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Paul is rebuking the world life of his time. He tells the Philippians of the call to the higher life. As the "mind" of Christ is different from that of the world so is His "rule." It is described as a scheme of life introducing to the perfect condition of heaven, and forming part of it. The "perfect" Christian looks steadfastly up into heaven as containing Christ, and representing the law, ideal, and aim of his conduct.

I. ITS ORIGIN.

1. A spirit and outlook so ethereal must have a correspondingly lofty cause, h desire that reaches to heaven must have heaven for its source and attraction.

2. The spirit of man can, and has, become a partaker of the heavenly sphere while dwelling among earthly conditions.

3. What is it that links us with that sphere? Christ. His life imparted to us has created this other worldliness of thought, feeling, purpose. He is to us the embodiment of heaven, the centre of its interest and life.

4. The manner of His continuous influence is expressed in the term "Saviour." It is a rescue of our spiritual nature from inertness and fatal debility, and through that it works upon the whole man towards the attainment of a far-reaching destiny.

II. ITS METHOD OF DEVELOPMENT.

1. The circumstances in which our spiritual life is to be perfected are not completely realized in the present.

2. But our higher life has to commence amid earthly conditions. The defects and sins of our fellows have to be confronted, and our own failings and depravities have to be brought under.

3. In nature the rule is that the more complex and highly organized a living creature is the slower is its development. The young of animals attain the full use of their faculties much sooner than the child. But this life has its seat in the mind, and, considering this, we cannot wonder if it be slow.

4. It must also be uncertain. Frequent lapses, seasons of depression, periods of apparent standing still. Yet, on the whole, progress. Much of this uncertainty is due to the fact that it is a movement from body to spirit. Not only has it to assimilate truth, it has to contend with error and evil tendencies. The "body of humiliation" is the graveyard of many a hope, the register of many a sin, the condition of spiritual weakness.

5. A bodily principle will ever cleave to us, but it will be sublimated and made more amenable to the dictates of the Spirit. The perfect life is not realized in pure spirit; the salvation of the body is included. Laggard in the earthly development, it may in other realms be a true helpmeet and enricher of the spirit.

6. Christ in us is the hope and effectual realization of future glory for body and soul.

III. ITS CULMINATING GLORY. The city, with its rights and privileges of citizenship, its order, law, society, and civilization in ancient times, constituted the haven of liberty and the sanctuary of the higher hopes of man. So Paul and John, when they contemplate the future, naturally think of it as an etherealized Rome or Jerusalem. It is a common life. We are to be perfected together. The society and political relationships of the world will have their correspondences on high.

1. Order and government will exist in the noblest forms. Righteousness will be the universal law.

2. Of this life the centre and sustaining power will be the Saviour.

(A. F. Muir, M. A.)

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KJV: For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

WEB: For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;