I believe that this verse gives us the normal position of every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether we really understand it or not. We have had the death of the blessed Lord Himself before us, and I believe in order to enter into, in any little measure, the truth that we get in this second chapter of Galatians, we must really understand that the Lord Jesus Christ died for us, that He has been info death for us. That is what the apostle says at the close of this verse; but we often fail to realize that that blessed One has been to the cross just for us individually, I say for one. That is how the apostle speaks here; he says, “I” to begin with—that was Saul of Tarsus—“I am crucified with Christ;” but when he speaks of the new man he says, “nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ”—but Christ—“liveth in me.”
And then to go to the close of the verse again, when he speaks of the life in the flesh, he says, it is by faith of the Son of God. Here he takes it individually again: “who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Now I believe, beloved, just to enter into this one precious scriptural truth, brings the believer info a large place: and divine liberty in the presence of God. The old man is gone judicially. Well, we can say. where is it gone? where did I! lose it? At the cross of Christ. How came that about? The One that loves me was crucified for me, and I am crucified with Him. And we must always remember it is not in Him, because if that corn of wheat had not fallen into the ground and died, if must have abode alone. The Lord might have abode until this present moment and been alone—but it comes up in resurrection and brings much fruit. Therefore you get the blessed word in Ephesians: Quickened together with Christ, “and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.” There was no “in” previous to the resurrection, but here you get the truth as it is in deed, and in reality: I am crucified with Christ, there was no being in Christ before. He went to the cross, as we get elsewhere, to put away sin, to put away what was of me, by the sacrifice of Himself, Those He died for are to reckon themselves to be in a place of death as far as the first man is concerned, but being now born again, He takes us up in resurrection, and just tells us where we are set in Christ. That is what Paul is speaking about in 2 Cor. 12 He is speaking about a man in Christ, only he could say, he was caught up to the third heaven: we cannot say as much as that, but he could say, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell; the old man is condemned in the death of Christ, and we have acquired a new possession founded upon the resurrection of Christ. And now the apostle says, 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.
Oh! beloved, if our souls would think of these divine realities, surely, surely, we should feel and act far differently from what we do now, We have been called by God and obeyed the calling, and we should manifest that our citizen ship is in heaven. Christ does not belong to this world, neither do any who are born of God, they are His property, heaven is their home. We are admonished to be passing through as pilgrims and strangers with the knowledge that our commonwealth is in heaven.
What is the key to this divine walk that the Ghost is bringing before us through the? Just the knowledge that the old “I” is dispensed with for eternity by the death of Christ. How do I exist? I live, because He who lives and was dead is alive for evermore; because He is my life, it is in Himself up there that He is my life, indicated by the power of the Holy Ghost, making it real to faith, bringing it home to my understanding; the word opened to” my mind, the Holy Ghost makes it a reality, and the apostle says, the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God. Who is it? The One who loves me and gave Himself for me. The Lord grant that you and I may be more and more under the sound of His blessed voice, and the fascinating power of the word: that alone is the separating power from everything that is of the world, and separating from everything that is not of Christ.
May our God keep us occupied with the One who is the joy and delight and the Object of His own heart, L. T.