I noted in my previous post that for the vast majority of people in this world, physical death, the end of our life – our existence in this world, is dreaded and feared. And I noted that this fear and dread is for good reason. One reason I noted is because it represents the loss of all things we value or hold dear in this world; family, friends, possessions, pleasures we have come to enjoy, positions of power and status we may have achieved, hopes and dreams we have not yet fulfilled, all vanish with our last breath. A second reason I noted for our fear of death is because of the uncertainty of what occurs after we die, and tied to that reason was the real prospect of having to face the judgement of God on our lives, who will determine in that judgement our eternal destiny, which for many, the Bible tells us, will be the loss of the glorious life with God for which we were created forever (Matthew 7:13-14) (Matthew 7:21-22), and confinement to the cosmic prison the Bible refers to as Hell (Luke 12:5).
Despite all of these very real and tragic losses associated with death, we read in the writings of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:21 that he sees, at least for himself, death as gain – death as advantageous, something he looked forward to with great joy and anticipation, rather than fear and dread.
There are those who read this passage and may conclude or say that Paul just had a good old fashioned death wish – that he was weary of all of the suffering he was going through (2 Corinthians 11:21-33) and just wanted to get the heck out of what he had referred to in Galatians 1:4 as this present evil world.
While there may be a small measure of truth to that, Paul’s commending of physical death is not because Paul had a death wish, but because he had an overwhelming desire for life, the glorious life for which God had created him and all mankind to enjoy with Him, but was lost due to man’s sin. It is the life Jesus had come to restore (John 10:9-10), the life promised to all who would trust in His love (Romans 5:8) and love Him above all else in this world ((Luke 10:25-27)(1 John 4:19). It is the glorious life that those who do so will enter into at the time of their physical death (John 5:24) (John 11:25-27). Thus, Paul could say in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us”.
We are introduced to the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts (Acts 9) where we learn of his dramatic conversion to Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Paul provides a short autobiographical sketch of his early life and his dramatic conversion later in Acts 22 and Acts 26, as well as in Philippians 3:2-11. Through these sketches and what is written by early church historians, Paul, whose Hebrew or Jewish name was Saul, likely came from a wealthy, prestigious family who had dual citizenship in Rome and Israel. He likely was educated in the best university in Israel, and quickly rose to power and influence as a Jewish religious leader – a Pharisee.
He was a highly respected scholar and teacher of the Bible, which at that time consisted only of what we know as the Old Testament. And he hated Jesus; and even more so those who believed in and followed Jesus – Christians (Acts 26:9-11). He hunted them down, had them arrested and thrown in prison, confiscated their homes and possessions and had many of them killed, hoping to eradicate them from the culture, not unlike a extraordinarily wicked man 2000 years later hoped to do with the Jews in his culture.
But God had other plans for young Saul of Tarsus, plans to change him at the core of his being, his heart, so that he became a lover of Christ and a lover of His people, just as He does with all of us who once lived mean, foolish, selfish, God-dishonoring, Jesus-disdaining lifestyles, but have, in our conversion, come to know and rejoice in the glory of God as it is being revealed to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).
From the point of his conversion and call by God to take the Gospel to the Gentile (non-Jewish) nations (Galatians 1:15-16), the now Apostle Paul became a man consumed with living for the glory of Christ and the benefit of God’s people.
Thus, Paul had no fear of God’s judgement on his life as he understood that the judgement he deserved for his sin had already been taken by Jesus (1 Timothy 1:15). He had no concern regarding the loss of all things he valued or held dear in this world, as he had already willingly forfeited them in exchange for the “surpassing greatness” of knowing, while in this world, Jesus as his Savior and Lord, (Philippians 3:7-11) the one who loved him and had given His life for him (Galatians 2:20).
Thus, Paul’s whole life in this world was centered on knowing and proclaiming the infinitely valuable saving love of God as it is revealed in the person and work of Christ, helping men and women of his time, and now of our time, know, experience and delight in that love (Ephesians 3:14-19), both now and forever. Like King David before him, Paul believed that loving and being loved by the most glorious, most desirable, most excellent, most awesome Being in the universe, the creator and ruler of that universe, was sweeter than life itself (Psalm 63:1-5). And thus, he is able to say with all sincerity that to die is gain, understanding that the moment he passed from this world, he would be in the presence of the one who loved him with an everlasting love and who Paul loved more than life itself, Jesus Christ, God the Son (2 Corinthians 5:8), in whose presence is fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).
Jesus Christ had become for the Apostle Paul what He must become for you and me at some point in our life if we too are to see death as gain, namely the desire of our heart and the delight of our soul – the object of our deepest love and the source of our greatest joy.
Grace and Peace ×