Preached at Welsh Hampton, 23rd Sunday after Trinity, October 26, 1856.
“For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour Jesus Christ. Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.”— Philippians iii. 20, 21.
Once upon a time St. Paul was imprisoned in the city of Philippi. He was thrown into prison because he had spoilt the gains of some enchanters by his preaching. They complained to the magistrates that he was exceedingly troubling their city, and teaching them customs which were not lawful for them to observe being Romans.
For Philippi was a Roman colony, and these people liked to be thought Romans. Now it so happened that St. Paul, too, was born in a Roman colony, and that his father, or some ancestor of his, had been made a citizen of Rome, and he succeeded to the honours. The magistrates of Philippi did not know this, or they would not have dared to seize him and put him into an inner dungeon, and set his feet in the stocks, as they did.
In the night, while St. Paul and his companions were singing praises to God, there was an earthquake, and the prison doors were burst open, and the jailor cried out in fear “What shall I do to be saved?” The next morning the magistrates were affrighted. They sent word to St. Paul that he might go out of the city quietly. But he refused to go. “They have beaten us openly,” he said, “uncondemned, being Romans; and now do they thrust us out privily? Nay, verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out.” And the magistrates did come. They became suitors to their own prisoners. When they knew that St. Paul was a Roman citizen, they were most anxious that he should not stand upon his rights and accuse them.
You see that the Apostle valued his privilege of being a citizen of the greatest city upon earth. The Philippians had reason to know that he valued it. He had made them understand by his conduct that citizenship is a great and honourable thing. Men are bound together as citizens of a city, as members of a nation, by God himself.
The heathens believed that every city had a God, who watched over it and saved it from going to ruin. They believed rightly; only they did not know that it is the same God of righteousness who watches over every city, and prevents its inhabitants from tearing each other to pieces by their selfishness and their enmities.
To be a citizen of Rome was a good thing, as it is a good thing to be a citizen of any English town or city, and a still better to be an Englishman.
But St. Paul tells the Philippians, in the words I have just read you, that he was the citizen of another country too. “Our conversation,” he says—that is the same thing as our citizenship—“is in heaven.” What did he mean by that? He did not mean as I have shewed you, that he was not a citizen on earth; he did not mean that he set little store by that citizenship; but he meant “Just as I belong to a very great society, consisting of all who have a right to call themselves citizens of Rome now, and of all who have called themselves citizens of Rome since it was built, just so do I belong to a still larger society than that, consisting of numbers which no man can number, out of every kindred, and tribe, and nation.” He described this society in another epistle as the family in heaven and earth of which God is the Father. He speaks of it as being all named with His name. Sometimes he calls this society “the body of Christ;” and he speaks of himself and his brethren as members of this body, as each having a separate work to do, just as our hands and feet have separate works to do; as all suffering together, just as we feel through our whole body a pain or wound in any part of it.
But you will say, he does not speak of heaven and earth; he only speaks of heaven. You are right, and this is the reason. He had been complaining of some persons in the Philippian Church, whose God was their belly, whose glory was their shame, who minded earthly things. Now, though these persons were members of that great society of which St. Paul speaks, they were not behaving as if they were members of it. They were not thinking of others, they were thinking only of themselves. They were not looking up to God their Father, who had called them to be His children, or to Christ their elder brother, who had come to deliver them from their slavery to those things they saw and handled, and to give them His free spirit. They were bowing down to the things which they were meant to use and rule. They were becoming the slaves of those things; they were making gods of them; they were forgetting who had redeemed them to be true men; they were becoming like animals. “Wherefore,” cries St. Paul, “our citizenship, or conversation, is in heaven. We have friends and fellow-sufferers upon earth, our work is on earth; we live to do good to the earth. But our home is with God. He has bought us at a great price that we might be freemen of His kingdom, and might always fly to Him, and plead our cause before Him. He has made for us a new and living way into His presence through the flesh and blood of His Son, and we have a right to walk in that way, and not to be taking the downward way—the way of death.”
You will see what he says of the upward way in the other part of these verses.
What were these men who made gods of their bellies looking for? Perhaps on the next day for some rich food or some choice wines. But the day after? For the same, with less appetite to enjoy it. But the year following? For sickness and surfeiting; and then—for the grave! All this time they had been preparing food for the worms. They had been fattening themselves for their nourishment. A hopeless kind of existence this, surely! No thought of anything bright, or good, or free, to come hereafter; no power of lifting themselves above the pleasures of the beasts—even the power of enjoying those pleasures growing less and less, and bitter pains always mixing with them and following them.
Meantime, what was St. Paul, the citizen of heaven, looking for? “We look,” he says, “for the Saviour, Jesus Christ.”
I spoke to you of this expectation last Sunday. I told you that just as St. Paul expected the sun to come out after each dark night, and to scatter the darkness, and to shine out clear and bright upon himself and upon the world, and to shew everything as it is, so he expected the Saviour Jesus Christ to come forth in the glory of His Father and the holy angels. He believed that he should stand in the open presence of his Lord, and that every man on the earth would stand in the same presence.
This he looked for and waited for; this was the salvation he desired; for he was certain that there could be no other salvation for men but in the appearing of their true king and deliverer.
And St. Paul desired nothing for himself which he did not desire for all human beings; he did not think there could be a blessing for him which was not a blessing for them. The sight and knowledge of Jesus Christ is the blessedness of all men, and no man is able to be satisfied with any blessedness which is lower than that. You will say, perhaps, “All this is very well if we were angels, or if we had only got souls; but we have bodies; these men who made gods of their bellies might go too far in their respect for their bodies; but they did need something for them too; else why did God create bodies at all?” Now hearken, brethren. These men did not pay too much respect to their bodies; they paid too little. They did not know what mighty, glorious gifts these bodies were; if they had, they would not have destroyed their bodies by indulging them.
St. Paul had the greatest reverence for his own body, and for the bodies of his fellow-creatures, that any man could have. For he believed that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour, had taken a body such as ours, and had eaten earthly food, and had drunk of earthly water and wine; and had given that body to die upon the cross, and had raised it out of the grave, and had ascended with it to the right hand of His Father. Therefore when St. Paul recollected his citizenship in Heaven, when he claimed to be a member of Christ’s body, and prayed in His name to His Father and our Father, he could not but think how this body, which is curiously and wonderfully made, has a hidden glory in it, which, when Christ appears in His glory, shall be fully made manifest. Yes, he said to himself, this poor, vile body of mine, which is subjected to aches and pains of all kinds, which is liable to accidents of weather, which may be set ajar by want of food, or by overmuch of it, this body which may be racked with fever or rheumatism, or palsy or consumption; this body upon the dust and corruption of which the worms must feed, shall be made like to that glorious body which my Lord has redeemed from the grave, and has gone up with into Heaven. Everything seems to be threatening it with death, but Christ, in whom is the fulness of life, has overcome death, and is stronger than death. He has raised up my spirit that was sinking lower and lower, to trust in Him and hope in Him. He will raise up this body too. Nothing shall be lost of all that God has given us, for Christ has redeemed it. Only death and corruption shall perish; for they have assaulted God’s glorious handiworks. What God has created, God will preserve.
Fathers and mothers, could you bear to look upon the children whom you have brought into this world, who will be exposed to such innumerable accidents and sicknesses, if you did not believe this? Do you not know that when you bring them to Holy Baptism, when you put them into Christ’s hands, you ask Him to take care of their bodies as well as their spirits, to raise up both, to make both after His image? And do you think He is deceiving you? Do you think He will ever betray His trust? No. Commit them and commit yourselves to Him. In the darkest hours that come to you or to them, still look up to Him; still ask Him to strengthen you to wait for Him, to long for His appearing. If you do long for it, you who are poor will be able to bear your poverty; you who have enough to eat and to enjoy will not make gods of your bellies, or mind earthly things. You will be sure that there are better things than these which God has for us. In the assurance that there are, you will resist the temptation to make your bodies the slaves of lust. In the assurance that there are, you will not destroy bodies and souls both with drunkenness. You will remember that your bodies as well as your spirits have been bought with Christ’s blood. You will remember that your bodies as well as your spirits are intended to be like His.
Are you determined that they shall not be like His? Are you determined to give them up to everything that is vile, and low, and accursed? Are you determined to give away to the devil what Christ, at such a price, has taken from him? Oh! do not so! Swear upon God’s altar that you will not! Ask His strength hour by hour that you may not!
And then, whatever slow disease or sudden shock may show you that your bodies were made out of the earth, and must return to the earth, you may say boldly, He is able to subdue all things to Himself.
As He raised His body out of the grave, He will raise mine. As he ascended with His body to Heaven, He will give mine power to use all the energies which He has given it, with no hindrance from earth or from death. As He will appear in the glory of His Father, He will enable me to shine forth with all his redeemed children in His Father’s kingdom.