3. Adopt Jesus’ Death as a Test of Your Outlook

3. Adopt Jesus’ Death as a Test of Your Outlook

3

Adopt Jesus’ Death as a Test of Your Outlook

Philippians 1:27–2:18

It is hard to believe, but there are some people who think that doctrine is boring and even irrelevant. Very often the reason for this misperception is that doctrine has been presented to them in boring and irrelevant ways. Conversely, there are intellectuals who are terribly interested in doctrine, in much the same way that other intellectuals are interested in eighteenth-century European history or in the life cycle of Pacific coho salmon. For them, doctrine is not at all practical—but then again, it is not meant to be. It is intrinsically interesting, but not life transforming.

Paul fits comfortably into neither of these stereotypes. He is capable of difficult theoretical thought, but he is not interested in theory for its own sake. He is interested in all of life lived out to the glory and praise of God. That involves knowledge of what God has said and done, but such knowledge cannot be reduced to a set of propositions to be learned, like the multiplication tables, and merely stored away for further use. That is why, in his epistles, Paul can move so swiftly from truth—theological truth, truth about God and about Christ and about the gospel—to the entailments of this truth in life.

There are few passages in Paul’s letters where this link is any clearer than in the verses before us. The central chorus of praise to Christ is itself a wonderful passage (2:6–11). Unqualified divine majesty unites with immeasurable divine self-sacrifice. There is plenty here to encourage the most profound christological reflection, plenty to invite Christians to think through how this depiction of Christ and the cross relates to other New Testament portraits of the same great themes. Yet as we saw in the previous chapter, Paul introduces this praise to Christ with the words “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (2:5). In other words, a substantial goal of Paul’s thought in 2:6–11 is pastoral.

Indeed, that is what the surrounding paragraphs tease out: some of the implications the cross has for believers who follow Christ Jesus. We may summarize the argument in the following three points.

We Are Called Not Only to Believe on Christ but Also to Suffer for Him (1:27–30)

We must begin by recognizing how important conduct is for the apostle. “Whatever happens,” Paul writes, “conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (1:27). The words “Whatever happens” are the NIV’S attempt to render the idea behind the Greek’s peculiar expression “only this,” or “this one thing”: the idea is that whatever else may be mandated, whatever pressures may be brought to bear, “whatever happens,” certain things are central—and they pertain to conduct.

The initial description of the conduct is staggering: conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Clearly, the standard is immensely high. But what exactly do these words mean?

Certainly, they are not suggesting that we ourselves become worthy of the gospel, as if Christ sets up a standard and then somehow by dint of effort we become worthy of it and gain its benefit. The gospel is the good news that Christ died and rose again for sinners. By the death and resurrection of his Son, by the power of the Spirit whom he has sent, God has transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Col. 1:13). Already we have received the Spirit as the down payment of the promised inheritance, and one day we shall enjoy the inestimable glories of the new heaven and the new earth. To conduct ourselves “in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” therefore does not suggest we should try harder in order to secure something, but argues that because something has already been secured for us we should try harder out of gratitude and out of frank recognition that this is what the gospel has saved us for. We are to be diligent to live up to the good news that we have received, the good news that has saved us.

The verb “conduct yourselves” was sometimes used in the ancient world to refer to conduct becoming faithful citizens. The Greeks were to “conduct themselves as citizens” in such and such a fashion. There may be some corporate overtones in these words when they are applied to the conduct of believers in the church, in this citizenship of the kingdom.

But we may well ask, “What conduct does Paul have in mind that is worthy of the gospel?” The next lines flesh out what is expected. The conduct that Paul wants is the consistent kind, one that acts the same way whether or not an apostle is looking over your shoulder: “whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence,” Paul writes (1:27). The conduct that he wants to discover consistently displayed in them is that they “stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose” them (1:27–28). This unity, this standing firm in one spirit, this “contending as one man for the faith of the gospel,” serves as a double sign: “This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God” (1:28). In other words, your change in character, your united stand in defense of the gospel, your ability to withstand with meekness and without fear the opposition that you must endure, constitute a sign. That sign speaks volumes, both to the outside world and to the Christian community. It is a sign of judgment against the world that is mounting the opposition; it is a sign of assurance that these believers really are the people of God and will be saved on the last day.

So conduct worthy of the gospel is in the first instance a corporate unity and steadfastness in defense of the gospel that cheerfully, meekly, and without fear withstands all opposition and boldly promotes the gospel. To put it bluntly, conduct worthy of the gospel is above all conduct that promotes the gospel. What could be more appropriate? The most appropriate way to live—in response to the glorious good news that has saved and transformed you—is to behave in such a way that, in company with other believers, you actively contend for the faith. Such conduct will prove to be a sign of assurance for you and a sign of impending judgment to those who will not hear.

Paul then adds a few lines that identify an intrinsic connection between this conduct and the gospel of the cross for which they are to contend. Paul tells the Philippians, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him . . .” (1:29). Their call to suffer on behalf of the gospel has been granted to them: it is a gracious gift from God! Not only have they enjoyed the privilege of coming to faith, they currently enjoy the privilege of suffering for Christ—“not only to believe on him,” Paul writes, “but also to suffer for him.”

That is not the way we normally think of suffering, not even the suffering of persecution. But that is what Paul says. If their salvation has been secured by the suffering of another on their behalf, their discipleship is to be demonstrated in their own suffering on his behalf. Surely this should not be surprising. In what sense could it be said of us that we follow Jesus Christ, if there is no cross-bearing in our life?

Of course, our suffering for Christ is not exactly the same as Christ’s suffering for us. His suffering is the suffering of the God-man, the suffering of the one who enjoyed equality with God, the suffering that secured forgiveness for others, the suffering of a guiltless victim. Our suffering for Christ cannot add to the atoning significance of his suffering.

Nevertheless, we are called to suffer like him and for him. Recall what Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 8, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). This language, too, is shocking. To first-century ears, it does not mean that we must all learn to put up with a wart or a disappointment or an obstreperous mother-in-law or an impending mathematics exam: “We all have our crosses to bear!” No, to first-century ears this means you must take the cross-member on your beaten shoulders and stagger to the place of crucifixion and there be executed in blistering agony and shame. To take up your cross means you have passed all point of possible reprieve, all point of hope that you will once again be able to pursue your own interests; you are on your way to death, a dishonorable death at that. So for Jesus’ disciples to take up their cross, even to take up their cross daily (Luke 9:23), is to say, in spectacularly metaphorical terms, that they are to come to the end of themselves—no matter how costly that death—in order to follow Jesus.

This lies at the heart of all Christian discipleship. Every time and every place that we refuse to acknowledge that this is so, we sin against Christ and need to confess the sin and return to basics. We are to take up our cross daily.

In many parts of the world, this stance includes a willingness to endure overt persecution for Jesus’ sake. That is what the Philippians were called to face. In this they were simply following apostolic example: Paul gently reminds them, “You are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have” (1:30). Indeed, when the original apostolic band faced their first beating, they left the court “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41). Doubtless many of us in the West have been relatively cocooned from such outright opposition. But that is not the way it is in many parts of the world. Missiologists who track these things tell us that the greatest period of gospel expansion has been the last century and a half. That same century and a half has witnessed more Christian martyrs than the previous eighteen hundred years combined. And it is not at all impossible, if present trends continue in the West, that opposition here to the gospel will extend beyond family disapproval, trouble at work, condescension from intellectual colleagues, and the like to concrete persecution.

But learning to take up our cross daily, learning to suffer cheerfully for Jesus’ sake, certainly extends beyond physical persecution. One does not have to be a Christian very long before one discovers that there are countless occasions when we are called to put aside self-interest for the sake of Christ. And in large measure it is the example of Christ and his sufferings that will empower us to tread this path.

This point is so important that we need to think through what it means in practical terms. Sometimes one finds a young man, say, who was reared in a Christian home, participated in Christian youth activities at home and at the university, married a Christian woman, and now cheerfully serves in his local Christian church. He may even have undertaken some short-term mission work somewhere—helping to dig wells in the Dominican Republic or working with the starving in Rwanda. Then he suddenly abandons his wife of ten years and his three children and takes up with a pretty lassie to whom he has been drawn at work. Everyone is scandalized.

Of course, the reasons for such moral failures may be many and confusing. But in some instances, at least, I suspect that there is very little evidence that the young man (or woman, as the case may be) in question ever made a practice of making hard moral decisions that cost him anything. Doubtless his Christian family and home praised him at every step of his sterling pilgrimage. He made the “right” decisions, but they were scarcely painful or costly, because so many fine people were assuring him how wonderful he was. He did what he wanted to do. But he had not yet been tested by the kind of temptation that drew him to do something he wanted to do, but which he would resist simply because resisting was the right thing to do. He had not exercised the kind of faith that cheerfully makes self-denying decisions simply because following Christ demands it, simply because it is right.

Several years ago I was asked to interview Dr. Carl F. H. Henry and Dr. Kenneth S. Kantzer for a videotaping. These two American theologians have been at the heart of much of the evangelical renaissance in the Western world, especially, but not exclusively, in America. Each was about eighty years of age at the time of the videotaping. One has written many books; the other brought to birth and nurtured one of the most influential seminaries in the Western world. They both have been connected with Billy Graham, the Lausanne movement, the assorted congresses on evangelism, the influential magazine Christianity Today, and much more. The influence of these Christian leaders extends to the countless numbers of younger pastors and scholars whom they have helped to shape not only by their publications and public teaching but by the personal encouragement at which both have excelled. Both men gave lectures for the video cameras before several hundred theological students, and then I interviewed them. Toward the end of that discussion, I asked them a question more or less in these terms: “You two men have been extraordinarily influential for almost half a century. Without wanting to indulge in cheap flattery, I must say that what is attractive about your ministries is that you have retained integrity. Both of you are strong, yet neither of you is egotistical. You have not succumbed to eccentricity in doctrine, nor to individualistic empire-building. In God’s good grace, what has been instrumental in preserving you in these areas?”

Both spluttered in deep embarrassment. And then one of them ventured, with a kind of gentle outrage, “How on earth can anyone be arrogant when standing beside the cross?”

That was a great moment, not least because it was so spontaneous. These men had retained their integrity precisely because they knew their attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:5). They knew that they had been called not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for him. If their Master had viewed equality with God not as something to be exploited for personal advantage but as the basis for the humiliating path to the cross, how could they view influential posts of Christian leadership as something they should exploit for personal advantage?

We are called not only to believe on Christ but also to suffer for him.

We Are Called Not Only to Enjoy the Comforts of the Gospel but Also to Pass Them On (2:1–4)

That is the burden of the opening lines of chapter 2. One cannot fail to observe that Paul’s argument is quite overtly an appeal to experience. The argument, in brief, is this: If you have experienced a number of important and delightful Christian blessings, then there is an entailment: you must act in such and such a manner. To put it another way, Paul argues that if you have enjoyed a certain wealth of experience, then this precious treasure becomes a mandate to specific conduct.

What, then, is this experience to which the apostle makes appeal? And what conduct does he expect?

The appeal to experience is bound up with a series of if-clauses in 2:1: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion. . . .” In other words, if being Christians has brought you any encouragement, if any comfort in times of pain or loneliness as you have basked in the assurance that you are loved by God himself and loved by other believers, if any sense of fellowship or partnership arising from the Spirit’s common work in the family of God, if any fresh experience of tenderness and compassion, “then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose” (2:2).

In other words, Paul asks us if there have been times in our lives when as believers we have sensed God close to us; we have been aware of his love in tremendous, scarcely describable ways; we have reveled in the sense of belonging to the fellowship of God’s people; and we have received wonderful encouragement as a “benefit” of the fact that we are Christians. This is, quite bluntly, an appeal to experience. But if these facets of normal Christian living have been part of your experience, you must recognize that a great deal of that experience has come about because other Christians have mediated God’s grace to you. They have loved you, cherished you, encouraged you, made you to feel part of the partnership of the redeemed. What this means for you as a Christian is that you owe the same to others. And if you recognize this point and live by it, you will excite the apostle’s joy: “then,” he writes, “make my joy complete by being like-minded [adopting the same stance as those who have ministered to you], having the same love [as that shown to you], being one in spirit and purpose [so that the entire church reflects this same precious Christ-honoring, God-fearing, self-denying, other-edifying stance]” (2:2). And in case this is not cast in terms that are sufficiently practical, Paul spells out his point: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (2:3–4).

What is this if not a principled taking up of one’s cross, dying to self-interest for the sake of others?

It takes more grace than I can tell

To play the second fiddle well.

That is what Paul is saying. Others have ministered to you, not least because as Christians—for Christ’s sake and out of care for you—they chose to play second fiddle. Now it is your turn. “Selfish ambition” and “vain conceit” must go. Self-denying interest in the welfare of others must be our watchword.

For Paul, the issue is finally one of attitude. And the person who has perfectly manifested exactly the right attitude is the Lord Jesus Christ: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (2:5)—whose example is then set forth in the bold lines of the verses that follow (2:6–11).

The point Paul is making, then, is that we have been called not only to enjoy the comforts of the gospel but also to pass them on. If you have received personal benefit from the gospel at the hands of other believers, then maintain the tradition: treat others in such a way that they too will receive benefit. After all, we profess to trust and follow one whose entire mission was characterized by self-denial: in obedience to his heavenly Father he gave and gave and gave. Your attitude, writes Paul, should be the same as his: give and give and give.

Do we not sometimes say as much to our young people? They go through self-conscious phases in which they think that everyone is staring at them and that no one likes them. If they fall into a pattern of self-pity in this regard, sooner or later we say to them, “Look, stop your whining. To whom have you shown yourself a friend? Those who would have friends must show themselves friendly. Have you looked around your classroom and found the students who are loneliest, most commonly rejected, alone, and tried to befriend them? Why not? Why do you think everyone should be friendly to you when you make no effort to befriend others?”

Of course, all such arguments (as useful as they are) are narrowly pragmatic. Paul’s argument is far stronger. We owe love and encouragement to others because we have received so much. Above all, we owe this kind of character and stance to others because we profess to follow Christ Jesus, and that, supremely, is his character and stance. It is always deeply disturbing to find some professed Christians, members of the church, who think only of what they get. What a pathetically Christ-denying attitude! Give and give and give. We are called not only to enjoy the comforts of the gospel but also to pass them on.

We Are Called Not Only to Take Early Steps of Faith and Obedience but Also to Work Out Our Salvation throughout Our Lives (2:12–18)

Note how these verses begin: “Therefore, my dear friends . . .” (2:12). In other words, Paul is now drawing logical connections from the hymn of praise he has just offered up to Christ. There are at least two logical links in the connections he draws. First, every knee shall bow (2:10): therefore we do well to live in the light of the fact that we shall all bow before Christ on the last day and give an account to him. Second and more importantly, Christ Jesus, after terrible suffering, was finally vindicated. So shall we be. He obeyed and endured to the end and was finally vindicated. “Therefore . . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling . . .” (2:12).

It is vitally important to grasp the connection between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility in verses 12 and 13. The text does not say, “Work to acquire your salvation, for God has done his bit and now it is all up to you.” Nor does it say, “You may already have your salvation, but now perseverance in it depends entirely on you.” Still less does it say, “Let go and let God. Just relax. The Spirit will carry you.” Rather, Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, precisely because God is working in us both to will and to act according to his good purpose (2:12–13). Nor is God working merely to strengthen us in our willing and acting. Paul’s language is stronger than that. God himself is working in us both to will and to act: he works in us at the level of our wills and at the level of our doing. But far from this being a disincentive to press on, Paul insists that this is an incentive. Assured as we are that God works in this way in his people, we should be all the more strongly resolved to will and to act in ways that please our Master.

For reasons too complex to probe here, a great deal of Western thought has gone wrong at precisely this point. We have expended huge quantities of energy pitting God’s sovereignty against human responsibility, when the Bible insists that these things belong together. That is true, for example, with respect to election. Many untutored Christians think that any notion of election must be a disincentive to evangelism. Not so for Paul, according to Luke. At one of the apostle’s discouraging periods of life and ministry, God encourages him by assuring him that he should preach on and endure precisely because God already “has” many people in the city of Corinth, and thus they are bound to be called forth at the right time by the preaching of the Word (Acts 18:9–10).

So also here: God’s continuous, gracious, sovereign work in our lives becomes for us an incentive to press on with fear and trembling. And once again, Paul will not let us escape with a merely theoretical point. As in 2:1–4, where he moves from the general exhortation to the specific shape of the command, so here he moves from the general exhortation (2:12–13) to concrete content (2:14–18). If we want to know just what that concrete content is, what Paul means when he tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we shall be left in no doubt. He makes three brief points.

So we are called not only to early steps of faith and obedience but to an entire life of working out our salvation. This will be characterized by (1) self-denying contentment, (2) a conscious effort to please mature Christian leaders, and (3) a cheerful sacrifice that ratifies and endorses the work that more mature Christian leaders have poured into our lives. And all of this is nothing more than learning the entailments of following a crucified Messiah. In short, we must adopt Jesus’ death as a test of our outlook.

A great Christian poet of this century was Amy Carmichael, one of whose compositions captures many of the themes in this chapter:

[Poem not included because of rights restrictions.]

Adopt Jesus’ death as a test of your outlook.

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