Ver. 20. Fulness dwells."[10] +But now to our God and Father+, to Him of whom I and you are alike the dear children, +be the glory+, the praise for this and for all like acts of His children's love, +for ever and ever+; "to the ages of the ages," the endless cycles of eternal life, in which shall it be fully seen how He was the Secret of all the holiness of all His saints. Amen.
So the utterance of thanks for a loving and liberal collection closes. Here is another case of the phenomenon we have seen already—the beautiful skill with which a local and personal incident is used as the occasion for a whole revelation of grace and truth. We can easily imagine a gift like that which came from Philippi acknowledged with a few cordial words which would adequately express gratitude and pleasure, but would otherwise terminate wholly in themselves. How different is this paragraph! Throughout it, side by side, run at once the most perfect and delicate human courtesy and considerateness, and suggestions of eternal and spiritual relations, in which "the gift" touches at every point the heart of the Lord, and the promises of grace, and the hope of glory. This message of thanks gives us, just in passing, such oracles of blessing as, "I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me," and "My God shall supply all your need." It is on one side a model of nobility and fineness of human thought and feeling, on the other an oracle of God. This is just in the manner of Scripture. "Never book spake like this Book."
Now the close comes. The greetings which those who are one in the Lord cannot but send to one another in His name, have to be spoken, and then the scribe's pen will rest.
Ver. 21. +Salute every saint in Christ Jesus+, every holy one of your circle, holy because in Him; pass the greetings round from my heart to each member of the Church. And as I write, the Christians now around me, my personal friends upon the spot, must send their message too; +there salute you all the brethren who are with me+. And not they only, but all the believers of the Roman mission, represented around me in my chamber as I dictate, do the same; and among them one class asks to join with special warmth; +there+
Ver. 22. +salute you all the saints, but particularly those who belong to+ (oi ek) +the household of the Emperor+ (kaisaros); the Christians gathered from the retainers of the Palace; peculiar in their circumstances of temptation, and quickened thereby to a special warmth of faith and love.[11]
Nothing is left now but the final message from the Lord Himself; the invocation of that "grace" which means in fact no abstract somewhat but His living Self, present in His people's inmost being, to vivify and to bless.
Ver. 23. +The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.[12]
Amen.+
The voice is silent; the pen is laid aside. In due time the papyrus roll, inestimable manuscript, is made ready for its journey. And perhaps as it now lies drying the Missionary and his brethren turn to further conversation on the beloved Philippian Church, and recall many a scene in the days that are over, and which are now gliding far into the past of the crowded years; and they speak again of the brightness of Philippian Christian life, and the shadows that lie on it here and there; and then, while the Praetorian sentinel looks on in wonder, or perhaps joins in as a believer, they pray together for Philippi, and pour out their praises to the Father and the Son, and anticipate the day of glory.
It is all over now; it all happened very long ago. But though that blessed group of our elder brethren "are all gone into the world of light" these many more than eighteen hundred human years, that Letter is our contemporary still. "The word of God liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Pet. i. 23); it is never out of date, never touched by the pathetic glamour of the past, with the suggestion of farewells, and waxings old, and vanishings away. To us to-day, so near the twentieth century, the Epistle to the Philippians is immortal, modern, true for our whole world and time.
And what is its secret, its elixir of undying life? It is the Name of
Jesus Christ. It is that these pages are the message of "the chosen
Vessel" about that Name.