The epistle to the Philippians has a peculiar character, rather distinct from the other epistles; though there are indeed traces of the same in the epistle to Timothy. Taking it characteristically, it is the epistle of Christian experience. We do not get doctrinal teaching in it, but the experience of Christian walk—not the experience of one who is going wrong, but of one who is going right, the experience which the Spirit of God gives. The apostle is perfectly clear as to his position, yet here he counts himself not to have attained anything. He is on the road, he has not got there; but Christ had laid hold on him. When I speak of my place in Christ, as in Ephesians, it is in heavenly places; but, as a matter of fact, we are here going on through the earth full of temptations and snares. Philippians gives us—not of course failure—but the path of the Christian, salvation being looked at throughout as at the end of the wilderness. Paul had no doubt that Christ had laid hold on him for this blessedness, but he had not got there. Salvation is always looked at as the close of the journey in Philippians.
It is so much the more remarkable as to the Christian's path that you never find sin mentioned from the beginning to the end of the epistle. The thorn in the flesh was needed when Paul came down from paradise; it was not that the flesh had got any better. The thorn was something to hinder sin, something that made him outwardly contemptible in his ministry. Every one, probably, would have a different thorn according to his need. There is no change in the flesh, but the power of the Spirit of God is such that the flesh is kept down. “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus” would not be necessary if the flesh were any better. It is not that there is any uncertainty as to salvation or acceptance, but that we should so walk through the wilderness that the flesh should be shut up, as it were. Suppose I have a troublesome man in the house; if I keep him locked up, I am quite easy about him; but sometimes we are foolish enough to leave the door open. God looks at us as dead with Christ, and we are called on to reckon ourselves dead. I have a title to do it because Christ has died, and I am crucified with Christ. It is not only that we are born of God, but we have died with Christ.
Up to the middle of Rom. 5 sins are treated of, and atonement; in verse 12 nature is dealt with. We have each our own sins, but “by one man's disobedience” we have the same nature, we are all in the same boat; the remedy for this is that we have died with Christ. You cannot say of a man lying dead on the floor, “You have got bad passions and self-will;” he has neither passions nor self-will, he is dead.
Then we have the power of Christ. “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” You say you are in Christ, then your acceptance is perfect; if you are in Christ, Christ is in you: then let me see Christ and nothing else.
If you are dead, you cannot live on in sins. If you have got Christ, it is in His death you have got Him. In Col. 3 we have God sees us as dead; in Rom. 6. I reckon myself dead; in 2 Cor. 4 we have “bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” This is going very far indeed. Death to a Paul was so realized that only the life of Jesus works in him.
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.
“And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent.” There is growth. What I desire to press is, the practical place into which God has brought us in grace to Himself. “Thou hast guided them by thy strength to thy holy habitation.” That is where you are brought: God has brought you to Himself. It is not a rule imposed, but Christ revealed. The question for you as Christians is, Are you walking in the light as God is in the light? God is light and love; His essential names. You are brought to God without a veil, and there is light on everything you do.
God has brought us to know Christ: “This is my beloved Son,” that is what I delight in. The more we look at Him the more we see there is the place God has brought us. If heaven opens on Him, it opens on us; if God owns Him as Son, He owns us as sons.
Now we have to learn Christ. Has Christ had such a place in your hearts today, that the things which spring from Christ sprung from you? Have you understood that Christ has brought you to Himself? Now especially it is important that Christians should be Christians. What He was before God in perfection reproduced itself before men to please His Father. Are you learning Christ, beloved friends? When I look at Christ, I see God manifested in a man in this world, the expression and pattern of what God delights in. I am not before God on the ground of what I have done, or what I am, but on the ground of Christ. There is for us this continually learning Christ. God has been revealed to us, we have seen what He is—seen it in light to love it. It is not an effort that I may get more like Christ, but that, according to the knowledge of Him I have got, there should be nothing contrary to that knowledge. I do not expect a babe to be a man. When one sees a babe delighting in its mother, and obedient, it is just as delightful in its way as to see a man.
“That in nothing I may be ashamed, but that with nil boldness, as always, Christ may be magnified in my body whether by life or by death.” Whether it were life or death that he came across, Christ would be always glorified in his body. The Christian, having his eye on Christ, knows no standard but Christ in glory. We are “to be conformed to the image of his Son;” this is the blessed hope of the Christian and nothing short of it. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly;” there is no doubt, no uncertainty of our having it, or of what it is. Christ is “the firstborn among many brethren” —they like Him. Christ “shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”
I see Christ up there, and I get this unspeakably simple truth that when I was a poor sinner, another man stepped in and set me free. “Let these go their way,” Christ said of His disciples; they go away, they run—poor work, but they are safe. He takes the whole thing on Himself, and He is to be the judge. The perfect good of God and the perfect evil of man met at the cross; everything was settled there. The new heavens and the new earth depend upon the cross. The Man who was there made sin is now sitting on the right hand of God in glory. The Holy Ghost comes down and makes me know that my place is settled before God. A sinner cannot have confidence if sin is not put away, but there He is, the pattern of what I am to be, our “forerunner.”
I am going to bear the image of the heavenly; I want to attain that, to win Christ, to be like Him forever. The treasure is indeed in an earthen vessel, but I have got the treasure. I never rest until I am like Christ in glory. Christ is my life; that life lives on Christ as its object; I am going to be like Him, I shall never be satisfied till then. The Spirit of God realizes this in our hearts in power. The light that shines from the glory shines in my heart.
Even before chapter 4 how perfectly the apostle puts the heart at peace. “Some preach Christ even of envy and strife:” never mind, if Christ is preached. What peace of heart he had! He had been in prison for four years, in the most trying circumstances; “all this,” he says, “shall turn to my salvation.”
It is what is behind that faith gets hold of! The wretched Jews, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the sabbath day, send the soldiers to break their legs; and what did they do? They sent one of them right into paradise!
Paul has been feeding the church ever since from that prison at Borne.
“To depart and be with Christ is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” So completely happy, so completely settled that I do not know which to choose! Self is gone. It would be worth while to stay because I can labor for Christ. Christ loves the church: then I shall stay! With him it was laboring for Christ, or living with Christ. Christ had such a place that the power of circumstances disappears. How near he lived to Christ! There was not perfection—not yet—but he had Christ completely. He was living up to Christ in the measure to which he had attained.
We may get a blessed truth, as Peter did, revealed by the Father, a real revelation, I do not question that, but the flesh may not be broken down up to the measure of what we have been taught. Peter was doing Satan's work, and Christ said to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Would not Christ have to call you Satan in something?
If we are not bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, our condition of soul is not up to the measure in which we have been taught.
Have you the true desire? Is there a locked up chamber in your heart? Christ will open it some day. Can you say, “Search me, Ο God, and know my heart.... and lead me in the way everlasting?”
The Lord grant us wisdom to understand His love!