which Jehovah led His people in former days), and bade them drink. As “Israel did at Beer,” when under Moses, so these witnesses do under the ministry of the chiefest of the apostles, and in a world that has grown old in its iniquity, having cast out Christ, and cast Him off too. In the face of their last enemy Israel sang this song, “Spring up, O well!” Sing ye unto it. “Fulfill ye my joy,” is the word now spoken by this apostle of the Gentiles, and the princes again dig the well under his direction— “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have already obeyed, not as in my presence only, but how much more in my absence, work out,” and so forth.
Patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness, flow together now out of this perennial spring unto eternal salvation. Obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, was the Lord’s pathway to the throne, where He now is seated; nor did the afflictions of Christ separate Paul from this course and the joy set before him. He would judge nothing before the time, and that time was “the day of Christ;” for furtherances and hindrances, or loss and gain, stood in their new connections with Christ and the coming of the Lord; nor was there any intermediate standard, or test of valuation, between now and then. “It is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure,” was the divine energy, and the only but effectual way by which to profit through all afflictions and trials, in order that these might turn to their salvation outside the prison, as Paul was doing for himself inside its walls. The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, “by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves;” therefore Paul says to us in this day, “Do all things without murmurings and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.” The present moment took its character with him from the coming of Christ, which is in fact the only proper birthplace for faith and Christian hope, and he adds to the foregoing scripture, “That I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.” Dispensationally, the previous ministry of life and peace from Christ on the earth, as announced by the angel’s song, has given place to the springs’ which take their rise, and flow out from the unfathomable love of God, and the Son at His right hand, in whom it hath pleased the Father that all the fullness should dwell.
This epistle further declares that this mighty power of God, which was working in them then to will and to do of His good pleasure, waited to perfect itself in the day of Christ, by changing them into His own likeness, and fitting them to be forever with the Lord in His kingdom and glory. “For our conversation is in heaven, 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 power wherewith He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.” The power of life, that works its way in us while in the body below, has yet to perform its own work with these bodies of ours, and perfect us “for the day of Christ’s glory.” Nor is the good work of our salvation (according to God and to Christ) completed and concluded till we are like Him, and with Him, and see Him as He is. “Because I live, ye shall live also.”
The last chapter brings the sufficiency of God and the grace of Christ, into these adverse and difficult circumstances, to turn them round for our profit, morally, while we are in the school of God, even as they will have suited and served for “working out their salvation.” Therefore Paul says to them, as scholars in this divine philosophy, “Those things, Which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” Further, as to his own tuition and advancement in this school of God, he adds, “Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Mark another step in this heavenly learning and attainment, “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” What are he and they doing and gaining by all these exercises of soul, unless it be this secret science, that it is God who worketh in them to will and to do of His good pleasure? What is this practice but a “getting meat out of the eater, and honey’ out of the strong?” Yea, and Paul waxing much more confident by his bonds in the palace, and triumphantly affirming, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
Our degrees and advancements in this school of God! can only be by keeping the sentence of death on ourselves—that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raiseth the dead. Our password is, “Stand fast in the Lord;” for surely, if any person or thing of moment be more present to us than the Lord is, He has not got His place, nor are we in ours, and we shall quail, because circumstances are found to be much nearer to our hearts than Himself. “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.” These watchwords are echoed and re-echoed for our faith and confidence, when the wind is high and the sea rough. Alas! we are often so close to both, as to rise and fall as they do, though the Lord is seen to be walking upon them; or perhaps so at home with us in the ship as to be asleep in the hinder part. We are practically out of this school if we have any will or choice of our own, and especially if we think of making any change of circumstances to suit ourselves, when the Master is bent on changing us to suit Himself, and lead us forward in the cultivation “of the mind” that was in Christ. If we are afraid of the consequences of obedience and its attendant circumstances, we shall not merely be grieving the Spirit, but prove in the end false to Christ, and lose the present opportunity which obedience gives of working out the salvation of God through the world as it is, with everything against us. “Because I live, ye shall live also.”
What is the new lesson in this school for such a state of deviation as this? It is threefold— “Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.” It is His fullness of grace and power supplied, that will carry such a one beyond himself and his own fearful experiences, and will work even by means of these adverse circumstances, to lead into the very position where Jesus lay His head. And, oh, what a pillow it is, where flesh and blood and sense rule no more, but “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeps the heart and mind through Christ Jesus.”
This antagonism only led one and all onward in the ways of God, to learn Christ in the power of His resurrection, and “to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” This great and glorious position was reached, not by Jesus escaping the cross, nor would it be by Paul saved out of prison; but by prayer, and the supply of the Spirit. And so he writes to others, “In nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.”
This last chapter gives a final proof of the power of God, and the assurance Paul experienced by his dependence thereon “unto the day of Jesus Christ. “Like the great prophet Elijah who, in the time of Ahab’s wickedness and the dearth upon the land of Israel, was miraculously fed’ by the ravens, so Paul accepts and magnifies the ways and means of his supply. I have all, and abound; I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.” This ministry, from the Son of God in the glory, must far exceed Elijah’s, who could only open and shut the heavens, or carry the secret of a plentiful supply of rain in the midst of dearth, by the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, wonderful as it was 1 Paul stands forth by faith and confidence in the mighty power of God and its resources where He dwells on high, and proclaims this sufficiency for all the exigencies and difficulties and disasters of “this present evil age,” and says, “My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.”
He who was with others set apart as “a steward of the mysteries of God” when they were in mystery, has fulfilled that ministry by declaring them to the Church of the living God; and now as the treasurer of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” to the Gentiles, he leads them by means of their need to this new order of supply, “according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.” What a source has thus been opened up to us, and what a resource have we in “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all!” This is the well of which the Lord still speaks, and this is the eternal spring from which He gives them to drink. And in company with Paul we will sing to Him, and utter forth His praises— “Now unto God and our Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
“Lord, ‘tis enough, we ask no more;
Thy grace around us pours
Its rich and unexhausted store,
And all this grace is ours.”
J. E. B.