“For I, through the Law, am dead to the Law that I might live to God. I have been crucified in Christ..….” (Galatians 2:19-20).
I have always struggled to understand this and relate it to my experience; I have always responded to this by struggling to be crucified in my life – to no avail and much frustration. But the Lord has shown me what it means.
Firstly, I was chosen by God to be in Christ before time began. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…..” (Ephesians 1:4). Because of God, I am in Christ Jesus; “But of Him (God) you are in Christ Jesus….” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Now if I was in Christ before the foundation of the world, then when He was crucified, so was I. The key is to actually believe this and take it into our souls. “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified…..” (Romans 6:6). He has been crucified; it is already done; we don’t have to do it. My death is as factual as that of Jesus my Lord. Therefore, since I died with Him I also rose with Him. “Thus also you must (imperative) regard yourselves dead to sin but living to God in Christ Jesus…..” (Romans 6:11). It is only as we enter into this truth that we are able to live as though we are alive only in Christ; the old man is truly dead and so is sin.
“Now if we died with Him we trust (have faith, believe) that we will also live in Him” (Romans 6:8). We not only have authority to live a resurrected life but, if the old man is dead, it is the only life that we can live! But the power is in “knowing this” as Paul told the Romans (6:6). We cannot live a resurrected life by our own efforts; we don’t have to be crucified, it is already done. If we “know this”, that we have been crucified with Christ, then we can enter in to the resurrected life in Christ Jesus. If we don’t know this in experience then the old man is not dead and the blood of Christ cannot avail for us.
“It is a faithful word; if we died with Him we shall also live in Him” (2 Timothy 2:11).
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