Philippian Studies / Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians

by H. C. G. Moule

Ver. 15. +us perfect ones+ (hosoi oun teleioi), with the perfection not of ideal attainment but of Christian maturity and entirety of experience, +be of this mind+; the "mind" of those who rest in Christ immoveably for their acceptance, and press forward in Christ unrestingly in their obedience, ever discovering fresh causes for humility and for progress, as they keep close to Him. +And if you are diversely+ (eterôs) +minded in any thing+, if in any detail of theory or statement you cannot yet see with me, +this also God shall unveil to you+. Sure I am that "the Spirit of God speaketh by me," and that ultimately therefore you will, in submission to Him, see as I have taught you. But I am not therefore commissioned in this matter to denounce and excommunicate; I lay the truth before you, and in love leave it upon your reverent thoughts. +Only, as to+

Ver. 16. +what we have succeeded in reaching+,[5] so far as our insight into Christ has actually gone, up to our full present light in the Gospel, +let us step in the same path+ (tô autô stoichein[6]), on the unchanging principles of faith, love, and holiness, and with a watchful desire to cherish to the utmost a holy harmony of spirit and conduct.

Here, in suggestive contrast or complement to the section we studied last, the Christian appears in full and energetic movement, animated with a sacred discontent, repudiating all thought of finality in his conformity to his Lord, and in his actual spiritual condition; running, pressing on, remembering at every step that, although grace is present in power, and glory is in view, still this is the journey, not the home; the race, not the goal;

Nil actum reputans dum quid sibi restat agendum.

The passage contains of course much divine teaching in detail. But two main points come up conspicuously "for our learning."

i. We have here a strong, and at the same time a most tender, warning against all approaches to a theoretical "perfectionism." Under that word, as I am well aware, many varieties of opinion in detail may be found. And again, few who hold opinions commonly called perfectionist like the word "perfectionism." But I speak with practical accuracy when I give that title to such views as on the whole affirm the attainableness here below of a spiritual condition in which man needs no longer confess himself as now a sinner, and in which his attention tends to be drawn more to his perfectness than to his imperfections of condition. That such views are held, and strongly held, by many earnest Christians, is a familiar fact. As far as my own observation goes, such views are not uncommonly attended, in those who hold them, by a certain oblivion to personal shortcomings and inconsistencies; by an obscuration of consciousness, and of conscience, more or less marked, towards the sinfulness of ordinary, everyday violations of the law of holiness in respect of "meekness, humbleness of mind, longsuffering," sympathy, and other quiet graces.

In the present passage the Apostle's whole spirit moves in just the opposite direction. His complete repose in Christ as the Righteousness of God for him, and then his deep nearness to his Lord as the Power of God in him, alike seem not so much to banish as utterly to preclude any thought about himself but that of his own imperfection. He writes as one whose very last feeling is that of complacency in his spiritual condition. I deliberately do not say "self-complacency"; for all Christians would repudiate that word; I say, complacency in his spiritual condition. His spiritual position, in Christ, as he is "found in Him," fills him with much more than complacency; it is his glory and his boast. But when he comes to speak of his spiritual condition, the possessing thought is that all is imperfect and progressive. He has a perfect blessing; but he is an imperfect recipient of it; he has "not attained." He is deeply happy. But he is thoroughly humble. As we read the passage, we feel very sure that the man who wrote it would lie very tenderly and candidly open to reproofs, and to painful truths told him about himself. For his Lord, he is ready to bear rejoicing witness to the whole world. For himself, even as in Christ, he holds no brief; nay, he takes the other part.

He has had a vision of absolute holiness which has completely guarded him from the delusion of thinking that he is himself absolutely holy, even in the fullest state of grace. He is so genuinely "perfect" in the sense of mature knowledge of his Lord that he is incapable of thinking himself "perfected."

All the while, this does not for a moment leave him in the miserable plight of acquiescing in sin because he knows he is still a sinner. If he were merely going by a theory, it might be so. But he is going by the Lord Jesus Christ; he is using HIM, daily and hourly, as not only his always abasing standard, but as "all his salvation, and all his desire"; as the infinitely blissful Object of his affections and of his knowledge; as his Summum Bonum. While Christ is fully this to the Christian, he will be little likely on the one hand to say, "I am perfect" (Job ix. 20); on the other he will be always seeking, in the most practical of all ways, watching, praying, believing, for a closer conformity and yet closer (summorphixomenos) to his Lord's bright image.

And at the back of all his thoughts about defect and progress will lie the restful certainties to which no ideas of defect attach, and from which the idea of progress is absent, because it is out of place—the certainties of the Righteousness of God, "of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ"; the being "found in Him."