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(4) THE MARKS OF ONE RUNNING A RACE

(^[p. 460] 4) THE MARKS OF ONE RUNNING A RACE

I think that it is worth while to draw attention to the intensely individual character of what is presented to us at the end of this epistle.

There are two parts in the epistle: (1) chapters 1 and 2, in which we have the apostle’s desire that the saints should fulfil his joy; that these Philippians might be here, morally a divine generation, children of God, in principle occupying the place that Christ had occupied down here. Christ was to be seen in the little company at Philippi.

In the second part, chapters 3 and 4, all is individual. The apostle had had every element of religious distinction, but he was now running a race, and getting farther and farther from what had lent distinction to him as a man, and nearer and nearer to the calling of God, which is the only real distinction. What sort of distinction would that of an archbishop be in the presence of the calling of God! Death is upon all worldly distinction. I thank God that in His providence I have neither been placed in degraded poverty nor high up in the social scale, for all in this world is dung and dross, and nothing worth, all ends in death. The bitter waters of Marah, of death, are here; things being as they are and Christ absent, it must be so. Our true distinction is the calling of God. In Romans 8 it is said, “We groan ... awaiting sonship ... the redemption of the body”; in this you get what the calling is, namely, sons of God, and the effect of the light of it. That is the distinction of Christians, sonship to God; I do not covet distinction in this world, where death is upon everything, I would prefer obscurity.

The calling is that which God has prepared for Himself, and if you bear that in mind you will readily ^[p. 461] get an idea of what He has prepared for us. Ephesians 1 first gives the calling, what God has prepared for Himself; and then unfolds what He has prepared for us. The new covenant is what God has prepared for man. So, too, in Hebrews 12 there are two parts presented, first what is for God, and then what is for man: “Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven”; all that is what God has prepared for Himself. Then we come to what He has prepared for man, “to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling”, etc.; all this is for man, but the calling is what God has prepared for Himself; we are brought into sonship for Himself. This side of the truth is what people are slow to enter into. If you enter into what God has prepared for Himself you will have a much clearer understanding of what God has prepared for men.

Now as to the apostle in the race — the race is in a sense in a man’s spirit. The apostle’s soul, his whole energies, were bent upon grasping, that is, apprehending, that for which he had been apprehended of Christ Jesus, and he became in mind more distant from where he had started. But I pass on to the end of the chapter; the apostle speaks there of a class, of whom it could be said, “whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things”; the apostle seems here to reach the climax of what he could say of those who began as enemies of the cross. Earthly things may be politics, and many think that something is to be effected for God by politics, but nothing will be effected morally that way.

The apostle’s course was the contrast of all this; he says, “Our commonwealth [our citizenship] is in heaven”. If you take up politics, let it be the politics of heaven! There will be no great revolutionary ^[p. 462] change on earth, save as consequent upon a change in heaven. When the devil and his angels are cast out of heaven, that involves a momentous change on earth. All is waiting for the church to be in heaven; the man-child Christ is caught up, and the devil and his angels cast out, and no place found for them there. The result is that, having come to earth, Satan occupies himself with the politics of earth. The Roman Empire may revive under the hand of man, but what will give it in its last form force and power will be that it is energised by the devil, who has been cast out of heaven. The great importance to us of that is that we have to look to heaven as to things on earth; for changes that men contemplate are often thwarted, and you get a far truer idea of what will take place on earth by looking to heaven.

I want to give an idea of the thought of “our citizenship is in heaven”. A city in Scripture is symbolical of rule. Babylon has ruled, and the heavenly city will rule, and the effect will be that two great things are brought into this world, that is, liberty and light; the nations will walk in the light of the city. When the heavenly city is displayed it will bring with it liberty and light for the earth. Our privileges are connected with that city. “Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother”. Liberty is connected with it, for it brings in the light of God, and there is liberty only in the light of God. People are in bondage because they are not in the light of God. The heavenly city is full of the light of God, and therefore it is free; there is no bondage there. Our privileges are properly connected with heaven; our citizenship is not of any city on earth. A Roman would have understood what the apostle meant by citizenship, for great privileges attached to Roman citizenship.

Now you cannot understand anything of what God has established save as presented to us in Christ. So in regard of a city, you cannot get the spiritual idea of ^[p. 463] it save as you learn the principle of it in Christ; all is set forth in Him. I do not know much about it, but I see that the only way to understand what my privileges are, what liberty and access are, is to learn them in Christ. I am as free as Christ is, and have liberty of access. Our links are within the veil; we do not judge of God by providences; the Forerunner has gone within the veil and our souls are anchored there; we learn what our privileges are as citizens of heaven, in Christ.

I have spoken of the great change which will be effected when Satan and his angels are cast out of heaven, when that takes place which the Lord foresaw in spirit in Luke 10: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven”. There is another change contemplated here in the coming of the Lord! He will subdue all things to Himself, and the heavenly city will be displayed; death will be swallowed up in victory; death will be subdued. The rule of death is universal now, but it will be subjected and the Lord will introduce then light and liberty into the world. This will be a greater change than that brought about by Satan and his angels being cast out of heaven. What a mighty change it will be when all the moral darkness here is rolled away and God comes in to reign.

Things are not getting better on earth. We see a sort of civil war; not actual bloodshed, but class set against class. We see, too, on the one hand the most abject poverty, and on the other hand extravagant wealth; that is not according to God, and there will be a great change here. The coming of the Lord will effect it. He will bring in liberty and light, and annul death. When He comes we shall be conformed to Him, our body of humiliation fashioned like unto His glorious body; in condition even we shall be completely like Himself; that is what the coming of the Lord means to us, the change it will effect.

If we get hold of that it will give stability to us.

^[p. 464] So we have in chapter 4: 1 the exhortation, “Stand fast in the Lord”, and if we do so we shall “rejoice in the Lord”. There is a power at the right hand of God which will bring about the mighty change I have spoken about in regard to things down here. I do not expect anything from man or his actings, all my expectation is from the Lord; He only can bring liberty and light into this world. No one could stand fast in the Lord unless as seeing the importance of the coming of the Lord.

Chapter 4 is the life and conduct of a man who is running the race; it gives the marks of such. The first is that he has much concern and exercise about individuals, he cares for the Lord’s people. The more you are in the reality of the calling, the more you are concerned about the progress of individuals; the apostle was so here. “I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord” (verse 2); then he refers, too, to those who had laboured with him in the gospel.

The second mark is freedom from cares; we may not be free of trial, but there is a way by which the mind of the saint may be free of anxiety; the way is, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God”. The heart of the believer is established in the goodness of God, so that he can go to Him in everything, and the answer he gets is divine peace. We are often fretted by trifles. The “little foxes” spoil the vines; one often does better in great tests than in small ones. It is a great point to take everything to God, “your requests”, though sometimes God is too good to give us our requests. Progress is often hindered by saints being corroded by cares here. There is a way out of it in the peace of God keeping the heart.

The third mark is superiority to circumstances. These chapters are intensely individual. In chapter 3 the apostle speaks of “my Lord”, “the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”; here in chapter 4 he speaks of “my God”, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus”. The apostle had ups and downs, he was not callous, not unaffected; if he abounded, he was exercised; if he suffered need, he was exercised. If he had not been exercised he could not have said, “I know both how to be abased”, etc. God has not appointed things to be even for us, and for this reason, that we might be exercised by them. With the apostle there was not indifference, but superiority. He did not falter either in need or in abounding.

Now the fourth mark is rejoicing in the ministration of the saints; the apostle did not look for anything, “not because I desire a gift” — it is morally low to do so — but he valued their ministrations as fruit for God, and therefore acceptable to the apostle. Any effect of grace in saints is fruit for God, and acceptable to the servant. The apostle was appreciative of everything that was moral in the saints.

If you study this chapter you will see that these are the marks that come out in one who is running a race. The apostle was doing so; he was getting away in spirit from all that gave man religious distinction, while his soul came more and more under the power of God’s calling.

May God graciously exercise us in this way. Things are not much altered from what they were in the apostle’s day, they are in many ways analogous. In such a state of things we get the mind of the apostle, that we might follow him (chapter 3: 17), to apprehend the calling of God, what God has prepared for Himself. People often labour to find out what God has purposed for man, and never get the consciousness of it, because they fail to lay hold of what God has prepared for Himself; in seeing this you enter consciously into what God has prepared for men.

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