A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO

'To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22.

But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of

my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. 23.

For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire

to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far

better: 24. Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is

more needful for you. 25. And having this

confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue

with you all for your furtherance and joy of

faith.'--PHIL. i. 21-25.

A preacher may well shrink from such a text. Its elevation of feeling

and music of expression make all sermons on it sound feeble and harsh,

like some poor shepherd's pipe after an organ. But, though this be true,

it may not be useless to attempt, at least, to point out the course of

thought in these grand words. They flow like a great river, which

springs at first with a strong jet from some deep cave, then is torn and

chafed among dividing rocks, and after a troubled middle course, moves

at last with stately and equable current to the sea. The Apostle's

thoughts and feelings have here, as it were, a threefold bent in their

flow. First, we have the clear, unhesitating statement of the

comparative advantages of life and death to a Christian man, when

thought of as affecting himself alone. The one is Christ, the other

gain. But we neither live nor die to ourselves; and no man has a right

to think of life or death only from the point of view of his own

advantage. So the problem is not so simple as it looked. Life here is

the condition of fruitful labour here. There are his brethren and his

work to think of. These bring him to a stand, and check the rising wish.

He knows not which state to prefer. The stream is dammed back between

rocks, and it chafes and foams and seems to lose its way among them.

Then comes a third bend in the flow of thought and feeling, and he

gladly apprehends it as his present duty to remain at his work. If his

own joy is thereby less, his brethren's will be more. If he is not to

depart and be with Christ, he will remain and be with Christ's friends,

which is, in some sort, being with Him too. If he may not have the gain

of death, he will have the fruit of work in life.

Let us try to fill up, somewhat, this meagre outline of the warm stream

that pours through these great words.

I. The simplicity of the comparison between life and death to a

Christian thinking of himself alone.

'To me' is plainly emphatic. It means more than 'in my judgment' or even

'in my case.' It is equal to 'To me personally, if I stood alone, and

had no one to consider but myself.' 'To live' refers mainly here to

outward practical life of service, and 'to die' should, perhaps, rather

be 'to be dead,' referring, not to the act of dissolution, but to the

state after; not to the entrance chamber, but to the palace to which it

admits.

So we have here grandly set forth the simplicity and unity of the

Christian life. While the words probably refer mainly to outward life,

they presuppose an inward, of which that outward is the expression. In

every possible phase of the word 'life,' Christ is the life of the

Christian. To live is Christ, for He is the mystical source from whom

all ours flows. 'With Thee is the fountain of life,' and all life, both

of body and spirit, is from Him, by Him, and in Him. 'To live is

Christ,' for He is the aim and object, as well as the Lord, of it all,

and no other is worth calling life, but that which is _for_ Him by

willing consecration, as well as _from_ Him by constant derivation. 'To

live is Christ,' for He is the model of all our life, and the one

all-sufficient law for us is to follow Him.

Life is to be _as_ Christ, _for_ Christ, _by_, _in_, and _from_ Christ.

So shall there be strength, peace, and freedom in our days. The unity

brought into life thereby will issue in calm blessedness, contrasted

wondrously with the divided hearts and aims which fritter our days into

fragments, and make our lives heaps of broken links instead of chains.

Surely this is the charm which brings rest into the most troubled

history, and nobleness into the lowliest duties. There is nothing so

grand as the unity breathed into our else distracted days by the

all-pervading reference to and presence of Christ. Without that, we are

like the mariners of the old world, who crept timidly from headland to

headland, making each their aim for a while, and leaving each inevitably

behind, never losing sight of shore, nor ever knowing the wonders of the

deep and all the majesty of mid-ocean, nor ever touching the happy

shores beyond, which they reach who carry in their hearts a compass that

ever points to the unseen pole.

Then comes the other great thought, that where life is simply Christ,

death will be simply gain.

Paul, no doubt, shrank from the act of death, as we all do. It was not

the narrow passage which attracted him, but the broad land beyond. Every

other aspect of that was swallowed up in one great thought, which will

occupy us more at length presently. But that word 'gain' suggests that

to Paul's confident faith death was but an increase and progression in

all that was good here. To him it was no loss to lose flesh and sense

and all the fleeting joys with which they link us. To him death was no

destruction of his being, and not even an interruption of its

continuity. Everything that was of any real advantage to him was to be

his after as before. The change was clear gain. Everything good was to

be just as it had been, only better. Nothing was to be dropped but what

it was progress to lose, and whatever was kept was to be heightened.

How strongly does that view express the two thoughts of the _continuity_

and _intensifying_ of the Christian life beyond the grave! And what a

contrast does that simple, sublime confidence present to many another

thought of death! To how many men its blackness seems to be the sudden

swallowing up of the light of their very being! To how many more does it

seem to put an end to all their occupations, and to shear their lives in

twain, as remorselessly as the fall of the guillotine severs the head

from the body. How are the light butterfly wings of the trivialities in

which many men and women spend their days to carry them across the awful

gulf? What are the people to do on the other side whose lives have all

been given to purposes and tasks that stop on this side? Are there shops

and mills, or warehouses and drawing-rooms, or studies and

lecture-halls, over there? Will the lives which have not struck their

roots down through all the surface soil to the rock, bear transplanting?

Alas! for the thousands landed in that new country, as unfit for it by

the tenor of their past occupations, as some pale artisan, with delicate

fingers and feeble muscles, set down as a colonist to clear the forest!

This Paul had a work here which he could carry on hereafter. There would

be no reversal of view, no change in the fundamental character of his

occupations. True, the special forms of work which he had pursued here

would be left behind, but the principle underlying them would continue.

It matters very little to the servant whether he is out in the cold and

wet 'ploughing and tending cattle,' or whether he is waiting on his

master at table. It is service all the same, only it is warmer and

lighter in the house than in the field, and it is promotion to be made

an indoor servant.

So the direction of the life, and the source of the life, and the

fundamentals of the life continue unchanged. Everything is as it was,

only in the superlative degree. To other men the narrow plain on which

their low-lying lives are placed is rimmed by the jagged, forbidding

white peaks. It is cold and dreary on these icy summits where no

creature can live. Perhaps there is land on the other side; who knows?

The pale barrier separates all here from all there; we know not what may

be on the other side. Only we feel that the journey is long and chill,

that the ice and the barren stone appal, and that we never can carry our

household goods, our tools, or our wealth with us up to the black jaws

of the pass.

But for this man the Alps were tunnelled. There was no interruption in

his progress. He would go, he believed, without 'break of gauge,' and

would pass through the darkness, scarcely knowing when it came, and

certainly unchecked for even a moment, right on to the other side where

he would come out, as travellers to Italy do, to fairer plains and bluer

skies, to richer harvests and a warmer sun. No jolt, no pause, no

momentary suspension of consciousness, no reversal, nor even

interruption in his activity, did Paul expect death to bring him, but

only continuance and increase of all that was essential to his life.

He has calmness in his confidence. There is nothing hysterical or

overwrought or morbid in these brief words, so peaceful in their trust,

so moderate and restrained in their rapture. Are our anticipations of

the future moulded on such a pattern? Do we think of it as quietly as

this man did? Are we as tranquilly sure about it? Is there as little

mist of uncertainty about the clearly defined image to our eye as there

was to his? Is our confidence so profound that these brief monosyllables

are enough to state it? Above all, do we know that to die will be gain,

because we can honestly say that to live is Christ? If so, our hope is

valid, and will not yield when we lean heavily upon it for support in

the ford over the black stream. If our hope is built on anything

besides, it will snap then like a rotten pole, and leave us to stumble

helpless among the slippery stones and the icy torrent.

II. The second movement of thought here, which troubles and complicates

this simple decision, as to what is the best for Paul himself, is the

hesitation springing from the wish to help his brethren.

As we said, no man has a right to forget others in settling the question

whether he would live or die. We see the Apostle here brought to a stand

by two conflicting currents of feelings. For himself he would gladly

go, for his friends' sake he is drawn to the opposite choice. He has

'fallen into a place where two seas meet,' and for a minute or two his

will is buffeted from side to side by the 'violence of the waves.' The

obscurity of his language, arising from its broken construction,

corresponds to the struggle of his feelings. As the Revised Version has

it, 'If to live in the flesh--if this is the fruit of my work, then what

I shall choose, I wot not.' By which fragmentary sentence, rightly

representing as it does the roughness of the Greek, we understand him to

mean that if living on in this life is the condition of his gaining

fruit from his toil, then he has to check the rising wish, and is

hindered from decisive preference either way. Both motives act upon him,

one drawing him deathward, the other holding him firmly here. He is in a

dilemma, pinned in, as it were, between the two opposing pressures. On

the one hand he has the desire (not 'a desire,' as the English Bible has

it, as if it were but one among many) turned towards departing to be

with Christ; but on the other, he knows that his remaining here is for

the present all but indispensable for the immature faith of the churches

which he has founded. So he stands in doubt for a moment, and the

picture of his hesitation may well be studied by us.

Such a reason for wishing to die in conflict with such a reason for

wishing to live, is as noble as it is rare, and, thank God, as imitable

as it is noble.

Notice the aspect which death wore to his faith. He speaks of it as

'departing,' a metaphor which does not, like many of the flattering

appellations which men give that last enemy, reveal a quaking dread

which cannot bear to look him in his ashen, pale face. Paul calls him

gentle names, because he fears him not at all. To him all the

dreadfulness, the mystery, the pain and the solitude have melted away,

and death has become a mere change of place. The word literally means

_to unloose_, and is employed to express pulling up the tent-pegs of a

shifting encampment, or drawing up the anchor of a ship. In either case

the image is simply that of removal. It is but striking the earthly

house of this tent; it is but one more day's march, of which we have had

many already, though this is over Jordan. It is but the last day's

journey, and to-morrow there will be no packing up in the morning and

resuming our weary tramp, but we shall be at home, and go no more out.

So has the awful thing at the end dwindled, and the brighter and greater

the land behind it shines, the smaller does it appear.

The Apostle thinks little of dying because he thinks so much of what

comes after. Who is afraid of a brief journey if a meeting with dear

friends long lost is at the end of it? The narrow avenue seems short,

and its roughness and darkness are nothing, because Jesus Christ stands

with outstretched arms at the other end, beckoning us to Himself, as

mothers teach their children to walk. Whosoever is sure that he will be

with Christ can afford to smile at death, and call it but a shifting of

place. And whosoever feels the desire to be with Christ will not shrink

from the means by which that desire is fulfilled, with the agony of

revulsion that it excites in many an imagination. It will always be

solemn, and its physical accompaniments of pain and struggle will always

be more or less of a terror, and the parting, even for a time, from our

dear ones, will always be loss, but nevertheless if we see Christ across

the gulf, and know that one struggle more and we shall clasp Him with

'inseparable hands with joy and bliss in over measure for ever,' we

shall not dread the leap.

One thought about the future should fill our minds, as it did Paul's,

that it is to be with Christ. How different that nobly simple

expectation, resolving all bliss into the one element, is from the

morbid curiosity as to details, which vulgarises and weakens so much of

even devout anticipation of the future. To us as to him Heaven should be

Christ, and Christ should be Heaven. All the rest is but accident.

Golden harps and crowns, and hidden manna and white robes and thrones,

and all the other representations, are but symbols of the blessedness of

union with Him, or consequences of it. Immortal life and growth in

perfection, both of mind and heart, and the cessation of all that

disturbs, and our investiture with glory and honour, flung around our

poor natures like a royal robe over a naked body, are all but the

many-sided brightnesses that pour out from Him, and bathe in their

rainbowed light those who are with Him.

To be with Christ is all we need. For the loving heart to be near Him is

enough.

'I shall clasp thee again, O soul of my soul,

And with God be the rest.'

Let us not fritter away our imaginations and our hopes on the

subordinate and non-essential accompaniments, but concentrate all their

energy on the one central thought. Let us not lose this gracious image

in a maze of symbols, that, though precious, are secondary. Let us not

inquire, with curiosity that will find no answer, about the unrevealed

wonders and staggering mysteries of that transcendent thought, life

everlasting. Let us not acquire the habit of thinking of the future as

the perfecting of our humanity, without connecting all our speculations

with Him, whose presence will be all of heaven to us all. But let us

keep His serene figure ever clear before our imaginations in all the

blaze of the light, and try to feed our hopes and stay our hearts on

this aspect of heavenly blessedness as the all-embracing one, that all,

each for himself, shall be for ever conscious of Christ's loving

presence, and of the closest union with Him, a union in comparison with

which the dearest and sacredest blendings of heart with heart and life

with life are cold and distant. For the clearness of our hope the fewer

the details the better: for the willingness with which we turn from life

and face the inevitable end, it is very important that we should have

that one thought disengaged from all others. The one full moon, which

dims all the stars, draws the tides after it. These lesser lights may

gem the darkness, and dart down white shafts of brilliance in quivering

reflections on the waves, but they have no power to move their mass. It

is Christ and Christ only who draws us across the gulf to be with Him,

and reduces death to a mere shifting of our encampment.

This is a noble and worthy reason for wishing to die; not because Paul

is disappointed and sick of life, not because he is weighed down with

sorrow, or pain, or loss, or toil, but because he would like to be with

his Master. He is no morbid sentimentalist, he is cherishing no

unwholesome longing, he is not weary of work, he indulges in no

hysterical raptures of desire. What an eloquent simplicity is in that

quiet 'very far better!' It goes straight to one's heart, and says more

than paragraphs of falsetto yearnings. There is nothing in such a wish

to die, based on such a reason, that the most manly and wholesome piety

need be ashamed of. It is a pattern for us all.

The attraction of life contends with the attraction of heaven in these

verses. That is a conflict which many good men know something of, but

which does not take the shape with many of us which it assumed with

Paul. Drawn, as he is, by the supreme desire of close union with his

Master, for the sake of which he is ready to depart, he is tugged back

even more strongly by the thought that, if he stays here, he can go on

working and gaining results from his labour. It does not follow that he

did not expect service if he were with Christ. We may be very sure that

Paul's heaven was no idle heaven, but one of happy activity and larger

service. But he will not be able to help these dear friends at Philippi

and elsewhere who need him, as he knows. So love to them drags at his

skirts, and ties him here.

One can scarcely miss the remarkable contrast between Paul's 'To abide

in the flesh is more needful for you,' and the saying of Paul's Master

to people who assuredly needed His presence more than Philippi needed

Paul's, 'It is expedient for you that I go away.' This is not the place

to work out the profound significance of the contrast, and the questions

which it raises as to whether Christ expected His work to be finished

and His helpfulness ended by His death, as Paul did by his. It must

suffice to have suggested the comparison.

Returning to our text, such a reason for wishing to die, held in check

and overcome by such a reason for wishing to live, is great and noble.

There are few of us who would not own to the mightier attraction of

life; but how few of us who feel that, for ourselves personally, if we

were free to think only of ourselves, we should be glad to go, because

we should be closer to Christ, but that we hesitate for the sake of

others whom we think we can help! Many of us cling to life with a

desperate clutch, like some poor wretch pushed over a precipice and

trying to dig his nails into the rock as he falls. Some of us cling to

it because we dread what is beyond, and our longing to live is the

measure of our dread to die. But Paul did not look forward to a thick

darkness of judgment, or to nothingness. He saw in the darkness a great

light, the light in the windows of his Father's house, and yet he turned

willingly away to his toil in the field, and was more than content to

drudge on as long as he could do anything by his work. Blessed are they

who share his desire to depart, and his victorious willingness to stay

here and labour! They shall find that such a life in the flesh, too, is

being with Christ.

III. Thus the stream of thought passes the rapids and flows on smoothly

to its final phase of peaceful acquiescence.

That is expressed very beautifully in the closing verse, 'Having this

confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all, for

your furtherance and joy in faith.' Self is so entirely overcome that he

puts away his own desire to enter into their joy, and rejoices with

them. He cannot yet have for himself the blessedness which his spirit

seeks. Well, be it so; he will stop here and find a blessedness in

seeing them growing in confidence and knowledge of Christ and in the

gladness that comes from it. He gives up the hope of that higher

companionship with Jesus which drew him so mightily. Well, be it so; he

will have companionship with his brethren, and 'abiding with you all'

may haply find, even before the day of final account, that to 'visit'

Christ's little ones is to visit Christ. Therefore he fuses his opposing

wishes into one. He is no more in a strait betwixt two, or unwitting

what he shall choose. He chooses nothing, but accepts the appointment of

a higher wisdom. There is rest for him, as for us, in ceasing from our

own wishes, and laying our wills silent and passive at His feet.

The true attitude for us in which to face the unknown future, with its

dim possibilities, and especially the supreme alternative of life or

death, is neither desire nor reluctance, nor a hesitation compounded of

both, but trustful acquiescence. Such a temper is far from indifference,

and as far from agitation. In all things, and most of all in regard to

these matters, it is best to hold desire in equilibrium till God shall

speak. Torture not yourself with hopes or fears. They make us their

slaves. Put your hand in God's hand, and let Him guide you as He will.

Wishes are bad steersmen. We are only at peace when desires and dreads

are, if not extinct, at all events held tightly in. Rest, and wisdom,

and strength come with acquiescence. Let us say with Richard Baxter, in

his simple, noble words:

'Lord, it belongs not to my care

Whether I die or live;

To love and serve Thee is my share,

And that Thy grace must give.'

We may learn, too, that we may be quite sure that we shall be left here

as long as we are needed. Paul knew that his stay was needful, so he

could say, 'I know that I shall abide with you.' We do not, but we may

be sure that if our stay is needful we shall abide. We are always

tempted to think ourselves indispensable, but, thank God, nobody is

necessary. There are no irreparable losses, hard as it is to believe it.

We look at our work, at our families, our business, our congregations,

our subjects of study, and we say to ourselves, 'What will become of

them when I am gone? Everything would fall to pieces if I were

withdrawn.' Do not be afraid. Depend on it, you will be left here as

long as you are wanted. There are no incomplete lives and no premature

removals. To the eye of faith the broken column in our cemeteries is a

sentimental falsehood. No Christian life is broken short off so, but

rises in a symmetrical shaft, and its capital is garlanded with

amaranthine flowers in heaven. In one sense all our lives are

incomplete, for they and their issues are above, out of our sight here.

In another none are, for we are 'immortal till our work is done.'

The true attitude, then, for us is patient service till He withdraws us

from the field. We do not count him a diligent servant who is always

wearying for the hour of leaving off to strike. Be it ours to labour

where He puts us, patiently waiting till 'death's mild curfew' sets us

free from the long day's work, and sends us home.

Brethren! there are but two theories of life; two corresponding aspects

of death. The one says, 'To me to live is Christ, and to die gain'; the

other, 'To me to live is self, and to die is loss and despair.' One or

other must be your choice. Which?