Galatians 6:14 Commentary and Bible Study

By contrast Paul was horrified at the thought of boasting in anything other than what had real glory. He is ready to dispense with all the glory of this world, including the human praise which the Judaizers crave so much. What a lofty position he adopts in comparison to his opponents. Why does the cross of Christ so attract and amaze him? Because the cross reveals God’s grace more fully than any other event in history; because there Christ exhibited his perfect love for his people in being willing to personally suffer their punishment; because on the cross he defeated his and our enemies forever; because the atonement is God’s perfect answer to the greatest problem in the universe – how God can exercise his justice and his mercy at the same time and so provide a way of salvation. God’s mightiest work appears shameful to men and not an object of glory at all, but Paul knew that this is due to the blindness of the unbelieving mind. He wanted the Galatians to know that he gloried in the cross, whatever the world thinks. To an unbelieving world the cross means weakness, failure, shame. Modern liberalism still finds a place for the cross but this is a gross distortion of the reality. Not understanding what the cross really means and yet being obliged to include it as a central feature of Christianity, the liberal is compelled to make a virtue of weakness and suffering. ‘By whom the world has been crucified to me’. On the cross the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, while Paul remained alive and continued to live in the world. And yet such is Paul’s identification with the Lord who died there, that he died with Christ. Being baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit, God counts Paul as one with Christ. Furthermore, this is also part of Paul’s experience, for he willingly died with Christ. He counted it preferable to be identified with Christ in death than to cling onto life without him. Consequently, he has died the same death that Christ died. Paul, though still alive, has been through that death, so that he now stands as one who has counted the cost of losing all that the world might give him. ‘And I to the world’. How can the one cross accomplish both things? How can the world be crucified to Paul and Paul to the world, for in the first case the world dies while Paul remains alive, but in the second case Paul dies while the world remains alive? Evidently neither case is literally true, for neither the world nor Paul has literally died, but through the one cross of Christ both of these changes has come about. The first comes about because in submitting to death on the cross Christ fully turned his back on the world and all that it had to offer him – his willingness to die was the ultimate answer to Satan who said, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me’ (Matthew 4:9). When faced with the choice between obedience to his Father and preserving his own life, he gladly forsook the world forever. The second comes because as far as the world is concerned, it dealt with Christ by putting him to death on a cross. The world considers that Christ is dead and it continues to live without him. It wants no part with him, because it wants him finally and comprehensively out of the picture. If this is true of Christ, then it is also true of Paul and it is true of all his people, because we belong to Christ. The world is well aware of this and when it catches a glimpse of the radical and uncompromising nature of conversion, it counts God’s people as dead to itself. But though the world has died to Christ through his crucifixion as he laid down his life for sinners, and though Christ has died to the world through the death sentence which it implemented on him, yet it is Christ that lives and not the world, for in rising from the dead he obtained undying life, while the world is consigned to death by the judgment of God. Not only so, but Paul and every one of God’s people are united with Christ, and although we were buried with him through baptism into death, we also rose with him to walk in newness of life now and in future to participate in the resurrection of the body. Death has been for us the escape route, but it is transformed into life by the power of God. Truly God has done all things perfectly.