What a power of attraction lies in a beautiful and desirable goal! It sets into motion all the spiritual and bodily capacities. The more glorious the goal, the greater the effort to reach it. Day by day this may be perceived in the pursuits of this world, so vain and yet so eagerly and perseveringly carried on, it may be at a race or regatta, where every muscle, nerve, and sinew is being strained to the utmost to reach the desired goal; or in the arena of political ambition, or military fame, or other vanities of this world, where, in the pursuit of the fervently coveted goal, other attractive objects lose their charm, the competitors being wholly absorbed with the goal of attraction before them, which does not permit of side looks. The nearer to the goal, the greater the efforts, perseverance, and undivided attention of the one who runs in the race. Many otherwise attractive objects by the wayside are scarcely perceived, and soon left behind in the distance.
Judaism with its privileges, ceremonies, and self-efforts, so attractive and desirable to the religious natural man, remained like a distant coast far behind Paul, making for the shore of resurrection, and for Him Who stood on that shore, not only a risen Savior, as He appeared to His fishing disciples on this earthly shore (John 21)—to show them, that He, though risen, with the same love as when He was daily walking with them on earth, continued to care for their earthly necessities—but as the ascended and glorified head of the church, as He appeared to Stephen, His martyr, and to Paul, Stephen's persecutor, on his way to Damascus. All those splendid religious privileges had paled and faded away before Paul's glorious goal of attraction. When the sun rises, not only the darkness disappears but also the stars.
All those things that had appeared desirable to Paul, the Jew, lay now behind him like a distant coast; nay, lie had entirely lost sight of them, though not of his former co-religionists. To him not only did all these things appear to be nothing but dung; but, more so, he had forgotten them altogether. Sometimes we hear a Christian with great animation “recounting” what he has “given up” for Christ and for Christian truth. He thereby only shows how much he values that which he professes to have given up for Christ, and how little he has realized what Christ has given up for him, and not only given up, but also given, for He “gave Himself for us.” He further proves how far he is from having understood the meaning of our apostle when he wrote to the same Philippians: “For unto you it is given, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” Such looking back towards the religious “camp,” from which one professes to have gone forth “unto Him” (Heb. 13:1313Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Hebrews 13:13)), further shows that one has not yet arrived at that happy forgetfulness of those Old Testament witnesses of faith in the eleventh chapter of the same Epistle to the Hebrews, who were not even “mindful of that country from whence they came out” (ver. 15). When all those things, which once appeared a precious “gain” to Saul, had become to Paul naught but “loss” and “dung” for Christ's sake, he did not think that he had “given up” something for Christ's sake. One does not give up dung, one throws it away, if one sees it really to be such. A “gain” I might give up, but a “loss” I do not give up, but avoid it. And as those blessed forefathers of the apostle had forgotten that country from whence they came out, so Paul forgot the “camp,” with its contents so dear and precious, and its recollections so sacred to the heart of a Jew. To him all this had become not only “flesh,” “loss,” and even “dung,” but he continues, “One thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
If any one might speak of having “given up” something for Christ, Paul was the man. But to him all this was now only “that which is behind.” What is behind is soon forgotten, especially if it is nothing but dung. So Paul, the apostle, had forgotten all that which to the zealous Jew, Saul, had been the most precious privileges and glorious attainments. Was it because these privileges and blessings given by God to His earthly people were esteemed lightly by him? Or had his heart, since he had been “apprehended by Christ,” been alienated from his former co-religionists through the bitter persecution he had suffered from them? Such a spirit was far from him. Let his own words speak. “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish to be accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the services, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:1-51I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 9:1‑5)).
These words show that Paul, the apostle, did not esteem lightly the privileges which God had given to Israel. And so great was his love to his “brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh,” that like Moses (who wished to be blotted out of the book of God, if He would not pardon Israel's sin), Paul also had wished, for his people's sake, to be banished from Christ with a curse. And this after all the bitter persecution and abuse he had to experience at their hands! But as the sun with renewed and fresh splendor breaks through the dark clouds and scatters them, so at the close of that memorable passage, in even heightened splendor shines forth the priceless value and glory of Christ, “Who is over all, God blessed forever.” Amen.
All these splendid privileges of Judaism disappeared before Christ, the glorified Head of the church, as the fog before the sun. To the Hebrews the apostle wrote, “Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away;” and to the Corinthians, “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ, after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Apprehended by Christ, he sought to apprehend the glorious prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, forgetting those things which to him were “behind,” and reaching forth unto those things which were before him, his eyes steadily looking towards the goal, and thus “pressing toward the mark.” And let us heed what follows: “Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded; and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” And, “Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.” “For our conversation [or citizenship] is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.”
Christian reader, is your “horn filled with oil?” (1 Sam. 16:11And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons. (1 Samuel 16:1).) Are we “filled with the Spirit” Who glorifieth Christ, receiveth from His, and showeth it unto us? if so, we shall be able to discern a false Christ from a true one; and our hearts, like Mary's pure and white alabaster box, will be filled with the precious “ointment of pure nard, very costly,” that is with adoring thoughts of Him Who is “altogether lovely, and the chief among ten thousands” —thoughts of adoration and thanksgiving to God, from Whom all blessings flow, and to His dear Son, in Whom all blessings are. And our eye, fixed by the power of the Holy Ghost on the glorified Christ, will make “the whole body light,” and thus enable us, steadily looking toward the goal before us, after the example of the apostle of the church and of glory, to “press on toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” until He, Who is “our hope,” and our bright morning star,” shall come to take us up to Himself into the Father's house, whither He has gone before to prepare a place for us. Blessed be His glorious name, now and evermore. Amen.
J. A. VON P.
(Concluded from page 75.)