Family Expectations (Phil. 4:1-3)

This verse closes the previous set of verses as Paul encourages his readers to stand fast in the Lord. Yet the verse also serves as an introduction to what follows the verse because he provides guidance on how they should stand fast.

In the previous verses he reminded his readers in Philippi that they already belonged to the heavenly city, and were waiting for their King to come and bless them with glorified bodies. An earthly illustration would be the citizens of Philippi waiting for a visit from the Roman Emperor and expecting to receive from him a great favour. If they had known he was coming, they would have made preparations for his arrival. So Paul tells his readers how they should prepare for the arrival of the King, their Saviour Jesus Christ.

Happy family

We cannot help but notice the strong contrast between how Paul regards the Philippian believers and how he regards the false teachers that he has just described. Both descriptions are very graphic: the false teachers are enemies whose habits of life are limited to this world, whose destiny is destruction, and for whom the apostle weeps (3:18-19); the true believers are brothers whose habit of life is to adhere to a Christian lifestyle, whose destiny is heaven, and for whom the apostle yearns (4:1). His attitude towards these believers can only be described as rapturous. As he thinks of them, he can anticipate the glory that is yet to be theirs. Yet he also repeats here what he said of them already in the first chapter: he prayed for them with joy (1:4) and longed for them with the affection of Christ (1:8).

The doctrine of adoption is one that shows the heights of God’s incredible grace. Obviously, it points to family membership, but in order to get the point we need to appreciate what adoption was like at the time Paul was writing. The practice of adoption back then was not the same as the practice today. Usually today it is young children who are adopted by prospective parents who want to have the children as members of the family. In the ancient world, it was an adult who was adopted because a man wanted to have a suitable heir. Often, the chosen individual was a gifted slave. Paul takes that cultural practice and uses it to explain what happens when a person becomes a Christian.

God is like and unlike the adult looking for an heir. The adult may already have sons, but because none of them were suitable he looked for another person to be his heir. In contrast to that situation, God the Father already had a perfect heir, his own eternal Son who is the heir of all things. God desired that others would share his inheritance with Jesus, to become joint-heirs with him.

Where would God find such fellow-heirs? Since his Son is perfect, we might assume that he would search for heirs who would be flawless. In this scenario, he would have two options. One option would be the angels that never fell, who had remained holy. The other option would be to create those heirs and bring into existence a perfect group who would become the heirs. He did not choose either option.

Where did he choose to look for heirs? Instead of choosing the angels or creating a new race, the Lord decided that the fellow-heirs with his Son would come from the human race, the sinful human race. The problem was that those potential heirs were very unlike his Son because they were all slaves of sin. It is the case that usually it was slaves that were adopted in the ancient custom, but only good slaves would be selected. With God’s choice, none of them were good. Instead they were the opposite of his Son.

How would he find them? God’s plan for locating his heirs was to send them a message inviting them to join his family and become heirs. The message would contain details as to how it was possible for them to become heirs and what they would have to do to join the family. What are the details? Basically they concern what his Son would do in order to have heirs. He would have to provide the basis for them becoming his fellow-heirs. And the Heir was delighted to do so. His task was to make them suitable as heirs, and he did this by providing them with a sinless life and by paying the penalty for their sins. So the message goes out that he has done it.

What are the future heirs to do? In order to become heirs of God they have to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus. They are heart responses as well as mind responses. We understand with our minds and our affections bring us to God. In light of the gospel, repentance is a sweet activity and faith in Jesus is an expression of dependence and delight.

What does the Father do then, and how long does he take to do it? He does three things, and he does each of them immediately. One is that he forgives us, another is that he justifies us, and the third is that he adopts us. There is an order in which he does it, but there are no time gaps between what he does. When we repent and believe, the response of the Father is to freely forgive us. That is amazing. This is really part of the doctrine of justification and the other part is that he gives to the forgiven the righteousness of Jesus as their standing in his presence. It takes less than a second to happen.

Yet it would have been possible from the point of view of a distorted logic for such a sinner to be justified and not an heir. It would have been a state of great blessing for such a sinner to be justified, but it would not have been the greatest blessing that God could give. But when he adopts them, he does give to them the greatest possible blessing as they become members of his family.

Great expectations

This great status has present and future consequences. For example, do we speak to God in a manner that indicates that we understand and delight in adoption? Surely, this is one of the features in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and instructed them to say ‘Our Father in heaven.’ Another feature is that there should be expressions of brotherly love among the family members, and such expressions are evidence that they have passed from the state of spiritual death to that of spiritual life.

The future aspect concerns the inheritance that believers will receive. This is a very big topic. In reality, the inheritance is connected to experiencing what the Lord will give to them in the world of glory, and that world is described as a new heavens and new earth. Thinking about that name calls us to compare it with the original heavens and earth. In the original, God revealed his power, he revealed the potential for making numerous delights, and he made known his presence. And he will display his power, provide delights, and make known his presence in the eternal world.

Paul sees his readers as a family with great expectations concerning its future. They are brothers (and sisters) from whom he has been separated for a while, but whom he is looking forward to meeting again in the Father’s house, in heaven. When they do meet in that future state, he informs them that there will be a real relationship between them and him: they will be his joy and his crown. 

On that great future day when Jesus returns, Paul will be rewarded by his Master for the service given in Philippi, and part of that reward will be sharing in the joy of Christ as he rejoices over his people gathered with him forever. Surely this challenges us to value highly all who belong to Jesus, but especially those who are known to us in this life. We should not assess them merely by what they are now, but we must also respect them for what they are going to be when Jesus glorifies them.

Yet we cannot limit Paul’s use of ‘joy and crown’ to the future. We can ask ourselves, ‘In what situations would a person joyfully wear a victor’s crown or winner’s garland?’ The answer is that an athlete would wear such a crown or wreath after he had successfully completed his race. Paul is saying that the believers in Philippi were the evidence that he had run a successful race there several years previously when he, with others, had founded the church in the city. 

Ever since then he had been delighted to tell others of his success in Philippi. Just as a successful athlete would show his victor’s wreath to others, so Paul spoke about his triumphs. Or as a victorious commander will wear medals on his uniform, so Paul displayed the evidence of his triumph over enemy forces. Yet instead of pointing to medals usually kept on a shelf, or to a fading wreath, he could direct people to consider the believers in Philippi as they stood fast in the Lord. They were his reward, even in this life.

Stand firm in the Lord

Nevertheless Paul sounds like a general calling his troops together to withstand an enemy attack, either from the Judaizers or from the civil authorities. So he urges them to stand fast in the Lord as citizens of the heavenly metropolis. Although they were geographically away from the heavenly city, the distance was not a problem because they were, even in Philippi, in living union with Jesus, the Lord of the city. They were to live out in Philippi their union with him.

We know that behind any attack from human forces would be the schemes of the devil. The threats mentioned here are false doctrine from the Judaisers and persecution from the Roman authorities, but in addition to them the devil has plenty other ways to attack.

It is important to note that Paul when he uses this military metaphor does not indicate that believers should advance. Of course, we are not to assume that he would not want the cause of Jesus to advance. Yet we should pay attention to the imagery he uses, which is that of standing together and facing the onslaught together. What does it suggest that the devil is trying to do?

One obvious tactic is for him to cause divisions, and Paul does refer to one such division shortly when he mentions Euodia and Syntyche. They were not standing together while they were disagreeing with one another. A second tactic is to prevent people from working for the gospel, and Paul stresses the importance of that duty in verse 3 when he reminds his readers of how they had spread the gospel in the past in Philippi. A third tactic of the devil is to reduce or remove a Christian’s sense of assurance, of knowing the comfort that comes from recalling that one’s name is in the book of life. It is the case that fellowship, witnessing and assurance go together, and it is not difficult to see why the devil wants to prevent them taking place.

So we can see why Paul placed such an emphasis on family expectations. If we belong to God, we have great privileges as his children and a great future as his heirs, but we also have great responsibilities as his family.