“I have been crucified with Christ; 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 for me.” Galatians 2:20
The thought of fellowship with Christ in His bearing the cross, has often led to the vain attempt in our own power to follow Him, and bear His image. But this is impossible to man until he first learns to know something of what it means to say, “I have been crucified with Christ.”
Let us try to understand this. When Adam died, all his descendants died with him and in him. In his sin in Paradise, and in the spiritual death into which he fell, I had a share; I died in him. And the power of that sin and death, in which all his descendants share, works in every child of Adam every day.[1]
Christ came as the second Adam. In His death on the cross, all who believe in Him had a share. Each one may say in truth, “I have been crucified with Christ.” As the representative of His people, He took them up with Him on the cross, and me too. The life that He gives is the crucified life in which He entered heaven, and was exalted to the throne, standing as a Lamb as it had been slain. The power of His death and life work in me, and as I hold fast the truth that I have been crucified with Him, and that now I myself live no more but Christ liveth in me, I receive power to conquer sin; the life that I have received from Him is a life that has been crucified and made free from the power of sin.[2]
We have here a deep and very precious truth. Most Christians have but little knowledge of it. That knowledge is not gained easily or speedily. It needs a great longing in very deed to be dead to all [willful] sin. It needs a strong faith, wrought by the Holy Spirit, that the union with Christ crucified, that the fellowship of His cross, can day by day become our life. The life that He lives in Heaven has its strength and its glory in the fact that it is a crucified life. And the life that He imparts to the believing disciple is even so a crucified life with its victory over sin and its power to [have] access into God’s presence.
It is in every deed true that I no longer live, but Christ liveth in me as the Crucified one. As faith realizes and holds fast the fact that the crucified Christ lives in me, life in the fellowship of the cross becomes a possibility and a blessed experience.
[“…and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Philippians 3:9,10]
Article from Andrew Murray, God’s Best Secrets. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1950, June 6th reading.
Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was a pastor, author, and missions advocate who ministered in South Africa. He spoke at the Keswick Convention in England and wrote over some 200 books. His best known volume is Abide in Christ (available online at www.CCEL.org). For a biographical sketch see that article at In Touch: www.intouch.org/myintouch/mighty/portraits/andrew_murray_213652.html
[1] Romans 5:12-14
[2] Revelation 5:6-10; 1 Corinthians 15:22,45-49; Romans 6:6-14; Ephesians 4:4-7
Footnotes and bracketed Scripture – J.B.W.