Philippians 1:20

My earnest expectation. — The word is only found here and in Romans 8:19 (where see Note). It implies an intense and almost painful longing for some crisis, a dulness of suspense lighted up with hope. The phrase is one of the many indications that the joyful and confident tone so often noticed in this Epistle came not from the absence of yearning for the freedom and activity of apostolic life, but from the victory over such longings through faith. Whatever the crisis might be, St. Paul looked eagerly for it.

In nothing I shall be ashamed. — The phrase is elsewhere used by St. Paul with especial reference to the shame which comes from hopes disappointed and professions unfulfilled. (See 2 Corinthians 7:14; 2 Corinthians 9:4; 2 Corinthians 10:8. Compare also the quotation from Isaiah 28:16 in Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6.) For (he says) “hope (fulfilled) maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:5). So probably here; he trusts that in the hour of trial the confidence which he has felt and professed of being “able to do all things through Christ who strengthenth him” (see Philippians 4:13) may not come to shameful failure, but may “magnify Christ in all boldness of speech.” There is a subtle touch of true Christian feeling in the fact that, when he speaks of the chance of failure, he uses the first person: “I shall be ashamed;” but when of triumph, it is “Christ shall be magnified” in me. If he fails, it must be through his own fault; if he triumphs, it will be through his Master’s strength.

In my body, whether it be by life, or by death. — “In my body:” The phrase is, no doubt, suggested mainly by the idea of death — the death of a martyr in bodily torture or shame. There is the same connection of idea in 2 Corinthians 4:10 : “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our body.” But while the word “flesh” is used in the New Testament in a bad sense, the “body” is always regarded as that in which we may “glorify God” (1 Corinthians 6:20) by word and deed. It is not merely a vesture of the soul, but a part of the true man (1 Thessalonians 5:23), having membership of Christ, and being the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:15). In this passage the whole idea is of Christ in him; hence his body is spoken of as simply the tabernacle of the indwelling presence of Christ, and devoted only to “magnify” Him.