Willing to go with our friends as far as we can in their interpretation of any passage, we raise no issue here on the word depart. Paul probably means by it the same as in 2 Tim. 4:6, where he says, “The time of my departure is at hand,” referring to his approaching death. Then Paul, immediately on dying, was to be with Christ. Not so fast. The very point intended to be proved has, in such a conclusion, to be assumed. Paul had in view two conditions: this present state, and the future state. Between these two he was in a strait. The cause of God on earth, the interests of the church, stirring to its very depths his large and sympathetic heart, drew him here; his own desires drew him to the future state of victory and rest. And so evenly balanced were the influences drawing him in either direction, that he hardly knew upon which course he would decide, were it left to him as a matter of choice. Nevertheless, he said that it was more needful for the church that he remain here, to give them still the benefit of his counsel and his labors. The state or condition to which he looked forward was one which he greatly desired. About four years before he wrote these words to the Philippians, he had written to the Corinthians, telling them what he did desire, and what he did not desire, in reference to the future. Said he, “Not that we would be unclothed.” 2 Cor. 5:4. By being unclothed, he meant the state of death, from the cessation of mortal life to the resurrection. This he did not desire; but he immediately adds what he did desire, namely, to be “clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life;” and when this is done, all that is mortal of us is made immortal, the dead are raised, and the body is redeemed. Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:52, 53. In writing to the Corinthians, he thus stated that the object of his desire was to be clothed upon, and have mortality swallowed up of life; to the Philippians he stated that the object of his desire was to be with Christ. These expressions, then, mean the same thing. Therefore, in Phil. 1:23, Paul passes over the state of death, the unclothed state, just as he had done to the Corinthians; for he would not tell the Corinthians that he did not desire a certain state, and four years after write to the Philippians that he did desire it. Paul did not thus contradict himself. But this intermediate state is the disputed territory in this controversy; the condition of the dead therein is the very point in question: and on this the text before us is entirely silent.