The Meaning of Life and Death
What a lesson for all of us. As a church, do we truly believe our own prayers can do marvelous things in the lives of others? The young man in the story with Gladstone, the Prime Minister of England, had a great plan for his life. He wanted to graduate at the top of his class, become a celebrity, then a politician, and maybe even Prime Minister. But when Gladstone asked him, “And then what?” the young man was stumped. He said he supposed he would die and had never thought beyond that. Gladstone called him a fool, telling him that even if he achieved all of his plans, his life would be a useless failure in the end.
What are you living for? The answer to that question will determine the direction of your life. If your purpose is wrong, your direction will be wrong. If your purpose is vague or fuzzy, your direction will be fuzzy. If you don’t know your purpose, you’ll just be swept along by the currents of our age, doing what seems to bring you happiness. It is crucial that you be clear and correct in answering the question, “What are you living for?” That plan and purpose should not only include this temporary life on earth but also include death because death may spoil our plan in the middle, or even if we achieve our plans, death will make everything we achieve here a failure. The Apostle Paul was clear and focused on the purpose of his life. His purpose was so wise that whether he lived or died, that purpose would be fulfilled.
In our lives, when we rise above all the vanity of this life, the day-to-day mist, and climb above it—that happens when someone close to us dies, or we face death ourselves—we are filled with shock. The two greatest questions that come to every human are: What is the purpose of this life, and what is the meaning of death? What happens after death? From small children to the greatest philosophers, everyone has asked these two great questions, and they will continue to ask them in the future.
The great apostle answers those two greatest questions in one amazing small verse, striking in its simplicity, clarity, and brevity, and yet astounding in its profundity. It’s an amazing feat because he dares to take on both of those greatest questions and answer them in one simple, short verse, the shortest in the whole chapter. Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
What is the meaning of life to you, Paul? He answers it in one word: Christ. What is the meaning of death? He says gain. It looks simple, but the profundity of this verse is vast. My mind cannot fully grasp it and stands amazed. This is one of the most compacted and dense statements in all of the Word of God.
In English, he starts with “For,” which means it is connected to what he said previously. We already saw what he has told us from verse 12. He looks at all his past and says all things that happened to him, even his imprisonment, led to the spread of the Gospel, so he rejoices. He looks at what is happening now, and even though preachers preach with wrong motives, Christ is proclaimed, and he rejoices. Then, in verse 18, he makes a prediction in the future tense: “I shall rejoice. My rejoicing will continue.” Because he knows that through the prayers of the church and the supply of the Holy Spirit, he will not be ashamed, but he will have boldness. He says in verse 20, “Whether by life or by death, Christ shall be magnified in my body.” After he says that, it is as if he wants to share the greatest secret of his life and joy. He gives this marvelous verse: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
This is the purpose of my life, the pursuit and direction of my life. Here is the great top secret of my joy. This is why I am what I am, why I have achieved what I have achieved, why I am rejoicing even now and living like this. The secret of my life is this: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” So let us try to understand this glorious statement. It has so much depth; I can only attempt to grasp this verse coming from this great, vast, deep heart. Only an attempt.
“For Me to Live Is Christ”
What did Paul mean when he said, “For me to live is Christ”? He says, “For me,” meaning whatever else life may be to someone else, for him, to live is Christ. This is not a superficial statement from a speaker who says, “This is what our life should be,” but this is coming from the deepest inward, personal conviction of Paul’s own heart. This is a mysterious statement, like a pass code to open the world of Paul’s heart. If someone says something is their life, we understand what they mean by seeing their life and writings. How they spend their time from morning until night, seven days a week, what they live for, what their priority is, how they spend their money—all of this helps us understand what they meant in that mysterious statement.
So when we look at Paul’s life and writings, we can say that he primarily meant three things when he said, “For me to live is Christ.” He lived in a different world climate. There were three climates:
- A climate of faith in Christ. For him, to live as Christ meant to always live a life of faith in Christ. That is where it starts, because Christ is not physically here, and the only way someone can live a life for Christ so much is by faith. See how he describes his life in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. And that life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith.” What kind of faith? “The faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Notice it is a living faith, not faith in faith or faith in something. The object of that faith is Christ. Faith in Christ’s identity, that He is not just a man but the very Son of God, very God, equal with God, with all the attributes of God in whom all the fullness of Godhead dwells. Next is faith in the sufficiency of His redemptive activity, which he describes as “who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” So Paul’s faith was in the unique personal identity of Christ as the Son of God and in what He has done by loving and giving Himself for Paul—the language of substitution. Christ took my guilty, hell-deserving place and bore the wrath against all my sins.
Whatever faith did in our lives, faith in Paul’s life did a powerful thing. Though he was a zealous Pharisee trying to be righteous through the law, God showed him he was a totally depraved sinner and made him realize that the only way any man can become righteous and live a God-pleasing life is through faith in Christ. He realized himself to be such a helpless, utterly incapable sinner that the only way to live life is through faith in Christ and what Christ has done. So, with the powerful working of faith, he says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” He denied himself so much he considered himself crucified, and he no longer lives. Every day, every hour of his life, he denies and looks away from himself, living in faith in Christ, in who Christ is and what He has done for him, so Christ is living in him. So, firstly, what does it mean to live as Christ for Paul? Paul, every day and every hour of his life, whatever happens, comes and goes, lived fully in the climate of faith in Christ.
- A climate of love for Christ. Secondly, for Paul, “to live as Christ” meant loving Christ more than anything in life. Today, we see men preaching and singing emotionally about how much they love Christ, all of which are empty words. You know, I couldn’t find one direct verse where Paul tells us how much he loves Christ. If you find one, tell me; there is none. But, like John, who keeps rejoicing in how much Christ loved him, Paul’s life was a full expression of his love for Christ. That love was revealed in itself, always yearning to know more of Christ. In Philippians 3:7, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” In verse 10, the great goal of his life is, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.” He says the one thing he seeks in life is to know Him.
So, love made him yearn to know Christ more. Next is the natural law: if we love someone, we will love to spend time with them. Oh, this man always lived in an experiential union and fellowship with Christ. How? Prayer and reading Scripture were not conscience-pacifying religious acts for him but were a means to abide in Christ, fellowship with Christ, and know Christ more. His love for Christ was so powerful that he was a man who unceasingly prayed and read Scripture day and night, living in fellowship with Christ. He was always abiding in Christ; hence, just like Christ said, “Abide in Me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit.” We see so much fruit in his life because he loved Christ and abided in Christ by using the means of grace.
His experiential union with Christ comes out in all of his epistles. Why do you think he keeps saying “in Christ” hundreds of times? His whole world was in Christ. Everything he did was in Christ: he prayed in Christ, spoke truth in Christ, rejoiced in the Lord, boasted, ministered in Christ, commanded, exhorted, rebuked churches, lived in Christ, died in Christ, and rose in Christ. His love made him live in close communion with Christ 24/7.
- A climate of devoted service to Christ. He not only lived in a climate of faith and love, but he also lived in a climate of devoted service to Christ. From the moment of his conversion, when he heard the Lord’s voice, he said, “What shall I do, Lord?” And from that moment onward, the great passion that beat within his breast was that of devotedness to the service of Christ. Oh, what a commitment to serve Christ! In Acts 20, he says, “I don’t count my life dear to myself. I have one great passion. I have one passion that I may complete the ministry Christ has given.” He was so committed. “Woe unto me if I do not preach the gospel.” In 2 Timothy, he says, “I endure all things for the gospel.”
He was so committed he counted it a privilege to suffer in Christ’s service; every beating and insult was a badge of honor. In some places, his commitment was amazing. This man, who had a high regard for marriage, was the one who said, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church,” and that marriage is a shadow of Christ’s relationship between the church and Jesus, but he was so committed to serving Christ. In 1 Corinthians 7, he says, “I wish that all men were as I am,” that is, a single man. He found such joy in undistracted service to Christ that he yearned that all men and women would know the same joy. He wasn’t saying marriage was bad or a hindrance, but he was sharing his deep, undistracted commitment to Christ. He was a man who so glowed with this devotion to the service of Christ that he longed that all others could know the same abandonment to that service which he himself knew well. Even now in jail, while writing this, the man is not focused on his comfort; he is very happy that the Gospel is spreading and Christ is being proclaimed. He is not worried about being released. His great concern is whether in death or life, Christ should be glorified through his body.
So, this is a brief, poor attempt to understand what Paul meant when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ.” Paul, give us your philosophy of life. You may be searching for meaning in life and may write 100 pages, but I say the meaning and purpose of my life is one word: Christ. You have my answer in full. To me, to live is Christ. That is, to me, to live is a climate of faith in Christ. To me, to live is a climate of love for Christ. To me, to live is a self-forgetting devotion in the service of Christ. Faith, Love, and Service.
Applications for Our Lives
Before we look at the next phrase, let me bring three applications here.
- This statement is a standard of life for every believer. The sentence is not only a statement of the apostle’s true experience, but also a standard of life for every believer. You and I are saved to live like this. If we want our life to be meaningful, we should aim to live for Christ, and only then will death be gain for us. This is the standard we all should aim to live. This text is a great, piercing scan to show the state of your own heart. Ask yourself, have you found in your own heart an honest, albeit perhaps very faint, but an honest echo of those words and their meaning? Have you heard an echo from your own heart? To me, Murali, Vinod, Robert, or Divya, life is faith in Christ. “I have realized what a helpless, totally depraved sinner I am, hopeless to live believing in myself. There is nothing good in me. I am crucified in Christ; I live fully in faith in Christ. I live in a climate of faith.” Faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Would you have to say that your faith is in your outwardly decent religious life, Christian experience, or church membership? Is your faith in your moral walk, your devotion, your decisions, and your resolutions? Your faith is in something else.
What about your love for Christ? He loved us so much He gave Himself for us. He yearns for you with deep affections and loves to fellowship with you. You don’t have to do big things like Paul, but do you at least reciprocate His love? Do you love Him? Someone says he loves his wife but never calls her, never spends time with her, never thinks of her. What kind of love is that? Some of you are like that; you say you love your Savior. It’s a crazy kind of love. You find no delight in fellowship with Him. You find more delight in spending time on your mobile or watching TV than you do in using the means of grace, praying or reading Christ’s words so you can spend time in communion with Christ. You find more delight in doing 101 things than in meditating upon Christ’s words. And yet you say you love Him. No delight in Him, no time to commune with Him, no reading His love letters to His people. Be not deceived, my friend. Paul says that he who does not love Christ is anathema, the worst curse on him. Jesus rebuked the church in Ephesus, “You do this and that, but there is no true love for Me in your heart.” He doesn’t say, “Love Me; repent and do the things you did earlier, or I will take your lampstand.” “Who wants your outward acts without love for Me?” See how this verse is a piercing scan of where you really are. Finally, forget about being devoted to His service. Do you get involved at least in any way to serve Him? “Peter, do you love Me? Show your love by feeding My lambs.”
To live is Christ: to live in faith, in love, and in devoted service. If some of you are honest, you would have to say, “For me, to live is the accumulation of things; I live to eat nicely and dress up nicely, to enjoy worldly pleasures.” “For me, to live is myself. I am always occupied with me. I don’t live in faith in Christ; I have faith in myself. I don’t love Christ; I love myself. I don’t serve Christ; I serve myself, doing everything that brings me happiness.” Some of you would have to write the text as, “For me, to live is sports, entertainment, covetousness, popularity.” Young people might say, “To live is girls, boys.” To live only for the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Let me tell you, if you are living for anything other than for Christ, then you can never say, “To die is gain.” If you continue to live like that, your death will be a terrible loss and eternal destruction. To continue to live like that shows you have never been regenerated. You need to be born of the Spirit of God. If you cannot say, “For me, to live is Christ,” listen to me. You’re a loser now, and death will be the culmination of your loss. No one can say death is gain unless he can first of all say, “For me, to live is Christ.”
- This statement is a glorious proclamation of the excellence of Christ. But then secondly, these words not only form a piercing scan of the state of our hearts but also form a glorious proclamation of the excellence of Christ. Who was the man who wrote these words, “For me, to live is Christ”? He was not a man with a small mind, not someone who didn’t know the world, uneducated, narrow-minded, or someone who knew nothing but his Bible, church, work, and family and had not seen anything of life. He was not someone who could only see his small, narrow world of a job, a house, and a few friends.
No. Here was a man with a massive, vast mind, who had seen the whole world of his time, was greatly educated, and was a Roman citizen. His mind… you and I try to follow the track of that mind in some of his epistles, and we say, “Man, the guy’s cruising into the vast outer universe of other worlds.” What heights his mind can reach! We cannot even keep up with the high thoughts of this man. Even if we take a rocket with burners. Read books like Colossians and Romans; the mind becomes so hot it either bursts or faints before the blazing light of such concepts. Here is a man with a massive mind, a broad, keen mind.
A man with a large, vast, emotional, pulsing heart, who can take in the concerns of his fellow Jews, with deep feelings for his Jewish nation, who has a deep burden for the Gentile world, which made him a missionary to go from city to city and passionately preach the Gospel, an evangelist, and then form churches, and he was a tender pastor, planting churches, building, commanding, exhorting, and rebuking churches. He loves them like Christ. Here is a man of great largeness of heart and vastness of mind. And yet he says, when I say that “to me, to live is Christ,” I find nothing to constrict me.
Oh, such a man with a vast mind! His life goal is the pursuit of knowing Christ. He says, “For the excellence of knowing Christ, I consider all things as dust.” For a vast man like me, in Christ is an infinite, inexhaustible ocean of knowledge that stretches my mind to its fullest, and I have no fears that I will ever find the shores or reach the bottom or become bored with nothing more to think about. For in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in the very one in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. All that my vast mind ever thirsts for in knowledge, I have found it in Christ. So great is the excellence of knowing Him, that I count everything compared to that as dung.
When he thinks of his heart, he does not fear that somehow that large heart will have a corner that will never be filled if it takes Christ for its supreme object. He has seen the infinite ocean in Christ’s love that can fill his large heart. He knows there’s much more of Christ than his poor heart can ever contain. I say these words form a glorious proclamation of the excellence of Christ.
My friend, do you have that estimation of Christ? Can you say, “To live is Christ”? And have you found Him to be an exhaustless fountain of life, a shoreless, bottomless ocean of knowledge that satisfies? Have you seen such infinite love in Christ that fills your heart and you don’t need anything else? The Holy Spirit has opened Paul’s eyes to see that. The Holy Spirit has opened Moses’ eyes so he considered the reproach of Christ better than the fleeting pleasures and treasures of Egypt. The Holy Spirit has opened all the saints’ eyes to see so much glory in Christ. Has the Holy Spirit done that for you? May God open our eyes to see the glory of Christ.
“To Die Is Gain”
So, we saw three ways what Paul meant when he said, “For me, to live is Christ.” Now, let us see what Paul meant when he said, “To die is gain.”
Death, which we are all so scared of, Job calls the king of terrors. That dread intruder who shatters those most intimate ties of family affection, who rips open sensitive hearts and tramples them underfoot with grief, that vicious thief who snatches babies from the arms of their mothers and plants them in the cold embrace of the earth. That vicious intruder, that king of terrors. Paul says for him to do his work upon me, “for me to die is gain,” is profit, is an advantage. Now, I say that’s an amazing statement.
From a human perspective, can you imagine what an irreparable loss the death of the great apostle Paul would be? Death would be a dreadful, irreversible, and tragic loss. Although there were 12 apostles, how many can we have like Paul? He and his ministry are the standard for all Gospel ministries in church history. His mind, which rose to such heights of truth and spoke such powerful truths, will die. His eyes, which looked at idolatry in Athens, and his spirit was deeply troubled and in holy zeal, gave the greatest sermon on that mountain still carved in stone in Athens. Those eyes will close in death. His lips cannot speak great truths with so much power that converted thousands across the Roman empire. His mouth cannot pray with such fervency and unceasingly that brought down such blessings upon the heads of so many people in so many places. No more would those restless, beautiful Gospel feet, which went around the world preaching the Gospel of saving grace, move. No more would those hands, which he describes in Acts 20 as hands that didn’t take a single rupee from anyone for his ministry, and he worked day and night for his needs and the needs of others, work. From a human perspective, we can bear any man’s death, but the death of this mighty man of God would be nothing less than a dreadful, irreversible, and tragic loss.
Paul knew that, but here Paul is speaking of his death not from the human perspective, but he’s speaking of his death from the perspective of his own personal well-being. That is why he says, “For me, to live is Christ, and for me, to die is gain.” Think of his situation in jail, where at any moment, his head could be chopped off. In that situation, the apostle speaks these words not as an uncertain event but as an expression of deep and burning conviction.
This was no guess or even based on experience; no one can die and come back. But Paul knew death would be gain because of divine revelation. Although Paul had no experience of what death would bring, by the promise of God, who never lies, God has revealed in the Gospel that because of Christ’s death and burial, the death of all believers who trust in Him will be gain. He was so convinced that death was gain that in the following context, he speaks of his longing to die. This was not a sudden, emotional, temporary conviction but a settled conviction of his heart that to die was gain.
Now, in what sense, then, would death be a gain for Paul? We saw three ways Christ was life to him. Let us see three ways how death is gain for Paul, at least, and this is the minimum, at least in three basic areas. Paul knew the truth taught in the shorter catechism question 37: “What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?” “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves, until the resurrection.” Paul knew with unshakable assurance that as soon as he died on this earth and his head was cut off, he would receive these benefits that will come to him from Christ, so he saw death as gain.
Let us see these three things: what happens to a believer’s soul at death, where the soul goes, and then what happens to a believer’s body.
- The first gain is that a believer’s soul is made perfect in holiness. This is true of you and me as believers. When we die, we only see what happens in this world. We may be admitted to a hospital, maybe an ICU. As the soul departs from the body, all the pulse monitors and other monitors show zero, and the crooked lines become one line, with a long, continuous sound. Maybe nurses and doctors all rush in and try to give an electric shock and press our chest, trying to resuscitate me. After trying many times, they may say, “He is gone.” Maybe the body is shifted home for a funeral and then buried. But when my soul departs from my body, at that split second, even while my body may still be warm, and there may be some blood circulation still there, a little life leaving my body, at that very second, what happens to me? Our catechism says that immediately, my soul becomes perfectly holy.
Paul knew what a blessing this is. Like every true Christian, for Paul, when he believed, the dominion of sin was broken, its power was weakened, and sin was no longer reigning sin but remaining sin. Although he had grown far beyond in holiness, Paul still had remaining sin. His flesh lusted against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. He shares his struggle in Romans 7. It was so intense. In Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” And in verse 24, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
In every true Christian, you know that life’s greatest struggle and burden is their remaining sin. There is a deep, constant mourning for sin. Sin has so totally depraved us that even when we are saved and regenerated, sin may not reign, but it remains deeply. So deeply. It’s like you can cut the banyan tree, but its roots are so deep in the ground, in our entire being, that the roots of sin are deeply rooted. Give it room, and it will grow again. It regularly keeps troubling us.
We hear about God’s love, we hear God’s truth, God’s presence comes and kisses our soul, filling us with joy. We determine in the church that we are going to be different. In the new year, we decide that this year we will finish the Bible and read those books; we are going to do this and that for the Gospel. We want to walk with Christ and go out with bright faces. But the very next day, all that conviction fades. Why? It is because of remaining sin. We don’t want to sin, but remaining sin tempts us, deceives us, and sometimes drags us into sin, without us knowing we are being deceived.
Oh, how we grieve the Holy Spirit! How we quench the graces in us! What a struggle Christian life sometimes is. A believer is like an eagle that wants to fly high, but its leg is tied to a gate. What frustration! We hear God’s Word and want to fly, going to do this and that, but oh, how that remaining sin, like a tied leg, hinders us. We are regenerated, filled with the Holy Spirit, made the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are a part of the body of Christ united to Him, adopted children of the Most High God, a royal priesthood, kings and priests, redeemed by the blood of Christ. Oh, what a high calling, but how this remaining sin defiles such high people and brings us low. This remaining sin never keeps quiet. It always troubles us, restless, with the flesh lusting after the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. It is always warring inside. It is never silent, with lusts, covetousness, and evil thoughts hindering us from praying, hindering us from reading the Bible, and hindering us from being close to Christ.
It is not somewhere outside but troubling us inside. To God, who has loved us so much, there is a traitor inside me, a snake full of poison against God. No matter how much you read the Bible and pray, we can control it, but remaining sin doesn’t go away. When it comes again, it stands like a big banyan tree. We are eager to cut it down completely with the axe of repentance, but we cannot do anything because the roots are deep inside us. What can I do? It defiles my graces, my duties, and my ministry. It never allows me to pray with all my heart; there are distractions. One day, the experience is like heaven in prayer; the next day, prayer is boring. One day, we sing like an angel with our whole being; on another day, it’s just our lips. Why?
Think of it: if we as ordinary Christians have such struggles, what struggles did Paul have? The Paul who was always so rejoicing, he cries only for one thing: “O wretched man that I am!” For a man who struggles so much, what a glorious gain for him to know. “My soul, the moment you die, at that very second, you will become perfect in holiness.” At that very second of death, God the Holy Spirit, with His almighty power, uproots all the deep roots of sin in the soul permanently, removing every stain and spot of depravity so much that I become perfect in holiness. It makes me so holy that I was not able to achieve it all my lifetime on this earth. Perfect holiness. What a state! This is so glorious, not only delivered from sinning again but not having the smallest inclination to sin for all eternity.
Perfect holiness. A creature which can reach the highest level of holiness, I will reach as soon as I die. Without blemish or wrinkle. It is a greater state than Adam before the fall, because Adam was in a fallible state, but I will forever, for all eternity, forget about falling into sin; I will not even have an inclination to sin. It is greater than an angel, because angels fell and could fall, but I will not anymore. No sinful thoughts, no lust, anger, bitterness, or covetousness will ever rise in my heart. I will not grieve the Holy Spirit for a second for all eternity. Wow, what an eagerness! The great snake in us which crawls and troubles us all our life, it is our death that kills that dragon. “I am delivered from this body of death.”
Not only will I be delivered from sinning, but I will also perfectly reflect God’s holy law in my whole being. In my heart, my mind, my will, my emotions, and my thoughts, I will be perfectly conformed to God’s holy law without any slightest deviation or hindrance, fulfilling all the piercing, comprehensive demands of the law. Perfect holiness is perfectly reflecting God’s law. What will the measure of my perfection be? This is where the mind faints: I will be like Jesus. I will be like Him in perfect holiness as a man. “When we see Him, we will be like Him,” in a state of meridian splendor, the highest perfection.
Is death not a gain? Puritans said, “My last day will be my best day.” When the EKG monitor goes flat and my vitals read zero, my holiness vitals will be 100% perfect. I will reach perfect holiness. For a saint like Paul, who was crying out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” what do you think would be the greatest gain for such a man? The moment he dies, he is delivered from the body of death, made perfect in holiness, removed of all stains of depravity, and becomes perfectly holy, a full restoration of the image of God, and completely like Christ. So he says, “For me, to die is gain.”
The Soul Immediately Passes into Glory
Secondly, death is a gain because the catechism says our soul immediately passes into glory. We go immediately into glory. We see Christ say to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” As Stephen was dying, he saw Christ in heaven and said, “I give my spirit to you.” He went to heaven immediately after death. So a believer goes immediately into glory.
How will that glory be? Who knows? No eye has seen, no ear has heard. We can only guess, and God has given us a clue. If God, who created this beautiful world in six days, is creating a place from the foundation of the world, how will that place be? We cannot grasp it; it is infinitely glorious. No language can describe that glory. Like a baby’s language, God has used some words of this world to explain it. In a negative way, everything in this world perishes, but this is an imperishable, unfading, and undefiled inheritance. It is completely the opposite of all inheritance in this world. All the negative things of the world are missing: no pain, no sorrow, no disease, no death, no tears. It will be a place of all blessings, joy, goodness, love, and peace, perfectly orderly. To describe its glory, He says the most valuable thing in this world is gold, so the roads there will be made of gold. The only way you and I can go to that place is through death. Is death not a gain?
But for a man like Paul, who is not interested in gold roads or an inheritance, what is the gain? He wants to see the Christ who is his life face-to-face. For us little babies, we get goosebumps thinking of seeing Christ. Think of it for Paul. He always talks about heaven being with Christ. See in this same chapter, verse 23: “For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” “As soon as I come out from the body, I will be with the Lord.” To be with Christ is heaven. He is the Father’s glory, the fountain of inexhaustible joy, the height of joy, the source of all beauty, blessedness, and glory, and an infinite ocean of love and peace. We will behold all His glory. What will that sight do to us? Whatever we see in this world, after seeing it for some time, we become bored, but a fresh, infinite being can be seen and enjoyed for all eternity without an eye blink. You know this was Jesus’ prayer in John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me.”
Oh, Paul, if you die, you may lose friends on earth, the Philippian church. We are also very worried that when we die, we may lose relatives and friends. Yes, a big loss. But Paul knew death would bring new friends, new relations. What kind of friends? Angels, cherubim, seraphim, and perfected saints. Can you imagine what a gain it will be to live with perfected saints? It’s not like living with sinful, depraved humans who irritate and trouble us so much they upset us, sometimes making us lose our patience, even the little Christianity we have. We say our family is a “sweet home,” but what troubles we have in every family, what bitter words. Imagine a perfect family, full of love, with no friction, a place where no one is rubbing one another the wrong way.
Perfect saints whom we know so much about from the Bible: Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Rachel, Joseph, Moses, David, Ruth, Rahab, prophets, apostles, reformers, Luther, Calvin, Rhenius, Edwards, Puritans, Watson, Owen. When these saints were in this world with remaining sins, it was still so good to be with them. When Pastor Bala and I were talking while driving for three hours to Mysore, it felt like three minutes. We had so much discussion and joy that we forgot everything. Imagine what joy when we are perfected for all eternity. Oh, what a joy! They will not make us upset, never stop loving, never make us bitter. What a family! You cling to this family, you keep crying; they keep breaking your heart. “Children don’t listen! Oh, I will leave this family!” What a loss. Imagine what family you have in heaven. A no-friction family.
So Paul says death is gain because death will bring perfect holiness, take him to glory—a perfect place with his Lord and with his people. Finally, “Oh, what about my body?” “Will there be a loss? Will death bring a loss to my body?” No. The catechism says, “Because our body is united to Christ, it will rest in the grave until the resurrection.”
Rest. I don’t know about you, but the word itself is such a mouth-watering word. Seven days of work, no rest day; now the job has a team, increased workload, one family responsibility after another, children growing, studies, exams, increased church work, in between one event after another, conferences, meetings. Physically we lie down to rest, but mentally, no rest. Thoughts keep running: “How to prepare that message? What is that verse saying? What are the applications?” Thoughts and more thoughts are going. No rest for the mind. “When do I rest?” “Where is rest?” One thing I understood is there is no rest for me in this world. Doctors say my health issues are because of no rest, too much stress. If for one church, there is so much struggle, think of Paul, with so many churches, Gospel ministries, and how many people. He says there is daily stress for the concern of the churches. Oh, what stress. He lived with that constant stress and burden. For such a man, do you see why death is a gain? His body, so strained, so beaten, so stressed, and weak, which worked restlessly, will get much-needed rest in death until the resurrection. In death, Paul knew his grave would become a bedroom, a rest room.
Revelation 14:13 “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.'”
Rest. Body rest, rest for the mind. It doesn’t have to plan, think, or struggle with truths. The mind doesn’t have to worry, worry, worry 24 hours a day. Cares are such torture. Oh, restless mind, rest now. Rest from trials, temptations, and worries; rest from politics, “who will win this election?” That is why the Bible says the death of believers is not “death in Christ” but “asleep in Christ.” It is a nice sleep. Paul was a very hard-working man; even in jail, he was so active, praying and writing letters. For him, death is a gain. A man will sleep so sweetly after a full day of hard work. Paul’s death will be a gain even for his body. Why rest? To be awakened on resurrection morning. When Christ will give a glorious, deathless body like His and fully glorify Paul. “Rest, my body, wait for the resurrection.”
So Paul, knowing death will make him perfect in holiness, death will take him to glory, and his body will get rest in the grave, says death is gain.
Conclusion and Invitation
As a conclusion, let me ask you one question: Do you have this confidence of Paul? Men, women, young people, children, and old people, you don’t know what will happen to you in the future, whether you will be successful or achieve your plans, but I know one thing for sure: you will die one day. “I don’t want to think about it now.” My friend, your refusal to think about death will not stop it. See, it is coming closer year by year. You know that. In light of the inevitability of your death and your burial, can you say, “To die is gain”? Can you say that? Can you? So whatever you may achieve in life, if you don’t have Paul’s confidence, you will be a fool, and your life will be a failure.
Death will be a gain for you only if Christ is life for you here. Otherwise, death will be the worst tragedy of your life. Death will be the greatest loss for you, even if you gain the whole world, because the opposite of what happens to a believer will happen to you. The same catechism says what happens to sinners when they die. As soon as you die, immediately, instead of becoming perfectly holy like Christ, your soul will become completely conformed to total depravity, to the image of the devil, because all common graces of this world are removed. You become like the devil, and you are thrown into hell to experience unbearable torment. And your bodies are imprisoned in the grave for resurrection and judgment. The body does not rest but waits for judgment when the soul and body joined will be thrown into eternal hell. What an opposite!
If you die without Christ, when your vital signs become weak in the ICU, you will dread to die, and you will hate to die, but death will drag you like a sheep to be slaughtered. Oh, your visions and dreams of hell will be the first time you face a sample of the wrath of God. If it gave sweat drops to Jesus, what will it do to you? In your fear, you won’t want to die, you cannot repent at that last minute if you refuse today. You will leave everything, all your relatives. Your death will be an eternal loss and open a door to eternal hell. When I come to your funeral, how can I comfort your family?
Come today. Make Christ your life today by believing in Him, loving Him, and serving Him, so death becomes a gain for you. Because Christ alone died and was buried, and He came out triumphantly from the grave. So all those who believe in Him are united to Him and will come out, and death becomes a gain for them.
As believers, this is a scan to examine our hearts. Can you say with Paul, “To live is Christ and to die is gain”? “Oh, no, pastor, I have my doubts. I cannot say with confidence.” It is because of your failure to live as if Christ is your life. Let this challenge us to trust Christ more, live in a climate of faith, love Him more, know Him more, and abide in Him more, through the means of regular reading and praying, and serve Him more. If you do those things, this will increase your assurance, and you will be able to say, “To live is Christ.” Then we will realize that death will truly be a gain. Don’t see death as a negative thing. Meditate on such truths. When you get diseases and sickness, even if some may lead to death, never lose faith, love, and service of Christ, because it is that which will make not only that disease but also the death that disease brings a gain for you.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 