The High Calling: Meditations on St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians

“Paul and Timothy” (Phil. i. x, 2).

How beautiful is the conjunction of the aged Apostle and the young disciple in sacred league and covenant! I wonder how much each owed to the other in the ministry of the Spirit? How far was it Timothy’s ministry to keep the old man young, and to warm his soul continually with the kindling influence of youthful enthusiasm? It is a gracious remembrance, that, in these latter days of limitation and suspicion, Paul could drink at the fountain of a young man’s love. He had the inexpressible privilege of scenting the perfumes of love’s springtime, and feasting upon the first sweet fruits in the garden of a young and grace-filled soul. Beautiful must have been their companionship — youth revering age, and age having no contempt or suspicion of youth, but each ministering to the other of the flowers and fruits of his own season. “Paul and Timothy.” It is the union of springtime and autumn; of enthusiasm and experience; of impulse and wisdom; of tender hope and quiet and rich assurance.

“Servants of Jesus Christ.” The early Apostles gloried in exhibiting the brand-marks of their Lord. Here, in this letter, the first thing the Apostle shows us is the mark of the branding. A little while ago I was present at a sheep-shearing in the very heart of the Highlands, and I noticed that when the heavy, burdensome fleece had been shorn from the affrighted sheep, the liberated beast was branded with the owner’s initials and went bounding away, prominently exhibiting these signs of its owner’s name. And Paul and Timothy had been delivered from a heavy burden: the vesture of oppressive habits had been removed by the power of a crucified Lord, and on their emancipated lives they bore the marks of their owner — the “brands” of the Lord Jesus. Whose I am. They belonged to Him who had redeemed them with a heavy price, and they counted it to be their glory, and their crown of rejoicing, that they were not their own, but the branded “bondservants” of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi.” The saints are reared in unlikely neighbourhoods. It was at Philippi that the multitude was so hostile and violent. It was at Philippi that Paul had “many stripes” laid upon him, and that he was “thrust into prison,” and his feet “made fast in the stocks.” One would have thought that in this fierce persecution the little Church would have been destroyed, and that in these scorching antagonisms the early, tender leaves of Christian faith and hope would have withered away. But “He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains” — even in those unlikely places — and He reared His saints amid the threatening decimations of Philippi. For let it be remembered that, though Philippi was the sphere of their living, it did not provide the rootage of their life. The saints were “at Philippi,” but they were “in Christ Jesus,” and that is the secret of their endurance “when the sun was up” and the hot beams of hostility blazed upon their unoffending heads. “Rooted ... in Christ Jesus,” and flourishing anywhere! Lydia would be among “the saints at Philippi.” Lydia would be among them, and those few women who met by the riverside to pray. And the jailer would be of the number, and his household, and many others who had been won by the constancy of a few, and “whose names are written in the book of life.” There they were, a mere handful helping to sweeten the busy city as surely as one sprig of mignonette can spread its fragrance to the limits of a wide room.

“With the bishops and deacons.” “Honour to whom honour is due.” These men had done the work of collecting the help which had been sent to the needy Apostle, and they must receive special and generous recognition. St. Paul was a prince of courtesy. Courtesy is not the creation of effort, it is the product of grace: it is born, not made. Paul was born of grace, and therefore he was gracious, and instinctively his courtesy fitted itself to all the changing requirements of the day. Mechanical courtesy is very unwelcome: it more frequently irritates than conciliates those to whom it is addressed. A little while ago I saw a table fountain sending up its frail and delicate sprays, but I could hear the click, click of the machinery by which it was propelled. How different from the natural spring, leaping with bright and noiseless spontaneity from unseen depths! True courtesy is the issue of natural springs, and its propulsion is in the Infinite. The courtesy of the Apostle Paul was “a river of water of life” that flowed “from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

“Grace to you.” Behind graciousness was grace, and the courtesy broadened into a prayer for the supreme gift. Get grace, and all gifts are gained. Grace is the bountiful mother of all the graces. But who can define it? It is love; but it is more than love. It is love with a mysterious plus; it is love that never grows weary, that goes on expending with no faintest sign of possible exhaustion. It finds some analogy in radium, that marvellous element which is ceaselessly emitting its fervent rays, but with no sign of any diminution of its primary force. Human love can tire, its rays may grow cool or become intermittent; grace loves on, and on, and on, and in its shining presence it is always noon. Grace is the energy of the Divine affection, ministering to the unlovely, and endowing the unlovely with its own loveliness. “Grace to you.”

“And peace.” Where grace abides peace will dwell. They are inseparable companions. Grace is the native element in which all our powers awake and work in happy service. Now peace is not the absence of movement: it is the absence of friction. The real symbol of peace is not to be found in some secluded motionless mountain tarn, but in the majestic progress of some quiet, brimming river. Peace is not symbolised in the death chamber, but in the rhythmic, smooth movements of the engine-house. When grace reigns, man moves in God in perfect unison, man co-operates with man in fellowship without strain, and “all that is within us praise and bless” God’s “holy name.” When grace reigns, life loses all its “strain and stress,” and, in the absence of friction, “all things work together for good.”

“From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And so this bright, energising river of “grace and peace” has its rise in the vast, two-sphered, and yet indivisible lake of “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Apostle traces all supreme gifts to their primary home. He does not pause at intermediate presences, nor does he offer his sacrifices at any secondary and inferior altar; he passes beyond all subordinate ministers and priesthoods, and presses forward to the august and lonely heights of sovereign holiness and love, and there he prostrates himself in humble adoration and praise. He distinguishes between channels and springs, between instruments and causes, and he reserves his doxologies for the Fountain. “Every good and every perfect gift is from above”; and away to these lofty springs the Apostle traces the river of “grace and peace.” And let us carefully heed how firmly and naturally the Apostle exalts the Lord Jesus to the supreme rank of Divine Sovereignty. The Lord Jesus is one with the Father in the holy initiative of redeeming grace. He shares with the Father the glory of all redeeming ministries, and is one with Him in the origin and sustenance of our salvation. “From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

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