To Live is Christ

To the Philippians Paul wrote, "To me to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil 1:21). Now, the easiest part of that has, for me, been the last part -- "To die is gain." I mean, we all know that when a believer dies he or she goes "to a better place". Heaven is a wonderful place. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. All that is good. And while some of us may love this physical existence a bit too much, in the end any genuine Christian would have to admit that there is no real comparison between the temporal pleasures of this life and the eternal pleasures of the next. To those who know Christ, to die is genuine gain.

The part that always baffled me was "to live is Christ". First, the structure seemed odd. I might expect "to live is for Christ" or "to live brings glory to Christ" or maybe "to live is to serve Christ", but Paul doesn't use any of those. "For me to live is Christ." So I had to figure out what that meant.

We can start to unravel this mystery from the rest of the text. He goes on to say, "If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me" (Phil. 1:22). Okay, so doing the mathematical equivalence stuff that I learned in school, we have two "to live" statements. Thus, "to live" = "Christ" = "fruitful labor". Well, that expands the meaning somewhat. Going a little further we read, "I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again" (Phil 1:25-26). So, retaining context and equivalence, we have "I will remain and continue" which is "to live" (as opposed to "to die"). Thus we can see that "to live" = "Christ" = "fruitful labor" = "your progress and joy in the faith". Interesting. So, according to Paul, to die would obviously be gain, but to live meant fruitful labor that produced their progress and joy in the faith that would result in ... wait for it ... "ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus". Oh, there's the circle. To live, then, is to work toward the end that others may progress and be joyful so that Christ is glorified. I can see that. That makes more sense.

Still, there's a small catch. Now, I'm not denying anything that I've determined up until now. To die is indeed great gain. And to live, for the believer, should be exactly that -- laboring for the progress and joy of others so that Christ is glorified. Let's keep all that because that all appears to be in the text. Still, there is this oddity of language: "To live is Christ". Yes, we have that the believer's life is intended to work for the glory of Christ, but this says that living is Christ. How does that work? I think we might have to go elsewhere to flesh that out.

In Galatians Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20). To the Colossians he wrote about his primary mission, that of taking the Gospel to the Gentiles.

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me" (Col 1:27-29).

The mystery he took to the Gentiles was this: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Think about that. It is not the wonder of knowing Christ nor the marvel of salvation in Christ, both of which are true. It is Christ in you. As you read the sentence that follows that statement, I think you can hear the same sort of concept that Paul was using in the Philippians passage we were just reading. He speaks of the idea "that we may present everyone mature in Christ." Fruitful labor, and that fruitful labor which is focused on Christ and His glory. The same thing. But then Paul tells of how he does it. "I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me." There it is. It's the "no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" idea. It's the "for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure" notion. That is, in the truest sense, when Paul says, "For me to live is Christ", he is affirming that the only means by which he lives is by the power of Christ in him.

I think now we have a more complete picture. "For me to live is Christ" means that, for believers, Christian living is fruitful labor for the progress and joy of others to the glory of Christ performed by the power of Christ in us. It is His life then lived out in us now by His power in us.

One last observation. Paul said, "To live is Christ." The suggestion, then, is that, to the believer, not doing this is not living. When we attempt to live out our lives under our own power for our own ends, Paul would say, "That's not living." For ultimate joy -- for ultimate life -- we are designed for fruitful labor toward progress and joy in the faith for the glory of Christ, operating in the power of Christ. Anything else is not living.