Philippiens 3:3

Beware of dogs

The enemies of the Church

I. Their character--“dogs.”

II. Their conduct--“evil wore.”

III. Their destructive creed--“Concision.” (Professor Eadie.)

The apostolic warning

I. The persons warned.

1. All the Philippians, and not merely the pastors. They must beware of false teachers. Christ’s sheep can discern between a wolf and a shepherd (Jean 10:4), and therefore they are bidden to “try the spirits,” and “prove all things.” But how, say the Papists, should common people know the Word to be the Word of God? For answer I would ask such how they know the pope’s canons to be the pope’s? They will say their teachers bring them in the pope’s name, and they believe their teachers. So we believe our teachers, who tell us this is and that is not the Word of God. But they object that this makes every man a judge. I answer, there is a manner of judging, viz., that by which we discern of anything, which every Christian must have, so that it cannot be a plea to him at the day of judgment to say, “My teacher did mislead me.” Everyone must discern between good and bad. For he that knows not his Master’s will shall be beaten.

2. Not only young and ordinary Christians are to beware, but also the best settled. The Philippians were a Church established in the truth.

II. The warning given--“Beware,” which signifies to discern, and then to avoid. Those who are aware of evil will beware of it. The Church is even subject to danger; and God suffers it to be so.

1. To try those who are true and who false.

2. To try the good so as to make them better.

III. The persons warned against.

1. Wicked men and dogs.

(1) Without the Church all are dogs.

(2) The dogs within the Church first fawn upon their intended victims (Romains 16:18), and when they cannot prevail by flattery they snarl and bark against them, by slanders and open scoffs, when they cannot bite. When they can they persecute with fire and sword.

2. Evil workers.

(1) Seducing men from Christ.

(2) Wicked livers.

3. The concision. They make divisions in the Church.

IV. How to take the warning.

1. Get fundamental truths into the heart and love them (2 Thesaloniciens 2:10). None are seduced but such as are cold in love.

2. Practice that we know, and God will give us a fuller measure of knowledge, whereby we shall know seducers. (Jean 7:17).

3. Pray to God for wisdom to discern of schisms and ill-disposed persons.

4. Let us look that we keep in us a holy fear and reverence of God (Psaume 25:12). (R. Sibbes, D. D.)

Dogs

Paul calls the false teachers such in respect of--

I. Their snarling and barking, because as dogs they barked at him and snarled at his doctrine, and that, as dogs again, not upon reason but custom. Abishai called Shimei a dog in respect of his causeless barking against David (2 Samuel 16:9).

II. Their greediness, making, as he afterwards said, “their belly their god” (Ésaïe 56:11).

III. Their absurdness, because as the dog returneth to his vomit, so they made the converted Jews return to their old Judaism. (H. Airay, D. D.)

Dogs

St. Paul retorts upon the Judaizers the term of reproach by which they stigmatized the Gentiles as impure. In the Mosaic law the word is used to denounce the foul profligacies of heathen worship (Deutéronome 23:19). Among the Jews of the Christian era, it was a common designation of the Gentiles involving the idea of ceremonial impurity. St. John applies the term to those whose moral impurity excludes them from the new Jerusalem, the spiritual Israel (Apocalypse 22:15). As a term of reproach, the word on the lips of a Jew signified chiefly “impurity;” of a Greek, “impudence.” The herds of dogs which prowl about Eastern cities, without a home or owner, feeding on the refuse of the streets, quarrelling among themselves, and attacking the passer by, explain both applications of the image. Thus St. Paul’s language is strikingly signifiSong of Solomon They speak of themselves as God’s children; they boast of eating at God’s table; they reproach us as dogs, as foul and unclean, as outcasts from the covenant because, forsooth, we eat meat bought at the shambles, and do not observe the washing of cups and platters. I reverse the image. We are the children of God, for we banquet on the spiritual feast which God has spread before us: they are the dogs, for they greedily devour the garbage of carnal ordinances, the very refuse of God’s table (verse 8). (Bishop Lightfoot.)

Evil workers--Paul calls them so in respect--

I. Of the works they urged; because by preaching the necessity of works unto salvation, and joining them with Christ as workers together with Him of our salvation, they made those works which in themselves were not evil, evil works.

II. Of the evil mind wherein they urged those works, in hatred of him, and to cross that which he had taught touching the sole sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness unto salvation.

III. Of their unfaithful working in the lord’s vineyard, because together with good seed they did sow tares, joining with Christ the works of the law in the work of our salvation. (H. Airay, D. D.)

Beware of the concision--These Philippians had admitted certain new men that preached traditional and additional doctrines, the law with the gospel, Moses with Christ, circumcision with baptism. To these new converts these new doctors inculcated often that charm, “Ye are the circumcision” whom God hath sealed to Himself; will you break this seal? Now St. Paul meets with these men in their own haunt, and even in the sound of the word they so often pressed. “They press upon you circumcision, but beware of concision, of tearing the Church of God; for we are the circumcision. If, therefore, they set up another, and continue a figure after the substance Christ Jesus is manifested, a legal circumcision in the flesh after the spiritual circumcision of the heart, their end is not circumcision but concision.”

I. Beware. This caveat shows us--

1. God’s loathness to lose us. That we are here now is sufficient argument for this. Who of us has not done something since yesterday that has made him unworthy to be here today? If God were weary of me, and would fain be rid of me, He could find enough in me now and here to let me perish. Is not the spirit of slumber in me, the spirit of detraction in another, of impenitence and facility to admit temptations in others, enough to justify Him? But He would not have the death of any, but would have all men be saved, and so says, “beware.”

2. Consider the way by which He leads us to Him. He declares His will towards us in a law. He bids and forbids. There had passed a contract between us and Him--Believe, do, and thou shalt live. We say, “Thy will be done,” which supposes that that will is made known. And that will has been manifested in the law within, the Mosaic law, and the gospel, and not only does God thus speak to us, but He calls upon us; gives us a law and bids us “beware” of breaking it.

3. Nothing exalts God’s goodness more than this, that He multiplies the means of mercy, so that no man can say, Once I might have been saved, once God opened to me a door, but I neglected that, and God never came more.

(1) God hath spoken once in His Scriptures, and we have heard Him twice (Psaume 62:11) at home in our own reading, and again and again in His ordinances.

(2) There is a language in the heavens (Psaume 19:2). This is the true harmony of the spheres which every man may hear. Though he understand no tongue but his own, he may hear God in the seasons, in the vicissitudes of Church and State, etc. This is God’s English to thee, and His French, Latin, Greek, to others.

(3) But then God translates Himself in particular works. Nationally: He speaks in particular judgments or deliverances to one nation. Domestically: He speaks that language to a particular family; and so personally. God will make a fever speak to me that there is no health in me; my adversity that there is no safe dependence but in Him; even my sin shall be a sermon to me.

(4) God hath spoken to us in the death and resurrection of His Son.

II. Beware of the concision. There is a certain elegant and holy delicacy and juvenility in St. Paul’s choosing the words of musical cadence--circumcision, concision; but then this presents matter of gravity. Language must wait upon matter, and words upon things. Concision is the severing of that which should be entire--in the state, the aliening of the head from the body; in the Church to constitute a monarchy, an universal head; in the family, to divide man and wife. But more particularly consider--

1. The concision of the body; disunion in doctrinal things.

(1) This that should be kept entire is Jesus.

(2) “Every spirit which dissolveth Jesus” (1 Jean 4:3), that makes religion serve turns, that admits so much gospel as may advance present businesses, every such spirit is not of God.

(3) Not to profess the whole gospel, not to believe all the articles of faith, this is a breaking of what should be entire.

(4) The advancement of a private interpretation to an article of faith mars the peace and rends the unity of the Church. Let us therefore (Psaume 137:6) prefer Jerusalem before our chief joy, love of peace by or forbearance on all sides, rather than cictory by wrangling and uncharitableness.

2. The concision of the garment; disunion in ceremonial things. To a circumcision of the garment, to a paring away such ceremonies as were superstitious and superfluous, we came at the beginning of the Reformation. But those churches that came to a concision of the garment, an absolute taking away of all ceremonies, neither provided so safely for the Church itself nor for her devotion. Ceremonies are nothing, but where there are none order and obedience, and, presently, religion, will vanish.

3. And therefore beware of tearing the body or the garment, lest the third be induced, the tearing of thine own spirit from that rest it should receive in God; for when thou has lost thy hold of those handles which God reaches out to thee in the ministry of His Church, and hast no means to apply the promises of God to thy soul, when anything falls upon thee to overcome thy moral constancy; thou wilt soon sink into desperation, which is the fearfullest concision of all. When God hath made me a partaker of the Divine nature, so that now in Christ Jesus He and I are one, this were a dissolving of Jesus of the worst kind imaginable to tear myself from Jesus, or by any suspicion of His mercy, or any horror of my own sins, to come to think myself to be none of His.

1. This is treason against the Father; a cutting off of the power of God.

2. Treason against the Son; a cutting off of the wisdom of God.

3. Treason against the Holy Ghost; the cutting off of comfort. (John Donne, D. D.)

Philippiens 3:3

For we are the circumcision--In all ages and under all dispensations there have been two antagonistic principles at work, two classes among the professed people of God; the carnal and the spiritual; those who relied on externals and those who relied on what is internal, an Israel according to the flesh, and an Israel according to the spirit.

The great question between the two has ever been and is, Who are the circumcision? the true people of God?

I. What is meant by “we are the circumcision?” Circumcision in the Old Testament was--

1. The symbol of regeneration.

2. The sign and seal of a covenant. It distinguished the people of God from other men, and assured them of their interest in the blessings of the covenant. The question therefore is tantamount to this: Who are the people of God in such a sense as to be His spiritual children and heirs of His kingdom? The Judaizers said they were--Paul said Christians were.

II. The characteristics of those who are the true people of God or the true circumclsion.

1. They worship God in the Spirit, i.e., under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

(1) This includes

(a) that the inward principle of worship is no mere principle of nature, whether fear, natural reverence, or sentiment, but that love and devotion of which the Holy Spirit is the author.

(b) That the mode of worship is that which the Holy Spirit has enjoined. It is not a will worship, not the assiduous performance of things uncommanded of God, whether in matters of worship or life.

(2) It therefore stands opposed to

(a) insincere, hypocritical service;

(b) mere external and ceremonial service;

(c) all such service as the unrenewed and unspiritual do or can render. Such was Jewish and Judaizing worship; and all formalism, whether Papal or Protestant.

2. They rejoice or glory in Christ Jesus. This includes the recognition of Him

(1) as the ground of our confidence

(2) as the source of honour;

(3) as the object of delight.

How opposite is this spirit to that of the Judaizers, who gloried in the law, the theocracy, and their descent from Abraham.

3. They do not confide in the flesh. “Flesh” includes

(a) what is external, whether Abraham’s descent or circumcision; external obedience to the law, or religious ceremonies; baptism or membership in the true Church. This is Paul’s interpretation as given in the immediate context.

(b) What is opposed to spirit, i.e., nature.

(2) To have no confidence in it, therefore, means to have no confidence in ourselves, our own righteousness or strength. This also is included in Paul’s amplification. Those who do not trust in the flesh are those who renounce their own righteousness and embrace that of God: which is by the faith of Christ. Conclusion: It is by these criteria that we are to judge ourselves, and to determine the true form of religion, and of the Church. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

The true circumcision

I. Spiritual worship. There must be present worship. The rite of circumcision was administered once for all, and as an external badge this was sufficient. But true religion is a matter of daily life. A circumcised Jew who lived in sin was no true Jew; a baptized Christian may behave like a man of the world, in which case his baptism counts for nothing. The heart and soul of religion is personal devotion, daily worship.

2. This worship must be an inspiration of the Spirit of God. All worship requires some support. The formal worship of the Jew rested on ceremonies. When these were absent the worship perished. The Christian rests upon the influences of the Spirit, and where this is there is Divine life.

II. Christian enthusiasm. The expression “glory in Christ Jesus,” points to this.

1. The secret of the deepest religious life is personal devotion to Christ. Jesus at once demands adoration by His Spiritual greatness, and wins affection by His human sympathy.

2. This devotion is inspired by joyous enthusiasm. The Jew gloried in Abraham, but a greater than Abraham is here.

III. Freedom from superstition. For us, like Paul (see sequel),to cast off all confidence in privileged birth in a Christian home, membership in a historic Church, observance of venerable rites, and to trust wholly in spiritual religion, is a confirming sign of Divine sonship better than any rite such as circumcision. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

The true circumcision

I. The sacraments of Old and New Testaments are in substance the same. The Philippians who were baptized with water and the Holy Ghost are said to be circumcised. And so the apostle attributes our baptism and Lord’s supper after a sort to the Church of the Jews (1 Corinthiens 10:1). As the covenant was always the same in substance, so the seals of it were the same too.

II. The reality of that which seducers pretend to, will more readily be found in those that conscientiously oppose them. These men ran down the apostle and others, giving out themselves only for the circumcised ones. But the apostle proves he had the better claim. Thus the works of holiness are to be found more with those that press justification by faith, than with others who would be looked on as great patrons of good works. Be not, then, deceived with fair speeches; examine matters to the bottom. Often those who have the highest pretences to right on their side go farthest from it.

III. The sign in religion without the thing signified is little worth.

1. All it can do is to give a name before men which they lose before God (Romains 2:28). Christian may be an honourable title before men, and an empty title before God.

2. The sign is a mere external thing on which nothing of weight for salvation can hang, and therefore when the Lord comes to judgment, He throws down all together (Jérémie 9:25). For He looks not to the outward appearance but to the heart.

3. It is an inefficacious thing; as a body without a spirit. He who has got the sign only, has only the meanest half of the sacrament. Sacraments are seals of the covenant; but where there is no covenant there can be no seal; and what avails a seal at a blank.

4. Men in Christ’s livery may abide in the devil’s service and meet with his doom (Luc 13:26).

5. To apply all this.

(1) Baptism with water without the Holy Spirit is little worth. Many never reflect seriously on their baptism. Hence they live as though they had never sworn allegiance to the King of heaven, and were entirely their own, and will never renew it. Let me ask as touching this baptism:

(a) Baptized ye were with water, but were ye ever baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire--the thing signified? Alas, in consequence of the want of this, the universal coldness in the things of God.

(b) Hast thou realized that only the blood and Spirit of Christ can cleanse thee? In baptism is a profession of this. If not what avails thy baptism.

(c) Wast thou ever made partaker of the washing of regeneration? (Tite 3:5). Unto what then were ye baptized? (Actes 19:2).

(d) Where ye ever cut off from the old stock of Adam and ingrafted into Christ? (1 Corinthiens 12:13). Baptized into the name of Christ, and yet not in Christ, but without Him makes sad work.

(e) Are lusts reigning: or are they dying, and your souls living a new life? (Romains 6:5). Has the water been but as that thrown upon a corpse?

(2) The Lord’s supper without the thing signified is little worth. To be partakers of the bread of the Lord without the bread which is the Lord will go but small length (Jean 6:57).

IV. Believers in Christ are the true circumcision. They have in spirit which the Jews, by this ordinance, only had in the letter. Circumcision was--

1. A token of God’s covenant (Genèse 17:7). This honour have all God’s saints to have God Himself to be ours.

2. A distinction between Jews and others, as God’s people (Genèse 17:4). So believers are God’s people, His garden, while others are but His out field.

3. A cutting off of part of the flesh, signifying the believer’s privilege and duty (Colossiens 2:11). Their hearts are circumcised to love the Lord; their ears to hear Him; their lips to speak for Him. (T. Boston, D. D.)

The marks of a true Christian

There are many things that have a name to live and are dead: faith without works; the form of godliness without the power; sacraments without holy desires; Christians without union with Christ. In exposing this the apostle’s intention was not to disparage the Old Testament sacraments, but to show that in common with the New their value consisted in their spiritual use and significance, in their connection with the moral affections, in their leading to Him who is the end of all sacraments. Consider--

I. The nature of a believer’s worship.

1. The word worship may be taken in the larger sense which includes all religious service. From which we learn that the believer’s life is to be one continued act of worship; his body is a living temple; his heart an altar for daily sacrifice; his calling that of “a priest unto God;” his whole conversation one hymn of praise. To worship God in the spirit, then, is to worship Him in the life. The fire of sacrifice is to come down on the domestic hearth, and “holiness unto the Lord” is to be written “on the bells of the horses.”

2. Still the reference to the Old Testament ritual would suggest that “worship” points to certain religious actions. To worship God in the spirit, then, is to worship Him--

(1) In simplicity as distinguished from hypocrisy. It is a fearful thing when a miser prays to be delivered from covetousness, a vindictive man from “malice, hatred,” etc.

(2) With reverence, as distinguished from all permitted indifference, deadness, reluctance, clockwork piety. Our heart and tongue should go together. Moses left his sandals at the foot of the mount, too many take their sandals and leave their hearts behind.

(3) In earnestness, as if we felt that important interests were suspended. The two worships are distinguished in that in one case an end is looked for, in the other the only care is to get the work done.

II. The object of the believer’s joy. We rejoice in Christ Jesus.

1. For the glory of His character.

2. For the dignity of His offices.

3. The blessedness of His work.

4. The completeness of His salvation.

5. The freedom of His service.

6. The reasonableness of His commands.

7. The unutterable recompences of His rewards.

III. The ground of a believer’s trust.

1. By “the flesh” St. Paul means anything that we are or have. The flesh in its best estate is a corrupt thing, and can therefore be no proper ground for confidence.

2. The apostle would take away our confidence from everything that is not Christ. He not only excludes all outward distinctions, national privileges, moral excellencies and attainments, but he strikes at that refined and subtle fallacy of Romanism which would lead us to have confidence in some indwelling grace, which would give efficacy to tears and perfection to human sanctity. St. Paul knew that it was not grace in the saints, but grace in Christ, that was to save him, and in that he could feel unbounded confidence. (D. Moore, M. A.)

The inheritors of the promises

I. The ground of the apostle’s claim.

1. To worship God in the spirit is--

(1) To worship God as a spirit.

(2) With our own spirit.

(3) By the help of the Holy Spirit.

To worship God in the flesh would be to worship God as though He were flesh, with the powers of the body alone, and by the influences and aids which work on the body (Jean 4:23; Malachie 1:11).

2. To rejoice in Christ Jesus is not only to believe in Him and receive Him, but gladly and gratefully to accept all His work and gifts and services, being cleansed by His blood, made righteous by His obedience, and being reconciled by His mediation (1 Pierre 1:8). And if we connect this with the former, then it means to worship, pleading Christ’s sacrifice, trusting in His advocacy, and making Him in all respects our way to God.

3. Having no confidence, etc. What he means by flesh is evident from the words following--the administration of ordinances, birth of high noble blood, earnest external obedience. The flesh is the outward and material, not the inward and spiritual. Now, if we connect this third qualification with the first, to have no confidence in the flesh is to use the material without abusing it, making it secondary and subservient, to employ as much of the outward form in worship as is essential to spirit and life, but never as a substitute.

II. The lofty position Paul claims. The practice of circumcision existed, it may be, before it was imposed on Abraham, but it was ordained by God mainly with a spiritual object (Genèse 17:10, etc.), as the sign and seal of the Divine covenant; it testified to God’s faithfulness. What advantages then, hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? (Romains 9:4). Like privileges are possessed by such as worship God in the spirit, etc.

1. They are the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.

2. They behold the bright ness of the Father’s glory (Jean 1:14; Jean 1:18).

3. They are the inheritors of great and precious promises. Even the promises made to Abraham are theirs (Romains 4:11; Romains 4:16; Galates 3:7). But the believer is interested in a better covenant, established in better promises.

(1) A country was promised to Abraham--a good land; but Canaan shared in the universal curse. But the land promised to the Christian is a better country.

(2) It was promised to Abraham that his seed should become a great nation--those who rejoice in Christ are a holy nation, a peculiar people.

(3) God promised to Abraham to be his God, etc., and so (2 Corinthiens 6:15)--

4. They are favoured with special Divine revelations (Hébreux 8:10; 2 Corinthiens 3:18).

5. They are a royal priesthood.

6. They are connected with an ancient and sacred lineage. The Jew claimed Abraham as his father, and all the illustrious patriarchs and prophets as ancestors; but they whom Paul describes may claim as ancestors all who have like precious faith in every age.

7. While of the Israelites as concerning the flesh Christ came; of those, whom Paul describes, Christ comes as a gospel and a revelation to the world (2 Corinthiens 2:14; 2 Corinthiens 3:2).

Conclusion:

1. Let us claim to be the circumcision in the presence of the Jew. To him, if he rejoice not in Christ Jesus we say, Your circumcision is counted uncircumcision: We are Abraham’s seed, and he is an alien. We envy not his connection by blood; we have a tie less corruptible. 2, We claim this position as Christians of simple customs, in spite of some who would withhold it because we follow not with them. We notice the stress which such lay upon consecrated edifices, sacramental efficacy, an authorized ministry, uniformity. We affirm that spiritual worship consecrates any structure, constitutes the worshipper a priest, and renders the simplest forms full of power and life.

3. We claim this in the face of the world; and if men demand of us a style and order of worship which would undermine spirituality, divert our complacency from Christ, and foster confidence in the flesh, let us not only not conform to their requirements, but let us deny that conformity would secure any increase of acceptableness or power.

(1) Of power! What is mightier than spiritual worship? What show of strength exceeds that manifest by rejoicing in Jesus? And is “no confidence in the flesh” loss of power (Jérémie 17:5).

(2) And is there no beauty in simplicity? The utmost and highest is to be found in an assembly which worships God, etc.

4. Let us in godly fellow ship with all true churches maintain this position. (S. Martin.)

Spiritual heirship

1. A scholar trained at the feet of Gamaliel kneels before the Father “in spirit”; a Pharisee of the strictest sect has his shrunk heart expanded into “joy in Christ Jesus”; a proud professor feels “no confidence in the flesh.” “We are the circumcision,” he says, after this thorough readjusting of His religious relations. He thought so, as a Jew, when there was none to dispute the claim. As a Christian, with all Jewry despising that claim, he is sure of it.

2. Now to be able to say, “We are the circumcision,” to be clearly conscious of standing in the right line of spiritual descent is no mean distinction, no unproductive element in our expectations, that we should alienate it without cause.

I. Thoughtful students can hardly doubt that God has meant his Church to maintain an historic unity. No bend in its growth has ever been so abrupt as to choke the sap or sever the commerce of any branch with the root. Each moral revolution no less than each theological variation proves that the essence of faith is not perishable. Something of primitive power goes into the least offshoot. The three dispensations lay their ordaining hands on its head, with patriarchal blessings, Levitical unction, and gospel baptism. Let any holy family pitch its tent where it will, it shall not be out of that Divine order; reaching backward and forward--Calvary, Sinai, Mamre.

II. But blended with this law of its history, the church has to recognize another, constantly counterbalancing the gravitation towards indolence which might accrue from the former alone, and checking its complacency. For as it advances, some unexpected crisis is always breaking up the old distribution of forces; the original Providence readjusts the lines. Dismissing former tests of legitimacy, it brings fresh affiliations into the family, showing those often to be of “the circumcision” that had before been reckoned of the alienage; and disowning sons who forfeit favour by sinning against the Holy Ghost. Men claim to be Christians by birth; offer as a spiritual qualification, not a confession of faith, but a pedigree. Something like this has always been a presumption of religious majorities. And, as if to rebuff it, the propensity to proscription is no sooner settled, than a reformation is sent to disturb it. Some Paul of Samosata, some Constantine, or some Popish lineage is always secularizing the Church, and then some impracticable Wycliffe, dissenting Baxter, or erratic Huss, sloughs the form to act out the substance. Hypocrites vitiate the succession, and heretics ennoble the new blood. When the Jews refuse the apostle of their salvation, lo! he turns to the Gentiles. As if purposely to break up confidence in mere ecclesiasticism and clear the gospel of bondage, the visible Church is scarcely at any epoch suffered to enfold the Church spiritual with a clear circumference. And the instant any majority begins to be at ease in Zion, some terrible prophet comes crying out of the wilderness, “Repent!” shows what circumcision is, and turns the world of the Rabbis upside down. But always, observe, the old faith goes into the living body. (Bishop Huntington.)

Worship God in the Spirit--

Spiritual worship

I. What it is to worship God in the spirit.

1. Christ has respect to the whole of our service and obedience to God. The parts of it are two: holiness, or our duty to God; righteousness, or our duty to man (Luc 1:74). The Christian life is, as it were, one continued act of worship, where all our actions, natural, civil, and religious, meet in God (Actes 26:7; Apocalypse 7:15).

2. It has respect to those duties which are properly parts of worship. The Christian

(1) worships God with his heart, soul, and spirit, and not with his body only (Romains 1:9; Jean 4:24). This implies

(a) internal worship, called for by the first commandment. The true Christian’s soul is a temple of God.

(b) Outward joined to inward (1 Corinthiens 6:20).

(c) Spirituality--faith; love; goodwill; sincerity.

(2) By assistance from and influence of the Holy Spirit (Éphésiens 6:18; Jude 1:20).

(a) The Spirit gives habitual grace to make men capable of spiritual worship (Jean 3:6).

(b) He gives actual grace, influences to stir up grace (Rom 7:26).

II. This worship is a distinguishing mark of the true Christian.

1. All true Christians have it, for--

(1) All of them are spiritual (Jean 3:6). Everything that brings forth, brings forth its like.

(2) All of them have the Spirit of God dwelling in them (Romains 8:9).

(3) That worship which is merely outward is but the carcase of duties, unacceptable to God; and they who never perform more are hypocrites (Matthieu 15:7).

(4) External worship is properly but the means of worship. Prayer, hearing, etc., tend to the promotion of love, trust, etc., and the enjoyment of God can never be found but in worshipping Him in the Spirit.

2. That none but true Christians have this privilege is plain from this, that all others are in the flesh (Jude 1:19). (T. Boston, D. D.)

God should be worshipped

I. With a knowledge of his true character. Otherwise it is mere Athenian worship. This is the great fault of the heathen. Hence the great importance of religious knowledge. This may be obtained from nature, and our own persons. And yet with all the perfections of deity before their eyes men do not like to retain God in their knowledge. But as man is a fallen creature, the knowledge which reason can furnish is not sufficient. Christ does not reveal His mercy, and show how sinners can be pardoned and restored. So God has revealed Himself in His Word, and now man is utterly without excuse if he do not know God and worship Him.

II. With reverence. This sentiment is natural when we come before any superior, how much more when we come before God. This is no slavish or superstitious dread, but that by virtue of which God’s children are distinguished from the wicked who have no fear of God before their eyes. God is a jealous God, and abominates levity. Reverence is the most prominent feature of angelic worship. How shocking then is familiarity in the worship of man.

III. Humility. Nothing is more odious to God than pride, and nothing more acceptable than the contrite spirit. He dwells with such. It is most proper in regard to man’s moral and God’s exalted state, and upon it Christ pronounced his beatitudes.

IV. Faith. Without this it is impossible to please God, and all worship must become an empty form. Its principal exercise has respect to Christ as the Mediator.

V. Concentration. Spiritual worship is interrupted by nothing so much as the wandering of our thoughts, and is one of the accusations brought against God’s ancient people.

VI. Fervency. The crying defect of our worship is want of heart.

VII. Scriptural, with such rites as God has appointed, and those only. As to external circumstances, time, place, attitude, these should be regulated by the apostle’s rule, “Let all things be done decently and in order;” but as it relates to the worship itself, nothing should be introduced but what is authorized by the Scriptures, such as prayer, singing, reading, administering the sacraments. “In vain do they worship Me,” etc. “Who hath required this at your hands.”

VIII. Frequency. Men are not required to spend their whole time at it. But God should be worshipped morning and evening; and the Lord’s day should be entirely devoted to the Lord’s service. We cannot go to an excess here unless we make this duty exclude others which are equally incumbent. “Pray without ceasing.” (A. Alexander, D. D.)

Rejoice in Christ Jesus--

Rejoicing in Christ Jesus

I. Its nature.

1. It is an act of love. The acts of love are desire and delight, and they both agree in this Chat they are conversant about good, and are founded in esteem. But they differ because desire is the motion and exercise of love, and delight the quiet and repose of it. All, however, meet in Christ.

2. It is an act of love begotten in us by the sense of the love of Christ (1 Jean 4:19). The object of love is goodness.

(1) The goodness that is in Christ, moral and beneficial (Psaume 119:140; Psaume 100:5; Psaume 119:68).

(2) The goodness that floweth from Him (Tite 3:4).

(3) The goodness we expect from Him in this world and the next (Luc 7:47; Matthieu 5:12).

3. This love of Christ--

(1) Is revealed in the gospel (Actes 13:48).

(2) Is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Romains 5:5).

(3) Is received by faith (1 Pierre 1:18; Romains 15:13), which faith is

(a) assent, a certain belief of the truth of the gospel concerning Christ as the only sufficient Saviour (Jean 4:42; Jean 6:69).

(b) Consent, a readiness to obey the gospel.

(c) Affiance, a reposing of our hearts on God’s promise of pardon and eternal life (Hébreux 3:6).

(4) Is improved by meditation (Psaume 104:34).

(5) Is enjoyed more than all other things whatsoever (Psaume 35:9; Psaume 63:5; Psaume 73:25).

II. The spiritual profit of it.

1. It is such a joy as doth enlarge the heart in duty and strengthens us in the way of God (Néhémie 8:10; Psaume 119:14; Psaume 40:8). The hardest services are sweetened by the love of Christ.

2. It is a cordial to fortify us against and to sweeten--

(1) Common afflictions (Habacuc 3:17; Romains 12:12; Hébreux 12:2).

(2) Persecutions (Actes 5:41; Hébreux 10:34; Mat 5:12; 1 Pierre 4:13; Jaques 1:2).

3. It draws off the heart from the delights of the flesh.

III. The helps by which it is raised in us.

1. A sense of sin and misery. The grievousness of the disease makes recovery the more delightful.

2. An entire confidence in Christ (1 Pierre 2:7; Philippiens 3:8).

3. A constant use of the means.

(1) The Word;

(2) prayer (Jean 16:24).

(3) The sacraments.

4. Sincerity of obedience (1 Corinthiens 5:8). (T. Manton, D. D.)

Rejoicing in Christ is

I. A holy complacency in him. We cannot be well pleased with anything unless we see a suitableness in it to us. There is a three-fold suitableness of Christ.

1. A suitable ness to the Divine perfections concerned in the salvation of sinners that is sweetly discerned by the believer and acquiesced in (1 Corinthiens 1:23).

2. A suitableness of Christ to the ease of the soul which the believer sees and is pleased with. If you lodge a starving man in a palace, clothe him with costly attire, and fill his pockets with gold, what good can these do him? They are not meat, and so are not suitable to his case. But Christ is to ours every way (1 Corinthiens 1:30), and no one else is.

(1) As He is God-man; the Mediator answering at once the honour of God and the sinner’s necessities.

(2) In His offices. As Prophet, the Interpreter of the Father’s mind; as Priest, the Atonement and Intercessor; as King, the Conqueror and Ruler.

3. A suitableness to the mind, or we could not rejoice in Him. He is suited to every unbeliever’s case, but alas! not to their minds. Give a natural man his idols, the drunkard his cups, the miser his gold, these are suitable to their mind, but as unsuitable to their case as a sword for a madman or poison for the sick. But the believer is made partaker of the Divine nature, and Christ is, therefore, suitable not only to his case but to his mind (1 Pierre 2:4; Psaume 73:25). There is none beside Him, none like Him, none after Him--the altogether lovely. Believers are pleased at heart--

(1) That He should build the temple of the Lord, and have the glory of it (Zacharie 6:12) as is appointed of God. But this suits not the minds of natural men (1 Pierre 2:7).

(2) With His laws (Ésaïe 33:22). Christ’s yoke is welcome to them because His law is suitable to them, and they to it (Psaume 119:128), for it is written on their hearts.

(3) With the fulness of the spirit of sanctification which He communicates (1 Corinthiens 1:30). There is nothing the true believer rejoices in more than the Christ-given spirit of holiness imparted, enjoyed, and acted out.

II. A rolling of the soul over on him for all.

1. Their weight of guilt--“through faith in His blood” (Romains 3:25). Christ is the city of refuge from the law.

2. Their weight of duties.

(1) For performance. Christ lays His yoke upon the believer, and he receives it and lays himself and it again on Christ the fountain of strength. Hence it becomes an easy yoke, which before was insupportable. For duties are a dead weight while laid on by the hand of the law (Jean 15:5), but from Christ the believer receives a kind of derived omnipotency (Philippiens 4:13; Philippiens 2:13). He makes the will for the work, and the work for us when He has wrought the will for it.

(2) For acceptance (Hébreux 11:4). Duties rightly done are the returns of influences from heaven which are communicated from Christ, and so go back through Him.

III. A rest of the heart in Christ as a fit match for the soul. For as in marriage there is first a view of such a person as a fit match, whereupon follows choice and acceptance; and in case the person chosen answer the expectation, there ariseth a rest which is solid joy, so it is when the soul is pleased with Christ. There is found in Him--

1. Rest for the conscience: otherwise there is none except where it be lulled to sleep. Now Christ finds His elect seeking rest and finding none in the law; He gives it them through His blood (Hébreux 9:14; 1 Jean 1:7).

2. Rest for the heart.

(1) Our hearts are full of desires of happiness which crave for satisfaction. Hence universal human restlessness.

(2) The natural man goeth through the dry places of the creature seeking rest and finding none (Jérémie 2:3; Ecclésiaste 10:15; Ésaïe 55:2). Christ finds His elect thus wandering, and discovers Himself as the fountain of satisfaction, and the desires of the soul centreing and meeting in Christ abide in Him and are satisfied (Psaume 73:25; Philippiens 4:18; 2 Samuel 23:5).

IV. A confession of Christ unto salvation. This is plainly intimated in the original “glorying in Christ.” As the image of God impressed on man’s soul at creation shone through his body, as a candle through a lantern, so that complacency, confidence, and rest of the heart in Christ will shine forth in the life.

1. With respect to the believer’s ordinary conversation.

(1) This inward rejoicing wears off the air of pride (1 Pierre 5:5).

(2) Grace will circumcise the self-commending lips.

(3) Gracious souls will readily discover in their serious converse a tendency towards the grace of Christ.

(4) Rejoicing in Christ will make men tender in their judgment of others (Galates 6:1).

(5) Such as rejoice in Christ will have familiar converse with the Word, and relish of it (Ésaïe 59:21).

(6) They will have a respect to the place where Christ’s honour dwells, and to ordinances (Psaume 63:1).

2. With respect to suffering.

(1) The saints will keep on Christ’s side though it be lowest.

(2) They will be resigned and contented.

(3) They will glory in any cross Christ puts upon them. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Glorying in Christ

I. Negatively. The true circumcision gloried not--

1. In themselves.

2. In anything about themselves--circumcision or Abrahamic descent.

3. In Christ and something else--in Him and Moses.

II. Positively. They gloried in Christ.

1. In His great condescension.

2. In His birth and its wonders.

3. In His life and its blessings.

4. In His death and its benefits.

5. In His resurrection and ascension, and their pledges.

6. In His return, and its stupendous and permanent results. (Professor Eadie.)

Have no confidence in the flesh--This is an inference from the last, and means that the Christian who rejoices in Christ hath no confidence in anything that is not Christ or in Christ.

I. In point of justification.

1. The saints have no confidence in external things.

(1) Man’s externals--things which God never made duty, but are made so by man (Matthieu 15:9). All unscriptural institutions, opinions, and practices, under whatever pretensions of holiness, carry off men from Christ and are subservient to self (Matthieu 15:4; Corinthians 18-21).

(2) Nor even in God’s externals. E.g.

(a) In their external condition in the world which we receive by God’s providence. The carnal poor think that thereby they will be relieved of eternal poverty, and the carnal rich in this world, that they will be before others in the world to come (Osée 12:8; Romains 14:17). You may be miserable here and through eternity (Job 15:23); or fare sumptuously here and be in torment by and by (Luc 16:1).

(b) In their external privileges (verses 5, 7; 2 Corinthiens 5:16; Luc 13:26).

(c) In their external attainments (verses 6-7). Great confidence have some in their negative holiness (Luc 18:11; Matthieu 5:20).

(d) In their external duties (verse 8). There are two classes opposite to the Christian in this--the ignorant, who do little or nothing, and yet say they serve God as well as they can; and those who have the full form of godliness and rest in that. But as they are mere external duties they are abominable to God (Ésaïe 1:11, etc.; Marc 10:20).

(e) In their external sufferings. The glorified put nothing down to their tribulation, but all to Christ’s blood. “Therefore are they before the throne.”

2. The saints have no confidence for the favour of God in internals. There is no exception but one (Colossiens 1:27). They have no confidence in internal--

(1) dispositions (Proverbes 28:26). Many have a confidence in what they call their good hearts; but if God’s testimony is to be believed, it is a false confidence (Jérémie 17:9).

(2) Exercises on their own spirits.

(3) Attainments (Galates 6:14; Philippiens 3:8).

(4) Graces.

II. In point of sanctification. As they have taken Him alone for justification, so for this (1 Corinthiens 1:30). The saints have no confidence for this.

1. In their stock of natural and acquired abilities (2 Corinthiens 3:5), knowledge, utterance, good temper, etc.

2. In the means, such as the Word, sacraments, prayer, etc. Knowing that it is the Spirit that quickeneth (Jean 6:63).

3. In their purposes and resolutions for holiness (2 Timothée 1:12).

4. In their vows and engagements to holiness (Ésaïe 45:23).

5. In their own endeavours after holiness (Psaume 127:1).

6. In the good frame and disposition of their hearts, i.e., in actual grace, a most desirable thing, but no staff to lean upon (1 Chroniques 29:17).

7. In habitual grace. Paul had a good stock of it, but he did not venture to live on it (Galates 2:20). Grace within the saints is a well whose springs are often dry; but the grace without them in Christ is an ever-flowing fountain (Jean 6:57). (T. Boston, D. D.)