^ Kingsley once questioned Turner as to his source of inspira- tion for his masterpiece of colour and arrangement, " The Storm at Sea." " I painted it," replied Turner, " under the stimulus of a personal experience. I was, at my own desire, lashed to the mast of a ship in a gale ojff the coast of Holland that I might study every incident in detail." ^
2. Now there is no doubt that in the midst of afflictions, such as Paul then endured, a very special knowledge of Christ might be
^ B. Wilberforce, Following on to Know the Lord, 121. EPH.-COL. — 22
333 THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECT::0N
attained. In the ordinary life of preaching, with the necessity lying on the preacher of finding what in Christ was applicable on each occasion, and with the many hardships and persecutions which this life entailed, he must have attained to a profound knowledge of Christ through both the channels of reflection and experience. But in his two years' imprisonment he had oppor- tunity for long, continuous, connected thought on Christ, and to while away the tedium of the weary hours this must have been his chief resource ; and he had also, in his tribulation and bonds, long experience of what resources of consolation and strength were in Him. But all this knowledge did not satisfy him. It rather spurred him on to long for more. There were treasures of wisdom and knowledge not yet opened up to him ; there was a depth of feeling to which he had not yet attained. And his prayer was that he might know Christ in a more all-sided way — penetrate further into Him by his thoughts, and feel Him more profoundly in his emotions : " That I may know him, and the power of his resurrec- tion, and the fellowship of his sufferings."
^ A stranger, watching the countenance or actions of your chosen friend, may misinterpret expressions or deeds — may classify his manifestations under false categories — may see irrever- ence in his playfulness, harshness in his fidelity, excess in his generosity ; but you, " knowing " the heart thus severely criticized, can see veneration in its lightness, and from its every string can evoke the music of an unsuspecting and self-oblivious love. The illustration may be applied to the Saviour. He is the best interpreter of Christ who " knows " Christ best. The child, not the alien, can best expound the father's utterances. Sympathy is the true exponent. The man who is out of sympathy with Christ will never excel as a commentator on the New Testament. Sympathy can remove difficulties before which a heartless criticism can only tremble.^
I.
To Know Christ.
1. The knowledge that Paul sets his heart upon is not a bare historical knowledge of Christ. To know Christ is not to know * J. Parker, Hidden Siirings, 340.
PHILIPPIANS III. lo, II 339
what is taught about Him, or what He did; it is to have the spiritual experience of His personal presence with the soul ; and knowing Christ is here expressed under the particulars of knowing the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. That power, therefore, has its sphere of operation in the most vital processes of spiritual life, and the resurrection of Christ is thus set in the most intimate relations with Christian experience.
^ It is one thing to stand on the shore and see the great waves and say, " There is a storm " ; it is a very different thing to be out in the midst of those waves, tossed every way by them, fighting for your life. On the shore you know of them ; in their midst you know them, you know their power. The first is information, the second is experience. Some men are content with knowing facts; other people will be content only with knowing powers. An unfelt fact is nothing at all to these last. There is no truth to them that does not take their nature and their lives into its hands and change them. Of this last class was Paul, who prayed that he might know the power of Christ's resurrection.^
^ When some early navigators, of whom Herodotus tells us, coasted round Africa, and returned with the story that they had reached a region at which their shadows at noonday pointed toward the south, their report was treated as ludicrous by the inhabitants of the Mediterranean seaboard, and among them, by the great historian himself ; since the constant experience of their own neighbourhood furnished them, as they thought, with ample reason for thinking that nothing of the kind was possible. When asserting the fact of the Eesurrection, St. Paul planted his foot upon the rock of experience ; he was proof against the seductions of the " idols " whether of the " den " or of the " cave." He had no need to pray, as have many in our time, that he might be assured of the fact of Christ's Eesurrection. What he did pray for was that he might increasingly know its power.^
2. What Paul covets is a deep personal experimental know- ledge of his Lord. His faith rested not on testimony, not even on his own vision at Damascus, except in so far as it was the outward and visible sign expressive of the inward manifestation to his inmost being. Otherwise the hour of depression might