I. Illustrate the exhortation of the apostle.—1. The Gospel of Christ is a system which assumes and proceeds upon the invaluable value of the soul. 2. Which assumes and depicts the danger and guilt of the soul, and provides a plan for its immediate restoration to the Divine favour. 3. Is a system of peculiar and authoritative truth. 4. Is a system of godliness. 5. Of morals. 6. Of universal charity.
II. The sources of the apostle’s anxiety.—1. He desired the Philippians thus to act from a regard of the honour of the Gospel and its Author. 2. Out of a regard for the Philippians themselves. 3. From a regard to the Gentiles. 4. From a regard to himself, his own peace and his own joy.—T. Binney.
Vers. 28, 29. Conflict and Suffering.—1. Faith in Christ must go before suffering for Christ, so that to suffer for Him is of greater importance, and in some respects more honourable, than simply to believe in Him. 2. Then are sufferings truly Christian and an evidence of salvation, when as the sufferer is first a believer, so his sufferings are for Christ’s sake—for His truth. 3. Christian courage under suffering will not be kept up without conflict. 4. In suffering for truth nothing befalls us but what is common to men.—Fergusson.
CHAPTER II.
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Ver. 1. Consolation in Christ.—Exhortation would be better, inasmuch as consolation anticipates the comfort of the next phrase. Comfort of love.—Encouragement which love gives. Fellowship of the Spirit.—“Participation in the Spirit.” Meyer’s remark is, “This is to be explained of the Holy Spirit.” Beet intimates a widening of the idea—“brotherliness prompted by the Holy Spirit.” Bowels and mercies.—On the former term see ch. i. 8. The word for mercies denotes the yearning of the heart, though, it may be, there is no ability to help.
Ver. 2. Fulfil ye my joy.—“Fill up” my cup of joy. See ch. i. 4. Likeminded.—“General harmony, . . . identity of sentiment” (Meyer). On this verse, with its accumulations, Chrysostom exclaims, “Bless me! how often he says the same thing!”
Ver. 3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.—The verb is suppressed in the Greek, a construction more natural and more forcible than to connect the nothing with the preceding clause. “Partisanship and pomposity.” For the ruin of how many Churches are this pair responsible! In lowliness of mind.—A rare flower, scattering its fragrance unseen. “It was one great result of the life of Christ (on which St. Paul dwells here) to raise humility to its proper level; and, if not fresh coined for this purpose, the word (for ‘lowliness of mind’) now first became current through the influence of Christian ethics” (Lightfoot).
Ver. 5. Let this mind be in you.—The apostle’s word reminds us that he had already counselled his readers to be likeminded amongst themselves. “Each to each, and all to Christ,” this verse seems to say. What follows—to ver. 11—is the very marrow of the Gospel.