The imitation of good men.
"Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them who walk so as ye have us for an ensample."
I. THE DUTY OF FOLLOWING GOOD EXAMPLES.
1. We are commanded to do so. (1 Corinthians 11:1.)
2. The lives of many saints are expressly recorded for our imitation. (James 5:10, James 5:11, James 5:17; Philippians 4:9.)
3. the imitation is limited by several circumstances.
II. THE USES OF SUCH IMITATION.
1. It stimulates to higher and better living. We are therefore to imitate good men in the graces for which they are most distinguished (Numbers 12:3; 1 Samuel 2:18; Job 1:21; Acts 5:41).
2. It is afresh recommendation of the gospel. (Matthew 5:16.)
3. It gives greater glory to God. (Romans 7:4.)—T.C.
The walk of mere worldly professors.
"For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." The allusion is not to errorists merely, but to the antinomian formalists in the visible communion of the Church.
I. MANY PERSONS ARE FOUND IN THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH WHO ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF Christ. They were there even in apostolic days, in spite of gifts of discernment and the power of discipline. It is an altogether chimerical idea to think of a perfectly pure Church. There was no such Church in the days of Christ or the apostles. The persons here described appear to be of the same class as those referred to elsewhere as "they who serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly" (Romans 16:18); persons who caused "divisions and offenses," whose life was a practical denial of the principle that they who are Christ's "have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts" (Galatians 5:24).
II. MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE FORMALISTS AND THE DOOM THAT AWAITS THEM.
1. The real object of their worship. "Whose god is their belly." Like those referred to at Rome, they "served not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly" (Romans 16:18). They were sensual and self-indulgent, forgetting that "the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking" (Romans 14:17).
2. The gross perversion of their moral judgments. "Whose glory is in their shame." They gloried, under the name of liberty, in what ought to have inspired feelings of shame, so as to bring upon them the retribution, "I will turn their glory into shame" (Hosea 4:7).
3. The earthly cast of their life. "Who mind earthly things."
(a) to desire them (Colossians 2:2; Psalms 73:25);
(c) to labor after them (John 6:27; Matthew 6:33);
(d) to concentrate thought and interest upon them.
(a) They are beneath the consideration of Christians;
(b) we have higher things to mind (Philippians 2:20);
(c) the minding of heaven and earth is an inconsistent service (Matthew 6:24);
(d) earthly things are essentially uncertain, unsatisfying, inconstant, and momentary (Ecclesiastes 1:8; Proverbs 23:5; Luke 12:20).
4. The doom of these formalists. "Whose end is destruction." Notwithstanding their high professions and their ecclesiastical privileges, their end is eternal death. There is but one cad of such a life: "The end of those things is death" (Romans 6:21); "Whose end is to be burned" (Hebrews 6:8); "Whose end shall be according to their works" (2 Corinthians 11:15).
III. THE EMOTION OF THE APOSTLE AT THE CONTEMPLATION OF SUCH A CLASS OF SINNERS. "I tell you even weeping." He wept at their wickedness as much as at the thought of their deserved doom.
IV. THE NECESSITY OF REPEATED WARNINGS AGAINST EVIL IN THE CHURCH. "Of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping." It was needful that the apostle should lift the voice of warning against a tendency as fatal in its ultimate results as the deadliest heresy.—T.C.
The heavenly citizenship and its blessed expectations.
The apostle seems to say that these souls, with their earthly instincts, can have no fellowship with us; for we are citizens of a heavenly state. "For our citizenship is even now in heaven."
I. THE HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP.
1. Consider its source. It comes, not by birth or manumission, but by the ransom-price of Jesus Christ. It is in Christ we become "fellow-citizens of the saints and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19).
2. Consider the duties this citizenship involves. We are to obey its laws and watch over the interests of Christ's kingdom.
3. Consider its privileges. We receive protection, guidance, and comfort.
II. ITS BLESSED EXPECTATIONS. "From whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."
1. Believers are always looking for the second coming of the Lord to judgment. (Titus 2:13; Acts 24:15; Acts 26:6, Acts 26:7; 1 Thessalonians 1:10.) It is the "blessed hope" of the saints (Titus 2:13).
2. There is the expectation of a transfiguration of our bodies by Christ's power. "Who shall fashion anew our vile body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself." This allusion to the glorious destiny of our bodies may have been due to the thought of the sensuality of the formalists just condemned.
(a) as to the materials of which they are composed we are mere dust and ashes;
(b) as to the diseases and infirmities that often darken the soul's life;
(c) as to sinful desires which find their principal seat or instigation in the body.
(a) necessary, that the body may be a fitting dwelling-place for the glorified soul;
(b) amazing, for we cannot imagine its nature or extent;
(c) Divine, for it is to be conformed to Christ's glorious body.
(a) It is not according to his power merely, but by its exercise, that the transformation will come.
(b) He who is able to subdue all things, even death itself (1 Corinthians 15:26), will subdue our bodies into their finally glorified condition.—T.C.