Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.
All Commentaries on Philippians 2:17 Go To Philippians 2
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Yea, and if I am offered. He said not, and if I die even, nor did he when writing to Timothy, for there, too, he has made use of the same expression, For I am already being offered. 2 Timothy 4:6 He is both consoling them about his own death, and instructing them to bear gladly the death that is for Christ's sake. I have become, he says, as it were a libation and a sacrifice. O blessed soul! His bringing them to God he calls a sacrifice. It is much better to present a soul than to present oxen. If, then, over and above this offering, he says, I add myself, my death as a libation, I rejoice. For this he implies, when he says, Yea, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and service, I joy and rejoice with you all; and in the same manner do ye also joy and rejoice with me. Why do you rejoice with them? Do you see that he shows that it is their duty to rejoice? On the one hand then, I rejoice in being made a libation; on the other, I rejoice with you, in having presented a sacrifice; and in the same manner do ye also joy and rejoice with me, that I am offered up; rejoice with me, who rejoice in myself. So that the death of the just is no subject for tears, but for joy. If they rejoice, we should rejoice with them. For it is misplaced for us to weep, while they rejoice. But, it is urged, we long for our wonted intercourse. This is a mere pretext and excuse; and that it is so, mark what he enjoins: Rejoice with me, and joy. Do you miss your wonted intercourse? If you were yourself destined to remain here, there would be reason in what you say, but if after a brief space you will overtake him who has departed, what is that intercourse which thou dost seek? For it is only when he is forever severed from him that a man misses the society of another, but if he will go the same way that you will go, what is the intercourse which you long for? Why do we not bewail all that are upon foreign travel? Do we not just a little, and cease after the first or the second day? If you long for your wonted intercourse with him, weep so far only. It is no evil that I suffer, says he, but I even rejoice in going to Christ, and do ye not rejoice. Rejoice with me. Let us too rejoice when we see a righteous man dying, and yet more even when any of the desperately wicked; for the first is going to receive the reward of his labors, but the other has abated somewhat from the score of his sins. But it is said, perhaps he might have altered, had he lived. Yet God would never have taken him away, if there had been really a prospect of an alteration. For why should not He who orders all events for our salvation, allow him the opportunity, who gave promise of pleasing Him? If He leaves those, who never alter, much more those that do. Let then the sharpness of our sorrow be everywhere cut away, let the voice of lamentation cease. Let us thank God under all events: let us do all things without murmuring; let us be cheerful, and let us become pleasing to Him in all things, that we may also attain the good things to come, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, etc.
