Our Unity with Christ
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. Galatians 2:20
Paul said, “I died to the law” (Galatians 2:19) because “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (verse 20). This is possible because of our union with God. As believers we are no longer “in Adam” but “in Christ.” Paul identified every believer with Christ in His death (see Romans 6:3,6; Colossians 3:1-3), in His burial (see Romans 6:4), in His resurrection (see Romans 6:5,8,11), in His ascension (see Ephesians 2:6), in His life (see Romans 6:10-11), in His power (see Ephesians 1:19-20), and in His inheritance (see Romans 8:16-17; Ephesians 1:11-14).
When Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), he literally meant, “I have been and continue to be crucified with Christ.” The eternal life we received at salvation was the eternal life of Christ, which included eternity past and eternity future. We are identified with every aspect of Christ’s eternal life because we are united with Him. Because we are eternally connected to God, we can be crucified with Christ and at the same time be seated with Him in the heavenly realms (see Ephesians 2:6). It is impossible for the finite mind to fully grasp the idea of eternity, but that is our reality.
Before we came to Christ, we were under the law and in bondage to sin, which only leads to death. We had to be crucified with Christ “so that the body of sin might be done away with” (Romans 6:6, NKJV). The “body of sin” refers to the person or self (living in bodily form) under the law and the rule of sin. This person was “done away with” by being crucified with Christ. The Greek term “done away with” can mean “rendered ineffective or powerless,” “destroyed,” “brought to an end” or “released from.” Our old self was in bondage to sin and its mastery. That old self has died with Christ. Now a new self exists, which is no longer under the mastery of sin.
Sin reigns through death; therefore, the way to freedom from sin is through death (see Romans 6:6). For this reason, if a person dies to sin, sin loses its mastery over that person. Because the believer has died with Christ (participated with Him in His death to sin), that believer is free from the mastery of sin and lives a new life of freedom from the law of sin and death (see Romans 8:1-2). Paul expresses this new freedom from sin in Romans 6:19-20,22: “Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. . . . But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
Death is the end of a relationship, but not the end of existence. According to Paul, we should consider ourselves to be alive in Christ and dead to sin (see Romans 6:11). Physical death is still imminent, but we shall continue to live spiritually even if we die physically. Sin is still present and appealing, but we don’t have to yield to it. The eternal life of Christ within us is our victory.
Questions to ponder:
How can we say that we have been “crucified with Christ”?
What are we putting to death when we are crucified with Christ?
How are we set free from sin? How does sin lose its mastery over us?
How would it affect the way you lived if you fully believed that you were free from the power of sin?
You have been crucified with Christ and raised with Christ. The first dealt with sin and the other the consequence of sin. What hope does that give you for the future?
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.