Cancer Blog #23
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #23
February 1, 2022
2 Timothy 4:6-8: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
Paul’s Impending Death
Here Paul tells us of his impending death, likening it to the pouring of the drink offering in the OT. He has completed the commission Jesus gave him when he was called in the Damascus experience. And so, he is ready for his reward- a crown of righteousness.
I think there are lessons here for us as well. Paul makes clear that Jesus will award as the righteous Judge that crown not only to an apostle, but to us as well. So, whether we are shown our impending death, or are rather those who wait in love for His return, we should follow Paul’s example. He lists a series of descriptions of how he has lived, summary statements of his life that offers us his reflection on his approaching death. How did Paul, now at the end of his life, think of what he has achieved that has prepared him to receive this wonderful reward? Let’s just very briefly look at each summary remark:
His Life Summarized in 3 Statements
1. “I have fought the good fight”: Paul’s commission involved not just a scholarly life of prayer and study, but was a commission to an active engagement with the enemy, both within and without. The Christian life, then, for Paul, was to be seen as a battle, and a battle that would begin at the start of our new life and continue onto the end of our lives. That is Paul’s warning and encouragement to us. The enemy is implacable, and we must never give up in continuing to take our stand against him in our resistance. It is, indeed, the fight of our life.
2. “I have finished the course”: Here Paul emphasizes our need to persevere in our walk. Our journey and commission is not over at some artificial “retirement.” There is no retirement from our course, no sitting down and taking our ease, watching television all day every day because we’re done, finished our work. Our course, like Paul’s, will end at death, and not before. The nature of our work may change as we age, but it will never be over. There will always be room for good works that our Savior has prepared for us, even in our old age.
3. “I have kept the faith”: We can fall away just as easily in old age as in our youth. We have to look only at Solomon, so wise and zealous in his youth, but who was pulled away from that devotion by failing to follow the Lord’s instructions for the conduct of kings, marrying many wives, often foreign ones, who weakened his resolve to obey his God. Up to death, we must be vigilant to guard our hearts and minds from weakening and we must maintain our resolve to follow our Lord at the approach of our death as truly as we did at our new birth.
Our Goal
There is a death for each of us, and it should be our goal to reach that point as Paul did: prepared for it and glad of it, seeing it as the final offering to the Lord after a life of faithful service, knowing that our death opens the door to receive our reward as it did for Paul, a crown of righteousness following a life of righteousness. The view of life and death laid out by Paul here should give us purpose and hope, as well as the joy of anticipation when we find our death is impending as his was when writing to Timothy.
Next: A faithful life requires an acceptance of death