Part 2 (1/2)
[7] F. R. Havergal.
[8] Cowper, _Conversation_.
_THE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRc.u.mSTANCES_
”Yield to the Lord, with simple heart, All that thou hast and all thou art, Renounce all strength but strength divine, And peace shall be for ever thine.”
MME DE LA MOTHE GUYON, _translated by_ COWPER.
CHAPTER III
THE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRc.u.mSTANCES
PHILIPPIANS i. 12-20
Disloyal ”brethren”--Interest of the paragraph--The victory of patience--The Praetorian sentinel--Separatism, and how it was met--St Paul's secret--His ”earnest expectation”--”Christ magnified”--”In my body”
St Paul has spoken his affectionate greeting to the Philippians, and has opened to them the warm depths of his friends.h.i.+p with them in the Lord. What he feels towards them ”in the heart of Christ Jesus,” what he prays for them in regard of the growth and fruit of their new life, all has been expressed. It is time now to meet their loving anxieties with some account of his own position, and the circ.u.mstances of the mission in the City. Through this pa.s.sage let us follow him now; we shall find that the quiet picture, full of strong human interest in its details, is suffused all over with the glory of the presence and the peace of Christ.
Ver. 12. +Now I wish you to know, brethren, that my position and circ.u.mstances+ (_ta kat eme_, ”_the things related to me_”) +have come out+, have resulted, +rather for the progress of the Gospel+ message and enter-
Ver. 13. prise, than otherwise; +so that my bonds+, my imprisonment, with its _custodia militaris_, +are become unmistakable+ (_phanerous_) as being +in Christ+; as due to no social or political crime, but to the name and cause of the Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world.
This is the case in the +whole Praetorium+,[1] in all ranks of the Imperial Guard, +and among other people in general+ (_tois loipois pasi_[2]). And
Ver. 14. another result is[3] +that the majority+ (_tous plaionas_) +of the brethren in the Lord+, the converts of the Roman mission, +feeling a new confidence in connexion with my bonds+,[4] animated by the fact of my imprisonment, realizing afresh the glory of the cause which makes me happy to suffer, +venture more abundantly+, more frequently, more openly, +fearlessly to speak the Word+, the message of Christ, of the Cross, of Truth, of Life. There is a drawback in this
Ver. 15. welcome phenomenon: +some indeed actually+ (_kai_) +for envy and strife, while others as truly+ (_kai_) +for goodwill, are proclaiming the Christ+. The latter[5]
Ver. 16. are at work thus +from+ motives of love, love to the Lord and to me His captive Messenger, +knowing+ that on purpose +for the vindication+ (_apologian_) +of the Gospel I am posted+ (_keimai_, as a soldier, fixed by his captain's order) here. The former from
Ver. 17. motives of +faction+, partizans.h.i.+p (_eritheia_) in a self-interested propaganda of their own opinions, +are announcing the Christ, not purely, thinking+ and meaning +to raise up+ (_egeirein_, so read) +tribulation for+ me in +my bonds+; as so easily they can do, by detaching from me many converts who would otherwise gather round me, and generally by the mortifying thought of their freedom and activity in contrast to my enforced isolation. Shall I give way to the trial, and lose patience and peace? Must I? Need
Ver. 18. I? Nay; +what matters it+ (_ti gar_)? Is not the fiery arrow quenched in Christ for me? Is it not thus nothing to me?
Yes--yet not nothing, after all; for it brings a gain; it spreads the Gospel so much further; so that to my ”What matters it?” I may add, +Only, in every way+, fair or foul, +Christ is being announced; and in this I rejoice, aye, and rejoice I shall+; the future can only bring me fresh reasons for a joy which lies wholly in the triumphs of my Lord, and can only bring fresh blessings to
Ver. 19. me His va.s.sal. +For I know that I shall find+ (_moi_) this experience +result in salvation+, in the access of saving grace to my soul, +through your supplication+ for me, which will be quickened by your knowledge of my trials, +and+ through a resulting +full supply+ (_epich.o.r.egia_: the word suggests a supply which is ample) +of the Spirit of Jesus Christ+; a developed presence in me of the Holy Ghost, coming from the exalted Saviour, and revealing Him, and applying Him.
Such blessing will be exactly
Ver. 20. +according to my eager expectation+ (_apokaradokia_) and hope, that in no respect shall I be disappointed (_aiochunthesomai_: with the ”shame” of a miscalculation), +but that in all outspokenness+ (_parresia_) of testimony, whether in word or deed, +as always, so also now, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by means of life or by means of death+.
The pa.s.sage is full of various points of interest. It is interesting, as we saw in our first chapter, in regard of the historical criticism of the Epistle. It gives a strong suggestion (I follow Lightfoot in the remark) in favour of dating the Epistle early in the ”two years” of Acts xxviii. For it implies that the fact of the Apostle's imprisonment was a powerful stimulant to the zeal of the Roman Christians; and this is much more likely to have been the case when the imprisonment was still a new fact to them, than later. St Paul's arrival and first settlement, in the character (totally new in Rome, so far as we know) of a ”prisoner of Jesus Christ,” would of itself give a quickening shock, so to speak, to the believing community, which had suffered, so we gather, from a certain decadence of zeal. But when he had been some time amongst them, and the conditions of the ”hired house” had become usual and familiar in their thoughts, it would be otherwise; whatever else about St Paul might rekindle their ardour, the mere fact of his imprisoned state would hardly do so.
The pa.s.sage is further interesting as it indicates one particular direction of the Apostle's influence upon the pagans around him. It was felt, primarily, ”in all the Praetorium,” that is to say, in the large circle of the Imperial Life-guards.[6] We gather here, with reasonable certainty, that from the Life-guards were supplied, one by one, ”the soldiers that kept him” (Acts xxviii. 16); mounting guard over him in turn, and fastened to him by the long chain which clasped at one end the wrist of the prisoner, at the other that of the sentinel. It needs only a pa.s.sing effort of imagination to understand something of the exquisite trial to every sensibility which such a custody must have involved, even where the conditions were favourable.
Let the guardian be ever so considerate and civil, it would be a terrible ordeal to be literally never alone, night or day; and too often, doubtless, the guardian would be not at all complaisant. To many a man, certainly to any man of the refined mental and moral nature of St Paul, this slow fire of indescribable annoyance would be far worse to endure than a great and sudden infliction of pain, even to death. It is a n.o.ble triumph of grace when such a test is well borne, and turned by patience into an occasion for G.o.d. When Nicholas Ridley, for a long year and a half (1554-5) was committed at Oxford to the vexatious domestic custody of the mayor and his bigoted wife, Edmund and Margaret Irish, it must have been nothing less than a slow torture to one whose fine nature had been used for years to the conditions of civil and ecclesiastical dignity and of a large circle of admirable friends. And it was a spiritual victory, second only to that of his glorious martyrdom (Oct. 16, 1555), when the close of that dreary time found the once obdurate and vexatious Mrs Irish won by Ridley's life to admiration and attachment, and also, as it would seem, to scriptural convictions.[7] But it was a still n.o.bler result from a still more persistent and penetrating trial when St Paul so lived and so witnessed in the presence of this succession of Roman soldiers that the whole Guard was pervaded with a knowledge of his true character and position, evidently in the sense of interest and of respect. It must have been a course of _unbroken_ consistency of conduct as well as of openness of witness. Had he only sometimes, only rarely, only once or twice, failed in patience, in kindness, in the quiet dignity of the Gospel, the whole succession of his keepers would have felt the effect, as the story pa.s.sed from one to another. As a fact, the ”keeping power of Christ” was always with him, and always used by him, and the men went out one after another to say that here was a prisoner such as never was before. Here was no conspirator or criminal; his ”bonds” were evidently (ver. 13) due only to his devotion to a G.o.d whom he would not renounce, and whose presence with him and power over him were visibly shewn in the divine peace and love of his hourly life.