This sermon and outline is dedicated to none other than my beloved friend Cassandra who went home to the Lord on July 24^th, 2009.

 

What does Scripture say?

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

 

What does the text mean?

The opening statement of this verse merely says “I have been crucified with Christ.” What exactly does that mean to us as a body of believers? When interpreting Scripture I do try to stay within the confines of the book, and specifically the chapter, even though initially the letter was a whole and was not broken down into chapters. Regardless of that, the very first sermon I preached was the entire book of Romans 6. I was very excited and perhaps didn’t do the absolute best point I could have in the text, I have however grown to learn more knowledge about that text, and it says this point perhaps flawlessly.

 

Romans 6: ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For one who has died has been justified from sin. ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 

When it says we have been crucified with Christ, we are not literally crucified, no. We are metaphorically crucified with Christ. It is in our repentance and giving our lives to Christ where He reigns as both Lord and Savior that our sinful nature is crucified on the cross, this is what I believe Paul is saying. Christ’s death on the cross is what has appeased the wrath of the Father, and it from His death and resurrection that we are given a new life. It is in that moment when receive new life that our sinful self was crucified with Christ, and as Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, we are given a new spirit, a new heart, and we are given new desires. First Peter will say it best that we are “born again to a new hope!” The amount of information Paul’s statement is critical; it is that through a deeper study you can see that Paul had a sinful nature, which was crucified with Christ on the cross, which put the penalty, power and consequence of sin to death (Romans 6). But then you must wonder, what from there? As I said before, we are as Jesus says to Nicodemus, “born again,” and this is provoked and performed by the Holy Spirit which John Calvin in his Institutes book called the “secret operation” which God uses in our lives for regeneration and so forth.

 

Paul then makes the statement “It is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me.”

This is a powerful statement, which makes known to us Paul’s dedication to his ministry, which if you read in the beginning of the book (Galatians) and in the book of Acts (Chapter 9) that He received from Jesus Christ in his vision, through special revelation.

If we take the time to look at this from a more spiritual perspective, we can assert that Paul lives an invisible, unseeable, and unknowable life, which is the life of the Christian; through this life, Christ should be seen in the through believer, whether by action, thought, words or deed, it should ultimately reflect that Christians are a new creation, and this change will be evident by what they do.

If we take Paul’s statement, and we apply it to our lives, and it is no longer that it is we who live, but rather that it is Christ living through our actions. It is that our entire lives will be changed, and they will be transformed. We will live with a singular and devoted passion and that is Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ will not simply reign as our Savior, but He will reign as our Lord and Savior; consequentially, we will truly become the hands and feet of Christ in all that we do.

This truly is the process of regeneration, in which we are caused to be born again, the penalty, power, and consequence of sin is put to death, and we are made alive with Christ, and we are given new desires, for better things for us as opposed to our carnal desires which will lead us to death.

 

The next sentence is broken down into five individual thoughts, and I will address these as such.

The line, “and the life I now live in the flesh,” is not speaking of the fleshly carnal desires of the flesh, but rather that Paul is living his life in a human body, although make note that there are still carnal desires which are a consequence of that. The thought is finished in paraphrased words “The life I live in this body, I live by faith.”

At the risk of sounding redundant, there is a consistent thought and pattern that is exhibited here throughout this verse. Paul is mentioning faith without ceasing. He is continually mentioning that he is a new creation in Christ, and the life he lived is crucified with Christ at the cross, and now he is made alive to none other than Jesus Christ, in whom he lives his life by in faith.

 

By faith, Paul lived his life as the minister to the gentiles; and it is by faith that we are rewarded and given our treasures in heaven,. It is by grace through faith that we are saved (Eph 2:8-9). It has been canonized in Scripture that Paul is the chief of all sinners, and even as the chief of all sinners, Paul serves as perhaps one of the best role models for any Christian after his conversion.

Paul lived a life of faith. His language used to reflect this can be found in Second Timothy 4:6-8. Paul had his entire life devoted to his faith in Jesus Christ, and this serves as an excellent testimony for us to see as Christians. While we should strive to be like Christ always, just take note that Paul lived a life of faith, in Jesus.

The third portion of this one thought is that Paul lives his life by faith “In the son of God.” Take these thoughts one at a time, please.

• Living life in the flesh
• Living that life by faith [which is]
• In the Son of God

This is the testimony of Paul to us as Christians, perhaps whether he meant it or not. That Paul, a “bondservant” lived his life, having formerly repented and turned from his wicked ways, the chief of all sinners, now has dedicated his life in the flesh to a life of faith, who is in the Son of God (Christ), and this is his eternal and endless battle cry, until the day of his final breath, in which he awoke to Christ crowning him his crown and hearing the words “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

 

The fourth statement to be viewed in this verse is “who loved me.” If one were to take some time and invest some time looking into the depravity of man, the immense value of this statement is almost worth shedding tears. When we look at the grand scheme of man, originating in Genesis, we see that everything was “good.” There was no sin, the world was perfect, and then Adam was lonely, and as an act of love, while there was no corruption in the world, God created Eve for Adam. Then the serpent came, deceived Eve, and sin, death, and all corruption had entered the world and the hearts of all mankind because of their sin. Because of sin you can read in Genesis 6 you can read that God was grieved for having made man for their wickedness was so great.. And the significance of this, is that in God’s sovereign plan, in God’s Trinitarian act of love and mercy, God the Son was sent, lived a humble life as a Galilean peasant, was subjected to humiliation, and suffered the most embarrassing, painful, and wretched form of execution as the propitiation for the sins of man. It was in this humble life that Jesus, the son of God, suffered, as an act of love towards Paul, the chief of all sinners, and has saved Paul from divine judgment. And this is not just extended towards Paul, but the death of Christ was sufficient for the propitiation of not only yours and mines, but the worlds.

If you took the time to look at your life, all the sin you’ve committed, the “cosmic treason” that you’ve committed against God, the idea that the Son of a righteous, divine, perfect, glorified King would spare His life for people such as us is beyond any expression of love known to man. It truly was the greatest act of love ever known.

 

The fifth and final section of this sentence continues the previous thought. It is that Jesus Christ, the son of God, gave His life as the penal substitutionary death of humanity. Jesus literally “gave Himself” as the perfect sacrifice that many would come to know him.

 

What is my Hook?

As you read my outlines and manuscripts, or hear my sermons, or read my blogs you are going to notice one thing I try to emphasize on is the way in which we become more like Christ. Whether through thought or deed, or simply the act in which we truly “live a life of faith to Jesus Christ,” we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ. This means that we speak and act in love, we forgive the unforgivable, we seek repentance, we seek sanctification, and we ultimately seek Christ.

We remain humble in all ways that we can, we live our lives to Christ, and our lives, attitudes, and thoughts will be transformed to that of a Christ-centered life.

 

Why do we resist this truth?

Perhaps there will be resistance to this answer. I believe that we as a society resist this truth in the context of Galatians 2:20 because we are most of the time brought up in a Christian home, or we have a good experience at a teen convention, or a camp. We are all taught like Christians, but unfortunately that does not make us Christians. The sinner’s prayer makes you a Christian no more than going to church does. There has to be a point where we do crucify our former sinful self. Where we do have to put to death the things of this world and we do carry our cross and follow Christ. There has to be a change, because we resist this truth by simply not changing. We resist the Holy Spirit in the ignorance of our sinful ways, and we don’t live a life dedicated to Christ while we remain in the flesh. We instead life our life in the flesh to the joys and pleasures of the world, and keep our “salvation” rested in the idea that because we have said the sinners prayer that we are called sons of our Father in heaven, when truly this is a large misconception. In the most loving way, I must encourage us all to repent, where we hate our sin, where as we do not most of the time. Where we put to death our sin and let it be crucified on the cross, and we instead life our life in the flesh to none other than Jesus Christ, and not in the ways of this world.

 

Why does this matter?

To some extent, as I want to make sure that I avoid the idea of a works-based salvation, this matters a great deal. Are you living your life to Christ? Has your sin been crucified with Christ? Are you living in the light of Christ? Is Christ living in and through you? These are all big questions that matter and test the genuineness of our faith. We are called to continually repent of sin, we are called to live a sanctifying life, and Romans 12:1-2 calls us to make our bodies a living sacrifice.

When we are a true and genuine Christian, we have been born again, and our debt to sin has been nailed to the cross, and sin has lost its judicial grip on you. And like all people, we will struggle, but James tells us it is the struggles we go through that prove the genuineness of our faith. It will not be we who live, but it will be Christ being seen. When we perform our acts of goodness and kindness in the spirit, it will be Christ that is seen and acted out and this will speak to the testimony of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

 

How is Jesus the Hero-Savior?

Jesus Christ, the second member of the Godhead, came and lived a humble life, and was hated, despised, afflicted with pain, He knew grief, but was also loved and cherished by few. Despite being without any wrong or shame, He was put to death. And His death was the most important part of humanity to date. Since the creation of time, all history was pointing towards Christ on the cross. And on the cross of crucifixion and humiliation, the holy and blameless Son of God silenced, defeated, ended, crushed, and abolished death and all its power. It gave Paul the ability and right to say that “I have been crucified with Christ.” It gives us the ability to walk in a newness of life, free from the penalty, power, and consequence of sin. Finally, it gives us the ability to say in a clear conscience, “it is no longer I that live, but Christ in me.”

 

Jesus Christ, the Savior of humanity is the one who sets us free from sin and death. In this wonderful fact, we rejoice.

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