We are in the middle of a series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians which I have titled Plug into the Power of Grace. Listen for God’s word to you from Galatians 2:11-21…
When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
I would like to spend our time today focusing in on one verse from this section of Paul’s letter. When I was in college I began memorizing Scripture for the first time, and one of the first verses I memorized was Galatians 2:20…
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
What I would like to do today is examine this verse in its original context. So, first we are going to look at the context of this verse, then at the main premise, and finally, at the practical implications of this verse.
Context
The context of this verse is that Paul was teaching in Antioch along with Barnabas. We read about this in Acts 11 and 15. During this time, Peter, also called Cephas, showed up on the scene. At first, Peter, as a Jewish Christian, was willing to share table fellowship with Gentiles, non-Jews. We read earlier in Acts how the Lord brought Peter to the same conclusion as Paul, that Gentiles could become followers of Jesus without becoming Jews first. And so there was one church instead of two, and the two groups within the one church could share table fellowship with one another.
But then when certain Jewish Christians from James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, showed up on the scene, Peter withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentiles because he knew this was not acceptable to these other Jewish Christians. Peter displayed great weakness on this occasion just as he did when he denied knowing Jesus on the night of Jesus’ arrest. This is a reminder, if we needed it, that even great leaders in the church have weaknesses, and can commit serious mistakes and even serious sin. Paul tells us that even Barnabas was swayed away from the truth by Peter’s actions.
If Paul had given in to Peter think about the implications. The good news would have been compromised, namely that we are justified, declared righteous, in God’s sight through faith in Christ alone, and not through works of the law. And secondly, if Paul had given into Peter, two churches would have resulted, one for Jewish followers of Jesus, and the other for Gentile followers.
But Paul did not give into Peter. Since Peter’s sin was public, Paul confronted him publicly. In verses 14 and following, Paul tells us exactly what he said to Peter. The most crucial reminder that Paul gives to Peter is that we are justified through faith in Christ alone and not through works of the law. In fact, Paul says that no one will be justified by works of the law.
Why is that? It is true that no one will be justified by works of the law because no one keeps the law. No one has ever kept the Jewish law completely, that is both the letter and the spirit of the law, except for one person... The New Testament tells us that Jesus is the only human being who ever existed who was without sin. (Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:24; Luke 1:35; John 8:29; John 19:4; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 1:18-19, 2:21-22; 1 John 3:5)
Jesus, by his perfect obedience, earned eternal life, not only for himself, but for us who are in Christ. And then he died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin which is death.
Main Premise
This leads to the main premise of Galatians 2:20. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.”
How is one to interpret such a statement?
Perhaps it goes without saying, but I shall say it anyway… Paul did not mean this statement in a literal, physical fashion. It is not as though Paul hung physically with Christ on the same cross. Nor was he crucified beside Jesus like one of the thieves.
So, Paul obviously means something spiritual by this statement. A.W. Tozer once said, “The person who is crucified with Christ is facing only one direction, can no longer turn back, and no longer has plans of their own.” That’s a good summary, I think, of what it means to be crucified with Christ. I think Paul would have agreed with that.
The crucifixion of Christ was a one-time, once-for-all event. So, that would seem to suggest that our crucifixion with Christ is also a singular event. Thinking like this, we naturally wonder, “Why is it that we still struggle with sin after coming to faith in Christ?”
My friend, Tim Hansel once asked one of his spiritual mentors a similar question. Tim asked, “If I have been crucified with Christ, why is my old self still wiggling?”
His mentor responded: “Tim, you have to remember, crucifixion is a slow death.”
That is so true! Sanctification, becoming truly like Christ, is a lifelong process. Dying to self and coming alive to God in Christ does not happen all at once. It does not happen overnight. It takes a lifetime.
Practical Implications
So, what are the lifelong, practical implications of being crucified with Christ. Thankfully, Paul spells out the answer for us.
The first practical implication Paul indicates is simply this: I no longer live. Paul saw his old life as having come to an end. That means that not only did Paul’s old way of living come to an end, but his old way of thinking came to an end too. That’s why Paul no longer viewed Jewish-Gentile relations in the same way after coming to faith in Christ. His whole worldview was transformed in such a way that he could no longer go back to the same way of thinking and living.
Think about it… Before Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he had a particular view of God. Paul believed that there was one God and if a human being claimed to be God that human being was committing blasphemy. When Paul met Jesus, all of that changed. He recognized Jesus as divine. And so, Paul’s understanding of the nature of God was transformed. Paul also experienced the Holy Spirit and realized that the Spirit was divine. And so, through experience Paul came to an understanding of the triune nature of God.
Also, after meeting Jesus, Paul’s understanding of the law changed. He finally realized that by keeping the law he could not earn salvation. Paul came to an understanding of the fact that only Jesus could rescue him from being the awful, murderous, persecuting man that he was.
And that leads to Paul’s second, practical implication: Christ lives in me. On the road to Damascus, Paul came to the end of himself. And at the end of himself, he discovered the beginning of Christ living in him.
C. S. Lewis has a marvelous chapter in his book Mere Christianity entitled “The Perfect Penitent”. In that chapter, Lewis makes it clear how as sinful human beings we don’t even repent right. We can’t do it. We can’t turn from sin. Not on our own power. We can’t die to self. But thankfully, Jesus has done it for us. He did all our repenting for us. Jesus repented, he died to self, not only on the cross, but throughout his life. And so, if we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, Christ can help us to repent and live the life God intended us to live from the very beginning. Jesus can help us, just like a teacher helps a child to form letters when a child is learning how to write. The teacher takes the child’s hand as he or she holds the pencil, and the teacher helps the child form the letters correctly. That is a dim picture of what Jesus does for us. He holds our hand and helps us write “life” correctly.
That leads to the next practical implication Paul gives us. He says: the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God.
By saying that he has been crucified with Christ and that he no longer lives, Paul is not saying that he has stopped having a physical life. Paul did not agree with the Gnostics who said that spirit is good, and the body is evil. No. Paul asserts that he is still living in the body, but that bodily life is transformed by faith.
Along with grace, faith is a key word in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. For Paul, after his experience on the Damascus Road his whole life was characterized by faith, marked by trust in Christ alone. Paul trusted in Jesus, not only for eternal life but also for his day-to-day existence.
I am reminded of another Tozer quote I have shared before. Tozer says…
A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels worst. He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passeth knowledge.
That is a good summary of the life of faith.
And how is it that someone comes to this life of faith? What would make someone want to live like this?
Paul chose to live like this because he came to the conviction that he was loved by God. He says, “The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me…”
Once you experience the love of God in Jesus Christ, it makes you want to respond to God in love and live the life of faith, a life of trust in him. That love involves an experience of forgiveness. In 1 Timothy 1:15-16 Paul says,
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.
Paul considered himself the worst of sinners because he persecuted the church. On the Damascus Road he came to the realization that he had really been persecuting Jesus because if you do something to harm Jesus’ body, the church, then you are harming Jesus.
But Paul experienced the same love, forgiveness, and grace that John Newton experienced hundreds of years later. Like Newton, Paul knew that “by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” he had been “preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”[1]
The key question is: how can we come to the same conviction of God’s love for us in Christ? We can come to that conviction only by looking to the cross.
Paul says, “The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
How did the Son of God give himself for Paul? The same way he gave himself for the whole world. In John 3:16 we read…
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
God gave his Son to be incarnated for us, to be born for us, to live for us, to die for us, to rise again for us, to ascend to heaven for us, to intercede for us, to come again for us, to live forever with us. Jesus has been giving himself for us from the very beginning, and he will never stop giving himself for us. But it is especially in the cross that we see his love demonstrated. As Paul says in Romans 5:8…
But God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God lives in an eternal “Now” so that at the same moment that we are sinning, he sees his Son dying for us and he offers us forgiveness. Wow! What an offer that is! But let me tell you this, that offer of forgiveness and love will make no difference in your life until you accept it.
My friend Alister McGrath explains that truth this way. He suggests there are three stages of faith…
- I may believe that God is promising me forgiveness of sins.
- I may trust that promise.
- But unless I respond to that promise, I shall not obtain forgiveness.
The first two stages of faith prepare the way for the third, without it they are incomplete. Alister goes on to illustrate these three stages with the following true story:
Consider a bottle of penicillin, the famous antibiotic identified by Alexander Fleming, and first produced for clinical use in Great Britain. The drug was responsible for saving the lives of countless individuals who would otherwise have died from various forms of blood poisoning. Think of the three stages of faith like this. I may accept that the bottle exists. I may trust in its ability to cure blood poisoning. But nothing will change unless I receive the drug which it contains. I must allow it to destroy the bacteria which are slowly killing me. Otherwise, I have not benefited from my faith in it.
It is the third element of faith which is of vital importance in making sense of the cross. Just as faith links a bottle of penicillin to the cure of blood poisoning, so faith forges a link between the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ and ourselves. Faith unites us with the risen Christ and makes available to us everything he gained through his obedience and resurrection.[2]
The Gospel of John puts it even more simply… “Yet to all who did receive him [that is, Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
Believing in Jesus and receiving him personally into our lives… that’s what changes everything.
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