“For our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour.” Philippians 3:2020For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (Philippians 3:20). New Trans. of J.N.D.
HOW necessary it is that we should remember those words. How needful that we should remind one another—earnestly, lovingly, and often—that our commonwealth is in the heavens. Its seat is there. There, too, is our home, and that is the dear country to which we belong. So many things tend to make us forget it—the spirit of the age—the speed with which everything is going—the unrest that marks the day in, which we live—the struggles of life—the eagerness to get on in the world—its pleasures—the questions of the hour—its changing politics—the shaking of institutions once thought to be as firm as the everlasting hills—these and kindred matters will take possession of our mind if the avenue is left unguarded, and becloud the fact that we are but strangers here and that heaven is our home.
And if we lose sight of it, if it fades from our memory, what a loss it is! A very precious element is gone from our Christian life, its heavenly color and tone are gone, and we are in danger of becoming mere minders of earthly things. Should the Lord have entrusted us with any ministry of the Word, our service may indeed go on, and much that is blessed and helpful continue to mark it. But it will have one great defect, it will fail to attach the heart to Christ in glory. And this is an unspeakable loss.
Let us read down the chapter afresh and mark how the living Christ in heaven was the Object on which Paul’s heart was set. For Him, for the excellency of the knowledge of Him, he had counted, and still did count, all things but dung and dross. The manner of his conversion, long years ago, may have given his life this blessed bent from the very start. He was not converted, as many of us were, by being shown his ruined state as a sinner before God, and that a full answer to his every need was to be found in Christ crucified and risen. In his outward life he was a blameless man. And he enjoyed many advantages in which he naturally placed some trust. But when, on his memorable journey to Damascus, his intolerant heart bent on stamping out the ever-growing “heresy” of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord of Glory appeared unto him, the whole current of his life was changed. Lessons he learned, no doubt, during those three days and nights in which, deprived of sight, he neither ate nor drank. But he had seen a light above the brightness of the sun, and ever afterwards man’s garish day, for him, was only darkness and night. Christ was his Saviour—had saved him. Much more. He was his Lord, the One for whom he would now live, the One who had won his heart and given him perfect rest. From that day his ship set sail on another sea. Henceforth the world was crucified to him and he unto the world.
“I have heard the voice of Jesus,
Tell me not of aught beside;
I have seen the face of Jesus,
All my soul is satisfied.”
And ought it not to be so with ourselves? Even though our conversion was not of the Pauline type, yet the same blessed One who revealed Himself to him has made Himself known to us. It is no other Saviour whose love we know and whom we have learned to love. All that Paul’s heart found in Him is there for us to find. All of Christ is ours. There are no limitations, save in our capacity to receive. Observe, I am not now speaking of Christ in all His sufficiency to meet our need as pilgrims in the wilderness; I speak of Him as an Object to engage the heart, to detach it from all earthly things and to fill it with joy unspeakable.
Does this strike any reader as being vague and visionary? It is not so. The things which are unseen are eternal. It is the visible that perishes and passes away. Christ is THE great Reality. And as we love and prize Him so shall we surely find that the Holy Spirit will fill the widening vision of our soul with His beauty and glory. But not apart from the Holy Scriptures, for it is in those fair fields that all His glories shine.
It is a matter of common knowledge that where a man’s treasure is, there will his heart be also. Our Lord Himself has said so. Look at Daniel in Babylon. He had risen to a position of eminence in the land of his captivity. Honor, wealth, and the monarch’s favor, all these were his and all combined to induce him to find his home there. But thrice every day, with his window open towards Jerusalem, he poured out his soul in prayer to the God of his fathers. The home of his affections was not amid the pleasures of the Babylonish court. Jerusalem, though in ruins and in the hands of the stranger, was the place where his heart really lived. His treasure was there. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning” (Psa. 137). And so it is with the miner, laboring in the dark mine. He does not live and make his home in the bowels of the earth. His home is above, in the light of the blue sky, in the cottage where his wife and children are. Oh, what a blessed thing when Christ in glory becomes our chief treasure! We then live in our spiritual affections, where He is, and Heaven becomes our present home in a very real sense.
Nor is that all. Our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens. But there is more. We also look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. We look for Him to come from thence to complete the salvation with which our souls have been already blessed. For this mortal body of ours, this body of humiliation, shall be conformed to His body of glory. We look for the Saviour. Here we may well inquire whether we are indeed looking for Him. Looking seems to imply something more than a belief that He will one day come again. We are sure that He will come. Long have we been convinced of that. It is an article of our faith that no one shall shake. Yes, Christ is coming again. But are we waiting for Him? Is it a matter of earnest yet patient hope? We fear not in all cases. Are we not conscious—some of us—that this “blessed hope” has waned? Once it burned brightly in our souls, and the thought of our Lord’s possible return thrilled, us with joy. Like the ten virgins of Matthew 25, we went forth to meet the Bridegroom. Is it still so? Each must answer for himself. And some of us can remember how in bygone days it held a foremost place in the ministry of the Word. It was more frequently spoken about then than now, and it was the subject of many a happy and joyous song. Let us pray that the hope of our Lord’s return may be brightened where it has become dim.
“Oh, kindle within us a holy desire,
Like that which was found in Thy people of old.
Who tasted Thy love, and whose hearts were on fire,
While they waited in patience, Thy face to behold.”
It cannot but be revived if Christ in glory gains and holds the heart, if we walk with Him, live to Him, and if we let it be plainly seen that we are but “strangers and pilgrims here.
And in writing of these things the Apostle spoke of some whose manner of life cost him bitter tears. “Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” Such were his words. And if any ask, Of whom did he say this? Of open and flagrant opposers of the gospel? On the contrary, they stood in the Christian ranks and were enrolled among the professed disciples of the Lord. But their life was a shameless denial of the truths that cluster around the Cross. For that Cross may be viewed in many lights. It is the emphatic expression of the world’s judgment of Christ. Instead of acknowledging His claims they rejected them and crowned Him in great derision with a bramble crown and sent Him to the gallows. What link, then, could there be between loyal-hearted followers of Christ and the world that poured upon Him their scorn, hatred, and contempt? For Paul there was none. He could exercise towards them the ministry of reconciliation with which he had been entrusted; he could beseech men to be reconciled to God; but for the world, that had crucified the Lord of Glory, and himself there was no common standing-ground. The world was crucified unto him, and he unto the world (Gal. 6:1414But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Galatians 6:14)).
And there, too, in that Cross, “our old man” has been crucified with Christ. It has been branded with the stigma of the Cross. No longer is “our old man” to be ministered to and recognized as having any status at all. To forget this, to deny it in practical everyday life is to be an enemy of the Cross of Christ—not of the atoning aspect of it, not (as a means of pardon and safety, but as that which severs every link with the world and carries out the sentence of death upon “the flesh,” whether religious or corrupt (see Philippians 3:3-63For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. 4Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: 5Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; 6Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. (Philippians 3:3‑6) and Gal. 5:16, 2416This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16)
24And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5:24)). Yes, the ones over whom Paul wept were Christians in name; but they were living to themselves, and glorifying in that which, had they known it, was only to their shame. They were minding earthly things. It is in contrast to all this that the Apostle says, “Our commonwealth has its, existence in the heavens.”
May we have grace to think of these things; may we own unreservedly our heavenly calling and citizenship; and may we find such satisfaction in Christ that the aims and ambitions and pleasures of the world may not be ours. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)). So said Paul; may it be ours to say the same.
W. B.