Philippians 1:18

Philippians 1:18

Christ Preached in any Way a Cause of Joy.

We see here a great law of Christ's providence over His Church. He furthers His own ends, not by affirmations only, but by negations: by faith and by unbelief; by truth and by heresy; by unity and by schism. It is a transcendent and intricate mystery, far beyond our intelligence. All things conspire to His purpose, and His will ruleth over all, not, it may be, to the purpose we imagine for Him, nor to our idea of His will, but to His own not as yet revealed. Would St. Paul have rejoiced, had he lived in our day, that, although perfect unity in truth and love were impossible, yet every way Christ is preached? Would the publication of truth even in contention, strife, rivalry, and pretence have given him cause of joy? Would he have said, Rather so than not at all; let Christ's name become gainsaid rather than buried in silence? I think he would

I. Because the name of Christ reveals the love of God. The mere knowledge that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life, the mere publication and proclaiming of this great fact, without Church or sacraments, without creeds or Scriptures, is a supernatural gift of truth revealing the love of God. And this is an inestimable advance beyond the state of man without this knowledge. Any light is better than darkness, any food than famine, even crumbs of bread which come down from heaven than the husks of this fallen earth.

II. The preaching of Christ even in the most imperfect form is a witness against the sin of the world. And what are these two great truths, the love of God and the sin of the world, but the two poles on which all our salvation turns? The mere sound of the name "Saviour," "Redeemer," "Ransom," and "Sacrifice," is a testimony against the natural conscience. The powers of truth are not bound; they, like the presence of God and the nature of man, are universal. Wheresoever they alight, as seeds wafted by the winds, or by the sweep of tides, or by the flight of birds, though not sown in order nor by the ministry of man, they germinate.

III. The preaching of Christ brings men under the law of responsibility; it reveals the four last things: death, judgment, hell, and heaven; it testifies to the commandments of God, and the law of charity, and the need of holiness. And all these things, addressed to the conscience of man, produce their own response of fear, hope, obedience. What is the ripe civilisation, the fair peace, and harmonious friendship of states and kingdoms, the alliances and relations of national systems, the temperate sway of princes, the liberty of subject people, the purity of domestic obedience, but a second crop of fruits shaken from the faith of Christ, as from the fig-tree in its later season?

All that has been said rests on two undeniable truths: (1) first, that all truth has life in it to those whose heart is right with God; (2) that the duty of believing the whole and perfect truth is absolutely binding on pain of sin to all who know it.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 60.

References: Philippians 1:18. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vii., No. 370; T. Wallace, Christian World Pulpit,vol. x., p. 20c