Yet God did not allow the deaths of His beloved apostles to overshadow their lives.

Yet God did not allow the deaths of His beloved apostles to overshadow their lives. Their departures were intimate encounters between themselves and the One for whom they laid down their lives. Teaching handed down through the ages tells us two soldiers by the name of Ferega and Parthemius brought Paul word of his death. They approached him and asked for his prayers that they might also believe in his Christ. Having received life from his instruction, they then led Paul out of the city to his death.20 Traditional teaching claims he prayed just before his execution. At this point I would have trouble believing anything different. Wouldn’t you?

After praying, the apostle Paul gave his neck to the sword. But before his earthly tent had time to collapse to the ground, his feet stood on holy ground. His eyes, possibly scarred and blurred from a glorious light on a Damascus road, saw their first crystal-clear vision in thirty years. Paul himself had written, “For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Faith became sight, and the raptured saint saw Christ’s face. He beheld the ultimate surpassing glory.

No thought of beatings. No questions of timing. No pleas for vengeance. No list of requests. Just the sight of unabashed, unhindered, unveiled glory. And he had not yet looked past His face—“God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). He was seeing the face he had waited thirty years to see. The Righteous Judge raised a wreath of righteousness and placed it on the head of His faithful servant. He had finished the race. And more impressively, he had kept the faith. Never doubt the difference.

Paul once wrote, “Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). The partial knowledge of Christ that Paul had acquired in his lifetime was the same knowledge he claimed to be worth every loss (see Phil. 3:8–10). Oh, my friend, if partial knowledge of the Lord Jesus is worth every loss, what then will full knowledge be like? I cry out with our brother Paul, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!” (Rom. 11:33). One day the prayer of the apostle will be answered for all of us. We will indeed “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ . . . and know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:18–19 NIV).

Until then, may God find us faithful, unstoppable servants of the One who saved us, waiting to hang our hats on heaven’s door. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Rom. 8:38–39).

Most Worthy Lord,

make me a drink offering

and take me not home

until the cup is overturned

the glass broken

and every drop loosed

for Your glory.