«　WEEK 5　DAY 2　»

　　Phil. 1:20-21 According to my earnest expectation and hope that…even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

　　4:12 …In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to hunger, both to abound and to lack.

　　In order to see God’s operating in us, it would be helpful for us to have a brief review of the book of Philippians,… a book concerning our experience of Christ. Chapter 1 shows us that we need to live and magnify Christ for Him to be our living and expression. Chapter 2 shows that we need to take Christ as our pattern and hold Him forth. In chapter 3 we see that we need to pursue and gain Christ as our goal. Chapter 4 shows us that we need to have Christ as our secret of sufficiency. In verse 12 of chapter 4 Paul declares that he has learned the secret. He uses a metaphor concerning a person being initiated into a secret society with instruction in its rudimentary principles. Actually, this “secret society” in chapter 4 is the Body of Christ. In conclusion, we can say that in chapter 1 of Philippians Christ is our living and expression; in chapter 2 He is our pattern; in chapter 3 He is our goal; and in chapter 4 He is our secret. All four chapters reveal a certain aspect of Christ for us to experience. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity,” p. 371)

　　Paul says that he magnified Christ. To magnify is to show or declare great (without limitation), to exalt, and to extol. Paul speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and he says that for him to live is Christ. At the end of Philippians Paul says, “All the saints greet you, and especially those of Caesar’s household” (4:22). Caesar’s household comprised all who were attached to the palace of Nero. Some of these were converted through contact with Paul and became believers in Christ in Rome. No doubt, some in Caesar’s household became Christians because they saw Christ in Paul…. God’s operating in us is not outwardly spectacular, but in a spiritual sense it is a great matter. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity,” p. 373)

　　According to Philippians 2:13, God is operating in us. Our salvation is not merely an action; it is a living Person, the Triune God Himself, operating in us. The God Paul speaks of in 2:13 is the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. According to chapter 14 of John, the Father is one with the Son, and the Son is one with the Spirit.

　　Philippians 1:19 speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt that the Spirit who supplies us is the Spirit who indwells us. But this Spirit cannot be separate from the God who operates in us. If we… consider the context of the book as a whole, we shall see that the God who operates in us is the Triune God. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. He is the very God who is Christ in us (2 Cor. 13:3a, 5) and the Spirit dwelling in us (Rom. 8:11).

　　In Philippians 2:13 Paul says that God operates in us “both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.” Where within us does this willing take place? It must be in our will. This indicates that God’s operation begins from our spirit and spreads into our mind, emotion, and will….The grace of Christ is with our spirit [4:23]. However, God’s operating to will in us involves not only our spirit but also our will. Therefore, God’s operation must spread from our spirit into our will. As God operates the willing within us, He carries out His working. This corresponds to Romans 8, where we see that God works not only in our spirit, but also in our mind and eventually in our physical body (vv. 6,11). We will in our will, and we work in our body. The Triune God operates in us from our spirit, through our will, and then into our physical body. (Life-study of Philippians, pp. 103-104)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Philippians, msg. 5-6.