Galatians 2:20 Commentary

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Galatians 2:20

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Death, he says, is the only way that anyone can escape from the law. But if Paul must die the situation is hopeless, for his release can only come about through the very thing that he dreads most. Ah, but God has found a solution and it is given in these amazing words: ‘I am crucified with Christ’. There is after all a death, but it is not the death of Paul himself; it is the death of one who loved him so greatly that he was willing to give his life for him. Christ, we know, was crucified, yet he was crucified not as a private individual but as the representative of all his people, not for Paul only but everyone who trusts in Christ. When Christ was crucified, Paul was also crucified with him, not subjectively, but in some real sense. How could all believers be crucified with Christ when the crucifixion took place before many of us were even born? The answer is that we were there because we were identified with Christ in the mind of God, and this understanding is completely consistent with his subject at this point – the believer’s justification. We were there because God viewed us as there in a legal sense so that he, who knew his elect people from eternity, treated the death of Christ as the death of each one of them for whom Christ was acting as representative. Paul uses the perfect tense – ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ – because something that happened in the past has changed his present status.The Son of Man ‘made under the law’ (Galatians 4:4) in order that he might keep it perfectly and that he might take on our responsibilities under it. He died as our surety suffering the law’s condemnation of our sin, but he rose from the dead as one who was no longer under the law. If he had still been under the law, then he would still have been subject to death for the law could demand death at any time, but he obtained immortality and ‘in that he liveth, he liveth unto God’ (Romans 6:10). He was free to live as he pleased, and yet, of course, what pleased him was still to live in perfect harmony with the Father’s will.

Application

Paul cannot speak of Christ without remembering that it was the Lord that took the initiative. It was his love that drove him to save Paul. It was a love that was there before Paul understood any of this. Let us reflect on this: that Christ should love us more than we love ourselves, and take greater care for our needs than we do ourselves? His love was hidden in eternity past before it was revealed at Calvary. Nothing could put it off, nothing could turn it away or prevent it from reaching its goal. No amount of unbelief in Paul or even persecution of Christ’s people could do so. This love is not fragile.

Questions

This verse has often been taken out of context and treated as if Paul suddenly stopped speaking of justification, switched subject, and began to consider sanctification. The words ‘crucified with Christ’ are thought by some to be similar to the language of Galatians 5:24 and 6:14, where Paul undoubtedly does speak of the subjective effect of the cross of Christ on the believer’s life and conduct. Furthermore, because Paul speaks of his no longer living and of his yet living, it is thought that he must be referring to his subjective life. It is true that the cross is the foundation of our sanctification as well as of our justification, but Scripture is always careful to distinguish the two and not to confuse them. Paul has been describing his relationship to the law and the impossibility of his being justified by the law. His argument is too closely woven together to allow a different subject to be introduced in the middle of his flow of reasoning. The next verse cannot be understood to refer to anything other than justification. Why then would he confusingly switch subject for a single verse? The words ‘crucified with Christ’ must be understood not in a subjective way, but in an objective way – not a matter of his thinking, but of something that has really happened – and we must understand the words ‘I live’ to refer not to his experience of life but to his legal status before God.

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Galatians 2:20 Commentary and Bible Study