Lecture XIX · Justification by Faith

THE power of Jesus over the hearts of His people, my brethren, is, as you know, the power of Godhead sweetly linked in everlasting union with that of human brotherhood. ‘The Word that was God became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.’ The sympathy of the Brother who once struggled and suffered and felt weak and weary, as we do, is very sweet to us. In seasons when the night of sorrow and fear gathers dark around us, how it strengthens to feel the warm, kind hand of the human Saviour taking hold of ours to lead us,—the human Saviour, who has divine power and wisdom! To this peculiar power in the incarnate Word, the personal Revelation of God, there is some- —

thing similar in the written word or revelation of God. It is easy to conceive that the Bible might have consisted wholly of direct divine utterances, such as those which the old prophets introduced by their ‘Thus saith the Lord,-—with the writers simply mechanical organs of communication. Men’s own thoughts, indeed, in regard to a promised revelation of God’s will, would probably have anticipated such a Bible. But the tenderness of the divine love—the willingness of our heavenly Father to care for all the needs of His children—is seen in the fact that, in a very large part of Scripture, human feeling plainly pulsates freely, while yet all is of God. This feature is particularly marked in the letters of the apostles; and every thoughtful reader knows the winningness of influence thus given to them. The teaching which is so divine, and yet so human, draws us to love it, as the Divine Man Himself draws us.

A person seriously impressed with the importance of religion is like a man who finds himself called upon by matters of the highest moment to undertake a long and difficult journey, through countries wholly different in every respect from any with which his previous life has made him acquainted. He has, perhaps, accurate maps and carefully written sketches of the physical and political geography of the lands through which he has to pass. Still, how satisfying for him to meet a traveller who has personally accomplished the journey, and faithfully relates his experiences! Now the apostolic letters, taken together, and comparing one part with another, may be regarded as a kind of journal of travel, a diary of pilgrimage, from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. We find set before us in them, with the utmost liveliness and fulness of detail, the aims, the failures, the successes, the hopes and fears and difficulties, of men naturally like ourselves depraved, but regenerated by that same grace which is freely offered to us. All the points of the route, and all the varieties of experience connected with them, come successively into view,—Valleys of

Humiliation and of the Shadow of Death, Delectable Mountains and Plains of Beulah,—battles with the prince of evil, and hours of rest in the House Beautiful. This precious record does not, indeed, introduce us actually into the golden city, but it brings us to the very gates,—and the gates are ajar, to give us a glimpse of the glory. Nay, we seem even to hear the joybells already ringing for the welcome of the new citizen about to enter,—‘ I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. MHenceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.’ But whilst this diary of spiritual travel, as I have called it, is thoroughly human, most really and honestly setting forth the movements of these men’s souls, yet it is not less truly divine. Just here lies its perfect adaptation to our circumstances. It is most fully and winningly man’s, and yet also most certainly and satisfyingly God’s. The spirits of the apostles speak to us, and at the same time everywhere, through them, the Spirit of God. The diary of the pilgrims is the King’s authorized and perfect guide to the way.

No passage in the writings of the apostles, I think, better illustrates that most interesting feature of divine revelation of which I have been speaking, than the paragraph now before us. In reading it, every Christian is sensible that, in his heart, deep interest in the spiritual struggles of his fellow-man Paul stands side by side with thankful acceptance of the profound and precious divine teaching.

You observe that in the 2d verse an entirely new subject is introduced, and this with a suddenness which, I think, you can hardly help feeling to be somewhat startling. Throughout the paragraph, too, a reader is conscious of a quicker movement in the language than in the previous verses, indicating, it is natural to suppose, excitement of feeling in the writer. Taking these facts in connection with the apparent intimation in the £ Finally’ of the 1st verse, that at that point the apostle had nearly ended what he meant to say to his Philippian friends, whilst in fact

almost half the letter is yet before us,—it seems not improbable that, just after that first verse had been written, Paul received information of some fresh outbreak of hostility to pure Christianity on the part of his Judaizing opponents in Rome, those of whom, he has said in the first chapter that they ‘ preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to his bonds ;’ or possibly of their pestilent activity in some other church,—and that he was thus led to warn the Philippians against the poison of such men’s teaching.

The great thought illustrated in the passage is that humility— the absence of self-righteousness—renunciation of confidence in everything except divine grace—is of the essence of vital, saving religion. ‘The most satisfactory mode of treatment, therefore, may be, perhaps, to glance first at the subject generally, and then, with the principles clearly before our minds, to examine the details of the apostle’s statement.

The grand fundamental truth of morals, my brethren, is that God’s will is absolutely perfect, and therefore that, in His creatures, goodness is simply harmony of will with Him. Only on this principle, accepted as a basis, can a character truly beautiful and noble be reared. Wherever divergence enters— any thought of the possession of wisdom to construct for ourselves, without the teaching of God, a satisfactory plan of life,— there are folly and sin. You remember that, in the Lord’s great parabolic picture of sin and grace, desire to be independent of God, and the fancy that a scheme of life of man’s own invention can yield happiness, are exhibited as the spring of sin. ‘A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.’ The root of all sin, you see, and thus of all misery, is pride—resolution to assert against God a claim to self-control.

Accordingly, God’s plan of salvation for men—which has as its great aim our moral renovation, the lifting of us up into a _new sphere of thought and feeling—has at every point what is

calculated to lead us to view God alone as the Fountain of wisdom, and strength, and happiness. The gospel proclaims explicitly everywhere that, from the nature of things, God must have all the glory of man’s deliverance, and that only those who cordially consent that it should be so can be delivered. So long as we dream of being in any measure independent of Him, we keep ourselves beyond the sweep of salvation. ‘God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.’

The claim of the divine law is, that man should render to God perfect obedience, or suffer death as the penalty of disobedience. Our whole race has sinned, and thus become liable to the penalty. But the Son of God, freely given by His Father, freely giving Himself, has assumed our nature, and as our Substitute—accepted as such by His Father, who in the scheme of redemption sustains the majesty of the Godhead— has fulfilled all the law’s requirements,—living a true human life of holy obedience, as we were bound to do, and dying the death of pain and shame which we deserve to suffer. To all who believe the gospel, and are thus led to place their confidence in Christ, God, of His infinite mercy, imputes this perfect righteousness of the Saviour—reckons it as theirs— treats them as if they had themselves been righteous, like their Representative. This is the great doctrine of justification by faith. You see how humbling it is to man. The faith through which we obtain justification involves an acknowledgment of the reality and exceeding evil of our sin, and of our own utter helplessness. We come to God confessing that the robe of our personal character is but ‘ filthy rags,’ in which we dare not stand in His sight ; and we receive from Him the ample, stainless, fragrant robe of the Redeemer’s righteousness. ‘

Now the same pride that leads men to their life of sin naturally prompts them to resist the claims of the gospel, which offers them, on such terms, deliverance from the curse and power of sin. Most naturally also, in a vast multitude of cases where Christian teaching is to some extent accepted, the acceptance is, through the self-deceiving energy of the heart, of teaching so modified as to leave pride still room for exercise, and, just in so far, to remove from God’s message the element which makes it the ‘ gospel,’ the word of glad tidings to ruined men. In persons who, from temperament or circumstances, have been awakened to a sense of the reality and ill-desert of their sin, the question ‘ How shall I be saved?’ sometimes takes the form of ‘ What shall I endure for salvation?’ As the heathen asks, ‘ Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul δ᾽ so, under Romish Christianity, penances and ascetic austerities are resorted to as a propitiation for guilt. The pride of self-righteousness is gratified by the thought that the sinner does something for himself to supplement the atoning work of Jesus ; but foul dishonour is thus cast on the perfect sacrifice of Calvary. Among those who, like ourselves, have been brought up under the influences of Protestantism, the opposition of the carnal nature to the humbling work of the gospel much more frequently takes the form of a desire to do something meritorious, ‘that we may inherit eternal life.’ It is greatly to be feared, dear brethren, that a very large number of professing Christians satisfy themselves with the outward decorum of religious service,—their inward thought, not acknowledged definitely to themselves, yet really being in God’s sight, ‘We are quiet, moral, church-going people; and what more could God reasonably expect?’ Ah, friends, this is folly, fatal folly ; and ‘the day shall declare it.’ A hope resting on any fancied righteousness of our own is utterly baseless ; and ‘ when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon that house, it must fall,—and great shall be the fall of it.” When the Lord God ‘lays judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet, the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place, and men’s covenant with hell shall be disannulled, and their

agreement with hell shall not stand.’ But the righteousness of Christ, which God counts as the righteousness of every man who believes in ‘Christ, is the ‘rock of ages.’ Whoso has built here, will find, in the hour of fiercest tempest, that his dwelling stands secure.

Let us proceed now to look at the details of the paragraph. The warning against being turned away from the simplicity of Christian faith by the perverting words of Judaizing teachers, with which it begins—and which, as I have already said, was not improbably called forth by the apostle’s receipt of some news just when he had reached this part of the letter—is expressed very tersely and pointedly, and in language of stern indignation against these men. In using ‘Ae’ in each clause of the 2nd verse, though given in our translation only in the last, —‘ Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision,—he not merely shows that he has a well-defined class of persons in his mind, but assumes that his Philippian readers would know at once to whom he referred.

He depicts the character of these teachers by the name ‘ dogs, —as our Lord, you remember, called Herod the tetrarch ‘that fox.’ The dog, so valued and loved among us, as man’s faithful and affectionate companion and helper, seems never to have been similarly regarded in the East. Most of the dogs seen in an Eastern town are masterless curs, ever annoying passers-by, and seeking their food amid the offal of the streets. Impudence and disgusting impurity of life are therefore the ideas which rise first to the mind of an Oriental in connection with the dog,—among the Jews apparently the latter idea especially. With this force, for example, you remember, the Apostle John in the Apocalypse, in speaking of: exclusion from the city of God, says, ‘Without are dogs’ (Rev. xxii. 15). In calling these Judaizing teachers by this name, then, Paul intimates seemingly that a considerable number of them had already, by some forms of moral impurity, proved the tendency of their system—as of every system

which draws away men from spiritual religion—to be to practical wickedness. There may not improbably also be another thought here. We know that the Jews were in the habit of calling the heathen ‘dogs,’ as the Mohammedans do Christians now. Our Lord, for a most gracious end, once adopted this usage, when, in testing the faith of a Gentile woman, He said, ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.’ Now, in the verse before us, apparently, Paul, by his application of the word, intimates that those who would subject Christian converts from heathenism to the Jewish ritual were, by the ignorance they thus displayed of the spirit of Christianity, almost placing themselves outside of the pale of the true spiritual Israel, into which those despised Gentiles had entered by faith. This idea he brings out expressly in the next verse.

The apostle further describes the teachers, without a figure, as ‘the evil workers, —labourers, professedly, in the service of the Lord Jesus, but really wicked, aiming to subvert rather than to establish the truth.

Then he points out the foolish and untenable character of their peculiar doctrine, by giving them, as a sect, the derisive name of “λέ concision’—that is, ‘the cutting, or mutilation.’ They gloried in calling themselves ‘the circumcision’—the circumcised—the bearers of the seal of God’s covenant with Abraham. But in trying to impose the yoke of the ritual of a preparatory typical system on all who came to Christ, they showed that they wholly misunderstood the relations to each other, and the real spirit, both of Judaism and Christianity, and relied on some mystical power of mere outward services. For a class of men like this the apostle deemed the name ‘circumcision,’ with its hallowed spiritual associations, altogether unsuited ; and therefore, by a little play on the word, well imitated in our version, he calls them ‘the concision,’ or ‘cutting, —a name with which nothing sacred stood connected. They were the sect of ‘the cutters of the flesh, —nothing more.

The spirit of these false teachers has always been active in the Christian church, though the particular form against which Paul was called on to contend has long passed away. Popery so loads religion with ritual and earthliness, as to make it exceedingly difficult for its votaries to have true fellowship with the Saviour. In the Church of England, at present, a more exact analogy is exhibited to the struggle which the Apostle Paul, and the other enlightened servants of Christ in the first age, had to maintain with the Judaizers, than has perhaps ever been seen since those days. A considerable proportion of the ministers of that church approach Romanism more or less closely in opinion and practices. These are very active, both in the towns and country districts, undermining Protestant sentiment, neutralizing evangelical effort, poisoning the minds of the people with the pestilent doctrines of priestly prerogative and sacramental grace, fascinating the young with flowers and music, shows and. ceremonies, and all the beauty and splendour of a gorgeous ritualism. With this host of Romanizers, corresponding in many respects, very exactly in spirit and aim, to Paul’s Judaizing opponents, the evangelical ministers and members of the church, aided by their Nonconformist brethren, have to do battle ; and they most reasonably claim our prayers, that they may be endued with needful wisdom and energy, and that their efforts may be crowned with success.

In Scotland, the Reformation was far more thorough than in England, eschewing all such compromises between Popery and scriptural simplicity as are found in the system of the Church of England, and have opened the way for the state of things to which I have referred. Thus we are in no great danger of being brought into any struggle precisely similar to” that now carried on in England. But the hazard of formalism —of unconsciously regarding the outward means of grace as of necessity carrying with them efficient saving grace—is great with us, as in every section of Christ’s church.

In the 3d verse the apostle states his reason for the emphatic condemnation he has, in the 2nd, given of the doctrine of the Judaizers. This, which, as I have explained, has been perhaps already hinted at in the application to them of the term ‘ dogs,’ is that all Christians, Jews and Gentiles alike,—all who rejoice in the fulfilment of the promise which cheered the patriarchs,—are, simply as being Christians, of the true Israel, the true seed of Abraham. ‘The particular form in which this reason is couched has been determined by the name last given to the misleading teachers, ‘the concision.” ‘For, says the apostle, ‘we are the circumcision, —‘ we, all believers in Jesus Christ, you the Gentiles and I the Jew equally,—‘ which worship God in the spirit,’ understanding that the service of the heart is alone acceptable to Him, and that outward forms are pleasing to Him only in so far as they are expressive of this, or tributary to it,—‘and rejoice (rather, “ glory”) in Christ Jesus, ever delighting to set forth to our own souls, and to all around, His excellences, His perfection as Mediator,—‘ and have no conjidence in the flesh, being sensible of the utter folly of resting any hope on ceremonies, or on any works of ourselves or of our fellow-men; for ‘//esh’ here, as very frequently, in its obvious contrast with ‘spirit,’ designates what 15. external generally.

According to a slightly different reading of the original text in this verse, one which has the support of the great majority of the most ancient manuscripts, the first part of the apostle’s description of the true Israel is, ‘which worship by the Spirit of God, instead of ‘ which worship God in the Spirit.’ There is here no substantial difference of meaning. The truth, however, is brought into prominence, that the spirit of man can rise from the control of the deadening influences of sin into true healthfulness of delight in God’s love and service only through the energy of the Divine Spirit. As in the old creation ‘the Lord God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul,—so in the new. But for the

breath of the Spirit of God, man would continue ‘ dead in trespasses and sins.’ And the sustenance as well as the origination of spiritual life is wholly His.

The truths which the apostle has stated,—that God’s ‘ peculiar people,’ His Israel in the only sense which implies salvation, are the spiritually-minded, and that any teaching which tends to produce confidence in ‘the flesh,’ that is, in anything external, is false,—he proceeds to illustrate in a very lively way, by a reference to his own religious history. ‘I have said that the true circumcision, the real heirs of the promises made to the patriarchs, are all those who, exulting in Christ as their Mediator, have no confidence in the flesh. I say this to you with fullest earnestness,—though, be it observed, I do not look at the matter from the position of a stranger to the commonwealth of the natural Israel, in whom jealousy might perhaps be supposed to awaken such thoughts ; but, if there were any soundness in the principles of these teachers, J might myself have confidence in the flesh also, as supplementary to the mediation of Christ. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more.” He felt that in regard to legal standing he could say at least as much for himself as any other Jew, and in some particulars probably more than any other.

He goes on to catalogue the goods which, in the days before he knew the Saviour, he had supposed to make him rich,—to rehearse the facts which he had deemed to give him an impregnable position of honour and safety before God and man, for time and for eternity. In the first place, he ‘had Abraham to his father, and was of the purest blood of the chosen race. He had been ‘ circumcised the eighth day, according to the command given to Abraham for all his descendants, and renewed in the law of Moses. He was born, then, of parents who kept the law ; and, further, these not proselytes from heathenism or descendants of proselytes, for he was ‘of the stock of Israel ;’ and this in an honourable tribe, one of the two which had rea a

mained faithful to the house of David, and in which something of loyalty to their Divine King had continued after it had died out among the northern ten,—‘ of the tribe of Benjamin’ He was of pure Jewish blood, too; not, for example, like Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess, but his father a Greek. The tables of Paul’s genealogy showed him to be of unmixed race, ‘an Hebrew of the Hebrews,’—an Israelite sprung from Israelites. It is not improbable that in this last expression there is also a reference to a distinction which was made in Paul’s days between two classes of Jews, and which is alluded to again and again in Acts,—for instance, when we are told that the appointment of the seven deacons was occasioned by ‘a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews’ (Acts vi. 1)—that is, of those Jews who, being natives of foreign countries, spoke only Greek, against those, mainly but not exclusively natives of Palestine, who retained the language which represented the Hebrew of their fathers. Paul, though born in Tarsus, a city where Greek was spoken, had been educated in the Hebrew metropolis, under a most distinguished Hebrew teacher; he spoke Hebrew fluently (Acts xxi. 40); and his quotations from the Olid Testament are frequently in such a form as to show that he was familiar with it in the original language, and translated for himself. By calling himself “a Hebrew of the Hebrews,’ then, the apostle may naturally be supposed to intimate, not merely that he was of pure Jewish extraction, but that he had inherited from his parents, and from the whole line of his ancestors, a strong affection for the national language and religion and manners. Thus far then of his lineage. On this head certainly no Jew could have more ‘confidence in the flesh’ than Paul.

But what of His personal character? Here also he felt that, if he chose to assume the position of his opponents, and, as he elsewhere expresses it, to ‘speak as a fool,’ he could say much for himself,—as much certainly as any of his ‘brethren after the flesh, and far more than most. ‘ 4s touching the law,

his views of its sacredness and importance were shown by his having become ‘a Pharisee,’ a member of the ‘ most straitest sect’ of the Jews. ‘ Concerning zeal’ for the ancient faith, as understood by the scribes and Pharisees, what higher could be said—what more conclusive evidence of ardour given—than that he had been well known as ‘ persecuting the church’ of Christ, ‘making havoc’ of it, ‘entering into every house, haling men and women and committing them to prison,’ and ‘ breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord’? Still further, however. History tells us that a man may loudly profess his devotion to certain religious principles, and even be a persecutor on behalf of them, while yet they have no power over his private conduct. But it was not so with Paul. He not merely, as a Pharisee, made an orthodox profession, and, as a persecutor, showed his zeal against those who differed from him in opinion, but, ‘ touching the righteousness which is in the daw’—such supposed righteousness as consists in obedience to precepts regarding outward conduct, while the heart may entertain a spirit of rebellion with respect to ‘the weightier matters of the law,’ being full of pride and uncharitableness,—‘ touching this righteousness,’ he was ‘ ddameless. The omission of no observance, however trivial, could justly be laid to his charge. He could boldly say before Agrippa, ‘ My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that, after the most straitest sect of our religion, I’—not merely professed myself, but—‘ ved a Pharisee.’

Such is the apostle’s list of the facts about himself, regarding which he had once delighted to say to his soul, ‘ Soul, thou hast much goods laid up,—the grounds on which he had thought that he might most justly claim the favour of God. The list sounds much as if you or I were to say something of this kind: ‘I am of a good Presbyterian stock. One of my ancestors fought at Bothwell Bridge for “Christ’s crown and ————— ee eee ee

covenant,” and another died as a martyr in the same cause in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. There have been several ministers in my line, and many elders. I was baptized in a Presbyterian church, attended the Sabbath school, and became a communicant when I was eighteen. I have always attended the church regularly, kept up family worship, and lived a decorous life. I am well read in sound theology ; hold rigidly in my opinions by the Westminster Confession ; and have now and again taken a part in controversies about election, or the extent of the atonement.’ This is all well, very well,—so far as it goes. But if you or I be in any degree looking to these things—to any of them, or to all of them taken together—as ὦ ground of hope for eternity, we are, in so far, occupying a religious position corresponding very exactly with that of Paul before his conversion to Christ. Let us hear, then, what he ultimately thought about the pure Hebrew birth, and legal immaculateness, which were once his pride.

‘ What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.’ His conception of the relations between himself and God had in those old days been essentially mercantile ; for this is the basis of all self-righteousness. The advantages of which he has given an inventory had all been mentally entered by him in a kind of religious account-book as ‘ gains,’ facts distinctly to his ‘credit.’ But when the truth and the beauty of the gospel were, by God’s mercy, brought clearly before him, then he set them down as ‘ Loss,—‘ for Christ, ‘on account of Christ ’”—that is, because it was plain to him now that salvation was to be found only in Christ, and that therefore anything which kept a man back from Christ, or weakened his hold of Christ, was a positive and great spiritual detriment. It is important to note carefully the sense in which the statement is made. Paul’s connection by birth with the covenant nation,—the careful religious education which his parents had given him,— and the pure morality which he had been enabled to maintain in his life from the beginning,—were in themselves great

advantages, for which, I doubt not, he praised God to the end of his life. Very few earthly blessings can be even compared with that of godly parentage, and those influences of a wellordered home which keep the young from ‘ knowing the depths of Satan.’ Vice always tends to harden the heart against God ; and though divine grace may bring men back, and has brought men back, from very grievous wanderings, yet evil memories, and evil imaginings, make the spiritual struggles of such in most cases peculiarly hard. As has been finely said, ‘ This is one of the sorest trials of a renewed life, that it is built over dark dungeons, where dead things may be buried but not forgotten, and where through the open grating rank vapours still ascend.’! But while this is true, it is also true that, as occurred in the apostle’s case, the very privileges which, in their own nature, are fitted to prepare men for the gospel and lead them to Christ, may be so abused by the carnal heart as to be made sustenance for self-righteousness. Wherever this has been the case, wherever a man has in any degree thought of Christian parentage, and propriety of life, as the purchase-money of the favour of God,—then, if he ultimately yield himself to Christ, he cannot but, in looking back upon his history, call his very privileges ‘ loss,’ in so far—but only in so far—as they had kept him back from Christ.

‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things b but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord? We naturally put emphasis on ‘ a// things,’ and take the statement to mean, ‘I esteem everything in the world worthless in comparison with the saving knowledge of Christ.’ Such is, indeed, the feeling of every believer. His love and admiration of his Saviour are so strong, that all which nature values appears to dwindle utterly in the presence of the Lord. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.’ In the present passage, however, the meaning !

Dr. John Ker,

is somewhat different. ‘ Zoss’ is to be taken, as its being put in the 7th verse in express contrast with ‘gain’ shows, not loosely, as equivalent to ‘valueless,’ but strictly, as positive detriment, positive lessening of good. Then, as is sufficiently plain in the original, the emphasis is really on ‘count, as contrasted with ‘counted’ of the previous verse ; and the unemphatic “αὐ things’ simply refers to the ‘ what things were gain to me’ already mentioned, and would be made clearer to an English reader by such a rendering as ‘them all,’ ‘ all of them,’ —all things which, in his days of darkness, the apostle had reckoned ‘ gains’ religiously. ‘I have said that I counted these things loss because of Christ. But I can say more than that. I have now had proof of Christ for many years, and I have never seen any cause to think that the comparative estimate I formed of Him, and of all other grounds of hope for eternity, was an untrue one; but abundant confirmation every day of its soundness. As I have counted them loss in the past, then, so I count them all loss still.’

And this ‘for the excellency’—‘ because of the pre-eminence’— ‘of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord” How natural and beautiful the appropriating ‘my’ is here! One pictures the apostle lifting his eye to heaven, and pouring out his heart in a word of wondering praise: ‘d/e—who was a persecutor, a blasphemer, and injurious; who trusted in myself that I was righteous, and despised Thee—Thou, O gracious Saviour, hast Thyself led into that knowledge of Thee which brings with it all holiness and all joy, the knowledge of Thee as my Lord.’ ‘ This is life eternal,’ said the Redeemer in His High-priestly prayer, ‘that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.’ Such knowledge certainly has a ‘glory which excelleth.’

In the words which follow, Paul, still looking back over his spiritual history, seems to gather up the account of his convictions and feelings into the statement of one great decisive act of choice,—the choice made in conversion, and ratified every day since: ‘for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, more exactly given thus, ‘ because of whom, or for whose sake, I was subjected to the loss of them all.’ The reference in the last words is still to his old grounds of religious trust. We might, indeed, understand ‘all things’ in a wider sense at this point ; for an allusion to the fact, which no doubt the Philippians knew, that for Christ he had given up his early friendships and associations, and most brilliant prospects of rising to distinction among his countrymen, would be not at all unnatural, as showing the intensity of his feelings regarding the Saviour. But the course of thought leads us rather to take the more limited reference. The apostle, you observe, keeps still somewhat to the mercantile representation which he has already used ; but ‘loss’ comes in now in a different way. ‘ Feeling what I was wont to deem my gains to be in truth loss, in that they had kept me back from the only Saviour,—hearing God declare that all other trust must be put away by those who would be saved through His Son,—I was constrained by sound calculation to lose all.’ Sound calculation it was, true wisdom ; as when the captain of a ship of war, in hot pursuit of a prize of the highest value, does not hesitate to lighten his vessel, and thus secure the capture, by casting overboard much that is valuable. For observe how he goes on, ‘I was constrained to lose all, that I may win Christ? He knew that this one ‘gain’ meant ‘ unsearchable riches.’

Mark the object of his desire,—not a doctrine, not a philosophy, not a course of observances, but ‘ Christ,—to have Him, the God-man, as his Saviour, Friend, Brother. Our hearts, my brethren, need a personal object of religious love and adoration. The cry of the soul from its depths is never, ‘ What have I in heaven?’ but ‘ Whom have I?’ We need a personal object of knowledge, so admirable that, the more we know, the more we esteem and venerate,—so amiable that, the more we love, the ampler ever seems the wealth of loveableness,—so enduring, that we can admire and love for everae

more. ‘This longing finds its answer in Christ. ‘The Infinitely Admirable, the Altogether Lovely, ‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,’ presents Himself to all ages and all countries with the gracious invitation, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ To know Him, and dwell with Him, and enjoy rest in His love,— this was the desire of the apostle. ‘To win Christ’ is, in the exquisite language of good old Bishop Hall, ‘to lay fast hold upon Him, to receive Him inwardly into our bosoms, and so to make Him ours, and ourselves His, that we may be joined to Him as our Head, espoused to Him as our Husband, incorporated into Him as our Nourishment, engrafted in Him as our Stock, and laid upon Him as a sure Foundation.’ To ‘win’ such glory and blessedness as is summed up in words like these, and which can be attained only by those who renounce all grounds of confidence for salvation except Christ, is it not most reasonable, my brethren, that a man should cast away everything wherein he trusted? Can he do other than wholly disesteem his old ‘ gains,’ ‘ counting them but dung, that he may win Christ’?

But it is not easy—it is very hard—for the soul to come to this point. The gate is a strait gate. To part with many worldly possessions or pleasures would be comparatively an easy thing. But in renouncing any thought of merit in connection with the very surrender of all things for Christ, lies the great difficulty. Did men feel that by giving up all things they earned salvation, so that they might possess Christ, and also with Him a pride of heart in their own surrender as having deserved Him, the sacrifice would be light. But to cast away all, and yet know that Christ is to us simply and absolutely ‘the gift of God,’—this is felt by the pride of the natural heart to be very hard. But when Christ reveals to us His beauty, the heart yields. When the Divine Spirit shows clearly ‘the treasure hid in the field,’ then the finder, ‘for joy thereof, goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that

field.’ ‘For joy thereof,’—there lies the secret of true self-surrender. Because Jesus loved us, we love Him, and delight to honour Him by singleness of trust and devotion. The freeness of the divine gift is now one great impelling motive to give up all that we may ‘win’ Him. This sounds as a paradox, but it is true, as many other seeming paradoxes are found in Christian experience to be.

In the 9th verse, the apostle goes on to describe more fully the object of his eager desire. ‘I was constrained, by sound judgment, to give up all my old grounds of trust, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. From the beginning Paul had believed in his responsibility to God. The Old Scriptures had taught him this; and their voice was distinctly echoed by conscience, as it is to all who do not wilfully deafen themselves. He believed that God was his King and

Judge, to whom he owed implicit obedience, and to whom he would have to answer for the use he made of his life, his faculties, his opportunities. He believed that God had given to man His law, Israel possessing it in a very full form through revelation, and even the Gentiles having its outlines ‘ written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness.’ In his early life he had thought that he could keep and did keep this law perfectly. In his heart he said, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ But, by and by, it became clear to him that God’s commandment is ‘ exceeding broad,’ reaching vastly farther, and searching vastly deeper, than he had conceived. He had taken into his consideration only the outward life, and even here only the required absence of positive transgression, not the required presence of constant positive activity in God’s service. Now he saw that ‘God desireth truth in the inward parts’—perfect purity and consecration of the heart, ‘out of which are the

issues of life.’ It was plain to him that, when God in judgment ‘made inquisition’ respecting spiritual obedience, he had nothing to plead. The supposed ‘righteousness of his own, which was of’—derived from keeping—‘ ‘the daw,’ was a delusion.

But divine mercy offered him salvation in a way which, with sublime completeness, exhibits in one view God’s abhorrence of sin, and determination to sustain the dignity of His law, and, at the same time, the infinite richness and tenderness of His love and pity. The Son of God has, as the Representative Man, wrought out, by His holy life and His atoning death, a perfect righteousness; and this God is willing to reckon as if it were the personal righteousness of every one who sincerely believes in His Son. This perfectly and eternally sufficient righteousness is thus enjoyed by men ‘through the faith of Christ’ Or, as the apostle goes on to put it a little more fully, in contrast with the supposed and utterly insufficient righteousness which is ‘of the law,’ this is ‘of God’— devised and bestowed by Him,—and ‘ by faith’—more exactly, ‘on, resting on faith,’ not in any degree as a meritorious condition, but as a needful antecedent. Those who believe in Christ are regarded by God as ‘in Him’—vitally united to Him; and therefore, though personally unworthy, they are yet safe for eternity, through the all-glorious righteousness of the God-man, their Representative and Head.

The object of the apostle’s longing is now clearly before us : ΕἸ suffered loss, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him’ —‘that whenever and however my relations to God be tested, especially when I am sought for in the great day of final account, I may be found not standing alone, as claiming to be judged by myself, but in Him, and thus sheltered from all danger ’—‘ not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.’

Dear friends, the sketch of Paul’s spiritual history which we

have now been studying, ought to have profound interest for every one of us, and to suggest most serious reflections. We are ‘men of like passions’ with him,—equally liable, at the least, to self-deception and self-righteousness. ‘The great day to which he looked forward awaits also you and me. ‘The judgment shall be set, and the books opened.’ Then ‘who shall abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth?’ Blessed, surely, are they who have ‘the witness of the Spirit with their spirits’ that, having renounced all vain confidence, they are ‘in Christ,’ and are thus enabled to cherish an intelligent hope that in that day they shall be ‘found in Him, having the righteousness which is of God!’ ‘If God be for us, who can be against us δ᾽