Notes of Lecture 4 on Phil. 3
Such words as we find here, are the expression of the Divine mind; not to be narrowed and cramped, as if they were the words of man. People come to this chapter with their own thoughts. When Paul wrote this, he did not suppose the state into which nominal Christianity has brought things now. But now, as then, if any come as ruined creatures to God, they will find what Paul found, just suited to him, in the Person of that One who is at the Throne of God; that One who met all his affections. The Spirit of that Christ came into his heart, and he was perfectly satisfied with Him. The Lord Jesus Christ, as a quickening Spirit, had laid hold of the heart of Paul, and that heart responded to Christ’s love. It is Christ, not only meeting need, as to sin, but Christ as our life, and that life to be manifested in all circumstances down here, which is often lost sight of by Christians to their great loss; not so with Paul, it was his one object to show it out. It was Christ that produced and led captive all affections in him. Christ, revealed to him as the anointed man gone up, had spoken to him from heaven, and directly he heard this Person, a bright light shone in his soul, and then, what became of Saul’s estimate of all that he, as a ruined creature, had been trying to do to accredit himself with God? He said— “There, in heaven, is that One I thought to be an impostor, with thoughts about me, and wanting me to be a servant of His, and here have I been toiling to show my hatred to Him—utterly despising Him.” Remark, verse 5, the excellency of the knowledge of a living Person called Jesus, that One presented so that Paul must say, He is my Lord. He found this Christ a life-giving Spirit, and himself as having one life with Him; and in Col., all the perfection of God’s very self is set forth in this Person; and here was this One, who had been rejected from the earth, the center of an entirely new system, in glory; One who could take up all He chose—For servants and distribute gifts just as he liked. Ah when one gets to see the beauty of this Christ, how the heart owns it as something altogether matchless, in human form, with all the glory of God. He could not but be set forth in heaven and earth as the most beautiful of all beautiful objects. Paul said— “All of beauty, all of perfection is in Him, that living Man on the Throne, and He has looked on me and claimed me for Himself by letting the light of His glory shine into my soul. I will be His all through my course. He, the One to magnify whom is my only end in life—He, the only One I want to be like The doctrine of the gospel, as in the Person of Christ, is a lost thing in the present day, because it is always presented on the side that suits man, and not God’s side. If I know that One who is the darling delight of God’s mind, I do not want anything else. If my soul knows Christ, Christ is the answer to everything—I begin and go on with Christ, matchless in His beauty—and He goes on with me, Secondly, I desire to be His and nothing but His; and Paul presented Christ to others thus: he knew Christ to be the life-giver and never stopped to argue about it, or look for proofs of having life; if Christ be my life, I act upon it, and do not stop to prove it, and if so acting, anyone will find themselves so occupied with doing things according to life. If indulging in worldliness, Christ will say to you, that is the flesh and not my Spirit acting in you; it must be judged—the life judges everything that comes in. But if I say Christ is mine, and I am putting forth in my little measure the life of Christ, I am not driven to try to prove that I have life. Paul beautifully carried it out. We get in him that sort of appreciation of the beauty of Christ that he could give up everything and count it all dung, to follow Him. He could say, I walked as this Christ could claim of me as being His—I have presented before them the manifestation of His life. Now people are not satisfied with Christ, only a place must be given for self, and a large place in some way. If not identifying ourselves with Christ all the way, looking to bring glory to Him, we are not like Paul; not but that there will be self-conflict and warfare between the flesh and the spirit, at times very sharp indeed—the Holy Ghost finding in us everything contrary to his own mind. I wonder if any here, ever had such a want to live to Christ, that in connection with all they find in self contrary to Him, they are saying “That thing is only fit to be buried with Christ.”
The only thing that the Holy Ghost could do, to get rid of the old man, is to identify a believer with all the depths of Christ’s humiliation— “buried with Christ—dead with Him:” if not realizing that, there is no rest of soul, in regard to the old man. “But what things were gain,” etc. We have here the estimate of human righteousness. God provided Christ, and would you come in, with something of self, unlike Christ? Paul said, I count everything of self I gloried in but loss for Christ; He has claimed me, I am His, I love Him so much, because He loved me. He is the most attractive Person my heart can think of. “I count all things but dung, that I may win Christ.” Mark! that I may win, for that brings out the character of Paul’s gospel. What! a saved man talking of winning Christ? Oh! any who say that, do not understand Paul’s gospel—he could say I have Christ before me, He has claimed me, and it is the beauty of that Person in glory that I want to see—I want to be with Him in a glorified body—God gave Him to me, and me to Him, before the foundation of the world, and He washed me in His blood, Is that all? No! that Christ has claimed me and I claim Him—He is before my soul as a claimer of the life He has given me. He is gone on high, and I want to run up to Him to win Himself. What a blessed thing when I am with Him. It was Christ in his heart, Christ his only object from first to last; and he could not be satisfied but to find himself with, and like that Christ. When people discover Christ, as a real living Person in heaven, it is like a new revelation! What a different thing when people can talk of him, as a living Person, occupied with them, Searching their hearts; and when He is revealed for the first time, as a man in heaven, the beauty of that Christ gets hold of their hurts, and it is quite a new revelation. Paul could see Him, and knew himself to be connected with Him as a living Person, and that that Person’s eye was ever on him, giving brightness to his heart, in all his circumstances. It was resurrection, as one of the great characteristics of redemption power, that Paul wanted to know, and he was pressing on to the time when Christ would come, to pour out power from Himself, to give the fullness of eternal life to this body; but not only that, Paul said, but I want this body to be filled up now, that the life may shine out; and if so, Paul could not be without all sorts of afflictions, that the power of life might be manifested—tasting death and resurrection down here in a body of sin and death, what were difficulties and trials to Paul? He said, all I want is, for this earthen vessel to be filled with the power of life, so that Christ may shine out. Paul wanted fellowship in the sufferings of Christ. These sufferings were not all of one kind. 1st, there must be suffering from being in a world where none knew Christ, where all were under the prince of this world, and those around Paul could not make out what he was about. In connection with the sufferings of Christ Himself, in such a world as this, the divine perfection of His whole moral character, brought the vivid sense to His heart, as to what man was, in contrast with Himself. He knowing who He was, they looking on Him, only as “the carpenter’s son;” He knowing all the glory of God was in Him, and none here having a heart to recognize it. Again, what suffering to His heart connected with the rejection of the love of the heart of God, by man, He being sent, and coming with the message of mercy from God, and man would not have it, he had no taste for mercy. When it came to atonement, He was alone in suffering, no one could taste that—none take up the question of being a Sin-bearer save the Son of God. He did it, and was raised up to God’s right hand, Head of everything. And Paul was connected with this Son of God, and he wanted to show it to all, have all know what family he belonged to, wanted to be like Him in every part of his course, not only know Him in resurrection, but go down to His death. Have you known fellowship in suffering with Christ, known deep waters, you will have to go down to them. If you do not get sorrow in fellowship with Christ, you will get it in discipline. If Paul had borne the mark of being a ruined creature, and Christ had taken him up to make him His would he not have a mark to reflect the person, who now said, you are mine? Not only did he wish to purify himself even as Christ is pure, but evidently in everything he desired the mark of being Christ’s, even the lashes. Something beautiful in the way he could glory in all that Satan or man could inflict, because he would be like his Master. When an object so glorious, so attractive as that Christ, was revealed to him, what henceforward could he do, but show what that object was to him. It is true with the hearts of men, when they have any object they love, they will accommodate everything to that object. It is impossible to say Christ has revealed Himself to me as the one who loves me, and has cleared me of all that God had against me, and yet not have it the one desire of my mind and heart, to set myself to be His whilst it is called today—living to Him. Paul loved his master, and could not help living to Him. I ask you to look carefully at this portion. It shows you the life of a man down here, who had one life with Christ, seeing all through his course its connection with this—I have made thee mine. If a person have only one object down here to live to, that object will be his one desire.