Notes of G. V. W., Lecture on Phil. 1
The definite notice we find in the beginning of this chapter relative to the former order of the Church at Philippi is remarkable, because the epistle is all about eternal life in the believer, and the heart of Paul laboring in prayer for these Philippians; and there he takes up the subject of the epistle —eternal life— displayed on earth so that people could see it; he was the servant of God in prison, and the eternal life shining brightly.
I would refer to John 14:20— “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father,” &c. It is not feeling but knowing that I want faith leading to action. Three things ye shall know “at that day”— 1, “I am in my Father;” 2, “Ye in me,” “I in you,” “and for their sakes I sanctify myself,” &c. If Christ had not gone up, there could be no sanctifying for us now. Of all truth He “in the Father” is the most important. It is most brought out in Col., and “Ye in me;” in Ephes., and “I in you;” in Phil. “I am in the Father,” is the most important, and “I in you” next. Paul begins with “I in you.” There is very little of that in the teaching of the present day, i.e., a person walking down here, by Christ being in him and the Holy Ghost taking the direction; and 2nd, “I in him.” People say responsibility must not be pressed. Truly, as descendants of Adam the first, you cannot give account of self, it would be low if so, but if you say God has no claim over a believer, and if you strip him of it, you cripple him. “Be ye holy,” &c., not as a man could I do it, but as a command, in connection with light in me. A believer says, when light comes on anything, “I shall not do that; it is not holy.” The question of in being entirely settled, God says, I have not a word against you as to that, but if you do a single thing contrary to me you shall hear of it. It is a word that comes to a child from the Father—as one with the blood on me, I am to walk not as the world walks.
Paul is in prison. Paul in this position is hedged up, everything against him, and yet how bright is his heart! If any saw it so in me, in sorrow or trial, might they not say, that is not what belongs to me as an individual? The Lord knew Paul as Saul, and Paul was as unlike Saul as light is unlike darkness. There he is, and if surrounded by all the wickedness of men and of false professors, he cannot get his eye off Christ; that is not like Saul of Tarsus, it is a great deal too like Christ, to be like Saul of Tarsus! he says “the things that happened unto me, have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” What! to account being in bonds a good thing? Yes! it has stirred up the courage of believers without, who even passed through deeper waters than Paul! He was a model man; he said, do not pity my bonds! It is for Christ’s sake I wear them. I have got the mark on me of following Him, and these bonds stir up the courage of others to witness for Him. If I get suffering here, I shall get glory with Christ. If trying, as is said, to walk to heaven in silver slippers, you will not have the thought of glory, as had Paul. What! give up that, or the other! don’t say a word of it—when Christ died and is up there, don’t say a word of all you can give up, when He is up there, saying, “if your shoulder is worn with the harness, mine was—that is the path I passed through, and like master like servant.” It is joy, not sorrow, if His gospel is ours, and we have to suffer for it. In times of persecution the gospel has been talked of in the ears of those opposed to it—what then, “in every way,” etc. Paul wanted the name of Christ to be announced by every means and everywhere.
How is it your hearts are not full of Christ? thinking; of Him in everything? He, the one eternal lover of your souls, who has borne with your bad manners, in the wilderness! the One, who is coming for you, on the cloud; now on the throne, occupied with you, and can you say, how could Paul be so full of this Christ? We think of paying out for Christ, instead of dwelling on what He paid in for us, up there divinely. When God calls a soul, He reveals Himself as entirely for that soul. Salvation is connected with three distinct things. We have the “soul” saved now, but not the body—that will (if the Lord do not come first) go into the dust; the purchase-money has been paid, but the application of life-giving power to the body not yet till Christ comes to raise the dead and change the living. Now, a process is going on, God working to make me like Christ, and sorrows and trials are not only like sand and grit used to polish a stone, but that I shall be made to taste, through the troubles, what Christ is to me. The twentieth verse is very sweet—Paul’s “earnest expectation and hope” here, not the coming of the Lord, but another hope. He could count a place, where all were is darkness and the power of Satan rampant, a place of blessing if Christ might there be magnified in his body; and what ought a believer to be doing now if not magnifying Christ? Paul wanted his circumstances to make Christ much more tangible, and so it was: the anointing was so perfect on his eye he could not see anything but Christ, and in connection with those persecutors and false professors Paul said, it is Christ I want them to see; I want to be like a lens, to magnify Christ. It was what Christ was to Paul that is seen here. It is very important to let what I am taught of God and of Christ appear before men—because of teaching them what God and Christ are to me. Paul had Christ, in the power of His eternal life, so ruling every desire and thought, that, with a chain on his foot and hand, all he thinks of is, that Christ should be magnified; he wants Christ to be known. It was Christ he was suffering for, and he knew His heart was hearing him; he felt His love, he tasted it, he could say, did He not come and tell me He would go with me to Rome? Did He not give me a word, when all were in despair, to make all the people in the ship know that my God was everything to me?
Which of you could say, there is that singleness of eye, that earnest desire to live Christ, saying, till Christ comes I want Him to be shining out? Some say it more than others. The Lord someday will have to put many into the furnace, to destroy what is of the world. You could not be a bit the same as Christ: He was holy and undefiled, you have the law of sin and death in your members: you can walk like Christ, but not be like Him. Paul could say, “follow me as I follow Christ.” Paul had every evil in him (as we have), he takes care to show he was what we are on the bad side, let us take care to show we are what he was on the good side. How blessed if any were so walking that persons could say—looking at the walk of that one—I see more of Christ than I ever before knew.
But if conscious of being under the eye of Christ, one knows that He is taking notice of everything. Paul had to face persecutors and false prophets, but he knew the eye of One to be upon him, whose love would not let a single circumstance pass unnoticed (not even a gray hair); and that becomes the molding process of His love on me. If I live or die, in the act of departing I should find Christ there. In everything about me, I have the blessed consciousness of Christ being there. “To me to live,” etc. Not a single thing that should not be the means of bringing out Christ. “To me to live is Christ,” takes in more than the outshining of Christ into the heart, as the smitten one, whose blood flowed, to wash away all sins; to all who have faith in that blood light flows; one spirit with the Lord takes in all, not the question of my having life in Christ, but of manifesting it, as a saint. Have you a little stock of your own, to trade upon; or, saying no! nothing of my own; “to me to live is Christ” today. There is a certain power of life in Christ, that is to be told out, in a very precious way, in each one of His own “Having loved them, He loves them to the end.” I am His; He had owned me as His, in all my wanderings, and He will love me to the end. If an angel were to come to my bed-side, to tell me Christ was occupied with me, as a member of His body, should I be more certain of that love, than I am? It is no delusion, but a fact, that Christ loves me, and will love me right on to the end. He won’t cease making me to know it, till He gets me into the Fathers’ house, to be forever in the full fruition of it. He is in heaven now as our advocate with the Father. If occupied with the outgoings of self, it is like a great mountain of snow, but if I get into communion with Him, self cannot come in. You cannot say “To me to live is Christ,” if you have not got the motive love to Him. If pleasing your father or mother, without a thought to please Christ, it is nothing, but if doing it, because of its being part of life in Christ, that you would manifest, it would be quite different.
Christ stands with His people. If you take up a thing in His name, you may be quite sure, He is near you, and will carry you through it, by His sustaining power. If I were to die tomorrow morning, Christ would be in it. He puts us to school, and does not take us out till He has done His work in us; then “to me to die is gain.” We get a beautiful picture in the way in which the eternal life, which Christ had with the Father, before the world was, was brought out in the life of Paul. His eye ever fixed on Christ above, his whole soul knit up with Him in heaven, ever drawing power out of that Christ, to live to Him. What a happy people we should be, if we were mirrors, reflecting Christ in the perfect consciousness of all our weakness, but looking at Christ in heaven, bearing up amidst all the evil coming in like a flood, because He is in the glory with God in heaven. Instead of gathering up all the imagery on earth, to be magnifying Him in these bodies, whether by life, or by death, ever our happy condition.