Second Sunday after Trinity
June 13, 1858
“That ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ.”—Philippians i. 10.
These words express the deepest wishes which the Apostle could utter before God for his converts at Philippi. It is equally clear that they express his deepest longings for himself. He could not separate what was good for them from what was good for him. We might fancy that the veteran of Christ, who had fought so many battles and who bore so many scars, may have had a right to ask for blessings which could not be granted to the raw recruit. He did not think so. What he rejoices in is, that he has fellowship with them in the Gospel; fellowship in their sorrows, their conflicts, their supports. He does not suppose that there can be a greater reward than that they and he should enter into the fullest meaning of this fellowship. He knows that the same enemies are at work to rob them of this reward; to keep them asunder. If they, who many of them had but just renounced their idols and been admitted to baptism, did not keep this goal in sight, did not aspire to reach it, they were forgetting their calling: they were not believing in God their Father. If he who had received so many revelations, who had endured so many sufferings, had thought that there was some higher end than this, or that he was more secure of this end than they were, less liable in the pursuit of it to the assaults of the principalities and powers with which they and he were wrestling, he would have fallen from Christ, while he was glorifying himself as the Apostle of Christ.
And what was the great gift for which he strove on their behalf and on his own? It was that they might know the things which had been already given them; that they might know them by loving them; that they might have judgment, or a power of distinguishing between that which was true and that which was counterfeit, between that which is and that which is not. It was not that they should be lifted to some rare pitch of excellence, which could be pointed at and admired, or upon which they could congratulate themselves, but that they should be “sincere and without offence.” These are the saintly qualities which he coveted for them,—yes, brethren, which he coveted for us. Let us consider what they are.
I. The word which we render “sincere” is eminently expressive and beautiful. It is compounded of a substantive signifying a ray of the sun, and of the verb “to judge.” The union of the sensible image with the mental act denotes a clearness within, in all the movements and exercises of the thought and judgment, like that clearness which all external things derive from the presence of the sun. Language of this kind has an inexhaustible freshness. Every one in any age or country, who has an eye to notice the most obvious effects of light, or can penetrate into its latent influences, has a store of wisdom which he can apply to the still more wonderful processes in the hearts of himself and of his fellow-men. St. Paul had been familiarized by the Old Scriptures with these practical and universal lessons. He knew how our Lord had claimed and illustrated them by His parables. He knew that when He called Himself “the Light of the World,” He proclaimed Himself to be as much in contact with the hearts and understandings of men as the sun is with their bodily senses,—to be as mighty in unfolding the true human life as that is in awakening the vitality of the vegetable and animal creation. St. Paul could say nothing to his disciples better than this, “Believe that this Light is with you. Cultivate the habit of recognizing it. All God’s discipline is to remind you of its presence.”
I am far, however, from wishing you to forget the word “sincere” which our translators have used, or to think that they could have found a more suitable one. I would rather lead you to consider whether the clearness I have spoken of be not the fullest and most reasonable explanation of sincerity; whether St. Paul does not show us how it is possible for you and me to be sincere. Are you surprised that I should say possible? I do not think any Saints or Martyrs or Apostles would have been startled or scandalized if that expression were applied to them. They were tempted every day to deal fraudulently with their fellow-men, with their consciences, with God. Each new event and perplexity in their outward path made them aware of some trick which the deceitful heart was practising on itself, of some web in which the spirit of lies was seeking to entangle it. The falsehoods took different shapes for each, according to the time and circumstances in which he dwelt, the society with which he mixed, his individual temperament, the particular good which God would have him show forth, the particular work which God had set him to do. Their only safety consisted in being awake to their danger. They found that they could not become sincere by talking of sincerity, or by any violent efforts to make themselves the models which they described. So long as they were living in themselves, thinking about themselves, insincerity was almost inevitable. But they looked out of themselves; they confessed the light that was near them; they asked that it might shine into them; they came to it, that their deeds might be made manifest, whether they were wrought in God. So they acquired that clearness of spirit, that guilelessness, which even bad men hail when they behold it; which speaks out in unconscious acts; which smiles on us through the free open countenance, which we are sure must have come from God, and is His own image.
Oh, brethren, is it not well to remind ourselves that this sincerity is possible for us? Do we not often think that it is impossible? How many little, dark, shameful cheats do we detect in ourselves—how much plotting vanity—how much false modesty, seeking applauses by affecting to shun them—how much doubling, to avoid the frank confession of wrong to others and to ourselves—how much unwillingness to look at acts and states of mind as they are, and call them by their right names—how many balancings and compromises with conscience—how much inclination to traffic with God, that we may escape punishment and obtain happiness! I say, we find this insincerity in ourselves—for that is the true way of stating the case. We are willing enough to acknowledge that the age holds out many temptations to insincerity, and we are not wrong in that assertion. A time when religious profession is an easy, reputable, advantageous thing; a time when feelings and exertions for all possible subjects and occasions are labelled and ticketed in books, so that a man knows which he is to take on every emergency; a time when there is a fearful facility in the composition of sentences; a time when criticism on the thoughts and acts of others has become a profession, and when the words, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” “Take first the beam out of thine own eye,” are considered by men who circulate Bibles to be obsolete commands, proceeding from an authority to which no reverence is owing; a time when monstrous outrages against morality, said to be perpetrated in the name of religion, are encountered by outrages as gross; when the praise and condemnation of newspapers are more thought of by the religious than the praise and condemnation of God;—such a time, let us confess it freely, is most perilous to sincerity. But it is perilous, because it tempts us to forget that there is another light than any which comes from society or from ourselves; that by it we are intended to walk; that in it alone we can walk honestly.
And therefore the bane and the antidote lie, as they always do in God’s world, close to each other. The evils of each past age were the instruments of forming the minds of the good men who lived in it. By these they learned what they needed to fly from in themselves, and whither they must fly. As God revealed to them more of their own sinfulness, He revealed to them more of His redemption. Our age may be just such a minister of blessing to us, if we will use it. If, instead of denouncing one world or another,—the political, commercial, or religious,—if, instead of succumbing to one or another,—we will remember that whatever bad we see in them has its counterpart in us; we shall be driven to seek our help in Him who desireth truth in our inward parts, and will make us know wisdom secretly.
II. The next expression of the Apostle, “without offence,” is scarcely less significant than the one of which I have been speaking. They are different, but the same idea is latent in both.
The Apostle had been desiring for the Philippians a perpetual sunlight in their hearts; the thought instantly suggests itself that in such a light they would not stumble. He knew how many causes there were of stumbling in that day. John, who was more than a prophet, the messenger who went before our Lord, stumbled awhile at the thought of his strange imprisonment. Could Jesus be He that should come? Must they not look for another, who would not leave his faithful servant to the mercies of Herod? Thoughts must have come to St. Paul in his own prison hours, which enabled him to understand and to pity the doubts of the Baptist. He could tell, through his own experience, how the persecutions which the less instructed Philippians were called to undergo might stagger their faith. They had indeed those wonderful words of Christ as a perpetual warning and a perpetual encouragement, “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but fear him,”—fear that spirit of lies and hatred “who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell,” who is seeking to draw you away from truth and love and God, to rob you of your soul’s dearest treasures, of its very life, and who will succeed unless you trust in that Father without whom “not a sparrow falls to the ground, who numbers the very hairs of your heads,” who certainly will not suffer that which is so much more precious in His eyes to perish, if you commit it to Him. They heard these words, and they did prove charms and talismans to many a witness for God in dark, terrible hours. They did say then, they have said in all days since: “The physical torment, which can be inflicted here,—the physical torments which are held out to you as punishments which will befall you hereafter if you do not forswear that truth which your conscience owns cannot be so terrible as a lie; for that comes straight from the devil; to yield to that is to yield to him; to become naturalized to that, is to fall into the second death, the true Gehenna. And, therefore, hold fast by the God of Truth and Love. Any one who would tempt you from Him, would lead you to be false to Him, is an incarnation of Satan, though he comes like an angel of light. Therefore fear him more than all outward enemies, and cry to your Father in Heaven that He will not suffer him to tempt you above what ye are able to bear.” I say the Christians in St. Paul’s day had this blessed amulet, which their Lord had furnished them with. Yet even it would have been of no use if they had not been continually reminded by their teacher on earth, and by another Divine teacher who was nearer to them than he was, how likely they were to stumble even at very slight troubles which they had not looked for.
And the Apostle knew that if this class of offences was removed, there would be others just as dangerous. Though he was too wise of heart to idolize adversity, or to teach his disciples that it was free from the sorest temptations, he still knew, better than any man, how sweet the uses of it are in God’s hand, and how very bitter its opposite, though good in itself, may prove to a man or to a Church. He did not suppose, when Christ’s name should be no longer spoken against, but should be exalted in high places, and the profession of the Cross should be desirable, and the offence of it should cease, that then there would be no more lonely captives sending the sad message, “Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another? Is this world, so full of misery and pride and cruelty, that which Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood? Is this Church, which curses, blasphemes, murders, for Thy sake, that which Thou hast espoused to Thyself as a chaste virgin, which Thou hast clothed with bridal and royal ornaments, which Thou hast made all glorious within?”
St. Paul may not have been enabled to look, as his brother-Apostle was, into the future conditions of mankind, and to see the toils and the apparent triumphs of the Beast and the false Prophet; but at least he knew the past state of his own people, the chosen people, too well not to expect that Christendom might need its Sennacheribs and its Nebuchadnezzars, wars, famines, pestilences, to save it from the effects of its own prosperity, and that while that prosperity lasted, it might conceal the most profound infidelity under the fairest profession. He did not, therefore, ask that his converts might have outward sunshine, as if by walking in that they would avoid stumbling, but that there might be a track of Divine light for their steps, through whatever regions, gay or wintry, they should have to pass. The spiritual illumination which he sought for them would show them that Jesus the Crucified is He that has come, and is now with us, and that we are not to look for another. It would show them that though all are false, He is the Truth; that if His followers plot and deceive, it is not because they believe in His Cross and Passion, His Resurrection and Ascension, but because they have lost faith in them,—because they have put themselves and their own fancies in the place of these great realities. It will show them that these verities will come out fuller and brighter as the inventions grow pale and vanish away. It will show them that the light in which they have believed when they could not see it, and in which they have tried to walk, is brightening into a perfect Day.
III. This is the third part of the Apostle’s prayer, which arises most naturally out of the other. He desires that they may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. I was speaking to you, not long since, of the duty and the blessing of hoping for that day. I tried to show you that we could not really be still when the earth is shaking, unless we cherished the expectation that there would be a full revelation of a perfect Order, a divine Kingdom. I said that we could not really know that the Lord is God, unless we believed that the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person, would be manifested, and that all which is dark would be scattered by His appearing. I have pointed out to you now and then the confusions which accompany this belief in some who profess it. I have done so that you might be able to receive it and live upon it, without the distraction and uncertainty which arise from the mixture of our crude fancies and speculations with that which is above them and the deliverance from them. The day of Christ, as the Apostles set it forth to us, is not a day in which a few are to look for their triumph, and for the defeat of their enemies. It is the day when the Son of Man will be revealed as the King of the Universe, when His victory for mankind shall be proved to be a real, not an imaginary one. The day of Christ is not the proclamation of One Who has been for ages a stranger to the world which he visited for a few years; it is the assertion that He Who sacrificed Himself is, and always has been, the prince of all the kings of the earth, from Whom all their power has been derived, Who alone has prevented it from being destructive of themselves and of those they have governed, to Whom they must give account of it. The day of Christ is not the ascent of a new sun into the firmament, it is the meridian splendour of that light which has been lightening every man that has come into the world.
These considerations are especially important in reference to the text which I have been considering. As I have explained already, the thought of a light pervades the whole passage. To be sincere is to be in the light; the secret of not stumbling is to walk in the light. The Philippians are treated as children of the Day; they are to live as if it was already as much revealed as it ever can be. To Christ they are to refer their daily acts, the thoughts which arise continually in their hearts. They are to desire that He should show them which had come from Him, and could bear His daylight,—which belonged to the night. So they would be preserved from stumbling themselves; so they would be preserved from giving occasion of stumbling to others. For it must never be forgotten that those who are united together as members of one body cannot allow darkness to dwell in themselves without spreading darkness,—cannot fall without producing falls. This is the meaning of that awful sentence, “Woe to the world because of offences.” This is another reason why we should be so careful to separate the light which is in us from the darkness which is trying to comprehend it; this is a new motive for keeping ourselves in the recollection and in the hope of that day which shall bring forth whatsoever is sincerely good, and shall destroy whatsoever corruption has been mixed with it. Brethren! we must stumble, we must make others stumble, we must be tolerant of evils which we ought to hate in our own hearts, we must be intolerant of those whom God cares for, if we walk in the light of the sparks which we have kindled or which the public opinion of the age has kindled. It signifies not what professions we make, what reputation we earn; we shall commit acts which are hateful in God’s sight, and which bring scandal on His Name.
But if we are looking to the day of Christ, we shall be every hour more impatient of that in us which defiles and perverts His truth; we shall be every hour more patient of the confusions in our fellow-men. We shall be less and less angry that they do not disperse at our bidding. We shall tremble to increase them by the use of our feeble instruments, instead of that penetrating Word which is said to be “sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.” We shall know that Christ must sever the tares from the wheat, that we cannot.
Oh, may God grant us all the Spirit of Truth, of Love, of Patience, to prepare us for that day, to bid us rejoice in the thought how righteous the judgment of it will be, to make us content to leave ourselves and all men in His hands, Who will then be manifested to quick and dead! May those who teach remember that for every idle word which they speak in God’s name, they must give account in that day! May those who hear remember that the feeblest words which have told them of His love and of His desire that they should be renewed in His image, were His words, and will be proved to be true as much by their neglect as by their belief of them! And may we remember that the highest office of all is not to speak words, though they be Divine words, in men’s ears, but to present the finished Sacrifice of Christ to His Father, to offer ourselves as sacrifices holy and acceptable in Him, to ask that He Who alone can see will see if there is any wicked way in us, that He Who alone can guide will guide us in the way everlasting! How can we better gather up all our petitions, for ourselves, for those who are dear to us, for the whole Church, than in the Apostle’s prayer, “that we may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ”?