I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and
the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as
it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that
with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by
life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to
live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose
I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be
with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more
necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and
continue with you all…
‘For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am
to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall
choose I cannot tell.’ Choose? Why did Paul think that he had the choice whether to live or to die?
I take it for granted that Paul was not considering
suicide! He could have been under a death sentence with the option of
remitting it by renouncing what he believed and taught but that does not seem likely or something that would appeal to Paul. God might have given Paul the choice whether to continue to endure imprisonment or
to step from a dungeon straight into Glory! But I think there is a more normal explanation. The original Greek word for 'choose' can also be translated ‘prefer’, so I think Paul was saying only that he
couldn’t tell whether to prefer life
or death? But even that raises important issues for us. How would we choose? Which do we prefer? If God offered us the opportunity to die in the next few minutes, would we pray earnestly for a longer life or be in two minds like Paul?
Paul faced the choice from a position of love. Was he to love himself or others? ‘My desire is to
depart and be with Christ...but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.’ He went beyond Jesus’
command to love our neighbours as ourselves: he loved his neighbours more than he loved himself and on that basis preferred life.
One all-consuming lifestyle goal motivated Paul, as he explained
later in the letter. To ‘gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - that I may
know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the
resurrection from the dead’.
The suffering Paul experienced was necessary for Paul to reach his goal. It wasn't an artificial suffering, self-inflicted as some sort of religious discipline, but an inevitable consequence of his mission for Jesus. By such suffering, evil was turned to good and the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus, spread across the Roman Empire and beyond. By that suffering, we have Paul's letters to read today!
Hardship, illness, disability, abuse and other terrible things are not good in and of themselves but can be turned to good, setting in motion things that are very good - just as Christ's crucifixion did! We reflected on this in the past few weekends.
Paul’s attitude to death was integral to his Christian faith. Too often, it seems to me, Christians fail to shake off the sense of despair and tragedy that society in general attaches to death. An acute sense of loss is natural but it should sit alongside the enduring hope of eternal life. I recall a retired pastor who has since died himself telling me what happened in the moments after his wife died. A nurse said to him, ‘I’m sorry for your loss’. He replied, ‘Oh no, I haven’t lost her. I know exactly where she is. I just can’t be with her for the time being.’ Although there was no doubt that the loss of his wife of over 50 years had a physical impact on the pastor, there was no shadow across his faith because he shared St Paul’s conviction.
The word translated ‘deliverance’ in the opening line of the quotation at the start of this Reflection is the same word translated ‘salvation’ elsewhere in the letter. I understand why the translators have used ‘deliverance’ because it refers to a future phase of salvation. The New Testament writers do not describe salvation as something they obtained in the past but as an ongoing process with future consummation after death.
Hardship, illness, disability, abuse and other terrible things are not good in and of themselves but can be turned to good, setting in motion things that are very good - just as Christ's crucifixion did! We reflected on this in the past few weekends.
Paul’s attitude to death was integral to his Christian faith. Too often, it seems to me, Christians fail to shake off the sense of despair and tragedy that society in general attaches to death. An acute sense of loss is natural but it should sit alongside the enduring hope of eternal life. I recall a retired pastor who has since died himself telling me what happened in the moments after his wife died. A nurse said to him, ‘I’m sorry for your loss’. He replied, ‘Oh no, I haven’t lost her. I know exactly where she is. I just can’t be with her for the time being.’ Although there was no doubt that the loss of his wife of over 50 years had a physical impact on the pastor, there was no shadow across his faith because he shared St Paul’s conviction.
The word translated ‘deliverance’ in the opening line of the quotation at the start of this Reflection is the same word translated ‘salvation’ elsewhere in the letter. I understand why the translators have used ‘deliverance’ because it refers to a future phase of salvation. The New Testament writers do not describe salvation as something they obtained in the past but as an ongoing process with future consummation after death.
This is why Paul wrote to the Philippians, ‘Work out your own
salvation...’ (Philippians 2:12-13). He didn't mean for them or for us to make it up for ourselves but to see through what God had ordained, just as he was seeing it through. Paul was content to suffer hardship, abuse and death - a death that would probably be as torturous as a Roman crucifixion. He looked on it all as 'gain'! We too can know that quality of contentment!
© Copyright Philip Evans 2014.
What is freely received should be freely shared and not sold for profit, so please feel free to copy these Reflections freely and without cost to others. Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations in these Reflections are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
