4. Paul found in Christ the ruling passion of life. — There was never such a lover as Paul, and never such a self-sacrificinar labourer for others as he. But it was the constraining love of Christ that girded and impelled him. Not for his own sake did l! he live, nor for the sake of his countrymen, nor for the sake of [ humanity ; but he writes, " ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' ' sake," the motive being a personal love for Him who loved him and gave Himself for him. This is what he meant when he said, " For to me to live is Christ," and this is the Christian conception of life, and this is its highest realization.
Principles, in order to dominate and suffuse the life, need to have the power of awakening enthusiasm ; truth needs to be aglow to work to any purpose. And what but the thought of a great personality can awaken enthusiasm ? It is the ring of a name, summing up in itself all truth and goodness, that puts heart and
^ J. Eeid.
278 ST. PAUL'S RULING PASSION
soul and eyes into principles : it is this that makes men aware what the word enthusiasm means. " For me to live is Christ " — that is something to stir the blood, that is something to make the nerves tingle and the heart throb. " For me to live is Christ " — that speaks of Gethsemane and Calvary, of days and nights devoted to the highest good of man; that speaks the noblest thoughts that have ever been uttered, revelations of God and searchings of the human heart; that breathes the tenderest wooings to the sinful soul. It is the bugle call to the sad and despondent. " For me to live is Christ " — with that there is light in the darkest hour and hope in the most desperate day. Christ Jesus — with that name of infinite love we dare not be cast down, we dare not yield to sloth or sin, we dare not keep terms with distrust. " For to me to live is Christ " is a word of joy. Eejoice ! Kejoice ! is the word that issues from Him as the perfume from a flower. Christ purposes to conquer the world by great, over- powering joy. If you have deep and abiding joy in Christ you know what it is to be always triumphant, and yet always humble. Your triumph is in Him.
^ Sunday, July 10. I slept on deck last night and enjoyed it much — simply and solely slept. I am now a masher in whites. Though hot, we had an interesting service — the captain read prayers admirably ; the purser read lessons, fatigued ; I preached and enjoyed it. I felt homely on the first paragraph of John xxi. I do love Christ; He is simply, solely everything. You know, people speak about a religious life, and they mean going to church and prayer-meetings. That is not it, surely, I feel it, and believe it. Christ everywhere, in all things. Means are good, but they are only bulrushes. It must be Christ all round, Alpha and Omega, end, between and beginning.^
^ When Henry Martyn was labouring as a missionary in the East, some reproach was cast by a native who was with him on the name of Jesus. And the saintly man says, " I was cut to the soul by this blasphemy. I told him I could not endure existence I if Jesus were not glorified ; that it would be hell to me if He were to be always thus dishonoured." And when the person who had occasioned him this grief expressed sorrow for his unintentional offence, yet would know the cause why it distressed him — " If any one pluck out your eyes," was his reply, " there is no saying why
* James Chalmers, Autobiography and Letters, 285.
PHILIPPIANS I. 21 279
you feel pain. It is feeling. It is because I am one with Christ that I am thus dreadfully wounded." ^
5. Paid regarded life as an opportunity to serve his fellow -men. — Life assumes a new value when we view it as an opportunity to serve others. And no man has a right to forget others in settling the question whether he would live or die. We see the Apostle here brought to a stand by two conflicting currents of feelings. For himself he would gladly go, for his friends' sake he is drawn to the opposite choice. He has " fallen into a place where two seas meet," and for a minute or two his will is buffeted from side to side by the "violence of the waves." The obscurity of his language, arising from its broken construction, corresponds to the struggle of his feelings. As the Eevised Version has it, " If to live in the flesh, — if this is the fruit of my work, then what I shall choose I wot not." By which fragmentary sentence, rightly representing as it does the roughness of the Greek, we understand him to mean that if living on in this life is the condition of his gaining fruit from his toil then he has to check the rising wish, and is hindered from decisive preference either way. Both motives act upon him, one drawing him deathward, the other holding him firmly here. He is in a dilemma, pinned in, as it were, between the two opposing pressures. On the one hand he has the desire (not " a desire," as the Authorized Version has it, as if it were but one among many) turned towards departing to be with Christ ; but on the other, he knows that his remaining here is for the present all but indispensable for the immature faith of the Churches which he has founded. The attraction of life contends with the attraction of heaven in these verses. That is a conflict of which many good men know something, but which does not take with many of us the shape that it assumed with Paul, Drawn, as he is, by the supreme desire of close union with his Master, for the sake of which he is ready to depart, he is tugged back even more strongly by the thought that, if he stays here, he can go on working and gaining results from his labour. It does not follow that he did not expect service if he were with Christ. We may be very sure that Paul's heaven was no idle heaven, but one of happy activity and larger service. But he will not be able * A. Eoberts, Miscellaneous Sermons, 2.