4.1 Christ Our Only Life
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Fifth Most Important Verse
Galatians 2:20. 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 the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The cross is our entrance into Christ. The cross is complete – it is finished (John 19:30). The cross is past tense and present perfect, having been completed in the past but now made perfect in our every present moment. One sacrifice for sins forever (Hebrews 10:12).
We must understand the extent, the capacity, and the finality of the cross. If one died for all, then all died (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Guilty before God. God did not give the law in order to replace Christ in our hearts; Paul said that God gave the law to enable us to understand our sin and its consequence (Romans 3:20). For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all (James 2:10). – That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God (Romans 3:19).
Close your mouth – shut up – do NOT say another word, especially about how you are “going to try to do better,” for you are lying. Accept your guilt; accept the finality of your execution. For you are dead, and your life is hidden with [merged together with] Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).
Our Entrance into Christ. Few have reckoned with the totality and finality of the cross, nor of the completion of the life we live inside of right now.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). – And you are complete in [inside of] Him (Colossians 2:10).
I AM [already] crucified with Christ.
The cross is our entrance into Christ. We do not live before the cross, for all those who position themselves in front of the cross are, in their consciousness, refusing to believe that they are, in fact, dead, or to enter into Christ as their only life.
Trying and Lying. How, then, do we enter through the cross into Christ? Many teach that the cross is incomplete and ineffective. They suggest that you look at yourself (and not at the living Christ who lives in you) and by the sight of your eyes KNOW that you are still always sinning. Thus they suggest that our human judgment is sufficient to show us that God is not quite telling us the truth. “We, ourselves, must put ourselves upon that cross; we ourselves must die to an evil self”. Yet no one ever has, and all those who try, lie, most certainly, but they also never believe that they live only inside of Jesus.
But how do we place ourselves into Christ?
By Faith, Not by Sight. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:30). We do not, except by faith, for God has already placed us into the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus we believe that when God says that we are already dead, He is telling us the truth. For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:8). To “reckon” is to speak, to declare it to be true. I AM entirely and already dead to all sin; I am alive only to God.
Christ, Not I. Reckon, put to your account, speak, SHOUT! I AM dead to sin INDEED, that means, utterly and completely! I AM ALIVE unto God, utterly and completely!!! – We, together with God, call those things that “be not” as though they are (Romans 4:17).
Then, having passed through the cross entirely by faith, by believing that God speaks the truth against the sight of our eyes or the judgment of the human, where do we find ourselves to be? It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. (The King James says – Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ.)
It is not me, it’s Christ. Yet it is me, yet it is Christ.
Christ as Me. Christ is living as me.
Let’s put this entrance into salvation verse into our own words.
I AM fully crucified with Christ, but I am still alive – alive unto God, only it’s not me, it’s Christ, only it is me, the me brand-new alive unto God, for Christ is living as me. And the life I live in this present body of flesh, (flesh of His flesh – Ephesians 5:30), I live by the faith of the Son of God who fills my heart full, this One who loves me, this One who trades Himself for me. Everything inside of me is brand new; everything in me and in my way is of God.
The Faith of the Son. Those who face sin to defeat it (living in front of the cross) will never stop sinning. Give them a million years, and they will never “die.” Those who face God (stepping through the cross to live in Christ) abandon all consciousness of “sin.” They don’t know it because God fills their eyes.
But look at this phrase: I live by the faith of the Son of God. What is this faith? Faith is very definite and specific. Faith is neither “blind” nor wishy washy. First, the faith that fills our hearts is Jesus Himself, the faith of the Son of God. Second, faith is specific to the word God speaks. Faith connects directly with the specific things God says.
Word Enters through Faith. Every word from God comes into our lives as a seed. Inside that word, “Let there be light” is the power to create in us ALL that is in that word, “and there was light.” Yet as a seed, that word cannot bring forth the life that is in it apart from faith. God never does anything with us apart from our active and willing participation – faith. Faith is that quality of the Lord Jesus filling our hearts that says, “Be it unto me according to Your word.”
Then faith holds without wavering to the absolute certainty that what God says is true. And faith holds to that certainty without regarding the human condition, the human body, the sight of the eyes, or the feelings of the emotions. Faith sees God in TOTAL disregard to outward appearance.
Faith Speaks. But faith is more than “believing,” faith also speaks. Faith speaks what God speaks against all other voices.
God says, “You ARE crucified with Christ.” – Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more (Romans 6:9). – One sacrifice for sins forever.
And in response faith speaks, “Christ IS my life; I have no other life. Christ is all there is in me.” Faith speaks what God speaks. “I am dead. Good, that’s over with. It is finished. I AM alive unto God, the One who fills me full and who flows out from me mightily. Wow! That’s forever, and it is here, it is now, it is me.” We walk by faith in what God says and not by what we imagine we see outwardly.
Flesh of His Flesh. But hidden inside Galatians 2:20 is the most precious truth in the Bible. Do you see Him there, planted in your flesh? Let’s bring in three more companion verses that show us this hidden reality, this most precious thing.
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain (John 12:24). – Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17). – For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.… and the two shall become one flesh.” …I speak concerning Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:30-32 – condensed).
One Flesh with Christ. A seed does not cease when it enters into the earth, rather it takes on a different appearance. The seed becomes the plant, the very plant that will produce many more seeds identical to the first.
Christ and I are one flesh. Christ became me. It’s no longer I who lives, but Christ. Yet I remain me, for Christ Himself lives as me in this world. He is what I find myself to be. I am the flesh of Christ.
Now, the simple English translation of Galatians 2:20 gives us these words – who gave Himself for me. Yet in the Greek is the hidden meaning of a trade, a life for a life, a soul for a soul. Jesus traded Himself for me.
Trading Self-Stories. By entering into Christ through faith in the one death of Christ, we trade our own self-story placing it entirely into Jesus and taking Jesus’ own story and placing it on all that we are. Jesus has so fused Himself with me and I with Him that we are one life, one story, His Person inside of my person.
If I am sick, Christ is sick; if I stumble and fall, Christ stumbles and falls together with me, as me. If I am crippled, Christ is crippled. If I suffer, Christ suffers. In all things Christ and I are one flesh. I am the flesh of Jesus. If I sin, Christ does not sin; He does not know it. Yet all my sin is inside of Jesus dead upon the cross. All my sin God cannot remember; He does not know it.
Weary and Heavy Laden. Some imagine that salvation is somehow up to them, to their own doing “what God says.” Yet by that thinking, they are ALWAYS falling short, always imagining the cross is insufficient, always attempting to climb back on and never, actually succeeding. Some of those become entirely a pretense, an outward show with no substance, judging and being judged; others become weary and heavy laden, just the way God wants them to be, just before they discover Christ.
I am so glad that Jesus is Salvation, that He carries me, that He has become all that I am, including and especially my sin and my shame.
Knowing Christ our Life. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). We must put our sin, ALL of our sin as well as our sinful selves, entirely into Jesus dead upon the cross, and there we must leave it – vanished into the empty grave.
Then it slowly dawns on us that Salvation today is simply the most incredibly glorious way of living we could know. Our task, now that sin and death are barred, by the cross, from Christ where we live, is to know this Jesus, this living Christ who is our only life.
And to know Jesus as ourselves.