<p>4:8 <i>From this time forward- </i>Was Paul given some special assurance that he would be saved at the last day? Otherwise it is hard to understand the force of him saying that he is sure of his salvation &quot;from this time forward&quot;.</p><p><i>There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness- </i>It could be that the reward is to be made righteous. Or that the reward / crown is the reward for righteousness. Yet Paul elsewhere is very aware of &quot;our unrighteousness&quot; (Rom. 3:5), and how righteousness is imputed to us, final salvation not being any function of &quot;works of righteousness which we have done&quot; (Tit. 3:5). Perhaps he means that he now finally believed in practice what he had so eloquently explained to the Romans in theory- that he was righteous by faith. And he saw that there was indeed a crown for that faith.</p><p><i>Which the Lord, the righteous judge- </i>This title is to be connected with the way that He will give us &quot;the crown of righteousness&quot;. The 'justness' or 'rightness' of His judgment is not to be measured in human terms; for it shall involve counting us righteous who are not- if we have believed it. But this is <i>His</i> rightness / justice.</p><p><i>Shall give to me at that day; and not to me alone, but also to all those that have loved his appearing</i><i>- </i>The Lord said that all those whom he finds <i>watching</i> will be welcomed into the marriage feast (Lk. 12:37). And 2 Tim. 4:8 is plain enough: &quot;All them also that love his appearing&quot; will be rewarded along with Paul. Paul's own confidence in salvation was because he knew the earnestness of his desire to be &quot;present with the Lord&quot; Jesus (2 Cor. 5:8), such was the closeness of his relationship with him. Is this really our attitude too? Can we feel like Simeon, that we are quite happy to die after we have just seen our Lord with our own eyes (Lk. 2:29)? Is there really much <i>love</i> between us and our Lord? The faithful are described as &quot;those that <i>seek </i>(God)... such as <i>love</i> thy salvation&quot; (Ps. 40:16). None truly seek God (Rom. 3:11- the context concerns all of us, believers and unbelievers); and yet we are those who seek Him. We must be ambitious to do the impossible. Those who truly <i>love</i> righteousness and the Kingdom will be rewarded with it. Likewise Paul in 1 Cor. 8:2,3 describes the faithful man as one who accepts he knows nothing as he ought to know, but truly loves God. Heb. 9:28 is clear: &quot;Unto them that look for (Christ) shall he appear the second time... unto salvation&quot;. Those who truly look for Christ will be given salvation. People from all over the world, the living responsible, will see the sign of the son of man, will know His return is imminent, and wail with the knowledge that they have crucified Him afresh and must now meet Him (Mt. 24:30,31 cp. Rev. 1:7; Zech. 12:10). Their response to the certain knowledge that His return is imminent will in that moment effectively be their judgment. See on Lk. 12:37. The idea that whoever truly loves the Lord's coming will therefore be accepted by Him can easily be abused by those who reason that anyone who has the emotion of love towards Christ will be rewarded by him. We know that true love involves both having and keeping his commands. But for those of us in Christ, these verses are still a major challenge. If we truly &quot;look for&quot; Christ's second coming, if we &quot;love his appearing&quot;, this will lead us to acceptance with him. So the point is surely clinched: our attitude towards the second coming is an indicator of whether we will be saved. Time and again in the Psalms, David expresses his good conscience in terms of asking God to come and judge him (e.g. Ps. 35:24). Was this not some reference to the future theophany which David knew some day would come?</p><p>As Job's emphasis on the coming of Christ and judgment increased, so his concentration on his present sufferings decreased. His heart was consumed within him with desire for that day (Job 19:27 AVmg.). 2 Tim. 4 can be regarded as Paul's most mature spiritual statement, written as it was just prior to his death. In 2 Tim. 4:1,8, Paul's mind was clearly on the second coming and the certainty of judgment. He realized, in that time of undoubted maturity, that the common characteristic of all the faithful would be that they all <em>loved</em> the appearing of Christ. This isn't, of course, to say that anyone who loves the idea of Christ's coming will thereby be saved. A true love of His appearing is only possible with a correct doctrinal understanding, and also a certain level of moral readiness for His appearing. But do we <em>love</em> the appearing of Christ as Job did? Is it <em>really</em> all we have in life? Is our conscience, our faith in the grace of God, our real belief in the blood of the cross, so deep that we <em>love</em> the idea of the coming of judgment, that we would fain <em>hasten</em> the day of His coming? The graph constructed above shows how Job's <em>love</em> of the Lord's coming grew very rapidly. Before, he was too caught up with bitterness about his unspiritual fellow 'believers', effectively justifying himself in the eyes of his ecclesia and his world, full of passive complaints about his own sufferings... and so he didn't <em>love</em> that day as he later came to.</p>