"Let us take two titles under which to classify the results of our inspection of this primitive Document. First, its doctrine of Christ; then, its doctrine of Christian Life. As a subordinate third title we may collect what it indicates of Christian life as exemplified in the Writer's allusions to his own experience.
"I.—The Christology of the Epistle.
"(1) We trace hints of the human history of Christ. He was man, in reality and in seeming; He died a death of suffering, the death of the Cross [ii. 7, 8; iii. 10.]; He rose again, for there is a power of His Resurrection iii. 10.]; [and, apparently, He so left this earth that it was known that an immeasurable exaltation attended His going, so that the heavens are now His seat [ii. 9.], from which He is definitely expected to return. [iii. 20.]
"(2) Going back to antecedent and prehistoric matters of faith about Him, we find here that before He became man He subsisted in possession, lawful and natural, of the manifested reality μορφὴ of Godhead, equal to God [ii. 6.]. His appearance as man was the sequel of His own action of will in that eternal state [ii. 7.]. It was a novel and voluntary assumption of the condition of the Bondservant, the Δοῦλος, of God. Antecedently possessing the μορφὴ of God, He now de novo 'took' the μορφὴ of a bondservant. What created beings in general are of course, God's bondservants, He had not been but now became; a fact as astonishing in its region as the fact of His possession of the Supreme Nature is in its region. He assumed this δουλεία, we find, because His essential work was to obey, to 'become obeying,' yes, to the extent of death [ii. 8.]; which death was thus in Him altogether voluntary, part of a free undertaking to be not His own. The immediate result for Himself, it next appears, was an exaltation by God to supreme majesty under all these conditions. As being all this, possessor of Deity and accepter of bondservice, He was now de novo proclaimed as Κύριος, as Lord, in a sense interpreted by the adoration of the universe; to the glory of God His Father. For it repeatedly appears in the Epistle that God is His Father; He is the Son of God[ii. 11.]. Further, all 'the riches of God in glory' [i. 2; ii. 11.] are 'in Him.' [iv. 19.] It appears that in His exaltation He is embodied still, for it is to likeness to the body of His glory that the body of our humiliation is to be changed at His expected return. He is Almighty 'to subdue all things,' and the subjugation is 'to Himself.' [iii. 21.]
"(3) As regards His relation to His followers, such is it that their whole life and every exercise of it is mysteriously but emphatically said to be in Him. He, the supreme Bondservant, is to them (we continually read) absolute Lord. His grace animates their spirit. The divine Spirit ministered to them is His [i. 2; iv. 23.]. Their 'fruit of righteousness' is generated and produced 'through' Him [i. 19.]. He is evermore and profoundly near to them. Their heart-emotions are 'in His heart.' [i. 11; iv. 5.] To believe in Him is their essential characteristic [i. 8.]. To suffer for Him is a special boon to them [i. 29.]. They live in expectation of His return, His day. [i. 6, 10; ii. 16; iii. 20.]
"II.—The Epistle's account of Christian Life, inward and outward.
"We gather that the disciples are saints, ἅγιοι, separated from self and sin to God; brethren to one another; the true Israel, citizens of the City above [i. 1, 14; iii. 3, 20; iv. 21.]. Their being and life are so united to Christ, that they as Christians (and it is evidently assumed that this covers everything for them) exist, and are to act, 'in Him.' In Him, we find, they are 'saints' and 'brethren' [i. 1, 14; iv. 1, 2; ii. 29.]; in Him they are to 'stand fast'; to be 'of one mind'; to 'receive one another'; to possess comfort, consolation; to glory; to rejoice [ii. 1; iii. 1, 3; iv. 4.]. It is solemnly guaranteed, under certain most holy and happy conditions, that 'the peace of God Himself shall'—the promise is positive—'keep safe their hearts and thoughts in Him' [iv. 7.]; wonderful words, but perfectly distinct. In them God 'has begun a good work, to be carried for its completion up to the day of Christ'; and God is now 'working in them to will and to do for the sake of' His plan and purpose [i. 6; ii. 13.]. It is laid upon them accordingly, in the profound inner rest of such union, such possession, such submission, to 'work out their salvation,' to live out their life as the saved, with the 'fear and trembling' of sacred reverence [ii. 12.]. They are 'to look each not on his own things,' but on the things of others, in their Lord's manner [ii. 4.]; to hold together in loving and courageous union for the Gospel, standing fast in 'one soul,' under the 'one Spirit's' power; to keep their place in the midst of evil surroundings as the 'children of God' [i. 28.] and the 'light-bearers' of 'the message of life.' [ii. 16.] They are to abstain totally, in the power of their life in Christ, from all sin, to 'do nothing' (I take all possible note of these 'alls' and 'nothings' as I study and classify) 'for strife or vainglory' [ii. 3.]; to be 'anxious about nothing, but in everything' to tell God their desires; to 'do all things without murmurings and disputings' [iv. 6; ii. 14.]; to be 'unblamable, unhurtful, unblemished, God's children,' not in a dreamland, but in the realities of Philippian life; to bear fruit, 'fruit of righteousness, which is through Jesus Christ,' [ii. 15.] and so to bear it that at last it shall turn out, in the day of the Lord, that they are 'filled' with it [i. 11.]; every branch is laden. They are to let their 'moderation,' that is to say their yieldingness, their self-lessness, come out in common life, 'known to all men,' in the power of a 'Lord at hand' [iv. 5.]; to fill their thoughts with all that is good, straightforward, chastened, pure [iv. 8.]; to 'mind' the things in heaven [iii. 20; ii.]; to have 'the mind of Christ'; to grow in spiritual perception, along with the growth of love [i. 9.]; to live the life expressed in that profound summary, 'worshipping God in the Spirit (or, by the Spirit of God); exulting in Christ Jesus; having no confidence in the flesh.' [iii. 3.]
"III.—The Life in Christ exemplified in the Writer.
"Here let us forget the Apostle, for he speaks wholly as the Christian, and in a way manifestly meant to be an instruction to all Christians. He appears, then, in our document, as one whom Christ has 'seized,' has 'grasped' [iii. 12.]; as one who has discovered in Christ, and in Christ alone, the supreme Gain, the supreme Object of knowledge, the supreme Spiritual Power as the Risen One [iii. 10.], the supreme Interest and Reason of life [i. 20; iii. 7-14], the one possible supply of the unspeakable need of a valid Righteousness before the Judgment Seat. Yes, he must be 'found in Him, having the righteousness which is from God on terms of faith,' [iii. 9.] the faith which enters into Christ. 'In Christ,' we discover, the Writer is, everywhere and always. His 'bonds' are 'in Christ'; his 'glory' is in Christ' [i. 13, 26.]; his hopes and trusts about the common events of life are 'in Christ'; in Christ he has 'found the secret' how to do all, all he has to do, in peace [iv. 19, 24.]. Christ fills his present life [iv. 13.]; when he dies, he will be so 'with Christ' that it will be 'far better' than this present life, though it is full of Christ [i. 21, 23.]. He is the willing but most real bondservant of Christ [i. 1.]. His relations with Christ so fill him with peace and the power of peace, that extremely irritating rivalry and opposition at Rome does not irritate him, but occasions holy joy, and the suspense about life and death in which Nero keeps him is powerless, wholly because of Christ [i. 12, etc.], to evoke anything but a statement of the dilemma of blessings which life and death in the Lord are to him [i. 21, etc.]. On the other hand, as the whole Epistle indicates, every pure human sensibility circulates naturally in this supernatural atmosphere [E.g. ii. 27, 28; iv. 10.]. And meanwhile, though 'perfect,' in respect of reality of union and communication with his Lord, he is not yet 'perfected' in respect of application and results; the goal, the prize, is yet to come. [iii. 12, 14.]
"And so I shut my Epistle to the Philippians, leaving very much more in it for the next occasion. Such a study has not demanded long hours. It has asked only interest, purpose, and painstaking, a few such fragments of daily time as we must, yes, must, make and take for the Bible, if we are not to starve our people and ourselves. Suffer me to repeat it with deep earnestness; we must, we absolutely must, not merely devotionally read but devotionally search and penetrate this divine Book. And what shall come of the effort? By the grace of God, sought in the deep joy of a profound submission, it shall come that we shall each one realize, with a vernal newness and delight, that Christ is mine; that the springs and secrets of this life in Him are mine, for the realities of my home, my parish, my study, my soul. I go (it is for each one of us to say it) with renewed thirst and certainty to Him the eternal Fountain; I live, I live, yet not I; and therefore I can work. It will be 'with fear and trembling,' as I know myself to be indeed in the eternal Presence; yet it will be also in the power-giving 'peace that passeth understanding, keeping the heart and thoughts, in Christ Jesus,' a keeping that is not meant to vanish outside holy places and holy hours, but to do its strongest and serenest work in the midst of crookedness and perverseness, under the stress of toils and burthens, as truly for me to-day as for the Philippians and their Teacher then."