Crucified with Christ

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 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.” Galatians 2:20

Jesus died on a cross in order to pay for the sins of the world. When Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ,” did he mean that he was alive or dead on the cross? We see the answer in the next phrase, “nevertheless I live.” We can understand Paul to mean that he was dead. How could he be both dead and alive? Paul was referring to what we call the old nature and the new nature. We are born with our carnal nature, the flesh, but we receive the new spiritual nature when we are born again. II Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” We often apply this passage to the things we do, but it isn’t limited to our actions. It says, “all things are become new.” The attitudes and desires of the new creature are different as well as the actions. In our text above, Paul was saying that his carnal nature was dead, but his new spiritual nature was alive. In Romans 6:11-12 Paul said, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Paul is telling us that the way to conquer sin is to count ourselves among the dead in the flesh, but alive to God spiritually. This is what it means to be crucified with Christ.