2:17 Yea, and if I be offered upon the {p} sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.
(p) As if he said, I brought you Philippians to Christ, and my desire is that you present yourselves a living sacrifice to him, and then it will not grieve me to be offered up as a drink offering, to accomplish this your spiritual offering.
2:17 Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith,. He is willing to die as a sacrifice for Christ, martyred because he has preached the gospel to the Gentiles, if it will be an encouragement to their faith. The imagery used was familiar to those who had so often seen victims sacrificed as offerings in the heathen temples.
I joy, and rejoice with you all. He will even rejoice in death if it will help the cause of Christ.
2:17 Here he begins to treat of the latter clause of Php 1:22. Yea, and if I be offered - Literally, If I be poured out. Upon the sacrifice of your faith - The Philippians, as the other converted heathens, were a sacrifice to God through St. Paul's ministry, Rom 15:16. And as in sacrificing, wine was poured at the foot of the altar, so he was willing that his blood should be poured out. The expression well agrees with that kind of martyrdom by which he was afterwards offered up to God.
2:12-18 We must be diligent in the use of all the means which lead to our salvation, persevering therein to the end. With great care, lest, with all our advantages, we should come short. Work out your salvation, for it is God who worketh in you. This encourages us to do our utmost, because our labour shall not be in vain: we must still depend on the grace of God. The working of God's grace in us, is to quicken and engage our endeavours. God's good-will to us, is the cause of his good work in us. Do your duty without murmurings. Do it, and do not find fault with it. Mind your work, and do not quarrel with it. By peaceableness; give no just occasion of offence. The children of God should differ from the sons of men. The more perverse others are, the more careful we should be to keep ourselves blameless and harmless. The doctrine and example of consistent believers will enlighten others, and direct their way to Christ and holiness, even as the light-house warns mariners to avoid rocks, and directs their course into the harbour. Let us try thus to shine. The gospel is the word of life, it makes known to us eternal life through Jesus Christ. Running, denotes earnestness and vigour, continual pressing forward; labouring, denotes constancy, and close application. It is the will of God that believers should be much in rejoicing; and those who are so happy as to have good ministers, have great reason to rejoice with them.
