Philippians 1:21

The same subject: the Alternative of Life or Death: Expectation of Life

21. For, &c. He takes up and expands the thought of the alternative just uttered, and the holy "indifference" with which he was able to meet it.

to me Strongly emphatic in the Greek. It is not self-assertion, however, but assertion of personal experience of the truth and power of God.

to live is Christ Luther renders this clause Christus ist mein Leben;and so Tyndale, "Christ is to me lyfe"; so also Cranmer, and the Genevan version. The Vulgate has vivere Christus;and this, the rendering of A.V. and R.V., is undoubtedly right. For the Apostle, undoubtedly, Christ was life, in the sense of source and secret; see Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:4. But what he is thinking of here is not the source of life, but the experiences and interests of living. Living is for him so full of Christ, so preoccupied with Him and for Him, that "Christ" sums it up. Hence the "eager expectation" just expressed; eager, because it has to do with the supreme interest of life.

What the Apostle experienced in his own case is intended to be the experience of every believer, as to its essence. See Colossians 3:17; and cp. Ephesians 3:14-21.

to die is gain This wonderful saying, uttered without an effort, yet a triumph over man's awful and seemingly always triumphant enemy, is explained just below.