Category: Bible Study

Philippians 3:8-21

• Philippians 3:8-9
• 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.
  • Paul has just said that he came to the conclusion that all his Jewish privileges and attainments were nothing but a total loss. But it might be argued that was a snap decision later to be regretted and reversed
    • So here he says; “I came to the conclusion and I still hold that view. It was not a decision made in a moment of impulse, but one by which I still stand fast.”
  • In this passage, the keyword is righteousness. The Greek word used is always difficult to translate in Paul’s letters. The trouble is not that of seeing its meaning; the trouble is that of finding one English word which covers all that it includes. Here’s what Paul had in mind when he spoke of righteousness
    • The great basic problem of life is to find fellowship with God and to be at peace and in friendship with Him. The way to that fellowship is through righteousness, through the kind of life, spirit, and attitudes to himself which God desires
    • Because of that, righteousness has the meaning of a right relationship with God. To paraphrase this passage and to set down not so much what Paul says as to what he meant, we get the following
      • “All my life I have been trying to get into a right relationship with God. I tried to find it by strict adherence to the Jewish law, but I found the law and all its ways worse than useless to achieve that end. I found it no better than skubala.”
      • Skubala has two meanings. In everyday language it means that which is thrown to the dogs; and in medical language it means excrement (dung)
      • So Paul is saying; “I found the law and all its ways of no more use in helping me to get into a right relationship with God than the garbage thrown in the dump. So I gave up trying to create a goodness of my own; I came to God in humble faith, as Jesus told me to do, and I found that fellowship I has sought for so long.”
      • Paul had discovered that a right relationship with God is based not on law but on faith in Jesus Christ. It is not achieved by any individual by given by God, not won by works but accepted in trust
      • So he says: “Out of my experience I tell you that the Jewish way is wrong and futile. You will never get into a right relationship with God by your own efforts in keeping the law. You can get into a right relationship with God only by taking Jesus Christ at His word and by accepting what God Himself offers to you”
  • The basic thought of this passage is the uselessness of law and the sufficiency of knowing Christ and accepting the offer of God’s grace. The very language Paul uses to describe the law—dung—shows the utter disgust for the law which his own frustrated efforts to live by it had brought him; and the joy that shines through the passage shows how triumphantly adequate he found the grace of God in Jesus Christ
• Philippians 3:10-11
• 10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
  • Paul has already spoken of the supreme value above all else of the knowledge of Christ. He now returns to that thought and defines more closely what he means. It is important to note the the verb which he uses for know. It almost always indicates personal knowledge. It is not simply intellectual knowledge, the knowledge of certain facts or even principles. It is the personal experience of another person
  • We may see the depth of this word from the way the OT uses it. The OT uses to know as sexual intercourse
    • Genesis 4:1 “The man was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.”
  • This verb indicates the most intimate knowledge of another person. It is not Paul’s aim to know about Christ, but personally to know Him. To know Christ means certain things
    • It means to know the power of His resurrection
      • For Paul the resurrection was not simply a past even in history, however amazing. It was not simply something which had happened to Jesus, however important it was for him. It was a dynamic power which operated in the life of the individual Christian. We cannot know everything hat Paul meant by this phrase; but the resurrection of Christ is the great dynamic, the driving force in at least three different directions
        • It is the guarantee of the importance of this life and of this body in which we live
          • It was in the body that Christ rose, and it is this body which He sanctifies
        • It is the guarantee of the life to come
          • Because Christ lives, we shall also; His victory is our victory
        • It is the guarantee that in life, in death, and beyond death the presence of the risen Lord is always with us
          • It is the proof that His promise to be with us always to the end of the world is true
      • The resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that this life is worth living and that the physical body is sacred; it is the guarantee that death is not the ned of life and that there is a world beyond; it is the guarantee that nothing in life or in death can separate us from Him
    • It means to know the fellowship of His sufferings
      • Again and again, Paul returns to the though that when Christians suffer, they are in some strange way sharing the ver suffering of Christ and are even filling up that suffering. To suffer for the faith is not a penalty; it is a privilege, for thereby we share the very work of Christ
    • It means to be so united with Christ that day by day we come more to share in His death, so that finally we share in His resurrection
      • To know Christ means that we share the way He walked; we share the cross He bore; we share the death H died; and finally we share the life He lives for evermore
  • To know Christ is not to be skilled in any theoretical or theological knowledge; it is to know Him with such intimacy that in the end we are as united with Him as we are with those whom we love on earth, and that, just as we share their experiences, we also share His
• Philippians 3:12-16
• 12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. 16 In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.
  • Vital to the understanding of this passage is the correct interpretation of the Greek word teleios, which occurs twice. The word perfect in verse 12 and mature in verse 15.
  • Teleios has a variety of interrelated meanings. In the vast majority of them, it signifies not what we might call abstract perfection but a kind of functional perfection, adequacy for some given purpose
  • It means full grown as distinct from undeveloped; for example, it is used of a fully grown adult as opposed to an undeveloped youth. It is used to mean mature in mind, and therefore means one who is qualified in a subject as opposed to someone who is still learning. When it is used of offerings, it means without blemish and fit to offer God. When it is used of Christians, it often means baptized persons who are full members of the Church, as opposed to those who are still under instruction. In the days of the early Church, it is quite often used to describe martyrs. Martyrs are said to be perfected by the sword, and the day of their death is said to be the day of their perfecting. The idea is that a Christian’s maturity cannot go beyond martyrdom
  • So when Paul uses the word in verse 12, he is saying that he is not by any means a complete Christian but is always pressing on
    • He says that he is trying to grasp that for which he has been grasped by Christ
      • Paul felt that when Christ stopped him on the Damascus road, He had a vision and a purpose for Paul; and Paul felt that all his life he was bound to press on, in case he should fail Jesus and frustrate His dream. Everyone is grasped by Christ for some purposes, and therefore we should all press on throughout our lives so that we may grasp that purpose for which Christ grasped us
    • To that end, Paul says two things
      • He is forgetting the things which are behind. That is to say, he will never glory in any of his achievements or use them as an excuse for relaxation. IN effect, Paul is saying that Christians must forget all that they have done and remember only what they still have to do. In the Christian life, there is no room for those who want to rest on their achievements or titles
      • Then Paul says that he is also reaching forward to what is ahead. The word he uses for reaching is used of a racer going hard for the finish line. It describes someone with eyes for nothing but the goal. It describes the person who is going flat out for the finish. So Paul says that in the Christian life we must forget every past achievement and remember only the goal which lies ahead
  • There is no doubt that Paul is speaking to the antinomians. They were those who denied that there was any law at all in the Christian life. They declared that they were within the grace of God and that it did not matter what they did; God would forgive. No further discipline and no further effort were necessary. Paul is insisting that to the end of the day the Christian life is the life of an athlete pressing onwards to a goal which is always in front
  • In verse 15 he uses teleios again, and says that this must be the attitude of those who are mature. What he means is; “All who have come to be mature in the faith and know what Christianity is must recognize the discipline, the effort, and the agony of the Christian life.”
  • They may think differently; but if they are truly honest, God will make it plain to them that they must never relax their efforts or lower their standards but must press towards the goal, until the end
  • As Paul saw it, Christians are the athletes of Christ
• Philippians 3:17-21
• 17 Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame; and they are focused on earthly things. 20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
  • Few preachers would dare to make the appeal with which Paul begins this section. Most preachers begin with the handicap that they have to say “Do as I say, not as I do”. (I like to say that part of my job is stepping on toes, and I step on mine just as much if not more so than others”
  • Paul could not only say “listen to my words” but also “follow my example”
  • German scholar Johannes Bengel translates this passage a little differently; “Become fellow imitator with me in imitating Jesus Christ”; but it is far more likely—as nearly all other interpreters are agreed—that Paul was able to invite his friends not simply to listen to him but also to imitate him
  • There were those in the church at Philippi whose conduct was an open scandal and who showed themselves to be the enemies of the cross of Christ. Who they were is not certain, but it is quite certain that they lived gluttonous and immoral lives and used their so called Christianity to justify themselves. We can only guess who they may have been
    • They may have been the Gnostics. The Gnostics were heretics who tried ti intellectualize Christianity and make a kind of philosophy out of it. They began with the principle that from the beginning of time there had always been two realities—spirit and matter
      • Spirit is altogether good, and matter is altogether evil
      • It is because the world was created out of this flawed matter that sin and evil are in it. If then matter is essentially evil, the body is essentially evil and will remain evil not matter what you do with it. Therefore, do what you like with it; since it is evil anyhow, it makes no difference what you do with it. 
      • So thesis Gnostics taught that gluttony, sexual promiscuity, and drunkenness were of no importance because they affect only the body, which is of no importance
    • There was another party of Gnostics who held a different kind of doctrine. They argued that individuals could not be called complete until they had experienced everything that life had to offer, both good and bad
      • It was everyone’s duty to plum the depths of sin just as much as to scale the heights of virtue
      • Within the church there were two sets of people to whom these accusations might apply
        • There were those who distorted the principle of Christian freedom
          • They said that in Christianity all law had gone and that Christians were at liberty to do what they liked. They turned Christian liberty into unChristian license and gloried in giving in to their passions
        • There were those who distorted the Christian doctrine of grace
          • They said that since grace was wide enough to cover every sin, people could sin as they like and not worry; it would make no difference to the all-forgiving love of God
      • So the people Paul attacks may have been the Gnostics who produced false arguments to justify their sinn, or they may have ben misguided Christians who twisted the loveliest things into justification for the ugliest sins
  • Whoever they were, Paul reminds them of one great truth; “Our citizenship is in heaven”
    • Here was a picture the Philippians could understand. Philippi was a Roman colony. The citizens were mostly soldiers who had served their time and who had been rewarded with full citizenship. The great characteristic of these colonies was that wherever they were, they remained fragments of Rome. Roman-style clothes were worn; Roman magistrates governed; Latin was spoken; Roman justice was administered; Roman morals were observed. Even in the most remote regions, they remained unshakably Roman
    • Paul says to the Philippians: “Just as the Roman colonists never forget that they belong to Rome, you must never forget that you are citizens of heaven; and your conduct must match your citizenship”
  • Paul finishes with the Christian hope. Christians await the coming of Christ, at which everything will be changed
    • As we are now, our bodies ore subject to changed and decay, illness and death, the bodies of a state of humiliation compared with the glorious state of the risen Christ; but the day will come when we will lay aside this mortal body which we now possess and become like Jesus Himself
    • The hope of all Christians is that the day will come when their humanity will be changed into nothing less than the divinity of Christ, and when the necessary lowliness of mortality will be changed into the essential splendor of the deathless life

Philippians 3:1-7

• Philippians 3:1
• In addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.
  • Paul sets down two very important things
    • He sets down what we might call the indestructibility of Christian joy
      • He must have felt that he had been setting a high challenge before the Philippian church. For them there was the possibility of the same kind of persecution, and even the same kind of death that he was facing
      • From one point of view, it looked as if Christianity was a grim challenge. But in it and beyond it all there was joy
      • There is a certain indestructibility in Christian joy, and it is so because Christian joy is in the Lord. Its basis is that Christians live forever in the presence of Jesus Christ. They can lose everything, and they can lose everyone, but they can never lose Christ. Therefore even in circumstances where joy would seem to be impossible and there seems to be nothing but pain and discomfort, Christian joy remains, because not all the treats and terrors and discomforts of life can separate Christians from the love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord
      • It often happens that we can stand the great sorrows and the great trials of life but are quite unable to cope with what are almost minor inconveniences. But this Christian joy enables us to accept even these with a smile (flat tire in NM)
      • If Christians really walk with Christ, they walk with joy
    • Here also Paul sets down what we might call the necessity of repetition
      • He says that he proposes to write things to them that he has written before. This must mean that Paul had written other letters to the Philippians which have not survived, which is nothing to be surprised at
        • Paul was writing letters from AD 48-64, 16 years, but we only have thirteen of his letters. Unless there were long periods when he never put pen to paper, there must have been many more letters which are now lost
      • Like any good teacher, Paul was never afraid of repetition. It may well be that one of our faults is our desire for novelty. The great saving truths of Christianity do no change, and we cannot hear them too often
      • No teacher must find it a trouble to go over the great basic truths of the Christian faith again and again; for that is the way to ensure the safety of the hearers. We may enjoy the fancy things at meal times, but it is the basic foods on which we live
      • Preaching and teaching and studying the side issues may be attractive, and these have their place; but the fundamental truths can neither be spoken nor heard too often for the safety of our souls
• Philippians 3:2-3
• 2 Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh—
  • Suddenly Paul’s tone changes to that of warning
    • Wherever he taught the Jews followed him and tried to undo his teaching. It was the teaching of Paul that we are saved by grace along, that salvation is the free gift of God, that we can never earn it but can only humble accept what God has offered to us; and that the offer of God is to all people of all nations and that no one is excluded
    • It was the teaching of these jews that if anyone wished to be saved that person must earn credit in the sight of God by countless deeds of the law, and that salvation belonged to the Jews and to no one else. Before God could have any use for them, people must be circumcised and become Jews
    • Here Paul turns on these Jewish teachers who were seeking to undo his work. He calls them three things, each of which is carefully chosen to throw their claims back upon themselves
      • “Watch out for the dogs”
        • For us the dog is a well-loved animal; but it was not so in the middle east in the time of Jesus. The dogs were scavenging strays roaming the streets, sometimes in packs, hunting through the garbage dumps and snapping and snarling at all they met
        • J.B. Lightfoot speaks of the dogs which prowl about eastern cities, without a home and without an owner, feeding on the trash and filth of the streets, fighting amongst themselves, and attacking the passer by
        • In the Bible, the dog always stands for the very lowest of the low
          • When Saul is seeking to take his life, David’s demand is
            • I Samuel 24:14 “14 Who has the king of Israel come after? What are you chasing after? A dead dog? A single flea?”
          • In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, part of the torture of Lazarus is that the street dogs annoy him by licking his wounds
          • In Deuteronomy, the law brings together the price of a dog and the hire of a prostitute, and declares that neither must be offered to God
          • In Revelation, the word dog stands for those who are so impure that they are banned from the holy city
          • That which is holy must never be given to dogs according to Matthew 7
        • It is the same in Greek thought; the dog stands for everything that is shamelessly unclean
        • It was by this name that the Jews called the Gentiles
          • There is a Rabbinic saying: “The nations of the world are like dogs”
        • So this is Paul’s answer to the Jewish teachers. He says to them, “In your proud self-righteousness, you call other people dogs; but it is you who are dogs, because you shamelessly pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ”. He takes the very name the Jewish teachers would have applied to the impure and to the Gentiles and flings it back at them. We must always take care that we are not ourselves guilty of the sins of which we accuse others
      • “Watch out for the evil workers”
        • The Jews would be quite sure that they were workers of righteousness. It was their view that to keep the law’s many rules and regulations was to work righteousness
        • But Paul was certain that the only kind of righteousness there is comes from casting oneself freely upon the grace of God
        • The effect of their teaching was to take men and women further away from God instead of bringing them nearer to Him. They thought they were working good, but in fact they were working evil
        • All teachers must be more anxious to listen to God than to pass on their own opinions, or they run the risk of being workers of evil, even when they think that they are workers of righteousness
      • “Watch out for those who mutilate the flesh”
        • There is a pun in Greek that is not transferable to English. There are two Greek verbs which are very like each other
          • Peritemnein means to circumcise
          • Katatemnein means to mutilate
            • Leviticus 21:5 describes forbidden self-mutilation, such as castration.
          • Paul says “You Jews think that you are circumcised; but really you’re only mutilated
          • What is the point? According to Jewish belief, circumcision was conferred upon Israel as a sign and a symbol that they were the people with whom God had entered into a special relationship. It began in Genesis 17:9-10; when God entered into His special covenant with Abraham, circumcision was laid down as its eternal sign
          • Now, circumcision is only a sign in the flesh, something done to the body. But if people are to be in a special relationship with God, something far more is needed than a mark on the body. What is required is a certain kind of mind, heart, and character
          • It is where at least some of the Jews made the mistake. They regard circumcision in itself as being enough to set them apart specially for God. Long before this, the great teachers and prophets had seen that circumcision of the flesh is by itself not nearly enough and that a spiritual circumcision was needed
            • Leviticus says that the uncircumcised hearts of Israel must be humbled to accept the punishment of God
            • Deuteronomy says that the heart must be circumcised
            • Jeremiah speaks of the uncircumcised ear, the ear that twill not hear the word of God
            • Exodus speaks of uncircumcised lips
          • So what Paul says is; “If you have nothing to show but circumcision of the flesh, you are not really circumcised—you are only mutilated. Real circumcision is devotion of heart, mind, and life to God”
          • Therefore, Paul says that it is the Christians who are the truly circumcised. They are circumcised not with the outward mark in the flesh but with that inner circumcision of which the great lawgivers, teachers, and prophets spoke
          • What then are the signs of that real circumcision? He gives three
            • We worship by the Spirit of God
              • Christian worship is not about ritual or the observation of the details of the law; it is about the heart. It is perfectly possible for people to go through an elaborate liturgy and yet have hearts that are far away from God. It is perfectly possible for them to observe all the outward observances of religion and yet have hatred, bitterness, and pride in their hearts
              • True Christians worship God, not with outward forms and observances, but with the true devotion and the real sincerity of their hearts. Their worship is love of God and service of other people
            • Boast in Christ Jesus
              • The only boast of Christians is not in what they have done for themselves but in what Christ has done for them. Their only pride is that they are people for whom Christ died
            • And do not put confidence in the flesh
              • The Jews placed their confidence in the physical marek of circumcision and in the performance of the duties of the law. Christians place their confidence only in the mercy of God and in the love of Jesus Christ
              • The Jews in essence trusted themselves; Christians in essence trust God
  • The real circumcisions is not a mark in the flesh; it is that true worship, true glory, and true confidence in the grace of God in Jesus Christ
• Philippians 3:4-7
• 4 although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless. 7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.
  • Paul has just attacked the Jewish teachers and insisted that it is the Christians, not the Jews, who are the truly circumcised and covenant people. His opponents might have attempted to say; “But you’re a Christian and do not know what you are talking about; you do not know what it is to be a Jew.”
  • So Paul sets out his credentials, not in order to boast but to show that he had enjoyed every privilege which a Jew could enjoy and had risen to every attainment to which a Jew could rise. He knew what it was to be a Jew in the highest sense of the terms and had deliberately abandoned it all for the sake of Jesus Christ. Every phrase in his catalogue of Paul’s privileges has its special meaning
    • “Circumcised the eighth day”
      • It had been the commandment of God to Abraham: “Every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old”; and that commandment had been repeated as part of the permanent law of Israel
      • By this claim, Paul makes it clear that he is not an Ishmaelite—for the Ishmaelites were circumcised in their thirteenth year—or a convert who had come late into the Jewish faith and been circumcised as an adult. He stresses the fact that he had been born into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth
    • “Of the nation of Israel”
      • When the Jews wanted to stress their special relationship to God in its most unique sense, it was the word Israelite that they used 
      • Israel was the name which had been specially given to Jacob by God after his wrestling with Him. iT was from Israel that they in the most special sense traced their heritage. The Ishmaelites could trace their descent from Abraham, because Ishmael was Abraham’s son by Hagar; the Edomites could trace their descent from Isaac, because Esau, the founder of the Edomites, was Isaac’s son; but it was the Israelites alone who could trace their descent from Jacob, whom God had called by the name Israel. By calling himself an Israelite, Paul stressed the absolute purity of his descent
    • “Of the tribe of Benjamin”
      • He was not only an Israelite; he belonged to the elite of Israel
      • The tribe of Benjamin had a special place in the aristocracy of Israel. Benjamin was the child of Rachel, the much-loved wife of Jacob, and of all the twelve patriarchs, he alone had been born in the promised land
      • It was from the tribe of Benjamin that the first king of Israel had come, and it was no doubt from that very king that Paul had been given his original name of Saul
      • When, under Rehoboam, the kingdom had been split up, ten of tribes went off with Jeroboam, and Benjamin was the only tribe which remained faithful with Judah
      • When they returned from exile, it was from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah the nucleus of the reborn nation was formed
      • The time of Benjamin had the place of honor in Israel’s battle line, so that it was Benjamin who led the way
      • The feast of Purim, which was observed eery year with such rejoicing, commemorated the deliverance of which the Book of Esther tells; and the central figure of the story was Mordecai, a Benjaminite
      • When Paul stated that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, it was a claim that he was not simply an Israelite but that he belonged to the highest aristocracy of Israel. It would be the equivalent in America that he traced his descent from the Pilgrim Fathers
    • So, Paul claims that from his birth he was a God-fearing, law-observing Jew, that his lineage was as pure as Jewish lineage could be, and that he belonged to the most aristocratic tribe of the Jews
    • So far, Paul has been stating the privileges which came to him by birth; now he goes on to state his achievements in the Jewish faith
    • “A Hebrew born of Hebrews”
      • This is not the same as saying that he was a true Israelite. The point is that the history of the Jews had scattered them all over the world. In every town, city, and country there were Jews. There were tens of thousands of them in Rome; and in Alexandria, there were more than one million. They stubbornly refused to be assimilated to the nations among whom they lived; they retained faithfully their own religion, customs, and laws. But it frequently happened that they forgot their own language
      • They became Greek-speaking of necessity because they lived and worked in a Greek environment. A Hebrew was a Jew who was not only of pure racial descent but who had also deliberately retained the Hebrew language. Such Jews would speak the language of the country in which they lived but also the Hebrew which was their ancestral language
      • Paul claims not only to be a pure-blooded Jews but also one who still spoke Hebrew. He had been born in the Gentile city of Tarsus, but he had come to Jerusalem to be educated at the feet of Gamaliel and was able to speak to the move in Jerusalem in their own language
    • “Regarding the law, a Pharisee
      • This is a claim Paul makes more than once. There were not very many Pharisees—never more than 6,000—but they were the spiritual athletes of Judaism. Their very name means the separated ones
      • They had separated themselves off from all common life and from all common tasks in order to make it the one aim of their lives to keep every smallest detail of the law
      • Paul claims that not only was he a Jew who had retained his ancestral religion, but also he had devoted his whole life to its most rigorous observance
      • No one knew better from personal experience what Jewish religion was at its highest and most demanding
    • “Regarding zeal, persecuting the church”
      • To a Jew, zeal was the greatest quality in the religious life. Phineas had saved the people from the wrath of God and given an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God
      • The psalmist in Psalm 69:9 “because zeal for your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”
      • A burning zeal for God was the hallmark of Jewish religion. Paul had been so zealous a Jew that he had tried to wipe out the opponents of Judaism. That was a thing which he never forgot. He was never ashamed to confess his shame and to tell people that once he had hated the Christ whom he now loved, and had sought to obliterate the Church which he now served
      • It is Paul’s claim that he knew Judaism at its most intense and even fanatical heat
    • “Regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless”
      • The word means to blame for sins of omission. Paul claims that there was no demand of the law which he did not fulfill
  • So Paul states his achievements. He was so loyal a Jew that he had never lost the ability to speak Hebrew; he was not only a religious Jew, he was a member of their stricter and most disciplined sect; he had held in his heart a burning zeal for what he had thought was the cause of God; and he had a record in Judaism in which no one could find fault
  • All these things Paul might have claimed to set down on the credit side of the balance; but, when he met Christ, he wrote them off as nothing more than bad debts. The things that he had believed to the his glories were in fact quite useless
  • All human achievement had to be laid aside in order that he might accept the free grace of Christ. He had to strip himself of every human claim of honor in order that he might accept in complete humility the mercy of God in Jesus
  • So Paul proves to these Jews that eh has the right to speak. He is not condemning Judaism from the outside. He had experienced it at its highest point, and he knew that it was nothing compared with the joy which Christ had given. He  knew that the only way to peace was to abandon the way of human achievement and accept the way of grace

Philippians 2:12-30

• Philippians 2:12-18
• 12 Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose. 14 Do everything without grumbling and arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, 16 by holding firm to the word of life. Then I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn’t run or labor for nothing. 17 But even if I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. 18 In the same way you should also be glad and rejoice with me.
  • The appeal that Paul makes to the Philippians is more than an appeal to live in unity in a given situation; it is an appeal to live a life which will lead to the salvation of God in time and in eternity
  • Nowhere in the NT is the work of salvation more succinctly stated
    • Vs. 12-13 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to His good purpose”
  • As always with Paul, the words are meticulously chosen
    • “Work out your own salvation”
      • The word he uses for work out is katergazesthai, which always has the idea of bringing to completion. It is as if Paul says, “Don’t stop half-way; go on until the work of salvation is fully achieved in you.” No Christian should be satisfied with anything less than the total benefits of the gospel
    • “For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to His good purpose”
      • The word Paul uses for work is the verb energein. There are two significant things about this word
        • It is always used of the action of God
        • It is always used of effective action
        • God’s action cannot be frustrated, nor can it remain half-finished; it must be fully effective
  • As we have said, this passage give a perfect statement of the work of salvation
    • Salvation is of God
      • It is God who works in us the desire to be saved.
        • Saint Augustine said “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.” “We could not even begin to seek Him unless He had already found us.”
        • The desire for the salvation of God is kindled not by any human emoting but by God Himself. The beginning of the process of salvation is awakened by God
      • The continuance of that process is dependent on God
        • Without His help, no sin can be conquered and no virtue achieved
      • The end of the process of salvation is with God
        • Its end is friendship with God, in which we are His and He is ours
      • The work of salvation is begun, continued, and ended in God
    • Salvation is in our own hands as well
      • “Work out your own salvation” Paul demands. Without our cooperation, even God is helpless. The fact is that any gift or any benefit has to be received. If someone is ill and the doctor is able to prescribe the drugs that will achieve a cure, the individual will not be cured until the drugs have been taken. There is always the possibility that the patient may stubbornly refuse all persuasion to take them. It is so with salvation. The offer of God is there; without it, there can be no such thing as salvation. But no one can ever receive salvation without answering God’s appeal and taking what He offers
  • There can be no salvation without God; but what God offers we must take. It is neverGod who withholds salvation; we are responsible for depriving ourselves of it
  • The Signs of Salvation
    • When we examine the chain of thought in this passage, we see that Paul gives us five signs of salvation
      • There is the sign of effective action
        • Christians must give continual evidence in their daily lives that they are indeed working out their own salvation; day by day, it must be more fully accomplished. The great tragedy of so many of us is that we are never really any further on. We continue to be victims of the same habits, slaves of the same temptations, and guilty of the same failures. But the true Christian life must be a continual progress, for it is a journey towards God
      • There is the sign of fear and trembling
        • This is not the fear and trembling of slaves cringing before their master; nor fear and trembling at the prospect of punishment
        • It comes form two things
          • A sense of our own human helplessness and our own powerlessness to deal with life triumphantly.
            • That is to say, it is not the fear and trembling which drives us to hide from God, but rather the fear and trembling which drives us to seek God, in the certainty that without His help we cannot effectively face life
          • A horror of grieving God
            • When we really love someone, we are not afraid of what he or she may do to us; we are afraid of what we may do to that person. The Christian’s one fear is the fear of wounding God and crucifying Christ again
      • There is the sign of serenity and certainty
        • Christians will do all things without grumbling and arguing
          • The word Paul uses for grumbling (goggusmos) is unusual. In the Greek of the sacred writers, it has a special connection. It is the word used of the rebellious grumblings of the children of Israel in their desert journey. The people grumbled against Moses. It describes the low, threatening, discontented muttering of a mob who distrust their leaders and are on the verge of an uprising
          • The word Paul uses for arguing (dialogismos) describes useless and sometimes ill-natured disputing and doubting. In the Christian live, there is the serenity of perfect certainty and perfect trust
      • There is the sign of purity
        • Christians are to be blameless and pure, and faultless. Each of these words makes its contribution to the idea of Christian purity
          • Blameless (amemptos) expresses what a Christian is to the world
            • A Christian’s life is of such purity that no one can find anything in it with which to find fault. It is often said in courts of law that the proceedings must not only be just but also be seen to be just. Not only must Christians be pure, but also the purity of their lives must be seen by all
          • Pure (akeraios) expresses the inner being of a Christian
            • It literally means unmixed, unadulterated. It is used of wine or milk which is not mixed with water and of metal which has no alloy in it. When used of people, it implies motives which are unmixed. Christian purity must result in a complete sincerity of thought and character
          • Faultless (amomos) describes what a Christian is in the sight of God
            • This word is especially used in connection with sacrifices that are fit to be offered on the altar of God. The Christian life must be such that it can be offered like an unblemished sacrifice to God
        • Christian purity is blameless in the sight of the world, sincere within itself, and fit to stand the scrutiny of God
      • There is the sign of missionary endeavor
        • Christians offer to all the word of life, the word that gives life. This Christian missionary endeavor has two aspects
          • It is the proclamation of the offer of the gospel in words which are clear and unmistakable
          • It is the witness of lives that er absolutely true and honest in a world which is warped and twisted
          • It is the offer of light in a world which is dark. Christians are to “shine like stars in the world”
            • The word used for “shine like stars” (phosteres) is the same as is used in the creation story of the lights (sun and moon) which God set in the dome of the heavens to give light upon the earth
  • Christians offer and demonstrate honesty and truth in a twisted world and light in a dark world
  • Pictures From Everyday Life
    • This passage concludes with two vivid pictures, which are typical of Paul’s way of thinking
      • He longs for the Christian progress of the Philippians so that at the end of the day he may have the joy of knowing that hey has not run or labored in vain
        • The word he uses for labor (kopian) has two possible pictures in it
          • It may paint a picture the most exacting toil. It means the labor to the point of sheer exhaustion 
          • It may describe the toil of the athlete’s training and what Paul is saying is he prays that all discipline of training he imposed upon himself may not go for nothing
      • One of the features of Paul’s writing is his love of pictures from the life of an athlete.
        • In every Greek city, the gymnasium was far more than a physical training ground. It was in the gym that Socrates often discussed the eternal questions; it was in the gym that the philosophers and the sophists and the wandering teachers and preachers often found their audience. 
        • In the Greek world, there were the Isthmian Games at Corinth, the Pan-Ionian Games at Ephesus, and every four years the Olympic Games
        • The Greek cities were often at war with each other; but when the Olympic Games came, no matter what dispute was raging, a month’s truce was declared so that there might be a contest in fellowship between them. Not only did the athletes come, but also the historians and the poets came to give readings of their latest works, and the sculptors came to make statues of the winners
        • There can be little doubt that Paul had been a spectator of these games in Corinth and Ephesus
          • Where there were crowds of people, Paul would be there to seek to win them for Christ
          • But apart from preaching, there was something about these athletic contests which found an answer in the heart of Paul
            • He knew the contests of the boxers. He knew the foot race, the most famous of all contests. He had seen the herald summoning the runners to the starting line; he had seen the runners press along the course to the goal; he had seen the judge awarding the prize at the end of the race; he knew the victor’s laurel crown and of the winners’ exultation. He knew the rigorous discipline of training which the athletes had to undertake, and the strict regulations which had to be observed
        • So his prayer is that he may not be like an athlete whose training and effort have counted for nothing. For him, the greatest prize in life was to know that, through him, others had come to know and to love and serve Jesus
      • But in vs. 17 Paul presents another picture
        • He took picots form the ordinary affairs of the people to whom he was speaking. He had already taken a picture from the games; now he takes one from religious sacrifice
        • One of the most common kinds of sacrifice in Greek and Roman religions was a libation, which was a cup of wine poured out as an offering to the gods
        • For instance, for non-Christians, every meal began and ended with such a libation, as a kind of grace before and after food
        • Paul here looks upon the faith and service of the Philippians as a sacrifice to God. He knows that his death may not be very fare away, for he is writing in prison and awaiting trial. So he says he is fine even if “he is poured out as a drink offering…”
        • In other words, he is saying to the Philippians, “Your Christian faith and loyalty are already a sacrifice to God; and if death for Christ should come to me, I am willing and glad that my life should be poured out like a drink offering on the altar on which your sacrifice is being made.”
  • Paul was perfectly willing to make his life a sacrifice to God; and if that happened to him, it would be all joy. He calls on the Philippians not to mourn at the prospect but rather to rejoice. To him ever call to sacrifice and to toil was a call to his love for Christ, and therefore he met it not with regret and complaint but with joy
• Philippians 2:19-24
• 19 Now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be encouraged by news about you. 20 For I have no one else like-minded who will genuinely care about your interests; 21 all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know his proven character, because he has served with me in the gospel ministry like a son with a father. 23 Therefore, I hope to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. 24 I am confident in the Lord that I myself will also come soon.
  • Since Paul cannot come to Philippi himself, he intends to send Timothy as his representative
    • There was no one so close to him as Timothy was. We know very little detail actually about Timothy, but the record of his service with Paul shows his loyalty
    • He was a native either of Derby or Lystra. His mother Eunice was a Jew, and his grandmother’s name was Lois. His father was a Greek and the fact that he was not circumcised would seem to show that he was educated in Greek customs
    • We don’t know how or when he was converted to Christianity, but on his second missionary journey Paul met him and saw in him one he could clearly use in the service of Jesus Christ
    • From that time Paul and Timothy were very close. Paul could speak of him as his child in the Lord. He was with Paul in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth, Ephesus, and he was with him in prison in Rome
    • He was associated with Paul in the writing of no fewer than five of his letters—I and II Thessalonians, II Corinthians, Colossians, and Philippians; and when Paul wrote to Rom, Timothy was mentioned with him in sending greetings
    • Timothy’s great value was that whenever Paul needed information from some church or wanted to send advice or encouragement or rebuke and couldn’t go himself it was Timothy he sent. Timothy was sent to Thessalonica, to Corinth, and to Philippi. In the end, Timothy was also a prisoner for Christ’s sake
    • Timothy’s great quality was that he was always willing to go anywhere and in his hands a message was as safe as if Paul had delivered it himself. Others might be consumed with selfish ambition, but Timothy’s desire was to serve Paul and Christ.
• Philippians 2:25-30
• 25 But I considered it necessary to send you Epaphroditus—my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, as well as your messenger and minister to my need— 26 since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he was sick. 27 Indeed, he was so sick that he nearly died. However, God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 For this reason, I am very eager to send him so that you may rejoice again when you see him and I may be less anxious. 29 Therefore, welcome him in the Lord with great joy and hold people like him in honor, 30 because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me.
  • There is a dramatic story behind this. When the Philippians heard that Paul was in prison, their warm hearts were moved to action. They sent a gift to him by the hand of Epaphroditus. What they could not personally do, because of distance, they delegated to Epaphroditus. Not only did they intend him to be the bearer of their gift; they also intended him to stay in Rome and be Paul’s personal servant and attendant. Clearly, Epaphroditus was a brave man, for anyone who proposed to offer himself as the personal attendant of a man awaiting trial on a charge which carried with it the death penalty was laying himself open to the very considerable risk of becoming involved in the same charge. In truth, Epaphroditus risked his life to serve Paul
  • In Rome, Epaphroditus became ill and was near death. He knew that news of his illness had filtered back to Philippi, and he was worried because he knew that his friends there would be worried about him. God in his mercy spared the life of Epaphroditus and so spared Paul yet more sorrow. But Paul knew that it was time that he went back home—and in all probability, he was the bearer of this letter
  • The problem was that the Philippian church had sent him to stay with Paul, and if he came back home, there would be some who said that he was a quitter. Here Paul gives him a tremendous testimonial which will silence any possible criticism of his return
    • Paul is again very meticulous in his wording about Epaphroditus. He was his brother, his fellow worker, and his fellow soldier. He was one with Paul in sympathy, one with him in work, one with him in danger. He had stood in the firing line. Then Paul goes on to call him your messenger and the minister of my need.
      • The word Paul use for messenger (apostolos) literally means anyone who is sent out on an errand; but Christian usage had given it a greater significance, and by using it Paul ranks Epaphroditus with himself and all the apostles of Christ
      • The word he uses for minister (leitourgos) was a magnificent secular word
        • In the cities of ancient Greece, there were men who at their own expense undertook certain great civic duties because of their love for their cities
        • It might be to pay the costs of a delegation, or the cost of putting on one of the dramas of the great poets, or of training the athletes who would represent the city in the games, or of fitting out a warship and paying a crew to serve in the nave of the state
        • These men were the supreme benefactors of the state, and they were known as leitourgoi 
      • Paul takes the great Christian word apostolos and the great Greek word leitourgos, and applies them to Epaphroditus. “Give a man like that a welcome home. Hold him in honor, for he risked his life for Christ.”
  • Paul is making it easy for him to go home. It is touching to think of Paul, in the very shadow of death, showing such consideration for Epaphroditus. He was facing death, and yet it mattered to him that Epaphroditus should not be faced with embarrassment when he went home. Paul was a true Christian in his attitude to others, for he was never so immersed in his own troubles that he had no time to think of the troubles of his friends
  • There is a word in this passage which later had a famous use
    • “Risking his life” is the word paraboleuesthai. It is a gambler’s word, and means to stake everything on a throw of the dice. Paul is saying for the sake of Christ, Epaphroditus gambled his life
    • In the days of the early Church, there was an association of men and women called the parabolani, the gamblers. It was their aim to visit the prisoners an date sick, especially those who were ill with dangerous and infectious diseases
    • In AD 252, the plague broke out in Carthage; the people threw out the bodies of their dead and fled in terror. Syrian, the Christian bishop, gathered his congregation together and put them to work burying the dead and nursing the sick in that plague-stricken city; and by so doing, at the risk of their lives, they save date city from destruction and desolation
  • In all Christians, there should be an almost reckless course which makes them ready to gamble with their lives to serve Christ and other people

Philippians 2:1-11

• Philippians 2:1-4
• If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
  • The one danger which threatened the Philippian church was that of disunity
    • There is a sense in which that is the danger of every healthy church. It is when people are really serious and their beliefs really matter to them that they are apt to come into conflict with one another 
    • The greater their enthusiasm, the greater the danger that they may collide. It is against that danger Paul wished to safeguard his friends
  • In verses 3-4 he gives us three causes of disunity
    • Selfish ambition
      • There is always the danger that people might work not to advance the work but to advance themselves
      • It is extraordinary how time and again the great leaders of the Church almost fled from office in the agony of the sense of their own unworthiness
      • Far from being filled with ambition, the great leaders were filled with a sense of their own inadequacy for high office
    • Personal prestige
      • Prestige is for many people an even greater temptation than wealth. To be admired and respected, to have a seat on the platform, to have one’s opinion sought, to be known by name and appearance, even to be flattered, are for many people most desirable things
      • But the aim of Christians ought to be not self-display but self-obliteration. We should do good deeds, not in order that others may glorify us, but that they may glorify our Father in heaven. Christians should desire to focus people’s eyes not upon themselves but  on God
    • Concentration on self
      • If we are always concerned first and foremost with our own interests, we are bound to come into conflict with others. If for us life is a competition whose prizes we must win, we will always think of other human beings as enemies or at least as opponents who must be pushed out of the way
      • Concentration on self inevitably means elimination of others, and the object of life becomes not to help others up but to put them down
  • Faced with this danger of disunity, Paul sets down five considerations with ought to prevent disharmony
    • The fact that we are all in Christ should keep us in unity
      • No one can walk in disunity with other people and in unity with Christ. If we have Christ as a companion the wya, we inevitably become companions of others. The relationships we hold with other people are no bad indication of our relationship with Jesus Christ
    • The power of Christian love should keep us in unity
      • Christian love is that unconquered goodwill which never knows bitterness and never seeks anything but the good of others
      • It is not a mere reaction of the heart, as human love is; it is a victory of the will, achieved by the help of Jesus Christ
      • It does not mean loving only those who love us, or those whose we like, or those who are lovable. It means an unconquerable goodwill even to those who hate us, to those whom we do not like, to those who are unlovely
      • This is the very essence of the Christian life; and it affects us in the present and in eternity
    • The fact that they share in the Holy Spirit should keep Christians from disunity
      • The Holy Spirit binds individuals to God and to one another. It is the Spirit who enables us to live that life of love, which is the life of God; if we live in disunity with others, we thereby show that the gift of the spirit is not ours
    • The existence of human compassion should keep people from disunity
      • As Aristotle had it long ago, human beings were never meant to be snarling wolves but were meant to live in fellowship together. Disunity breaks the very structure of life
    • Paul’s last appeal is the personal one. There can be no happiness for him as long as he knows that there is dignity in the church with is dear to him
      • If they want to bring him perfect joy, they must perfect their fellowship. It is not with a threat that Paul speaks to the Philippian Christians, but with the appeal of love, which should always be the tone used
• Philippians 2:5-11
• 5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
  • In many ways, this is the greatest and most moving passage Paul ever wrote about Jesus. It states a favorite thought of his. The essence of it is in the simple statement Paul made to the Corinthians that, although Jesus was rich, for our sakes, He became poor. Here that simple idea is stated with a fullness which is without parallel
  • Paul is pleading with the Philippians to live in harmony, to lay aside their differences, to shed their personal ambitions and their pride and their desire for prominence and prestige, and to have in their hearts that humble, selfless desire to serve, which was the essence of the life of Christ. His final and unanswerable appeal is to point to the example of Jesus Christ
  • Greek is a far richer language than English. Where English has one word to express an idea, Greek often has two or more. In one sense, these words are synonyms; but they never mean entirely the same thing; they always have some special meaning. That is particularly true of this passage. Every word is chosen by Paul with meticulous care to show two things—the reality of the humanity and the reality of the deity of Jesus Christ. Let’s take the phrases one by one
    • Verse 6;
      • existing in the form of God
        • Two words are most carefully chosen to show the unchangeable deity of Jesus
          • The word for existing in the Greek word huparchein, which is not the common Greek word. It describes the very essence of every individual and that which cannot be changed. It describes that part of every one of us which remains the same. So Paul begins by saying that Jesus was essentially an unalterably God
          • He goes on to say that Jesus was in the form of God. There are two Greek words for form — morphe and schema, and they do not mean the same thing
            • Morphe is the essential form which never alters
            • Schema is the outward form which changes from time to time and from circumstance to circumstance
            • Roses, daffodils, tulips, chrysanthemums, primroses all have the same morphe—flowers
            • But their schema is different
            • The word Paul uses for Jesus being in the form of God is morphe; that is to say, His unchangeable being is divine However His outward schema might alter, He remained in essence divine
      • Did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited
        • The word translated exploited is harpagmos, which comes from the verb meaning to snatch or to clutch. The phrase can mean one of tow things, both of which are fundamentally the same
          • It can mean that Jesus did not need to snatch at equality with God, because He had it as a right
          • It can mean that He did not clutch at equality with God, as if to hug it jealously to Himself, but laid it down willingly for the sake of men and women
          • However we take this, it once again stresses the essential deity of Jesu
    • Verse 7
      • He emptied Himself
        • The Greek is the verb kenoun, which means literally to empty. It can be used of removing things from a container until the container is empty, of pouring something out until there is nothing left. 
        • Paul uses the most vivid word possible to make clear the sacrifice of the incarnation. The glory of divinity Jesus gave up willingly in order to become human. He emptied Himself of His deity to take upon Himself His humanity. It is useless to ask how; we can only stand in awe at the sight of Him, who is almighty God, hungry, weary, and in tears. Here, in human language stretched to its limits, is the great saving truth that the one who was rich for our sakes became poor
      • By assuming the form of a servant
        • The word used for form is morphe, which means the essential form
        • Paul means that when Jesus became human, it was not play-acting but reality. He was not like the Greek gods, as the stories go, became human beings but kept their divine privileges. Jesus truly became a man. But there is something more here
      • He had come as a man
        • The word translated as had come is a part of the Greek verb gignesthai. This verb describes a state which is not a permanent state. The idea is that of becoming, and it describes a changing phase which is completely real but which passes. That is to say, the humanity of Jesus was not permanent; ti was utterly real, but it passed
    • Verses 6-8 form a very short passage; but there is no passage in the NT which so movingly sets out the utter reality of the deity and the humanity of Jesus and makes so vivid the sacrifice that He made when He laid aside His deity and became human. How it happened, we cannot tell; but it is the mystery of a love so great that, although we can never fully understand it, we can blessedly experience it and adore it
  • It is always to be remembered that when Paul thought and spoke about Jesus his interest and his intention were never primarily intellectual and speculative; they were always practical. To him, theology and action were always bound together. Any system of thought must become a way of life. In many ways, this passage is one which extends to the very limits of the theological thinking in the NT; but its aim was to persuade the Philippians to live a life in which disunity, discord, and personal ambition had no place
  • Paul says of Jesus that He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross
    • The great characteristics of Jesus’ life were humility, obedience, and self surrender
    • He wanted not to dominate men and women but only to server them; He wanted not His own way but only God’s way; He wanted not to exalt Himself but only to renounce all His glory for the sake of the world
    • If humility, obedience, and self surrender were the supreme characteristics of the life of Jesus, they must also be the hallmarks of Christians. Selfishness, self-seeking, and self-display destroy our likeness to Christ and our fellowship with each other
    • But the self surrender of Jesus brought Him the greater glory. It made certain that one day every living creature in all the universe—in heaven, earth, and even in hell—would worship Him
    • Jesus won the hearts of men and women, not by forcing them through His power, but by showing them a love they could not resist. At the sight of this person who set aside His glory for all people and loved them to the extent of dying for them on a cross, human hearts are melted and human resistance is broken down
    • When people worship Jesus, they fall at His feet in wondering love. They don’t say, “I cannot resist a might like that”, but “When I survey the wondrous cross…”, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.” Worship is founded not on fear, but on love
  • Further, Paul says that as a consequence of His sacrificial love, God gave Jesus the name which is above every name
    • One of the common biblical ideas is the giving of a new name to mark a new stage in a person’s life. Abram-Abraham, Jacob-Israel. The promise of the risen Christ to both Pergamum and Philadelphia is the promise of a new name
    • What then is the new name given to Jesus? We cannot be sure exactly what Paul was thinking, but most likely the new name is LORD
      • The great title by which Jesus came to be known in the early Church was kurios, LORD, which has an illuminating history
        • It began by meaning master or owner
        • It became the official title of the Roman emperors
        • It became the title of the Greek and Roman gods
        • It was the word by which the Hebrew Yahweh was translated in the Greek version of the OT
        • So when Jesus was called kurios, it meant that He was the Master and the Owner of all life; He was the King of Kings; He was the Lord in a way in which the gods of the old religions and the idols could never be; He was nothing less than divine
  • Philippians 2:11 is one of the most important verses in the NT. In it, we read that the aim of God is a day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
    • These four words were the first creed that the Christian Church ever had. To be a Christian was to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This was a simple creed, yet all embracing
    • Anyone who can say “For me, Jesus Christ is Lord” is a Christian. If we can say that, we mean that for us Jesus is unique and that we are prepared to give Him an obedience we are prepared to give no one else
  • So we come to the end of this passage; and when we come to the end, we come back to its beginning
    • The day will come when people will call Jesus Lord, but they will do so to the glory of God the Father. The whole aim of Jesus is not His own glory but God’s. Paul is clear about the lonely and ultimate supremacy of God
    • In I Corinthians  he writes that in the end the Son Himself shall be subject to the one who put all things in subjection under Him. Jesus draws men and women to Himself that He may draw them to God
    • In the Philippian church, there were some whose aim was to gratify the selfish ambition; the aim of Jesus was to serve others, no matter what depths of self-renunciation that service might involve
    • In the Philippian church, there were those whose aim was to focus people’s eyes upon themselves; the aim of Jesus was to focus people’s eyes upon God
  • So the followers of Christ must think always not of themselves but of others, not of their own glory but of the glory of God 

Philippians 1:12-30

• Philippians 1:12-14
• 12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. 14 Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.
  • Paul was a prisoner but far from his imprisonment ending his ministry, it actually expanded it for himself and others
    • In fact, the chains of his imprisonment actually destroyed the barriers
    • The word Paul uses for the advancement of the gospel is prokope; it is specially used for the progress of an army or an expedition. It is the noun from the verb prokoptein, which means to cut down in advance. It is the verb which is used for cutting away the trees and the undergrowth, and removing the barriers which would hinder the progress of an army. Paul’s imprisonment, far from shutting the door, opened the door to new spheres of work and activity into which he would never otherwise have penetrated
    • Paul, seeing that there was no justice for him in Palestine, appealed to Caesar, as every Roman citizen had the right to do. When he had arrived in Rome, he had been handed over to the captain of the guard and allowed to live by himself under the care of a soldier who was his guard. Ultimately, although still under guard, he had been allowed to have his own rented lodging which was open to all who cared to come see him
    • “Imperial guard” praitorion, “A body of people
      • The Praetorian Guard were the Imperial Guard of Rome. They had been set up by Augustus and were a Boyd of 10,000 select troops. Augustus had kept them supersede throughout Rome and neighboring towns. Tiberius had concentrated them in Rome in a specially built and fortified camp. Vitellius had increased their number to 16,000. They served for 12 and later 16 years. At the close of their term of service, they received the citizenship and a financial payment
        • They also became pretty much the emperor’s private bodyguard, and in the end they became a significant problem. They were concentrated in Rome, and there came a time when they became nothing less than king-makers; for it was their nominee who was made emperor every time, since they could impose their will by force if necessary. It was the captain of this imperial guard that Paul was handed over to when he arrived at Rome
  • Paul repeatedly refers to himself as a prisoner or being in chains.
    • He tells the Roman Christians that although he had done no wrong, he was delivered a prisoner into the hands of the Romans. In Philippians, he repeatedly speaks of his imprisonment. In Colossians, he speaks of bing in prison for the sake of Christ, and tells the Colossians to remember his chains. In Philemon, he calls himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and speaks of being imprisoned for the gospel. In Ephesians, he again calls himself the prisoner for Jesus Christ
  • There are two passages in which his imprisonment is more closely defined. In Acts 28:20, he speaks of himself as being bound with this chain; and he uses the same word in Ephesians 6:20, when he speaks of himself as an ambassador in chains
    • It is in this word (halusis) that we find our key. Halusis is a short length of chain by which the wrist of a prisoner was bound to the wrist of the soldier who was his guard, so that escape was impossible
    • Paul had been delivered to the captain of the guard to wait trial before the emperor. He had been allowed to arranged a private lodging for himself; but night and day in that private lodging there was a soldier to guard him, a soldier to whom he was chained by his halusis all the time
    • These soldiers would be rotated and assigned the duty of guarding Paul and in the two years one by one the guardsmen of the Imperial Guard would be on duty with Paul. These soldiers would hear Paul preach and talk to his friends. Paul would open up a discussion about Jesus with the soldier to whose wrist he was chained
  • His imprisonment had opened the way for preaching the gospel to the finest regiment in the Roman army. No wonder he declared that his imprisonment had actually been for the furtherance of the gospel. All the guard knew why Paul was in prison; many of them were touched for Christ; and the very sight of this gave the Christians at Philippi courage to preach the gospel and to witness for Christ
  • Paul’s chains had removed the barriers and given him access to the finest section of the Roman army, and his imprisonment had been the medicine of courage to the Christian men and women at Philippi
• Philippians 1:15-18
• 15 To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will. 16 These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; 17 the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment. 18 What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice
  • Here Paul is speaking from the heart. His imprisonment has been an incentive to preaching. That incentive worked two ways
    • There were those who loved him; and when they saw him in prison, they doubled their efforts to spread the gospel, so that it would lose nothing because of his imprisonment
    • But others were moved by what Paul calls eritheia, and preached for their own biased motives
      • Originally, it simply meant working for pay. But anyone who works solely for pay works from a low motive. Such a person is out solely for personal benefit. The word came to describe someone who was chiefly interested in developing a career, seeking office merely for self-improvement; and so it came to be connected with politics and to mean canvassing for office. It came to describe self-seeking and selfish ambition, which was out to advance itself and did not care to what methods it stooped to achieve its ends. 
      • So there were those who preached even harder now that Paul was in prison because they viewed it as a heaven-sent opportunity to advance their own influence and prestige and to lessen his
  • There is a lesson for us here. Paul knew nothing of personal jealousy or of personal resentment. As long as Jesus Christ  was being preached, he did not care who received credit and the honor
    • I think that’s one of the biggest reasons this temporary combination between Common Ground and North Boulevard has worked as well as it has. There’s no ego between R-Kay and I. As long as Christ is being glorified and preached, that’s all we really care about.
• Philippians 1:19-20
• 19 because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ. 20 My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
  • It is Paul’s conviction that the situation in which he finds himself will result in his salvation. Even his imprisonment, and even the almost hostile preaching of his personal enemies, will in the end turn out to be his salvation. What does he mean by his salvation? The Greek is soteria, which has three possible meanings
    • It may mean safety, in which case Paul will be saying that he is quite sure that the matter will end in his release. But that can hardly be the meaning here, since Paul goes on to say that he isn’t sure whether he will live or die
    • It may mean his salvation in heaven. In that case, Paul would be saying that his conduct in the opportunity which this situation provides will be his witness in the day of judgement
      • In any situation of opportunity or challenge, we are acting not only for the present time but also for eternity. Our reaction to every situation in time is a witness for or against us in eternity
    • Soteria may have a wider meaning than either of these
      • It can mean health, general wellbeing. Paul may well be saying that all that is happening to him in this very difficult situation is the best thing for him both in the present and in eternity
      • In this situation Paul knows that he has two great supports
        • He has the support of the prayers of his friends
          • Paul was never too full of his own importance to remember that he needed the prayers of his friends. He never talked to people as if he could do everything and they could do nothing; he always remembered that neither he, nor they, could do anything without the help of God
          • When people are in sorrow, one of their greatest comforts is the awareness that others are bearing them to the throne of grace. When they have to face some back breaking effort or some heartbreaking decision, there is new strength n remembering that others are remembering them before God. When they go into new places and are far from home, they are upheld in the knowledge that the prayers of those who love them are crossing continents to bring them before the throne of grace. We cannot call people our friends unless we pray for them (Toes stepped on)
        • Paul knows that he has the support of the Holy Spirit
          • The presence of the Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of the promise of Jesus that He will be with us to the end of the world
          • In all this situation, Paul has one expectation and one hope. The word he uses for expectation is vivid and unusual; no one uses it before Paul, and he may well have coined it
            • Apokaradokia
              • Apo means away from
              • Kara means the head
              • Dokein means to look
              • Together, apokaradokia means the eager, intense look, which turns away from everything else to fix on the one object of desire
            • Paul’s hope is that he will never be shamed into silence, either by cowardice or by a feeling of ineffectiveness. Paul is certain that in Christ he will find courage never to be ashamed of the gospel, and that through Christ his labors will be made effective for all to see. To speak the truth with boldness is not only the privilege of the servants of Christ; it is also our duty 
  • So, if Paul courageously and effective seizes his opportunity, Christ will be glorified in him
    • It does not matter how things go with him. If he dies, he will receive the martyr’s crown; if he lives, he will have the privilege of still preaching and witnessing for Christ
    • Here is the terrible responsibility of all Christians; once we have chosen Christ, by our lives and our conduct we bring either glory or shame on HIm. Leaders are judged by their followers; and Christ is judged by us
• Philippians 1:21-26
• 21 For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. 23 I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. 25 Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that, because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.
  • Since Paul was in prison waiting for his trial, he had to face the fact that it was quite uncertain whether he would live or die—and to him it made no difference
    • To live is Christ; For Paul, Christ had been the beginning of live, for on that day on the Damascus road it was as if he had begun life all over again. Christ had been the continuing of life; there had never been a day when Paul had not lived in his presence, and in the scary moments Christ had been there to tell him not to be afraid. Christ was the end of life, for it was toward His eternal presence that life always led. Christ was the inspiration of life; He was the dynamic of life
      • To Paul, Christ had give the task of life, for it was He who had made him an apostle and sent him out as the missionary to the Gentiles. To him, Christ had given the strength for life, for it was Christ’s all sufficient grace that was made perfect in Paul’s weakness. For him, Christ was the reward of life, for to Paul the only worthwhile reward was closer fellowship with his Lord. If Christ were to be taken out of life, for Paul there would  be nothing left
    • To die is gain: Death was entrance into Christ’s nearer presence
      • Paul thought of death as an immediate entry into the presence of his Lord. If we believe in Jesus Christ, death for us is union and reunion, union with Him and reunion with those whom we have loved and lost
  • The result was that Paul was wavering between two desires
    • I am torn between the two; The word he uses is senechomai, the word which would be used of a traveller in a narrow passage, with a wall of rock on either side, unable to turn off in any direction and able only to go straight on. For himself, he wanted to depart and to be with Christ; for the sake of his friends and of what he could do with them and for them, he wanted to be left in this life. Then comes the thought that the choice is not his but God’s
  • I long to depart and be with Christ: The word he uses for depart is analuein
    • It is the word for breaking up a camp, loosening the tent ropes, pulling up the tent pegs and moving on
      • Death is a moving on. Each day is a day’s march nearer home until camp in this world s finally dismantled and exchanged for permanent residence in the world of glory
    • It is the word for loosening the anchor ropes, pulling up the anchors, and setting sail
      • Death is a setting sail, a departure on that voyage which leads to the everlasting haven and to God
    • It is the word for loving problems
      • Death brings life’s solutions. There is some place where all earth’s questions will be answered and where those who have waited will in the end understand
  • It is Paul’s conviction that he will remain and continue with them
    • There is a word play in the Greek that can’t be reproduced in the English
      • Remain in menein, and to continue is paramenein
      • The point is this: menein simply means to remain with; but paramenein means to wait beside a person, always ready to help. 
    • Paul’s desire to live is not for his own sake, but for the sake of those whom he can continue to help
  • So if Paul is spared to come see them again, they will have in him grounds to boast in Jesus Christ. That is to say, they will be able to look at him and see in this a shining example of how, through Christ, they can face the worst standing tall and unafraid. It is the duty of every Christian to trust in this way so that others will be able to see what Christ can do for those who have given their lives to Him
• Philippians 1:27-30
• 27 Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel, 28 not being frightened in any way by your opponents. This is a sign of destruction for them, but of your salvation—and this is from God. 29 For it has been granted to you on Christ’s behalf not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, 30 since you are engaged in the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I have.
  • One thing is essential—no matter what happens either to them or to Paul, the Philippians must live in a manner that is worthy of their faith and the belief they declare
  • Live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ: Paul uses a word he very rarely uses in order to express his meaning. The word he would normally use for living in the ordinary affaires of life literally means to walk about. Here he uses the word which means to be a citizen.
    • Paul was writing forms eh ver center of the Roman Empire, from Rome itself; it was the fact that he was a Roman citizen that had brought him there. Philippi was a Roman colony; and Roman colonies were little bits of Rome planted through the world, where the citizens never forgot that they were Romans
    • What Paul is saying is; “You and I know full well the privileges and responsibilities of being a Roman citizen. You know full well how even in Philippi you must still live and act as a Roman does. Well then, remember that you have an even higher duty than that. Wherever you are, you must live as a citizen of the kingdom of God”
  • What does Paul expect from them?
    • He expects them to stand fast. The world is full of Christians on the retreat, who when things become difficult, play down their Christianity. True Christians stand fast, unashamed in any company
    • He expects unity; they are to be bound together in one spirit
    • He expects a certain unconquerability; Often evil seems invincible; but Christians must never abandon hope or give up the struggle
    • He expects a cool, calm courage; In times of crisis, others may be nervous and afraid; Christians will still be serene, in control of themselves and the situation
  • If they can be like that, they will set such an example that those who are not Christians will be disgusted with their own way of life, will realized that the Christians have something they do not possess, and will seek out of a sense of self preservation to share it
  • Paul doe not suggest that this will be easy
    • When Christianity first came to Philippi, they saw him fight his own battle. They saw him beaten and imprisoned for the faith. They know what he is now going through.
    • But let them remember that a general chooses the best soldiers for the hardest tasks, and that it is an honor to suffer for Christ
    • There is a story about a veteran French soldier, who in a desperate situation, found a young recruit trembling with fear. “Come son,” said the veteran, “and you and I will do something fine for France.”
    • So Paul says to the Philippians; “For you and me the battle is on; let us do something fine for Christ.”

Intro to Philippians

• Introduction to Philippians (Notes from Christian Standard Bible Study Bible Richard R. Melick Jr., “Philippians,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1882.)
• author: Paul the apostle wrote this short letter, a fact that no scholar seriously questions.
• background: The traditional date for the writing of Philippians is during Paul’s first Roman imprisonment (AD 60–62); few have challenged this conclusion. Paul planted the church at Philippi during his second missionary journey (AD 50) in response to his “Macedonian vision” (Ac 16:9–10). This was the first church in Europe (Ac 16).
  • The text of this letter from Paul suggests several characteristics of the church at Philippi. First, Gentiles predominated. Few Jews lived in Philippi, and, apparently, the church had few. Second, women had a significant role (Ac 16:11–15; Php 4:1–2). Third, the church was generous. Fourth, they remained deeply loyal to Paul.
  • Philippi, the ancient city of Krenides, had a military significance. It was the capital of Alexander the Great, who renamed it for his father Philip of Macedon, and it became the capital of the Greek Empire (332 BC). The Romans conquered Greece, and in the civil war after Julius Caesar’s death (44 BC), Antony and Octavius repopulated Philippi by allowing the defeated armies (Brutus and Cassius) to settle there (eight hundred miles from Rome). They declared the city a Roman colony. It flourished, proud of its history and entrenched in Roman political and social life. In his epistle to the Philippians, Paul alludes to military and political structures as metaphors for the church.
  • Paul thanked the church for their financial support (4:10–20). He also addressed disunity and the threat of heresy. Disunity threatened the church, spawned by personal conflicts (4:2) and disagreements over theology (3:1–16). The heresy came from radical Jewish teachers. Paul addressed both issues personally and warmly.
  • The church at Philippi sent Epaphroditus to help Paul in Rome. While there he became ill (2:25–28). The church learned of Epaphroditus’s illness, and Paul wished to ease their concern for him. Some people possibly blamed Epaphroditus for failing his commission, but Paul commended him and sent him home. Perhaps Epaphroditus carried this letter with him.
• message and purpose
  • One purpose of this letter was for Paul to explain his situation at Rome (1:12–26). Although he was concerned about the divided Christian community at Rome, his outlook was strengthened by the knowledge that Christ was being magnified. Paul’s theology of life formed the basis of his optimism. Whether he lived or died, whether he continued his service to others or went to be in Christ’s presence, or whether he was appreciated or not, he wanted Christ to be glorified. Within this explanation are several messages.
  • unity: Paul exhorted the church to unity (1:27–2:18). Two factors influenced him. The church at Rome was divided, and he lived with a daily reminder of the effects of disunity. Further, similar disunity threatened the Philippian church as two prominent women differed with each other. Selfishness lay at the heart of the problems at Rome and Philippi. Paul reminded the believers of the humility of Jesus. If they would allow the outlook of Christ to guide their lives, harmony would be restored. The hymn to Christ (2:5–11) is pivotal to the epistle.
    • Christian unity results when individuals develop the mind of Christ. In more difficult situations, the church collectively solved problems through the involvement of its leadership (4:2–3). Harmony, joy, and peace characterize the church that functions as it should.
  • freedom from legalism: Paul warned the church to beware of Jewish legalists (3:2–21). Legalistic Jewish teachers threatened to destroy the vitality of the congregation by calling it to a preoccupation with external religious matters. Paul countered the legalists with a forceful teaching about justification by faith. He chose to express his theology through his personal experience. He had personal experience with their message and found it lacking.
  • salvation: Salvation was provided by Christ, who became obedient to death (2:6–8). It was proclaimed by a host of preachers who were anxious to advance the gospel. It was promoted through varying circumstances of life—both good and bad—so that the lives of believers became powerful witnesses. Finally, salvation would transform Christians and churches into models of spiritual life.
  • stewardship: Paul thanked the Philippian believers for their financial support. The church had sent money and a trusted servant, Epaphroditus, to care for Paul. Their generosity encouraged Paul at a time of personal need, and he took the opportunity to express the rewards of giving and to teach Christian living.
    • The church at Philippi had reached a maturity regarding material possessions. It knew how to give out of poverty. It knew the value of supporting the gospel and those who proclaim it, and it knew that God could provide for its needs as well. Paul also demonstrated his attitude toward material things. He could maintain spiritual equilibrium in the midst of fluctuating financial circumstances. Christ was his life, and Christ’s provisions were all he needed. In everything, Paul’s joy was that Christ was glorified in him.
  • imitation: The epistle abounds with Christian models for imitation. Most obviously, the church was to imitate Jesus, but other genuine Christians also merited appreciation. Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus embodied the selflessness that God desires in his people.
• contribution to the bible
  • Paul’s letter to the Philippians teaches us much about genuine Christianity. While most of its themes may be found elsewhere in Scripture, it is within this letter that we can see how those themes and messages impact life. Within the NT, Philippians contributes to our understanding of Christian commitment and what it means to be Christlike.
• structure
  • Philippians can be divided into four primary sections. Paul had definite concerns that he wanted to express, and he also wrote to warn about false teachers who threatened the church. Many of Paul’s letters can be divided into theological and practical sections, but Philippians does not follow that pattern. Paul’s theological instruction is woven throughout the fabric of a highly personal letter.
    • outline
      • I. Salutation (1:1–2)
      • II. Explanation of Paul’s Concerns (1:3–2:30)
        • A. Paul’s thanksgiving and prayer (1:3–11)
        • B. Paul’s joy in the progress of the gospel (1:12–26)
        • C. Exhortation to Christlike character (1:27–2:18)
        • D. Paul’s future plans (2:19–30)
      • III. Exhortations to Christian Living (3:1–4:9)
        • A. Exhortations to avoid false teachers (3:1–21)
        • B. Miscellaneous exhortations (4:1–9)
      • IV. Expression of Thanks and Conclusion (4:10–23)
        • A. Repeated thanks (4:10–20)
        • B. Greetings and benediction (4:21–23)
• Introduction Continued (Background and History from William Barclay’s The New Daily Study Bible: The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians)
• Philippi
  • When Paul chose a place in which to preach the gospel, he alway did so with the eye of a strategist. He always chose one with was not only important in itself but was also the key point of a whole area. To this day, many of Paul’s preaching centers are still great road centers and railway junctions. Such was Philippi, which had at least three great claims to distinction
    • In the area, there were gold and silver mines, which had been worked as far back as the time of the Phoenicians
      • By this time, these mines had been exhausted, but they had made Philippi a great commercial center of the ancient world
    • The city had been founded by Philip, the father of Alexander the Great; and it is his name that it bears
      • It was founded on the site of an ancient city called Krenides, a name which means the Wells or Fountains
      • Philip had founded Philippi in 368 BC because there was no more strategic site in all Europe. There is a range of hills which divides Europe from Asia, east from west; and at Philippi that chain of hills dips into a pass, so that the city commanded the road from Europe to Asia, since the road had to go through the pass
      • This was the reason that one of the great battles of history was fought at Philippi; for it was here that Antony defeated Brits and Cassius, and thereby decided the future of the Roman Empire
    • Not very long after this, Philippi was raised to the status of a Roman colony
      • The Roman colonies were amazing institutions. They were not colonies in the sense of being outposts of civilization in unexplored parts of the world. They had begun by having a military significance. It was the custom of Rome to send out parties of veteran soldiers, who had served their time and been granted citizenship, to settle in strategic road centers
      • These colonies were the focal points of the great Roman road systems, which were so engineered that reinforcements could speedily be sent from one colony to another. They were founded to keep the peace and to command the strategic centers in Rome’s far reaching empire
      • At first they had been founded in Italy, but soon they were scattered throughout the whole empire, as the empire grew. In later days, the title of colony was given by the government to any city which it wished to honor for faithful service
      • Wherever they were, these colonies were little fragments of Rome, and their pride in their Roman citizenship was their dominating characteristic
        • The Roman language was spoken; Roman-style clothes were worn; Roman customs were observed; their magistrates had Roman titles, and carried out the same ceremonies as were carried out in Rome itself. They were stubbornly and unalterably Roman and would never have dreamt of becoming assimilated to the people among whom they were set
        • We can hear the Roman pride breathing through the charge against Paul and Silas in Acts 16:20-21
        • 20 Bringing them before the chief magistrates, they said, “These men are seriously disturbing our city. They are Jews 21 and are promoting customs that are not legal for us as Romans to adopt or practice.”
        • Philippians 3:20: Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
          • Another way of translating that is that you are a colony of heaven…Just as the Roman colonists never forgot in any environment that they were Romans, so the Philippians must never forget in any society that they were Christians. Nowhere were people prouder of being Roman citizens than in these colonies; and Philippi was one such colony
• Paul and Philippi
  • It was on the second missionary journey that Paul first came to Philippi
    • Acts 16:6-15: 6 They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia; they had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 When they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 8 Passing by Mysia they went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision in which a Macedonian man was standing and pleading with him, “Cross over to Macedonia and help us!” 10 After he had seen the vision, we immediately made efforts to set out for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. 11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, the next day to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, a Roman colony and a leading city of the district of Macedonia. We stayed in that city for several days. 13 On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate by the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the women gathered there. 14 A God-fearing woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, was listening. The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. 15 After she and her household were baptized, she urged us, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
    • The story of Paul’s stay in Philippi is told in Acts 16 and centers around three characters
      • Lydia that we just read about
        • Lydia was from Asia, and her nam may well be not a proper name but simply “the Lydian lady”. She was the dealer in purple, on of the most costly substances in the ancient world, and was the equivalent of a merchant prince (Merchant of great wealth)
      • The demon possessed slave girl
        • The slave girl was a native Greek. The girl was a lave and therefore in the eyes of the law not a person at all, but a living tool
      • The Roman jailer
        • The jailer was a Roman citizen. The jailer was a Roman citizen, a member of the sturdy Roman middle class, from which the civil service was drawn
      • The whole empire was being gathered into the Christian Church. In these three, the top, bottom, and the middle of society are all represented. No chapter in the Bible shows so well the all-embracing faith which Christ brought to men and women
• Persecution
  • Paul had to leave Philippi after a storm of persecution and illegal imprisonment. That persecution was inherited by the Philippian church
  • He tells them that they have shared in his imprisonment and in his defense of the gospel (1:7). He tells them no tot fear their adversaries, for they are going through what he himself has gone through and is not enduring (1:28-30)
• True Friendship
  • There had grown up between Paul and the Philippian church a bond of friendship closer than that which existed between him and nay other church. It was his proud boast that he had never taken help from any individual or from any church, and that, with his own two hands, he had provided for his needs. 
  • It was from the Philippians alone that he had agreed to accept a gift. Soon after he left them and moved on to Thessalonica, they sent him a present (4:16). When he moved on and arrived in Corinth by way of Athens, once again they were the only ones who remembered him with their gifts (II Cor. 11:9)
• The Reason for Writing the Letter
  • When Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison in Rome, and he wrote with certain definite aims
    • It is a letter of thanks
      • The years have passed; it is now AD 63 or 64, and once again, the Philippians have sent him a gift (4:10-11)
    • It has to do with Epaphroditus
      • It seems that the Philippians had sent him not only as a bearer of their gift, but that he might stay with Paul and be his personal servant. But he Epaphroditus had become ill. He was homesick, and he was worried because he knew that the people at home were worried about him
      • Paul sent him home; but he had the unhappy feeling that the people in Philippi might think of Epaphroditus as a quitter, so he goes out of his way to give him a testimonial
        • Philippians 2:29-30: 29 Therefore, welcome him in the Lord with great joy and hold people like him in honor, 30 because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me.
      • There is something very moving in the sight of Paul, himself in prison and awaiting death, seeking to make things easier for Epaphroditus, when he was unexpectedly and unwillingly compelled to go home
    • It is a letter of encouragement to the Philippians in the trials which they are going through (1:28-30)
    • It is an appeal fro unity, from which rises the great passage which speaks of the selfless humility of Jesus Christ (2:1-11)
      • In the church a Philippi, there were two women who had quarreled and were endangering the peace (4:2); and there were false teachers who were seeking to lure the Philippians from the true path (3:2). This letter is an appeal to maintain the unity of the Church

Mark 15:33-16:20

• Mark 15:33-41
• 33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni?” which is translated,“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” 35 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “See, he’s calling for Elijah.” 36 Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, fixed it on a stick, offered him a drink, and said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down.” 37 Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 When the centurion, who was standing opposite him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” 40 There were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 In Galilee these women followed him and took care of him. Many other women had come up with him to Jerusalem.
  • Here comes the last scene of all, a scene so terrible that the sky was unnaturally dark and it seemed that even nature couldn’t bear to look upon what was happening
  • Let’s look at the characters present
    • There was Jesus, who said two things that Mark recorded
      • He uttered the terrible cry, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
        • Jesus had taken this life of ours upon Him. He had done our work and face our temptations and our trials. He had suffered all that life could bring. He had known the failure of friends, the hatred of foes, the malice of enemies. He had known the most searing pain that life could offer. Up to this moment Jesus had gone through every experience of life except one—He had never known the consequence of sin. Now if there is one thing sin does, it separates us from God. It puts between us and God a barrier like an unscalable wall. That was the one human experience through which Jesus had never passed because He was without sin.
        • At this moment that experience came upon Him—not because He had sinned, but because in order to be identified completely with our humanity He had to go through it. In this terrible, grim, bleak moment, Jesus really and truly identified Himself with human sin. Here we have the divine paradox—Jesus knew what it was to be a sinner. And this experience must have been doubly agonizing for Jesus, because He had never known what it was to be separated form God by this barrier
        • That is why he can understand our situation so well. That is why we need never fear to go to Him when sin cuts us off from God. Because He has gone through it, He can help others who are going through it. There is no depth of human experience which Christ has not experienced
      • He let out a great cry
        • Both Matthew and Luke tell of it. John does not mention the shout but tells us that Jesus died having said, “It is finished.” In the Greek that would be one word; and that one word was the great shout. FINISHED! Jesus died with the cry of triumph on His lips, His task accomplished, His work completed, His victory won. After the terrible day there came the light again, and He went home to God a victor triumphant
    • There was the bystander who wished to see if Elijah would come. He had a kind of morbid curiosity in the face of the cross. The whole terrible scene did not move him to awe or reverence or even pity. He wanted to experiment while Jesus died
    • There was the centurion.
      • A seasoned Roman soldier. He would have been the equivalent of a regimental sergeant-major. He had fought in many a campaign and he had seen many men die. But he had never seen men die like this and he was sure that Jesus was the Son of God. If Jesus had lived on and taught and helped He might have attracted many, but it is the cross which speaks straight to the heart of men and women
    • There were the women in the distance
      • They were bewildered, heartbroken, drenched in sorrow—but they were there. They loved so much that they could not leave Him. Love clings to Christ even when the intellect cannot understand. It is only love which can give us a hold on Christ that even the most bewildering experiences cannot break
  • There is one other thing to note
    • The curtain of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. This was the curtain which shut off the Holy of Holies, into which no one might go. Symbolically that tells us two things
      • The way to God was now wide open. Into the Holy of Holies only the high priest could go, and he only once a year on the Day of Atonement. But now, the curtain was torn and the way to God was wide open to everyone
      • Within the Holy of Holies dwelt the very essence of God. Now with the death of Jesus the curtain which hid God was torn and He could be seen face to face. No longer was God hidden. There was no longer any need to guess and grope. Anyone who looked at Jesus could say this is what God is like. God loves me like that
• Mark 15:42-47
• 42 When it was already evening, because it was the day of preparation (that is, the day before the Sabbath), 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who was himself looking forward to the kingdom of God, came and boldly went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body. 44 Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had already died. 45 When he found out from the centurion, he gave the corpse to Joseph. 46 After he bought some linen cloth, Joseph took him down and wrapped him in the linen. Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid.
  • Jesus died at 3 pm on Friday and the next day was the Sabbath. We have already seen that the new day started at 6 pm. Therefore when Jesus died, it was already the time of preparation for the Sabbath, and there was very little time to waste, for after 6 the Sabbath law would kick in and no work could be done
  • Joseph of Arimathea acted quickly. It recently happened that the bodies of criminals were never buried at all, but were simply taken down and left for the vultures and the scavenging wild dogs to deal with. In fact it has been suggested that Golgotha may have been called the place of the skull because it was littered with skulls from previous crucifixions. 
  • Joseph went to Pilate. It often happened that criminals hung for days on the crosses before they died, and Pilate was amazed that Jesus was dead only six hours after ha had been crucified. But when he had check the facts with the centurion, he Gove the body to Joseph
  • Joseph is a curious case
    • It may well be that it is from Joseph that all the information came about the trial before the Sanhedrin. Certainly none of the disciples were there. There information must have come from sone member of the Sanhedrin, and it is probably that Joseph was the one. If that is so, he had a very real share in the writing of the gospel story
    • There is a certain tragedy about Joseph. He was a member of the Sanhedrin and yet we have no hint that he spoke one word in Jesus’ favor or intervened in any way on His behalf. Joseph is the man who gave Jesus a tomb when He was dead but was silent when He was alive. It is one of the commonest tragedies of life that we keep our wreaths for people’s graves and our praises until they are dead. It would be infinitely better to give them some of these flowers and some of these words of gratitude when they are still alive
    • But we cannot blame Joseph too much, for he was another of those people fro whom the cross ddid what not even the life of Jesus could do. When he had seen Jesus alive, he had felt His attraction but had gone no further. But when he saw Jesus die—and he must have been present at the crucifixion—his heart was broken in love. First the centurion, then Joseph—it is an amazing thing how soon Jesus’ words came true that when He was lifted up from the earth He would draw all people to Himself (John 12:32)
• Mark 16:1-8
• When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise. 3 They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?” 4 Looking up, they noticed that the stone—which was very large—had been rolled away. 5 When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he told them. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there just as he told you.’” 8 They went out and ran from the tomb, because trembling and astonishment overwhelmed them. And they said nothing to anyone, since they were afraid.
  • There had not been time to fully prepare Jesus’ body for burial
  • The Sabbath had begun, and the women who wished to anoint the body had not been able to do so. As early as possible after the Sabbath, they set out to perform this task
  • They were concerned about moving the heavy stone that sealed the tomb, because it would have been too heavy for them
  • But when they arrived, they found the stone rolled away, and inside was a messenger who gave them the unbelievable news that Jesus had risen from the dead
  • One thing is certain—if Jesus had not risen from the dead, we would have never heard of Him. The attitude of the women was that they had come to pay the last tribute to a dead body. The attitude of the disciples was that everything had finished in tragedy. By far the best proof of the resurrection is the existence of the Christian Church. Nothing else could have changed sad and despairing men and women into people radiant with joy and aflame with courage. The resurrection is the central fact of the the whole Christian faith. Because we believe in the resurrection certain things follow
    • Jesus is not a figure in a book but a living presence. It is not enough to study the story of Jesus like the life of any other great historical figure. We may begin that way but we must end by meeting Him
    • Jesus is not a memory but a presence. The dearest memory fades. The Greeks had a word to describe time meaning time which wipes all things out. Long since, time would have wiped out the memory of Jesus unless He had been a living presence forever with us. Jesus is not someone to discuss so much as someone to meet
    • The Christian life is not a matter of knowing about Jesus, but of knowing Jesus. There is all the difference in the world between knowing about a person and knowing a person. Most people know about the King of England or the President of the United States but not so many know them. The greatest scholar in the world who knows everything about Jesus is less than the humblest Christian who knows Him
    • There is an endless quality about the Christian faith. It should never stand still. Because our Lord is a living Lord there are new wonders and new truths waiting to be discovered all the time
  • But eh most precious thing in this passage is in two words which are in no other gospel. But go, tell His disciples and Peter
  • Barclay and I differ on our thoughts on this
    • Barclay thinks this must have cheered Peter up, because he was still being tortured with the memory of denying Jesus, and Jesus singles him out
    • I think there is a little more to it than that. Peter is still dealing with his denial. And doesn’t feel himself worthy of being a disciple. Jesus singles him out and doesn’t include him with the disciples. I think this is Jesus allowing Peter to continue to feel the pain of that denial for a little while longer, before, in John’s account, we see Jesus specifically reinstate Peter. He doesn’t do this to be mean to Peter, but to help drive home the lesson of faithfulness, but also of grace. And Peter learned it well.
• Mark 16:9-20
• [9 Early on the first day of the week, after he had risen, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and reported to those who had been with him, as they were mourning and weeping. 11 Yet, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe it. 12 After this, he appeared in a different form to two of them walking on their way into the country. 13 And they went and reported it to the rest, who did not believe them either. 14 Later he appeared to the Eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table. He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who saw him after he had risen. 15 Then he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes; if they should drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.” 19 So the Lord Jesus, after speaking to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the accompanying signs.]
  • In the introduction, many months ago, we talked about Mark really ending at verse 8. We only have to read this passage to see how different it is from the rest of the gospel, and it appears in none of the great manuscripts of the gospel. It is a later summary which replaces the ending which either Mark did not live to write or was lost at some point
  • Its great interest is the picture of the duty of the Church that it gives to us. Whoever wrote this concluding section obviously believed that the Church had certain tasks committed to it by Jesus
    • The Church has a preaching task. It is the duty of the church, and that means it is the duty of every christian, to tell the story of the good news of Jesus to those who have never heard it. The Christian duty is to be the herald of Jesus 
    • The Church has a healing task. Here is a face the have seen again and again. Christianity is concerned with bodies as well as minds. Jesus wished to bring health to the body and health to the soul
    • The Church has a source of power. We need not take everything literally. We need not think that the Christian is literally to have the power to pick up venomous snakes and drink poisonous liquids and come to no harm. But at the back of this picturesque language is the conviction that the Christian is filled with a power to cope with life that others do not possess
    • The Church is never left alone to do its work. Always Christ works with it and in it and through it. The Lord of the Church is still in the Church and is still the Lord of power
• And so the gospel finished with the message that the Christian life is lived in the presence and the power of Him who was crucified and rose again

Mark 15:1-32

• Mark 15:1-5
• As soon as it was morning, having held a meeting with the elders, scribes, and the whole Sanhedrin, the chief priests tied Jesus up, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. 2 So Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.” 3 And the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 Pilate questioned him again, “Aren’t you going to answer? Look how many things they are accusing you of!” 5 But Jesus still did not answer, and so Pilate was amazed.
  • As soon as it was light, the Sanhedrin met to confirm the conclusions they had arrived at during their unlawful meeting in the night. They themselves had no power to carry out the death penalty. That had to be imposed by the Roman governor and carried out by the Roman authorities
  • It is from Luke that we learn how deep and determined the bitter malice of the Jews was. As we have seen, the charge at which they ad arrived was one of blasphemy. But that was not the charge on which they Brough Jesus before Pilate. They knew all that Pilate would have had nothing to do with what he would have considered a Jewish religious argument. When they Brough Jesus to him they charged him with perverting the people, forbidding them to give tribute to Caesar and calling Himself a king. They had to evolve a political charge or Pilate would not have listened. They knew the charge was a lie—and so did Pilate
  • Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
    • Jesus gave a strange answer. He said, “You say so.”
    • Jesus didn’t give a yes or no answer. What He basically said was, “I may have claimed to be the King of the Jews, but you know ver well that the interpretation that my accusers are putting on that claim in not my interpretation. I am no political revolutionary. My kingdom is a kingdom of love.”
    • Pilate went on to question Jesus more, and the Jewish authorities went on to multiply their charges—and Jesus remained silent
  • There is a time when silence is more eloquent than words, for silence can say things that words can never say
    • There is the silence of wondering admiration
      • It is a compliment for any performance or oration to be greeted with thunderous applause, but it is still a greater compliment for it to be greeted with a hushed silence which knows that applause would be out of place
      • The Passion of the Christ
    • There is the silence of contempt
      • It is possible to greet someone’s statements or arguments or excuses with a silence which shows they are not worth answering. 
    • There is the silence of fear
      • People may remain silent for no other reason than that they are afraid to speak
      • The cowardice of their souls may stope them from saying the things they know they ought to say
    • There is the silence of the heart that is hurt
      • When people have been really wounded they do not break into protests and recriminations and angry words. The deepest sorrow is a dumb sorrow, which is past anger and past rebuke and past anything that speech can say, and which can only silently look its grief
    • There is the silence of tragedy
      • That is silent because there is nothing to be said
      • Barclay claims this is why Jesus was silent. He knew there could be no bridge between Himself and the Jewish leaders. He knew that there was noting in Pilate to which He could ultimately appeal. It is a terrible thing when a person’s heart is such that even Jesus knows it is hopeless to speak
      • I would argue that Jesus was actually silent not because it was hopeless, but because He was on the correct path. He had to go to the cross, and to answer the charges against Him here would have been counterintuitive
• Mark 15:6-15
• 6 At the festival Pilate used to release for the people a prisoner whom they requested. 7 There was one named Barabbas, who was in prison with rebels who had committed murder during the rebellion. 8 The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them as was his custom. 9 Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to release the king of the Jews for you?” 10 For he knew it was because of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd so that he would release Barabbas to them instead. 12 Pilate asked them again, “Then what do you want me to do with the one you call the king of the Jews?” 13 Again they shouted, “Crucify him!” 14 Pilate said to them, “Why? What has he done wrong?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” 15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them; and after having Jesus flogged, he handed him over to be crucified.
  • We don’t know anything about Barrabas outside of the gospel narratives. He was not a thief, he was murderer and a leader in the rebellions
  • Palestine was filled with insurrections. There was one group of Jews called the Sicarii, which means the dagger-bearers, who were violent, fanatical nationalists. They were pledged to murder and assassination. They carried their daggers beneath their cloaks and used them as they could. It is very likely that Barabbas was a man like that, and, thug though he was, he was a brave man, a patriot, and it is understandable that he was popular with the mob
  • People have always felt it a mystery that less than a week after the crowd was shouting a welcome when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, they were now shrieking for His crucifixion. There is no really mystery. The reason is quiet simply that this was a different crowd. Think of the arrest. It was deliberately secret. True, the disciples fled and must have spread the news, but they could not have known that the Sanhedrin was going to violate its own laws and carry out a trial by night. There can have been very few of Jesus’ supporters in that crowd. It was not necessarily that the crowd was fickly, but that it was a different crowd
  • Nonetheless they had a choice to make. Confronted with Jesus and Barabbas, they chose Barabbas
    • They chose lawlessness instead of law
      • They chose the law-breaker instead of Jesus
    • They chose war instead of peace
      • They chose the man of blood instead of the Prince of Peace
      • In almost 3,000 years of history there have been less than 130 years where there has not been a war raging somewhere
    • They chose hatred and violence instead of love
      • Barabbas and Jesus stood for two different ways
      • Barabbas stood for the heart of hate, the stab of the dagger, the violence of bitterness
      • Jesus stood for the way of love
      • As so often happens, hate reigned supreme in human hearts, and love was rejected. The people insisted on taking their own way to conquest, and refused to see that the only true conquest was the conquest of love
  • There can be hidden tragedy in a word
    • After having Jesus flogged is one word in the Greek. The Roman scourge is a terrible thing. The criminal was bent and bound in such a way that his back was exposed. The scourge was a long leather whip, studded here and there with sharpened pieces of lead and bits of bone. It literally tore a man’s back to shreds. Sometimes it tore a man’s eye out. Some men died under it. Some men emerged from the ordeal raving mad. Few retained consciousness through it. That is what they inflicted upon Jesus
• Mark 15:16-20
• 16 The soldiers led him away into the palace (that is, the governor’s residence) and called the whole company together. 17 They dressed him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 They were hitting him on the head with a stick and spitting on him. Getting down on their knees, they were paying him homage. 20 After they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple robe and put his clothes on him.
  • The Roman ritual of condemnation was fixed. The judged condemned the prisoner, turned him over to the soldiers while the cross was being prepared.
    • It was while the cross was being prepared that Jesus was in the hands of the soldiers
    • The Praetorium was the residence of the governor, his headquarters, and the solders involved would be the headquarter’s cohort of the guard. We would do well to remember that Jesus had already undergone the agony of the scourging before this mockery of the soldiers began
  • It may well be that of all that happened to Him this hurt Jesus least. The actions of the Jews had been venomous with hatred The consent of Pilate had been a cowardly evasion of responsibility. There was cruelty in the action of the soldiers, but no malice. To them Jesus was only another man for a cross, and they carried out their mockery not with any malice, but as a coarse jest
  • It was the beginning of much mockery to come. Always the christian was liable to be regarded as a jest. Scribbled on the walls of Pompeii, whose walls are still chalked with coarse jests today, there is a picture of a Christian kneeling before a donkey and below it scrawled the words, “Anaximenes worships is God.” If people ever make a jest of our Christianity, it will help to remember that they did it to Jesus in a way that is worse than anything likely to happen to us.
• Mark 15:21-28
• 21 They forced a man coming in from the country, who was passing by, to carry Jesus’s cross. He was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull.) 23 They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.24 Then they crucified him and divided his clothes, casting lots for them to decide what each would get. 25 Now it was nine in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge written against him was: The King of the Jews. 27 They crucified two criminals with him, one on his right and one on his left.
  • The routine of crucifixion did not alter. When the cross was prepared the criminal had to carry it to the place of execution. He was placed in the middle of a hollow square of four soldiers. In front marched a soldier carrying a board stating the crime of which the prisoner was guilty. The board was afterwards affixed to the cross. They took the longest way to the place of execution so that as many as possible should see and take warning. When they reached the place of crucifixion, the cross was laid flat on the ground. The prisoner was stretched upon it and nailed to it. The nails were usually driven through the wrists. The fee were not tailed but only loosely bound. Between the prisoner’s legs  projected a ledge of wood called the saddle, to take his weight when the cross was raised upright—otherwise the nails would have tor through the wrists. The cross was then lifted upright and set in its socket—and the criminal was left to die.
  • Sometimes prisoners hung for as long as a week, slowly dying of hunger and of thirst, suffering sometimes to the point of actual madness
  • Simon of Cyrene was forced into service to carry the cross. We don’t know all the details, but it appears that Simon was highly effected by this
    • Father of Alexander and Rufus, meaning that Mark expected his audience to recognize Simon this way
    • Romans 16:13 “Greet Rufus chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother—a mother to me also”
    • Acts 13:1 there is a list of men of Antioch who sent Paul and Barnabas out on their first missionary journey.
      • Simeon who was called Niger; Simeon is another name for Simon, and Niger was the regular name for a man of dark skin who came from Africa, which is were Cyrene was located
  • Jesus was offered wine mixed with myrrh to numb the pain, but He refused, going to the cross with full mental ability
  • The soldiers gambled for His clothing, fulfilling prophecy
• Mark 15:29-32
• 29 Those who passed by were yelling insults at him, shaking their heads, and saying, “Ha! The one who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 save yourself by coming down from the cross!” 31 In the same way, the chief priests with the scribes were mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! 32 Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, so that we may see and believe.” Even those who were crucified with him taunted him.
  • The Jewish leaders flung one more challenge at Him, basically saying, come off the cross and save yourself and we will believe
  • But to do so would have proved Jesus not to be the Messiah, because His death on the cross was necessary for salvation
  • Jesus went the whole way and died on the cross, and this means that there is literally no limit to God’s love, that there is nothing in all the universe which that love is not prepared to suffer for us, that there is nothing, not even death on a cross, with it will refuse to bear for us
  • When we look at the cross, Jesus is saying to us, “God loves you like that, with a love that is limitless, a love that will bear every suffering earth has to offer.”

Mark 14:27-52

• Mark 14:27-31
• 27 Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will fall away, because it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. 28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. 29 Peter told him, “Even if everyone falls away, I will not. 30 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to him, “today, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. 31 But he kept insisting, “If I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” And they all said the same thing.
  • It is a tremendous thing about Jesus that there was nothing for which He was not prepared
    • The opposition, the misunderstanding, the enmity of the orthodox religious people, the betrayal by one of His own inner circle, the pain and the agony of the cross—He was prepared for them all
    • But perhaps what hurt Him most was the failure of His friends
      • It is when we are up against it that we need our friends most, and that was exactly when Jesus’ friends left Him all alone and let Him down. There was nothing in the whole gamut of physical pain and mental torture that Jesus did not pass through
  • Jesus had supremely, more than anyone who has ever lived, this quality of fortitude, the ability to remain steadfast no matter what blows life assaulted Him with, this serenity when there was nothing but heartbreak behind and torture in front
    • Inevitably every now and then we find ourselves catching our breath at His heroism
  • When Jesus foretold this tragic failure of loyalty, Peter could not believe that it would happen
    • In the 18th century, the Marquis of Huntly was captured. His captors pointed at the block and the axe and told him that unless he abandoned his loyalty he would be executed then and there. His answer was, “You can take my head from my shoulders but you will never take my heart from my king.” That was what Peter was saying that night
  • There is a lesson in the word Jesus used for “fall away”
    • The Greek verb is skandalizein, from skandalon, or skandalethron which meant the bait in the trap, the stick on to which the animal was lured and with snapped the trap when the animal stepped on it
    • So this word came to mean to entrap, or to trip up by some trick or guile
    • Peter was too sure
      • He had forgotten the traps that life can lay for even the best among us. He had forgotten how easy it is to step on a slippery place and fall. He had forgotten his own human weakness and the strength of the devil’s temptations
      • But there is one thing to be remembered about Peter—his heart was in the right place. Better a Peter with a flaming heart of love, even if that love did for a moment fail most shamefully, than a Judas with a cold heart of hate. Let those people condemn Peter who never broke a promise, who were never disloyal in thought or action to a pledge. Peter loved Jesus, and even if his love failed, it rose again
• Mark 14:32-42
• 32 Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he told his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 He said to them, “I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake.” 35 He went a little farther, fell to the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father! All things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.” 37 Then he came and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you stay awake one hour? 38 Stay awake and pray so that you won’t enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 Once again he went away and prayed, saying the same thing. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, because they could not keep their eyes open. They did not know what to say to him. 41 Then he came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The time has come. See, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Get up; let’s go. See, my betrayer is near.”
  • The fact that Judas knew to look for Him in Gethsemane shows that Jesus was in the habit of going there
    • In Jerusalem itself there were no gardens. The city was too crowded, and there was a strange law that the city’s sacred soil might not be polluted with manure for the gardens
    • But some of the rich people possessed private gardens out on the Mount of Olives, where they took their rest
    • Jesus may have had some wealthy friend who gave Him the privilege of using his garden at night
  • When Jesus went to Gethsemane there were two things He sorely desired. Human fellowship and God’s fellowship
    • In time of trouble we want friends with us. We do not necessarily want them to do anything. We do not necessarily even want to talk to them or have them talk to us. We only want them there. Jesus was like that. 
    • It was strange that men who so short a time before had been protesting that they would die for Him could not stay awake for Him one single hour. But none can blame them for the excitement and the tension had drained their strength and their resistance
  • Certain things are clear about Jesus in this passage
    • He did not want to die
      • He was 33 and no one wants to die with life just opening on to the best of the years
      • He had done so little and there was a world waiting to be saved
      • He knew what crucifixion was like and He shuddered at the thought of it
      • He had to compel Himself to go on—just as we so often have to do
    • He did not fully understand why this had to be
      • He only knew beyond a doubt that this was the will of God and that He must go on
      • Jesus had to make the great venture of faith, He had to accept what He could not understand
    • He submitted to the will of God
      • Abba is the Aramaic for “my father”. It is that one word which made all the difference
      • Jesus was not submitting to a God who made a cynical sport of men and women
      • Even in this terrible hour, when He was making this terrible demand, God was Father
        • When Richard Cameron, the covenanter, was killed, his head and hands were cut off by one Murray and taken to Edinburgh. His father was in prison for the same charge, and they wanted to add grief to him. They gave him his son’s hands and head, asking if they knew who they belonged to. He kissed them and said, “I know them—I know them. They are my son’s—my own dear son’s. It is the Lord. Good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but hath made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.” 
      • If we can call God Father everything becomes bearable. Time and time again we will not understand, but always we will be certain that the Father’s hand will never cause His child a needless tear. That is what Jesus knew; that is why He could go on—and it can be so with us
  • We must note how the passage ends
    • The traitor and his gang had arrived 
    • What was Jesus’ reaction? Not to run away, although even then, in the night, it would have been easy to escape. His reaction was to face them. To the end, He would neither turn aside nor turn back
• Mark 14:43-50
• 43 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived. With him was a mob, with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. 44 His betrayer had given them a signal. “The one I kiss,” he said, “he’s the one; arrest him and take him away under guard.” 45 So when he came, immediately he went up to Jesus and said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 They took hold of him and arrested him. 47 One of those who stood by drew his sword, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear. 48 Jesus said to them,“Have you come out with swords and clubs, as if I were a criminal, to capture me? 49 Every day I was among you, teaching in the temple, and you didn’t arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then they all deserted him and ran away.
  • Here is sheer drama and the characters stand out before us
    • There is Judas, the traitor
      • He was aware that the people knew Jesus well enough by sight. But he felt that in the dim light of the garden, with the darkness of the trees lit in pools of light by the flare of the torches, they needed a definite indication of who they were to arrest. And so he chose that most terrible of signs—a kiss
      • It was customary to greet a Rabbi with a kiss. It was a sign of respect and affection for a well-loved teacher. But there is a dreadful thing here
        • When Judas says, “The one I kiss, he’s the one”, he uses the word philein which is the ordinary word. But when it is said that he came forward and kissed Jesus, the word is kataphilein
        • The kata is intensive and suggests that the kiss was prolonged in order to give a clear signal. But more than that, it was not a mere formal greeting. It was the greeting of a friend. That is the grimmest and most awful thing in all the gospel story
    • There is the arresting mob
      • They came from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. These were the three sections of the Sanhedrin, and Mark means that they came from the Sanhedrin
        • Even under Roman jurisdiction the Sanhedrin had certain police rights and duties in Jerusalem and had its own police force
      • No doubt an assorted mix had attached itself to them on the way. 
      • Somehow Mark manages to convey the pent-up excitement of those who came to make the arrest. Maybe they had come prepared for bloodshed with nerves taut and tense. It is they who emanate terror—not Jesus
    • There is the man who drew his sword and struck a blow
      • John tells us that it was Peter. It sounds like Peter, and Mark very likely omitted the name because it was not yet safe to write it down. In the scuffle no one saw who struck the blow; it was better that no one should know
      • But when John wrote forty years later it was then quite safe to write it down
      • It may be wrong to draw a sword and hack at a man, but somehow we are glad that there was one man there who, at least on the impulse of the moment, was prepared to strike a blow for Jesus
    • There are the disciples
      • Their nerve cracked. They could not face it. They were afraid that they too would share the fate of Jesus, so they fled
    • There is Jesus Himself
      • The strange thing is that in all this disordered scene Jesus was the one oasis of serenity
      • As we read the story it reads as if He, not the Sanhedrin police, was directing affairs
      • For Him the struggle in the garden was over, and now there was the peace of the Man who knows that He is following the will of God
• Mark 14:51-52
• 51 Now a certain young man, wearing nothing but a linen cloth, was following him. They caught hold of him, 52 but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.
  • These are two strange and fascinating verses
    • At first sight they seem completely irrelevant. They seem to add nothing to the narrative and yet there must be some reason for them being there
  • We saw in the Introduction that Matthew and Luke used Mark as the basis of their work and that they include in their gospels practically everything that is in Mark. But they do not include these two verses
  • That would seem to show that this incident was interesting to Mark and not really interesting to anyone else. Why then was this incident so interesting to Mark that he felt he must include it
    • The most probable answer is that the young man was Mark himself, and that this is his way of saying, “I was there”, without mentioning his own name at all
  • When we read Acts we find that the meeting place and headquarters of the Jerusalem church was apparently in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. If that is so, it is at least probable that the upper room in which the Last Supper was eaten was in that same house
  • There could be no more natural place than that to be the center of the Church. If we can assume that, there are two possibilities
    • It may be that Mark was actually present at the Last Supper. He was young, just a boy, and maybe no one really noticed him. But he was fascinated with Jesus, and when the company went out into the dark, he slipped out after them when he ought to have been in bed, with only the linen sheet covering him. It may be that all the time Mark was there in the shadows listening and watching. That would explain where the Gethsemane narrative came from. If the disciples were all asleep, how did anyone know about the struggle of soul that Jesus had there? It may be that the one witness was Mark as he stood silent in the shadows, watching with a boy’s reverence the greatest hero had ever known. 
    • From John’s narrative, we know that Judas left the company before the meal was fully ended. It may be that it was to the upper room that Judas meant to lead the Temple police so that they might secretly arrest Jesus. But when Judas came back with the police, Jesus and His disciples were gone. Naturally there was an argument. The uproar wakened Mark. He heard Judas propose that they should try the garden of Gethsemane. Quickly Mark wrapped his bedsheet around him and sped through the night to the garden to warn Jesus. But he arrived too late, and in the scuffle that followed was very nearly arrested himself.
• Whatever may be true, we may take it as fairly certain that Mark put in this passage because it was about himself. He could never forget that night. He was too humble to put his own name in, but in this way he wrote his signature and said, to anyone who could read between the lines, “I was there as a boy.”

Mark 14:12-26

• Mark 14:12-16
• 12 On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrifice the Passover lamb, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare the Passover so that you may eat it?”13 So he sent two of his disciples and told them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Wherever he enters, tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” 16 So the disciples went out, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
  • Again and again we see that Jesus did not leave things until the last moment
    • It appears that He had possible arranged the cold to be ready for His ride into Jerusalem; and here we see that all His arrangements may have been made long beforehand (I say maybe, because I like to leave the possibility of all of this being supernatural/miraculous as well)
  • His disciples wished to know where they would eat the Passover
    • Jesus sent them into Jerusalem with instructions to look for a many carrying an water jar. To carry a water jar was a woman’s duty. It was a thing that no man ever did. A man with a water jar on his shoulder would be very easy to pick out in any crowd.
  • The larger Jewish houses had upper rooms
    • Such houses looked exactly like a smaller box placed on top of a bigger box. The smaller box was the upper room, and it was accessed by an outside stair, making it unnecessary to go through the main room
    • The upper room had many uses
      • It was a storeroom, ti was a place for quiet and meditation, it was a guest room for visitors
      • But in particular it was the place where a Rabbi taught his chosen band of intimate disciples. Jesus was following the custom that any Jewish Rabbi might follow
  • We must remember the Jewish breakdown of days
    • The new day began at 6 PM
    • Up until 6 pm it was the 13th of Nisan, the day of the preparation for the Passover
    • But the 14th of Nisan, the Passover day itself, began at 6 pm. In other words, Friday the 14th began at 6 pm on Thursday the 13th
  • What were the preparations that a Jew made for the Passover?
    • First was the ceremonial search for leaven
      • Before the Passover, every particle of leaven must be banished from the house. That was because the first Passover in Egypt had been eaten with unleavened bread
      • It had been used in Egypt because it can be baked much more quickly than a loaf baked with leaven, and the first Passover, the Passover of escape from Egypt, had been eaten in hasted with everyone ready for the road
      • In addition, leaven was the symbol of corruption
        • Leaven is fermented dough, and Jews identified fermentation with putrefaction, and so leaven stood for rottenness
        • The day before the Passover, the master of the house took a lighted candle and ceremonially searched the house for leaven. Before the search he prayed
          • Blessed are though, Yahweh, our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us by thy commandments, and commanded us to remove the leaven
        • At the end of the search the householder said
          • All the leaven that is in my possession, that which I have seen and that which I have not seen, be it null, be it accounted as the dust of the earth
    • Next, on the afternoon before the Passover evening, came the sacrifice of the Passover lamb
      • All the people came to the Temple. The worshiper must slay his own lamb, thereby, as it were, making his own sacrifice
      • In the Temple the worshiper slew his own lamb. Between the worshippers and the altar were two long lines of priests, each with a gold or silver bowl. As the lamb’s throat  was slit the blood was caught in one of these bowls, and passed up the line, until the priest at the end of the line dashed it upon the altar
      • The carcass was then flayed, the entrails and the fat extracted, because they were part of the necessary sacrificed, and the carcass handed back to the worshiper 
      • If the figures of Josephus are anywhere close to correct, and there were more than 250,000 lambs slain, the scene in th Temple courts and the blood-stained condition of the altar can hardly be imagined
      • The lamb was carried home to be roasted. It must not be boiled. Nothing must touch it, not even the sides of a pot. It had to be roasted over an open fire on a spit made of pomegranate wood. The spit went right through the lamb from mouth to other end, and the lamb had to be roasted entire with head, legs, and tail still attached to the body
  • Certain things were necessary and these were the things the disciple would have to get ready
    • There was the lamb, to remind them of how their houses had been protected by the badge of blood when the angel of death passed through Egypt
    • There was the unleavened bread to remind them of the great they had eaten in haste when they escaped from slavery
    • There was a bowl of salt water, to remind them of the tears they had shed in Egypt and the waters of the Read Sea through which they had miraculously passed to safety
    • There was a collection of bitter herbs
      • Horseradish, chicory, endive, lettuce, and horehound
      • To remind them of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt
    • There was a paste called charosheth, a mix of apples, dates, pomegranates, and nuts, to remind them of the clay of which they had made bricks in Egypt
      • Through it there were sticks of cinnamon to remind them of the straw with which the bricks had been made
    • There were four cups of wine
      • The cups contained a little more than half a pint of wine, but three parts of wine were mixed with two of water
      • The four cups, which were drunk at different stages of the meal were to remind them of the four promises in Exodus 6:6-7
        • 6 “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.
        • I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them
        • I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment 
        • I will take you as my people
        • I will be your God
  • Such were the preparations which had to be made for the Passover. Every detail spoke of that great day of deliverance when God liberated His people from their bondage in Egypt
  • It was at that feast that He who liberated the world from sin was to sit at His last meal with His disciples
• Mark 14:17-21
• 17 When evening came, he arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining and eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be distressed and to say to him one by one, “Surely not I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the Twelve—the one who is dipping bread in the bowl with me. 21 For the Son of Man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him if he had not been born.”
  • The new day began at 6 pm and when the Passover evening had come, Jesus sat down with the disciples
    • There was only one change in the old ritual which had been observed so many centuries ago in Egypt. At the first Passover Feast in Egypt, the meal had been eaten standing. But that had been a sign of haste, a sign that they were slaves escaping from slavery
    • In the time of Jesus, the regulation was that they meal should be eaten reclining, for that was the sign of free people, with a home and a country of their own
  • We can see certain great things here
    • Jesus knew what was going to happen
      • That is His supreme courage, especially in the last days. It would have been easy fro Him to escape, and yet undeterred He went on
      • With a full knowledge of what lay ahead, Jesus was for going on
    • Jesus could see into the heart of Judas
      • The curious thing is that the other disciples seem to have had no suspicions. If they had known what Judas was up to, it is certain that they would have stopped him even by violence
      • There may be things we succeed in hiding from other people, but we cannot hide them from Jesus Christ. He is the searcher of human hearts. He knows what is in each one of us
    • In this passage, we see Jesus offering tow things to Judas
      • He is making love’s last appeal
        • It is as if He is saying to Judas, “I know what you are going to do. Will you not stop even now?”
      • He is offering Judas a last warning
        • He is telling him in advance of the consequences of the thing that it is in his heart to do
        • But we must note this, for it is of the essence of the way in which God deals with us—there is no compulsion
        • Without a doubt, Jesus could have stopped Judas. All He had to do was tell the other eleven what Judas was planning, and Judas would have never left that room alive
        • Here is the whole human situation. Og d has given us free will. His love appeals to us. His truth warns us. But there is no compulsion
        • We hold the awful responsibility that we can spurn the appeal of God’s love and disregard the warning of His voice. In the end, there is no one but ourselves responsible for our sins
        • God does not stop us, whether we like it or not, from sin. He seeks to make us love Him so much that His voice is more sweetly insistent to us than all the voices which all us away from Him
• Mark 14:22-26
• 22 As they were eating, he took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” 23 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly I tell you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” 26 After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
  • First we must lay out the various steps of the Passover Feast, so that in our mind’ s eye we can follow what Jesus and His disciples were doing. The steps came in this order
    • 1. The cup of the Kiddush
      • Kiddush means sanctification or separation. This was the act which separated this meal from all other common meals
      • The head of the family took the cup and prayed over it, and then all drank of it
    • 2. The first hand washing
      • This was carried out only by the person who was to celebrate the feast
      • Three times he had to wash his hands in the prescribed way which we have already described when studying chapter 7
    • 3. A piece of parsley or lettuce was then taken and dipped in the bowl of salt water and eaten
      • This was an appetizer to the meal, but the parsley stood for the hyssop with which the mantle of the door had been smeared with blood, and the salt stood for the tears of Egypt and for the waters of the Red Sea through which Israel had been brought in safety
    • 4. The breaking of the bread
      • Two blessings were used at the breaking of the bread
        • Blessed be thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth from the earth
        • Blessed art thou, our Father in heaven, who gives us today the bread necessary for us
      • On the table lay three circles of unleavened bread
        • The middle one was taken and broken
        • At this point only a little was eaten. It was to remind the Jews of the bread of affliction that they ate I Egypt and it was broken to remind them that slaves had never a whole loaf, but only broken crusts to eat
          • As it was broken, the head o fate family said, “This is the bread of affliction which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. Whosoever is hungry let him come and eat. Whosoever is in need let him come and keep the Passover with us
    • 5. Next came the relating of the story of the deliverance
      • The youngest press present had to ask what Madde this day different from all other days and why all this was being done
      • The head of the house then had to tell the whole story of the history of Israel down to the great deliverance which the Passover commemorated
      • The Passover could never become a ritual. It was always a commemoration of the powered the mercy of God
    • 6. Psalm 113 and 114 were sung
      • 113: Hallelujah! Give praise, servants of the Lord;
        praise the name of the Lord. 2 Let the name of the Lord be blessed both now and forever. 3 From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the name of the Lord be praised. 4 The Lord is exalted above all the nations, his glory above the heavens. 5 Who is like the Lord our God—the one enthroned on high, 6 who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? 7 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the trash heap 8 in order to seat them with nobles—with the nobles of his people. 9 He gives the childless woman a household, making her the joyful mother of children. Hallelujah!
      • 114: When Israel came out of Egypt—the house of Jacob from a people who spoke a foreign language—2 Judah became his sanctuary, Israel, his dominion. 3 The sea looked and fled; the Jordan turned back. 4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills, like lambs. 5 Why was it, sea, that you fled? Jordan, that you turned back? 6 Mountains, that you skipped like rams? Hills, like lambs? 7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, 8 who turned the rock into a pool, the flint into a spring.
        • Psalms 113-118 are known as the Hall, which means the praise of God. All theses psalms are praising psalms. They were part of the very earliest material which a Jewish boy had to memorize
    • 7. The second cup was drunk
      • It was called the cup of Haggadah, which means the cup of explaining or proclaiming
    • 8. All those present now washed their hands in preparation for the meal
    • 9. A grace was said
      • “Blessed are thou, O Lord, our God, who brings forth fruit from the earth. Blessed are thou, O God, who has sanctified us with they commandment and enjoin us to eat unleavened cakes.”
      • Then small pieces of the unleavened bread were distributed
    • 10. Some of the bitter herbs were placed between two pieces of unleavened bread, dipped in the charosheth, and eaten
      • This was called the sop. It was the reminder of slavery and of the bricks that once they had been compelled to make
    • 11. Then followed the meal proper
      • The whole lamb must be eaten. Anything left over must be destroyed and not used for any common meal
    • 12. The hands were washed again
    • 13. The remainder of the unleavened bread was eaten
    • 14. There was a prayer of thanksgiving, containing a petition for the coming of Elijah to herald the Messiah
      • Then the third cup was drunk, called the cup of thanksgiving. The blessing over the cup was
        • Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has created the fruit of the vine
    • 15. The second part of the Hallel was sung (Psalm 115-118) (Ask for volunteers to turn to, and read these)
    • 16. The fourth cup was drunk, and Psalm 136, known as the great Hallel, was sung (another volunteer)
    • 17. Two short prayers were said
      • All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord, our God. And thy saints, the righteous, who do thy good pleasure, and all thy people, the house of Israel, with joyous song, let them praise and bless and magnify and glorify and salt and reverence and sanctify and scribe the Kingdom to thy name, O God, our King. For it is good to praise thee, and pleasure to sing praises to thy name, for from everlasting unto everlasting thou art God
      • The breath of all that lives shall praise thy name, O Lord, our God. And the spirit of all flesh shall continually glorify and exalt thy memorial, O God, our King. For from everlasting unto everlasting thou art God, and beside thee we have no king, redeemer or savior
  • Thus ended the Passover Feast
    • If the fest that Jesus and His disciples sat at was the Passover it must have been items 13 and 14 that Jesus made His own, and 16 must have been the hymn they sang before they went out to the Mount of Olives
  • Now let us see what Jesus was doing, and what He was seeking to impress upon His disciples
    • More than once we have seen that the prophets of Israel resorted to symbolic dramatic actions when they felt that words were not enough
    • It was as if words were easily forgotten, but a dramatic action would print itself on the memory
    • That is what Jesus did, and He allied this dramatic action with the ancient feast of His people so that it would be the more imprinted on the minds of the disciples
      • He said, “Just as this bread is broken, my body is broken for you! Just as this cup of red wine is poured out, my blood is shed for you”
  • What did He mean when He said that the cup stood for a new covenant?
    • The acceptance of the old covenant is set out in Exodus 24:2-8; and from that passage we see that the covenant was entirely dependent on Israel keeping the law. If the law was broken, the covenant was broken and the relationship between God and the nation shattered. It was a relationship entirely dependent on law and on obedience to law. God was judge. And since no one can keep the law the people were always in default
    • But Jesus says, “I am introducing and ratifying a new covenant, a new kind of relationship between human beings. And it is not dependent on law, it is dependent on the blood that I will shed.” That is to say, it is dependent solely on love. The new covenant was a relationship between human beings and God, dependent not on law but on love. In other words Jesus says, “I am doing what I am doing to show you how much God loves you.” Men and women are no longer simply under the law of God. Because of what Jesus did, they are forever within the love of God. That is the essence of what at the sacrament says to us
  • We not one more thing
    • In the last sentence we see again the two things we have so often seen. Jesus was sure of two things
      • He knew He was to die, and He knew His kingdom would come
      • He was certain of the cross, but just as certain of the glory. And the reason was that He was just as certain of God’s love as He was of human sin; and He knew that in the end that love would conquer that sin