according to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but in all boldness, as always, now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether by life or by death.
Paul writes from prison in Rome. His trial is still ahead, and the verdict could be release or death. Yet his one stated hope says nothing about that outcome. It is about whether people see Christ in him either way.
"Eager expectation" is one word in the original. It carries a picture.
"Earnest-expectation" is only one word in Greek. It means literally "watching (for some expected object) as with outstretched head." … But you must picture the aged apostle in his Roman prison, his head stretched out with longing expectation. Our English cannot say it. You must picture him in your mind. And what is his "longing-expectation" for? "That in nothing I shall be ashamed." Nothing would shame him into cowardice or compromise. Nothing would shame him by failure or disappointment either.
Being "ashamed" here is not about whether Paul is safe with God. Commentators press that the concern is what today's conduct looks like.
But "that in nothing I shall be ashamed." What a word, and how fitted to make us ashamed! It is not a question of acceptance in Christ. No; it is practical. It is his state and experience every day, and his hope about it was that in nothing he should be ashamed.
Notice how Paul words it. He never puts himself in the active role. These writers quote an older translation: where the ESV has "honored," it reads "magnified."
What a word this is: "Christ shall be magnified!" The apostle does not say, "that I may magnify Christ." It is in the passive voice. The instrument is forgotten. Notice also that he does not say, "that Christ shall be magnified in my life, or in my soul." … the apostle's longing is that Christ shall be magnified in his body. … It is, I think, like the lens in a telescope, through which some distant star in the heavens "is magnified." It does not make the star any greater. But it shows in some small degree the greatness of that star. The telescope and the lens are forgotten: and the star fills the vision.
But Christ cannot be made to look bigger than He is. So what did Paul want?
To magnify anything is to make it appear larger than it is; that could not be so with Christ. But Paul wanted everything to shine out in him, so that Christ should be magnified through him.
Paul names the body, not the mind. One writer looks back at what Satan once did with the body.
The one desire he had, the ruling desire of his soul, was that Christ should be magnified in his body, "whether by life or by death." That is to say, man's body was once the platform where Satan displayed his power. There he showed all his hatred and all his malice against God and Christ. Now God says, "I am going to take that same vessel and make it the platform on which I will display the power of Christ." … "I have full communion with what God is doing." That is the meaning of the words, "My earnest expectation and my hope."
This reaches even a body that can do nothing.
Take an illustration. You may see a poor, weak, feeble creature tossing from side to side on a bed of pain, saying, "What use am I? A trial to myself, a burden to others, no good to anybody." Yet that sufferer has a body full of pain, and everything about him would naturally make him the opposite of this. By the power of Christ he may be so in communion with Him that his body shows no grumbling and no discontent. Instead it shows a soul filled with joy and peace, controlled by His presence and satisfied with Himself. And as you look at this you do not say, "What a wonderful creature." You say, "What a Christ that must be, to be shown out in such a poor, weak house of clay as this!"
The hope is deliberately left open at both ends, and that is the point.
This hope was not for his release from prison, but rather that, whatever his circumstances, "in nothing" he "should be ashamed," but that with all boldness, as always, Christ should be magnified in his body, "whether by life or by death." Whether life or death, he would be completely content with one or the other, if only he might boldly and unashamedly magnify Christ in his body.
The setting sharpens it. Paul was about to stand where his Master had stood.
He was about to appear before the Roman emperor. His Lord had once stood before that same power, and there He had witnessed a good confession. … He calls it his salvation to be delivered from everything of self, whether his natural cowardice or his courage, so that he would show nothing but Christ. Christ had stood before this court and was condemned to the cross. Now these rulers and judges were to find this same Christ in the body of Paul.
- Expectation — the word pictures a prisoner craning his neck toward one outcome. Not freedom, but that in nothing he would be ashamed.
- Shame — the fear is not about acceptance with God. It is about daily life: being shamed into compromise, or shamed by failure.
- Magnified — the verb is passive. A lens adds nothing to a star. It only shows the star's greatness, and then the lens is forgotten.
- Body — God takes the very platform where Satan displayed his malice and makes it the stage for showing Christ. Watch a believer suffering in bed and you say, "What a Christ that must be."
- Either Way — with self set aside, life and death become equal options. The judges who once condemned Christ were to meet Him again in the body of His prisoner.
For for me to live [is] Christ, and to die gain;
Paul sums up his whole life in two short clauses — one about living, one about dying. Is this the report of one exceptional man, or a description of what every Christian life is meant to be?
The setting matters. This was not the first flush of a new convert's enthusiasm but the settled verdict of a long and costly life.
His eye was on Christ, not for the beginning and the end only, but all the way... Here, speaking of his own daily practice, he shows he had but one aim, motive, object, and business — Christ. And he said this, not at the start of his career, in the overwhelming sense of the Saviour's grace to His proud and self-righteous persecutor. He said it after long years of unmatched toil, danger, trouble outside and sorrow inside the Church.
Other letters say Christ is our life. This one says something different.
In Galatians 2 and Colossians 3 the Apostle tells us that Christ is his life... These Scriptures tell us of the inner Source and Power of the life the Apostle lived day by day. But in Philippians the Spirit is not speaking of "Christ our life". He is speaking of the day by day life that the Apostle lives — the outer life that others see... We see people of the world. Of one we say: "For him to live is wealth"; of another: "For her to live is pleasure"; or again, "For such a one to live is study, or power, or some other pursuit." We know this means that these things are the absorbing interests in their lives, to the near exclusion of everything else.
There is a gap between having that life and living it.
It is one thing to have Christ as our life — every believer can say this — but it is another thing to live the life that we have. Is Christ the one Object before us, that occupies us from day to day — the motive for all that we think and say and do?
If Christ is the one object, rival objects have to go.
Let Christ be then the controlling object of our life in the power of the Spirit of God. There is no rest while the heart is divided between Christ and self, or the world, or our friends, or our brothers and sisters. Whoever makes Christ, and Christ alone, his object enters into the joys of God.
The two halves of the verse are built differently in the original, and the grammar carries the sense.
The words "to live" are in the present infinitive. That means the continuous, day-after-day life that the Apostle lived down here. In the other half of the verse, "and to die is gain", the Spirit of God changes to the aorist infinitive, which points to one single act: "the having died is gain." It is not "the dying" that is gain, but "the having died". As the Apostle points out, that is "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."
Some have tried to read the gain as a gain to Christ's cause rather than to Paul himself. That reading has been challenged on the wording:
The emoi gar ("for to me") standing at the start of the sentence is necessarily related to both clauses of it: "to me to live is Christ, and (to me) to die is gain." Nor does he say, "to me to live is gain to the cause of Christ" at all, but to me to live is Christ, Christ is the object of my life. And when he comes to speak of death being gain, he never says, "to the cause of Christ" at all, but "(to me) to die is gain."
Paul faced death in a way Rome could not explain.
He felt that he was for Christ, and for Christ only, whether in life or in death... If, therefore, they had beheaded Paul, would he have lost anything? No! Christ would have been magnified in his body still. What sort of testimony was that in Caesar's court? A Roman knew how to face death as a display of courage. But to walk toward death thinking it was gain, because there was a Jesus who had been crucified between two thieves, and He was the joy of a man's heart — a Roman could not have understood that.
It is tempting to admire this from a safe distance, as if it belonged only to Paul.
We are apt to gaze in awe and wonder at the great apostle. We feel that such a statement, though true of him, is well beyond us, and not meant to apply to us at all. But you recall he tells us, not once or twice, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."... The truth is that this is just the normal, proper life of a Christian: the life that every one of us should be living.
- Object — Christ was Paul's one aim, motive, and business. He said this not at the start of his career but after long years of toil, danger and sorrow.
- Living — Galatians and Colossians say Christ is our life. Here the subject is the daily life others can see, just as "for him to live is wealth" describes a person's absorbing interest.
- Gap — every believer can say Christ is their life; the harder thing is to live the life we have.
- Gain — "to live" is continuous, but "to die" is one act. It is not the dying but the having died that is gain, because it means departing to be with Christ.
- Normal — this is not an apostle's privilege. It is the proper Christian life, which is why Paul could say, "Be imitators of me."
but if to live in flesh [is my lot], this is for me worth the while and what I shall choose I cannot tell.
Paul writes from prison, not knowing if his trial will end in release or death. He is not afraid to die; the hard part is choosing between two good things, and his words about "fruitful labor" are where commentators do most of their work.
Commentators have found this verse hard to pin down. One writer paraphrases the whole thought to show how it hangs on the verse before, and where the uncertainty lies.
"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour [an idiomatic expression meaning 'worth my while'], yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."
Another writer paraphrases the whole thought to show how it hangs on the previous verse, and where the uncertainty actually lies.
Everyone who has tried to state the exact meaning of this verse has felt real difficulty. It clearly stands in the closest connection with what goes before, and I think we can fairly paraphrase it like this: "I have said that to me to die is gain. But if it is my appointed lot to live on, this also has its fruit. And what I shall choose I do not know, and therefore cannot say."
The ESV says "fruitful labor" where older translations say "the fruit of my labour." Commentators differ over which wording to keep. One writer wants "fruit," because it ties the verse to the rest of the letter.
It seems to me a pity to lose the word "fruit" in the passage. It naturally takes our thoughts back to "the fruit of righteousness" in verse eleven, or to the branch remaining in the Vine to bear fruit (John 15). And it takes our thoughts forward to the end of the letter, where he writes: "I seek fruit abounding to your account." Fruit and labour seem to be linked together in the Scriptures... The thought seems to be this: if the Lord should leave Paul here a while longer, he would still continue in his labour. And that labour meant fruit for his Master.
The same writer then turns that word into a question about himself.
I know that the Lord says, "Well done, good and faithful servant," not "good and successful servant." And I know that the Lord does not reckon "fruit" as we do. But even so, it often comes home to me as a challenge to my own soul: why so little fruit?
One writer asks why Paul could not choose. His answer is about how completely Christ filled Paul's heart.
He puts it as a matter left for him to judge and decide by Christ. "If I live in the flesh, it is worth my while." But if not, what then? Why, it was gain. As far as he was concerned, then, why could he choose? In one sense he could not, and in another he would not choose. Christ was so truly before his heart that in fact there was no self left unjudged to warp the choice. This is what brings him, if one may say so, into the dilemma of love. If he left this world, he would be with Christ; if he lived longer in this world, Christ was with him.
Rome held Paul's life in its hands. Yet the emperor never enters his thinking.
For himself it was far better to depart and be free from all the conflicts, trials and sufferings. But on the other hand there were the needs down here. The saints needed him and his labours, and this led him to choose "to abide in the flesh," for it was more needful for them. So he decides to remain, no matter what sufferings were still in store for him... And there is no mention made of Nero and his power. Through faith Paul knew himself not in the hands of Rome but in the hands of Christ.
Paul wrote this while shut away from the work he loved. One writer looks at what filled his heart then.
Here the apostle gives us what his heart was occupied with when he could not go out into the activities of work. It seemed as if he had nothing to do... To one cut off from such work it was, in appearance at least, a heavy burden and an immense trial. But Christ changes all for us. His yoke is easy, and His burden light. It is Christ, and Christ only, who deals like this with grief and pressure.
Paul leaves the question open here. Another writer shows where he finally settles it.
The apostle weighs the matter: much better to be with Christ on the one hand, but on the other hand, more needful for you that he stay in the flesh. And being confident of this, he decides the matter himself: "I know that I shall remain." What a true shepherd's heart! Without hesitation he gives up his own wishes for the sake of the flock.
- Fruit — Living on is not mere survival. More time means more labour, and that labour means fruit for the Master.
- Worth while — One writer reads the phrase as an everyday saying: if I go on living, it is worth my while.
- Strait — Christ filled Paul's heart, so no self-interest was left to tilt the choice. Leave the world and he is with Christ; stay and Christ is with him.
- Silence — He weighs his own death without one word about Nero. He knew himself in Christ's hands, not Rome's.
- Shepherd — The deadlock breaks when he looks at the flock. He gives up his own wish and says, "I shall remain."
But I am pressed by both, having the desire for departure and being with Christ, [for] [it is] very much better,
Paul writes this from prison, with a death sentence a real possibility, and instead of fear he describes a dilemma: two desires pull him at once. His answer opens up what death means for a believer, and what fills a heart when Christ is everything.
Paul does not say he wants to die. The word he chooses carries a picture:
You will notice the Apostle does not say he had a desire "to die," but to depart and be with Christ. The word translated depart comes either from taking down a camp, or from letting go the cable that holds a ship to the dock. In 2 Timothy 4:6, Paul says: "the time of my departure has come." This is from the same word. When a great ocean liner is ready to leave, you see the last cable let go. Then it moves off quietly on its long journey to a distant land. And for many on board, it is going "home", to a land they love. That is how the Apostle pictures death.
Everyone must die one day. Paul speaks instead of what he wants:
The apostle does not say, "I must depart"; but, "I desire to depart." All men must depart. There is a dying principle in all.
Being "hard pressed between the two" is not indecision about things he cared nothing for:
Isn't it plain that death was gain to him, and yet he was still torn between choosing death or life? Not because, as some say, "they were equally indifferent to him." That would be a strange way of being torn between two things he cared nothing about. He was torn because the question was whether to choose his own good or the good of the saints.
The obvious reason to want out of prison is escape. That was never Paul's pull:
We often think that to depart and be with Christ will mean escaping the trials, worries, confusion and shame of this wilderness path. So we think it is better to depart. But such a thought never crossed the Apostle's mind. The attraction, on the one hand, was CHRIST, and nothing else. On the other hand, there was the need of the saints. He was not putting the saints before Christ. It was for Christ's sake that he cared for Christ's flock.
The emperor held Paul's life in his hands. Paul writes as though God had handed him the question instead:
So instead of thinking it was a question for the emperor to decide, he sees, feels, and speaks as if God had put it all into his own hands... He drops Caesar altogether and views it as if God were asking His servant whether he was going to live or die. His answer is that it would be much better for himself to die, but that for the sake of the Church it would be better for him to live a while longer. So the decision is truly Christlike. It goes against his own strong desire, because his aim was undivided, and he sacrificed self for the good of the Church.
Some teach that death is an unconscious sleep. If that were so, Paul's comparison would collapse:
This false teaching claims that when the believer dies he passes into a state of unconsciousness. If that were true, it would not be "far better" to depart, or as the original puts it, "much more better." Enjoying fellowship with the Lord is good and blessed. To pass out of the body and be with Him is "much more better." Apart from the body, God's saints enjoy and know the Lord in a way that is impossible down here. And the best of all is when the Lord comes and all the redeemed receive their glorified bodies.
"Far better" is real, but it is not the end of the story:
If we die we go to Him, and that is a blessed truth. But the hope of the Christian, the only full hope, is that Christ will come. It is true that to depart and be with Christ is far better. Yet that is not God's purpose for us. God's purpose is that we shall be like Christ. I do not want to be like Christ with my body in the grave, and my spirit in paradise.
- Departure — Paul's word pictures a camp taken down, or a ship's last cable let go. For the believer, death is a sailing home.
- Desire — he does not say he must go, but that he wants to go. The pull is Christ Himself, not escape from prison.
- Dilemma — the pressure is not between two things he does not care about, but between his own gain and the good of others.
- Decision — he drops Caesar out of it. He settles the question as if God had asked him, and chooses against his own longing for the church's sake.
- Degrees of better — being with Christ is "much more better" than the happiest life here, so it cannot be an unconscious sleep. Best of all is still ahead, when Christ comes and raises the body.