Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown - This I can claim as my due; but the crown I expect is not one of fading leaves, but a crown of righteousness; the reward which God, in his kindness, has promised to them who are faithful to the grace he has bestowed upon them.
The Lord, the righteous Judge - He alludes here to the brabeus, or umpire in the Grecian games, whose office it was to declare the victor, and to give the crown.
At that day - The day of judgment; the morning of the resurrection from the dead.
Unto all them also that love his appearing - All who live in expectation of the coming of Christ, who anticipate it with joyfulness, having buried the world and laid up all their hopes above. Here is a reward, but it is a reward not of debt but of grace; for it is by the grace of God that even an apostle is fitted for glory. And this reward is common to the faithful; it is given, not only to apostles, but to all them that love his appearing. This crown is laid up - it is in view, but not in possession. We must die first.
I have several times noted the allusions of St. Paul to the Greek poets, and such as seemed to argue that he quoted immediately from them. There is a passage in the Alcestis of Euripides, in which the very expressions used here by the apostle are found, and spoken on the occasion of a wife laying down her life for her husband, when both his parents had refused to do it.
Ουκ ηθελησας ουδ' ετολμησας θανειν
Του σου προ παιδος· αλλα την δ' ειασατε
Γυναικ' οθνειαν, ἡν εγω και μητερα
Πατερα τε γ' ενδικως αν ἡγοιμην μονην·
Και τοι καλον γ' αν τανδ' αγων' ηγωνισω,
Του σου προ παιδος κατθανων.
Alcest. v. 644.
"Thou wouldst not, neither darest thou to die for thy son; but hast suffered this strange woman to do it, whom I justly esteem to be alone my father and mother: thou wouldst have fought a good fight hadst thou died for thy son."
See Sophocles and Aeschylus, quoted 1 Timothy 6:15.
The καλος αγων, good fight, was used among the Greeks to express a contest of the most honorable kind, and in this sense the apostle uses it.