^ The term used by Paul has nothing to do with what we in the present day commonly mean by conversation (the word used in the Authorized Version), that is, talking. It means rather our life, that is, not the way of life in which we choose to live, but the state of life for which God made us, to which we belong, whether we choose it or not. More plainly still, it is the country or nation or city of which we are members and citizens, in which we are natives. It is that city of Jerusalem above, of which St. Paul writes to the Galatians, which is the mother of us all, the city of God. We belong to a great commonwealth, and that com- monwealth is in heaven. Not we shall belong, but we do now belong to the heavenly commonwealth. This is not some slight or accidental honour added to our life. It is the very frame and truth of our life itself. We belong to it first and foremost, not by an afterthought. Heaven comes first, not earth. We are first citizens of heaven, and last citizens of heaven, and citizens of heaven all the while between : earth comes in only by the way ; it has no deep and lasting rights over us.^
\ Not only have the words, " Our conversation is in heaven,"
lost for thousands of readers their original English meaning, but
they had never conveyed the real point of St. Paul's phrase with
its quite definite reference to a political Citizenship or Common-
^ F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons, 2nd Ser., 151.
378 CITIZENSHIP IN HEAVEN
wealth or Empire. A Roman citizen, proud — we see it again and again in the story of his life — proud of his privilege, is in custody at Rome waiting his trial by the Emperor. The whole conditions of that trial turned upon his citizenship, and he is writing to men and women in an enrolled Roman Colony — Philippi — who were hardly less proud than he of their Roman citizenship, their fellowship in the Imperial capital of the world.
What he says is. Some Christians, even in these testing days, have been lowering the Christian ideal. They are easy-going or even sensual and self-indulgent. That ought, for us, members of Christ's Commonwealth, citizens of His Kingdom, to be impossible. For we have learned better, our link of fellowship is an ennobling thing ; it uplifts, it steadies us. " Our citizenship is in heaven." ^
I.
The City to which we Belong.
1. We belong to a city or state, which is out of sight. St. John, in the last great prophecy given through him to the Church, saw that city, builded four-square, perfect every way, on twelve foundations, having in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. It was built at unity with itself, perfect in structure and in symmetry, its length as great as its breadth ; its walls of all manner of precious stones, and its streets of pure gold, clear as glass: a wonderful vision, full of mystery, and of meaning partly revealed, partly hidden, and by hiding made even more glorious and majestic. It sets before us the unity, multitude, per- fection, glory, and bliss, of Christ's saints gathered under Him in the Kingdom of God. Of this city and company, the whole Church on earth, and, in it, the Christians in Philippi, were citizens and partakers. St. Paul tells them this, to remind them that they were no longer isolated one from another, but incorporated into one body. Sin, as it rends man from God, so it rends man from man. It is the antagonist of all unity — a power of dissolution and of isolation. But the grace of Christ, by its first gift, binds again the soul of man with God, and the spirits of all the re- generate in one fellowship. We are taken out of a dead world, to be grafted into the living Church. Therefore St. Paul told the * Archbishop Davidson, The Christian Opportunity, 41-
PHILIPPIANS III. 20, 21 379
Christians in Ephesus, that they were "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the house- hold of God." They were thereby made subjects and servants of the King of saints, the Lord of the holy city. It became their own inheritance. Its courts were their resting-places, pledged to them and sure. Their names were written among those who should walk in the light of God and of the Lamb.
^ An American agent or ambassador has a temporary dwelling in Athens. Living on that foreign soil, occupied daily, for the time, with its local affairs, respectful to its institutions, a good neighbour, he never forgets his allegiance to a distant republic. The landscape about him may show a beauty that wins his admira- tion ; the Greek faces and manners and hospitalities may gain his good- will ; yet they are not those of his native land. He remem- bers that his stay is short ; sometimes he is homesick ; he expects to be called back, not long hence, where his treasure is laid up and his untra veiled heart abides ; he is a stranger and sojourner, away from home. This simple comparison answers the better because it shows that when our faith commands us to have our conversation in heaven it does not require us to be bad citizens of the world where we now are. We are not bidden to be absent- minded ; if we were we should do poor work here, and lead in- effectual lives. The man may form hearty attachments where he tarries ; he may pay willing tribute to the city that temporarily befriends him; he may live cheerfully and helpfully, neither a complaining guest nor a fastidious and sullen recluse. And yet, none the less, as the Epistle to the Hebrews so grandly says of the patriarch who is the type of the Christian believer, he desires always a better country, which he knows — a " city " first in his honour, dearer to his love, and always in his hopes. So Christ, by His doctrine and spirit, reconciles a regular and happy labour among the fields and streets and markets of this world with a constant recollection that we have an eternal citizenship above it.^