Section 10
living "hand." A glove without a hand is empty and lifeless. Not only is there nothing living in the glove; there is not even the appearance of liv ingness. But when the hand gets into the glove, the glove is still the glove, but now it has some thing living in it. After the hand enters into the glove, the glove begins to have a living expres sion. In principle, the same is true of our virtues. Unless our virtues are occupied by Christ and express Him, they are empty and devoid of true life. But when they are occupied by the living Christ, they are filled with reality and become His expression.
It is important for us to see the difference be tween a living that is according to ethical teach ings and a living that is the expression of Christ. Probably the best ethical teachings are those of Confucius, who taught people to cultivate, to develop, their human virtues. But it was not pos sible for Confucius to add anything to people. All he could do was to teach them to develop the virtues they already possessed.
How different this is from God's economy! God's economy is not to develop our virtues, but to add Christ to them. When Christ is added to our virtues, they are no longer empty, but are filled with Christ as their content and reality.
Once again, we wish to emphasize the fact that human virtues are a vessel, a container, to express Christ as the real content.
How wonderful it is to realize that Philippi ans 4:5-9 shows us the clear expression of a life that lives Christ! In this portrait we see that we need the six governing aspects of a life that lives Christ. It is truly marvelous to see these things! Here in Philippians there is a vast territory for us to explore and inexhaustible riches for us to search out and experience.
This booklet is compiled from
Life-study of Philippians © 1988 Living Stream Ministry
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