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.
but remaining in the flesh [is] more necessary for your sakes;
Paul writes from prison, torn between dying to be with Christ and staying alive to serve. This verse is where the tension breaks — and it breaks not in favour of what he wants, but in favour of what others need.
One commentator points out that each phrase in the passage defines the other:
There was no third thing at all. His desire to depart and be with Christ was the pressure on one side. His remaining in the flesh being more needful for them was his difficulty on the other. And so "departing and being with Christ" can only mean his dying, just as "remaining in the flesh" can only mean his living.
Verse 23 leaves Paul unable to choose. Verse 24 ends the deadlock, and the deciding weight is not his own comfort:
He certainly wanted to cut loose from all that held him here and to be with Christ. On the other hand, he felt that staying here would be more necessary for the saints. Once that is clearly before him, all is clear. The pressure from two sides is gone. How sweet and unselfish is the love which the Holy Spirit gives to the heart that is centred on Christ! Their spiritual interest turns the scale, whatever his personal desire.
Why could Paul not decide? Both options were full of Christ, so nothing in him leaned to one side:
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. In short, he was so living Christ that it was only a question of Christ here, and of Christ there.
Paul does not settle the matter by consulting his preferences. He settles it by asking what Christ wants for His people — and that answer he already knows:
He had learnt to forget himself in Christ. He saw Christ fully taken up with the church, according to His perfect wisdom. And this decided the question. God taught him this. Not knowing for himself which to choose, Paul lost sight of himself. He thought only of the need of the church, according to the mind of Christ. It was good for the church that he should remain — even for one church: so he would remain. And see the peace this gives to the servant of God. Looking to Jesus destroyed selfishness in the work.
Why was staying necessary? One writer points to what Paul could already see coming on the churches:
For him it would be far better to depart, and leave all the suffering and affliction behind; but "to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account." We must remember that decline was setting in on every hand, though the days were early. Evil men were already at work, seeking to corrupt the testimony of the Lord and lead the saints astray. Paul knew the evil would spread. He had told the Ephesian elders so (Acts 20), some time before he wrote this letter to the Philippians. So he wanted to stay and steer the church's boat a little longer over the troubled sea.
Paul's life lay in the emperor's hands. He writes as though it did not:
Was it really desirable for the church that Paul should stay? Then, without hesitation and without any selfish feeling, he can say, Paul will stay. So he settles the matter and speaks calmly and confidently of seeing them again. Yet this is a man in prison, exposed to the most reckless of Roman emperors, who thinks, decides and says all this!
Commentators do not leave the verse as history. One turns it on the reader:
Can any of us venture to say that we are so bent upon the interests of Christ concerning His members here below? That this one thing, and only this one thing, so far as our choice goes, keeps our souls away from His longed-for presence? That we know how much better it is to depart and be with Him than to be here? That we prefer His gain to our own, and so choose to stay in this dark scene? For here alone can we serve the interests of Christ, in our little measure and for His own sake. And He is infinitely more to us than even the personal blessedness we would find in His presence.
- Two doors. "Departing" means dying and being with Christ; "remaining in the flesh" means living on. Paul weighs only these two, and nothing else.
- No self to sway him. He cannot choose, because Christ fills both options — Christ there if he goes, Christ here if he stays.
- Their need decides. He cannot settle it by preference, so need settles it. The spiritual interest of the saints turns the scale.
- Christ's mind, not his own. Christ's mind about the church settled it. It was good for the church that Paul stay, so he would stay. Reading that mind gave him peace.
- The emperor is not consulted. A prisoner facing a reckless emperor calmly announces his own future. The will he reads is the Lord's.