Philippians 3:17-18 Brothers, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as you have us for an ensample. I. THE CROSS OF CHRIST. To the nations of antiquity the cross conveyed the same idea as the gibbet does today. It was a badge of infamy. The Cross of Christ, however, includes all the truths involved in His death. It was not the crucifixion these people opposed, but the principles associated therewith. Regard it, then, as the symbol of debasing truths, of notions most offensive to pride. For in the Cross we see the extreme evil of sin, the necessity of a righteousness beyond man's power, the need of the substitution of a perfect sacrifice to our salvation. 1. The source of powerful motives. There is no more powerful incentive to holiness than in the Cross. Its profession commits a man to deadness to the sin for which Christ died. 2. The signal of an amazing conflict. Christ's death resulted from the depravity of the Jews, and the machinations of the devil. By that the arch enemy thought holiness would be overthrown, and thus he stirred all his agencies in earth and hell to effect it. But God so ordered it that it led on to a conflict with the principles of evil, which shall terminate in the final triumph of Christ. Opposed now, He and we with Him shall be ultimately victorious. II. THE ENEMIES OF THE CROSS. They are described in ver. 2 as opposed to the Christians in ver. 3, etc. 1. They were proud men who valued their own righteousness. Gross sensual evils are not the only things offensive to God; all substitutes for the Cross as the only means of salvation are obnoxious to Him. 2. Sensual men who lived for their own pleasure. The Cross means mortification of the flesh; to pamper it, therefore, is to defeat the purpose of the Cross. 3. Worldly men who held to their possessions in opposition to the desire for heavenly things (ver. 19). The votaries of pleasure, the anxious, the miser, etc., come under this category. 4. Timid men who screened their own persons, for fear of worldly loss or persecution. III. THE AWFUL CONDITION OF ALL SUCH PERSONS. 1. They glory in their degradation; in their self-righteousness, sinful pleasures, or worldliness, or cowardice. 2. They pursue their own destruction — "The wages of sin is death." (J. Blackburn.) Parallel Verses KJV: Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. |
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