As Always, So Now

According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.—Philippians 1:20

T. Holmes

In those days of waiting, while Paul dwelt in his own hired house in Rome, he had pondered deeply on the reasons why God had sent him there. He had not lamented his life as a prisoner, nor wasted his time because his environment was restricted, nor considered his cause as lost. He had spoken of Christ to Caesar’s rude soldiers, and won their affection to himself, and their allegiance to Jesus. No circumstances could release him from the "charge" to proclaim the gospel; therefore chain, or no chain, no loss of liberty could fetter his tongue, nor bind his earnest spirit. He had done in Rome, handicapped though he was, as he had earlier done at Antioch, at Ephesus, at Corinth, at Jerusalem. "As always, so now" he had redeemed the time and used every moment for his Master; and as elsewhere, here, in the Imperial City, there was "fruit" won by his labor.

As he waited for his trial, he thought over its possible results and had settled in his heart that neither acquittal nor death should make the slightest difference in his intention to "magnify" his Lord. Imprisonment had not arrested his labor; it only had turned it into other channels, for during this period he penned the deepest and most spiritual of all his letters. This season of restricted travel gave him time to meditate and work out the deeper implications of fellowship with the Lord. Hence those "prison letters," as they are called, written during that time—Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians—set forth a range of thought that reaches to greater heights and depths than are to be found in any of his earlier letters. From these prison days came forth those priceless treasures of Christian thought and doctrine which have enriched God’s people throughout the whole Gospel age, and which are of such inestimable value to us today, in the fuller light of this harvest time.

How often the Lord has had to allow some similar thing for others of his followers to give them time to meditate and consider. Sometimes it has been a bed of sickness, or an accident, which has served as prison walls, and has restricted the goings and comings, in order that we may take time to ponder the ways and purposes of God, and life thereafter has been the richer and sweeter for it. Let no one hastily chafe at God’s restrictions, as he brings him out of the rush and bustle of life into some quiet place apart. God will enrich him there and enrich and deepen his contact with himself, and the Master, and all holy things.

While Paul had no preference to express as to the result of his trial, he seems to have had some slight presentiment that he would gain a favorable victory and be set free. Whether someone in Caesar’s household was working behind the scenes on his behalf, and had communicated to Paul that the prospects were favorable to him, we do not know. But certain it is that he said, "I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith, that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me, by my coming again" (vs. 25, 26). But he would have them know that if he were set free, then for him "to live was Christ" and that by his labor he would win more "fruit." If the four walls of his house no longer constituted his cell, then, "as always, so now" again he would go forth as Christ’s evangelist and missionary.

Woe Is Me If I Preach Not the Gospel

Paul looked out upon the world of men, and saw them dying and steeped in sin. He saw the whole creation in fetters, and heard its hopeless groans. He heard of its deep inarticulate discontent, and of its disappointed longings. He knew "the whole creation groaned and travailed together . . . waiting for deliverance" from its fetters of vanity and sin. And he further knew his own breast cherished a secret all men needed to know; one which, if known and heeded, would set them free and heal their wounds. He saw his kinsmen bound in chains of ritualism and tradition, throwing to the winds the greatest opportunity the hand of God had offered, and it lay on his heart as the burden of a great sorrow. For them too his bosom held a secret, which they all needed to know and accept. It was as if a fire burned in his very bones—a white-hot glow, kindling an energy which had driven him over land and sea, to seek for such who would hear the story he had to tell.

He knew a God of love, a living God of infinite and tender compassion, and this God the heathen nations needed to know instead of their idol and demon gods. He saw himself as the channel—the messenger—between that fountain of eternal goodness and the wide, deep need of the heathen mind. His deep sense of that need gave him no rest day or night. Out among them were some rare souls who were "feeling after God, if haply they might find him" (Acts 17:27), but they knew not where to search nor how. God had an invitation for them, but how could they hear without a preacher? "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16), said this fervent missionary heart. It required in a born Jew a tremendous act of self-subjugation to go to these gentiles, "dogs," and tell them that God had provided for them a Savior, and would accept such as would willingly respond just as readily, and on the same terms, as any born Jew. But Paul did not shrink therefrom, nor even account such services distasteful. It was according to his Master’s desire, and so he went gladly, whole-heartedly.

His fervent heart contained a secret, which, if the Jews had accepted, would have changed their whole outlook and spared them the age-long agonies they have endured in their enemies’ lands. Paul had learned that the "Christ" for whom the Jews had been waiting was to be a "spiritual Christ." Up to the moment when he saw the glorified Jesus on the Damascus way, he, like all his Jewish kin, had looked for an earthly Messiah; a Messiah in the flesh to reign on the earth; a Messiah to restore and occupy his father David’s throne and reign from David’s city. But the glimpse of that glorious heavenly being arrayed in light, brighter than the noon-day sun, who still called himself "Jesus of Nazareth," had been the beginning of a new revelation. He learned that "Christ" was to be more than a man. "Though we have known [and expected] Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him so no more" (2 Cor. 5:16). Christ Jesus having appeared on earth as a man, and having been "cut off" (as Daniel said of the Messiah) was raised from the dead a glorious spirit being to become the image of his Father’s person. Paul carried this precious secret to all who had ears to hear, and well had it been for his "kinsmen according to the flesh" if they could have received and embraced it too.

Another phase of Paul’s "Christology" was that the Messiah was to be "multi-personal." This, too, was a precious thing to Paul. To realize that all upon whom came the spirit of God, as a begetting and enlightening power, were also "anointed" by that spirit and thereby "Christened"—made a member of the Christ —was a most amazing and energizing thought. For the long-expected Messiah to be a company of individuals with Jesus of Nazareth as their Lord and Head was such a profound secret that neither prophet nor seer in Israel had ever dreamed of it. Yet that is what Paul had learned and sought to teach to others. "If any man is in Christ he is a new creature" (2 Cor. 5:17)—"christened" by the anointing spirit of God—but, before there is anything to "anoint" there must have been a new creature produced or begotten. This great truth then, that the Messiah was to be spiritual and would be composed of members of a company who, having been baptized into Christ, cheerfully accepted the privilege to "suffer with him." Then under Jesus’ headship they would constitute his body and reign with him; this is the good news which galvanized the heart of the apostle to undertake his indefatigable labors and service on behalf of his Lord and his brethren.

This urged him on over land and sea, by day and night, seeking those, both Jew and gentile, who would believe the good news. Those who did believe the "good news" are they between whom Paul said there had been an enmity—a middle wall of partition which prevented their fellowship and association together. But by the cross of Jesus this enmity was done away and the middle wall of partition broken down (Eph. 2:14). Jew and gentile met and coalesced on common ground into "one new man" They had been "accepted in the beloved" by the God who had sent Paul (and other messengers) seeking such souls. "Accepted in the beloved"—all self-interest and self-identity surrendered and sunk in the larger "identity"—all yielded to "Christ."

Oh! How inspiring are the words of this faithful courageous soul. "As always, so now . . . to live is Christ." For Christ he had given his best years, and for Christ he would give those that yet remained. All the best things life had offered he surrendered willingly for the "excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil 3:8)—all the powers of a first-class brain he brought, "in Christ," to the service of the brethren.

It is not as though these believers for whom he ventured so much were the great ones of earth or the saintliest among men. He understood and set out the position very fully when writing to the brethren in Corinth: "Be not deceived," he says, "neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves . . . nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Paul’s Self-Sacrificing Zeal

Had he taken the place amongst his own kinsmen for which his natural gifts equipped him, he would have consorted with the great and the rich—he could have been courted and flattered by all the elite in Jewry. No place of honor, save only the priesthood, would have been inaccessible to him. Into the gilded palaces of her princes, or into the stately schools of her tutors, he could have won his way and left his name to an adoring posterity as one of the greatest of Jewry’s great sons. But all these glittering prizes for which men pine and strive he cast from him as refuse, as worthless tinsel, in order to seek and win the weak, the poor, the halt, the blind, the maimed—the very riff-raff of the nations. No matter who it be, runaway slave or erstwhile thief, so long as they accepted the good news of his Master and laid themselves at his feet, he loved them and taught them and spared not time nor strength, till "Christ be formed" in them (Gal. 4:19). From the lowest depths of humanity—rough, coarse, uncouth, illiterate, repulsive—they had come and he taught them to hope and believe that God could make them suitable for his purposes. He saw the saint in every uncouth slave, the jewel in every rugged countryman. Like Michaelangelo, viewing the marble, said, "There’s an angel in that stone, I shall get him out one day." And so it was, wherever he went, in high places or low, he went seeking precious souls, whom the Lord would give him as "fruit" for his "labor." Like his Lord and Master, times without number, he was scorned and reproved by proud, callous enemies for receiving and consorting with sinners but that mattered then, so long as he could reach sad hearts where Christ’s comfort could meet the deepest need. In very truth, for him to live had been "Christ."

When it might have been easy to lay aside his burden and enter into his rest, he said, "to abide in the flesh is more needful for you" (Phil. 1:24). "So now, as always," should it be again that when his feet were free to leave the thronging streets of Rome he would hurry on to Philippi, or Ephesus, or some other provincial place, where dwelt those children of faith whom God had delivered into his care.

Paul was not only the missionary and evangelist, he was also the pastor and shepherd of these scattered sheep. Here again we see his diligence and constancy in service. If in the evangelistic service we see the indomitable pioneer, always reaching out to newer and still newer fields, we see in the pastor the tender watch-care of a mother. Night and day he watched them, sometimes with tears: soothing and consoling when suffering; checking and curbing when wayward; admonishing and warning when refractory: always giving himself to weariness and peril and death that they might live. No nursing mother could be tenderer than he. But no shepherd could be more valiant and daring when danger threatened the fold. The "care of the churches" was no light duty for any to carry lone-handed, without having the multitude of severities from without, but in spite of the manifold dangers which surrounded, he could say, "Who is weak, and I am not weak: who is offended and I burn not?" (2 Cor. 11:29). Who is weak or justifiably offended among you and I make not his case my own, he asks.

Every suffering heart, therefore, found him sympathetic and helpful, whether a single sheep or a local flock; and as he sensed and ministered to their need, he bore their welfare and interest to the throne of grace with unceasing earnestness. Scarce one letter came from his pen but that he says he was "always in every prayer of mine, making request for you" (Phil. 1:4)—as a faithful under-shepherd shouldering the exacting burden, yet not forgetting to speak their names into the ear of the Great Shepherd of the sheep, to ask guidance and comfort for every one in his extensive fold. As a rule it is when the faithful pastor feels the sense of the increasing load of care thrust upon him by the brethren’s need becoming too heavy to bear alone that he turns to the Lord and seeks for himself the succor and strength and energy which none but Christ can give.

Can we think that the Lord did not know how to develop that pastoral spirit in his chosen under-shepherd? Would Paul have besought the Lord so often or so earnestly with tears had it not been for "the care of the churches"—his intense concern for his brethren? Could he have stood the strain of all the petty squabbles, the little jealousies, the uncalled-for strife if it had not been that he knew where comfort was to be found? Yet, as surely as he found comfort in the Lord, straightway he opened the chambers of his heart to others and "comforted them with the comfort wherewith he had been comforted of God" (2 Cor. 1:4). And this he did through years, not days; this he did when he himself was sorrowing, as well as when he was rejoicing. It was needful for the sake of the sheep, that snares and dangers should abound, else they would stray and miss the way. How manifestly needful, then, the shepherd’s care, courage, and alertness all through! "As always, so now" henceforth, as Paul went forth from mighty Rome, he would share the same care and courage and alertness till his days be done! What an advantage it gives to be possessed of one objective!

"This one thing" is a lifetime’s task; a whole lifetime’s task; a lifetime’s whole task! It leaves no surplus for anything else. Christ Jesus will not share his throne with any rival. It is safest and best, like Paul, to run through life on a "narrow gauge," for in very truth the Christian life is a narrow way. Then the things we do today we shall repeat and enjoy tomorrow and say, "As always, so now."

Editor’s Note: Bro. T. Holmes of England was a frequent contributor to these columns in the 1940’s. The article above is a reprint of part five of a six-part series on the life of the Apostle Paul from THE HERALD of August, 1943.