CHAP. I.]

THE SAME CONFLICT.

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29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, P not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;

r

o Acts v. 41. Rom. v. 3.

P Eph. ii. 8

30 Having the same conflict which ye saw in Col. ii. 1. me, and now hear to be in me.

r Acts xvi. 15, &c. 1 Thess. ii. 2.

death, but taking other matters into consideration, such as the holiness of their lives, the Divine nature of their faith as a thing wholly above the world, and similar gifts, their constancy and patience were an evident sign from God, that He was on their side, and, if so, that He was against their adversaries, and would visit them with a destruction answering to the salvation with which He would reward those who fought for His Church and Gospel.

Christ was their great rule. The sufferings which He endured might be taken by some as evidence that God was against Him, but not so; they were the most evident tokens to those who accepted the word of God that He was the true Messiah, and that His Father had marked out for Him the path of suffering as the path of victory; and so with His people. If they were without suffering they could not be His. If they believed in Him, and on that account endured suffering, then this suffering was the pledge of their election, for he proceeds,

29. "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ," &c. "Is given," rather signifies, "it is given through grace" (ixapioon), "not only to believe on him." To believe in Christ seems to be purely an act of our own wills, but here it is said to be the gift of God; and in such a world as this, and in such sin-polluted beings as we are, it must be by divine aid, which is but another term for divine grace.

"But also to suffer for his sake." The world, as such, universally takes happiness to indicate the favour of God and suffering to be a token of His displeasure; but here to suffer for Christ is a gift of God, just as much as faith in Him is. Thus Christ pronounces the blessedness of those who suffer for His sake: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake " (Matth. 11).

V.

30. "Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me." "Ye saw in me," that is, when I first preached

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FULFIL YE MY JOY.

[PHILIPPIANS. the Gospel to you, and was put in prison on account of the tumult after having been beaten publicly (Acts xvi. 24).

This verse implies that the Philippian Christians were now under persecution, but of this we have no account in the Book of the Acts.

IF

CHAP. II.

F there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any b bowels and mercies,

a 2 Cor. xiii. 14.

b Col. iii. 12.

d

2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, d Rom. xii. 16. having the same love, being of one accord, of one

c John iii. 29.

1. "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort," &c. Again he urges upon them in most tender and affectionate words the necessity of Unity.

"If there be any consolation in Christ;" wаρáкληois here must mean "consolation." It cannot mean exhortation. "If there be any exhortation in Christ" would make this fervent passage frigid to the last degree.

"If any comfort of love," the grace which binds souls together. "If any fellowship of the Spirit." The Spirit inhabiting each Christian soul makes all one.

"If any bowels of mercies," any tender affection, any yearning for one another's eternal salvation.

If there be any of these Divine and Christian graces, and that there are, your example in times past, your fervent love towards me show, then,—

"Fulfil ye my joy, that ye may be likeminded, having the same love." 66 Complete my joy, fill my cup of joy up to the brim." "That ye be likeminded," "that ye think the same thing," having the same love one toward another.

66

Being of one accord, of one mind," be united together in soul, minding one thing. The Apostle evidently considers what is to us

CHAP. II.]

e

IN LOWLINESS OF MIND.

277

ch. i. 15, 16.

3 Let nothing be done through strife or vain-⚫ Gal. v. 26. glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

Jam. iii. 14.

f Rom. xii, 10. Eph. v. 21.

4 Look not every man on his own things, but 1Pet. v. 5. every man also on the things of others.

g 1 Cor. x. 24, 33. & xiii. 5.

h Matt. xi. 29.

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in John xiii. 15. Christ Jesus:

1 Pet. ii, 21. 1 John ii. 6.

4. "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Revisers read, "Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others."

such a seeming impossibility, to have been possible if men would only sink self and surrender themselves wholly to the leading of the indwelling Spirit. Let the reader remember the message to the Corinthians: "I beseech you, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment" (1 Cor. i. 10).

3. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory." Literally, "nothing through strife or vainglory," there being no verb in the original, which makes the injunction more powerful; “strife,” i.e., through factiousness, or through party spirit; "vainglory," i.e., personal vanity.

"In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than them. selves." For as Wesley says, “Everyone knows more evil of himself than he can of another." A similar precept occurs in Rom. xii. 10, "In honour preferring one another."

4. "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." So "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth." (1 Cor. x. 24.) Thus "Charity seeketh not her own." (1 Cor. xiii. 5.) The "let every man also" implies that there is a seeking of our own which is not sinful. A due regard for one's own things is not forbidden, but only such a regard as makes us always, or indeed mostly, prefer our own interest.

5, 6. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God," &c. The "form" here, the English reader must remember, is not the figure or outward appearance, but the contrary. As Bishop Lightfoot explains, the form (uoppm) is that which is intrinsic and essential compared with that which

278

i John i. 1, 2. & xvii. 5.

2 Cor. iv. 4 Col. i. 15. Heb. i. 3.

k John v. 18.

& x. 33.

IN THE FORM OF GOD.

[PHILIPPIANS

k

6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

6. "Being." Rather "subsisting” (únáρxwv), “being originally" (Reviser's margin).

"the

is accidental and outward (oxñμa). "It suggests," he says, same idea which is otherwise expressed in St. John by the Logos."

"Thought it not robbery to be equal with God." In endeavouring to ascertain the exact meaning, so far as we can, of this clause, we must bear in mind that “equality with God" is ascribed to the Son of God in the clause, " who being in the form of God," and for this reason, that it is impossible to imagine that the form in which He subsisted from all eternity did not express the reality of His inmost Being. Other beings might take "forms" which did not accord with the essential truth or their being-not so, of course, With Him, in His eternal state, form and reality

the Son of God. were the same.

"Thought it not robbery." The word ȧprayμòç is thus rendered in the oldest translations, the Latin and Syriac. Now, if we take this word in the sense of robbery, we cannot suppose for a moment that it means that the Son of God regarded it no robbery, that is, no robbing His Father of His unique glory, to be equal with Him, for if He was equal, which is implied in His being in the form of God, how could He think it robbery to be what He was ? We must then seek for another shade of meaning in this term, and this we find in the idea of tenaciously grasping or holding to. The Lord Jesus in His pre-existent state having equality with God did not tenaciously grasp this or hold it fast (so far as regards its outward manifestations of glory) as one would who had laid hold of a prize or of a spoil which he had acquired. This sense is admirably illustrated by Chrysostom: Whatsoever a man robs and takes contrary to his right, he dares not lay aside, from fear lest it perish and fall from his possession, but he keeps hold of it continually. He who possesses a dignity which is natural to him, fears not to descend from that dignity, being assured that nothing of this sort will happen unto him. What do we say then? That the Son of God feared not to descend from His right, for He thought. not Deity a matter of robbery, He was not afraid that anyone

66

CHAP. II.]

HE EMPTIED HIMSELF.

m

7 'But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and " was made in the || likeness of men:

would strip Him of that nature or that right, wherefore He laid it aside, being confident that He should take it up again. Wherefore He refused not to take the form of an inferior. . . . He did not refuse to lay it aside, as one who had usurped it, but since He had it as His own nature, since it could never be parted from Him, He concealed it."

7. "But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant." This is translated by all commentators as "He emptied Himself." The words which best illustrate its meaning are those of Christ to His Father, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (John xvii.)

It seems presumptuous to inquire into the meaning of this placeas to how far He could empty Himself, without laying aside what was essential to Him as God. We know not what power the Divine Nature has over Itself, so that, for instance, It should lay aside knowledge, and consent to be ignorant of "that day and that hour," in which the crisis of the Universe will take place. Again, it seems evident that He laid aside that power of instruction which He possessed, for it is said that "He through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles whom He had chosen (Acts i. 2). Again, through the power of the Spirit, He cast out devils (Matth. xii. 28), and in other ways, unknown to us, He might have divested Himself of what seemed inherent in Him and inseparable from Him.

"And took upon him the form of a servant." It is literally, "He emptied himself (by) taking the form (μoppǹ) of a slave." "A slave," that is, the form of a creature who being the creation of God is His absolute possession. If He had taken upon Him the

1 I cannot help suggesting that something had occurred in the Philippian Church to suggest this use of this word ȧprayμòs. Some privilege or some advantage had been clutched by some and tenaciously grasped or held to by others, as if they thought (rightly or wrongly) that it only belonged to themselves, and that they were in some degree robbed of it if it was shared by others. The Jews, for example, held tenaciously to the things which, as they thought, gave them superiority over the Gentiles.