Philemon 1:5 Hearing of your love and faith, which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; Sometimes faith is spoken of as "in" Christ, sometimes as "unto" or "upon" Him; here it is "toward" Him. The idea is that of aspiration and movement of yearning after an unattained good. And that is one part of the true office of faith. There is fruition and contact in it. We rest "in" Christ by faith. It incorporates us into His mystical body, and brings about a mutual indwelling. We lean "on" Christ by faith, and by it build the fabric of our loves, and repose the weight of our confidence upon Him, as on the sure foundation. We reach "unto," and, in deepest truth, pass "into" Christ by faith. But there is also in faith an element of aspiration, as of the soaring eagle to the sun, or the climbing tendrils to the summit of the supporting stem. In Christ there is always something beyond, which discloses itself the more clearly, the fuller is our present possession of Him. Faith builds upon and rests in the Christ possessed and experienced, and just therefore will it, if it be true, yearn towards the Christ unpossessed. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; |
    |