"He expresses hopes, intentions, resolutions, as to his own actions.
All is still 'in Jesus Christ.' 'I trust in the Lord Jesus to send
Timotheus,' 'I trust in the Lord to come myself shortly.'
"Does he speak of the believer's joy? 'We rejoice in Christ Jesus,' 'Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice.' Does he speak of pardon and of peace? 'I counted all things but loss that I might win Christ, and be found in Him, having the righteousness which is of God by faith.' Does he speak of knowledge, and of power? 'That I might know Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death'; 'I can do all things in Christ which strengtheneth me.'
"He speaks of a holy immortality, of eternal glory, and of pleasures for evermore. It is no vague aspiration; it is a sure and certain hope; and it is altogether in Jesus Christ. 'Our home, our citizenship, is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change the body of our humiliation into likeness to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto—Himself.'
"He bids his beloved converts stand fast; it is 'in the Lord.' He bids them be of one mind; it is 'in the Lord.' He bids them be always calm, always self-forgetting; 'the Lord is at hand.' He assures them of an all-sufficient resource for their every need; 'My God shall supply all, according to His riches, in glory, in Christ Jesus.'
"His last message of blessing brings together their inmost being and this same wonderful Person; 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.' . . .
"What a witness it all is to the glory of our beloved Redeemer; to the majesty of His Person; to the fulness and perfection of His Work; to the solidity, the sobriety, the strength, of the faith which is in Him! There is no inflation or rhetoric in the language of the Epistle about Him. Glowing with love, it is all clear and calm. Yes, for Christ Jesus is not a phantom of the fancy; a hope floating on the thick waves of a wild enthusiasm. He is an anchor, sure and steadfast. Blessed are they who ride secure on the deep, held fast by Him.
"The Epistle witnesses to Him as to a Treasure worth all our seeking, at any cost; infinitely precious to our joyful finding; infinitely deserving of our keeping, of our holding, our 'apprehending,' as He in His mercy has laid hold of us, and will keep hold of us, even to the end; 'unto the day of Jesus Christ.' As then, so now;
'He help'd His saints in ancient days
Who trusted in His name;
And we can witness to His praise,
His love is still the same.'
"May the Spirit bring home to our spirit this great witness of the Epistle; it has its perfect adaptation to each heart, to every life, to every hour.
"Then hereafter we shall give God thanks yet better for 'Philippians,' as we too enter, late or soon, into that world where the Apostle, and Timotheus, and Epaphroditus, and Euodia, and Syntyche, and Clement, and the saints of Caesar's household, have so long beheld the Lord. In that land of light we, who have believed, shall rest with them. We shall know them. In the long leisure of endless life we shall enjoy their company, amidst the multitudinous congregation of the just made perfect. There we shall understand how, under the infinite differences of our earthly conditions, the one Hand led them and led us along the one way of salvation to the one end of everlasting life. Above all, we there, with them, shall know JESUS CHRIST, even as we are known. There we, with them, shall realize how to Him, and to Him alone, from all His servants, from Hebrew, and Roman, and Philippian, and Englishman, and African, from ancients and moderns, wise and ignorant, of all kinds and times, was due the whole praise of their whole salvation.