CHAPTER VI

THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE

PHILIPPIANS ii. 12-18

"Your own salvation"--Stars in the midnight sky--Truth and holiness--The atonement and the indwelling--Mystery and need of the indwelling--Indifference in God--Spiritual power shewn in love--Aggression and witness--The witnesses and the martyr

We have just followed the Apostle as he has followed the Saviour of sinners from the Throne to the Cross, and from the Cross to the Throne. And we have remembered the moral motive of that wonderful paragraph of spiritual revelation. It was written not to occupy the mind merely, or to elevate it, but to bring the believer's heart into a delightful subjection to Him who "pleased not Himself," till the Lord should be reflected in the self-forgetting life of His follower.

In the passage now opening before us we find St Paul's thought still working in continuity with this argument. He has still in his heart the risks of friction at Philippi, and the need of meeting them in the power of the Lord's example. This will come out particularly in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses, where he deprecates "murmurings and disputings," and pleads for a life of pure, sweet light and love. But the line of appeal, though continuous, is now somewhat altered in its direction. The divine greatness of the love of the Incarnation has, during his treatment of it, filled him with an intense and profound recollection of the greatness of the Christian's connexion with his God, and of the sacred awfulness of his responsibility, and of the fulness of his resources. So the appeal now is not merely to be like-minded, and to be watchful for unity. He asks them now to use fully for a life of holiness the mighty fact of their possession of an Indwelling God in Christ. The details of precept are as it were absorbed for the time into the glorious power and principle--only to reappear the more largely and lastingly in the resulting life.

Ver. 12. +So, my beloved ones+, (he often introduces his most practical appeals with this term of affection: see for example 1 Cor. x. 14, xv. 58; 2 Cor. vii. 1,) +just as you always obeyed+[1] me, obey me now. +Not+ (_me_, the _imperative_ negative) as in my presence only, influenced by that immediate contact and intercourse, +but now much more in my absence+, ("much more," as my absence throws you more directly on your resources in the Lord,) +work out+, develope, +your own salvation+, your own spiritual safety, health, and joy, +with fear and trembling+; not with the tortures of misgiving, not driven by a shrinking dread of your gracious God, but drawn by a tender reverence and solemn watchfulness, lest you should grieve the eternal Love. Yes, "work out _your own_ salvation"; do not depend upon _me_; take _your own_ souls in hand, in a faith and love which look, without the least earthly intermediation, straight to GOD and to Him alone.[2] For indeed He is near to you; far nearer than ever a Paul could be; "a very present help," for

Ver. 13. your safety, and for your holiness. +For God it is who is effecting+ (_energos_) +in you+, in your very being, in "the first springs of thought and will," +both your+ (_to_) +willing and your effecting+, your carrying out the willing, +for His+ (_tes_) +good pleasure's sake+; in order to the accomplishment through you of all His holy purposes. Here, in this wonderful immanence, this divine indwelling, and in its living, operative power, you will find reason enough alike for the "fear and trembling" of deepest reverence, and for the calm resourceful confidence of those who can, if need be, "walk alone," as regards dependence upon even an apostolic friend beside them. Live then as those who carry about with them the very life and power of God in Christ. And what will that life be? A life of spiritual ostentation? Nay, the beautiful and

Ver. 14. gentle opposite to it. +Do all things without+, apart from (_choris_), in a definite isolation from, +murmurings and disputes+, thoughts and utterances of discontent and self-assertion towards one another, grudgings of others' claims, and contentions for your

Ver. 15. own; +so that you may become+ (_genesthe_), what in full realization you scarcely yet are, +unblamable and simple+ (_akeraioi_, "unadulterated"), single-hearted, because self-forgetting; +God's children+ (_tekna_), shewing what they are by the unmistakable _family-likeness_ of holy love; +blameless+ as such, true to your character; +in the midst of a race+ (_geneas_) +crooked and distorted+, the members of a world whose will always crosses the will of God who is Love; +among whom you are appearing+, like stars which come out in the gloom, +as luminaries+ (_phosteres_), light-bearers, kindled by the Lord of Light, +in the world+; in which you dwell; not of it, but in it, walking up and down "before the sons of men" (Ps. xxxi. 19), that they may see, and seek,

Ver. 16. your blessed Secret; +holding out+ (_epechontes_[3]), as those who offer a boon for acceptance, +the word of life+, the Gospel, with its secret of eternal life in Christ; at once telling and commending His message; +to afford me+, even me (_emoi_), +exultation, in view of+ (_eis_) +Christ's Day+, in anticipation of what I shall feel then; +because not in vain did I run, nor in vain did I toil+.[4] But let me not speak of "toil" as if I sighed over a hard lot, or wished to suffer less on your behalf.

Ver. 17. +Nay, even if I am being poured out as a drink-offering+ (_spendomai_) +on the sacrifice and ritual+ (_leitourgia_) +of your faith+--on you, so to speak, as you in faith offer yourselves a living sacrifice to God[5]--+I rejoice, and I congratulate+ (_sugchairo_) +you all+, on your faith and holiness, for which it was well worth my while to die as your helper and example. +And in+

Ver. 18. +the same way+ (_to de auto_) +do you too rejoice, and congratulate me+,[6] as true partners with me in the martyr-spirit and its joys.

Here let us pause in our paraphrasing version, and sit down as it were to gather up and weigh some of the treasures we have found.