Whom Am I? Crucified with Christ
Short reflection on Galatians 2:20
Paul writes to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
Paul is saying here that he has no independent existence and no separate identity apart from the crucified and risen Jesus. The entire scope of his bodily existence is singularly determined by the fact that the body of the Son of God was crucified for him, and the Son of God now lives in him. Think about that.
If we take Paul’s self-description as our own, it means that the only life in me is Jesus living through me. It means that I am who I am only as I am in Christ Jesus. The significance of Paul’s self-description in Galatians 2:20 is that when I know who I am in Christ, then I know my place in this world and the purpose of my life.
Even more so today, people will try to define us by our occupation, our gender, our race, our nationality, our language, our politics, our ableness, our marital status, even our sexuality. While any of that might be true of us, and much of it can legitimately remain meaningful for us, yet none of it ultimately defines who we are. Paul says that we are “crucified with Christ” where “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).
Being part of the Messiah means the negation of anything that either elevates us over others or belittles others before us in the household of faith. If the cross counts, then labels don’t matter. You are defined by your faith in the crucified and risen Son of God, the fact that you’ve died and risen with him in baptism, and the promise that where he is you too shall be. You are saved and signed by Jesus’s cross, dipped and dyed into the blood of his crucifixion, and the aroma of his sepulcher should accompany you whenever you imitate his example.
In case you haven’t heard, in liturgical churches there is a particular role called “crucifer.” Not to be mistaken for crucifiers—those who crucify other people; the additional “i” makes a big, big difference! A “crucifer” is a person who is appointed to carry the cross, a crucifix mounted on top of a processional staff, into the church at the beginning of a worship service. He or she is literally a “cross-bearer.”
So you can be many things: Asian, male, Greek, female, young, old, tall, Arab, nerdy, sporty, heterosexual, Hungarian, astronaut, autistic, boisterous, Gothic, or Georgian. Yet above all you are a “Christopher” (a Christ-carrier) and a “Cruxtopher” (a Cross-carrier). Your personal pronouns are Christō synestaurōmai, “I am crucified with Christ.”
So if you want to know who you are, rather than browse the hundreds of options available on social media, know this: if you believe in Jesus, if you have any affection for him, if you cling to his cross for dear life, then you are a co-heir with Christ, striving “to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil 3:10). You are a Christian, allegiant to the crucified and risen Lord.
By baptism you are incorporated into the redemptive reality of the crucifixion where your old self dies once and for all, your “old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Rom 6:6). Bby the Lord’s Supper you are fed with the atoning blood and the broken body of our Lord, by the Holy Spirit you are united with the Son of God, who was crucified, buried, risen, and ascended for you.
I love this Michael, and I often reflect on just what sort of difference this makes to my behaviour and my call to bear the fruit of righteousness. No sense being triumphalistic, but the astonishing implication is that I am new creation in Christ, and he empowers his new behaviour in and through me nay his Spirit. I have resources beyond my (old) self, with his people, to be salt and light. Incredible!
TY Dr. Bird