READING (2)
READING (2)
JT We did not get far into chapter 1, and I think on referring to it again, that in no section do we find the apostle so great an example as in the way he speaks of Christ.
JSG What do you consider the great point of chapter 1?
JT I think what I mentioned, the great regard of the apostle for the Lord Jesus, and in that way I think he sets out the idea of an altar, the sufferings which accompanied his regard for Christ, and his superiority to the circumstances. The idea of the altar is, I think, that one suffers, one is not oppressed by the sufferings, but rather superior to them.
JSG Do you think he is seeking to lead the saints on, so that the day of Christ might be morally present with them?
JT It would be morally present in that way where there is superiority to circumstances; therefore his desire is for the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
FHB I suppose the superiority to circumstances is a mark of his being under the influence of Christ.
JT I think there is correspondence to where Christ was as typified in the altar; the death which He suffered, but in the sufferings He was superior. Often with us, we are inferior to the sufferings, the Lord Jesus was never that, whilst feeling the sufferings He was superior.
JL Does Paul’s singing in the prison illustrate that?
JT I think that is a marked illustration. The epistle suggests to us what Paul saw at the beginning at Philippi, and, through grace, they had gone on in it.
[p. 94] FHB So that there was great sympathy between the apostle and the saints at Philippi.
WJ I have often thought that the jailer could say to his wife in regard to the apostle, ‘He is the same man as when we first knew him’. He could say, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4).
JT One of the features connected with his being taken up was that he was to be shown how much he was to suffer. What we have here answers to that, and shows how in suffering he was superior.
WJ It is very comforting that the Lord is above our failures.
THR He takes it all from the hand of the Lord, and the Lord honours him by putting him in the same path in which He was Himself, and he got sufferings such as no other apostle had.
FHB He speaks of himself here as being set for the defence of the gospel.
JT In spite of being ill-treated at Jerusalem he was still defending the gospel.
GWW Is not the last verse of the chapter very interesting as showing that the apostle was in the same moral elevation that he had been in Philippi?
JT That is very good. If he had failed, he had never failed from want of love to Christ. In fact it was the spirit of Christ in a way that acted in him in his great regard for the Jews.
THR If I may add a word, it was all love for Christ which took him to Jerusalem. “I say the truth in Christ” (Romans 9:1). It was not merely a national affection, but he spoke the truth in Christ.
JT His going to Jerusalem was really a witness to the Jews of the spirit of Christ in Paul. The Lord stood by him.
EJMcB I think anyone with intelligence would see that the Jews should be Christ’s. He ought to have them. But the wonderful thing is that there [p. 95] was something dearer to Christ than Israel, and Paul learnt that in a path of suffering.
JT John the baptist represents a true spirit he says, “he that standeth and heareth him”, there was the true spirit of the friend of the Bridegroom, but he did not proceed to bring in the bride: the time for that had not arrived. He rejoices that he hears the Bridegroom’s voice, and disappears at that juncture. So that the voice of Christ is heard, but not yet effective. Now Paul hears the voice of the Bridegroom at his conversion, a voice from heaven; it was the same voice that John heard but it was not the voice of the Bridegroom of the Jew. Paul should have held to the original, but the sufferings he endured at Jerusalem and all the way to Rome only brought out the sympathies of the Lord, and the Lord only became the more dear to his heart.
WHB Is not that the way the Lord does endear Himself to the hearts of His people?
JT In the sufferings; quite so. The Lord sympathises with us, even in the results of our failure. I think it is especially helpful to see how it is possible for a man to be completely engaged with Christ, yet governed by intelligence, so that though wanting to be with Christ, yet electing to be here for the sake of the Philippians.
HD'AC What he brought before them at Philippi was the Lord Jesus, it does not say the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he has much to say as to Christ; there seems to be something much deeper, it is more the inner side of things, not the power of the Lord, but more what was set forth in Christ; love and all the grace that was expressed in Him, and which was to come out in the saints.
JRK Would you say that he speaks here of love and suffering in order that he may impress those to whom he was writing with the same [p. 96] spirit?
JT He would bring himself forward as a model; there was the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
JRK He speaks of them all as having been partakers in his grace, and yet he prays that they may abound in love and in full knowledge and all intelligence, and presents himself so that they may be led to the same level.
JT The spirit of Jesus Christ is not exactly the anointing; it is the spirit of the Man. You are affected more by the spirit of a man than by what he says. A man who is anointed is a man whose bearing in public is dignified; when you admire the spirit of a man you would like to live with that man. The thought corresponds to “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23) to which we are come. We shall come out in the future as the Christ, “So also is the Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12), we shall come out dignified.
JRK You referred to dignity, which, I suppose, is being superior to the suffering.
JT There is a dignity about the anointing. The anointing is for the face, it affects the countenance; but the spirit is that which you would like to be near, to live with.
JRK Unless you are established with the Spirit inwardly your face will not shine; the face is an indication of what you are.
JT Yes, but they are two different ideas. Nor what is next Thy heart can we forget. (160:8) We shall “live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10). That is, we all have that spirit, the spirit of Jesus Christ, but we come out in the dignity of the anointing.
Ques How do you characterise that dignity?
JT I would not define it. One would be exercised that one might have it. There is a dignity which is of God. For instance the Lord said, I am altogether that which I said unto you; His manner was always superior. I think it comes out through the work of God in our souls in freedom from the [p. 97] pettiness of the flesh. I think we ought to cultivate the spirit in which we can live together, the Spirit of Jesus Christ; it is a lovely spirit, it is the spirit which pervades the house. That was really the oil which anointed the tabernacle; it was the spirit of a suffering Christ; the myrrh and the different ingredients suggest that.
FHB We can see how the spirit of Jesus Christ comes out in chapter 2.
JT He went down for the good of others.
FHB A contrast to the spirit of the natural man.
JT It really corresponds to John 13, we are to love one another as He loved us. John 13 was to enable them to live together.
EB “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit” is the last word to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:22).
JT I think the opening verses of chapter 2 are suggestive, “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ”.
WJ That gives you the consequence, there had been this seen in them.
FHB He wanted to see it completed.
JSG Do you think he has before him in chapter 2 the manifestation of unity?
JT It is not that you agree to differ. “Thinking one thing”, that one thing is Christ. That is what should be uppermost in the minds of saints.
JSG Do you not think it is very important to see a company manifesting unity, because of the one spirit marking them? In chapter 2 the word mind is very prominent, whereas in chapter 3 the word knowledge is prominent? I thought the manifestation of unity depended on our having the mind which was manifested in Christ Jesus, a mind which was manifested in a downward path.
THR You do not take a step by trying to follow Christ in your own strength, but you take it [p. 98] with the mind of Christ in you. He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will” (Hebrews 10:9); it was not merely that He obeyed, but His whole mind was in that obedience. Then we want that our minds should be entirely subject, so that the obedience that comes out in this chapter is not merely in that way compulsory with us, but the result of having the mind of Christ.
JT You would say, the descending mind.
FHB There will be no practical unity unless there is that mind with us. Would you not think that to have that mind we must first of all come under the influence of the love of Christ?
JSG I think that was the object of the first part of the chapter, to present the mind of the Man who took the downward path.
THR I do not think that anything touches the affections like the down-stooping of Christ; that touches us more than the thoughts of glory. If I look up into the glory, it is all very great and wonderful, but it does not touch my heart like the down-stooping of Christ. We shall go into heaven, having known Him in humiliation.
WJ He wins our hearts in His humiliation, and satisfies them with His glory.
JT He becomes the bread. If you eat leavened bread you become inflated, but unleavened bread is to reduce the size; there is a reducing principle in unleavened bread. In John 6 the bread of God comes down: it is that sort of bread. The old corn of the land does not reduce you; that builds you up for the land.
THR There is great attraction for the saint in the down-stooping of Jesus, we feel the depth of the love of Christ.
JT I believe the thought in the feast, as it is kept now, is that we may be kept small, it is the feast of unleavened bread. The best way to help a brother is to feed him with unleavened bread,
[p. 99] otherwise inflation takes place. The bread of God builds up the constitution here where inflation is all round us, it tends to humble; it is the humbled Man here, Christ coming down. The old corn of the land is Christ going up to where He was before; there you do not need to be reduced, you can grow there, and you do grow there.
WJ You must know the humiliation side to reach the glory side; you cannot divorce them, can you?
JT Chapter 2 is in principle unleavened bread, it is descending love, it reduces; whereas chapter 3 is expanding.
THR We may get very correct views of glory, and unless you eat the unleavened bread you may get very inflated views of your position. The hymn says, “And spotless in that heavenly light, Of all thy sufferings talk” (270:2).
JT But the feast of the passover is really to bring us down to our true level. The passover is on the fourteenth day, then the feast of unleavened bread lasted seven days. The passover, of course, is what Christ was as sacrificed for us, but our side is to supply the unleavened bread, and it is to be done every day. The passover is reduction; the feast of Pentecost is enlargement. The feast of Pentecost is not limited by time at all, it is an eternal thing.
THR It is only one day, but it does not cease.
JT In Deuteronomy 16 it is not divided by time like the other feasts, it is an eternal idea. We have already come by the Spirit to what is eternal, it goes beyond the millennium. But who comes into that? The Lord says, it is difficult for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but the camel has to go through, and the Lord says, “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). But the apostle says, “Be ye also enlarged” (2 Corinthians 6:13).
[p. 100] GWW In that way we may say that the passover and the unleavened bread were in view of Pentecost.
JT They were absolutely essential. From the divine side there was no need for the feast of unleavened bread at all; it is necessary on account of what we are, on account of our size. It is really the overthrow of Og, which is one of the greatest achievements in the history of God’s people; that is, it is the bringing down that big, inflated man, the only man the dimensions of whose bed are given. So there is to be reduction before we can go into Canaan.
HD'AC It is remarkable that Paul speaks of the down-stooping of Christ as he does; he had never been with Christ in humiliation, and yet he tells us more about His coming down than any. He had so seen Him in glory that he can trace back from that glory His whole pathway here, right back to the spot from whence He came.
JT The light that a brother gives you indicates how far he has travelled. Paul had gone on, and his experience went further than any of the apostles.
HD'AC But he gathered it all from Christ in glory.
GWW So that there is a process which goes on in the soul of a believer which really puts you through the eye of the needle.
JT Everyone of us is large in his own account, and all that has to be reduced.
GWW Mr. Raven used to say, there must come a collapse of the inflated man.
JT As Job said: the end of his experience was, “I know that thou canst do everything” (chapter 42:2). He knows how to reduce as well as to enlarge.
FHB Nobody can do it but God; we cannot do it for ourselves, or for one another.
WJ “Christ our passover ... sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7) is a most blessed appeal to [p. 101] the affections.
JT Yes, undergoing the fire. There is nothing legal about it.
HD'AC It was not only Christ’s mind, but the mind of the apostle, or he could not have told it to us.
JT That was what I meant: he had it, he had gone that way.
GWW You have a connection in your mind between the unleavened bread, and John 6 and this.
JT Yes, only in the sense of the going down; it affords in that way food to the soul, you cannot but delight in a food like this.
GWW If there is a desire in the soul to reach the divine end, this is the sort of food that the Spirit of God will minister in order that we may reach it.
JT It sustains the soul.
THR It has often been said, that it is as you really feed on Christ in death, which brings you to an end of yourself, that you value the manna, the grace of Christ in His lowly life.
JT The manna is support for a heavenly man here in daily circumstances. John 6, of course, is for life.
ASL Not exactly the manna.
JT Not exactly, but for life; what Christ was as a Man here.
THR But in order to have that you must know His dying.
JT Quite so, He is the food of your soul.
DLH There is nothing typical that sets forth John 6 exactly.
JT Not that I know of.
ASL It is not exactly the old corn, nor exactly the manna, connected with the wilderness.
JT This is a world of death, and therefore it is the food [p. 102] of life.
PRM It is blessed to distinguish between He “made himself of no reputation” and the further thought, “being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself”.
THR He went down really lower than the creature, He went down to death.
FHB Does not one refer to what took place before He became incarnate, and the other after He was found in fashion as a Man?
JT It is what we may call an act of mind, it was His mind to empty Himself in that way; but, being found in fashion as a Man, there is another step, He humbled Himself.
PRM I think the gospels trace it out, the deep reality of His manhood, and that He took up things in manhood in that blessed way.
ASL And is it not to emphasise the difference between Him and the other man who was in creature position and exalted himself.
EJMcB With other men there is no humbling themselves for them to die; but with this Man, He had the title to live.
JT It is a divine Person that is in view. That He should become obedient unto death, that that One, who had been in the form of God, should go into death, is the excess of humiliation as undertaken voluntarily in obedience to God; yet He was superior to death, He had power over it.
WJ Where the great reality of His manhood came into view, there His deity is asserted.
JT In the presence of death He had shown He was master of it, so the act of humiliation is the more wonderful.
PRM “Being found in fashion as a man”.
JT It is an historical statement. The allusion is to Adam; Adam was only a man, but he exalted himself. No other man could say, he was obedient unto death, he had no power over it; but [p. 103] this One had power over it, and He became obedient unto death.
HD'AC But His humbling Himself is seen not only in His being obedient unto death, but in all His pathway here. He was the greatest Man that ever was here, but He did not go about as some great one, but was meek and lowly.
DLH Could it be said of any mere man that he was found in fashion as a man? It seems to me that the expression could only apply to One who was a divine Person, and had previous existence.
JT I suppose that is right.
EJMcB I think it must suppose a previous existence.
JT But we can say, they were both in the same position.
JSG It is the place He took; but now being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself.
JT He had taken that place.
THR He took the place of a servant, and was found in fashion as a Man, He was not found in fashion as an angel.
PW Is there a hint of it in the Old Testament, “There was found in it (that is, in the city) a poor wise man” (Ecclesiastes 9:15)?
JT He certainly was there. He emptied Himself, taking the bondman’s form. “Taking his place in the likeness of men; and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself”, but the bondman’s form is first, showing that the will of God was before Him in doing it.
SH Is not all this typified in the Ark of the covenant? He had the will of God in His heart.
JT I should say so.
FHB Do you not think it is a great question with us how far [p. 104] we appreciate that Man?
JT I think that is the great point.
GWW But the appreciation of this kind of man is going to establish mutuality among the saints.
JT It is evident the apostle writes to give us a perfect standard in Christ, and then to show how a man who had come under His influence would be likeminded.
FHB God has expressed His appreciation of Him. He has highly exalted Him.
JT How a Man like this makes place for God! “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him”.
EAP Does not all centre in His being obedient unto death, not simply that He went into death?
WJ Do you not get that in “as ye have always obeyed”?
Ques With regard to God working in you, what does that mean? What does He work in you, and how?
JT Well, in leaving the elders at Ephesus the apostle commended them to God and the word of His grace. Christianity was inaugurated with this, that they spoke all the wonderful works of God, and these wonderful works take form now in ourselves, and it is for the willing and doing of His good pleasure, so that the saints at Philippi and ourselves should be for the pleasure of God.
FHB And that pleasure is that we are formed according to Christ.
JT God could not anoint anything else.
JSG Do you think that in chapter 1 it is working in them, and now it is their working out? I thought that what characterised the saints at Philippi was that they had been brought into sympathy with the gospel, and that God would continue that and perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ; but now comes their working out; and I thought that salvation came in because the great work of Satan was to bring in discord.
JT I think the apostle’s joy would be to see the work completed.
THR He had joy in them, now he says, I want you to fill it up, you be of one mind.
FHB Well, what we see here in Christ was a pathway of divine love, it was love that led Christ to take that pathway (John 14:31), and only as built up in divine love could we take it.
JT John 13 fits in with this chapter. You have a man with genuine care as to how the saints get on: that is descending love, that kind of man could wash the saints’ feet. It is remarkable that in Ephesians 4 you have descending and ascending, so that if He is elevated it is to carry out the designs of love.
HD'AC And while self-abnegation and lowliness mark a man his thought is to bring God to others. It is God that fills him, he has no thought of himself.
JT I do not know of any man in Scripture that comes nearer to us than Timothy. He is Paul’s son, to begin with, and as Paul’s son, or child, he cares with genuine feeling how the saints get on, and he is the kind of man that Paul hands things over to. Ordinarily a son is the one most to be trusted, and he is the kind of man Paul is at liberty to hand things to, and so it seems as if he is nearest to us. Things have come to us through him.
FHB And that is interesting as showing the kind of man that would be begotten of Paul’s gospel.
ASL Is there not the greatest encouragement in that expression, “It is God that worketh in you”?
WJ “Thy law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8); that was the spring, the law of love was there. Would you attach that to this epistle?
JT Well, I think so.
DLH Is it not important to notice that the reception of the gospel must involve suffering; that is, if we rightly apprehend [p. 106] the gospel?
ASL Would not that be the encouragement for the present time?
JT As you suggest, Mr. H., the gospel comes to us as the gospel of Christ; it comes to conform us to Christ, and that involves the sacrifice of one’s natural manhood. I think, perhaps, what we are very slow to give up is our natural manhood. I think it comes about that you, like the Nazarite, have to wear long hair, you give up your natural glory, and that is how one may come under great reproach; it is the reproach of Christ in connection with the gospel of Christ. The thought in the gospel is that you are to become like that Man.
ASL I take it that it is part of the reproach of Christ.
JT Because of the affection you have in your soul for Christ you accept it. You wear long hair here.
DLH But then these things are quite elementary, in the very nature of the gospel itself; there is nothing profound in what we are talking about.
ASL Well, if the younger saints find it difficult, how do you account for that?
DLH Well, it means that the older ones have been very little up to the truth of the gospel.
JT The popular gospel has in view that Christians should become good citizens.
EJMcB I think we must admit that Timothy was very greatly affected by Paul.
DLH I am thinking of the apostles who departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name.
JT Popular evangelistic work tends to qualify men to be good citizens in this world, and that is a bad beginning. The Philippians had a good beginning, and they were true to it (Philippians 3:20). Christ is presented in the gospel, and the possibility is that we are to be like Christ. If a gospel like Paul’s is accepted it is sure to bring us [p. 107] into reproach.
THR If I look back, I knew when I came out that it involved reproach; now I feel that people can come into fellowship very easily without any reproach.
WJ The reason is that you were in contact with men who accepted that position.
THR What struck me was that there were men who would not go on with evil; the holiness of the place I had come to impressed me.
FHB The character of the men impressed you.
SH The outcome of all this is to produce irreproachable children of God, and they realise that they are in midst of a crooked and perverted generation.
GWW Is it not interesting that in chapter 1:29, it is connected with salvation? If you stop short of suffering, you stop short of salvation.
THR I have no doubt that the salvation in Philippians is the complete overthrow of every adverse power; Christ has done it, and we are to be in the good of it.
ER Is there not the other side in regard of suffering, that God has not given us the spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of wise discretion.
JT One is superior to the sufferings in that way.
Ques What would you look for in those seeking to come amongst us?
THR I think I would look to see whether they had faith to leave the ship, and walk on the water.