Philippian Studies: Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the PhilippiansMoule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn)
Religion
Philippian Studies: Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians
Moule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn)
Bible. Philippians -- Commentaries
i. I gather from the connexion of the passage, as we have traced it,
the supreme importance of a true joy in the Lord, a true personal sight
of "the King in His beauty," in order to our spiritual orthodoxy. Let
me quote again from the Prayer Book of the Moravians, from which I gave
one short extract in the last chapter. In their "Church Litany," among
the first suffrages, occur these petitions: "_From coldness to Thy
merits and death. From error and misunderstanding, From the loss of
our glory in Thee, Preserve us, gracious Lord and God._" The words are
the very soul of St Paul, as it conveys the Spirit's oracle to us here.
St Paul dreads exceedingly for the Philippians the incursion of "error
and misunderstanding"; the advent of a mechanical rigorism of rule and
ordinance, and (as we shall see in later pages) the subtle poison also
of the specious antinomian lie. How does he apply the antidote? In
the form of an appeal to them to be sure to not to "lose their glory in
the Lord"; and then he writes a record of his own experience in which
he shews them how his own Pharisaic treasures had all been cast away,
or willingly given up to the spoiler; and why? Not for abstract
reasons, but "because of the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord"; because of the irresistible and infinite _betterness_
of His discovered glory, seen in the atoning Cross and the Resurrection
power.
Let us "arm ourselves likewise with the same mind." We have countless
perils about us in our modern Christendom, things which only too easily
can trouble the reason and sway the will away from the one "hope set
before us." Let us meet them, whatever else we do, with the Moravians'
prayer. Let us meet them with obedience to the Apostle's positive
injunction, "Rejoice in the Lord."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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