The change that death brought to the poor beggar Lazarus must have been wonderful. He left behind his degradation, poverty and pain, and was carried by angels' wings to the unspeakable comfort of Abraham's bosom.
And how great was the gain for the "dying thief" when he exchanged the malefactor's cross, with all its shame, reproach and suffering for the paradise of God. The ray of divine light that had revealed to him, just before he reached the portal of death, who and what Jesus was, had also exposed him to himself as a poor, wretched sinner, meriting the judgment pronounced upon him, and now being executed. That same ray of light, which had brought to him faith in the Lord Jesus, cast him upon His grace, and brought from him the request, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." How amazing to find such a desire in one who had shunned the light of God; but it was the newly implanted divine nature that longed to have part with Him whose glory he had just glimpsed.
Who can tell the joy that filled the awakened soul when Jesus said, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," or speak of the bliss of the moment when death brought him into the paradise of God to find Jesus waiting for him there? Death, which for him was the righteous sentence on his misdeeds, had also become, through divine mercy, and Christ's work, the portal to eternal and ineffable joy.
The Apostle Paul knew the bliss of paradise, for he had been caught up to the third heavens, and heard unspeakable things that were impossible for man to utter (2 Cor. 12:2-4). This unique privilege and experience for a man living on earth would sustain the devoted servant of the Lord in his arduous labours and life of constant danger. Death held no dread for him, for he knew it would but take him into the heavenly paradise whose joys he had already tasted.
Paul had only one thing before him, and that was to please the One who had called him by His grace and made him His servant. He could truly say, "For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). He desired to be with Christ in heaven, and the pull from heaven was exceeding great, but there was another pull on earth — the loved objects of Christ that the Apostle served because they were Christ's. Although death would have been gain to him, he desired to help the saints that Christ had entrusted to his care.
For every Christian death would indeed be gain, for it would take him into paradise to be with Christ. But can we all say, like Paul, "To die is gain?" It is one thing to know this to be true, and another to have the feeling of it in our hearts. Christians who live in the things of this present world, finding their joy in them rather than in Christ, will hardly feel that death is gain.