It is only in Philippians that the expression, “The day of Jesus Christ,” or the “day of Christ,” is found. The nearest to it is “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” in 1 Corinthians 1:8. The period referred to is without doubt the same; the difference in the form of the expression being traceable either to the character of the epistle, or to the context in which it is found, Thus in Philippians—the book of experience, as it has been aptly called—where the whole of the Christian life is summed up in the words, “To me to live is Christ,” the term in chapter 1:10 is, “The day of Christ,” whereas in Corinthians, where the exercise of gift in responsibility is brought in, we read, “The day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” But whatever the variations, and some of these are very instructive, all alike point onward to the period introduced by the appearing of our Lord. His coming is the hope of the Church, as stated in 1 Thessalonians 4; but uniformly, when the saints are regarded as under responsibility in service or suffering, or indeed as strangers and pilgrims, the appearing of Christ is always the goal; for inasmuch as earth has been the place of service and testing, it shall be also the scene of the displayed recompense. (See 2 Thessalonians 1:6, 7; 1 Timothy 6:13, 14; 2 Timothy 4:7, 8; 1 Peter 1:6, 7, &c) This will explain the expressions in 2 Timothy 1. The apostle says, “For which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed...unto Him against that day.” (vs. 12)
As another has beautifully said, “His happiness, in the glory of that new life, he had committed to Jesus. He labored meanwhile in affliction, sure of finding again, without being deceived, that which he had committed to the Lord, in the day when he should see Him and all his sorrows ended. It was in the expectation of that day, in order to find it again at that day, that he had committed to Him his happiness and his joy.” So in the apostle’s prayer for Onesiphorus, he looks onward to the same blessed moment, desiring that the one who, in the midst of general unfaithfulness, and turning away from God’s chosen vessel of the truth (vs. 15), had often refreshed the weary heart of this devoted servant, was not ashamed of his chain (compare verse 8), and in Rome had sought him out very diligently and found him, might find mercy of the Lord, might then meet with the recompense of his service in the full fruition of “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” (Jude 21) For the mercy here spoken of is not the mercy shown to a sinner in the forgiveness of his sins, but mercy’s fruit and crown, entered upon by the saint at the coming of the Lord, and exhibited at His appearing. There may be also a reference in the use of the word to the conduct of Onesiphorus. He had, in the tenderness of his heart, fruit of the Spirit of God, shown mercy, as it were, to the apostle. He had “compassion upon him in his bonds;” and the apostle prays that this may, as it will, be publicly owned “in that day.”
E. D.