Lecture on Philippians
Table of Contents
For Me to Live Is Christ
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 Colossians and " Ye in me;" in Ephesians and " I in you; " in Philippians " 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, shall not do that; it is not holy." The question of sin 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 1 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 1 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 conies 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 in 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 some day 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 spew 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 " to-day. 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 Inc 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 to-morrow morning, Christ would be in it. He puts us to school, and does not take us out till He leas 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.
Christ Himself Our One Object
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 hew 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 s 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 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 I of Paul's gospel. What! a saved man talking of winning Christ? Oh! any who say that, do not understand Paul's gospel—lie 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 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 hearts, 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 2 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 to-day—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.
Christ Jesus Our Pattern
Notes of G. V. W.; Lecture on Phil. 2
I WAS looking last, time at the 1St chapter, as presenting the measure in which, by a man of like passions as we, eternal life was exhibited down here. This epistle being a sort of practical commentary of that word in the Gospel of John, "I in you." We find the power of eternal life in Christ dwelling in and being manifested down here in a man (Paul), and Paul could get into circumstances to write a letter to his beloved Philippians, and let out most strikingly this eternal life dwelling in him. In chapter i. verse 20, he says, " In nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." In circumstances where everything might be supposed calculated to bow down the heart, but no! The only thought in that heart was, that Christ might be in him, magnified.
We find in chapter i. the principle of eternal life-" For to me to live is Christ; " and in the 2nd chapter the pattern of the eternal life in the blessed Son Himself. Here very remarkable words are used. It is not English to say " To me to live is Christ." Here it points to what was that life of the Son, in the 1St chapter, the power of Paul in manifesting that life. He could say truly " To me to live is Christ." As the hands of a clock tell of that which is working inside, so Paul's life told of what was in his heart. He couldn't have said " To me to live is Christ " without the throbbing of that life in his soul.
Verse 1St. "If there be any," etc. Here he teaches notes well known to himself and these Philippians, calling on them to answer by a walk becoming the servant of Christ. He is a man full of the anointing, seeing everything in the presence of. God. " Fulfill my joy;" " Consider one another." Let' every one be the mark of another, not occupied with self, but with those who are the objects of Christ's love; If I see you' trying to build one another up, it is the joy of my heart.,,
Verse 5. " Let this mind," or, let this be minded by you. People read this, as if' it referred to the power of God in the mind., but it, is very different; it is the power of intelligence as to' the mind of God. He, has a 'mind of His own-man has not that mind, but he can understand the things of God. He has given us eternal life, we have the principle, and, are to exercise it as Christ did. From first to last, Christ was the servant, the Sent One, doing God's will-" Let this mind be' in you." It is the thinking, as Christ thought-not the mind of God-but the principle he has given, and what He is, ever sustaining. 'His name be praised, Christ's whole heart was set on His Father's mind. God had not two thoughts. He carried out the one, thought of -the Father's mind, and to, do it, had to come down here, to the death of the Cross. If I want to be thoroughly ashamed of self, it is when reading this chapter, contrasting self with that Divine. One, He who_ through His whole course never had a will. Every day, as a saint, I find I have a will that' must be kept under. Paul does not care what he suffers, or what becomes of him, so long as Christ be magnified in his body-he attained to an immense extent like-mindedness with Christ. We do not illustrate that eternal life Chris. It has given us, as did Paul, looking at the character of the glory of the Son here; it is not the humiliation only of the Son of man (the. Spirit of God, is very guarded) He being in the form of God, verses 7, 8. Who was that babe in the manger? Ah! that manger' was a good place, by way of contrast with the glory of the titles brought out there. Who was that babe? The one over whom angel's sung, the only begotten in the bosom of the Father. He came down and lay in a manger-the one who thought it not robbery to be equal with God. He emptied Himself, He did make Himself of no reputation, washing His disciples' feet. This blessed One laid everything aside. All the divine power was in Him. He, the one by whom God made all things, 'when He came down and died, He laid it all in abeyance. I could not do that; if I tried to lay aside anything that distinguished me from others, it would be sure to come out, just when I did not want it to betray me, but He had perfect, absolute self control over Himself. I could not trust to your patience or forbearance with me, but I can trust God's perfect patience. Where should you find a man that would willingly abide under a yoke? The will tosses there, and Christ has to put His children there, to break that will down, saying " Now, I have done that, you can walk under my yoke and find it easy." Who but God could have gone on 4000 years with man, finding nothing but sin, sin, sin, till His Son came, the only one without sin and (He having been put to death) going on again 2000 years longer, and at the end, still unwearied in patience and goodness. What a heart the Lord Jesus must have after 6000 years of nothing but man's sin and the failure of His people, saying at the end, "Behold! I come quickly." He has a heart not like ours, but the contrast of all that we are. Adam's desire was "to become one of us (Gen. 3:22.) The blessed Lord was the Son, and the object of all worship, not a thing to be snatched at. He was it. "Being obedient unto death," going to the cross, with the consciousness that He was the Son of the Father, in whom all the Father's eternal counsels stood, and saying, " Lo, I come to do thy will." He could go down even to the death of the cross. He said, " I have power to lay down my life," etc. I do not bring in the thought of atonement there; it is the perfection there of obedience, spewing how entirely His mind was subject to God and the Father. Everything He did He did as the servant of God. We can turn to Him and say, there is One whom we Can trace from the manger to the cross, and never find but on two occasions the expression of a will of His own, and that expression each time was perfect. The first-when anticipating drinking the cup the Father had given, and it would not have been perfect unless thus..Was it nothing to that holy One to think of all the billows and wrath He was going to bear for sin? The Gnostics said he did not suffer at all-it was a dreadful heresy. If not there as sin-bearer, all the fruits of His having died would have been at an end. He would not take the cup from man's hand, but at God's. The second expression of His will is in John 17th, " Father, I will," &c. What a blessed expression of perfect satisfaction in those poor things. He was soon going to leave them, and He could say, " Father, I have kept them in thy name," and I am coming for them, " and will that they should be with me where I am." He would not be alone in glory, He would have them sharers of it.
You and I have wills that are constantly working. You should get your will judged by the contrast between you and Christ. Get the beauty of Christ coming cloven, without any will, saying, " Lo, I come to do Thy will, and but for that will having been perfectly fulfilled, you would have been writhing eternally in hell.: Adam snatched. after what he thought would better' his circumstances, and he got Satan to be his patron, to get some thing for self. Christ walked down here perfectly will-less. Man had done what he liked, hut God had stood behind and given the cup (that was what man. would not see). The cup was not what He met with from the hand of, man, but from God. It was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that He should die, and that as a man, because of carrying out all the counsels of God, he should go up to the highest place-everything in heaven; and earth to bow down to Him. Oh, how just God is! Did you ever snatch at a thing which God would have given you? Paul had a will, he would go to Jerusalem and had to go to Rome, but the Lord said, I shall go with you. Now will-less, I am as Christ, whose will it was to be the subject servant of God, nothing else, and there He is in the glory now, still in this character.
How little one's heart thinks of Him. Paul thought a great deal of Him. When could He get water enough, even to „turn that wheel? Water enough to keep his heart fresher and fresher as lie went on? Oh! It was the person of. Christ revealing 'Himself, that and only that, kept his heart fresh. That one, now on the Throne, in the highest place, because of His most perfect subjection: what a thought, that He is the eternal lover of souls, and all that I, have is in. Him; and it is all given me by the Father, and He will keep it.. The Holy Ghost sent down by. Him, seals it upon our heart, so that we can say, we know whose we are, that we are loved by Him-" God working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure." He would have a people, with all the freshness of the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ for them. If God is working in us, there: is no distance between the potter and the vessel; it is in the potter's hand fashioning it and his hand is very close to the clay.
It is very blessed to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, but we must take care to remember that it is God who is molding and working in us, as He did in Paul, that Christ may be magnified in these bodies, whether by life or by death. There is not a thing I may be doing, that is bright to me now, that will continue to look bright in heaven unless Christ be the object of it. It is the expression of the life of Christ in a person that must be made manifest, one may be in bed sick; another running over the earth preaching, another in prison, no matter where it be, if Christ be in him, that set of circumstances he is in, is just the place where the life of Christ is to break forth and to shine most brightly. If a believer bad to take to his bed, for six weeks, and came to Christ, saying " Lord fill this chamber with Thyself," what brightness theft:, would be You do not find with many now, that Christ is first, Christ second, Christ third, not the rock, whence all supplies are to be drawn, not all handed up to Him, as the one teaching His child to read. You do not find likeness to Christ coming out, not like a seal with a good engraving; from which; if you gave me wax, I could make a good impression. Let Christ be inside and Christ will shine out; but if you let your heart be filled with care and trouble Christ cannot shine out, you will know what joy is when He can shine out; " Work out your own salvation," and when Christ has revealed Himself to me as a Savior, and ''I know the question of sin is settled, having eternal life, God says, " Now I shall teach you what a win you have, how unlike you are to 'my Son." God 'wants to have this body, soul, and spirit, all for Hiinself. If you see any beauty in Christ, and say "Ii would desire to have that," God' will work it in you.
In verses 15 and 16, we have a picture of what Christ
was down here. Christ shined forth all through His course. We are called to follow Him-" to be blameless," &c. Paul adds, " that I may rejoice," &c. There is one thing very sweet, and that is the communion of the saints in glory. Paul could say, " I shall meet you in the glory, and I want your walk to be such now, that you may be my joy and crown of rejoicing in that presence." If Paul stand there, with those beloved Philippians and Thessalonians as his crown of rejoicing, the great principle is brought out, that everything done down here for Christ will then shine out, and people will have the joy of it coming out there. The real question of sin is, the wanting to have a will of your own. Christ had none. He never found anything to be bitter, because He took it all from the Father's hand. We fret because we think things are so cruel, and complain because Satan has got such power; but all is under the hand of God, and there you get God's love, God permitting these things for blessing afterward, as in the case of Job. When I have looked back, at trials, and I have seen how I wanted that process, and if inclined to glory in gifts-how God took away things to strip self of everything-that one might find Him enough, I got down on my face and there I found He was enough.
Looking for the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior
Salvation, in this epistle, is always looked at as a future thing, " Whence we look," &c. The ground of that is expressed in the 12Th verse, " Not as though I had." If the Lord Jesus Christ has taken possession of me for a certain thing, the question is, whether I have got it. The soul's confidence is not shaken by a future salvation when I look at Christ and say He has taken possession of me and what is it for? the answer is in His mind, there has been no shadow over it, nor thoughts of turning in His mind, for 1800 years. Have I got it yet? No! Shall I have it? Yes! as certainly as that I am His. People do not see that Christ is the one to whom they belong, the one to whom the Father gave a people, before the foundation of the world. When was that understood? In the garden of Eden? No! God's great dealing in the old Testament was proving that from first to last, the creature was so completely ruined, he could not hold any good thing in his hand, and often the very magnitude of the failure caused the good thing to be given. The Lord was pleased to bring out the question of will in the creature, and when this came out, sentence was pronounced against him, and from that time the creature was on the round of being completely ruined. Christ was not affected by it. He was the only perfect will-less man He met Satan, and Satan found nothing in Him. He went through the world absolutely perfect, before God. You are not the same; you are ruined; and the ruin is seen first of all within you, in self-will and the want of subjection to the will of God, and in not having any intelligence as to what the mind of God is.
In the word, I find (as one who has life in Christ) that before the foundation of the world, God gave me to Christ. He did not come till 4000 years afterward, and having accomplished the work, to open the way into heaven. He went back to heaven, and sent down the Spirit, and He reveals God's thoughts about things in heaven before the world was created. He had got a heaven which He purposed to fill with a people chosen and accepted in His Son, and given to that Son as a heavenly bride. The sons and daughters He would bring in there, were seen as clearly in His mind, without a cloud, before the foundation of the world, as when they existed on earth. Paul could say, He apprehended me for that glory, as clearly as possible. He saw Paul and each since that time, and each particular individual who is to make up the complement of that body, of which His Son is head. Each distinct member was ever before the Divine mind like the tabernacle, not a stitch not foreseen and worked out. He might have closed up the whole thing in Peter. From the time He took possession of you, the Father could say, that person belongs to the Son of my love, not a shade between Him and the angels, in their seeing Him occupied with poor things down here. We do not get occupied, as we ought, with God's thoughts in heaven. In all the actings of Christ to Saul, He did just as He would to any other sheep down here. Principalities, and powers, and angels, have not been stupid observers of all the marvelous dealings of God with man. They saw Him who was in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, down here for thirty-three years, they knew Him in the three years and a-half of His ministry, and at the last, in that wondrous work, on which the security of redemption hangs.
They saw the law despised; and the Jews having murdered their Messiah, they saw Him then quietly in heaven sending first to those Jerusalem murderers, and from that time waiting quietly till the time when He will come and take all up. The angels see us and know His dealings with us. He loves the whole family with the same love. Not only that love came out to the eleven, washing their feet, but He lets it come out to all. But if He does so love all, He has not got them with Him yet, but He means to get them where 'He will say, " Behold I and the children," &c, and they will be like Him He will " fashion these bodies of humiliation like unto His own glorious body." Is that done yet? No, but it is as sure as if done; but we have to wait. The guardianship of the Shepherd over the greater part of the flock is ended, but He has not yet brought all in. He waits to bring them, every one, in; and then He will come to take all up. In this chapter the first Adam was the center of the system of Saul of Tarsus, and he discovered that there was a Center in heaven—the Lord Jesus Christ—and in Him was eternal life.
Christ came down, but did not take the place of Life-giver till smitten, and He has power to produce in believers the very eternal life He had before with the Father. He is the giver of it to us, as the smitten rock, whence eternal life flows down to us here. We get the character of it in the Apostle Paul getting a taste in the wilderness of that which is of all things the most precious, saying, As the Lord Jesus has taken possession of me, I shall have possession of Him one day. I shall run up to the goal, and see him at the end. The glorious body is to be given, but much more precious the blessing connected with what I get here, than what will be mine at the end. The heart of the Father will never be more set on me than now, but when I get to heaven I shall have a glorious body. Will it be the beauty of that or the Father, that I shall be occupied with? if the Father 1 have the best part already. Paul with that eagle gaze saw Christ up there. Did he think that when he should get there, the best part of it would be a glorified body? or being with Christ? Ah! He loves me—it's not the glory but Himself—but then my body will be the medium to reflect Him better than this poor body. Here evil 'comes in, and this body wants a thorn to guard it. Not so in my glorified body. Do you not say, if you find a thorn, Oh Satan has done this. Paul saw that it was Christ's love that permitted it; but when He brings you to heaven there will be no more thorns needed there, there will be no joint in the harness to gall the flesh; there, no heaviness. Poor Daniel sick, and John falling as dead at Patmos, but the body will become the medium of tasting perfectly what that Christ is, that followed with unwearied love the course of each down here. Is it the thought of any, that in the glory they shall be nearer Him than some then, or brighter than others. A h that is something for yourself. Paul won't be among the eleven apostles. Will he say, Oh 1 what a place they have got!
Paul has no place in Revelations 21:14. But if the Son takes him by the arm, and he walks into the glory, leaning on the Lord, or the Lord says to him, You Paul, get behind that pillar and look at the people you brought into the glory. Ali I Paul, I am the one that you alone desired to look at. Yes! Lord, Thou art the Lord who knew how to heap up things upon me, who kept pulling the vessel down into the waters and filling it up. A large vessel holds more than a smaller, but it is Himself, only Him, and Paul says I shall see Him one day and run right up in a glorious body, to be with Him (v. 18). It is a solemn thing, that these were not gross evil livers; there is not the question of putting them out, but certain ones of whom His heart stood in doubt. It is a searching! thing to all hearts. If I have Christ as the center of the system I am in, I have communion with Him, in the power of the eternal life He has given me, and I have to walk as one whom Christ knows to be in communion with Himself. People take the power of the Spirit to be marked by the manifestation of joy in a believer; so it is, but connected with it will be the fullness of self judgment. if near Christ, I shall see the utter contrast between Him and self, and self-judgment will be followed by fullness of joy in Him. The Church, as a system, is set up on earth, and soon there comes in corruption, and corruption of the highest thing is always the most disgusting. A sweet flower may become corrupt, but the corruption of that would be far less than the corruption of the body of a beautiful child. The corruption of Satan, as one of the highest angels, was far more dreadful than that of a subordinate creature. God chose a people, first of all before the foundation of the world; but second, there is the exercise of His grace and power in calling and bringing them out as His own people; as in the ease of Israel—God takes a people out of Egypt. When the power of God is put forth in revivals, people go out, but God passes them into difficulties. If He choose us, to bring us out, so He looks to see, afterward, whether we choose Him, and are separated from things down here, to go with Him He says I picked you up for the Son of my love to take you to heaven, and if so, you take care to go after Him. He sees all ruin in me, but He says you have not walked as you ought, but you are mine and I mean you to be there. If. God has given me salvation, He lays claim to me, as His own property. The way He shows His sovereignty you get in the call of Saul of Tarsus. Had not He a right to put two extremes together? Enemies of the Cross, they could hardly be inside the Assembly if they rejected Christianity, but they would not have the Cross between them and the world. The life of Christ was a life of humiliation. He came out of the Divine glory, down to the death of the cross, and if I have His life, I ought to want to carry that cross. I ought to want to have the same mind that He had. He came from off the throne eternal, from the highest to the lowest place, and I want His life in me, to act as His, I want it ta be a life of humiliation.
Rome, as the system of corruption, sits as queen of the earth: and in Protestantism the monarchs of the land became nursing fathers of the Church. Henry VIII. became independent of Rome because he could not marry another wife: and if we look around, where shall we find the Cross and Nazariteship amidst the miters and jewels and costly things of those who are living like princes, in many instances, I doubt not, feeling it a painful duty to do it—but where shall we find all that in connection with the Cross of Christ,? And when we come to individual! believers, do we find the Cross coming in to separate them, from earthly things? Do many, so see the beauty of the Son of God coming down, making it manifest through His whole course, that He was not of this world, and ending it in the death of the Cross, that they are saying, Oh! I want to be like that blessed One. I want to reflect that meekness, that lowliness, and if so, what a crowding of other things saying, and in such and such a thing I want to be like my Master, showing Christ's mind in everything,—all starting away and dropping off from you, that is not like Christ, minding God and the Father; on the other side everything crowding upon you in which to be like Christ in all you are passing through down here. How blessed that man up there, who has been most like Christ down here.
Then, the next blessed thought is, "our citizenship. &c." We are there already in spirit, and we look for Him to come, that we may be there, body, soul, and spirit.
There is something exceedingly beautiful to my own soul, that God gives us so little about to-morrow, except as connected with the coming of Christ. If translation could take place now, the expectation of it would take me off waiting for Christ to come as the Resurrection and the life, to fill up every part of me with the fullness of the power of eternal life. He soon shall come out of heaven to fill up every one now waiting for Him, and He shall bring them home as vessels filled up. He only is to do it. Something so sweet in God's thought, waiting till His Son has gathered the last of the people given Him by the Father, before the foundation of the world.
Soon He will come. He is to gather up all the sheaves, fitted by Himself, to go into the barn, and they will then know all His delight in them.
As we look at these poor bodies saying now, I have a body where I have a thorn, where the law of sin and death remains, but I do not mind it, He meant it to be so till He come, and then what a blessed deliverance! What a thought of that Lord, before taking me home making this body like His own, by the working of " His mighty, power subduing," &c. Was dragging His people out of Egypt, and through the Red Sea, All? No! He was going to take them into a land flowing with milk and honey, and He led them all the way. That is His thought, and He will not come till the work is done.
He does not call Sauls and leave them to walk alone No! He is watching them day and night. But when He gets those people into the Father's house, He will not be able to add anything whatever to them. The Father, saying of those people, after they are brought home, you are the fruit of my Son's work, and His glory is to be displayed through you. It is a very blessed thing to feel as those to whom Christ has given the light of eternal life, that not only all our springs are in Him who died to give it to us, but that the light is so to shine out, that the path of each one, however humble, may be marked by the spark of eternal life shining out the whole way.
The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ
Notes of G. V. W.'s Third Lecture on Phil. 3
THERE is a peculiar order in this Epistle. Paul presents in it the mind of God in a peculiar way. We see, in himself, (as a model man), how all the principles of the life of Christ acted.
In chap. i. the leading thought in him was, that be had only one thing to do on earth-to magnify Christ, in that poor perishing body of his-in that body, chained to a solder. He would magnify Christ, whether he lived or died. Any one walking in the Spirit would say "what a wonderful place he had!" he saw that the whole heart of Christ was set on him, and his was set on Christ; and, if so, what else could he do, but in his body to magnify that Christ? As Christ was, when down here, the representative of God-so Paul desired to be the representative of Christ.
Little do we know how the heart of Christ is set on a believer. Christ looks down on him saying, " There is one who was given to me, before the foundation of the world, I washed him in my blood, and as I died for him, I want him to live to me." It is this Christ, who is the fountain of life to a believer; and is it wonderful that Christ should look down, saying, I would have that one's whole heart set on me?
The 2nd chap. presents the perfection of Christ, in doing the work He came down to do. His whole course says, "ah! ah I ah!"to the first Adam. He had a will of his own, the Last Adam had no will of His own; He was the only will-less man on earth, all the time He walked down here, making nothing of self; all that the Father gave Him to do, He did, meeting the Father's mind and will, and He the only doer of it. In the perfection of the way He did the Father's will, we get the strength of God Himself as to salvation. If, as a sinner, I am connected with that work, I get into the very secret of the delight of the Father in Him, and invested with the whole glory belonging to His Son's work; He would have me say " Abba," with my whole heart, making it known He is " Abba " to me, even as to that only Son of His love. I get the springs in Christ and the fountain flows from God, through Christ's work and His having entirely met the Father's mind. He can look on me saying, " The Father gave you to me, how can I but love you? "
The results of the true circumcision as to walk, we find in chap. 2., but in this chap. 3, Paul gets to where he found these springs, in the revelation of the Christ, through the Gospel; then he goes on to the third part, i.e., the Savior Christ coming to perfect the body. There are three parts of salvation. The salvation of the soul, you must know that; then, working out salvation by the power of God working in the believer; then, an end flows, from walking consistently, and that is the glorification of the body.
One sees how an inclination to heresy comes in, from people losing sight of the sub-divisions marked in this chap. iii. People take up the notion, that God makes no difference in His dealings in giving salvation to an individual, and His dealings with that person afterward—but we get the difference clearly marked here. The first part of salvation is the poor sinner being brought to Christ, the Rock smitten. Ah! don't we see how the streams flow forth—precious streams of living water gushing out—not to God's people only, but to weary ones round about. We are so grossly selfish, it is always, where am I? what have I got? I stands up first, and that is the " old man "—but God does not begin with me, but with Christ. In the Father's house, will it be I and nothing for the heart to be interested in, save things connected with self? or will you there find Christ so completely the Center of that scene, so completely filling it and His love so precious, that you cannot have the least thought about yourself—so wrapt up with that Christ in the very light of His presence, that you can find no place for the T, the self, that fills up the thoughts in the present time. We have two centers down here, and I comes in before Christ. Paul had two, and had to give up self. If you were to pick out the best down here to be a center, you would find in him only the first Adam. What a different center, to wind things round, is this Christ of God; if He made Himself the center, to wind a man like Paul round, everything that Paul passed through of sorrow and difficulty, only became the means of winding him more and more round this Christ in heaven; and depend upon it, the brightness of that Christ would come out, not only to the joy of Paul, but of God Himself, to find His servant letting it out in a place of all others the most, difficult. (ver, 3.) " For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."
We have the mark of the people blest by God, "we are the circumcision." Here the Spirit and the flesh are contrasted; Christ cannot shine in the flesh; it is only in the Spirit He can shine. All connected with the first Adam, is a judged thing—the knife goes round to cut everything of flesh. In Eden, nothing that the hand of God could give enabled man to taste His redeeming love; but in the Paradise of God, we find a place of His own joy—a place where all His people will be gathered, and nothing to remind them of the first, save the name—not a place where man as a mere creature could find his joy. If we take the end of Revelation, and compare its descriptions with Eden, we find God in everything, showing the superiority.
Beware of dogs "; this was very severe from the lips of a Jew; a dog—a thing unclean altogether. Jews turning back to their own works, were these dogs. Next see the biggest beads he can string together on this human nature, v. 4, 5, 6. The first circumcision was like a finger-post, very important as showing that God would have a separated people, but that was practiced on Ishmael's family as well as on Abraham's.
A Pharisee, means a separated person "Concerning zeal," &c. To the Jew it was blasphemy (and very naturally so) to suppose the Eternal Jehovah dwelt in the Nazarene. The very Jehovah of Isaiah vi. tabernacling in flesh—was spit upon and buffeted. Paul's zeal came forth to exterminate, if possible, the darling delight of God's heart—the Church. This was the thing against which all the fiery zeal of Saul came forth, not only to, persecute, but in blasphemy and injurious words; he did not know any word too bad to give to Christ's followers. Of course he did not, he could not have such a thought as He, the Eternal God, having left heaven, to become a man, a despised. Nazarene, to go to the death of the Cross, to deliver poor sinners from judgment, by bearing it in their stead. Yet utterly impossible to find any other thing than that He who hung on that Cross was the eternal God, or the most wicked impostor that ever lived. "As touching the law blameless." Afterward Paul discovered the law had claims on the inward man, not the outward, and that there is no power in a rebel to turn round to God and say, " all my springs are in Thee." He found the " law was spiritual," &c., " he, sold under sin," When the excellency of the knowledge of Christ came, what was all he had counted gain for Christ? He suffered the loss of all things.
We see the contrast of the two Adams: no possibility of comparing them together. The thorough mistrust man had of God is a very painful thing; to feel that there is One that you cannot trust, that that One is the originator of whatever He likes;—that He is perfectly arbitrary and wills everything in the universe, and you cannot shut Him out. " If you take the wings of the morning and flee," &c., even there His hand will find you. He will turn everything to His own glory; His love to sinners being rejected, He knows how to throw back the whole of man's shame on himself, and he, to have to say, I owe to myself all my ruin, I chose to perish in my ruin, rather than be carried off as a sheep on the Shepherd's shoulder—the trophy of His love—I owe it to none but myself. Satan is not independent, he is subject to One who called him a "liar and murderer from the beginning." Neither are you independent, but you must either be subject to one who would like to tear everything to pieces, or to One who delights to bless; either you belong to Him, or if not, you will be spued out of His mouth. Every man living is in the one place or the other; you cannot be in both: either nothing but a football of Satan, or a poor withered flower, picked up to be worn by Christ, in His infinite grace. When Solomon had gathered everything that earth could yield of beauty and delight, the bubble burst, and all was vanity and death. What can suffice to fill the heart of a ruined creature (let everything be heaped up round him) if not subject to the One who came down, as the One in whom the heart can rest!
What broke in on Saul was the beauty of the eternal Son of God, who had come to Calvary, shed His blood and gone back to heaven, and there that Son of God had a heart to look round the earth to appropriate to Himself, one who was an enemy and a blasphemer, to make of him a model man. Who was this man? and who the One who looked down on him 2 He was "the Resurrection and the Life," saying, "You Paul have death in you, and if you go to the grave, there is the second death and nothing else for you; but if I, ' the Resurrection and the Life,' have taken your shame, and have gone down into death and the grave and am risen up out of it, then you and every one, if connected with Me, will come out of the grave too." This blessed One was raised up and planted by God, at His own right hand, as the center of all, and of every heart. God said, "I have brought in a new man altogether." Have we got self as our center, or this 'One who is the center of all God's dealings, and all His delight? a living man in heaven, making all new. This is the one presented in all beauty to Saul. I get the person of Christ in the gospel as the alone channel of blessing, the smitten rock from whence the waters are to flow, to prepare a people, so that He up there as 'first-born of many brethren, may have them with Himself in that scene of glory, where God and the Lamb will shine forth.
In the present day we have got the gospel corrupted and brought down to an infinitesimal measure of truth. I rejoice that any one should get the feeblest ray, but that would not be any acquisition in a badly presented Christ, or an excuse for only presenting one point, and not presenting the whole truth of God, and leaving it to work in the heart. Paul knew, not only Christ's blood as that which meets everything that unfits for glory, but he knew Christ Himself, as the center of the glory, and the one round whom all the counsels of God roll; he had Him ever fixing his eye, as the most beautiful of all objects; and he lived by the faith of that Christ who had loved Him, and gave Himself for him.
And what was the end to be? A very blessed one. The Lord would come forth to change His body of humiliation, to make it like his own immortal glorious body. He gives it by putting forth power to subdue all—everything to be filled up by Him, by that mighty power. Is He the One who is to give me a glorified body, and what else? Ah! (Paul said), He is the one who has guided me all through the wilderness—what else? Ah! is not His living person up there ever spewing to his servant down here His perfect acceptance, saying, the whole question of sin is settled, and here I am occupied with you. No one knows the path you are to walk save me; you are to walk where I walked. " I shall put your feet into the prints marked out by mine."
There is something very full in the "excellency of the knowledge of Christ." It is clearly the revelation of an object by God, on which his eye rests, an object whose beauty was beyond all thought of man; that Nazarene whom man despised, He it is who is there. He is my Lord. He loves me and I love Him. Do you know that Christ as a living person in glory as Paul did? and, if you do, is it the fruit of your own intelligence, or has God given you power beyond nature to look up and see Him, and as you do so, is it a place of gold—precious stones—that fixes your eye? No! it's a person, one who sees me—one that came down here to die for me, one who loves me and allows my heart to twine itself round Him as a person to be loved. Two things: an object presented to the heart so really attractive that I desire to draw near it because so attractive; and that object the Lord Jesus Christ in all His beauty on the throne of God. Ought not I to love the One who had a longing about me before the foundation of the world as one given Him by the Father. If I draw near to God, it is because I find Him on the throne with everything, not only for perfect rest of soul before God, but having, in Himself, everything attractive to the heart.
Poor pitiful things are we, but as a people connected with the Sonship, by the Father choosing us in the Son of His love, before the foundation of the world, the thirk„ that feeds our hearts, as it did Paul's, is the person of that Christ, His love to us so realized, that it is the one object of our hearts to love Him. Not one weakness, not a sharp. flint to cut the foot—but He just lets us see how He is taking the occasion presented by it, to show His love. You, poor Peter, will deny me, but I shall come again to fetch you to the place I am going to prepare for you because I want you. What rest to one's soul! What attractive power in His love! I find in self such waywardness of mind; I find things ruling me; I do not like walking here, I do not like the way I have to go; but what rest to know amidst it all, that He is up in heaven, and the flock under His hand and His power for them, as for a flock belonging to Him, and just where faithfulness fails His power comes in; for the sheep are His property, and He will surely guide and keep them to the end.
And what is it when it is the question of suffering, or the loss of all—He is ours! What did Paul give up? God says Christ is mine—I gave Him up for you—what have you given up for Him 2 There is a cup of water. Now have you displaced the water by putting something heavier into the cup? If you have a heart full of lusts and vanities—well how are you to give it all up? it is by the precious gold poured inside the vessel, and all there, is displaced by it. If I had a few copper pieces in my hand and a purse of gold were given me, I should lay the copper pieces in the street where a beggar could find them. Don't talk of what you have given up 1 If God have given you Christ—can you spare Him 2 Are you not obliged to say, Father Thou knowest what that gift of Thine is—Thou knowest about His cross and glory. And in the glory, oh what heart can conceive what it will be to look in that face What will you say then of the beauty of Christ? The woman of Samaria said, " Come and see a man," etc., He had talked at that well with her half an hour and she could say He read, not only this unclean heart, but all that I ever have done, and He hadn't a heart to condemn me. Oh when we think of what that Christ is personally, who shall read the fullness of the Godhead in Him and not feel like a little child looking at the Father who gave Him, and feeling He knows all about Him, and there the heart rests.
Evangelists say, How can the gospel suit a person that does not know he is a sinner? It did me. I found by it, that God had given Christ, and the Person of that Christ, as a living man, with all human affections occupied in heaven with me, was revealed to my heart, first bringing out a flood of affections, the rest came afterward, and I had to learn all my sinnership; but I got my heart caught by the beauty of that Christ. I have not got Him yet, but God has got Him for me; rays of light shine down from His face, but I shall not see Him till He come to take is up, but I can raise my voice and join the saints in songs of praise, till I see Jesus and am glorified together with them.