Paul writes to his first church in Europe from a Roman prison, chained to a soldier and waiting on a verdict that could end in his death. Yet the first chapter of Philippians overflows with thanksgiving and joy. His chains have carried the gospel into the palace of Caesar, rival preachers only spread the name of Christ further, and the question of life or death has lost its terror, because for Paul both roads lead to Christ.
A study in Philippians 1 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 20 min read “Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” The readers of this letter had a history with its writer. About ten years earlier, Paul had crossed from Asia into Europe in answer to a vision of a man of Macedonia pleading, “Come over into Macedonia, and help us” (Acts 16:9). In Philippi, a Roman colony, the church began with a handful of women at a riverside place of prayer and a seller of purple named Lydia. It grew through a night Paul and Silas spent in the stocks, singing, until an earthquake opened the prison and the jailer asked what he must do to be saved (the study of Acts 16 tells the whole story). Timothy had been there too, and he joins Paul now in greeting them. Notice how Paul introduces himself. In most of his letters he opens with his authority: “Paul, an apostle.” Here he writes only “the servants of Jesus Christ.” There was no false teaching at Philippi that required him to defend his apostleship, as there was in Galatia. This is a letter between friends. “Paul’s letter to the Philippians, like the one to the Colossians, was written while he was a prisoner at Rome. The church at Philippi had sent gifts to Paul by the hand of Epaphroditus … By Epaphroditus, Paul sent the Philippian believers a letter, in which he thanked them for their gifts to him. Of all the churches, that of Philippi had been the most liberal in supplying Paul’s wants.” “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” The first mention of joy in this letter of joy comes in Paul’s prayers. Every time he remembered the Philippians, he gave thanks. Their “fellowship in the gospel” had been practical from the very first day: Lydia opened her house to the missionaries, and the church sent support to Paul “once and again” when he moved on to Thessalonica (4:16). “Paul’s labors at Philippi resulted in the establishment of a church whose membership steadily increased. His zeal and devotion, and, above all, his willingness to suffer for Christ’s sake, exerted a deep and lasting influence upon the converts. They prized the precious truths for which the apostles had sacrificed so much, and gave themselves with wholehearted devotion to the cause of their Redeemer.” Verse 6 is one of the great assurances of the New Testament. Paul’s confidence does not rest on the Philippians’ own faithfulness, but on the One who started the work in them. God does not begin what He does not intend to finish. The same verse also sets the horizon: the work continues “until the day of Jesus Christ.” Growth in grace is not completed at conversion, or at any point in this life. It goes on until He comes. “To such I would say, Do not draw back in despair. We shall often have to bow down and weep at the feet of Jesus because of our shortcomings and mistakes, but we are not to be discouraged. Even if we are overcome by the enemy, we are not cast off, not forsaken and rejected of God. … He desires to restore you to Himself, to see His own purity and holiness reflected in you. And if you will but yield yourself to Him, He that hath begun a good work in you will carry it forward to the day of Jesus Christ.” “Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.” “Bowels” was the ancient way of naming the seat of the deepest feelings, the way we would say “heart.” Paul does not claim merely to love them. He says he longs for them with the very affection of Jesus Christ — Christ’s own love, working in him. “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” Paul prays that their love will grow, but not blindly. It is to abound “in knowledge and in all judgment,” a love that can tell the difference between what is good and what is best, and “approve things that are excellent.” And the fruit it bears is not produced by their own effort. The “fruits of righteousness” come “by Jesus Christ,” and they exist “unto the glory and praise of God,” not to the credit of the one who bears them. “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” The Philippians were worried about Paul. Their friend, the great missionary, had been sitting in Roman custody for years, first at Caesarea and now at Rome (the study of Acts 28 ends with him there, under guard in his own rented house). Surely the work had been set back. Paul writes to tell them the opposite. The word translated “palace” refers to the praetorian guard, the emperor’s own soldiers. Chained to one of them in shifts, day after day, Paul had a new congregation every few hours, and word of why this prisoner was in chains spread through the whole guard. “Even in Nero’s household, trophies of the cross were won. From the vile attendants of a viler king were gained converts who became sons of God. These were not Christians secretly, but openly. They were not ashamed of their faith.” “Not by Paul’s sermons, but by his bonds, was the attention of the court attracted to Christianity. It was as a captive that he broke from so many souls the bonds that held them in the slavery of sin. … Paul’s patience and cheerfulness during his long and unjust imprisonment, his courage and faith, were a continual sermon.” The chains also had a second effect Paul could not have planned. Other believers in Rome, seeing his courage, became “much more bold to speak the word without fear.” A prisoner who would not be silenced made free men ashamed of their silence. The letter closes with greetings from converts “of Caesar’s household” (4:22) — the fruit of this very imprisonment. “There is a lesson for us in this experience of Paul’s, for it reveals God’s way of working. The Lord can bring victory out of that which may seem to us discomfiture and defeat. … We need to learn that chastisement is a part of His great plan and that under the rod of affliction the Christian may sometimes do more for the Master than when engaged in active service.” History has repeated the pattern many times. When the Reformers in France were driven out of their pulpits in the sixteenth century, the result was not silence but a wider scattering of the truth. “As in apostolic days, persecution had ‘fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.’ Philippians 1:12. Driven from Paris and Meaux, ‘they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.’ Acts 8:4. And thus the light found its way into many of the remote provinces of France.” “Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” Not everyone preaching in Rome was Paul’s friend. Some preached out of rivalry, perhaps glad to build their own following while the famous apostle sat in chains, and hoping the news would sting him. It is important to see what Paul does and does not say here. These were not false teachers preaching another gospel; against that, as Galatians shows, Paul was unbending. These men preached the true Christ from wrong motives. And Paul refuses to be wounded. The only question that matters to him is whether Christ is being made known, and He is. “Every disciple of Christ is to step into the ranks and carry forward the same work, knowing that its foes can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. … Through Paul’s imprisonment the gospel was spread abroad, and souls were won for Christ in the very palace of the Caesars.” The Philippians knew this kind of joy firsthand. They had watched it begin in their own city, in the inner prison at midnight. “It was this joy that filled the hearts of Paul and Silas when they prayed and sang praises to God at midnight in the Philippian dungeon. Christ was beside them there, and the light of His presence irradiated the gloom with the glory of the courts above. From Rome, Paul wrote, unmindful of his fetters as he saw the spread of the gospel, ‘I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.’ Philippians 1:18. And the very words of Christ upon the mount are re-echoed in Paul’s message to the Philippian church, in the midst of their persecutions, ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.’” “For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 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. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul did not know how his trial would end. Nero could release him or order his execution. But he had settled the one question that mattered more: whatever the verdict, Christ would be “magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” Then comes the verse that sums up his whole life in a single sentence. If he lives, he lives for Christ, with Christ, and like Christ. If he dies, he loses nothing and gains everything. “This spirit was made manifest in the life of Paul. He said, ‘For to me to live is Christ;’ for his life revealed Christ to men; ‘and to die is gain,’—gain to Christ; death itself would make manifest the power of His grace, and gather souls to Him.” “But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” Verse 23 is often read as proof that believers go to heaven, consciously, at the moment of death. But Paul is not describing a timetable here; he is weighing two outcomes. Staying means more fruitful work for the church. Departing means being with Christ. The question is when that meeting takes place, and Paul answers it himself, plainly, elsewhere. In this same letter he says believers wait for “the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body” at His coming (3:20-21). To the Thessalonians he wrote that the dead in Christ rise when “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven,” and “so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). And at the very end of his life he looked for his crown not at his death but “at that day” (2 Timothy 4:8). Scripture calls the death of a believer a sleep (John 11:11-14; 1 Thessalonians 4:14), and a sleeper does not feel the passing of time. From Paul’s own point of view, then, the next thing he would know after closing his eyes in death would be the face of Christ on the resurrection morning. That is why “to depart, and to be with Christ” could stand side by side in his mind. The study of 2 Corinthians 5 reads “absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” the same way. “The Bible clearly teaches that the dead do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until the resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 4:14; Job 14:10-12. … Blessed rest for the weary righteous! Time, be it long or short, is but a moment to them. They sleep; they are awakened by the trump of God to a glorious immortality.” “And having this confidence, 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 to you again.” Having weighed both, Paul sets his own preference aside. The church still needs him, so he expects to stay. Here is the same mind he will describe in chapter 2: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.” “Conversation” in the King James Version means the whole manner of life, not just speech. The Greek word Paul chose is related to the word for citizenship — a telling choice for a Roman colony whose people were proud of being citizens of Rome. Live, he says, as citizens worthy of the gospel. He will come back to the thought in 3:20: “our conversation” — our citizenship — “is in heaven.” And that life is a team effort: “one spirit,” “one mind,” “striving together,” like athletes on the same side. “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.” “It is given” — the Greek word is the root of the word for grace. Paul counts suffering for Christ as a gift, in the same breath as faith itself. The Philippians “saw” his conflict with their own eyes, the beating and the stocks in their own city; now they “hear” of his chains in Rome; and they were facing opposition of their own. “Not Enoch, who was translated to heaven, not Elijah, who ascended in a chariot of fire, was greater or more honored than John the Baptist, who perished alone in the dungeon. ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.’ Philippians 1:29. And of all the gifts that Heaven can bestow upon men, fellowship with Christ in His sufferings is the most weighty trust and the highest honor.” So the first chapter of Philippians ends where it began, with a prisoner’s joy. Paul’s circumstances were as dark as they had ever been, but he read them in the light of one fact: Christ is being made known, and Christ is his life. Chains, rivals, even death itself could not take that from him. The next chapter will show where such a mind comes from. It is the mind of Christ Himself, who “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
To All The Saints Which Are At Philippi
He Which Hath Begun A Good Work In You
Unto The Furtherance Of The Gospel
Christ Is Preached; And I Therein Do Rejoice
To Live Is Christ, And To Die Is Gain
Not Only To Believe On Him, But Also To Suffer
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