05.06.06

Philippians 2(1)

Posted in Philippians 2 at 9:07 pm by dowboy

The Life of God in the Community of Men

Read: Philippians 1:27-2:11
There are some paintings too grand for the historian of art to begin to describe, there are some views and horizons too exquisite for the scientist to explain, some thoughts too profound for the poet to capture. There are some chapters of the Scripture that it would seem almost blasphemous to dissect and preach upon – some chapters and passages which we automatically want just to bow down and worship God in the light of. Philippians 2 is such a chapter, giving us as it does, almost unparalleled access to the very heart of God Himself.

 

Simple it isn’t – but is anything in Scripture simple? And yet, if we are to worship, we must understand, and therefore, it is with deep dependence upon God that we plunge beneath the cool, therapeutic waters of this most sublime of Biblical Passages.
Paul begins this greatest of chapters with a ‘therefore’ – he calls us back to what has gone before, namely the material he has written to the Philippian Church back in the latter parts of Chapter 1. There, he has been talking to them about the suffering they have been granted by God’s grace to have to endure for the sake of the Lord Jesus – a suffering which in vs. 30, Paul calls a conflict, literally an ‘agony’, otherwise translated as ‘a fight’ or perhaps even ‘a race’. The Christian life, for these early Christians, was a fight – to be a Christian was agony – not just because of the opposition they were facing from outside the Church – the Roman secular authorities and the Jewish religious authorities – but also as they fought to, as Paul says it in vs. 27, ‘stand firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel’. Paul is saying to them – ‘Do you think it is easy to be a Christian? I tell you that it is not – it is an agony. It is agony to have to endure persecution from ungodly men outside the Church, and it is agony – it’s a fight – to work for unity and community inside the Church.’ And yet, it is only as we stand together that, to use Paul’s words in vs. 27, ‘our manner of life is worthy of the gospel of Christ’.
And so the question we’ve got to ask ourselves, as we come to this magnificent chapter of God’s Word is, are we doing everything we can to be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, and that means, are we doing everything we can to strive to stand together – are we fighting to be a community at peace with one another? Sadly, the recent history of Scottish Presbyterianism and even more sadly, the history of our own congregation have shown, that rather than fight to be ‘One in Christ’ and to display our ‘Oneness in Christ’, our internecine warfare has been directed against each other. Just look at our church, and the society in which we live – can we really pretend that we have conducted ourselves worthy of the Gospel of the Christ of self-abnegation and self-giving, when Scottish Christendom is known within the worldwide Church and within our own secular nation as being the most prickly and disagreeable institution in existence! It is my contention, that if the Church of the self-giving Jesus Christ would devote itself rather to internal unity rather than internal division, our whole culture as a nation would be profoundly impacted and Christianity would rise from the ashes of the fire of Post-Enlightenment philosophy and secularism once again.
Well then, on we move to Philippians 2, where Paul is going to lay the groundwork for community life in the Church of God. In vs. 1-5 he presents Christians with the challenge of united living in Christian community, and from vs. 6-8 he presents us with the ultimate example of the qualities necessary to live in Christian community. But tonight, I want to begin our meditations of Philippians 2 by drawing your attention to the primary challenge issued by the Apostle in 2:1-2.
I want to suggest that our church community – the community of St. V’s, from Philippians 2:1-2 does reflect, and must reflect, three aspects of God and His Kingdom. First, God’s Work reflected in our community; secondly, God’s Joy reflected in our community and thirdly, God’s Life reflected in our community. Tonight I want to talk just about the first one, saving the other two for next time.
[A] God’s Work Reflected in our Community (vs. 1)
Implicit within vs. 1 two frameworks or models are presented to us, both of which we must understand in order to see the fullness of how God and His Work are reflected in our Community.
1. A Trinitarian Framework – Philippians 2 talks much of the example of Christ – Paul uses Christ’s humility and self-giving in 2:6-11 as the foundation upon which our own work of unity and oneness must depend. Rightly so, Philippians 2 is therefore seen as a Christological crunch chapter – a chapter which focuses on Christ. But I would suggest that, although we can never give too much emphasis to Christ, we have ignored that Philippians 2 is an intensely Trinitarian document. In fact, the very first verse is the most openly Trinitarian statement to be found anywhere in Philippians. Let’s read it again – ‘if you have any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship in the Spirit’. In Romans 5, Paul is talking about that quality of God the Father which was demonstrated in the death of Jesus for us whilst we were still sinners – that virtue which is imputed to God the Father more than the other two persons of the Trinity – that virtue which the Apostle John imputes as being God Himself – ‘love’. Knowing that simple piece of Biblical theology, let’s go back to Philippians 2:1 – ‘encouragement in Christ, comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit’ – Christ, love (the characteristic by which God the Father is most often known in Paul’s writing), Spirit.  It seems so obvious after the fact, but this whole passage concerning the unity of God’s people is firmly based in the framework of the Trinity. God, if I may say so with all reverence, is in the business of unity – and His unity forms the basis for our unity.
2. A Salvation Framework – Philippians 2:1 is packed with different clauses and sub-clauses, each with their different emphasis, it is difficult sometimes to see the wood for the trees; however, before I actually go through each of the different descriptions given of the things the Christian is and does, let me make a preliminary comments – these are all qualities which are found to the max in God – to use olde-worlde language – they find their archetype in God. He is the God of Comfort, Encouragement, Fellowship, Compassion and Tender Mercies. Each of these things can be traced back to the fountain – we therefore, by having these things, are no more than sons of our Father. A son bears the genetic make up of his father and mother and therefore betrays their characteristics. My own son Aidan crosses his hands behind his back, something which I do and my father does. We, as adopted sons and daughters of the living God, betray his characteristics of comfort, encouragement, fellowship, compassion and tender mercies.
It’s not surprising to find my son doing the same things I do – he is genetically and environmentally disposed to having my characteristics. What would surprise me is if he neither looked like me nor behaved like me – if the differences were marked enough, it may even cause me to ask questions about his paternity. Therefore, if we are sons of our Father God, these are to be our characteristics – if they are not, and rather than being characterised by these qualities, we are characterised by harshness and un-lovingness, we must question whether we are his children at all.
I suppose this all comes back to the first word in the sentence, ‘if’. I would contend that we mis-understand this smallest of words in the most profound way, and this causes us to question whether any of these things are true of us at all – as if to say that this word ‘if’ makes it possible that a Christian has none of these things – does not have the fellowship with the Spirit, the encouragement of Christ, the comfort of God’s love. But a Christian without these things is surely a contradiction in terms – if a ‘Christian’ has no fellowship with the Spirit then surely he’s not a Christian, full-stop. Rather, therefore, I would prefer to translate the first word of the sentence as ‘since’ – these events are givens – it is a given that a Christian has encouragement in Christ, it is a given that they have comfort of love, it is a given that they have fellowship in the Spirit – not an indecisive ‘if’ but a definite ‘since’. And if I’m right, the fact that we have these things already, the necessary prerequisites for Christian unity, we stand indited and defenceless and all the more culpable before God for our all-too evident divisiveness.
Just very briefly before I go on to talk about each word, notice also that in the purposes of God, each of these qualities, virtues, attributes are both the cause and means of our salvation. For example, God’s compassion is the cause of our Salvation and it is also the means by which He has saved us. We owe everything we are as Christians to His encouragement, comfort, fellowship, tenderness and compassion.
 
Having said that, let’s just briefly review each word in the section, many of which are synonyms, but let’s just see how they are used in the Bible:

• Encouragement in Christ – the word comfort is ‘parakletos’, most commonly used of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is translated in some places as ‘comfort’ (2 Cor. 1:5) and in other places as ‘exhort, appeal, encourage’ (1 Thessalonians 2:13). On the whole I favour here the NIV’s translation ‘encouragement’. Question for us all, if we are sons of our father, are we encouragers or discouragers – do we consciously make our decisions based upon what will encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ, or do we not take the emotional impact of our decisions into account when we make them? The encouragement of Christ was both the cause and means of our salvation, and as those saved by his blood and born again by His Spirit, as those who have unavoidably encountered and experienced His encouragement, we are to be encouragers.

• Incentive of Love – the next word used here is interesting – it is not used often in the Bible – it is the Greek word ‘paramuthion’ and it seems to me is almost a synonym of the previous word ‘encouragement’. It is used in different senses in the New Testament – for example in John 19:11, 31 it is used of the consolation people brought to Mary and Martha upon the death of their brother Lazarus. The technical Greek dictionaries give it the definition of ‘incentive’ and I think that this is as close to the mark as we can get. Paul is here saying that you have the incentive of love. The love, of course which is being mentioned here is the self-giving love of God the Father, who gave His own Son up to the death of the cross for sinful mankind lost. That love is the cause and the means of our salvation, and is the overriding ‘characteristic’ of God – God is love. Since we therefore are His Sons and Daughters, we too are to love. If we do not love, we must question whether we are His offspring at all. And when I say love, I am not talking about feelings – love in God is not a feeling, but a determined character working for the benefit of others. Question: if strangers came into our fellowship, would this be the aroma they would leave with – ‘see how they love one another!’

• Fellowship of the Spirit – here we have this word ‘koinwnia’, translated in Philippians 1:5 as ‘partnership’. Fellowship is one of the most misunderstood words in the Christian vocabulary today – fellowship is not a state of mind, nor a tone of voice – it is a state of being – in 1 John 1:3 we are told that ‘our fellowship is with God the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ’ – this is not a conditional statement –as if to say it is possible for a Christian to not be in fellowship with God – rather it is a truth of being. If you are a Christian, you are in fellowship with God – like it or lump it, it is all part and parcel of the same body of language which can be used to talk of those who are ‘in Christ’. Now then, John’s statements regarding our fellowship with God are the foundation upon which he says, ‘I write this that you may have fellowship with us’. Fellowship with each other presupposes fellowship with God – horizontal fellowship is based upon vertical fellowship. Unless we have vertical fellowship – fellowship with God, and that through the Spirit, we cannot have fellowship with each other. That’s OK to phrase it like that – but does it make us more uncomfortable when we phrase the same sentiment another way – that is, if we don’t have fellowship with each other, if we can’t have fellowship with each other, what does this say about our fellowship with God? A non-existent fellowship with each other is a sure sign of a non-existent fellowship with God. That is why we worry when folk stop coming to church, saying crazy things like, “I can be a Christian on my own” – it’s a sure sign their relationship with God has gone awry. Likewise, there is a school of Christian piety, of which I would suggest that A.W. Pink is the leader, which is so prickly that it cannot live easily with other Christians – it always finds fault with them, and so cannot live in fellowship with them. This is just as wrong-headed as the first type.

• Affections – this is the word which is used for the inward organs – the viscera – the liver, intestines and bowels. As such, it is correctly translated in the KJV as ‘bowels’ because that is literally what it means. In Acts 1:18, where Judas spends his thirty silver pieces upon the field of Akeldama – the field of blood, and there we learn that he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines (bowels) fell out. However, most modern people wouldn’t really understand the concept of ‘bowels’ as being related to tenderness. Richard Sibbes, the 17^th Puritan has his exposition of the Song of Solomon entitled, ‘Bowels opened’ – and what he means by that is that in the Song of Solomon we see the tenderness of God towards us. This is an example of a word which has lost its original meaning and we must search in English for another word to express its meaning. The word chosen in the NIV is ‘tenderness’ – a good translation in my opinion. The Greek word behind ‘tenderness’ is used of God in Luke 1:78 where the word ‘bowels’ would make no sense – ‘because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to give light to those who sit in darkness …’ Tenderness is the affection in which you hold the object of your love – in many ways you can term it ‘the butterflies’ since it is the sentimental aspect of love. Here is surely something we know so little of! We may force ourselves to love one another, but tenderness and affection within our hearts to them – not a chance. And yet was not this the attitude of Paul and even more striking the attitude of Jesus, who on the cross cried out ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’. Yes, maybe love comes before affection and tenderness, but only in the same way as the dawn precedes the rising of the sun. Its not good enough just to baldly love each other – we must work at the affections also, for if we do not, are we really the children of our Father God, whose affections, according to Luke 1:78, are the cause and means of our Salvation through Christ?

• Mercies – the word translated compassion in the NIV is, in many ways, the most interesting of the words used in this sequence. It really isn’t used very often in the New Testament – its most prominent usage is in Luke 6:36 in the context of loving one’s enemies, where Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” – more literally, ‘Be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate’. This word is predominantly an Old Testament word – and is used extensively in parts of the Old Testament written after the exile in Babylon. For example, it is used in Psalm 79:8, where Asaph, talking about the desecration of Jerusalem brought about by the armies of Babylon, pleads with the Lord saying, “Do not hold against us the sins of the father; may your mercy (compassion) come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need.” But the most important use is to be found in Nehemiah 9, where, after the children of Israel had returned from their bondage in Babylon, the priests told them once again of the history of their people. The word ‘compassion’ is used four times in this chapter (vs. 19, 27, 28, 31) – always used of the compassion God ‘feels’ and which prompts Him to deliver and provide for His people. It is that compassion which caused God to send Moses, to send the Judges and Kings of Israel, which caused God to send Daniel, Nehemiah and Ezra, and finally our heavenly Deliverer, Jesus Christ Himself. In many ways, compassion is the trigger within God which prompts Him to keep His covenant with His people. And so again, we see that the compassion of God is the cause and means of our salvation – it is who God is – the compassionate One. Well may we talk of the compassion of God towards us, but how little compassion and mercy we show each other! The Israelites committed apostasy again and again, and God had compassion upon them, but what are we – for the slightest infringement we vilify and condemn each other. How unlike the God of compassion we are! How much we must learn of the meekness and compassion of our Lord Jesus!

Can we rise to the challenge of God’s Work Reflected in Our Community? Can we understand that the reputation of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is at stake in our fellowship and unity in the Gospel? Can we understand and act upon the great causes and means of our salvation – the encouragement, incentive, fellowship, tenderness and compassion of our Great God and King? Let’s be sons and daughters of our Father – let’s aim to please Him in this – that at least in this one colony of heaven we St. Vincent Street Free Church, the Life of God may be seen in the Community of Men. AMEN

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