The Self-Drawn Portrait of the Apostle Paul. (13)
Posted by Marvin Pagkanlungan on Friday, June 6, 2014
by Charles H. Welch
#13. Separate Features: Freedom from jealousy.
“Here we see . . . . . that noble freedom from jealousy with which he speaks of those who, out of rivalry to himself, preach Christ, even of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to his bonds, What then? Notwithstanding, every way, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Conybeare and Howson).
The cause of jealousy is the safeguarding of that which belongs to self. It is with perfect right that God can be jealous that the love and faithfulness of His people shall not be delivered from His Own glorious Person, but mortal man can seldom be moved to jealousy without sin. What was it that enabled the apostle to rise above this besetting sin? The answer is that he had within him something that had taken the place of self. In another part of the same chapter from which Conybeare and Howson quote in the above extract, he says:
“Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. i. 20, 21).
Christ had taken the place of self, so that Paul was enabled to look away from the cruel envy that could even preach Christ with the object of adding affliction to his bonds, to the simple and single fact that Christ was preached. There he could rest. He would go not a step further. Whether out of love or out of envy, one feature was common—Christ was preached, and therein, said Paul, he would rejoice. In such circumstances it was impossible to add afflictions to his bonds. No man can be hurt by an external thing of this character: it is only as he “feels” the attack, the envious word, the cruel look, that it can hurt. In physical things it is not easy to avoid feeling a blow, for one function of the sense of touch is to give protection. But, in spiritual things, the heart can be so taken up with the things of Christ as to be almost insensible to such evil intentions of the enemy. This is indeed a “noble freedom”. If, at the apparent triumph of his rivals, Paul had been moved by jealousy, all his boasted freedom, all the liberty of which he was the champion, would have been nothing worth. As it was, the stone walls of a Roman prison or the presence of a Roman guard in his own hired house, could not make the Lord’s free man a slave, but evil thoughts entertained within his breast, self-enthroned, instead of Christ, that would have made Paul a bondslave, even though he walked at liberty among the free of the earth.
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Prov. xvi. 32).
While the Apostle manifested such disinterestedness when the matter concerned himself, when the Lord’s people were the subject of attack or deception, he could be moved to great depths of feeling:
“Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present a chaste virgin to Christ” (II Cor. xi. 1, 2).
Throughout the O.T. the relationship of Israel with the Lord is as a wife to a husband. Idolatry is regarded as adultery, and over and over again God speaks of His jealousy because of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Here, during the Acts period, the company which bride is associated with the heavenly city, and those who followed in the steps of the faith of Abraham, whether Jews or Gentiles, would share with Abraham that bridal city. It was with a jealous eye that the Apostle looked upon the preachers of “another” gospel. Such were doing the self-same work as the Serpent in Eden. These deceitful workers transformed themselves in order to have the appearance of the apostles of Christ, while in reality they were the agents of Satan who transformed himself into an angel of light.
Paul’s godly jealousy, noting the fact that the deception was associated with false apostleship, led him on to be “a fool in his boasting”. He opens the chapter with a reference to his folly (II Cor. xi. 1). He supposes that he was not a whit behind the chiefest of the apostles (II Cor. xi. 5). Over and over again in this passage he calls himself a fool and his boasting foolish (xi. 16, 17, 21, 23; xii. 11). What the Apostle would not have revealed, even under the severest pressure, he does reveal out of godly jealousy for the name of the Lord. He will boast of his sufferings, of his shipwreck, of his stripes, though repeatedly interjecting that in doing so he was acting as a fool, but the spring of his action was jealousy for the Lord; mere personal jealousy was not found in him. Not only is this manifest in Phil. i., but, in his association with such as Apollos, no word gives the remotest suggestion that Paul was jealous of the eloquence or the acceptance of Apollos at Corinth. Who then is Paul? said he, Who is Apollos? but ministers by whom ye believed. The glory, even as the grace, was the Lord’s.
Where the believer can say, “For me to live is Christ”, there can be, and there will be, a complete absence of personal jealousy, and, side by side with this absence, there will be a real godly jealousy for the truth and the saints entrusted to one’s care. Where selfish jealousy rules, godly jealousy will wane; where love of pre-eminence is found, there also will be a casting out of the saint, and slackness concerning the Lord’s honour.
Once more, to borrow an expression, what “a myriad minded man” the apostle Paul was, and what an honour it is to be associated in any way with the truth for which he lived and died.
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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 33, page 149).
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#13. Separate Features: Freedom from jealousy.
“Here we see . . . . . that noble freedom from jealousy with which he speaks of those who, out of rivalry to himself, preach Christ, even of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to his bonds, What then? Notwithstanding, every way, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Conybeare and Howson).
The cause of jealousy is the safeguarding of that which belongs to self. It is with perfect right that God can be jealous that the love and faithfulness of His people shall not be delivered from His Own glorious Person, but mortal man can seldom be moved to jealousy without sin. What was it that enabled the apostle to rise above this besetting sin? The answer is that he had within him something that had taken the place of self. In another part of the same chapter from which Conybeare and Howson quote in the above extract, he says:
“Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. i. 20, 21).
Christ had taken the place of self, so that Paul was enabled to look away from the cruel envy that could even preach Christ with the object of adding affliction to his bonds, to the simple and single fact that Christ was preached. There he could rest. He would go not a step further. Whether out of love or out of envy, one feature was common—Christ was preached, and therein, said Paul, he would rejoice. In such circumstances it was impossible to add afflictions to his bonds. No man can be hurt by an external thing of this character: it is only as he “feels” the attack, the envious word, the cruel look, that it can hurt. In physical things it is not easy to avoid feeling a blow, for one function of the sense of touch is to give protection. But, in spiritual things, the heart can be so taken up with the things of Christ as to be almost insensible to such evil intentions of the enemy. This is indeed a “noble freedom”. If, at the apparent triumph of his rivals, Paul had been moved by jealousy, all his boasted freedom, all the liberty of which he was the champion, would have been nothing worth. As it was, the stone walls of a Roman prison or the presence of a Roman guard in his own hired house, could not make the Lord’s free man a slave, but evil thoughts entertained within his breast, self-enthroned, instead of Christ, that would have made Paul a bondslave, even though he walked at liberty among the free of the earth.
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Prov. xvi. 32).
While the Apostle manifested such disinterestedness when the matter concerned himself, when the Lord’s people were the subject of attack or deception, he could be moved to great depths of feeling:
“Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present a chaste virgin to Christ” (II Cor. xi. 1, 2).
Throughout the O.T. the relationship of Israel with the Lord is as a wife to a husband. Idolatry is regarded as adultery, and over and over again God speaks of His jealousy because of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Here, during the Acts period, the company which bride is associated with the heavenly city, and those who followed in the steps of the faith of Abraham, whether Jews or Gentiles, would share with Abraham that bridal city. It was with a jealous eye that the Apostle looked upon the preachers of “another” gospel. Such were doing the self-same work as the Serpent in Eden. These deceitful workers transformed themselves in order to have the appearance of the apostles of Christ, while in reality they were the agents of Satan who transformed himself into an angel of light.
Paul’s godly jealousy, noting the fact that the deception was associated with false apostleship, led him on to be “a fool in his boasting”. He opens the chapter with a reference to his folly (II Cor. xi. 1). He supposes that he was not a whit behind the chiefest of the apostles (II Cor. xi. 5). Over and over again in this passage he calls himself a fool and his boasting foolish (xi. 16, 17, 21, 23; xii. 11). What the Apostle would not have revealed, even under the severest pressure, he does reveal out of godly jealousy for the name of the Lord. He will boast of his sufferings, of his shipwreck, of his stripes, though repeatedly interjecting that in doing so he was acting as a fool, but the spring of his action was jealousy for the Lord; mere personal jealousy was not found in him. Not only is this manifest in Phil. i., but, in his association with such as Apollos, no word gives the remotest suggestion that Paul was jealous of the eloquence or the acceptance of Apollos at Corinth. Who then is Paul? said he, Who is Apollos? but ministers by whom ye believed. The glory, even as the grace, was the Lord’s.
Where the believer can say, “For me to live is Christ”, there can be, and there will be, a complete absence of personal jealousy, and, side by side with this absence, there will be a real godly jealousy for the truth and the saints entrusted to one’s care. Where selfish jealousy rules, godly jealousy will wane; where love of pre-eminence is found, there also will be a casting out of the saint, and slackness concerning the Lord’s honour.
Once more, to borrow an expression, what “a myriad minded man” the apostle Paul was, and what an honour it is to be associated in any way with the truth for which he lived and died.
------------------------
(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 33, page 149).
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