NOTES for Php 1:12-30
Speaking about his arrest and imprisonment, Paul views even them in terms of how much and in what way they can contribute to the task the apostle always considered most important for himself: witness (vv. 12-14). It is no longer entirely clear what Paul has in mind when he speaks of certain preachers who preach Christ "not sincerely," trying to worsen the situation of the imprisoned apostle (vv. 15-17). But whatever the case, Paul himself is not frightened by this: he thinks not about his own life, but only about witness, so his own situation concerns him little if the witness does not cease (vv. 18-20). And here before us, as can be seen, is not simply fearlessness in the face of death, the kind that distinguished martyrs for an idea. For the apostle, the Kingdom is not an idea, but a reality, and not the reality of some future that awaits a person after death, but the reality of the present in which he lives already here and now.
Paul says not figuratively but quite literally that his life is Christ, that he lives one life with Him, the life of the Kingdom, and therefore earthly life is for him neither more nor less valuable and important than the death that awaits everyone here. For the apostle, the question is only what is more needed and important to God: that he remain in the world, where further witness will be required of him, or that he be freed from earthly life in order to acquire the whole fullness of the life of the Kingdom and communion with Christ (vv. 21-26). Here Paul shows us a typical example of the Christian martyr, whom in early Christian times they called not martyrs but witnesses.
Christians are far from the only ones who know how to die for an idea. Christians died, and often die today, not for some new idea or new religion; they only give up that part of their life which their persecutors want to take from them, so as not to lose it entirely. Everyone who lives the life of the Kingdom understands that no one can take the Kingdom away from a person if that person does not renounce the Kingdom. And a Christian, agreeing to give up earthly life, thereby witnesses that he has something incomparably greater, that he has the Kingdom to which he bears witness. Then not only the Christian's life, but also his death, becomes witness.