I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live...

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I've been studying Galatians lately, and I can hardly tell you how much the Holy Spirit has been revealing to me through the words of Paul in this brief, angry, yet powerful letter. And the above quoted verse (2:20) has played a central role in what the Holy Spirit has been teaching me. I wonder, do we really hear Paul clearly in this verse?

Just read this verse a few times--let it soak into your mind. Do you hear this man?

Let me try to summarize/paraphrase what I hear Paul saying here: "I'm dead. When I was baptized, I died in Christ. Christ has literally taken over my earthly existence--come into my body and animated my very being. He is now the agent who lives the life that I refer to as "my" life. When you see me move, breathe, speak, even get angry--it's not me, it's Him. It's not me living anymore; it's all Him!"

I think Paul has a much more radical vision of the Spirit of Christ at work within the life of a believer than we often recognize. But, if I'm understanding him right, how can he make such a radical statement? He explains in the rest of the letter to the Galatians (whom he is desperately trying to persuade not to fall into the trap of obeying the Torah in order to receive God's full salvation).

Some of you may notice that my wording of the above-mentioned verse is a little different from the way it is probably printed in your Bible--only in one spot really: I have translated "the faithfulness of the Son of God" where it is usually translated "faith in the Son of God." Why? OK, a little Greek lesson! This phrase is in a certain kind of Greek case--called the "genitive"--which allows "the Son of God" to be translated as either the subject of the action implied by the word "faith" (the faithfulness of the Son of God) or the object of that implied action (faith in the Son of God). So English translators essentially just have to choose one. So why do I choose the translation I do? Because I think it makes better sense of the rest of the verse: "...who loved me and gave himself up for me." This last part of the verse described how Christ was "faithful"--i.e. he was faithful unto God and unto us in his sacrificial death on the cross.

But I digress from Greek....(Really both translations are "true" in that it really wouldn't matter if we put our "faith in Christ" if Christ hadn't been "faithful" to sacrifice his life for us on the cross; but because he did, we do put our "faith in Him.") Why is this important though?

I think it's important because I think Paul has a much more radical view of the eschatological nature of Christ's death on the cross.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Greek AND technical theological words?! Come on, Ian--do you seriously expect me to keep reading this?

Yes, I do. "Eschatological"--from the Greek, eschaton, which literally means "last things." Eschatology is often talked about in terms of "end times" events--death, heaven and hell, the Day of Judgment. However, Paul--and the entire rest of the New Testament writers for that matter--were fully convinced that the "end times" actually started with Christ; i.e. Christ's death and resurrection were eschatological events! Not only that, Paul and the rest of the NT writers believed that we are living in a new age--the age of the kingdom of God, which is, in a sense, already here, and in other sense, not yet here.

The Israelites were looking for this new age to come: Remember the passage Peter quotes to the people at Pentecost? Joel 2:28-32. It begins, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people...." Not only did the NT writers--including Paul--see the Christ event as eschatological--i.e. ushering in the "end times"--but what's more, they saw the pouring out of the Holy Spirit as an extremely eschatological event.

Bringing it back to Paul in Gal. 2:20, do we understand now a little bit better the enormity of what Paul is saying? He is saying essentially, "Look, we're living in the last days! The Christ has come and sacrificed himself for us. The Spirit has been poured out freely upon all of us--Jew and Gentile alike. Now, our very existence is defined by Christ's Spirit alone animating our very beings." This is why Paul begins wrapping up the letter to the Galatians by saying, "So I say, live by the Spirit...."

This is the message I wish to convey--which the Holy Spirit has been conveying to me in a stronger way than ever recently: we who have been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are dead; and yet we live because Christ, through his Spirit, animates our very being. We ought to expect, then, that we will start looking less and less like our old selves, and more and more like the Christ "who loved [us] and gave himself for [us]." And this is exactly Paul's point too: he says, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation." (6:15)

And what does this "new creation" look like according to Paul? Does it look like going to church a lot? Reading and memorizing more scripture? "Witnessing" more? No, none of these things are the primary indicators that Christ's Spirit is forming us into his likeness. Paul says, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." This fits with our odd translation of 2:20--since Christ's faithfulness unto death on the cross was the demonstration of his love for us, the demonstration that the Spirit is at work within us, forming us into Christ-likeness, is our faith expressing itself through love.

May all you who bear his Name live through the eschatological power of the Spirit of Christ within you this week. Amen!