The epistle to the Philippians leads us into a very peculiar apprehension of the Christian’s path. Christian experience is before us, and not the doctrines of Christianity.
It is this which characterizes the Epistle throughout. We find in it that the soul has learned that which renders it superior to all the testing of circumstances through which it has to pass. This is why I call it peculiar, for in saying it is Christian experience, one says a great deal, for it is really the life of Christ in the saint, tested by circumstances, but found under the testing superior to them all. And it is well for our souls to look this in the face, and to see how far our own spirits in tone, and thought, and mind, answer to this each day.
And here I would remark, that as it is the Christian’s path through the world that is before us in this epistle, we shall find that salvation is always put at the end of the path as a thing to be obtained. Thus the apostle says in the first chapter (v. 19), “This shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” So in the third chapter, when he is speaking of himself, he does not say, he is in Christ, but “that I may win Christ, and be found in him.” Christ is the object for which he is running. It is in the same character he speaks of righteousness. He does not say here “made the righteousness of God in him,” but you see him casting away his righteousness, which he had by the law, that he might be found in Christ, “not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of —Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” Again, in the second chapter, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you.” Always, you see, looking to the end for salvation. It is thus scripture always speaks of salvation, when it takes up our responsibility as Christians. But in speaking thus, such scriptures always suppose us set in redemption, and then address us upon our responsibility, as being in a settled relationship with God.
It is most important to see this, that we are first set in the place of redemption, before we are called upon to run to the end of the race. In looking into this Epistle you will see how the path lies through all kinds of adverse circumstances, but at the same time you will see that there is a power come in by Christianity that supposes this, that in running the Christian course, we should be always glorifying Christ, and entirely above the circumstances in which we are found.
Before pressing upon you what the path is, and the responsibility flowing from our place as Christians, I will say a few words upon the exercises which the soul goes through before it can take this place. In fact, these exercises before redemption is known are kept entirely distinct in God’s word from the exercises and responsibility which characterize us as Christians, after having received the knowledge of redemption. It is most important that we should be clear as to this, for one finds that persons are constantly mixing up their responsibility with their standing.
Responsibility always flows from the place in which we are. You must be in a relationship before you can have the responsibilities, duties, if you please, of the relationship. I must be a child before I can act as a child ought to act to his father; and so with the woman, she must be a wife before her responsibility as a wife begins. Now sin has not destroyed our responsibility to God as His creatures. But sin having come in, the responsibility of man as such must end in judgment. The soul must learn this before it can know redemption, which delivers us from that standing altogether. It is when we know that Christ has met this responsibility in the cross, and that we are accepted in Him, as gone on high, that Christian responsibility begins; whereas our responsibility as sinners refers to our acceptance. As to this responsibility, we have God’s testimony that we are lost. But souls individually go through a process shorter or longer, before coming to this in the conscience, before, as Scripture puts— it, “submitting themselves to the righteousness of God.” It may be learned suddenly or it may be a longer process, but it must be learned, “That,” as the apostle says, “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” The deeper the plowing up in learning this the better, but whether it be by a process shorter or longer, we must come to this judgment of what we are in the presence of God, before we can know what God has wrought through and in Christ to deliver us from this condition altogether. Before we can learn that, as regards our standing in Adam as sinners, we are redeemed out of it by Christ, and now we are in Him, accepted in the Beloved. The old state and standing is gone, and the believer’s place is in a standing and condition, which God has made for him in Christ. The angels see us in Christ up there. Christ is in us down here—do those around, does the world see that as clearly?
These exercises of the soul which precede this knowledge of our settled Christian place are all most valuable and useful, in order to teach us thoroughly what we are, and that our standing is not in the flesh, and we get settled peace by knowing we are not in the flesh at all. We put our seal to the truth of God, in the judgment He puts upon us, and our souls, having divine light, say, “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing;” not only as a doctrine in Scripture, but saying it as true of ourselves in the presence of God. It is then we get settled peace. Christ has gone through the judgment, and all the fruits of the flesh have been borne by Christ on the cross, and are put away forever, so that the whole thing is put away from God’s sight. But more than that, Christ glorified God by doing it, and has entered into God’s presence as man on high. He has entered as conqueror, and He sends down the Comforter to dwell in us, so that I can say, my standing is no more in the flesh, in the first Adam at all, but in the second! I was lost, but He has died to put away sin, he has been made sin and has borne our sins, so that the nature and its acts are all gone, and I am no more in the flesh, but in Christ, united to Him by the Spirit, and thus a new creation in Him. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you,” is my consciousness now.
Thus we are delivered entirely from our responsibility as belonging to the first Adam, before Christian responsibility begins. When in the flesh I was responsible to God, and was hoping to be saved, and found myself lost on that ground. Christian responsibility flows from another standing and relationship altogether. I did belong to the first Adam, and was lost. I do belong to the last Adam, and am saved. I now am in Him, in the new man. There is a responsibility connected with that. You find in this epistle, not the doctrines stated to bring us into this place, though there are statements of doctrine, for instance, the statement in the third chapter of the righteousness of God, as we find in all the word of God, but what characterizes the epistle is the effect produced by. the Spirit of God in the Christian, when he is in this place of acceptance, and not the doctrines about the place.
We have to judge ourselves, whether, if in this place, we are using this true liberty, as James says, according to the “perfect law of liberty;” walking as those who have died to sin, and are alive to God through Jesus Christ.
Now there is another remark I would make. Sin is never mentioned in the epistle, and this comes out remarkably in the third chapter, when he is speaking of justification. Even there sin is not mentioned. It is his righteousness, and not his sins, that he casts away; so that he may have a better righteousness, even “the righteousness which is of God by faith.” It is not that the flesh was altered in Paul. The flesh never grows better. Paul needed a thorn to keep it down, but what we find in this epistle is that a power has come in and dwells in us, which leaves us always without excuse, if there is a thought even that is not under the control of the Spirit of God. I grant that it is not always at the moment of trial that you have power to resist, but if there had been watchfulness and distrust of self, you would not have got into that condition.
There may be liberty of heart with God, and confidence in Him, so as to say, I am a child of God, and I know my place in Christ, and can rejoice in it, as the testimony of the riches of God’s mercy. All this may be true, and I suppose it, but is there that practical occupation of the heart with Christ, that you can say, “to me to live is Christ?” Is there the pressing after Him to win Him Is there “the growing up into Him in all things?” We can say, “He has given me a place with His Son. He has united me to Him, and I am in His child.” We may rejoice in this being our place, and that we are thus in Him, and that He will display His glory in us throughout the countless ages of eternity. This is what the Holy Ghost gives us now to enjoy in Him. We are of God, part of His new creation in Christ, and in this we find all is perfection. “All things are of God.” Well, then, the believer can say, “I am of God. I have a place which is the testimony of the riches of His grace. He has given me a place with and in His Son, that I may be like Him and enjoy this nearness to God which Christ has. But if Christ is in the presence of God for me, I am here in this world for Him.” It is there— where God has set us. All is perfect in Christ. The old man crucified with Him, put off with his deeds, and the new man put on, but yet as a matter of fact we have the flesh to contend with, and we have a scene to go through where everything is temptation. Consequently, the character we take is overcoming, realizing the presence of God with us in the midst of evil, but because God’s strength is with the Christian, we find in the Apostle’s path through the Epistle, uniform, constant, unvarying superiority over the evil, so that he could say, “To me to live is Christ.” Now, dear brethren, I ask is it thus with you? I am not speaking of outward conduct. I suppose your life to be blameless before others. Where it is sin, that others can see, then it is a case for the discipline of the Church, but I am not supposing this of any here. I suppose that your life is outwardly what is right and becoming, but then our outward conduct is but a part of our life,—the far greater part of our daily life goes on in our thoughts and feelings. It is in what passes within hour by hour that we really live. Well then, in speaking for myself, and supposing much the same of you, even in looking back upon this day, one cannot say of oneself, “For me to live was Christ.” I don’t doubt it, we ask, as being true of you in the main. I grant that your own conscience will know whether even in the main it has been true of you today; but I come now to your thoughts and their ‘sources. Was Christ in them all this day? Was the Spirit the source of them all? Surely in looking back only one day, one sees that a thousand things have traveled over the road of one’s, soul which neither Christ nor the Spirit let in.
We have a beautiful figure of this guardianship of the entire man under Christ and the Spirit, in the Old Testament type of the cleansing of the leper where blood was put on the tip of the right ear, upon the thumb of the right hand, and upon the great toe of the right foot, and then the oil put upon the. blood. Every avenue to the mind, guarded in this double way by the blood and the oil on the ear, that nothing might pass, which was unbecoming Christ’s glory or the Spirit’s presence. Then every action of the man, guarded in this double way by the blood and the oil on the thumb of the right hand, and so with the foot, that the whole walk should be under the same guardian care. Surely in looking back only one day, we shall find much that has passed the blood, that Christ did not let in. Many thoughts and desires not coining from the Spirit.
The Lord give unto us, beloved brethren, that there may be such an occupation of heart with Christ, such a living in the fear of God, such a walking in the gracious guidance of the Spirit, that we may be able to say like the Apostle, “To me to live is Christ, and to die, gain.”