Lecture III · Prayer for Spiritual Discernment

OF the paragraph extending from the 3d verse to the 8th, which is indeed one long and somewhat complicated sentence, the main statement, as we have seen, is that made at the beginning, that the apostle prayed for his Philippian converts with thankfulness and joy,—the grounds of these feelings being exhibited in the remainder. The short section to which we now come tells us what the particular petition was which, in the prayer referred to, he usually offered up for them. The spiritually-minded reader feels himself pass easily from the close of the previous section into this. The ‘longing’ of Christian love so naturally takes the form of prayer, that no - connection can be conceived more legitimate and direct than this, ‘I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ,’ ‘and this I pray.’ And the Hearer of prayer ‘satisfieth the longing soul.’

‘This is my prayer, then,’ says Paul, ‘that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. _ Love he has already mentioned to be conspicuous in the Philip- _ pian church. Their fellowship with Christ, with each other, _ with all good men, for the advancement of the power of the

gospel, yielded him the most exquisite delight. Now that this

love, already so ardent, may grow, may have every defect and disfigurement removed from it, and everything given to it which can increase its strength and beauty,—this is his chief petition to God for them. Thus the queenly position of Love among the graces is set before us. Knowledge and judgment, you see, in themselves so admirable, the apostle speaks of as merely her servants or possessions, in which it is desirable that she should ‘abound.’ Faith and hope are, in their degree, powerful and fair; but it is hers to wear the crown and sway the sceptre, theirs to lay tribute at her feet. Love is the grand sanctifying, ennobling, beautifying principle of the Christian soul. It is, in truth, itself the sum of moral excellence ; for all forms of holy feeling and holy action are but various manifestations of love to God and to man. ‘Love is. the fulfilling of the law.’ ‘The end of the commandment is love, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.’ “God is love,’ and therefore to be full of love is to be like God.

Now love to God, and the sincere and unselfish love to man, with which love to God is always associated, spring from &/owledge of God, and of man’s real relations to God. It is impossible, consistently with the nature of things, that it should be otherwise. A heart which is in darkness, filled with grievous misconceptions of God and of happiness—and such is every human heart by nature—cannot love God, nor unselfishly love man. It is ‘faith,’ the intelligent and cordial belief of divine truth, that ‘worketh by love.’ The gospel of Jesus Christ exhibits to us the divine character in so winning an aspect, that when we thus see God we cannot but love Him, and with Him those who through His grace are in spirit hike Him,— cannot but heartily sympathize too in His pitying love for the world. The Philippians, then, being distinguished by love, had of necessity no little Christian knowledge.

But growth is the law of spiritual life, as of natural. The new man in Christ has his infancy, his youth, his manhood.

And such is the mutual dependence of the elements of Christian character, that it is of the highest importance that a// -of them should grow. If one member of the new man be stunted in its development, then the whole body suffers. When ‘the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love,—it is then that full spiritual ; health reigns.

It is specially important that knowledge grow ; for this, the knowledge of divine truth, received through faith, is the root from which all Christian character springs. Plainly, therefore, the more widely and deeply that the root sends out its tendrils, the more fully that it draws from the soil of truth the nourishment which is fitted to sustain the trunk and the branches, ever the stronger and healthier is the tree, able the more triumphantly to endure the blasts of temptation, and continually the lovelier in leaf and the richer in fruit. God, then, would have His people advance in Christian knowledge. He would have us not always to be content with the food of babes, who, whilst in a measure knowing the truth, are yet ‘unskilful in the word of righteousness ; but to seek the ‘strong meat, which belongeth to them that are of full age.’ We are to ‘follow on to know the Lord,’—to seek that the light which the Spirit has kindled in our souls may wax brighter and brighter. Ignorance is not, as has sometimes been foolishly and wickedly taught, the mother of devotion, but the mother of sin and superstition. Real living Bible Christianity has nothing to conceal. She says to all forms of investigation and inquiry, as Philip said to doubting Nathanael, ‘Come and see.’ The. prayer of the apostle, then, is that the love of his dear converts at Philippi may, in ever-increasing abundance, possess knowledge as its basis, root, nourishment.

That love should be accompanied by large knowledge is of the highest importance also, in order that her impulses may

be wisely directed,—that she may work towards the best ends by the most judicious means. Blind love fails in any sphere of action. A true-hearted boy, who finds his mother suddenly made a widow, and his young sisters and himself fatherless, and sees want coming on with fierce visage and rapid steps like an armed man, is impelled by his love to the dear ones around him to rush at once into the midst of the struggle of life ; and in the place, and with the weapons, of a full-grown man, give the enemy battle. The love and the zeal are most beautiful and admirable, yet those among the onlookers who have experience of the world’s difficulties, cannot but fear that the young hero may soon be brought home from the battlefield wounded and bleeding and despondent. He needs training. His love must have the knowledge of men and things along with it, before it is likely to reach its aim. So with Christian love generally, going forth to do work for God and man in the world. Having talents entrusted to us by God to lay out for Him, we must strive—by the study of our powers and opportunities, temptations and dangers ; by the consideration of present circumstances, and by cautious forecast; by carefully looking in and out, and at all things in the light of God’s word—to become wise and successful spiritual traffickers.’ _ Like those men of Issachar who came to Hebron to make David king, we should ‘have understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do,’—thus not having knowledge merely, but knowledge fused into wisdom. We should ‘walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, understanding what the will of the Lord is.’ For thus directing a Christian’s love to God and man into the best channels, it is evident that knowledge beyond, as well as within, the sphere of what, in the ordinary limited sense, is called religious truth, is likely to be of no small service. The man who has most fully used his opportunities of obtaining general as well as biblical knowledge, 1

According to a precept ascribed by early writers to our Lord, γίνεσθε τραπεζίται δόκιμοι, ‘ Be ye approved money-changers.’

in whom true Christian wisdom, contemplating all the knowledge in its relations to God and the gospel, thus transmutes it αὐ into religious knowledge,—this man, if love be strong within him, is the most likely to leave the mark of his love deep and broad on the sphere which God has given him.

I have spoken of knowledge as being both the support and the director of love. That this latter relation is chiefly in the apostle’s mind here, is shown by the words he adds, ‘ and in all judgment,’—that is, ‘in all moral perception,’ ‘in an accurate and delicate moral discernment, suited for all the phases and emergencies of life.’ It is possible to know general principles in a measure, and yet to fail often to see their true and full application, as particular cases present themselves. That the Philippians may have this faculty, is what the apostle now entreats of God.

His exact meaning is explained by his next words, ‘that ye may approve things that are excellent. ‘This clause does not contain another petition co-ordinate with that of the 9th verse, as might very naturally be supposed from the English version ; but sets forth the object for which growth in knowledge and judgment is entreated,—the introductory ‘that’ ᾿ meaning ‘to the end that. From a little ambiguity in two of the words employed by the apostle, the clause may mean either, as our translators have given it in the text, ‘that ye may approve things that are excellent ;’ or, as they have given it in the margin, ‘that ye may try things that differ.’ It is of no great moment which of these renderings be adopted, because, as you will see, the approval of the excellent is simply the spiritual act to which the trying of the things that differ is intended to lead. On the whole, the marginal translation seems to me more pointed and forcible, and on various grounds preferable.

The apostle’s prayer then is, ‘that the love of the Philippians may be accompanied with abundant knowledge, and with all delicate moral perception, to the end that they may try or test

—so as to distinguish — things which differ.’ His reference in ‘things which differ’ is not to virtue and vice, the service of God and the service of Satan. With respect to these, the Philippians had decided clearly and irrevocably long ago, for they were already Christians, eminent Christians. They shunned darkness, and loved light. In this clause of his prayer, Paul has in his mind, I apprehend, the faculty of distinguishing Christian virtue from all counterfeits ; of seeing, in an apparent conflict of duties, what present duty really is; of discerning where excess begins in that which, up to a certain point, is innocent or useful; of deciding accurately which of two ways of pursuing Christian work is the better; of avoiding moral pitfalls, however carefully covered over; of habitually saying and doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, and thus steadily growing ever liker Christ.

In the case of the ‘new man in Christ, with respect to spiritual discrimination, just as in the ordinary life of man, it is ‘by reason of use’ that we ‘have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil.’ When offered food, a child takes palatableness only into account, and will as readily eat, if it be pleasant to the taste, what is unwholesome or even poisonous, as what is most nourishing. The power of discriminating, so as ‘to refuse the evil and choose the good,’ comes by experience. Now the skill which experience, to a great extent unsought, thus gives in the physical sphere, must, in the spiritual, be sought by definite pursuit. Observation and reading, the reading particularly of the biographies of eminent Christians— and especially the Bible biographies, which have an absolute truthfulness seldom even approached in others,—these will supply materials, the thoughtful and prayerful consideration of which will produce acuteness of moral perception. ‘There are Christians in whom natural delicacy of feeling and accuracy of judgment, fostered by various helpful surroundings, give, from the very beginning of their religious life, a faculty of spiritual discrimination which acts almost with the readiness and cer-

tainty of an instinct. These are rare; but no believer, who is willing to be observant and thoughtful and prayerful, will fail to grow ever more acute in moral judgment. Let us cultivate this faculty with diligence, my brethren. The degree in which it is possessed determines very largely the beauty of a Christian’s character, and the breadth and depth and permanence of his influence for good.

To this point the apostle directs attention in his next words. * My desire for your growth in delicacy of moral perception,’ he says, ‘is mainly with a view to a further object, to the intent that ye may be sincere, and without offence, till the day of Christ. All knowledge and wisdom in regard to religion are fitted to exert practical power over the affections and life, and fail of their grand use where this is wanting. ‘Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves; for whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being ποῖ᾽ ἃ forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.’ Nowif a man have the faculty of sound moral discrimination, and permit his clear views to act legitimately on his heart, the whole man will evidently be ‘ sincere, ‘ pure,’ ‘free from mixture’ or contamination with what is base ; so that, according to what is not improbably the primitive sense of the word used in the original, he might with safety be ‘tested in bright sunlight.’ His soul, regulated by the absolutely harmonious will of God, will itself be free from all discords. He will cherish ‘singleness of heart, fearing God.’ To maintain any approach to a spirit like this, needs, in such a world as that we live in, the exercise of intense and constant vigilance. Some of us have seen the glorious blue of the Rhone, as it leaves the Lake of Geneva. A little way down, we have seen the Arve, loaded with mud, rush into the same channel. We have watched the two streams flow side by side, each in its own division of the channel, as if the pure could not permit the impure to mingle with it. But the earthly insinuates itself fully at last, and the river flows on,

its colour still blue, but sadly changed from the heaven-like blue of its beginnings. Have we not often mourned, brethren, to see something like this in a Christian life—the hue of earth spreading itself lamentably over the hue of heaven? Faith in Christ brings the water from ‘the upper springs,’ to make the stream pure and sweet; but the muddy and bitter water from the world ever presses in, to mar and pollute. But ‘love, » abounding in knowledge and in all judgment,’ can keep the stream clear, so that it reveals itself truly as a branch of the ‘pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, which proceedeth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.’

A Christian whose soul is, in any considerable measure, ‘sincere,’ through accurate and influential perceptions of moral right and wrong, will evidently, in the degree of his ‘sincerity,’ be in his life ‘ wzthout offence’—that is to say, will not ‘ stumble’ in religion ; for at the time our version of the Bible was made, © ‘offend’ and ‘offence’ meant, respectively, ‘stumble,’ and ‘stumbling’ or ‘stumbling-block.’ The man of “ sincere’ heart will maintain a steady Christian walk; and thus his influence will in nothing tend to produce unsteadiness, spiritual inconsistency, in other believers ; but will always stimulate them to ‘adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour’ by a blameless and useful life.t In this way the aims of love, the grace from the mention of which the thoughts of the apostle in the paragraph took their start, and which he regards as rightful ruler of the nature, will be furthered on every side.

And all this ‘ ¢//’—or rather ‘ against,’ ‘ in view of’ —‘ the day of Christ;—‘ keeping its solemnities much before the mind.’ The fact that this is the second reference we have met with in the first ten verses of the Epistle to the great day of Christ’s second advent, shows impressively with what vividness and !

The original word rendered ‘ without offence’ may mean also ‘ without causing offence,’ or ‘stumbling,’ in others. The former meaning is, beyond question, I think, that primarily intended by the apostle here; but, of course, the thought of influence on others naturally suggests itself also.

constancy it was present to the thoughts of the apostle. The coming of the Lord was to him no mere article of an orthodox creed, no mere necessary constituent of a complete confession of faith. It stood out before him as intensely real. The thought of it coloured his whole being. Glowing love to Him who, in His first coming, had suffered and died, that even for one who was ‘a persecutor, a blasphemer, and injurious,’ there might be saving mercy; and a vivid realizing faith in His second coming, His glorious appearing to raise the dead, and judge the world, and introduce His people into the full blessedness and glory of salvation,—these were plainly the moving springs of this great Christian’s life. He ‘looked’ with the intensest yearnings of his strong soul ‘for that blessed hope; ’ and those eager longings gave ardour to his prayers and efforts, both for himself and his converts, that ‘their whole spirit and soul and body might be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ You and I, my friends, if we truly believe the testimony of God, have similar anticipations with the apostle. We, too, expect to see ‘the judgment set, and the books opened.’ According to our profession, we have ‘turned to God to serve Him, and to wait for His Son from heaven.’ ‘Wherefore, beloved, seeing that we look for such things, let us be diligent, that we may be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless.’

In the apostle’s description of the character which, in his prayer, he asks God to produce in the Philippians through increasing delicacy of spiritual perception, he has mentioned ‘sincerity’ or ‘purity’ of soul, and its legitimate issue in the life, a consistent Christian course, free from stumbling and from anything fitted to be a stumbling-block to others. Something more has yet to be said. Not merely does he desire to see them ‘without offence,’ but distinguished growingly by _ Christian activity and devotedness, ‘being filled with the fruits, or, according to a more approved reading, ‘ fruit,’ ‘ of rightcousness. ‘ Righteousness’ here may designate either holiness

of heart or holiness of life. If the former be the meaning, then the sense of the whole phrase, ‘the fruit of righteousness,’ is, ‘the fruit (holiness of life) which springs from righteousness,’ ‘righteousness’ being regarded as the root or tree. If the other be the meaning, then the sense is, ‘the fruit which is, consists in, righteousness,—piety of soul being at once naturally thought of as the root or tree. The force of the passage is obviously quite the same either way, the difference having reference merely to the mode of conceiving the figure. The ‘fruit’ spoken of is seen in lives marked by holy love and energy and patience.

With such fruit the apostle desires to see the Philippians ‘filled, laden on every bough. He would have them impelled by the mercies of God to ‘ present their bodies living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God,’ feeling this to be their ‘ reasonable service.’ He longed to see them, in every department of their lives, manifestly ‘ transformed by the renewing of their minds, — ‘hungering and thirsting after righteousness,—urged by the sweet constraint of the love of Christ to ‘give all diligence to add to their faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly-kindness, and to brotherly-kindness charity.’ In looking for an example illustrative of the meaning of this clause of the apostle’s prayer, the Philippians, I doubt not, would think, next to the life of the Lord Jesus, of the life of Paul himself. As they glanced back over his history, and saw him ‘ posting o’er land and ocean without rest,’ thirsting to carry the glad tidings of salvation to poor sinners of the Gentiles, until, “by the power of the Spirit of God, from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum, he had fully preached the gospel of Christ ;’ as they recalled how devotedly he followed in the footsteps of his Master, earnest, prayerful, patient, loving, ‘ becoming all things to all men, that by all means he might save some ;’ as they thought of him in his present circumstances, now ‘such an one as Paul the aged,’

a prisoner, and uncertain whether his imprisonment might not end in a cruel death, yet contented and cheerful, labouring diligently for Christ in the ways open to him, encouraging the ’ brethren in Rome, and writing letters of comfort and instruction to the churches he had founded,—they felt that they knew what ‘ to be filled with the fruit of righteousness’ meant.

‘The fruit of righteousness’ can be produced only through the gracious operation of God. ‘The tendency of our fallen nature, left to itself, is to depart ever further from the production of good fruit. All the mere earthly influences of every kind, material, intellectual, and moral, which a creature like man, in a state of depravity, could conceive of as likely to give him advancement, have in turn, or unitedly, been brought into play in the history of the world ; and, so far as regards moral and spiritual elevation, the result of them all, left to themselves, has always been a total failure. It is evident, then, that special heavenly influences are needed. ‘The fruit of righteousness’ is indeed expressly called by the apostle elsewhere ‘ the fruit of the Spirit,’ whose help is given to us, as he states here, ‘by Jesus Christ’ Only through the Lord’s mediation are any of the treasures of salvation bestowed upon us.

The apostle appends ‘unto the glory and praise of God.’ This may be connected specially with the statement that ‘the fruit of righteousness is by Jesus Christ,’ or generally with the whole prayer ; the latter part, ‘that ye may be sincere, and without offence, filled with the fruit of righteousness,’ being, one may suppose, as nearest, most prominent in the writer’s mind. This latter connection is perhaps the preferable ; but obviously the sense is substantially the same either way.

The grand ultimate purpose of all God’s doings, the end in which is summed up all good, is ‘the praise of His glory,’ the manifestation of His own infinite excellence. No other adequate end, indeed, can be imagined. The sublimest revelation made of the glory of God, is seen in His work of grace through the incarnation and sufferings and mediatorial reign of His Son. Now the chief element in the salvation which God offers us in Christ is holiness, likeness in character to Himself. The Lord ‘gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ Plainly, then, the measure in which Christians are ‘sincere and without offence, being filled with the fruit of righteousness,’ will be the measure in which in them the ‘ glory’ of divine grace is made manifest. ᾿

‘ Praise, which the apostle adds to ‘glory,’ designates the recognition and acknowledgment of the glory. The glory of God is revealed, whether men open their eyes to see it or not. But the highest life of moral creatures depends on their recognition of this glory; and therefore over growing recognition, which means growing life, growing holiness, growing spiritual beauty, our loving Father rejoices.

The aim of God in His dealings with us, then, is His own ‘glory and praise.’ His working within us is to produce b His Spirit, through the faith of the gospel of His Son, sol happiness and such loveliness of character as shall clearly evince His love and wisdom and power, and bring men generally to recognise His ineffable excellence, and, by their ‘ knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent,’ enter into ‘eternal life” His people, having, in the measure of intelligence and liveliness of their faith, oneness of thought and will with their heavenly Father, learn to rejoice supremely in recognising and seeing the recognition of His perfection d to pray and labour with definite aim for the widening and deepening of such recognition. But this attainment is not reached at once. The heart, narrowed by sin, has first to be ‘enlarged’ by the influence of the Divine Spirit, through the training of religion, before there is full room for affections and longings so sublime. Of the young believer’s spiritual happiness the most prominent element is joy simply that he is saved ; of the eminently mature Christian’s, that his salvation is ‘ to the praise of the glory of God’s grace.’