Departing and Being with Christ
By W. H. Littlejohn
Or the Apostle Paul's Desire to Be Translated
By W. H. Littlejohn
(Continued from last week) THUS far in this article, the writer has occupied himself with a presentation of what he believes to be a correct interpretation of Phil. 1:23, 24. Now let us determine whether the view controverted in this connection is as free from difficulties as the one which the reader has been invited to accept. That it is not, he will certainly discover before we proceed far. If the signification of the word "depart" in the phrase, "having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better," is that of dying, the passage, paraphrased to meet the view in question, would run like this: "Having a desire to die, and, through death, to be with Christ; for it is very far better." Right here a very pertinent inquiry comes in; that is, Better than what? The only reply to this interrogatory is, Better than either living or dying. But observe the fact that what the apostle desired, included both dying and being with Christ, according to the view considered. Now to go back a step in the argument. What had the apostle said, just above, he was in a strait or in perplexity about? The answer is, Two things; that is, living and dying. Verse 20. What did he say furthermore with regard to those two things? Here is his language: "Then what I shall choose I wot not." Verse 22, R.V. Is there anything equivocal about this statement?—Certainly there is not. Admit this, and then, if our friends be correct, Paul, in verse 22, did not know which he would prefer, to live or to die; whereas in verse 23 he declares that it would be very far better to depart (die) than to live. Should any one reply that the "very far better" relates to being with Christ and not to death, I answer that as Paul could have had no question about his own salvation in the end, therefore if death to him was so closely connected with salvation and going to heaven as our friends claim that it was, then they can not be separated in the passage before us. This being true, and it being also true that Paul knew as well, when he wrote verse 22, what death would introduce him to, as he did when he wrote verse 23, how could he say, in the one case, that he did not know which to choose between, life or death, and in the other case, that he would choose death, because that would be "very far better" than life? To answer this query satisfactorily is utterly impossible to those who believe that the word "depart" in verse 23 refers to natural death. An inconsistency so great as this, must destroy any theory in which it appears. Assuredly it would not be safe to reason that the great apostle in one breath teaches that he does not know which to choose between, life or death, and in the next breath declares that dying was much to be preferred to living. Not only would such a view of the passage make the apostle contradict himself in the brief space of two verses of Philippians 1, but it would also array him squarely against what he has said in other places. Read, for example, these verses: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tab- ernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." 2 Cor. 5:1-4. "Unclothed" Merely to Die
All are agreed that the words, "If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved," refer to physical death. All are agreed also that the word "unclothed," found in verse 4, means nothing more and nothing less than death. Now mark what the apostle says about being unclothed. Here it is: "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." Verse 4. Can any candid man deny, in view of the general agreement spoken of above, that Paul meant to be understood as distinctly saying in verse 4 that he did not wish to be unclothed, or, in other words, to die?—Most certainly not. But if this be true, and if, as claimed, he did in Phil. 1:23 teach that it was better to die than to live, then we have Paul against Paul on the subject of the comparative desirability of life and death. If you would escape from a tangle so confusing and so damaging as this to the reputation of the great apostle, adopt the following conclusion, and all is clear: In Phil. 1:23, 24, the apostle was talking about immediate translation; whereas in 2 Cor. 5:1-4, he was contrasting life in the present state with death in the light in which it is portrayed in the Scriptures, namely, as a dreamless sleep between the demise of the individual and the coming of Christ. The reasoning of Paul in 2 Cor. 5:1-4 might be paraphrased as follows: "We do not wish to be unclothed, or die and pass into the condition in which naturally we are to remain between death and the resurrection. We would prefer to live rather than to have such an experience, because life is better than nonentity. What we long for is to have mortality swallowed up of life and be clothed upon by our body which is from heaven." This, as previously declared, is in perfect harmony with Phil. 1:23, 24, as the latter passage, like that found in 2 Cor. 5:1-4, teaches that the thing to be desired was not death, but translation to heaven, after experiencing that change in physical conditions through which all must pass before they are translated. It remains now to test the theory of interpretation urged in this article by two methods; namely, the use of the word analuo in the New Testament, and the doctrine of the latter respecting the state or condition into which the saints will enter at death. This will now be done in the order in which these methods are laid down above. So far as the writer has been able to discover, analuo as a verb is employed but twice in the New Testament; while analusis, a noun from the same root, occurs but once. Already one of the instances in which a form of the verb is employed—that is, Phil. 1:23—has been quite fully discussed. In that discussion, it was assumed that in the expression, "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better," the word "depart," as it appears in our translation, is to be taken in its literal sense, that is, that of leaving one place or condition in order to reach another place or condition. In other words, when Paul wrote that he had a desire to depart and be with Christ, he meant to convey the impression that he longed to go to Christ through immediate and direct translation into the presence of his Lord by the power of the Spirit of God. That such an understanding of the word "depart" is authorized by the signification of the verb analuo in the original Greek, can not be successfully denied; and the connection in which the passage stands,8renders it certain that this is the only sense in which the apostle designed that it should be understood, as otherwise he would be represented as first declaring that he knew not which he would choose, life or death, and then afterward stating in substance that to die was the thing which he very much desired. The second instance in which a form of the verb analuo appears, is found in these words: 'And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding.' Luke 12: 36. It is generally agreed that the return from the wedding mentioned in the foregoing, will be fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back to this world to redeem His people. That His return will be literal and visible, and that death will be in no wise connected with it, the intelligent student of the Scriptures will admit without hesitation. In Luke 12: 36, therefore, the word analusei, which is one of the forms of the verb analuo, is properly translated 'return.' In such a return, the idea of motion from the place of departure to that of destination is clearly implied. This fact proves that while analuo or its derivatives may sometimes be employed in a figurative sense to indicate death, it was properly applied in a literal sense to the passage of living men, in the use of the ordinary methods, from one place to another. The text therefore justifies that interpretation of Phil. 1: 23, 24 which represents the apostle as there expressing a desire to be translated directly into the presence of his Lord, provided it can not be shown that he used the word analusei — translated 'depart' — in a purely figurative sense. That he did not thus employ that term, the writer has shown conclusively by an examination of the statements standing in the connection. The third and last text to be examined is found in 2 Tim. 4: 6: 'For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.' The original word here translated 'departure' is analuseos, and is not a verb, but a noun. Evidently Paul is here writing about his approaching martyrdom. 'I am now ready,' he says, 'to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.' Manifestly, the words 'offered' and 'departure' relate to the same event, that is, the death of the apostle. Here, then, we have a figurative use of the noun analusis by which it is applied to death. A similar use of the word 'depart' is common in our day. It is often remarked, for example, that such an individual 'departed this life' at such a date and under such circumstances. These words are not employed with reference to the state or condition into which he passes at death, but simply to the experience of death itself. The atheist as well as the devout Christian could use this expression with propriety. All that Paul meant was that he was about to die, or depart from this life — an event for which he was fully prepared. It should be remarked right here, however, that so good an authority as the Englishman's Greek New Testament substitutes the word 'release' for 'departure' in 2 Tim. 4: 6. Here is the passage as given in that rendering: 'For I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is come.' Rotherham's translation differs but little from the foregoing, and is as follows: 'For I am forthwith to be poured out, and the season of my release is at hand.' If these renderings are admissible — which they unquestionably are, since 'release' is one of the definitions of analusis — the apostle refers to his martyrdom, which was to be an event in the near future, as a release decreed by the divine Being, whereby all of his sufferings would be ended. Whether such a release or departure would be the means of ushering him immediately into the presence of his Saviour, as argued by some of those who reason that Paul's desire to depart, as mentioned in Phil. 1: 23, 24, was based on his own convictions that death would introduce him immediately into the presence of Christ, will be considered next week.
(Concluded next week)