Lecture IV · The Gospel in Rome

THE apostle now, with the freedom of style belonging to a friendly letter, passes away to a new subject. He proceeds to give the Philippians some news regarding the effect of his imprisonment upon the progress of the gospel in Rome, and his feelings in connection with the state of things. which the describes. In the communication brought to him from the church of Philippi by Epaphroditus, they had expressed, no doubt, as was natural, besides warm sympathy with him in his sufferings, anxiety also respecting his prospects, and fear lest, through his being in bonds, the work of Christ in the metropolis of the world should in various ways be seriously obstructed. Being enlightened Christians, they knew that the trouble which, in the providential arrangements of God, had come upon the apostle, was good for him, and would in its ultimate issues be for the divine glory ; but they might reasonably enough doubt whether its immediate result would not be ‘ to hinder the growth of the church. Not merely was there a clog on the freedom of movement of the great missionary himself ; but it might easily be supposed that his being under persecution would seriously dispirit the Roman Christians, and prevent them from engaging vigorously in work for the Saviour. But Paul tells them in the paragraph before us that it was not so. ‘To relieve your anxiety,’ he says, ‘and to deepen your conviction that Jesus is Head over all things to the church, which is His body,—so that the gates of hell shall certainly not prevail against it,—Z would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel than unto the obstruction of it.’

The first result of God’s gracious intervention to ‘make the wrath of man’ in this matter ‘ praise Him,’ was that the cause of Paul’s imprisonment became extensively known,—‘ so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in the palace, and in all other places. ‘The original word rendered ‘ palace’ is one employed with a considerable variety of meaning, and its exact force here is somewhat doubtful. The view of the meaning adopted by our translators, in common with many other interpreters— ‘ palace,’ or, as it is given in the margin, ‘ Cæsar’s court ’—is to some extent supported by the salutation at the close of the Epistle, sent from ‘them that are of Cæsar’s household.’ To most modern expositors of the Epistle, however, it seems more probable that in the passage before us the word denotes the camp of the Emperor’s body-guard,—a brigade or rather small army, known by the name of the Prætorian Cohorts, which was constituted by the Emperor Augustus. By his successor Tiberius, a large camp was constructed for them on the north of the city, where the main body was permanently stationed. A certain portion, however, were always on duty around the emperor’s person, and for them there were barracks connected with the palace, which was within the city, on the Palatine Hill. . It belonged to the official duty of the commander of the Prætorian guards to keep in custody all accused persons”

who were to be tried before the emperor himself ; and accordingly when Paul, having appealed from the provincial governor Festus to Cæsar, was taken to Rome, it was into the hands of this great officer that he was given over by the centurion Julius, who had brought him from Palestine. The commander, influenced, no doubt, by the report which Julius gave respecting his prisoner, granted Paul considerable liberty. Still, in accordance with regular Roman usage, he was night and day chained by the arm to the arm of a soldier.

The words in the verse before us may be taken to indicate, in a general way, where the apostle lived at Rome, seeing that in the neighbourhood of his place of abode his bonds would naturally become most ‘ manifest.’ By some—our translators apparently among the number, from their rendering here—it has been supposed that he was quartered in the barracks or small camp adjoining the palace. But Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles (xxvii. 30), tells us that Paul ‘ dwelt in his own hired house.’ Now it appears exceedingly improbable that such a house could be obtained within the enclosures of the imperial palace. Or, if we suppose the date of this Epistle to be later than the time covered by the reference in Acts, and that the apostle was no longer in a house of his own, but in ’ more rigid confinement, still it seems very unlikely that a prisoner to whom in the eyes of the Roman officials no particular distinction could attach, should be lodged in the palace _ buildings. The same difficulties do not lie in the way of our supposing his place of residence to have been within the great _ Prætorian camp outside the city. There may have been houses included within it which could be rented. There, in all likelihood, I think, or at least in that neighbourhood, he lived. The immediate reference in the words before us, however, may be, and, as it seems to me, from the ordinary use of the term employed in the original, really is, not local but personal. They designate, I think, neither a palace nor a camp, but ‘mean ‘in all the Prætorian brigade.’

Among the Prætorian guards, then, Paul’s ‘ bonds in Christ were manifest, —or, more exactly, ‘his bonds were manifest in Christ,’ ‘ were well known as being in connection with Christ.’ ‘In connection with Christ,’ at least—and this most vaguely and variously conceived—was, no doubt, the form in which the cause of his imprisonment would present itself to many of those of whom he speaks; yet the full and precious force of the ‘i Christ’ is to be held fast here, as elsewhere; for the apostle exhibits the matter in the aspect in which he himself delighted to view it. It was through his union to Christ that the bonds were on his limbs,—badges, therefore, not of slavery, but of true freedom. It was because, being ‘in Christ,’ he was prompted by the Spirit of Christ to earnest effort for the extension of the gospel, that he had been imprisoned ; and it was because, being ‘in Christ,’ he was sustained by the Spirit of Christ, that the bonds were borne with patience, and became instruments of glorifying God. Paul felt that in this ‘in Christ’ were summed up all the forms of the connection between the Saviour and His people, all the relations borne to Him by holy hearts and holy deeds.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that a considerable number — of the Prætorian soldiers felt an interest in the apostle from the very beginning of his residence in Rome. It can hardly be doubted that, in conversation with officers of the brigade, Julius, whom all that is told us of him shows to have been a man of candour and generosity, spoke of his singular prisoner, his evident intellectual power, his pure and lofty character, his prophecies during the voyage, and his miracles during the stay at Malta.1 The other prisoners, too, who had been in the ship, could scarcely fail to talk of their extraordinary com- 1

There is probability in the view maintained by Wieseler, Howson, and Alford, that the ‘ Augustan Cohort,’ or, as the Authorized Version has it, ‘ Augustus’ band,’ in which Julius was a centurion (Acts xxvii, I), was a portion of the Prætorian Brigade. In this case, we may suppose that on his arrival in Rome he was quartered in the camp of the Preetorians, and ‘ thus had frequent opportunities of intercourse with the other officers, p anion in such a way as to direct special attention to him. Then during the two years or more in which the apostle lived among the Pretorians,—whatever was the particular system according to which the soldiers relieved each other in the special charge of the prisoners,—a great number must certainly have been brought more or less into contact with him, and some, probably many, must have had times of the very closest companionship. Under these circumstances, the influence of his character and wisdom could not but become deeply and widely felt throughout the brigade. His life among them was one on which so strong a light beat that nothing could well remain concealed; he had no privacy, no solitude, day or night, except that solitude which every Christian heart can make for itself, even in the midst of bustle, for communion with God. Studying him by this light, seeing his purity, his patience, his gentleness and kindness, the soldiers felt that assuredly he was no criminal in the ordinary sense of the word, and that no charge could for a moment be sustained against him, except the charge of sincerely, lovingly, constantly, unflinchingly, serving that unseen God, that unseen Saviour, to whom he so frequently prayed. If that was a fault, no soldier who ever for a single day or a single night was linked to Paul’s arm could doubt that he was guilty there. His bonds, then, were ‘ manifest to be in Christ.’

‘ In all other places, also, the true cause of his imprisonment was manifest, or rather, ‘to all the rest,’ that is, to all that knew _ anything of the imprisonment. To every one who was aware of the fact that Paul was in bonds, it was plain that these were ‘in Christ.’

The Philippians, then, might reasonably cast off a great part of their burden of anxiety respecting the apostle’s position. He was a prisoner indeed, but the real cause of his imprisonment was widely and well understood; and thus, in various ways, honour was brought to the gospel, and to the Saviour whom the gospel reveals,

But, further, ‘ #any’—more exactly, ‘ most ’—‘ of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.’

It seems fair to infer, from the way in which the apostle makes this statement, that in the early church the regular state of things in a healthy congregation was that every member, according to his opportunities, ‘spake the word of the Lord.’ Then, as now, for obvious reasons, there were ministers, persons specially charged with the duty of ‘labouring in the word and doctrine.’ But here, you observe, Paul says that ‘ most of the brethren’—that is, undoubtedly, according to the usual ‘meaning of the word in the New Testament, ‘ most of the Christians,’ ‘most of the members of the church’—were engaged in evangelistic work ; and, plainly, his only regret is that he had to say ‘most,’ not ‘all.’ In any person who obtained a cure of a bodily disease commonly counted incurable, you would think it the dictate of natural humanity to bring the name of the physician or of the medicine as widely as possible before the attention of all persons similarly diseased ; so, surely, it is, for the new’ man in Christ, at once obviously dutiful and most natural, to publish the glorious power and grace of the Divine Physician of souls among all who do not know Him. In heathen countries, where missionaries are labouring, this is the general and immediate effect of conversion to God. The young believer tells eagerly and everywhere, ‘what a dear Saviour he has found.’ In a country like ours the conditions of the question of duty, so far as regards private conversations ~ on religion, are considerably different, through the commonness of a Christian profession. Among a large proportion of our people, what is needed in religion is not news, but advice ; not glad tidings of a Deliverer hitherto unheard of, but solemn and earnest pleading regarding the importance of accepting a salvation known about since childhood. Now this fact, of necessity, to some extent limits a Christian’s sphere of evangelistic effort, because news of interest will be welcomed from —

any one, advice on matters of moment and delicacy only from a friend, and not always from him, It is true that you . may believe even many a professing Christian to have been so neglectful of his privileges as to need news of Christ; yet if this be assumed, and the assumption acted upon, there is great risk that, through wounded sensitiveness, a strong barrier of pride and obstinacy may at once be thrown up against the power of the truth. Still it is manifestly the duty of all Christians, wherever it is within their power, to ‘speak the word’ to those who are, clearly and admittedly, ‘ignorant and out of the way,’ and to others, wherever their relations to them and their opportunities allow. But, alas! my brethren, that same state of things to which I have already alluded, the commonness, and, indeed, all but universality, in our country, in certain classes of society, of a Christian profession, so that great multitudes call themselves Christians who give little evidence of genuine change of heart, deadens the sense of duty even among true believers. The tendency of ‘the law of sin in the members’ is ever to make us satisfied with being on no lower level of Christian activity than our professing Christian neighbours. Ah, how different from His spirit, whose ‘meat it was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work ! The church of Christ in Rome, regarding the spiritual energy of which Paul here gives information to the Philippians, had been in existence probably for many years. Among the ‘Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven,’ who were in Jerusalem at the ever-memorable Pentecost, and who heard the glad tidings from the lips of the apostles, we find mention made of ‘strangers of Rome.’ There is every likelihood that some of these were convinced of the Messiahship of Jesus, and that on their return home they formed themselves into an association for Christian worship and work. Paul’s great Epistle to this church was written about three years before his arrival among them ; and at that time, as we learn from him, their ‘faith was spoken of throughout the whole world.’ Most

of these Christians were, no doubt, poor men, and thus, amid the teeming population of Rome, the ‘speaking of the word of God,’ to which their faith prompted, was probably in most cases: altogether unnoticed by the officers of the government ; or, if noticed, was regarded with contempt. Still, it would seem that, knowing how fierce a flame of jealousy and anger might at any moment, through some casual circumstance, be lighted up in the hearts of their despotic and suspicious rulers, they had carried on their work with not a little fear. But now, as Paul tells the Philippians, ‘ the brethren waxed bold through his bonds. By his sufferings for preaching the word they had their boldness in preaching it increased. This paradox is simply a special form of what is constantly seen in the church. In the Christian, when called to suffer, ‘ tribulation,’ which to the unregenerate man appears simply a destroyer of joy, ‘worketh patience; and patience, experience ; and experience, ope.’ The observation, too, of suffering well endured by other believers, strengthens faith. Thus, through the sight of Paul in bonds for serving Christ, and tranquil under his bonds, the brethren in Rome had their delight in God, and their devotedness to Him, increased. The faith which saw in Paul’s chains evidences of a moral kingliness, a kingliness which would by and by have its glory manifested, seeing that ‘it is a faithful saying, If we suffer with Christ, we shall also reign with Him,’— faith like this among the Roman Christians could not but spur them on to labour manfully and unflinchingly in Christ’s service. Thus it comes that ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.’ Not only are the actual sufferers personally ennobled in spirit through their sufferings ; but others, too, are enlightened, quickened, strengthened. In the persecution which arose after the murder of Stephen, ‘ they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word.’ ‘Through persecution it was that warm.religious life was maintained in the Piedmontese valleys ; so that when in our own day, in the providence of God, Italy was opened to the gospel, the Waldenses age ela were ready to enter in rejoicingly and proclaim the truth, And to the long and intensely cruel persecution of the Christians in Madagascar is largely due, according to the view of those who have had the best opportunities of judging, the marvellous progress of the cause of Christ in that island, both during the dark days and since. ‘Out of the eater cometh forth meat, and out of the strong cometh forth sweetness.’

The secret of all this is told in the little phrase of the apostle, ‘in the Lord. ‘This seems to belong to the words which follow, rather than, as our translators have supposed, to that which precedes,—his statement being, therefore, that

‘through his bonds the brethren waxed confident in the Lord.’ The natural man, the man who himself is ‘ out of Christ,’ can see, as he looks at Paul in his imprisonment, only the chains, and the possibilities of a violent death. But the man who is

‘in Christ,’ however clearly he may see these, sees also the spiritual grandeur of work for the Saviour, such as had brought the apostle into bonds,—the spiritual grandeur of suffering for the Saviour, if such be His appointment,—the sympathy of Christ with the sufferer, and the serenity of heart which the sense of that sympathy brings,—the growth of religious strength and beauty through the affliction,—and the glorious issue of all, when ‘to him that overcometh Jesus gives to sit with Him in His throne, even as He also overcame and is set down with His Father in His throne.’ Is it wonderful that the man who, with the eye of faith, sees these things, should ‘ wax confident in the Lord by the apostle’s bonds,’ and be ‘much more bold to speak the word without fear’?

But the persons who were preaching the gospel in Rome, and this to some extent under a stimulus given by their knowledge of Paul’s position, were yet under the influence of strangely divergent motives. ‘Some, indeed,’ the apostle says, referring here evidently to persons distinct from the ‘ brethren’ mentioned in the 14th verse, ‘ preach Christ even, strange as it _ may seem, of envy and strife, and (rather “ but”) some also of

good will,—from hearty interest in my happiness, and in the progress of the Saviour’s kingdom. The one party preach Christ of contention (more exactly ‘‘factiousness”), ποΐ sincerely,—not with purity or singleness of purpose,—supposing to add affiiction to my bonds; but the other party of love to me, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel—that I am Christ’s apostle, commissioned to maintain His truth against all gainsaying.’

Those last spoken of are plainly the ‘ brethren’ before mentioned. They loved the apostle, both for his Master’s sake and for his own. They knew that he was ‘set for the defence of the gospel,’ and that his heart was in his great work. They saw, therefore, that the evidence of sympathy with him which would yield him the richest comfort, would be effort to extend the knowledge and power of the truth so dear to him. Admiration and affection for the honoured ‘prisoner of Jesus Christ’ thus acted as a spur to them in the work to which gratitude and love to their Saviour of itself impelled them. We understand this party and their motives without any difficulty.

But who were the others? We find that throughout the whole of Paul’s apostolic course his most virulent opponents were Jews. It is most probable therefore that the persons here referred to, belonged to his ‘ kinsmen according to the flesh.’ They were professedly Christian Jews, too; for unbelievers would in no sense have ‘ preached Christ,’ as it is said by the apostle that these did. The unbelieving Jews hated Paul, who, in early life regarded as an eminent defender of Pharisaic Judaism, had now for many years, and with extraordinary energy and success, ‘preached the faith which once he destroyed ;’ but they hated Jesus of Nazareth more. Paul’s bitterest and most unwearied antagonists were Jews who had embraced Christianity, but, understanding the spirit of their new religion only very imperfectly, believed that all Christians — should observe the rite of circumcision and the other ordinances

of the old covenant. ‘To this class, we may reasonably sup-

pose, belonged the men whom Paul here describes to the Philippians as ‘preaching Christ through envy and factiousness.’ The doctrines of some of these Judaizing teachers were exceedingly, and indeed ruinously, erroneous. Of those, for example, who visited the Galatians, the errors were such that, as it would seem from the tone of the apostle’s letter to that church, persons who fully admitted the false teaching ‘frustrated the grace of God,’ placing themselves in a position in which ‘Christ profited them nothing,’ ‘was of no effect to them,’ ‘was dead in vain.’ It may be questioned whether Paul would have said of such teachers as these, that they ‘ preached Christ’ at all; and it can hardly be even questioned, that under no circumstances would he have ‘rejoiced’ in their preaching, as in the 18th verse he says he did in the preaching even of his opponents at Rome. But, no doubt, there were other Judaizers in the early church, of views less divergent from truth, but who also disliked Paul keenly, in consequence of the steady and uncompromising opposition he maintained at all times to the slightest infringement of the full spiritual liberty of believers. Such, perhaps, were those in the church at Corinth, whose motto or watchword was ‘I am of Cephas.’ It appears to me most likely that the persons of whom the apostle speaks in the passage before us were, mainly at least, of this class,—Christian Jews, who had an imperfect view of ‘the liberty wherewith Christ hath made His people free,’ but whose teaching diverged less from pure Christian doctrine than that of some others. Whatever their doctrines, however, they were men of whose hearts the gospel had but slightly laid hold. The apostle’s language respecting them need not be taken to ‘mean that, in his judgment, they were all wholly destitute of real love to Christ ; but they certainly were, at the least, deplorably misguided.

The hatred of these teachers to Paul, and even the mode in which it was on the present occasion displayed, will not

appear strange to careful students of history. Calvin, in his comment on this passage, remarks, ‘ Paul certainly says nothing here which I have not myself experienced.’ It was natural that Jews, members of a nation which had for many centuries enjoyed singular proofs of the divine favour, should, even when they became Christians, be most reluctant to admit the thought that the religion introduced by Jesus—Himself one of their race, and the Messiah promised to their fathers and longed for by their fathers as ‘the Consolation of Israel’—set aside the ordinances of the Old Economy, and everything which could suggest any superiority before God of the Jew over the Gentile. When we think of this, and when we remember how deplorably common bitter hatreds, arising from sectarian rivalries, have been throughout the whole history of the church, it will not seem to us very wonderful that these men felt such hostility to Paul,—sublimely noble and exquisitely amiable though his character was.

They expected by their conduct, the apostle says, ‘to add affliction to his bonds, or ‘to make his bonds gall him.’ In the opinion of some expositors, the reference in these words is to outward trouble, the belief of Paul’s opponents being supposed to have been that, by preaching the glory of Jesus as ‘Messiah the Prince,’ the rightful King of all hearts, they might arouse the jealousy of the emperor, whose anger would naturally vent itself on Paul, universally known as the most prominent Christian in Rome. This view seems in a high degree unlikely. It is true that Herod’s jealousy, awakened by a rumour that the long-expected ‘ King of the Jews’ was born, prompted the massacre at Bethlehem; and that Pilate’s timidity led him, against his own convictions, to crucify Jesus, through fear lest, if he spared one who ‘ made himself a king,’ the charge of ‘not being Cæsar’s friend’ should be believed by his tyrannical master. It is true, too, that at Thessalonica, where the Jews constituted, as they do still, a large and influential part of the community, the accusation against the Christians

that ‘ these all do contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus,’ ‘troubled the people and the rulers of the city,’ so that they took certain judicial measures against them. But it was obvious enough that, if the anger or fears of the emperor himself were once aroused by hearing that a ‘king of the Jews’ was much spoken of in the city, not Paul merely, nor even merely the Christians generally, but the Jews in Rome, as a race, would be in much danger. For generations their national expectations of a Messiah had been well known ; and a heathen tyrant would not be likely to discriminate, in a moment of fury, between those who hoped for a king still to come, and the Christians who believed He had come. The obviousness of the hazard that they themselves would share in the sufferings of any persecution, was such that we cannot think this to have been the aim of the Jewish opponents of the apostle. The thought which first suggests itself, I should suppose, to most readers, that they hoped by their preaching to draw away converts to their peculiar views, and lower Paul’s influence, and in this way, as they imagined, through annoyance, intensify the sufferings of his imprisonment, is very much more natural, and satisfies all the requirements of the passage.

In their thoughts regarding the result of their conduct on the feelings of the apostle, however, these men were mistaken. For the object of their dislike says, ‘ What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, —whether by way of cloak for unworthy aims, or in sincerity of interest,—‘ Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. The apostle rejoiced that, whatever the motive influencing the preachers, Christ was preached. We believed that, ‘ while the full and symmetrical truth as it is in Jesus will do far more good, and good of a far higher type, than any fragmentary view, yet such is the vitality and power of Christian truth, that its very fragments are potent for good.’ To a world of sin 1

Henry Ward Beecher.

and sorrow were brought by these preachers the glad tidings of great joy, that a Divine Saviour had died to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and now, living and glorified, was inviting all the ‘labouring and heavy laden’ to ‘come unto Him, and find rest to their souls.’ Thus, through the gracious working of the Divine Spirit, who made even wrath to praise Him, the gospel approved itself to this soul, and to that, as ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ From the efforts of envy and malignity came ‘glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.’ ‘Therein’ Paul ‘rejoiced,’ as well he might. Yet, under the circumstances, how few even of true believers would have been able to do this! How exquisite is the apostle’s self-forgetfulness, and singleness of eye to his Saviour’s glory!

His joy, however, and the fact that it was most reasonable, must not lead us for a moment to suppose that the motive by which a labourer in the vineyard of Christ is actuated, is of little importance. The case is far otherwise. Than the condition of an un-Christian minister of Christ,—a man who professionally proclaims, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,’ while his own soul remains parched, —who with the lips calls on men to ‘submit themselves to God,’ while his own heart is in rebellion against God,—than such a condition can any more melancholy in every aspect be conceived? Whatever outward forms of ‘call’ to the pastoral office may be desirable, and whatever measure of ability, and of literary and theological acquirement, certain it is that the great essential qualification for the ‘ministry of reconciliation’ is personal spiritual acquaintance with the ‘reconciliation,’ and consequent love for souls, and longing for their salvation. Where this is wanting, a ministerial life is an elaborate and continued lie, hardening and deadening the soul; and wherever, in any degree, worldly ambition, or other mere earthly motives, mingle with desire for the good of man and the glory of God, in that degree is a cloud brought certainly over a minister’s happiness, and in most cases over his usefulness.

Still in the fact that, from whatever motives, ‘Christ is preached,’ Paul rejoices, ‘yea, and will rejoice’ In these last words we seem to see his strong soul crushing down all rising feeling of personal vexation at the unscrupulous antagonism to which he was exposed. ‘They may hate and try to distress me, and nature may at times lift her voice within me in indignation ; yet through all, by God’s help, I will rejoice in the progress of the gospel.’

How painful a contrast, dear brethren, to the large-heartedness of the apostle in this joy is exhibited in the sectarian jealousies which are so rife throughout the church, and have been all down its history! Paul knew that personal dislike to himself, and a consequent wish to annoy him, had much to do in inducing the men of whom he speaks to preach the gospel ; yet, suppressing the natural feeling of irritation by the force of a sanctified will, he delights to think that, through any stimulus, the way of salvation is made known to sinners. How often, on the other hand, have we seen Christians allow themselves to suspect, and frown upon, and see no good in certain forms of Christian work, simply because those engaged in them belonged to another section of the church, or because the work was carried on in modes not recognised in ‘the traditions of the elders’! Very few influences, if any, have acted more powerfully against the progress of the kingdom of love than the ‘evil eye’ towards each other of the subjects of the King of love. The spirit showed itself very early. ‘John said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not; for he that is not against us, is for us. Let us ask God, my friends, that throughout the whole church, whenever the natural impulse is felt to ‘forbid’ a worker for God, ‘because he followeth not with us,’ a sense of the heavenly wisdom and love of the Saviour’s answer may be felt also, with a force unknown in the past.