Philippians 2:12-18 Why, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence… I. PERSONAL WORK FOR THE PHILIPPIANS. 1. How he exhorts them he with pleasure. "So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence." The exaltation of Christ, which is the subject of the three foregoing verses, is specially fitted to be an encouragement to the duty of humility. It is not this, however, that he now specifies, in descending from the sublime Example. He rather lays hold on that "obedience" which was the soul of the humiliation, and on the name" Savior" which marked the exaltation. And upon these he makes his exhortation to turn. For the first time he addresses them as his "beloved." It indicates his drawing closer to them. He has a complimentary word. to say to them. They had in the past obeyed, not him - for it is no mere personal request that he has to make - but the gospel of which a statement follows, and which is referred to as the Word of life. They had always obeyed, i.e. both when he was present and when he was absent. Into this form, then, he throws his exhortation. They were to make their future, as they had made their past. They were not to make their obedience to the gospel dependent on his presence with them. An obedience as in his presence would have meant negligence in his absence. Nay, they were to make his absence a stimulus to greater exertion. When they had not his help they were to feel the greater need of rousing themselves to action. 2. The work of salvation. (1) What it is. "Work out your own salvation." It is thought of as a work that is our own, i.e. pertaining to ourselves and going on in our nature. It is what is known de, character, what is impressed on our nature, according as we are obedient to the will of God. It is thought of as that which has a beginning, progress, and end. We are to work it out from the beginning all through to the end. It is thought of as that which has its starting-point in the nature in a state of sin. The end is only to be reached in conflict with evil, and in the salvation of the nature from evil. Salvation of the thoughts. It belongs to us as thinking beings to think out the great thoughts which God has given for our instruction in the Bible. We have to, think them out, so as to get the full advantage of their quickening influence in our being. This is part of the great work which God has appointed us to work out. It is saving work, inasmuch as we need to be saved from the darkness of our minds. We need to be saved from an unworthy conception of God. There is nothing which more bespeaks our elevation than that we think aright of God. It is a work of no little difficulty to rise above such gross notions of God as are derived from our senses, our passions, our selfish partialities, and to think of him as the Father of our spirits, who has high and kind thoughts regarding us, who is interested in our well-being, who is ever present with us to inspire us, to strengthen us, to waken up our life, who rebukes us and is grieved when we do wrong, who commends us and is glad when we do well; to think of him especially as the God of salvation, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has made infinite sacrifice for us, who makes to us offer of boundless grace, who is seeking by every means to compass our salvation. we need to be saved from an unworthy conception of human life, from thinking that it consists in the abundance of things which we possess, that it is to be spent in idleness or pleasure, that it has not: issues beyond death. It is no easy task to come to the full realization of the thought that our life derives its significance from our being tried, from it being intended to be a service rendered to God, the working out of a Divine plan, the unselfish seeking of the good of others; derives its significance especially from Christ having associated himself with it, having brought back its old value, and having given it an increased value in his death - having actually given us the example of a perfect human life. the idea of the apostle in 2 Corinthians 10:5 is that every thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. That involves our having a Christian volume and force of thought which we can bring to bear on all subjects. There is a philosophical temper of mind, which consists in accurately observing facts, in discerning what are relevant, in giving them their due weight, in investigating the causes, connections, explanations, of things. So there is a Christian temper of mind, which consists in our being saturated with Christian ideas, in looking beneath the surface, in testing the Christian character of actions and courses of action, of thoughts and lines of thought, in readily discovering their bearing upon Christ and his salvation. And that is what is as open to the laborer as to the philosopher. As we have all a power of applying our minds in matters connected with our earthly calling, so there is no reason why we should not have the power of applying our minds in matters connected with our heavenly calling. And we should clearly recognize that as part of the great work of our salvation which we are here commanded to work out. Salvation of the affections. It belongs to us as social beings to be rightly affected toward other beings. That enters very deeply into the question of our happiness. And part of the great work of our salvation is to work out the right state of our affections. It is a saving work, inasmuch as we need to be saved from a depraved state of our affections. We need to be saved from a depraved state of our affections towards God. We have a natural aversion to goodness, and, because God is the perfection of all goodness, it is true that we are alienated and enemies in our mind, that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God. We need to have our affections changed, so that we love God because of his goodness, and simply because of his goodness, and love him with all fervor and steadiness because he is supremely good; and love Christ because he is the glorious Manifestation of the Divine goodness, the Accomplisher of our redemption. We need to be saved from a depraved state of our affections toward beings like ourselves. There is much that is beautiful in the affection of parents for their children; but it needs to be saved even from mere naturalness or characterlessness. We must love our children, not with a blind affection, but with an affection that is under the guidance and restraint of moral and religious principle; we must love them as intelligent, spiritual beings, who have been given us to train for God and immortality; we must love them especially for the sake of Christ, who has obtained right to them by his blood, and who wishes to see them transformed into his image. Our affections need to be saved from mere narrowness. They are not to be confined to our home circle or circle of our acquaintances, but are to have something of the catholicity of the Savior's love. Our affections need to be saved from shallowness. Our interest in all must extend beyond their temporal well-being to their Christian perfection. Our affections need to e saved from every element of malice. We must not hate or break forth into passion, but be patient and forgiving, after the example of the Master. Thus will a Christian character be given to our affections. And that is part of the work of salvation which we are distinctly to place before us as commanded here. Salvation of the energies. It belongs to us as active beings to have our energies rightly employed. This enters largely into our happiness, and is part of the work of salvation that we are appointed to work out. It is a saving work, inasmuch as our energies need to be saved from self. One form which self takes is that of sloth. That is a sin which besets very many. We are not to work listlessly, bringing little to pass, spreading the work of one horn' over many. We are to let our energies out, and to let our energies out as a whole, not restraining especially our best energies. We are not to be discouraged by difficulties, but rather to regard them as an opportunity for our putting forth our energies more vigorously. We are not to spend our energies simply for a livelihood, or in the pursuit of pleasure, or in the pursuit of a fortune, or in the pursuit of fame. Our energies are to be saved by being lifted above self to God, especially by being connected with Christ, laid as a willing tribute at his feet, concentrated on his glory, steadily rendered to him, imbued with his unselfish, philanthropic spirit. That is the third line in which we are to carry out the saving work commanded here. (2) Spirit in which it is to be carried out. "With fear and trembling." The latter word refers more to the anxious solicitude that is connected with what is feared. This was the spirit in which Paul served among the Corinthians: "I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling." It is the spirit which he requires of servants toward their masters: "Servants,. be obedient unto them that, according to the flesh, are your masters, with fear and trembling." We may well have fear and trembling as to the work of our salvation being really commenced. For there is such a difference between a saved and an unsaved state, between being in Christ and being out of Christ. "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Have we unmistakably given ourselves up to Christ, so that we are among the number of the saved, i.e. enjoy the fruits of Christ's work in the pardon of our sins, acceptance of our persons, and the beginning of a better life? "Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it." A mistake here is, of all mistakes, the most stupendous, and the very possibility of it should make us fear and tremble. To be au entire stranger to fear and trembling regarding the reality of personal salvation is to be in an alarming condition. we may well have fear and trembling, too, regarding the satisfactory going forward of the work of salvation, which is more referred to here. It is a work for which we are made responsible, which is made to depend on our fidelity, and we may well. fear and tremble when we think of our indifference, of our unsteadiness of purpose. It is work which goes so far into our inmost being that we may well distrust our own power to do enough in connection with it. Can we but fear and tremble when we think that our doing has to pass under the all-seeing eye of God, and to be judged unerringly, not only as to its quantity, but as to its quality? we do not need to crouch as under the rod, when we think of failure; for we are in the hands of a merciful Father: but all the more because he is merciful should we have a trembling anxiety lest we do not come up to what he expects of us. It is a work for the accomplishment of which long time is needed, and we may well fear and tremble when we think of the little time that we can calculate on as at our disposal. In what state of progress towards perfection shall our thoughts and affections and energies be when we are called away from the scene of our trial into the presence of our God? 3. Encouragement. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure." (1) The Divine Energizer. We are encouraged to work out the work of our salvation in a spirit of anxious solicitude by the thought that it is God which worketh - literally, energizeth - putteth forth power in us. At the center of our being is the will. It is it which wills and energizes in our thoughts, affections, and practical activities. we are here taught that within our will, a center within a center, there is another power that wills and energizes. It is God which energizes in us both to will and to energize. This power he has over ns by virtue of being our Creator. This is the power which he retains over his creation, that He can touch efficiently the will in its choosing and in its outgoing in the nature. It is a saving power that we are here to think of, i.e. a power which only goes forth in connection with the work of him who has been exalted as Savior. From the crucified and exalted Savior, through the Spirit, God puts forth power to counteract the weakness of our will, to give it power in choosing the good and refusing the evil. Until he puts forth his power on the will nothing good can come out of it. There is only depravity in it, and we can no more get rid of it ourselves than the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots. The first enabling power in good must come from God. While he enables ns he holds us responsible, and he gives us this to encourage us, in tremblingly discharging our obligations as to our salvation that, as it is his almighty grace that first comes down upon our will, so we have the same grace on which unlimitedly to rely for support in its struggle out of sin toward salvation. Great is the weakness of our will, but greater is the newer that energizes in us both to will and to energize. We are thus in the posit{on of carrying forward, while tremblingly, yet hopefully, the work of our salvation. (2) for what he energizes. The idea is that it is his good pleasure that gets the advantage. We reap great advantage in our experience of salvation. But God is here said to energize in us savingly for his own advantage. It is not for the advantage of his sovereignty, so much as of that goodness which is at the heart of his sovereignty. It is his sovereignty that gives him the right to energize in our wills; but it is goodness that determines the exercise of his sovereignty, as always, so especially in our salvation from sin, in meeting us in all our impotence, and in giving us the power to maintain the struggle; and so it is the goodness of his pleasure that is advantaged in our salvation. II. DUTY OF THE PHILIPPIANS IN THE WORLD. 1. The one thing to be avoided. "Do all things without murmurings and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless." The apostle has been enjoining on them their duty with reference to their personal salvation, He now contemplates them as placed in the midst of the world. It can be seen that he has in his mind ancient Israel. It is true that they were characteristically murmurers and doubters against God. But it does not appear that the Philippians were inclined to murmur and doubt under the Divine dealings. We are rather made to feel that they had not a little of the martyr spirit. The danger feared was the breaking of their unity through self-exaltation. We are, therefore, to think of murmurings and disputings among themselves. It pointed to a state of matters in their Church which would be very prejudicial to their spiritual life. This was the one thing to be avoided, in order that they should be blameless in the judgment of others, and sincere, as we should read, conscious to their own minds of good intention. It was being not very far from the mark. Other Churches may have excelled the Phililpians in reference to this particular; but of how few could it be said that there was one thing to be avoided by them in order that they should be blameless and right-minded! How many points would need to be enumerated in order that such language might be employed of some of our Churches now? 2. Proper conception of their duty. (1) To be free from spots. "Children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." There is a reminiscence here of language employed in the song of Moses: "They have corrupted themselves, their spot, is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation." They had not answered to the Divine conception, which was that of children without slot in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. It is much more obvious than it was then that we are the children of God. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Such is the fully expressed Christian standpoint. It is the Divine arrangement that, as children of God, we are separated into Christian societies; not, however, removed to a separate sphere where we are not acted upon from without, and have simply to conserve and consolidate our Christian life. But we are placed in the midst of the world, and the world is here thought of in its generations. The generation is characterized by moral abnormity. Both "crooked" and "perverse" contain the idea of being bent from the true form, as a tree is bent or as the human body is sometimes bent. In the latter the bending is so decided as to amount to distortion. All the generations have abnormity; but every generation has its own peculiar abnormity or spot. And the Church, from age to age, has especially to guard against the spot of the wicked generation in the midst of which it lives. The spot of the present crooked and perverse generation may be said to be a secularism, which would make of the Lord's day a common day, of the Bible a common book, of Christ a common man, of religion simply the performance of common duties. That is the mask which the generation is more and more taking, in all forms of literature and in public movements. That is the influence which, through a thousand channels, is being brought to bear upon the Christian part of the population. And there are always those who are inclined to adjust themselves to what they see around them. But that is not the spot of God's children. Let us keep clear of it in the name of our adoption into God's family. "Do you requite me so?" it is said in the words following these, quoted in the song of Moses: "Am not I your Father that bought thee?" Let us have separateness from our generation, in its general spirit, and in the particular forms that may prevail around us. (2) To give light to the world. "Among whom ye are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the Word of life." Christ is the Sun, or Light of the world; we are intended to be stars, or lesser lights. Ours is a borrowed light from Christ, or rather, as it is here regarded, from his gospel, which is named the Word of life, i.e. the light which gives an eternal quickening to the soul. According as we have received the gospel, in its blessed statements, into our being, are we made light.. he have darkness expelled from us. And our function is to hold forth the Word of life - to cast the light that we have appropriated forth upon the dark world. That is the true way to meet the aggression of the crooked and perverse generation. Something more is needed than the most satisfactory Christian apologetics. The Church must show, positively and decidedly, the living power of Christianity. It must make a better help to the spiritual life of the Lord's day, if that day is not to be surrendered to the enemy. It must have a more living hold of the Bible, if that book would maintain its authority. It must have a warmer attachment to Christ, if he is properly to be held forth for the faith of men. It must have greater fervor in prayer and in all religious duties, if it would commend these as sanctifying and sweetening common duties. The Church must, from the right use of the gospel, create a public sentiment of a Christian nature, a body of strong living light, if it would make an impression upon the darkness around, and not have its owu light obscured. Let us see that individually we act as light-bearers to the world, holding forth the Word of life. III. INTERTWINING OF PAUL WITH THE PHILIPPIANS. 1. Alternative of his being spared. "That I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labor in vain." What a beautiful intertwining of the apostle with his converts! He hoped yet to run for them, with his feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; he hoped yet to labor for them. Beyond that he sees the day of Christ, the day when his running and laboring, with all its attendant results, in them, would pass under the eye of the great Head of the Church. He hopes, then, to have his destiny so intertwined with theirs that they would be the occasion of his glorying, as in successful work for Christ. Whereas he intimates that it would be loss to him of a crown of rejoicing, if his running and laboring for them turned out to be ineffectual. What minister would not thus wish to be intertwined in loving service with his people? 2. Alternative of his dying. (1) Hs joying and rejoicing with them. "Yea, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and service of your filth, I joy, and rejoice with you all." He does not here present his dying as the probable issue. For that would be inconsistent with the confident anticipation of release, to which expression was formerly given. Bather does he wish to entertain as probable or certain the supposition of the satisfactory nature of their filth. If he can think of them as priests ministering at the altar and offering thereon a believing life, then, though his life-blood should be poured out as a libation around the offering, he will joy in their offering, and rejoice with them all. (2) Call to joy and rejoice with him. "And in the same manner do ye also joy, and rejoice with me." Martyrdom was a joyful thought to him. his dying when the cause of Christ was in the ascendant, his being poured out as libation when he could think of them and others offering up their faith to God, would only send a thrill of joy through his heart. The dark hour would be lighted up by the thought of their believing testimony, and of the crown which they would be the occasion of his wearing. Far be it front them, then, to be overwhelmed by the event. Let them joy in his having courage to die for the Master, and let them rejoice with him in the reward, connected with them, that the Master was to put into his hand. Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. |
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