New Daily Study Bible: The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians. William Barclay

matter to them that they are apt to come into conflict with one another. The greater their enthusiasm, the greater the danger that they may collide. It is against that danger Paul wishes to safeguard his friends.

      In verses 3–4, he gives us the three great causes of disunity.

      There is selfish ambition. There is always the danger that people might work not to advance the work but to advance themselves. It is extraordinary how time and again the great leaders of the Church almost fled from office in the agony of the sense of their own unworthiness.

      Ambrose was one of the great figures of the early Church. A great scholar, he was the Roman governor of the province of Liguria and Aemilia in the fourth century, and he governed with such loving care that the people regarded him as a father. The bishop of the district died, and the question of his successor arose. In the middle of the discussion, suddenly a little child’s voice was heard: ‘Ambrose – bishop! Ambrose – bishop!’ The whole crowd took up the cry. To Ambrose, it was unthinkable. At night, he fled to avoid the high office the Church was offering him, and it was only the direct intervention and command of the emperor which made him agree to become Bishop of Milan.

      When John Rough publicly from the pulpit in St Andrews summoned him to the ministry, the Scottish reformer John Knox was appalled. In his own History of the Reformation, he writes: ‘Thereat the said John, abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears, and withdrew himself to his chamber. His countenance and behaviour, from that day until the day that he was compelled to present himself in the public place of preaching, did sufficiently declare the grief and trouble of his heart. No man saw in him any sign of mirth, nor yet had he pleasure to accompany any man, for many days together.’

      Far from being filled with ambition, the great leaders were filled with a sense of their own inadequacy for high office.

      There is the desire for personal prestige. Prestige is for many people an even greater temptation than wealth. To be admired and respected, to have a seat on the platform, to have one’s opinion sought, to be known by name and appearance, even to be flattered, are for many people most desirable things. But the aim of Christians ought to be not self-display but self-obliteration. We should do good deeds, not in order that others may glorify us, but that they may glorify our Father in heaven. Christians should desire to focus people’s eyes not upon themselves but on God.

      There is concentration on self. If we are always concerned first and foremost with our own interests, we are bound to come into conflict with others. If for us life is a competition whose prizes we must win, we will always think of other human beings as enemies or at least as opponents who must be pushed out of the way. Concentration on self inevitably means elimination of others, and the object of life becomes not to help others up but to put them down.

THE CURE FOR DISUNITY

      Philippians 2:1–4 (contd)

      FACED with this danger of disunity, Paul sets down five considerations which ought to prevent disharmony.

      (1) The fact that we are all in Christ should keep us in unity. No one can walk in disunity with other people and in unity with Christ. If we have Christ as a companion on the way, we inevitably become companions of others. The relationships we hold with other people are no bad indication of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

      (2) The power of Christian love should keep us in unity. Christian love is that unconquered goodwill which never knows bitterness and never seeks anything but the good of others. It is not a mere reaction of the heart, as human love is; it is a victory of the will, achieved by the help of Jesus Christ. It does not mean loving only those who love us, or those whom we like, or those who are lovable. It means an unconquerable goodwill even to those who hate us, to those whom we do not like, to those who are unlovely. This is the very essence of the Christian life; and it affects us in the present time and in eternity. Richard Tatlock in In My Father’s House writes: ‘Hell is the eternal condition of those who have made relationship with God and their fellows an impossibility through lives which have destroyed love . . . Heaven, on the other hand, is the eternal condition of those who have found real life in relationships-through-love with God and their fellows.’

      (3) The fact that they share in the Holy Spirit should keep Christians from disunity. The Holy Spirit binds individuals to God and to one another. It is the Spirit who enables us to live that life of love, which is the life of God; if we live in disunity with others, we thereby show that the gift of the spirit is not ours.

      (4) The existence of human compassion should keep people from disunity. As Aristotle had it long ago, human beings were never meant to be snarling wolves but were meant to live in fellowship together. Disunity breaks the very structure of life.

      (5) Paul’s last appeal is the personal one. There can be no happiness for him as long as he knows that there is disunity in the church which is dear to him. If they want to bring him perfect joy, they must perfect their fellowship. It is not with a threat that Paul speaks to the Christians of Philippi but with the appeal of love, which ought always to be the tone used by the pastor, as it was the tone of our Lord.

TRUE GODHEAD AND TRUE HUMANITY

      Philippians 2:5–11

      Have within yourselves the same disposition of mind as was in Christ Jesus, for he was by nature in the very form of God, yet he did not regard existence in equality with God as something to be snatched at, but he emptied himself, and took the very form of a slave, and became like men. And when he came in appearance as a man for all to recognize, he became obedient even to the extent of accepting death, even the death of a cross. And for that reason God exalted him, and granted to him the name which is above every name, in order that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things upon the earth, and things below the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

      IN many ways, this is the greatest and most moving passage Paul ever wrote about Jesus. It states a favourite thought of his. The essence of it is in the simple statement Paul made to the Corinthians that, although Jesus was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor (2 Corinthians 8:9). Here, that simple idea is stated with a fullness which is without parallel. Paul is pleading with the Philippians to live in harmony, to lay aside their discords, to shed their personal ambitions and their pride and their desire for prominence and prestige, and to have in their hearts that humble, selfless desire to serve, which was the essence of the life of Christ. His final and unanswerable appeal is to point to the example of Jesus Christ.

      This is a passage which we must try fully to understand, because it has so much in it to awaken our minds to thought and our hearts to wonder. To this end, we must look closely at some of its Greek words.

      Greek is a far richer language than English. Where English has one word to express an idea, Greek often has two or three or more. In one sense, these words are synonyms; but they never mean entirely the same thing; they always have some special flavour. That is particularly so of this passage. Every word is chosen by Paul with meticulous care to show two things – the reality of the humanity and the reality of the godhead of Jesus Christ. Let us take the phrases one by one. We will set them down both in the Authorized Version and in our own translation, and then try to penetrate to the essential meaning behind them.

      Verse 6: Being in the form of God; he was by nature in the very form of God. Two words are most carefully chosen to show the unchangeable godhead of Jesus Christ. The word which the Authorized Version translates as being is from the Greek verb huparchein, which is not the common Greek word for being. It describes the very essence of every individual and that which cannot be changed. It describes that part of every one of us which, in any circumstances, remains the same. So Paul begins by saying that Jesus was essentially and unalterably God.

      He goes on to say that Jesus was in the form of God. There are two Greek words for form – morphē and schēma. They must both be translated as form, because there is no other English equivalent; but they do not mean the same thing. Morphē is the essential form which never alters; schēma is the outward form which changes from time to time and