Philippians 1:6

Philippians 1:6. being confident of this very thing. The apostle speaks from the depths of his spiritual experience. The good work had been begun in himself, and carried on by the grace of God, so that he confesses (1 Corinthians 15:10), ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.' It is the sense of this which makes him confident for the Philippians.

that he which began. The reference is to the first acceptance of the Gospel by the Philippians. The seed then sown, though exceeding small, God will not suffer to be without fruit. But the apostle will not forget, nor have his readers forgot, that though Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, yet it is God that giveth the increase.

a good work in you. The work of bringing you to salvation through the Gospel of Christ. The work within you is a true comment on the narrative of the Acts, where we read ‘the Lord opened the heart of Lydia that she attended to the things which were spoken of Paul.'

will perfect it, bring it to a thorough completion. This was no doubt the old sense of perform, but it is a weaker word now. The Greek is a strong expression, the same which is used (2 Corinthians 7:1) for perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

until the day of Jesus Christ. ‘The day of the Lord,' or ‘the day of Christ,' is used by the New Testament writers for the time when Christ shall come to judgment, and the expression is so used on the warrant of Christ's language (Luke 17:24), ‘So shall the Son of man be in His day.' There is no doubt that among the early Christians there was an expectation that the day of judgment was very near. St. Paul corrects the undue apprehension of the Thessalonians in this matter (2 Thessalonians 2:2), and in the present verse the expression must not be taken as intimating that the Philippians, to whom this letter was sent, would live to see the day of Christ. What the apostle means is, that God will carry on and complete the work in such wise that it shall be ready for the judgment whenever that may come. They may die or be alive, of that he says nothing, only he feels sure that ‘living or dying they will be the Lord's.'