Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who
live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave Himself for me.
That is a wonderful statement of a Christian's view of his
own spiritual identity. I have been crucified with Christ, that
is a historical event. That looks back at the cross, literally
you and I who believe in Jesus Christ were there at the cross.
He was bearing our sins. That's why Paul, in Romans 6 says, we
were buried with Him into death and we rose with Him in newness
of life. That's an incredible reality. We were there. God
literally placed us there even though we hadn't been born.
Everybody who ever believed the truth of God and that goes all
the way back through the whole Old Testament, all the saints of
the Old Testament, all the saints of the New Testament, and
everybody since. All of the sinners of all redemptive history
who have been forgiven were there in Christ at His death. That's
a glorious reality. You were there; your sins were paid for.
That's why you are not under any condemnation. Your sins were
paid for perfectly by Christ. That's why, just before He died,
He said it is finished. The penalty was paid in full. The
handwriting of ordinances against us was obliterated. God wrote
cancelled over our debt. Now we live this new life and Paul
says, it is not really I who live it, it's Christ who lives in
me. This is a profound mystery. How can you explain the
sovereignty of God and human choice? Can you explain election &
freewill? No; but election and freewill are both in the Bible.
It's a mystery how God in His mind perfectly harmonizes that
fact that if you're saved it's because God saved you, but at the
same time if you reject you're responsible. That's hard to
grasp, but it's very encouraging because that means that men
didn't write the Bible. Editors and writers fix things like
that. God left these amazing apparent paradoxes. If you were
asked who wrote Galatians what would you say? The Apostle Paul
or the Holy Spirit? It was all Paul, it was all the Holy Spirit.
How can that be? If you were asked was Jesus man or was He God?
Well He was 100% man and 100% God. How can you be 200% of
something? That cannot be explained. That comes right to this
verse. Who lives your Christian life? Do you ever wonder that?
You say I do, I beat my body to bring it into subjection and I
discipline my body and I obey the Word of God…and you are right.
But there are others that say no if you want to live the
Christian life, let go and let God. God the Holy Spirit has to
live it through you, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit
and allow the Spirit to flow. In every major doctrine that
relates the work of God to man there is this inscrutable reality
that we can't harmonize everything. Listen to what Paul said
from that vantage point, I have been crucified with Christ it is
no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I
now live…wait a minute either you do or you don't. Well, that
was the mystery. He says I live it but Christ lives it. This is
the glory of the mystery of Christ in us. It takes all of us,
but it's all of Him. Our old life is dead; we have a new life in
Him. It takes all the discipline, all the obedience, to live
that life in the flesh by faith and yet when it's all said and
done it's Christ Himself living in me, the one who loved me and
gave Himself for me.
