‘But I am in a pressure situation between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for it is very far better, yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake.'
He thus finds himself in a pressure situation, for when he contrasts living in the flesh for Christ with the glory of actually being with Christ, he has no doubt which will be the better choice for him. His longing is to depart and be with Christ, for by doing so he will not only enter into rest, but also into the fullness of all that Christ is. He will be made like Him, for he will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). He knows that it will be something so much beyond what he can know in this life, that there can really be no comparison. It is ‘by far the very best'. On the other hand he knows that for his readers his continuing in the flesh is ‘more needful', for the infant church still needed his guiding hand. They still needed his protection and care as false doctrines (Philippians 3:2-8) were seeking to break in on the church.
It will be noted that with Paul there is no thought of entering into ‘soul sleep'. He knows that when he passes on he will be conscious in the presence of Christ. His body will ‘sleep', but not Paul himself. He will be consciously in the presence of Christ until the resurrection. This gives new meaning to the words in Ecclesiastes 12:7, ‘and the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return to God Who gave it'. Elsewhere Paul describes it as ‘absent from the body and present with the Lord' (2 Corinthians 5:8). He had no doubt that when he died he would consciously enter the presence of Christ.
We can compare with this John's symbolic representation of the same idea when he speaks of the ‘souls under the altar' (having been offered up as sacrifices through martyrdom) who in full consciousness call on God for the final vindication of His people (Revelation 6:9-11).
But how does this connect with the fact that we are to be ‘with the Lord' after the resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:17)? There is no real problem in this. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 the ‘so shall we ever be with the Lord' can be seen as primarily referring to ‘we who are alive and remain'. At that stage Paul was numbering himself among the living. Thus through ‘the rapture', if he were still alive, he and his fellow living believers would join with those who were already ‘with the Lord' (whom Christ would bring with Him - Philippians 1:14), those who had been ‘with the Lord' since their deaths.