(Phil. 2:17―3:9.)
We still remind our readers that unless they have the Scripture itself before them and constantly refer to it, they are not likely to derive help from this article.
HAVING set before the Philippians the supreme example of the Lord Jesus, who was “obedient unto death,” and having exhorted them to obedience which would mean the doing of God’s “good pleasure” from the heart, the Apostle again alludes to his own case in verse 17. Though he had expressed his anticipation of still continuing amongst them for a season (1:25.) yet here he contemplates the possibility of his speedy martyrdom. Some people set great store by their “impressions” and elevate them to a certainty and authority almost, if not quite, equal to the Scriptures. This is a mistake. Paul had his “impressions” as to his future, and we quite believe them to have been justified by the event. Yet even he, apostle as he was, entertained the thought that the event might falsify his impressions.
The word “offered” in verse 17 is “poured forth” as the margin shows. Paul uses the same word in 2 Tim. 4:6, when his martyrdom was impending. He alluded of course to those drink offerings which the law enjoined. A “fourth part of a hin of wine” was to be poured over certain sacrifices, before the Lord.
This being so, two very striking things confront us in verse 17 and 18. First, he calls the gifts of the Philippians, sent out of their poverty by the hand of Epaphroditus, “the sacrifice and service of your faith.” That is, he considers them to be the major sacrifice. His own martyrdom he considers as a small quantity of wine poured over their sacrifice as a drink offering: i.e. as the minor sacrifice. An extraordinary way of putting things surely! We should have reversed the matter, and thought of the self-denial of the Philippians as a drink offering poured over Paul’s great sacrifice as a martyr.
Why did Paul esteem things in this way? Because he was looking not “on his own things but ... also on the things of others” (2:4). He was a striking example of what he had urged on the Philippians, and of the worth and excellence of the mind which was in Christ Jesus. There was no affectation about Paul, no paying of mere compliments. Delighted with the grace of Christ as seen in his beloved converts, he meant what he said.
The second striking thing is that he actually contemplated his own martyrdom as calculated to provoke an outburst of rejoicing, for himself and for the Philippians—mutual rejoicing. A most unnatural proceeding truly! Not natural, but spiritual. The fact is, Paul REALLY believed what he had said as to departing and being with Christ. It really IS, “far better.” He knew that the Philippians so truly loved him, that in spite of grief at losing him, they would rise above their own feelings to rejoice in his joy. We are afraid that we often turn Philippians 1:23, into a pious platitude. It was much more than that to Paul.
Still he was not anticipating martyrdom just at that moment, as he had already told them, and so he contemplated sending Timothy to them shortly, that he might help as to their spiritual state and also that through him he might hear of their welfare.
Now of those available just at that moment no one was quite so like-minded with himself, and so zealous for the good of the Philippians. The mass, even of believers, were characterized by seeking their own things rather than Christ’s. Timothy was a happy exception to this. He was a true son of his spiritual father. The mind that was in Christ was also in him. We are afraid that this seeking of our own interests and not Christ’s is sadly common amongst believers today. No servant of God can so effectually serve the saints as he who moves amongst them seeking nothing but the interests of Christ.
So Timothy was the one he hoped to send to them before long, and indeed he hoped to be released and able to come himself. Still he wished for some speedier means of communication with them in acknowledgment of their gifts and so was dispatching back to them Epaphroditus, who had been their messenger to him, and who now became the bearer of the epistle we are considering.
We are now, verses 25-30, permitted to have a glimpse of the kind of man this Epaphroditus was, whom Paul calls, “My brother and fellow-workman and fellow-soldier” (N. Tr). He too was like-minded, and we at once see that when just before the Apostle had said, “I have no man like-minded,” he had meant, “I have no man amongst those who have been my immediate helpers and attendants in Rome.” Epaphroditus was a Philippian and so not in view in the earlier remark.
Many there were, and are, who, though to be acknowledged as brothers, can hardly be spoken of as workmen or soldiers. Epaphroditus was all three, and not only so but a workman and a soldier thoroughly “fellow” to Paul. They worked and warred together with identical objects and aims. Could such testimony be rendered to anyone today? We believe it could, inasmuch as the New Testament informs us so fully as to the doctrine, manner of life, and service of Paul this pattern servant of God. At the same time we are afraid that in actual practice it is rare. Every believer is called to be a worker and a warrior. The trowel and the sword should mark us all. But do they? And are we characterized as “fellow” to Paul in our use of them?
In carrying out his service and journeying to Paul, Epaphroditus had nearly died of sickness. Twice over do we find the expression, “nigh unto death.” God indeed had had mercy upon him, and averted this great sorrow both to Paul and the Philippians, yet he had not regarded his life for the sake of the work of Christ, and hence was to be honored.
So in Epaphroditus we see another who followed in the steps of Paul and Timothy, even as they followed Christ. The mind that was in Christ Jesus was found also in him, for not only did he venture his life in order to serve his Lord, but when he had been so sick that he was near to death, he was “full of heaviness,” not because of his own malady, but because he knew his brethren at Philippi had had news of his sickness and would be sorely grieved on his account. This was a fine case of a man not looking “on his own things, but... also on the things of others.” It was unselfishness indeed!
There was rejoicing then both for Paul and for the Philippians as regards Epaphroditus; but as we enter upon chapters 3 we find where the truest and most permanent rejoicing lies for the Christian. God may, and indeed often does, give us to experience His mercy and make our hearts glad, yet on the other hand often He has to pass us through the valley of weeping. But even if circumstances are permitted to move against us, and sickness end fatally, the Lord Himself remains the same. Our rejoicing really lies in Him. “Rejoice in the Lord,” is the great word for us all.
In thus writing the Apostle might be repeating himself, yet the happy theme was not irksome to him, and it was safe for them. No servant of God need be afraid of repeating himself, for we take in things but slowly. Repetition is a safe process in the things of God.
Our rejoicing however must be “in the Lord.” There are those who would divert us from Him, as is indicated in verse 2. In saying “dogs” the Apostle probably alludes to men of quite evil life, akin to the unclean Gentiles. By “evil workers,” to those who while professedly Christian were introducing what was evil. By “the concision” he refers to the Judaizing faction, in contrast with whom are the true “circumcision” of which verse 3 speaks. The word translated “concision” means a mere lopping off, in contrast to the complete cutting off of death, which was figured in circumcision. The Judaizers believed in lopping off the uglier excrescences of the flesh but would not have that bringing in of death, “by the circumcision of Christ” (Col. 2:11.), which is the truth of Christianity. The object before the Judaizers was “that they may glory in your flesh” (Gal. 6:13). Men cannot exactly boast in the grosser manifestations of the flesh, so they aim at lopping them off in order to encourage more aimable and aesthetic manifestations in which to make their boast. But it is boasting in the flesh nevertheless.
Verse 3 speaks by way of contrast of what believers are, if viewed according to God’s thoughts of them. We are the true spiritual circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, who boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in the flesh. We accept God’s sentence of condemnation upon the flesh, and find our all in Christ. Then it is that in the energy of an ungrieved Spirit we are filled with the worship of God.
But what a lot of time is usually spent in learning not to trust the flesh, and in passing a “vote of no confidence” in it. What experiences often have to be gone through! The kind of experiences we refer to are detailed! for us in Romans 7, and the lesson is one that cannot be learned theoretically, merely, it must be learned experimentally. There is no need that we should take a long time to learn the lesson, but as a matter of fact we usually do.
Paul’s own case, to which he now refers, —verse 4 to 7—shows that the lesson may be learned in a very profound way in a very short space of time. If ever a man was exemplary in a fleshly way, he was. Nowadays people are said to die, “fortified with all the rites of the church.” We may say of him that for some years he lived, fortified with all the rites and ordinances and advantages and righteousness of Judaism. If ever educated and religious flesh was to be trusted, it was to be trusted in Saul of Tarsus. He was filled with religion and filled with the pride which was generated by his belief that all was so much gain to him.
But in that tremendous revelation, which occurred on the road to Damascus, all was reversed. He discovered himself to be outrageously wrong. His fancied advantages he discovered to be disadvantages; his religious flesh, to be rebellious flesh. All that he had counted on, trusted in, prided himself upon, came down about him with a crash. Christ in His glory was revealed to hint. All that had been esteemed gain by him, he now counted loss for Christ. His confidence in the flesh was gone forever. As soon as the three days of his blindness were over, his boasting in Christ Jesus began. In those three days his great lesson was learned.
And the lesson was learned solidly and forever. Verse 7 speaks of the conclusion he reached on the Damascus road. “I counted”— the verb is in the past. verse 8 carries us on to the day when he wrote this epistle in a Roman prison. “Yea doubtless, and I count”―the verb is in the present. The point reached at his conversion is confirmed and even deepened, thirty years or more later. Only now he can say what in the nature of things he could not have said at his conversion. For thirty years he had been growing in the knowledge of Christ, and the excellency of that knowledge commanded him. Compared with that all things were but loss, and the depth and ardour of his devotion are expressed in the glowing words— “Christ Jesus MY LORD.”
Nor was this counting of all things but loss merely an attitude of his mind, for he adds, “for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” It is one thing to count all things as loss, and quite another to actually suffer the loss of all. Both were the experience of the Apostle. He was not only disturbed when he lost everything, for he had already esteemed everything as loss. Moreover, in Christ he had infinite gain, in comparison with whom all else is but refuse.
It was not that he hoped to “win Christ” as the result of giving up all things, after the fashion of those who give up possessions and retire into monasteries or convents in the hope of thereby securing their soul’s salvation. It was rather that, having found such surpassing worth in Christ, such excellence in the knowledge of Him, he was prepared as to all things to suffer loss in order that he might have Christ for his gain. It was a remarkable form of profit and loss account, in which Paul emerged an infinite gainer.
All Paul’s gain then could be summed up in the one word CHRIST. But of course all this was based upon being “in Christ,” and standing before God in that righteousness which is by faith in Him. Apart from that there would be no having Christ as one’s gain, nor preparedness to suffer loss in this world.
How striking, in this 9th verse, is the contrast between “mine own righteousness” and “the righteousness which is of God.” The one, were it possible to attain to it, would be “of the law.” It would be something purely human, and according to the standard exacted by the law. The other is the righteousness in which we stand as the fruit of the Gospel. It is “of God;” that is, divine, in contrast to human. It is “through the faith of Christ;” that is, it is available for us on the basis of His intervention and work as presented to faith in the Gospel. And it is “by faith;” that is, it is received by us on the principle of faith and not on the principle of works of law.
Have we all taken this in? Are we rejoicing that we stand in a righteousness which is wholly divine in its origin? Do we realize that all the things of the flesh in which we might boast are so much loss and that all our gain is in Christ?
These are weighty questions that demand an answer from us each.
F. B. Hole.