Lecture XXIV · The Saint's Citizenship and Hope

HE word ‘conversation, as I have had occasion to mention in a previous lecture, meant, at the time when our translation of the Bible was made, not simply, as now, ‘the exchange of thought by speech,’ but ‘a course of life or conduct’ generally. The force of the statement here, then, supposing our version to exhibit with precision the apostle’s meaning, is this,—‘ Our life is such, in flower and fruit, as to show, more or less clearly, that its roots are “hid with Christ in God,”—such as to prove that our “ affections are set on the things which are above,” that our thoughts and our longings are habitually in heaven.’ The reference in ‘our’ is, in this case, to the apostle and those Christian teachers who lived as he did; and the argument in support of the precept of the 17th verse, ‘ Be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample,’ is thus completed in full form,—‘ for, whilst many pretentious teachers, who seek to draw you after them, lead a base life, minding earthly things, we try, in God’s strength, to live a heavenly life,—and this is plainly what the beliefs and hopes of Christians require.’

It is very doubtful, however, whether the original word here rendered ‘ conversation’ was intended by the apostle to have this meaning. Its primary sense is ‘ country,’ or ‘ one’s relation — ὌΝ « = ὙὙΥσΝΝ a Γ

΄ to his country,’ ‘citizenship.’ Now this meaning suits excellently the apostle’s course of thought. To the Philippians too, who, living in a Roman colony, were very familiar with the great privileges connected with citizenship in the imperial city, the thought, ‘ Our citizenship, as Christians, is in heaven,’ could not but be a specially interesting, impressive, and gladdening one. It is probable, therefore, that the apostle, when, in writing to these Philippians, he chose this particular word, which he uses nowhere else, intended it to be taken in its primary meaning. In this case, the reference does not seem to be specially to Paul and other earnest-minded teachers, in contrast with the teachers who lived unholy lives, but to true Christians generally ; and the course of thought in the whole passage is this,—‘ Follow me, and those who live like me. I need to warn you thus, for there are teachers whose conduct proves too plainly that their hearts are set supremely on the present world. Now this is the very opposite of the spirit which believers should cherish, for our citizenship is in heaven.’

In these verses Paul brings evidence that the persons whose views and conduct he has sketched were wholly unsuited to be examples to believers in Christ, by mentioning a few prominent facts regarding the position and expectations of Christians, with which the features of character he has described were utterly incongruous. The men he has spoken of ‘minded earthly things ;’ but every intelligent Christian knows himself to be a ‘citizen of heaven, and therefore, by immediate inference, called on to ‘set his affections on the things which are above.’ Those men’s ‘ god was their belly,’ and their ‘ glory was in their shame.’ ‘True believers, on the other hand, knowing their body to be a ‘vile body’—a ‘body of humiliation ’—feel, that instead of making it, or any of its organs, in any sense or degree a ‘god,’ it becomes them to struggle vigorously against the lusts which by nature reign in their members. At the same time, being well assured that their x

bodies as well as their souls are in union with Christ, and that the Lord, at that coming for which they ‘look’ as their ‘blessed hope,’ will ‘change their vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, they see it to be reasonable and needful that the body should be honoured in a true and rational way, by being devoted ‘as an instrument of righteousness unto God’—adorned with purity and sobriety— consecrated to the Redeemer, to labour in His cause and to bear His cross. With men ‘ whose end was destruction,’ those who ‘looked for the Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour’ for their whole being, could certainly have nothing in common, morally or spiritually.

‘ Citizenship’ is a not uncommon representation in Scripture of the portion of Christians. To the Ephesian believers Paul says, ‘Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God ;’ and the Hebrew Christians are spoken of as having ‘ come ’—eyvidently as members of the community—‘ unto Mount Sion and unto the city of the living God.’

This citizenship ‘is zz heaven.” It is true that ‘the earth is the Lord’s,’ and that by and by there shall be ‘ great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.’ But meantime a usurper has much power here ; and, so long as ‘the world lieth in wickedness,’ no loyal subject of the Divine King can count it his home. Even here, indeed, all whose names are ‘ written in the Lamb’s book of life,’ the register of the citizens of heaven, enjoy, in a measure calling for devoutest gratitude, many privileges of their citizenship. But, as the citizen of Rome, while proud of the dignity and glad of the safety his — position gave him anywhere in the civilised world, yet thought of the metropolis itself as the place where alone he could have the full benefit of all the powers and immunities of ‘this freedom,’— with similar feelings the Christian regards heaven. There the citizens ‘see their King in His beauty,’ and experi-

ence the full blessedness and glory of their relations to Him, and to each other.

This particular representation of the believer’s relation to heaven suggests to him with much liveliness the thought of the congenial society which awaits him there. If you or I were called by business to be much abroad, among people of a foreign tongue, foreign manners, foreign feelings, our hearts— if they be true, honest, manly hearts—would turn often with strong longing to our own country, our own city; primarily because here is our home, our dear family circle ; but to some extent also, because here all the people around us, simply as our countrymen, our townsmen, brought up under similar influences with ourselves, have on many matters a community of sentiment with us which we should seek in vain elsewhere. Now, when a member of the heavenly commonwealth looks out from earth towards his own glorious land, the range of his very warmest and tenderest thoughts of congenial society there—his expectation of the delights of the home circle — extends to all within the gates of pearl; for ‘ fellow-citizens with the saints’ is but another description of ‘the household of God,’ children of one Father, and thus all brethren.

In this world, a Christian, however situated,—even if his dwelling be in the midst of a great community,—is, in large measure, a solitary man. To some of my younger hearers this may appear a strange statement. But, my young friends, if God spare you long, and the course of life lead you through the ordinary experiences of men, you will by and by know that loneliness is mainly a matter of the heart, and may be more felt in a crowd than ona wild Highland moor. To many a man no wilderness could be so dreary, no desert so stonyhearted, as a large city. To gaze on the flood of busy life which surges along a leading thoroughfare, and, as no doubt in every great city there are not a few who do, to feel oneself isolated in spirit from all the throng,—to know that no heart in all the city beats lovingly for us, that no joy there is

increased by our presence, or would be even for a moment interrupted by our absence or our death,—this is loneliness indeed. Now I do not say that the position of Christians generally, while they remain on earth, is altogether like this. We have believing friends near us, and many of us are linked with such by ties which permit frequent and delightful fellowship. Blessed be God for these great mercies! Yet, at the same time, it is true that every spiritually-minded person often feels himself alone. The citizen of heaven is in a foreign land here, and cannot escape the difficulties and trials which naturally connect themselves with life in a foreign land. Taught by divine grace to be in heart not of the world, we yet necessarily live zz it, and are compelled to associate with many who have no sympathy with us in the warmest affections and most ardent yearnings of our souls,—to whom, indeed, the very language of vital religion is utterly strange. Among Christians themselves, too, there are many things,—dissimilarities of natural temperament, social influences of various kinds, unhappy tendencies to exaggerate the importance of minor differences of opinion, and the like,—which make full, joyous, trustful, loving brotherhood and sympathy a rare flower even in the garden of the church. Even at his best estate, the pilgrim Zionward finds that he is ‘ wandering in the wilderness in a solitary way.’

But in our own heavenly land, fellow-Christians, there are none but friends. Jarrings, and rivalries, and alienations, have no place there. The community of interests among all the citizens is perfect. There God reveals Himself to His people in modes and in a measure of which in our present state we cannot even form any conception,—assured only that our hearts shall be ravished with the view of His glory. Jesus, ‘whom, having not seen, we love,’ dwells among His people there, and admits them to closest and most endearing ἯΝΝ course and fellowship. They ‘ walk with Him in white ;’ ‘sit with Him in His throne.’ Angels, too, will be our will = Ϊ ii associates. ‘They who rejoiced over us, when we were repenting sinners, will rejoice with us at our entrance into glory. They who delight to be our ‘ ministering spirits’ here, will delight to be our companions yonder. ‘There we shall meet again, and enjoy intimate communion with all the children of God whom we have known and loved below,—our many dear and precious friends in Christ, with whom ‘we took sweet counsel, and walked to the house of God in company.’ The Christian parent or child, husband or wife, brother or sister, over whose deathbed we hung in anguish,—whose removal seemed to quench the light of our household happiness,—we shall see them and dwell with them there. Many too we shall find there, and in their friendship find unmingled pleasure, between whom and us on earth their sin or ours had introduced coldness and distrust. Paul and Barnabas have no sharp contendings yonder. Luther and Zuingli dwell there in unity,—for they ‘ dwell in God,’ and ‘ God is love.’ All the good of every age and clime—freed from everything which, while they lived on earth, was fitted to avert confidence or arouse dislike, and clothed with every holy beauty which can make friendship sweet and helpful,—these, with the cherubim ‘and the seraphim, are the inhabitants of the city of God, rejoicing ever in the sunshine of their Divine King’s complacent smile.

The thought of the perfect security enjoyed by the saints above, is another very delightful one, which most naturally rises in a Christian’s mind, when thinking of heaven as a city, or organized commonwealth, of which he is a citizen.

In this happy country of Britain, where, through God’s goodness, we have learned to honour our laws, and thus for many generations, whilst enjoying the utmost personal freedom compatible with the general wellbeing, have possessed the inestimable blessing of a strong executive government, we seldom think of the greatness of the privilege of security which thereby we have as citizens. Through the completeness of it, and, in _ consequence, our want of acquaintance practically with any- Ἰ “7

thing else, we fail to notice it, or adequately to prize it. But to a traveller, or to any peace-loving inhabitant, in almost any part of Africa, or of Central or Western Asia, or in the hill districts of Greece or of Spain, one of the most prominent of all longings is for a power that will give safety to person and property ; and the most pleasant thought connected with cities, where alone in those regions anything of the advantages of efficient government is obtained, is that of security. Now, though our earth is a province of the dominions of God, it is in rebellion ; and thus practically the loyal subjects of the King here find themselves in a land of anarchy. We cannot feel at ease. Every bush may hide a lurking foe. A Roman citizen, journeying in remote barbarous or semi-barbarous countries, which were nominally under the sway of his emperor, might sometimes by his very citizenship, the dignity of which he was so proud, and which elsewhere gave him so many immunities, be brought into peril,—if discontent with the distant government prevailed around him. So with a citizen of heaven placed among the sinners of the earth, and the ‘principalities and powers of darkness’ which have much sway on the earth. To mislead him, to injure him, to lower his spiritual tone, seems to them something of a victory over his country and his King.

But the name of ‘the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem,’ brings with it the thought of perfect freedom from danger, perfect rest from anxiety. ‘ They that hurt and destroy’ can never enter there. The great adversary, who so often, out here in the wilderness, proves that he has power to assail us—so often, alas! with no little success,—cannot set foot in heaven. He cast himself down thence long ago,—never to return. The seductions of the world and the flesh, which here, like wild beasts, lie in wait for us at our tent-doors, crouching for the spring, dare not draw near the holy city. As Satan, ‘the prince — of this world,’ has no entrance yonder, so neither can anything enter fitted to serve his ends. There we shall sing with a fulness of meaning unapproached below, ‘Blessed be the Lord, a a ΄

who hath not given our souls for a prey. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. ‘The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.’

Knowing themselves to have so glorious a ‘citizenship,’ but being for the present in a strange land, believers are sustained by a ‘blessed hope.’ To this the apostle goes on to direct the attention of his readers. ‘ Our citizenship is in heaven,—/rom whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,—or rather, ‘from whence we’—sharply contrasted here with those before mentioned, ‘whose end is destruction’—‘ look for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.’

The second coming of Christ, His advent to raise the dead and judge the world, is always exhibited in Scripture as for every wise soul the supremely influential fact of the future, and as the object of the most ardent longings of the Christian heart. The great spur to energetic service of God is the thought that ‘when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then we also shall appear with Him in glory.’ The great support in trouble is the consideration that, ‘when His glory shall be revealed, we shall be glad also with exceeding joy.’ Conversion is ‘turning to God, to serve Him, and to wait for His Son from heaven;’ and Christians are naturally described, therefore, as persons who ‘love the appearing of the Lord.’

By any one who considers the subject, it can hardly be doubted that this grand event holds a far less prominent position in the thoughts of most Christians in our day than it did in those of the apostles, and, as is evident from the tone of their writings, they desired that it should do in those of their readers. Is this because our affection for the Saviour is less lively,—because we have a less intense longing to be with Him? Whatever the reason, the fact, I think, is certain. In the mind of the modern church, as exhibited in sermons and religious literature, the death of the individual has, to a great extent, taken the place which in the church of the first days was occupied by the Lord’s personal advent. Now, however much it

may seem to us that this is practically the same thing,—and however influential the thought of death will assuredly be on all who look it fairly in the face,—yet is it not reasonable to suppose that our religious life must suffer as really, though not to the same degree, by altering the relative prominence given to the articles of our faith in Scripture, as by believing positive error ? No truth can exert on the mind and heart exactly the same influence as another. Now it seems plain that the Divine Spirit would have Christians to keep before their souls the day with which for them no ideas can be connected but those of happiness,—the day when the Redeemer shall appear in glory, and all His redeemed ones, gathered together, shall be perfectly, publicly, and simultaneously glorified with Him. Τί, then, the - place of prominence in a believer’s mind, which should be held by this ‘blessed hope,’ be occupied by the time of his own death,—a time, considered simply in itself, not attractive but repulsive, round which, even for those who fully know that the sting has been taken away, some gloom will hang, and which introduces into a blessedness, ineffable indeed, yet but preparatory to that which remains to be revealed,—this substitution cannot but in various ways have an injurious effect. Its influence can hardly but strengthen the tendency, of which it seems to be itself in some measure an expression, to gather in the soul’s thoughts and yearnings round herself, instead of sending them ἡ out fully, joyously, lovingly, to the Saviour. It can scarcely be questioned, I think, that the doctrines of pre-millennialism—seriously erroneous doctrines, as it appears to me—have obtained their present wide acceptance mainly through a natural and extreme reaction, in the minds of Christians of an ardent and affectionate temperament, from the tone of thinking and feeling which has put the Lord’s glorious appearing so far out of view. And the best thing one can desire, in regard to the controversy which the pre-millennialists have stirred up, is that it may lead the church generally to give the great fact of the future its primitive and proper place in their contemplations and hopes.

In the passage before us, the apostle, in speaking of the hope of the Saviour’s coming, turns the thoughts of his readers specially to the change which His love and power will then effect on the dodies of believers. This, as has been already mentioned, and briefly illustrated, is obviously to show the sin and folly of those ‘whose god was their belly,’ and ‘whose glory was in their shame.’

The expression employed in the Authorized Version, ‘ our vile body,’—that is, according to the primitive meaning of the word ‘ vile,’ ‘our body of little value,’ as in Jeremiah we read of ‘vile figs,’ and in James of ‘vile raiment,’—is not by any means a happy one, being both inaccurate as a translation and in itself untrue. However lamentably often made to minister to moral worthlessness, the body is in itself most precious, as an instrument admirably adapted for the service of God. The most literal rendering of the apostle’s words in this clause is the best,—‘ who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory.’ Our present body belongs to ‘our humiliation,’ and is in various respects its exponent. In its tendencies to nourish certain forms of immoral desire, and in its infirmities, diseases, and mortality, it bears clear testimony to the fa// of man. But the Lord, who has taken upon Him our nature, not for a time only, but for ever, and whose glory accordingly is manifested in heaven under a human form, will, at His coming, change the bodies of His people, fashioning them like unto that ‘ body of glory.’ Of its sublime beauty the three chosen disciples had an anticipatory glimpse, when the Lord ‘was transfigured before them, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment became shining, white as the light.’ Fashioned like unto this body, dear friends, will be yours and mine, if we are truly His brethren ; ‘for whom God did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be —as regards their whole being—‘ conformed to the image of His Son.’ ‘We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’ ‘Behold, what manner of love!’

With such a prospect as this before us, we may surely well say, ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ !’

Heathen philosophers could reach some hope of a future life ; but in their views of that life the body had no place. It seemed to them only a temporary and somewhat degrading companion of the soul. But Scripture assumes throughout that the body is no mere drapery,—no mere accidental associate of what thinks and feels, — but essential to complete humanity. It was only the body of Jesus that for three days lay in Joseph’s tomb ; yet the angel said to the women, ‘Come, see the place where the Lord lay.’ Plainly then, in some true sense, that sacred body was the Lord Jesus. And when He arose in His complete humanity, soul and body, a pledge was therein given that His redeemed too shall in their complete nature one day stand before God ; for not partially, but wholly, according to the covenant of love, we are united to our Lord, and share His glory. Wherefore, ‘if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.’ The soul will recognise the old associate of its earthly joys and sorrows. There will be in the risen man a full sense of personal identity, as regards the whole nature, with him who once ‘yielded his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,’ but was led by the Divine Spirit to ‘ yield them as instruments of righteousness unto God.’ Yet how different the whole man will be,—how gloriously different! The body, ‘ sown in corruption,’ shall be ‘raised in incorruption,—free from pain and disease, from decay and mortality. ‘The eyes of Jacob shall no more be dim for age ; Mephibosheth shall not be lame in his feet ; nor shall the senses of Barzillai be dull and languid ;’! for alike age and infirmity are unknown to the ‘children of the resurrection.’ ‘ Sown in the dishonour’ of uncomeliness, it shall be ‘raised in 1

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the glory’ of perfect and unending beauty, ‘fashioned like unto the body of Christ’s glory.’ ‘Sown in weakness,’ it shall be ‘raised in power’—power to serve the Lord unwearyingly day and night in His temple, and to bear the ‘exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’ ‘Sown a natural body ’—a body fitted for the uses of earth,—it shall be ‘raised a spiritual body’—a dwelling suited in everything for the holy and happy spirit, an instrument exquisitely adapted for prosecuting the pursuits of heaven, and ministering to its pure and exalted joys.

To our human reason there are difficulties, very serious difficulties, in the doctrine of resurrection. The body laid in the grave decays, and its elements enter into new organisms, which in their turn perish and nourish others. Thus, in the course of the generations, the same elements may, to some extent, have entered into the composition of many human bodies. Whence then shall come each body complete? Yet is such a difficulty greater than those which meet us in the facts of our present life? I know, from the clear demonstrations of science, that not a particle of my present bodily frame was in the body I had as a child; but I know at the same time as certainly, from the testimony of consciousness, that I, the man, am the same who was then a child, and that for the deeds done in the body then I still am responsible. Shall I deem ita greatly more wonderful thing than this, that, through the power of God, I shall stand at His bar at the last in a body which, fully and satisfyingly, I shall recognise as my own? In regard to the one matter, I believe the testimony of science and consciousness, though seeing only very dimly into the ἄστυ. In regard to the other, should I hesitate to believe the testimony of God in His word ?—or, compassed as I am by mystery in this present life, would it not be most irrational in me to allege the existence in the Bible of statements which human philosophy cannot see all round and all through, as a ground of doubt whether the testimony of God really be found in the Bible ?

However great the difficulties may be, an answer completely

satisfactory to every Christian mind is made to all objections and doubts on this head, in the apostle’s last words in the passage before us,—‘ according to the working whereby He is able’—or, ‘according to the working of His power’—‘ even fo subdue all things unto Himself? Christ, as Mediator, has. received of His Father ‘all power in heaven and in earth,’ and this “to put all enemies under His feet.’ The full belief of this belongs to the basis of reasonable peace, in our thoughts of our relation to God; for our salvation is solely ‘in Christ,’ and if there be any foe of His and ours whom He cannot conquer, then by that foe we may be utterly and for ever oppressed. But we are left in no uncertainty on this matter of transcendent moment, Christian brethren. The Son of God can fail in nothing; and as He ‘was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, those works shall be destroyed,—every one of them. Among those works is death,—and Christ’s people shall certainly rejoice, at the last, in the complete emancipation of every element of their nature from the thraldom of this tyrant. ‘When Christ shall have put down all rule and all authority and power—for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet,—the last enemy shall be destroyed, death.’ ‘For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’

Every Christian sees in his own spiritual life—in the reasonable peace, and the holy longings, of a soul which by nature was ‘dead in trespasses and sins’—evidence of the victory of * =. i. Fé his Saviour over death; and finds his faith thus ever strongerto anticipate with full confidence the day of complete redemption —entire ‘ deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ It is plain to him that, ‘according to the working,’ already manifested, ‘ of Christ’s power to subdue’ his hard heart ‘to Himself, nothing is in- 7 a “- 2 A! ae Fe

ible to his Lord. The resurrection of the body

but a little thing compared with the resurrection ¢ id soul. Those who even here, as with trustfulness and Ic ‘behold the glory of their Lord,’ ‘are changed’ spiritually into the same image, from glory to glory,’ need havell r difficulty in expecting a time when ‘the body of their humiliation’ too shall be ‘fashioned like unto the body of His glory,’ —and thus in fulness, ‘as they have borne the image of the earthy, they shall also bear the image of the heavenly.’ spt