Forces Which Make for Concord
Christian union is far more than an unbroken skin. It does not find its symbol in some fine texture of green tender lawn which impartially clothes soils of great variety. It is not surface-sameness; it is vital spiritual kinship. It is not a common label; it is a common heart. And therefore the Apostle, in making his appeal for peace and concord, names the profound realities in which they are born, and in which alone they can be sustained.
“If there is therefore any comfort in Christ.” That is the basal chord in all possible spiritual harmonies. There must be a personal experience and knowledge of the Lord, which acts upon the life like an “exhortation,” moving it with all the force of persuasive eloquence. To seek to establish Christian union upon any other foundation is to build it upon shifting sand. A common ritual is only a rope of sand, and a fierce blow of adversity may scatter the apparent unity into dire confusion. A common organisation is only a mechanical order, and is ever exposed to the corroding rust of time and to many a violent foe. And a common creed, even though it use the clamps of prejudice and virulent passion, can never constitute a family such as is purposed by our Lord. All these are only phantom unions, mere counterfeits of the glorious reality. The first requisite to brotherly concord is a “secret” between the individual soul and the Saviour, a partaking of the “hidden manna,” a compelling and “comforting” intercourse in the quiet and innermost chambers of the life.
“If any consolation of love.” When the soul has sat at the “feast of fat things,” and has tasted and seen “how gracious the Lord is,” there will surely arise the incentive of an all-constraining love. Love is not the product of small obediences; it is born of a great companionship. “We love because He first loved us.” No one can explain the mystery of love. Etymology cannot take us a single inch on the way to the secret clue. The soul comes into certain conditions, and the mystic fire is kindled. At one moment the outlook is grey and cold and commonplace; the next moment it is brimming with sunshine, and full of colour, and resounding with song. “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!” When love is born in the soul, life beats with a new pulse, with a new impulse, and man goes out to meet his brother.
“If any fellowship of the Spirit.” Love is the spiritual organ, and by its ministry we have exquisite correspondences with the Eternal. In wireless telegraphy the transmitter and the receiver are, as it were, tuned to the same key; if this identity is lost, the fellowship is destroyed. And love is fellow-feeling with God, and where it rules in sovereign power there is marvellous telepathic communion with the Divine. He speaks and we listen, we speak and He hears, and between us there is a ceaseless commerce in holy request and intimation. Outsiders may know nothing about this sacred communion, just as the outsider may know nothing about the wireless messages which are speeding through space, but all who are attuned know its reality, and rejoice in the gracious experience. And no man can be in secret and constant correspondence with the Spirit and not be moved in tender and chivalrous quest of man. The “friend of God” will yearn after lonely men everywhere; he will be “a friend of publicans and sinners.”
“If any tender mercies and compassions Yes, he will put out the most exquisite feelers to the frail and sore places in human life. He will lift the weary, and touch their wounds with the expertness of assured discernment. His pity will surprise those to whom it is given, and the pity will redeem them. There is nothing more needed in the world than just this fine endowment of illumined compassion. Many of us can weep, but there is no light or sight in our tears. The compassion which is not blind, which is “full of eyes,” is very rare, but it is a ministry of blessed and mighty power. “And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in discernment.” This all-seeing tenderness will assuredly belong to those who move in intimate companionship with the Lord. If we abide in Him, our whole body will be “full of light.”
“Fulfil ye my joy.” Some joy they had already given him, but now the Apostle asks that his joy may be perfected, and filled to overflowing. Not that his joy in the Lord was thin and scanty; that flowed on like a river in flood, carrying all obstacles before it. But in addition to our joy in God, there is another joy-channel which can only be filled by our fellows, and that only in certain prescribed conditions. Our God has determined that man shall share with him the service of filling the river-courses of human happiness, and it is solely because of men’s disobedience and superficiality that the channels are empty, like dry and bleached river-beds in time of drought. But, surely, if Paul’s Philippian correspondents have enjoyed the experiences which he has just described, they are abundantly qualified to fill the river-courses up to the brim! If they have secretly known the Lord, if love is begotten and active, if they have tender intimacies with the Holy Spirit, and if they are possessed by most sensitive compassions, then surely their lives will flow over into other lives in joyful and joy-creating flood. And in the Christian Church such generous resource will operate precisely as the Apostle describes. It will be created of a glorious solidarity.
“That ye he of the same mind.” And this solidarity shall have these gracious characteristics. First, it shall be a fellowship not constituted of a common hatred, but of a common love, not of negative resentment to a foe, but of a positive affection to the Lord: “having the same love.” And, secondly, it shall be a concord in which all the affections shall be in perfect harmony, the entire emotional life co-operating like the sweetest strains of powerful music: “being of one accord.” And, thirdly, it shall be dominated and illumined by a common purpose, all the activities of the brotherhood aiming at one great and sovereign end:” of one mind.” Such is the mighty concord born of secret experience with the Lord.