Philippians 2:17

If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith. — The striking metaphor of the original is here imperfectly represented. It is, If I am being poured out — if my life-blood is poured out — over the sacrifice and religious ministration of your faith. The same word is used in 2 Timothy 4:6, where our version has, “I am now ready to be offered.” The allusion is to the practice of pouring out libations or drink-offerings (usually of wine) over sacrifices, both Jewish and heathen. Such libation was held to be a subsidiary or preparatory element of the sacrifice. In that light St. Paul regards his own possible martyrdom, not so much as having a purpose and value in itself, but rather as conducing to the self-sacrifice of the Philippians by faith — a sacrifice apparently contemplated as likely to be offered in life rather than by death.

The sacrifice and service of your faith. — The word here rendered “service,” with its kindred words, properly means any service rendered by an individual for the community; and it retains something of this meaning in 2 Corinthians 9:12, where it is applied to the collection and transmission of alms to Jerusalem (comp. Romans 15:27; and see below, Philippians 2:25; Philippians 2:30), and in Romans 13:6 and Hebrews 1:7, where “the powers that be” and the angels are respectively called “ministers of God.” But the great preponderance of New Testament usage appropriates it to priestly service (see Luke 1:23; Romans 15:16; Hebrews 8:2; Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:21; Hebrews 10:11), which is obviously its sense here. The simplest interpretation of the whole passage would be to consider the Philippians merely as priests, and to suppose “sacrifice” to describe the chief function, and “ministration” the general function, of their priesthood. But the word “sacrifice,” though it might etymologically mean the act of sacrifice, has universally in the New Testament the sense, not of the act, but of the thing sacrificed. Accordingly, here it would seem that, following afar off the example of the great high priest, the Christian is described as at once sacrifice and priest, “offering” (see Romans 12:1) “his own body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,” and with it the “sacrifice of praise” and the “sacrifice of doing good and communicating” (Hebrews 13:15, and below, Philippians 4:18). This union of sacrifice and ministration, being the work “of faith,” is in St. Paul’s view the thing really precious; his own death the mere preparation for it, in which he rejoices “to spend and be spent” for them.

I joy, and rejoice with you all. — That is, I joy, and that in sympathy with you. First, “I joy” absolutely, in the feeling that “to depart and be with Christ,” following Him in His own way of suffering, is far better. Next, “I joy in sympathy with you,” in the sense of community of sacrifice, and brotherhood in suffering, for the sake of the one Lord. The emphasis laid on the latter clause harmonises with the old proverb, that sorrow is halved, and joy doubled, when it is shared with others.