"For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Phil. 1:21
In a very real sense, what the apostle Paul is saying here is, "If I go on living...it will be dying. And if I die...well that would be great!" Being a Roman citizen, Paul was able to invoke his position in order to get out of prison, escape execution, etc. And, as related here in Philippians, there were times when he thought maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he could just be a martyr and then be with Christ. It would be to his advantage and a great step up from this life. But, imitating the Christ he loves, Paul makes selfless decisions, remained living on earth as long as he could...serving churches and winning souls.
The Christian understanding of death is two fold: 1) It is our mortal enemy. Our father Adam, by one act of disobedience, gave to us the inheritance of eternal death (Rom. 5:12). But 2) physical death ushers the Christian into the direct company of Christ (2 Cor. 5:8) and rescues us, once and for all, from the grip of sin. So, in a morbid way of thinking, to be free from sin is to, indeed, die. Physically. Although, there is another death, and it is one that we must choose daily.
"For me to live is Christ" is Paul's mantra, his modus operandi, his M.O. Paul takes very seriously what it means "to live is Christ." Over and over throughout his letters he refers not only to Christ but very specifically to "Christ crucified." So for Paul to say "to live is Christ" is to say "to live is Christ crucified." It is the crucified and risen Christ who we are to imitate. To imitate the "love" of Christ, or the "grace" of Christ, or the "humility," "joy," "obedience," "faith," etc. of Christ is to die daily, just as Jesus died. One cannot do any of the others, unless he first truly dies.
This death is two fold:
First, it is a death of self unto God:
"If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Luke 9:23
We see in the death of Christ a complete picture of what it means to give up one's rights; "although He existed in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped." (Phil 2:6) To put it another way, "even though He existed in the form of God and had all the rights associated with it, He gave up His own rights," "humbling himself by becoming obedient, all the way to death." Jesus' death was a self-denying obedience to His Father. The phrase "take up your cross" demands of us the same "death of self." Carrying Christ's cross is not merely carrying with us the fact of His death and all that it accomplished, although that is very true. It is also carrying the very essence of His death. The walk of Christ to Golgotha is the same walk we must daily make. Humility, obedience, sacrifice...His walk is our daily walk. As we daily pick up our cross we are saying, "everything that I think I have a right to I lay down: job, family, spouse, children, money, food, cars, clothes, houses...all of it I deny, and instead I renounce my 'rights' to anything I have." In so doing, we free ourselves from ourselves and make room for the Spirit of Christ to change us. It is a daily, cognitive decision, not a 'one time action.' It is "presenting our bodies as living sacrifices," and "renewing our minds that we may prove the will of God" (Rom 12:1-2). To walk this life free of the sin which so easily entangles, we must first "die" to all that we hold dear.
Second, it is a death unto each other
Our death does not end vertically, it must then transfer to the horizontal realm of our relationships. The sins that we commit against each other stem from selfishness and the "rights" that we think we have over other people. Just before Paul describes the self-sacrificing heart of Christ, he exhorts the Philippians, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility [note the same language of Christ "humbling" Himself by dying] of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than yourself [think of it this way, 'do not consider equality with your peer something to be held on to']" (Phil. 2:3). The only way we can heed Paul's exhortation, as we continue reading in Philippians, is to empty ourselves of ourselves each and every day, just as Christ did in His life-long walk to the cross. Our love for others is to imitate the love of Christ for us: a self-sacrificing servitude and love. How much less do we have to give up than He?
Our call is to be separate from the world and sinless. It begins with death and lives in a life committed to the life of Christ in the world and the life of the church beyond ourselves. All in all, our love and obedience to Christ and our love and service to others is the very nature of the Cross. In all that we do we are to have the attitude of Christ crucified. It is our living death. The servant of all servants is our great mirror, and the One whom we are to imitate.
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