The Pulpit Commentary — Philippians — Section 105

Vera. 17, 18.-0hristly love. "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I j,oy, and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy, anrl rejoice with me.' There are different kinds of love. Christly love is love in the highest form, the love which is the inspiration of all human activitieH, approver! of God, anrl spiritually useful to man. Two remarks are here suggested concerning this love. I. IT IS SELF-CONSECRATING. It was 80: 1. In the conduct of the Phi7ippian Christiana. Paul speaks of their religion as the "!18.Crifice" and "service" of their " faith." The life of a genuine Christian is the life of a true priest; he is at once the offering and the offerer. It is a self-dedication to God. In this priesthood of personal Christianity two things are to be observed. (1) Every man is his own sacrifire. The sacrifice of anything short of his own self will not do. The wealth of the world would not be a substitute for this. He must lay himself on the altar. It is not until he has done this that anything else that he can do has aught of virtue in it. What does this offering of self imply'/ (a) Not the lose of personality. Man does not lose himself by consecrating his existence to the Eternal. He will never be absorbed in the Infinite; a man once, a man for ever. (b) Not the loss of free agency. In the consecration man does not become the mere limb or machine of Omnipotence. In truth he only secures his highest liberty by yielding up himself to God. What does it mean, then? It includes two things-yielding to his love as the inspiration of his being, and adopting his will as the rule of his activities. (2) Every man is his own minister. He must offer the sacrifice himself; no one can do it for him. Could my being be offered to the Almighty by another, it would be a crime in the offerer and no virtue to me. I must do it fully, devoutly, manfully. 2. In the life of the apostle. "Yea, and if I be offered [or, 'poured forth,'] upon the sacrifice." The allusion is to the practice of pouring out libations or drink offerings over sacrifices both Jewish and heathen. Paul regards his own possible martyrdom in the sense of a libation. He felt that his possible death was to serve that practical Christianity which the Philippians were exemplifying in their " sacrifice" and " service." He had consecrated his existence to the furtherance of the gospel. II. IT IS JOY-INBPmmo. "I joy, and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me." This self-consecrating love to the cause of Divine benevolence, the cause of Christ and humanity, is "joy." Such disinterested love is happiness, nothing else, is heaven and nothing else. Just as the individual man loses himself, his ego, in the love of God and the interests of his universe, all personal anxieties and sorrows sink into the depths of oblivion, the soul gets filled with all the fulness of God. Genuine religion is joy; it is not the means to heaven, it is heaven itself. Such is Christly love, and such alone is true religion. Selfish love, sectarian love, and theological love are not constituents, but antipathies, to this love.-D. T. Vers. 19-24.-The true spirit of (Jhristian usefulness. "But I trust in the Lord," etc. These words might be fairly employed to illustrate the tru.e spirit of CJhristian usefulness, and the following remarks are suggested. This spirit is- I. SUPREME CONCERN FOR THE SOUL-INTERESTS OF OTHERS. This was exemplified in Paul. 1. In thinking of them at all in his condition. Paul was now a prisoner in Rome, exposed to martyrdom, "ready to be offered." One might have thought that in such a condition his mind would have been wholly occupied with his own affairs, and that he would be utterly dead to the concerns of others. Not so; he feels a vital and deep interest in the Church at Philippi. 2. In despatching to them the best man he could find to promote their spiritual good. "But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state." See what he says of this Timothy, whom he purposes shortly to send to them. (1) He was the only man he could find of a similar mind to his own. "I have no man like-minded, who will naturally care [ or, 'care truly'] for your state." It would uot be difficult, perhaps, for him to find men who would go down to 11he Philippian8 nnd preach to them; but very difficult to find a man who would visit them with that tender interest and self-sacrificing love which Paul had. (2) He was a man who was devoted to the things of Jesus Christ, and not to his own. "For all seek their own." '!'his, perhaps, must be taken in n qualified sense-the "all" for most. Tbe millions in every age seek their own, self is the oentre and circumference of their aims  102 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS, [en. n. 1-30.