Owen: "Grow in that desire of coming to Christ, and you will conquer the unwillingness of death."

“Philippians 1:23…’Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ… I have a strong bent and inclination of Spirit’.  The is that which in Scripture is used for ‘lust’ and ‘concupiscence;’ that is always working with strong bent and inclination.  ‘It is not a desire that sometimes befalls me, now and then, when in trouble, sickness, or pain; but I have a habitual, constant inclination.’  Unto what?  ‘…to depart’, to leave this body.  It is usually translated in the passive, ‘I have a desire to be dissolved.’  But the plain meaning of the word is this, ‘I do desire that contexture of my nature may be reduced unto its distinct principles, -- may be analyzed.’

"Now, analysis is the reducing of a speech from the present contexture into its proper, distinct principles.  Then, here lies the difficulty.  I told you the soul hath an aversation to this dissolution; and yet the apostle saith, ‘I have a continual strong inclination to it.’  To what?  Pray observe it, -- ‘To be with Christ.’  I have no inclination to be dissolved as the end, but only as the means for another end, that without it I cannot be with Christ.  There is my end.  And so far with respect to that end, that which is in itself no object of inclination becomes an object of desire. 

"Brethren, I know no man dies willingly, - no man living can have an habitual inclination to close cheerfully with this dissolution, -- but by looking upon it as a means to come to the enjoyment of Christ.  I tell you, your bodies are better to you than all the world, than all your goods, or any thing else.  But Christ is better to the soul than any thing: and therefore, unless it be for the enjoyment of Christ, let men pretend what they will, there is no man willing to part with the body, -- to be dissolved.  Grow in that desire of coming to Christ, and you will conquer the unwillingness of death."  -- John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol. IX, p. 349