PHILEMON (SECOND READING)
PHILEMON (SECOND READING)
CAC As we have remarked before in reading Colossians, christianity is a matter of persons in which the work of God has taken form. We have not only the written word, but we have living persons in whom what is in the Bible has taken shape; and persons are only really of value to us in the divine sense as that is so. This epistle is a personal matter; there is no doctrine in it and no teaching, so that it has to do with vital christianity. It illustrates in a beautiful way how christianity is made good, not in books but in persons. Paul and Timotheus and Philemon, and his wife and son are all good examples. It is a system of living affections; so it liberates the greatest affections, without the slightest trace of anything like communism.
Rem The epistle is full of love and mutual understanding.
CAC It is striking that love and faith are seen not only as active towards the Lord Jesus, but towards the saints. I suppose there could not really be faith in the Lord Jesus without love to those who are His. The first mark of a really sound conversion is that the person finds pleasure in being with the saints.
Rem Onesimus starts with Paul and then finds his right place with the saints. His right place was to be with his master, so he returns to be placed in his right setting; christianity does not take us out of that.
CAC His local setting was Colosse, so Paul writes, “Who is one of you” Colossians 4:9. His social setting was that he was a slave, and christianity did not take him out of his social setting, but it brings something in which is delightful and beautiful because it is wrought of God. So he goes back, not as a slave, but as a brother beloved, and a representative of Paul. He says, “Receive him as me”. He calls him, “the faithful and beloved brother” (Colossians 4: 9), and we may be quite sure that every word Paul said about him was true.
Verse 6 is a remarkable one: “In such sort that thy participation in the faith should become operative in the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in us towards Christ Jesus”. That is, our participation in the faith becomes operative in the recognition of all that is good in others — that is how it works.
Rem It might take us some time to fit in with the saints. We are to fit in with what is available.
CAC And we appreciate what is there. It is the recognition of the good in us towards Christ Jesus; that is, we look at the saints in relation to Christ Jesus. If I know a man more in the good of what is in Christ Jesus than I am, I should like to get near that man, I can get something from him. Faith fixes upon all that moves in the saints towards Christ Jesus, and there is no uniting in love apart from that. And you count upon it, just as Paul recognised what was in Philemon and counted upon it, and as Philemon would recognise and count upon what was in Paul in the same way. And it was all to work on that principle, the mutually counting on what was in each other. It would keep us sober; we should not think of people as greater than they are. I do not think Paul formed a wrong estimate of any one he came across. It is wonderful the dignity that christianity puts on a man like Onesimus — he was only a slave before. Paul does not say, ‘Forgive him’; he says, “Put this to my account”.
Rem The meaning of Onesimus is ‘Profitable’. He did not match his name; but christianity adjusts us, we come up to the standard.
CAC And this is a matter in which we all are; we are all in it, each one bringing a certain value among the [p. 344] brethren. What we are in relation to Christ Jesus is the value we bring; and faith would bring us into the acknowledgment of it, and that would bring us into unity in a very practical sense. The ground on which Paul puts it all is beautiful. He does not put it on the ground of what is fitting; he puts it on personal ground as the claim he himself had as an aged prisoner suffering for Christ, his affections bound up with this runaway slave. He enlarges on what this runaway slave was to him; He would put it upon them and that would have an effect on the affections of Philemon and his household.
It is delightful to see the elevating and dignifying quality of christianity. A slave was a man of the lowest grade of society. Christianity does not set slavery aside; men have done so because of their notion of the dignity of man; indeed men have proved themselves unworthy of such authority. Christianity does not set it aside, but it makes of a slave a “beloved brother”. It is delightful to see there could be such a product in such a short time, for Onesimus could only have been converted a little while, and we see what he has taken on, so that the apostle is, speaking naturally, passionately fond of him. And that is encouraging. If a man in the lowest grade of society, and probably a dishonest man, can be transformed into such a beautiful and attractive object, it is most encouraging to me. However small and feeble I may be, I can come in to beautify the circle of the saints. I am not to come into it to be tolerated; for we do find such persons sometimes. No brother should be there on the ground of toleration, but he should be there on the ground of admiration because the work of God has wrought in him such delightful features towards Jesus Christ that are beautiful to contemplate. We all want to take on this. Every christian should be prepared that everything about him should be known by everybody; his doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith,
circumstances, and so on. ‘Tychicus will tell you all about me’, Paul says, ‘and it should do you good’. It should be that the more people know me the more they admire me. And the apostle was a critical man, he never called flesh spirit; but he found delight in this poor slave as a brother beloved, and he said, “Receive him, that is, my bowels”, which means, I take it, that the depths of Paul’s feelings had been formed in Onesimus, he partook of the depths of the feelings of the one who had evangelised him.
Rem Faith and love are put together: “Hearing of thy love and the faith which thou hast”.
CAC You could not have love without faith, or faith without love; they are twin sisters.
Ques Do you think the apostle had any doubt about Philemon’s response to his appeal?
CAC I do not think so. He is doing it in such a delicate way, not pressing it on him as a duty, but appealing to him on the score of his age, reminding him of his suffering — he is a prisoner; it is most telling. When this letter was read there was a good deal of feeling in the household of Philemon. There is nothing more delightful in Scripture than this little epistle as showing the activity of divine love in Paul and Philemon and his household, and this young brother brought out in his attractiveness. The Lord is attracted by what is lovely; He is presented as a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. He knew what was beautiful when he saw it, and Paul knew what was beautiful when he saw it, too.
Rem It shows we should be careful in our relationships with one another, and the household is brought into this adjustment, and all is harmonised like a mosaic; it is so delicately done. How this would tend to strengthen the bonds of love among us. If a great outstanding brother like Paul could take such trouble, as he does in this letter, we should be careful how we approach [p. 346] one another.
CAC It is a model for us, I am sure. Even people in the world regard this letter as one of the finest letters ever written. It is couched in such delicate terms and so full of feeling, and is most effective.
Rem Each has his peculiar place to fill.
CAC And it will never clash with any other person’s place. There is no such thing as two persons or servants clashing in christianity. If you fill your place and I mine, we shall get on very well. It is very lovely that Paul says something that he does not say! “That I say not to thee that thou owest even thine own self also to me”; that would intimate that Philemon was a convert of Paul’s. Do you not think it would be good if we thought of the saints as begotten by man? Onesimus was not only begotten by God, but by Paul. That is, there was the stamp of Paul on these two men — the master and the slave. Do you not think it is an important matter that we should bear such a character that the impress of it should be carried by anyone we come in contact with?
Ques Why does Paul say, “If... thou holdest me to be a partner”?
CAC Philemon would be pleased to be called a partner of Paul. Well, Paul says, “Receive him as me”, that is, now you take him as a partner. That was one of the features he was to share, it is the word for fellowship; he comes in as a partner of the firm. I have sometimes asked those desiring fellowship how much capital they proposed to bring into the firm. It is one of the first questions asked in the case of proposed partnership. Now everyone who asks for fellowship should think of that, and not only what they will gain. If we go into partnership we contribute something and we draw a dividend accordingly. Onesimus still remains on the social side a slave, though on the spiritual side he was put on a common platform with his master, though I do not suppose he ever presumed on it.
“[p. 347] Once unserviceable to thee, but now serviceable to thee”, that is, he is going to be a better slave than ever he was. There is the side of what he was in the flesh, the slave belongs to that, and also the spiritual side, what he was in the Lord. He is to be valued on both sides. And Paul finishes up beautifully, “Knowing that thou wilt do even more than I say”. He had every confidence that Philemon would exceed all that he put in the letter.
Ques What is the difference between ‘in the Lord’ and ‘in Christ’ in concluding a letter?
CAC ‘In the Lord’ is our place in the kingdom; ‘in Christ’ is the spiritual side. We walk together as brethren in the Lord, that is our status in the world, and it is in the common recognition of the Lord that we walk together. But ‘in Christ’ is the spiritual side of enjoyment, what we have in the anointed Man. But we ought to know why we sign our letters in either way. A letter of commendation is to brethren ‘in the Lord’, as responsible persons who meet in a certain room; it is what they are in the kingdom. What they are in Christ is what comes out when the meeting begins. ‘In Christ’ is really outside responsibility, it is in the spiritual realm, it goes as far as seated in the heavenlies. Well, you can hardly address a letter to people seated in the heavenlies, can you?
It is remarkable how many names there are of individual saints in the Bible; I once counted them. It is as if God delighted to put in the Scriptures numbers of names of the saints, and there are many sisters’ names as well as brothers’. It shows the importance of persons. The devil makes saints of people after they are dead; he very much objects to saints alive! Philemon was praying for a very unlikely thing to happen — that Paul might be let out of prison; and I am satisfied that Paul was let out of prison. It did not often happen that if the jaws of the Roman lion once closed on a man he was ever liberated. Though [p. 348] Scripture does not record it, I believe he was liberated (tradition says so), which shows we can pray for things that are very unlikely. This would encourage us to pray for a cessation of present distressing happenings. The Father is in control of things in the world and He only allows the power of evil and destruction to go so far; He does not allow it to go beyond a certain point. And He never forgets the saints are here, and so they are wonderfully preserved, and there is such tender thought with it; the Lord says to the saints, “Pray that your flight may not be in winter time”, Matthew 24: 20. He enters into such things. The prophetic period of one thousand two hundred and sixty days will never run its full course. If God can cut short His own prophetic periods, He can cut short anything!