“I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Paul wrote the church in Galatia to keep them from falling prey to the “judaizers,” who taught that one had to become a Jew before one could accept Christ as Savior. This meant that one was saved by keeping the laws of Moses, and for all practical purposes, saved by works instead of by the grace of God. Our text is Paul’s alternative to being saved by keeping the law. He could not save himself by keeping the law. He needed salvation as a gift of God. In Galatians 2:20 Paul gave what I will call components of salvation by grace. The first component is crucifixion. Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ.” When we are saved, the old person dies and is buried. Baptism is a symbol of the death and burial of the old person. Look at Romans 6:3-4a: “Know you not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death…” This death, called “the death of the old person,” was certainly evident in Paul’s life after his conversion. After his Damascus Road experience in Acts 9, Paul was definitely not the same person. The old “Saul of Tarsus” who hated Christians and who spewed out venom toward Christians, was now preaching the Christ that he had hated. By the grace of God, the old Saul became Paul the apostle, and subsequently became the most effective preacher of the gospel in all of Christian history. This death should be evident in our lives as well. I hate to think of what my life would be like now if I had not been crucified with Christ. Think of your own life in this way, and thank God for His grace that “crucified” the old person and made you into a new person in Christ. Mosaic Law, or legalism, could not have killed the old person that you were. By grace we don’t just “turn over a new leaf,” rather we become new in Christ. (When you“turn a leaf over ”all you have is the other side of the same leaf.) Romans 6:6 points out this truth: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” The second component is resurrection. Paul wrote: “Nevertheless, I live…” The death of the old person is not the complete picture. When the old person dies, a new person emerges, i.e., a spiritual resurrection takes place. This is illustrated in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things have become new.” As crucifixion is symbolized by baptism, resurrection is also symbolized. Romans 6:4b: “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” We have been made new, resurrected, by the grace of God, which means that we didn’t earn it, or deserve it, but we got it anyway. The third component is incarnation. Paul wrote: “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives 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.” We have literally“infleshed” (incarnated) Christ in our lives through the Holy Spirit. Keeping the law could not have accomplished this – only the grace of God. “And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” We are not only saved by grace through faith; we live by faith in Christ. If you have been saved by grace, you have “infleshed” Christ and you have a life to live for Him. Don’t ever be led into legalism, for it is a dead-end street. You have much more than the law can give you. The old you died and the new you has been raised to “newness of life.” Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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