Philippians 2

HI 2:1-30{
I desire chief thing in a trial is submission verses of the first chapter: "In nothing terrified
by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and
that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for His sake." It is not merely that he wants to guard them against this, but he assures them that conflict is the natural state of the Christian-" Having the same conflict which ye saw in me." Here it was positive trial that they were in; but the whole of the Christian life is one of conflict with Satan; not that we need to he always thinking of it, if we have on -the whole armor of God; but if we are not in the consciousness of Christ's victory, we-are in danger of -being terrified;- and though we know little of this conflict; yet in a small degree we do. When -Satan is resisted, Christ is then in the conflict, and we know that Christ has bound him, and he has been Completely overcome; so it is "resist the devil, and he will flee from you." If we are walking with Christ, the apparent power is much greater with Satan and the world than with us; but it is all nothing"; it is all a mistake to be terrified by it. What does it matter if the cities are walled up to heaven, if they tumble down, and you walk in over them?
You see, beloved friends, it is not a question of the difficulties, as we see in the ease of Peter walking on the sea. He walked on the water to go to Jesus; but when he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid. But if the water had been calm as a mill-pond he could not have walked on it; you never heard of a man able to walk on water of any kind. It was all a mistake in what he was looking at What we want to remember is that Christ has bound Satan, so now He can spoil his goods. He allows Satan, to cast some into prison to be tried, but Satan gains nothing by that; when he meets a person walking with. Christ he has no power against him at all. We may have suffering, but that is what God has " given;" as we see in Moses, "esteeming "-he does not say reproach, but-" the reproach of Christ greater, riches than the treasures in Egypt." So that rough seas or smooth seas are all the same; we sink if Christ is not with us there, and we walk if He is.
To turn to the second chapter. It is astonishing the grace which associates us with Christ; we are called to have-the same mind as Christ. Here we get the lowliness of the Christian life, as in the next chapter we have the energy of the Christian life. Here it is in following the pattern of Christ, a lowliness shown in esteem of others, and in perfect consideration for others, and in gracious gentleness of demeanor in connection with the things of everyday life. Thus he tells them he would keep Timotheus, and send him to them as soon as he should know how it would go with him-reckoning on their true interest in all that regarded him; but he would not keep Epaphroditus, but send him, for he had been ill, and the Philippians had heard it, and were full of anxiety about him; like a child Might say, My mother will be in a terrible way when she hears I am so ill. So Paul would send him that they might see him. In little things this considerateness is seen in Paul, this thorough thoughtfulness for others. Even the world can see it is lovely; their very selfishness-delights in it.
The Philippians had shown these things he speaks of in their thoughtfulness for Paul, yet they were not quite united in Christ. But he does not like to come with a rebuke in the midst of all their love for him. He says, I see how you care for me, but, if you want to make me thoroughly happy, be of one mind, "fulfill ye my joy." It is in the most delicate way that he rebukes them,—a gentle hint; but they needed the exhortation.
Then he goes on to show the principles on which it is founded. " In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." It is a kind of impossibility, if you look at it in one Way; for, if you are better than I, it is evident I cannot be better than you. But when the heart is thoroughly lowly, walking with Christ, and delighting in Christ, he thinks himself a poor creature with nothing but the grace of Christ to think of, and never sees anything but defects in himself; all the graces he sees in Christ; and, seeing this grace, even if he is using it, he feels what a poor instrument he is, the flesh hindering and spoiling the vessel, and not letting the light shine out.
But when he looks at his brother he sees all the grace Christ has poured into him. What the Christian sees is Christ in his brother, and all the good qualities in him. Paul could say even to the Corinthians, who were going on shockingly, " I thank my God always on your behalf; for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ." He begins by recognizing all the good. Love took hold of all the good it could, and thus he got their hearts to listen to the rebukes. I detect the grace in my brother, and I do not see the evil at work in his heart; but I do see it in my own. When Moses came down from the mount he moist not that his face shone. What made it shine was not looking at his own face,-of course we know he could not do that,-but looking at the glory; and it shines forth from us in the measure in which we look simply and purely at it. I see in my brother all the gentleness, graciousness, courage, faithfulness; and in myself all the defects. As I said, of course if you are better than I, I cannot be better than you; but it is a question of the spirit in which the Christian walks; vain glory is gone; and it cannot be otherwise if the heart is on Christ. It is not giving me a false estimate of myself; but when I look at the grace it is Christ. Of course I must look at myself sometimes, and judge myself; but the best thing is not to have to look at myself at all. " Look not every man on his own things."
Then he turns to the principle on which this is founded: " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Here we get the path of Christ from the glory of the Godhead to the cross; he never did anything but go down-the exact opposite of the first Adam. " Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God;" not only He bore everything patiently; that is true; but another side of the truth: " He made himself of no reputation." He laid aside the form of Godhead, and was found as a man; and, being a man, He took upon Him the form of a servant. True, even coming in the form of a man, there was soon seen in word, and work,' and spirit, and way, all moral glory shining out; but He, having laid glory aside, was always going down in lowliness till there was no lower place. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
There is the double step in His descent. The first was laying aside the form of God; the second, that, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient. There is nothing so humble as obedience, for then we have no will at all. And not only obedient, but obedient, unto death; self given up altogether, not only the will. And hot only to death, but the death of the cross-the gibbet, as it 'would be in our day; then for slaves and -malefactors only. From the form of God right down to death; obedience and humiliation all the way, the opposite in everything of the first Adam. He was not in the form of God, but set up to be as gods, and was disobedient: unto death; the exact opposite in the spirit and character of his ways.
And as God says, " He that exalteth himself shall be abased," Adam was humbled because he exalted himself. Christ waited till God exalted Him; He humbled Himself, wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him. He sets Him as Man over all the works of God's hands-. Hence we read, " There is one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ." This is not a question of His nature, but of the place, in which He is set. He has put all things under His feet as man. All things were created by Him, and for Him, but He will have it all as man, and thus it is He takes joint-heirs. He is heir of all things as man, and has all believers as joint-heirs with Him. In Colossians we get Him as Creator, as Son of God, as Son of Man, and as Redeemer; the fourth-tells us His title-Redeemer-that which has given Him a right over everything. All things are to be reconciled by Him I do not say justified, because the things had sinned; but they were all defiled; and, having reconciled all things,-He takes us as joint-heirs. Just as Eve was not one of the different animals that Adam gave names to, neither was she lord as Adam, nor was she that over. which he was lord; but she was a help-meet or companion with him over the things. And it is under the fourth title, though all remain united in His person, that He brings in creation unto undefiled blessedness. It never can fail, and we know the redemption already; "you lath he reconciled "; the redemption is accomplished, though the results are not yet produced, as it is said, "that we might be a kind of first fruits of His creatures."
Then he tells us that the same mind is to be in us as was in Christ. He had "a body prepared," or " ears dug," as it is in another place. He had taken the place of a servant as man. He comes, the fullness of the Godhead, in this body, and exhibits perfect obedience in it; and God has exalted Him to His right hand. He has gone before. We are not there yet; we are left to walk like Him here. It is a blessed thing to see the place He has taken; His path coining always down, and that to be the mind in us. So God. says, "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things- under the earth "' too; that is, infernal things will have to own His title in glory. In that character, that He is exalted; they will have to bow to Him.
The first Adam did not become head of a race till he had sinned; and Christ did not become Head-of a new race till He had accomplished redemption, and was Head of righteousness. As man entered Paradise, so He entered the world; each began a race. Sin complete, and the race ended on the one hand; and righteousness complete, and the race begun on the other. When we talk of coming down, we mean the
getting rid of pride in us. It is just the thing the Christian learns, and just. the thing the flesh dislikes. Moses killed the Egyptian through the remains of court pride. Satan says, I cannot allow this; you must take the place out and out, or you cannot have it. The world's weapons will not do to fight God's battles with; Moses runs away, and is forty years keeping sheep instead of fighting. Then when God sends him he _cannot go; the extreme of one side and the extreme of the other. Our part in detail is always to wait - till God puts 'us up higher, like the man who took the low place, to whom it was said, " Go up higher." If we are content with the low place, we shall miss ten thousand rebuffs we should otherwise have.
Now there comes a passage which often troubles people, but needlessly, as we shall see "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." The mistake people make is putting God's working and our working in contrast. It is not so. The contrast is between Paul and themselves. In losing Paul they had not lost God, who was working. He says, Do it, now that I am absent, for yourselves. Paul had been doing for them. He had met the wiles of Satan for them in apostolic blessing; his spirit of wisdom had told them what to do. Now he
says, My absence does not alter the present power of grace; God works in you Himself. - " 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." They were now to meet the enemy without Paul in the front to lead them on. Never mind, he says; “work out your own salvation." I go always down, Himself working in me.
The second chapter is the pattern of Christ's lowly walk, the Lord coming down, and always so to the end. The third, the power and energy of life with Christ, and glory its object. The effect is to produce exactly the character of Christ: "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life." That is exactly the description of Christ Himself. Take every member of that sentence, and you will see it is Christ. He was all that, and that is just what you are to be. How completely self is put down, God graciously working in us; and the effect is exactly what Christ was-constant self humiliation—and so blameless and harmless, the Son of God without rebuke, the expression of Divine grace when there was no will or human exaltation, but the contrary. We see the perfect beauty and blessedness of it. It is not the energy, as in the next chapter; it is the character of the obedience. Wherever the path of obedience led He went. Having taken the form of a servant, His perfection was to obey.
Look what the effect was: produced on a creature -doing his own will as 'Adam. What an awful spectacle for angels-the ruin and destruction of God's glory in the world Tut, when we had destroyed God's glory, Christ comes, and God is a debtor to man for His glory-not to us, I need not say-just as He had been a debtor k) man for His dishonor; for by the cross God was glorified in His very nature. Christ comes, and we see what sin was-deliberate enmity against God's goodness; but all that God is was glorified; His majesty maintained, and all His truth comes out; His righteousness against sin; His perfect love. But the putting away of our sins was a small part of the glory of the cross; it is the foundation of eternal glory and blessedness.
Not only does Christ take the form of a servant, but He will never give it up. As never the place of man will be given up, so He will never give up its true place before God..He took upon Him the form of a man; and served His time on earth, as we have in the figure of the Hebrew servant in the twenty-first of Exodus, - and could have gone out free as man-could have had twelve legions of angels to deliver Him. But He did not. The ear of the servant was bored with an awl to the door when he would not go out free, because he loved his master, his wife, and his children, and he becalm a servant forever. And that is what Christ is. In the thirteenth of John, when the blessed Lord was going to glory, we should have said, there is an end of service.. It is not so. He gets up from where He was sitting among them as a companion, He gets up and washes their feet; and that is what He is doing now. He says, I cannot stay with you here, but I will not give you up; you must now have part with the where I am going. If I do not make you clean enough for heaven, you cannot have part with me there. So this He does by keeping our feet clean. In the twelfth of Luke we learn that He still continues the service in glory-" He shall gird Himself; and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." There we get His service in glory. It is His glory in love, though in the form of service. Not only heaven's 'table for us, but Christ Himself ministering it to us. He never gives up the service. Selfishness likes to be served, but love likes to serve; so Christ never gives up the service, for He never gives up the love. It is His love expressed in ministering that makes everything doubly blessed to us.
When I am brought to God, in the spirit of My mind, I can go down like Christ.
Working out your own' salvation with fear and trembling is not justification, and our place with God. Salvation in Philippians is always the final result in glory. What was the effect of redemption on Israel? Not to put them in Canaan, but to make them enter on a road through the wilderness. And where were they get food? and there were enemies in the way, am to make- good my way, maintaining God's name and character, and the devil is trying to binder me; that is why there is fear and trembling. An Israelite in the wilderness never doubted as to whether lie were in Egypt or not. If I find a doubting Christian, he does not yet know that he is redeemed. An Israelite might not gather manna, and would have nothing to eat that day, but he had no thought of being in Egypt. It was only eleven days' journey from Egypt to Canaan, as we get in the first of Deuteronomy; but they were forty years journeying before they got to the plains of Moab, except the year they were at Sinai, for they had no courage or faith to -take hold.
And so Satan seeks to hinder now. You will not get to your homes to-night without the devil trying to take away the blessing you may have got here. The devil will try to get up pride in you, and thus not let you show out this character of Christ. If you knew that you were charged to carry this character of Christ through the world, and that Satan was trying to hinder you, you would count it a very serious thing you, Peter says, " If ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." Satan is trying to dirty your feet, or to get you to dishonor Christ in the most awful way. I am in conflict with Satan, the world, and self, but I am in perfect peace with God. It is totally false to confound this working out our salvation with our relationship with God. That is -all settled, and my confidence in God enables me to go on working.
Beloved brethren, how far are we doing that? Redemption is complete. How far are our souls making nothing of ourselves, and looking to manifest what Christ was here? It flows out naturally if I am full of Christ. I am not saying I must do this or that like Christ, though that sometimes, too, 'but, "he that hath this hope in 'him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."
You will find the spirit of this graciousness and considerateness running all through the chapter in its details; it all comes out most beautifully.
I would make one remark more: that it is exceedingly blessed to see all this going on when the Church was already sunk away into ruin. " All seek their own," he says in this very epistle, and that already. How little we realize its real state when we speak of the primitive church! There it is, all seeking their own; and it was a great deal worse after. I refer to it as a matter of comfort, for he exhorts them to this path in spite of the condition around. As it was when Elijah went up to heaven, without dying, at the very time when he could find none but himself who had not bowed the knee to Baal, though God knew where to find them. There were brighter things, too, in David than there ever were in Solomon. He goes to Gibeon to sacrifice where the ark was. not, not teaching to sing at the ark on Sion "His mercy endureth forever," and had never a heart which God could string to play such tunes about Christ as He did in David.
It tells us never be discouraged; rejoice in all pod. If we find that all seek their own we must only be the more like Christ ourselves. It is a comfort the Head cannot fail though the members do; you cannot put me in a place in which Christ is not sufficient in full power and grace. All we want is to find ourselves lowly at His feet, He the counselor of our hearts. If we are with God in light we know our own nothingness; and if all seek their own, His grace and blessedness come out the more.
The Lord give us to look to Him as our life and strength.