All Christians see, more or less clearly, that Christ has been crucified for them, and that through His work for them on the cross, they are saved and delivered from the consequences of sins. Their consciences, so to speak, have drunk into the blood of Christ. They have peace with God through Him who has "made peace by the blood t)f His cross;" and they adoringly speak of Him " in whom," as they say, "we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins."
All this is as it should be, and is the blessed and happy experience of every dear child of God who simply rests by faith upon the blood of God's Son that " cleanseth us from all sin."
But seeing that Christ has been crucified for me is not the same thing as seeing that I have been crucified with Christ. The one aspect of the cross puts away what I have done. The other puts me, myself; away. Where the one only is seen, though sins are felt to be gone, self remains, and remains to be the plague of the Christian's life, and the more really godly the person is, and the more lively the conscience, the more intolerable the company of "self," "horrid self," is felt to be.
How often we hear dear believers in the Lord Jesus exclaim with agonized intensity, "Oh! if I could only get rid of myself, how happy I should be." " It is not my sins that trouble me," they add, " they are all, I know, washed away out of God's sight, in the precious blood of Jesus, but it is this wretched 'self' that I can't rid of, and which makes me long to be in Heaven where there will be no ' self.'"
Yes, "self" is the trouble with most of us, and it was with the apostle Paul till he got to this, " I myself through the law died unto the law that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ: and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." (Gal. 2 Alford's Translation.)
In the mercy of God the apostle Paul, that he might teach others, was allowed of God to go thoroughly into this question of " self," and how it was to be got rid of. He gives us in the verses quoted the only way of dealing with " self." Practically self and law go together. To be in self is to be under law, and to be under law is to be in self. Paul lets the law have its way with him. The law kills him right out—curses and hangs him up on a tree, but it is in company with another. "I have been crucified with Christ," he says. The law had cursed and hanged Christ on a tree. Christ who in love had come under the law to be thus dealt with for Paul's sake. " He loved me and gave Himself for me," he says, and he just took his place with the One that had loved him, in the place where that love proved itself for Him.
It did not satisfy Paul to know that Christ had been crucified for him, he makes the discovery that he had been crucified with Christ, and thus he himself had died to law that he might live to God, and no longer to himself. In this way he effectually got rid of himself: He could only get back to himself by coming to life again under the law that had killed him. This was impossible, for he was nailed fast to the cross with Christ. Unless Christ, as a living man, came down from the cross, he could not.
To let Christ come off the cross for him was the last thing Paul thought of. " No," he says, " I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." Christ had died under law for Paul, and Paul had died with Christ. Christ had been crucified for Paul, and Paul had been crucified with Christ. Paul's history had closed on the gibbet with Him, who in love had hung there for him.
He was not ashamed to own this. He says, as it were, "I have been a bad man, and broken the law thoroughly, and the law cursed and crucified me, and that is the end of me. I have died a shameful death. Justly condemned, and I am no longer, a living man, but He who died for me, and with whom I died, lives again, and He lives in me." A risen Christ living in him was all the life that, as a Christian, Paul knew of, and the only person he knew to live for, was this blessed Son of God, who had loved him and given Himself for him.
In all this Paul is not looking into his own heart, and describing his experience, as occupied with the work of the Holy Ghost in him, but he is looking back at the work of Christ for him, and he sees himself as a passed fact, what ever his then inward experience might be, crucified with Christ. When Christ hung on the cross he put away Paul's sins, and that was years ago even before Paul was converted; so when Christ hung on the cross for him and he hung there with him, was years ago. This was how things had been before God all along, and when by faith Paul saw what had been done for him, and happened to him, he applies the fact to himself and says, " I have been crucified with Christ." The fact was long past, the effect continued, and nothing could alter it. For his faith no Paul existed. Such a person no longer lived. Christ lived in him, and "self" was a thing of the past.
What was true of Paul, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, is true of every believer. All believers in Christ have had their sins put away when " He bore them in His own body on the tree," and they have Leen crucified when He was crucified.
When a believer sees that Christ has borne his sins he gets relief in his conscience about his sins; in short, he finds the forgiveness of sins, but his sins were not put away when he believed in the forgiveness of his sins. The putting away of his sins was the work of Christ for him on the cross 1800 years ago. The forgiveness of sins, or the relief in conscience which he gets about his sins by believing in that work, is the work of the Holy Ghost in him, a work possible in him alone because of the previous existence of the work for him. So the crucifixion of the believer is the work of Christ for him, by which he was crucified when Christ was crucified. The deliverance from "self," by the knowledge of this crucifixion, is the work of the Holy Ghost in him; but there could be no such work of the Holy Ghost in him, unless it were true, as a fact outside him, that he was already crucified with Christ.
In every particular, the work of the Holy Ghost in the believer, is merely to make him know, and thus enjoy, what is already true of him in Christ.
If a believer in Jesus says to me, " I am so troubled about my sins," I reply to him "You need not trouble yourself about your sins, Christ put them all away 1800 years ago."
If a believer in Jesus says to me, "I am so troubled with my wretched self," I reply to him, " You need not trouble yourself about yourself, you were crucified with Christ 1800 years ago."
If in the first case what I say is not believed, the forgiveness 'of sins is not entered unto. If in the second case what I say, is not believed, the deliverance from self is not experienced, but the two facts stated are true, only unbelief deprives the person, about whom they are true, of the enjoyment that should flow from them.
It is unintelligible to reason, or common sense, for a believer to say, "I have been dead over 1800 years, I have been crucified over 1800 years ago." But the thing is perfectly simple and intelligible to faith, because God's word says so.
The Lord in His goodness give to all His people, to say, in simple faith, "I have been crucified with Christ," and they will find, that practically, "horrid self" will not trouble them any more than the sins which they know are -washed away in the precious blood of Christ.