Meditations in Galatians #6, Saturday, June 6, 2009 Galatians 2:20
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"I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 up for me."
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Father, since Paul cannot be talking about himself being literally crucified, then this must be a statement of faith. Where did this concept come from? Isaiah 53?
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
This is great, but is it really the same thing? This is Jesus dying in our place, suffering the consequences of our sins, but Paul is talking about Jesus cross' actually changing us. Is Paul explaning what Isaiah meant by "by His stripes we are healed"? Is our co-crucifixion with Jesus the means by which His stripes heal us?
What about Romans 6?
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
So, Paul considers his old identity, his previous life, and everything that was a part of that experience to have died on the cross with Jesus. Not his natural existence or natural abilibites or even his memories, but everything he believed and lived for. All that was a part of the person he belived himself to be. He now considers that to have been his "former life under Judiasm." His old way of thinking is dead as far as he is concerned, and he is now learning to think the way Jesus thinks, to "have the mind of Christ." His old self, "the old man," has been replaced by the New Man, the the Resurrected man, Jesus Himself. That would be a healing of the soul, wouldn't it?
How is this supposed to work? What about verse 11?
11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
So it really is just faith, isn't it? I am to consider that part of me which is a slave to sin to be dead to sin. I deny my own previous way of thinking and acting with all of my mistaken beliefs and values, excuses and self-justification, and I make up my (new) mind to serve God. These actions constitute the process of co-crucifixion and co-resurrection by faith.
Father, I know that this description may not be the best, and its not very complete, but I think it is what You want me to believe. It has been many years since this was true of me for the first time, and I am still learning what it is like to live by this standard. Please help me and all of those who love Your Son to find out for themselves what all of this means, and to have Your Spirit's help in living like this everyday.
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Thank You for giving me a few minutes of your time. Galatians is a unique letter. It will take some time to get into Paul's mind, and from there to understand what God has chosen to reveal through the disaster that the congregation at Galatia was experiencing.
The effect of these Meditations will be cumulative, and the real benefit may have nothing to do with what I have written. I believe that the discipline of having a brief daily conversation with God about the meaning of a variety of Bible passages over a period of a few weeks, even if you come to some very different conclusions, will still be a wonderful and enlightening experience for you. At DeadRight.net, under the Yellow Pages, is some background info about Galatians. If you missed an earlier Meditation, you can still read it at DeadRight.net by going to the homepage, clicking on Newsletter, and clicking on "browse previous newsletters."
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