Crucified with Christ
Gal. 2:16-21
Intro.
One of the most beautiful confessions of faith ever made was made by the apostle Paul in Galatians 2:20. Paul encapsulates salvation and our Christian life in one verse. There that zealous servant of Jesus Christ was led of the Holy Spirit to write: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
These words were written by God not just so we might understand what he was saying nor even to understand what Paul may have meant, But it was given by the Holy Spirit that you and I might claim it as our own. It is to be ingraved upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
For you children of God, if by grace you belong personally to Jesus Christ, these words are not merely letters upon a page. But they are the rejoicing of your heart: "I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
Concerning what is written here, Paul is declaring that our righteousness is only by faith in Jesus Christ. Throughout the ages men have said, “If this is true it makes Jesus the teacher of sin.” The objection is this: If men are justified solely by Christ and not by their own works done in harmony with the law, then they will be careless. A Christ who provides complete, indestructible righteousness with God is a Christ who teaches men then to live in sin. To which the apostle Paul, and we with him, respond: "God forbid! That is not so."
Paul says, in verse 19 of Galatians 2, "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." That is, through the
law I am shown how my best works are polluted in sin, so that I am dead to the law as a way of salvation, in order that I might be alive unto God.
God’s Word teaches, then, that those who are made righteous by Jesus Christ must also be made alive unto God, that those who are forgiven in the blood are also renewed by the blood. Those who have been given a part in Christ, those who have been forgiven of God and made righteous in His work, must and do live by faith in Him, in a life of thankfulness to the One who has loved and saved them.
And Paul makes this most personal: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
I. Let’s Consider Paul’s Confession:
What Paul is saying is, “When Christ was crucified I was also crucified.” Paul wrote to the church at Rome. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,” Here we have some insight on taking up our cross. We are to be dead to this world and to sin and alive unto God.
Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross with spikes suspended between heaven and earth. He said, “If I be lifted up I’ll draw all men to me.”
It was approximately 33 AD. In the town called Jerusalem He underwent a phoney trial and was taken out to a little knoll and there they laid him out on a cruel rugged cross and began to drive huge spikes in his hands and his feet.
The cross was dragged to a hole that had been dug and lifted up and dropped into the hole. The impact would have almost ripped him from the spikes. When the cross was dropped it must have caused pain in every part of his body.
His back was already raw from the beating he had received with the cat o nine tails. The rubbing against the rough lumber would have been excrusiating. His hands and his feet must have screamed with the pain.
He had been awake all night and mistreated by slaps a cruel crown of thorns and a beating that had killed a many man. All of this and then he was crucified. We have a high view of the cross because our Lord died upon it. But in that Paul’s day it was akin to the hanging scaffold or the electric chair.
Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ.” What does he mean? Paul did not feel the pain of the crucifixion. But he is saying in some way
Jesus represented me there. He took my place is what Paul is saying. Most churches have quit preaching about the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. They declare Christ died for the world but the word teaches me that Christ died for the church.
Paul explains it: "And gave himself for me." The Son of God gave Himself for me, in my behalf, as my substitute. To be crucified with Christ means that when Christ actually hung on that cross, on that Friday afternoon, I hung there in that Christ knew me, in that Christ was assuming my place before God’s judgment seat.
That is what Jesus said in John 10:11, "I laid down my life for my sheep." Isaiah 53:4-6, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities."
Paul was referring to the wonderful truth of substitution. To be crucified with Christ means that, by grace, you were one in whose place and for whose sin Jesus died.
You were with Him in the sense that God gave Him to bear you in His arms, to represent you, to take upon Himself your sins, to confess that He had come to receive the punishment that was due to you. That is what he meant: "I with Christ have been crucified. Christ knew me, He knew me by name. Christ loved me. He died with the names of all those given to Him of the Father written upon His heart."
Aaron the high priest wore the names of the 12 tribes of Israel imprinted upon his breastplate when he performed the duties of the high priest on the Day of Atonement.
Christ’s bore our names upon his heart when he died upon the cross saying he was our substitute. He represented all that the father had given him.
Those who are saved by Christ on the cross it never says they were made savable. Christ already knew for whom He died when He laid down His life. He died; We were with Him, we were known to Him, we were loved by Him, we were given to Him by God’s election. And for us and in the place of us He was crucified.
This is the gospel the story of God’s relationship with his people. Jesus did not just give his life and hope that someone might care he died for a people.
Paul goes on to say, "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." He is saying I am no more alive in myself but my life is now immersed in Christ Jesus and he in me. Christ not only died for me, says Paul, but as a consequence of His dying for my sins He now lives in me. To be crucified, one dies.
As we died in him we now live in him. The life that I now live, says Paul, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me. I live by faith now, faith which is a union to Jesus Christ, an unbreakable spiritual union to Christ uniting me to Him.
The Holy Spirit did not make a mistake in saying the faith of Jesus Christ. Many today want to change it to faith in Jesus Christ. Our puny faith would be like nothing, it only connects us to the faith of Jesus. It is his faith that saves us and keeps us saved.
In 2 Tim 2:13, “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” Even when our faith fails he is still faithful to keep us. He will not forsake us.
The greatest confession you and I can make is that "I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
