FOR I AM
ALREADY BEING POURED OUT AS A DRINK OFFERING: Ego gar ede spendomai (1SPPI):
(Php 2:17-note)
Other translations -
I am now ready to be offered (KJV),
The last drops of my own sacrifice are falling (Moffatt),
time for me to be poured out as a sacrifice to God (GWT),
I feel that the last drops of my life are being poured out for God
(Phillips)
For
(gar) - This term of explanation answers the question "Why" Timothy needed to be
sober and fulfill his ministry. Paul has accomplished the work God had assigned him
and was
on his last lap and must soon pass the the baton on to Timothy. This
would also motivate Timothy to remain faithful for as
Edwards
notes
The master discipler, Paul, never asks more of his disciple than his own experience
warrants. The servant of God must infect his
disciples with the
unquestionable reality of his own faithfulness before his words will
have any significant penetrating power. (2
Timothy- Call to Completion)
Note that the "I"
is emphatic (in
contrast to the emphatic "you" of
4:5): The courage and
comfort of dying saints and ministers, and especially dying martyrs, are a great confirmation of the truth
of Christianity, and a great encouragement to living saints and
ministers in their work. Faith in the furnace (our actions & reactions
to affliction, etc) sounds forth louder than our words (1Th 1:6, 7, 8,
9-see notes
1Th 1:6;
1:7;
1:8;
1:9).
"my life’s blood is already being poured out as a libation"
(Wuest)
Poured
out as a drink offering
(4689)
(spendo)
means to pour out or to make a libation.
Libation refers to the
practice of pouring out wine or some other liquid as a drink offering.
After placing a sacrificial animal on the altar, the priests would take
wine (or sometimes water or honey) and pour it either on the burning
sacrifice or on the ground in front of the altar. That act symbolized
the rising of the sacrifice into the nostrils of the deity to whom it
was being offered.
Wuest adds that spendo
was
used in the pagan Greek religions, of
the drink-offering poured out upon the sacrifice itself, the latter
being the major part of the
offering
to the gods, and the former, the minor part. Paul uses this
drink-offering or libation to speak of the violent death he will some
day die as a martyr. It will be his blood poured out."
(Wuest,
K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Eerdmans
or
Logos)
Among the Greeks and Romans this
practice was an essential part of solemn sacrifices.
The offerer poured wine either in front of or on top of the burning
animal and the wine would be vaporized producing steam which
symbolically ascended as an offering to the deity for whom the sacrifice
was made (cf. 2Ki 16:13; Jer 7:18 Hos 9:4).
Figuratively, which is the manner of
use in this verse, spendo means to pour out oneself, as
one’s blood and to offer up one’s strength and life to God. Note
however that Paul did not
pour himself out but was poured out (passive
voice). The
tense is
present
which pictures a continuous process, one which
culminates in his physical death.
Spendo - 19x in the
Septuagint = LXX
- Gen 35:14; Ex 25:29; 30:9; 37:16;
Num 4:7; 28:7; 2 Sam 23:16; 1 Chr 11:18; Jer 7:18; 19:13; 32:29; 44:17,
19, 25; Ezek 20:28; Dan 2:46; Hos 9:4. Compared to only 2 uses in the NT,
2Ti 4:6 & Php 2:17.
Moulton and Milligan have a statement
that the putting to death of a prophet (of the false deity
Apollo), who remained true to his "god", was described as "spendo".
We have a similar use in the English
language, when we say that a man sacrifices himself for his friends,
family or country.
In Genesis we see
Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He had
spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a libation
on it; he also poured oil on it. (Ge
35:14)
In Exodus
the drink
offering of wine was poured on the burning bronze altar along with a
lamb each morning and evening. (Ex 29:40)
In Numbers 3 times wine is specified for "the libation" (Nu
15:1-10)
and was meant to give a pleasing aroma
for God. What a picture of what our lives daily are to be unto our
God!
In Isaiah's prophecy we see Messiah's
penultimate "libation", God declaring
I will allot Him (Messiah) a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty
with the strong, because He poured out Himself to death, and was
numbered with the transgressors. Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
and interceded for the transgressors. (Is
53:12)
In sum, this practice of pouring out
liquid on the sacrifice is a picture of the total
sacrifice of one's life to the will of God. Just as Paul exhorted each
believer to present himself or herself to the Lord as “a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to
God” (Ro 12:1-note), he
continuously offered himself to the Lord.
Paul says that his life is continuously being offered to God which would
soon culminate in one
last act — the act of death. What a view of death! Seeing death as an
offering and sacrifice being presented to God.
Using this same verb,
spendo, for pouring out a libation, Paul
reminded the saints at Philippi that
I am being poured out as a drink offering
(spendo) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith. (Php 2:17-note).
John MacArthur makes the point that here in Philippians, Paul was not
speaking so much of his eventual martyrdom for spendo is
in
the
present tense (which) clearly indicates that he was
speaking of his current experience as a prisoner in Rome. He saw his
life, not his death, as his ultimate act of sacrifice to the
Lord. He was a living sacrifice, not a dead one." (Bolding added)
(MacArthur,
J. Philippians. Chicago: Moody Press
or
Logos)
Paul
regarded his own life as a sacrifice in the interests of the spiritual
advancement of the Philippian believers.
Marvin Vincent, commenting on
(Php 2:17),
adds that
"the figure is that of a sacrifice, in which the
Philippians are the priests, offering their faith to God, and Paul’s
life is the libation poured out
at this offering." (Vincent, M. R.
Word studies in the New Testament. Vol. 3, Page 1-440).
Wiersbe has an interesting comment that
In effect Paul was saying, “Caesar is
not going to kill me. I am going to give my life as a sacrifice to Jesus
Christ. I have been a living sacrifice, serving Him since the day I was
saved. Now I will complete that sacrifice by laying down my life for
Him. (Wiersbe,
W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor
or
Logos)
As the contemporary martyr, Jim Elliot, once
wrote
He is no fool who gives what he
cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Vine comments
Paul’s whole life since his conversion had been devoted as a sacrifice
to the service of God, and now, conscious of the acceptance of his
sacrifice, he views his death in this way. This provides a high
incentive to all who would be true to Christ to spend their lives in
absolute devotion to Him.
Hiebert
says Paul's
whole life has been presented
to God as a living sacrifice; now his death, comparable to the pouring
out of the wine as the last act of the sacrificial ceremony, will
complete the sacrifice.
Oswald Chambers asks "Are
you ready to be offered?"...
I am now ready to be offered.” It is
a transaction of will, not of sentiment. Tell God you are ready to be
offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no strand
of complaint now, no matter what God chooses. God puts you through the
crisis in private, no one person can help another. Externally the life
may be the same; the difference is in will. Go through the crisis in
will, then when it comes externally there will be no thought of the
cost. If you do not transact in will with God along this line, you will
end in awakening sympathy for yourself. “Bind the sacrifice with cords,
even unto the horns of the altar.” The altar means fire—burning and
purification and insulation for one purpose only, the destruction of
every affinity that God has not started and of every attachment that is
not an attachment in God. You do not destroy it, God does; you bind the
sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to
self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing
that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realize that
things cannot touch you as they used to do. What is your way of fire?
Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove Himself to be
all you ever dreamed He would be.
Today in the Word (Moody
Bible Institute) describes sacrifice
“Capacocha” was the name for the
human sacrifice ritual practiced by the ancient Incas of Peru. Such
sacrifices were often offered after a significant event such as an
earthquake or the death of an emperor. Once a physically perfect
sacrifice was chosen, typically the child of a chief, a procession
traveled from the child’s home village to Cuzco, the capital city. Then,
in one form of sacrifice, the child was placed in a tomb, walled in
alive, and given only a drugged potion to drink. In other cases, the
priests sedated then strangled the child. The sacrifices, who were often
deified later, were buried at the tops of mountains so as to be closer
to the Inca sun god.
Without God’s truth, the practice of sacrifice goes horribly wrong.
When Paul calls himself a “drink offering” or urges us to be “living
sacrifices” (tomorrow’s reading), he does not have in mind a horrifying
scene like those practiced by the Incas, but the beauty of spiritual
consecration and service to God.
Service is another “sacrifice” we are instructed to offer. After all,
Jesus led the way: “I have set you an example that you should do as I
have done for you” (Jn 13:15; cf. Mk 10:45).
A drink offering never stood alone in the Old Testament, but was always
offered with a greater sacrifice (see, for example, Nu 15:6, 7; 28:6,
7). Thus, in today’s reading, Paul places his individual service in the
context of the larger body of believers (Php 2:17-note),
and presumably in the context of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice as well
(v16). To transform the Gentiles into an acceptable sacrifice was the
consuming purpose of Paul’s life (Ro 15:16-note;
2Co 11:2)! Service and witness are inseparable in Paul’s writings.
AND THE TIME
OF MY DEPARTURE HAS COME: kai o kairos tes analuseos
mou ephesteken (3SRAI): (Ge 48:21; 50:24; Nu 27:12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17; Dt 31:14; Josh 23:14; Php 1:23; 2Pe 1:14 15)
Other
translations - the time of my release
(Young's Literal);
the strategic time of my departure is already present (Wuest)
Time
(2540)
(kairos
[word study])
refers to a fixed and definite time, the time when things are brought to
crisis. This is the final time period of Paul's life. Paul is in a race
and he is saying this is the last lap. Like the sands in an hourglass
Paul's "last sands" were dropping, and he was soon to traverse the way
of all flesh. The time has come for me to "hoist anchor", to "pull up my
tent stakes", to loosen the bonds that tie me to earth, to be unyoked
from the toil of ministry.
Departure
(369)
(analusis from ana = again + luo
= to loose)
means to unloose, undo again, break up and then to depart and was a
common metaphor for death and was used in military circles of loosening the
tent ropes with the subsequent departure of the army
which reminds one of a similar metaphor using tent" to
picture our earthly body in (2Cor 5:1).
Paul used the verb form analuo in a similar way writing "I
am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart (analuo) and be with Christ."
(Php 1:23-note)
clearly referring to death as his entrance into the presence of his
Lord.
Barclay as an informative comment on "Departure"
(analusis) writing that
(a) It is the word for unyoking an animal from the shafts of the cart or
the plough. Death to Paul was rest from toil. He would be glad to lay
the burden down.… (cf note
Revelation 14:13)
(b) It is the word for loosening bonds or fetters. Death for Paul
was a liberation and a release. He was to exchange the confines of a
Roman prison for the glorious liberty of the courts of heaven.
(c) It is the word for loosening the ropes of a tent. For Paul it
was time to strike camp again. Many a journey he had made across the
roads of Asia Minor and of Europe. Now he was setting out on his last
and his greatest journey: he was taking the road that led to God.
(d) It is the word for loosening the mooring ropes of a ship.
Many a time Paul had sailed the Mediterranean, and had felt the ship
leave the harbor for the deep waters. Now he is to launch out into the
greatest deep of all; he is setting sail to cross the waters of death to
arrive in the haven of eternity.
Barnes has a similar comment on
analusis:
It is applied to the act of unloosing or casting off the fastenings of a
ship, preparatory to a departure. The proper idea in the use of the word
would be, that he had been bound to the present world, like a ship to
its moorings, and that death would be a release. He would now spread his
sails on the broad ocean of eternity. The true idea of death is that of
loosening the bands that confine us to the present world; of setting us
free, and permitting the soul to go forth, as with expanded sails, on
its eternal voyage. With such a view of death, why should a Christian
fear to die?
Has come
is in the
perfect tense indicating that his it is at hand,
standing by, simply awaiting its time. The clouds of death had come were hovering over
Paul and he was well aware. The servant of the Lord is immortal until
his work is done. A clear example of this truth is found in the "two
witnesses" of whom John wrote:
when they have finished
their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war
with them, and overcome them and kill them. (Re 11:7-note)
Matthew Henry notes
what
pleasure he [Paul] speaks of dying. He calls it his departure:
though it is probable that he foresaw he must die a violent bloody
death, yet he calls it his departure, or his release. Death to a good
man is his release from the imprisonment of this world and his departure
to the enjoyments of another world; he does not cease to be, but is only
removed from one world to another". "Precious
in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His godly ones"
(Ps 116:15
-
Spurgeon's note)
The final words of most dying men are stripped of hypocrisy and reflect
accurately their true beliefs and feelings. Contrast Paul's glorious
last words with those of Gandhi not long before he died:
My days are numbered. I am not likely
to live very long—perhaps a year or a little more. For the first time in
fifty years I find myself in a slough of despond. All about me is
darkness. I am praying for light.
Tragically Gandhi's foolish
heart was darkened. (Ro 1:21-note).
As an aside regarding
Gandhi, he wrote in his
autobiography that in his student days he was truly interested in the
Bible. Deeply touched by reading the Gospels, he seriously considered
becoming a convert, since Christianity seemed to offer the real solution
to the caste system that was dividing the people of India. One Sunday he
went to a nearby church. He decided to see the minister and ask for
instruction in the way of salvation and enlightenment on other
doctrines. But when he entered the sanctuary, the ushers refused to give
him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people! Woe to
those ushers! Gandhi left and never came back. He reasoned that...
If Christians have caste
differences also, I might as well remain a Hindu.
On his deathbed, Napoleon said,
I die before my time; and my body
will be given back to earth, to become the food of worms. Such is the
fate which so soon awaits the great Napoleon. (By some accounts Napoleon
had a genuine conversion to Christianity, but we will have to await
heaven to know for sure!)
Nineteenth century French statesman
Talleyrand wrote on a piece of paper on a nightstand near his bed
Behold, 83 years passed away! What cares! What
agitation! What anxieties! What ill will! What sad complications! And
all without other results, except great fatigue of mind and body, and a
profound sentiment of discouragement with regard to the future, and of
disquiet with regard to the past!
How different the words of these
unsaved men. Talleyrand a woeful lament, to which Solomon would add...
The wicked is thrust down by his wrongdoing,
but (don't miss the dramatic contrast) the
righteous has a refuge when he dies. (Pr 14:32)
And so Paul declares not defeat but
victory, for death is not his dread but his departure into delights
indescribable.
George Whitefield, the revivalist of
the 1700's had these words from his deathbed
I go to my everlasting rest. My sun has risen, shone, and is setting
nay, it is about to rise and shine forever. I have not lived in vain.
And though I could live to preach Christ one thousand years, I die to be
with Him, which is far better.
The great American missionary to
Burma,
Adoniram Judson,
penned these words shortly before his death:
I am not tired of my work, neither am
I tired of the world; yet when Christ calls me home, I shall go with the
gladness of a boy bounding away from school. Perhaps I feel something
like the young bride when she contemplates resigning the pleasant
associations of her childhood for a yet dearer home - though only a
little like her, for there is no doubt resting on my future.
><>><>><>
Paul was ready to go home. How about
you...as you grow older do you find you think more of going home? Here's
a devotional from
Our Daily Bread
that speaks this issue...
Because I have traveled widely in my
ministry, I've had to spend a lot of time away from home. Although some
hotels promise to make me "feel at home," few of them achieve it. In
fact, some make me wish fervently that I was at home!
During his final days on earth, the apostle Paul had a deep longing for
his heavenly home. His thoughts turned toward the warm welcome he would
receive from the Lord, "the righteous Judge" (2 Timothy 4:8). Although
he was facing death, thoughts of heaven kept his spirit hopeful.
This reminds me of an old man and his grandson who were sitting on a
dock late one afternoon. The two chatted about everything, it seemed—why
water is wet, why seasons change, why girls hate worms, what life is
like. Finally the boy looked up and asked, "Grandpa, does anybody ever
see God?" "Son," said the old man as he looked across the still waters
of the lake, "it's getting so now I hardly see anything else."
Aging should be like that. Praying should come more easily. Communion
with the Father in heaven should be as natural as breathing. Thoughts of
seeing Jesus and going home should increasingly occupy our minds. That's
how we'll know we're ready to go home. —H W Robinson (Our
Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by
permission. All rights reserved)
When, by the gift of His infinite
grace,
I am accorded in heaven a place,
Just to be there and to look on His face
Will through the ages be glory for me. —Gabriel
As life's shadows lengthen,
thoughts of God should deepen.
Our Eternal Home
><>><>><>
2 Timothy
4:6-8
A Prisoner's Dying Thoughts
by Alexander Maclaren
I am now ready to be offered, and the
time of my departure is at hand. 7. I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8. Henceforth there is laid
up for me a crown of righteousness. — 2 Timothy
4:6-8.
PAUL’S long day’s work is nearly
done. He is a prisoner in Rome, all but forsaken by his friends, in
hourly expectation of another summons before Nero. To appear before him
was, he says, like putting his head into ‘the mouth of the lion.’ His
horizon was darkened by sad anticipations of decaying faith and growing
corruptions in the Church. What a road he had travelled since that day
when, on the way to Damascus, he saw the living Christ, and heard the
words of His mouth!
It had been but a failure of a life, if judged by ordinary standards. He
had suffered the loss of all things, had thrown away position and
prospects, had exposed himself to sorrows and toils, had been all his
days a poor man and solitary, had been hunted, despised, laughed at by
Jew and Gentile, worried and badgered even by so-called brethren, loved
the less, the more he loved. And now the end is near. A prison-and
the-headsman’s sword are the world’s wages to its best teacher. When
Nero is on the throne, the only possible place for Paul is a dungeon
opening on to the scaffold. Better to be the martyr than the Caesar!
These familiar words of our text bring before us a very sweet and
wonderful picture of the prisoner, so near his end. How beautifully they
show his calm waiting for the last hour and the bright forms which
lightened for him the darkness of his cell! Many since have gone to
their rest with their hearts stayed On the same thoughts, though their
lips could not speak them to our listening ears. Let us be thankful for
them, and pray that for ourselves, when we come to that hour, the same
quiet heroism and the same sober hope mounting to calm certainty may be
ours.
These words refer to the past, the present, the future. ‘I have fought —
the time of my departure is come — henceforth there is laid up.’
I. So we notice, first, the quiet courage which looks death full in
the face without a tremor.
The language implies that Paul knows
his death hour is all but here. As the Revised Version more accurately
gives it, ‘I am already
being offered’ — the process is begun, his sufferings at the moment are,
as it were, the initial steps of his sacrifice — ‘and the time of my
departure is come.’ The tone in which he tells Timothy this is very
noticeable. There is no sign of excitement, no tremor of emotion, no
affectation of stoicism in the simple sentences. He is not playing up to
a part, nor pretending to be anything which he is not. If ever language
sounded perfectly simple and genuine, this does.
And the occasion of the .whole section is as remarkable as the tone. He
is led to speak about himself at all, only in order to enforce his
exhortation to Timothy to put his shoulder to the wheel, and do his work
for Christ with all his might. All he wishes to say is simply, do your
work with all your might, for I am going off the field. But having begun
on that line of thought, he is carried on to say more than was needed
for his immediate purpose, and thus inartificially to let us see what
was filling his mind.
And the subject into which he subsides after these lofty thoughts is as
remarkable as either tone or occasion. Minute directions about such
small matters as books and parchments, and perhaps a warm cloak for
winter, and homely details about the movements of the little group of
his friends immediately follow. All this shows with what a perfectly
unforced courage Paul fronted his fate, and looked death in the eyes.
The anticipation did not dull his interest in God’s work in the world,
as witness the warnings and exhortations of the context. It did not
withdraw his sympathies from his companions. It did not hinder him from
pursuing his studies and pursuits, nor from providing for small matters
of daily convenience. If ever a man was free from any taint of
fanaticism or morbid enthusiasm, it was this man waiting so calmly in
his prison for his death.
There is great beauty and force in the expressions which he uses for
death here. He will not soil his lips with its ugly name, but calls it
an offering and a departure. There is a widespread unwillingness to say
the word ‘ Death.’ It falls on men’s hearts like clods on a coffin. So
all people and languages have adopted euphemisms for it, fair names
which wrap silk round its dart and somewhat hide its face. But there are
two opposite reasons for their use — terror and confidence. Some men
dare not speak of death because they dread it so much, and try to put
some kind of shield between themselves and the very thought of it, by
calling it something less dreadful to them than itself. Some men, on the
other hand, are familiar with the thought, and though it is solemn, it
is not altogether repellent to them.
Gazing on death with the thoughts and feelings which Jesus Christ has
given them concerning it, they see it in new aspects, which take away
much of its blackness. And so they do not feel inclined to use the ugly
old name, but had rather call it by some which reflect the gentler
aspect that it now wears to them. So ‘sleep,’ and ‘rest’ and the like
are the names which have almost driven the other out of the New
Testament — witness of the fact that in inmost reality Jesus Christ ‘has
abolished death,’ however the physical portion of it may still remain
master of our bodies.
But looking for a moment at the specific metaphors used here, we have
first, that of an offering, or more particularly of a drink offering, or
libation, ‘I am already being poured out.’ No doubt the special reason
for the selection of this figure here is Paul’s anticipation of a
violent death. The shedding of his blood was to be an offering poured
out like some costly wine upon the altar, but the power of the figure
reaches far beyond that special application of it. We may all make our
deaths a sacrifice, an offering to God, for we may yield up our will to
God’s will, and so turn that last struggle into an act of worship and
self surrender. When we recognise His hand, when we submit our wills to
His purposes, when ‘we live unto the Lord,’ if we live, and ‘die unto
Him,’ if we die, then Death will lose all its terror and most of its
pain, and will become for us what it was to Paul, a true offering up of
self in thankful worship. Nay, we may even say, that so we shall in a
certain subordinate sense be ‘made conformable unto His death’ who
committed His spirit into His Father’s hands, and laid down His life, of
His own will. The essential character and far-reaching effects of this
sacrifice we cannot imitate, but we can so yield up our wills to God and
leave life so willingly and trustfully as that death shall make our
sacrifice complete.
Another more familiar and equally striking figure is next used, when
Paul speaks of the time of his ‘departure.’ The thought is found in most
tongues. Death is a going away, or, as Peter calls it (with a glance,
possibly, at the special meaning of the word in the Old Testament, as
well as at its use in the solemn statement of the theme of converse on
the Mountain of Transfiguration), an Exodus. But the well-worn image
receives new depth and sharpness of outline in Christianity. To those
who have learned the meaning of Christ’s resurrection, and feed their
souls on the hopes which it warrants, Death is merely a change of place
or state, an accident affecting locality, and little more. We have had
plenty of changes before. Life has been one long series of departures.
This is different from the others mainly in that it is the last, and
that to go away from this visible and fleeting show, where we wander
aliens among things which have no true kindred with us, is to go home,
where there will be no more pulling up the tent-pegs, and toiling across
the deserts in monotonous change. How strong is the conviction, spoken
in this name for death, that the essential life lasts on quite unaltered
through it all! How slight the else formidable thing is made! We may
change climates, and for the stormy bleakness of life may have the long
still days of heaven, but we do not change ourselves. We lose nothing
worth keeping when we leave behind the body, as a dress not fitted for
home, where we are going. We but travel one more stage, though it be the
last, and part of it be in pitchy darkness. Some pass over it as in a
fiery chariot, like Paul and many a martyr. Some have to toil through it
with slow steps and bleeding feet and fainting heart; but all may have a
Brother with them, and, holding His hand, may find that the journey is
not so hard as they feared, and the home from which they shall remove no
more, better than they hoped when they hoped the most.
II. We have here, too, the peaceful look backwards.
There is something very noteworthy in
the threefold aspect under which his past life presents itself to the
Apostle who is so soon to leave it. He thinks of it as a contest, as a
race, as a stewardship. The first image suggests the tension of a long
struggle with opposing wrestlers who have tried to throw him, but in
vain. The world, both of men and things, has had to be grappled with and
mastered. His own sinful nature and especially his animal nature has had
to be kept under by sheer force, and every moment has been resistance to
subtle omnipresent forces that have sought to thwart his aspirations and
hamper his performances. His successes have had to be fought for, and
everything that he has done has been done after a struggle. So is it
with all noble life; so will it be to the end.
He thinks of life as a race. That speaks of continuous advance in one
direction, and more emphatically still, of effort that sets the lungs
panting and strains every muscle to the utmost. He thinks of it as a
stewardship. He has kept the faith (whether by that word we are to
understand the body of truth believed or the act of believing) as a
sacred deposit committed to him, of which he has been a good steward,
and which he is now ready to return to his Lord. There is much in these
letters to Timothy about keeping treasures entrusted to one’s care.
Timothy is bid to ‘keep that good thing which is committed to thee,’ as
Paul here declares that he has done. Nor is such guarding of a precious
deposit confined to us stewards on earth, but the Apostle is sure that
his loving Lord, to whom he has entrusted himself, will with like
tenderness and carefulness ‘keep that which he has committed unto Him
against that day.’ The confidence in that faithful Keeper made it
possible for Paul to be faithful to his trust, and as a steward who was
bound by all ties to his Lord, to guard His possessions and administer
His affairs. Life was full of voices urging him to give up the faith.
Bribes and threats, and his own sense-bound nature, and the constant
whispers of the world had tempted him all along the road to fling it
away as a worthless thing, but he had kept it safe; and now, nearing the
end and the account, he can put his hand on the secret place near his
heart where it lies, and feel that it is there, ready to be restored to
his Lord, with the thankful confession, ‘Thy pound hath gained ten
pounds.’
So life looks to this man in his
retrospect as mainly a field for struggle, effort, and fidelity. This
world is not to be for us an enchanted garden of delights, any more than
it should appear a dreary desert of disappointment and woe. But it
should be to us mainly a palaestra, or gymnasium and exercising ground.
You cannot expect many flowers or much grass in the place where men
wrestle and run. We need not much mind though it be bare, if we can only
stand firm on the hard earth, nor lament that there are so few delights
to stay our eyes from the goal. We are here for serious work; let us not
be too eager for pleasures that may hinder our efforts and weaken our
vigour, but be content to lap up a hasty draught from the brooks by the
way, and then on again to the fight.
Such a view of life makes it radiant
and fair while it lasts, and makes the heart calm when the hour comes to
leave it all behind. So thinking of the past, there may be a sense of
not unwelcome lightening from a load of responsibility when we have got
all the stress and strain of the conflict behind us, and have at any
rate not been altogether beaten. We may feel like a captain who has
brought his ship safe across the Atlantic, through foul weather and past
many an iceberg, and gives a great sigh of relief as he hands over the
charge to the pilot, who will take her across the harbour bar and bring
her to her anchorage in the landlocked bay where no tempests rave any
more forever.
Prosaic theologians have sometimes wondered at the estimate which Paul
here makes of his past services and faithfulness, but the wonder is
surely unnecessary. It is very striking to notice the difference between
his judgment of himself while he was still in the thick of the conflict,
and now when he is nearing the end. Then one main hope which animated
all his toils and nerved him for the sacrifice of life itself was ‘that
I might finish my course with joy.’ Now in the quiet of his dungeon,
that hope is fulfilled, and triumphant thoughts, like shining angels,
keep him company in his solitude. Then he struggled, and wrestled,
touched by the haunting fear lest after that he has preached to others
he himself should be rejected. Now the dread has passed, and a meek hope
stands by his side.
What is this change of feeling but an instance of what, thank God, we so
often see, that at the end the heart, which has been bowed with fears
and self-depreciation, is filled with peace? They who tremble most
during the conflict are most likely to look back with solid
satisfaction, while they who never knew a fear all along the course will
often have them surging in upon their souls too late, and will see the
past in a new lurid light, when they are powerless to change it. Blessed
is the man who thus feareth always. At the end he will have hope. The
past struggles are joyful in memory, as the mountain ranges, which were
all black reek and white snow while we toiled up their inhospitable
steeps, lie purple in the mellowing distance, and burn like fire as the
sunset strikes their peaks. Many a wild winter’s day has a fair,
cloudless close, and lingering opal hues diffused through all the quiet
sky. ‘At eventide it shall be light.’ Though we go all Our lives
mourning and timid, there may yet be granted us ere the end some vision
of the true significance of these lives, and some humble hope that they
have not been wholly in vain.
Such an estimate has nothing in common with self-complacency. It
coexists with a profound consciousness of many a sin, many a defeat, and
much unfaithfulness. It belongs only to a man who, conscious of these,
is ‘looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life,’
and is the direct result, not the antagonist, of lowly self-abasement,
and contrite faith in Him by whom alone our stained selves and poor
broken services can ever be acceptable. Let us learn too that the only
life that bears being looked back upon is a life of Christian devotion
and effort. It shows fairer when seen in the strange cross lights that
come when we stand on the boundary of two worlds, with the white
radiance of eternity beginning to master the vulgar oil lamps of earth,
than when seen by these alone. All others have their shabbiness and
their selfishness disclosed then. I remember ones seeing a mob of
revelers streaming out from a masked ball in a London theatre in the
early morning sunlight; draggled and heavy- eyed, the rouge showing on
the cheeks, and the shabby tawdriness of the foolish costumes pitilessly
revealed by the pure light. So will many a life look when the day dawns,
and the wild riot ends in its unwelcome beams. The one question for us
all, then, will be, Have I lived for Christ, and by Him? Let it be the
one question for us now, and let it be answered, Yes. Then we shall have
at the last a calm confidence, equally far removed from presumption and
from dread, which will let us look back on life with peace, though it be
full of failures and sins, and forward with humble hope of the reward
which we shall receive from His mercy.
III. The climax of all is the triumphant look forward. ‘Henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.’ In harmony with the images
of the conflict and the race, the crown here is not the emblem of
sovereignty, but of victory, as indeed is almost without exception the
case in the New Testament. The idea of the royal dignity of Christians
in the future is set forth rather under the emblem of association with
Christ on His throne, while the wreath on their brows is the coronal of
laurel, ‘meed of mighty conquerors,’ or the twine of leaves given to him
who, panting, touched the goal. The reward, then, which is meant by the
emblem, whatever be its essence, comes through effort and conflict. ‘A
man is not crowned, except he strive.’
That crown, according to other words of Scripture, consists of ‘life,’
or ‘glory’ — that is to say, the issue and outcome of believing service
and faithful stewardship here is the possession of the true life, which
stands in union with God, in measure so great, and in quality so
wondrous that it lies on the pure locks of the victors like a flashing
diadem, all ablaze with light in a hundred jewels. The completion and
exaltation of our nature and characters by the elapse of ‘life’ so
sovereign and transcendent that it is ‘glory’ is the consequence of all
Christian effort here in the lower levels, where the natural life is
always weakness and sometimes shame, and the spiritual life is at the
best but a hidden glory and a struggling spark. There is no profit in
seeking to gaze into that light of glory so as to discern the shapes of
those who walk in it, or the elements of its lambent flames. Enough that
in its gracious beauty transfigured souls move as in their native
atmosphere. Enough that even our dim vision can see that they have for
their companion ‘One like unto the Son of Man.’ It is Christ’s own life
which they share; it is Christ’s own glory which irradiates them.
That crown is ‘a crown of righteousness’ in another sense from that in
which it is ‘a crown of life.’ The latter expression indicates the
material, if we may say so, of which it is woven, but the former rather
points to the character to which it belongs or is given. Righteousness
alone can receive that reward. It is not the struggle or the conflict
which wins it, but the character evolved in the struggle, not the works
of strenuous service, but the moral nature expressed in these. There is
such a congruity between righteousness and the crown of life, that it
can be laid on none other head but that of a righteous man, and if it
could, all its amaranthine flowers would shrivel and fall when they
touched an impure brow. It is, then, the crown of righteousness, as
belonging by its very nature to such characters alone.
But whatever is the essential congruity between the character and the
crown, we have to remember too that, according to this Apostle’s
constant teaching, the righteousness which clothes us in fair raiment,
and has a natural right to the wreath of victory, is a gift, as truly as
the crown itself, and is given to us all on condition of our simple
trust in Jesus Christ, If we are to be ‘found of Him in peace, without
spot and blameless,’ we must be ‘found in Him, not having our own
righteousness, but that which is ours through faith in Christ.’ Toil and
conflict and anxious desire to be true to our responsibilities will do
much for a man, but they will not bring him that righteousness which
brings down on the head the crown of life. We must trust to Christ to
give us the righteousness in which we are justified, and to give us the
righteousness by the working out of which in our life and character we
are fitted for that great reward. He crowns our works and selves with
exuberant and unmerited honours, but what he crowns is His Own gift to
us, and His great love must bestow both the righteousness and
‘the crown.’
The crown is given at a time called — by Paul ‘at that day,’ which is
not the near day of his martyrdom, but that of His Lord’s appearing. He
does not speak of the fulness of the reward as being ready for him at
death, but as being ‘henceforth laid up for him in heaven.’ So he looks
forward beyond the grave. The immediate future after death was to his
view a period of blessedness indeed, but not yet full. The state of the
dead in Christ was a state of consciousness, a state of rest, a state of
felicity, hut also a state of expectation- To the full height of their
present capacity they who sleep in Jesus are blessed, being still in His
embrace, and their spirits pillowed on His heart, nor so sleeping that,
like drowsy infants, they know not where they lie so safe, but only
sleeping in so much as they rest from weariness, and have closed their
eyes to the ceaseless turmoil of this fleeting world, and are lapped
about for ever with the sweet, unbroken consciousness that they are
‘present with the Lord.’ What perfect repose, perfect fruition of all
desires, perfect union with the perfect End and Object of all their
being, perfect exemption from all sorrow, tumult, and sin can bring of
blessedness, that they possess in over measure unfailingly. And, in
addition, they still know the joy of hope, and have carried that jewel
with them into another world, for they wait for ‘the redemption of the
body,’ in the reception of which, ‘at that day,’ their life will be
filled up to a yet fuller measure, and gleam with a more lustrous
‘glory.’ Now they rest and wait. Then shall they be crowned.
Nor must self-absorbed thoughts be
allowed to bound our anticipations of that future. It is no solitary
blessedness to which Paul looked forward Alone in his dungeon, alone
before his judge when ‘no man stood by’ him, soon to be alone in his
martyrdom, he leaps up in spirit at the thought of the mighty crowd
among whom he will stand in that day, on every head a crown, in every
heart the same love to the Lord whose life is in them all and makes them
all one. So we may cherish the hope of a social heaven. Man’s course
begins in a garden, but it ends in a city. The final condition will be
the perfection of human society. There all who love Christ will be drawn
together, and old ties, broken for a little while here, be reknit in yet
holier form, never to be sundered more.
Ah, friends, the all-important question for each of us is how may we
have such a hope, like a great sunset light shining into the western
windows of our souls? There is but one answer — Trust Christ. That is
enough. Nothing else is. Is your life built on Jesus Christ? Are you
trusting your salvation to Him? Are you giving Him your love and
service? Does your life bear looking at to-day? Will it bear looking at
in death? Will it bear His looking at in Judgment?
If you can humbly say,
To me to live is Christ,
then is it well Living by Him we may
fight and conquer, may win and obtain. Living by Him, we may be ready
quietly to lie down when the time comes, and may have all the future
filled with the blaze of a great hope that glows brighter as the
darkness thickens. That peaceful hope will not leave us till
consciousness fails, and then, when it has ceased to guide us, Christ
Himself will lead us, scarcely knowing where we are, through the waters,
and when we open our half- bewildered eyes in brief wonder, the first
thing we see will be his welcoming smile, and His voice will say, as a
tender surgeon might to a little Child waking after an operation, ‘It is
all over.’ We lift our hands wondering and find wreaths on our poor
brows. We lift our eyes, and lo! all about us a crowned crowd of
conquerors,
‘And with the morn those angel
faces smile
Which we have loved long since, and lost awhile,’
