“I 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 the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and give Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.
In Christ we have been crucified, we have died (see previous posts in this series); consequently we no longer live, yet what does “it is no longer I who live” mean? Does it mean the negation of the individual?
It is important to couple “it is no longer I who live” with “but Christ lives in me” - for where Christ is there is grace and there is liberty and there is joy. Jesus wants His joy to be made full in us (John 17:13), He wants us to be filled up with His joy. Christ died and rose for us so that we might have joyful life in Him, and how could life in union with the Trinity not be joyful? When Peter writes his first letter to Christians in the midst of suffering, he writes of them experiencing “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). When Paul writes to the Philippians from a Roman prison his message is, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). The joy of Christians in suffering doesn’t make sense; how could that which is transcendent and rooted in the Trinity make sense - make sense to the world or even make sense to those who experience it? The joy of God envelopes and overwhelms His people - for they no longer live in and of themselves, but Christ lives in them.
When we look at the immediate context of Galatians 2:20 and ask whether “it is no longer I who live” looks toward the negation of the individual we see the emphasis on grace and liberty in Galatians - to the point where Paul insists that, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery...You were called to freedom...But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law...But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians Chapter 5). God calls us to an abundant life in Jesus Christ (John 10:10), a life in the Holy Spirit, a life of intimacy with the Father and Son, a life in koinonia with one another - Christ has loosed our shackles and now He wants us to live in Him!
“It is no longer I who live” looks to our crucifixion with Christ, “I have been crucified with Christ” - and we reckon that our old sinful self-centered self died with Christ - we live constantly accounting and trusting that this is true, that it is reality - and so we view ourselves as “dead to sin but alive to God" (Romans 6:11, also previous posts). We can either accept the Gospel or refuse to believe it, and this is the Gospel - eternal life in Jesus Christ. Where the Gospel of Christ is there is joy and grace and freedom in Christ - there is a radical change of identity from Adam to Christ (Romans Chapter 5).
When we look to the Cross and our crucifixion with Jesus we can say, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live,” oh but then we look to our resurrection with Him and we shout - “but Christ lives in me!”. And when we shout “Christ lives in me!” we testify that we are not dead but that we are alive - for the first time in our lives we are truly alive! That which God made and which was marred by sin has been restored in Jesus Christ. Yes, the old “me” is now dead - thank God that I died with Christ! But now I am on the Potter’s Wheel with Christ living in me and am being conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).
Psalm 139 portrays God’s formation of each of us as individuals; it describes His intimate design and knowledge of us. We know from Genesis that we collectively in Adam were created in God’s image, we know from Psalm 139 that in God’s collective creation of man (if I may speak thusly to make a point) that He created us individually - one diamond with many facets; we find this in, I suppose, all groupings of humanity.
Our fall from relationship with God marred us both collectively and individually - hence the collective image of God in Genesis Chapters 1 - 2 and the individually-designed image of God in Psalm 139 have been desecrated by sin and rebellion. It is little wonder that we have conflict when we associate with one another for we are not who we were meant to be, we cannot naturally be complementary to one another as we were designed to be.
The redemption of Jesus Christ brings us into a process of restoring our God-designed individual images in Christ, thus allowing us to reflect particular facets of His glory, to complement one another, and to live interdependently in Him. Consider the Biblical emphasis on the Body of Christ with many members, a Living Temple, Living Stones - there is a dynamic connectivity in Christ - a unity in diversity and a diversity in unity in Christ.
As perhaps an aside, consider what happens when people are in a system in which uniform sameness is insisted upon and imposed - this can happen in churches, it can happen in political systems, it can happen in schools and in businesses - we have the atrophy of God’s design in individuals; those who acquiesce in the process survive, those who don’t are crushed...but no one in such an environment really lives.
The collective restoration of the image of God is in the great transfer of us out of Adam and into Christ; Christ is the Last Adam, when Jesus Christ dies on the Cross Adam’s race dies on the Cross; when Jesus Christ comes out of the grave in resurrection a Second Man, a New Humanity, comes forth in Him (see Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15). The Incarnation continues as Christ lives in His Body. Those living in relationship with God in Christ are the collective Second Man - for they are in Christ. Because Christ “is” we “are” (1 John 5:17).
Does “it is no longer I who live” speak of the negation of the individual? Hardly - it looks to the crucifixion and then to the present reality of “but Christ lives in me.” Christ living in us means that we can finally explore who God made us to be, we can finally leave the slavery of “self” to discover our true identity in the Trinity and our calling to be a source of light and life to others.
No wonder this was called the Gospel - the Good News!
No comments:
Post a Comment