GALATIAN 2:20 FAITH

Verse 20. - This verse brings out into fuller detail the several points bound up in the succinct statement of ver. 19. I am crucified with Christ (Ξριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι); I have been crucified with Christ. I am on the cross, fastened thereto with Christ; the object, therefore, with him of the Law's abhorrence and anathema. If we ask, how and when he became thus blended with Christ in his crucifixion, we have the answer suggested by himself in Romans 6:3, 6, "Are ye ignorant, that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" - "that our old man was crucified with him?" It was by believing in Christ and being baptized into him; comp. Galatians 3:27, "All ye who were baptized into Christ did put on Christ " - words which have to be taken in connection with the reference to "faith in Christ" in ver. 26. The perfect tense of the verb συνεσταύρωμαι points to a continued state of being, following upon that decisive crisis of his life; the apostle images himself as still hanging on the cross with Christ, while also sharing in his resurrection-life; his "old man" is on the cross, while his spirit partakes in and is renewed by Christ's life in God (Romans 6:6, 8, 11). The pragmatism of the passage, however, that is, its relevancy to the subject discussed by him with St. Peter, consists in the twofold statement:
(1) that the Law as a ceremonial institute has now nothing to do with him nor he with it, except as mutually proclaiming their entire disseverment the one from the other; and
(2) that nevertheless, while thus wholly apart from the Law, he has life in God, as he further proceeds to declare. Nevertheless I live (ζῶ δέ). Notwithstanding all the Law's anathema, I am alive unto God (comp. Romans 6:11), the object of his love, and an heir of his eternal life. With this exalted blessedness of mine the Law cannot in the slightest degree meddle, by any determination which it will fain propound of cleanness or uncleanness. No ceremonial pollution of its constituting can touch this my life. My own life and my fellow-believer's life in God is infinitely removed from the possibility of receiving taint of pollution through eating (say) of blood, or suet, or pork, or through touching a leper or the remains of a deceased man. Nothing of this kind can mar or stain my righteousness or my fellow-believer's righteousness. Both he and I, sharing in the like "life" and righteousness, rejoice and exult together; let the Law denounce us for unclean as loudly and as bitterly as it will. Nay, if I were to allow myself to be disquieted by any such denouncement of pollution, I should, in fact, be allowing myself to harbour misgivings and unbelief touching the very essence of the grace of Jesus Christ. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (οὐκ ἔτι ἐγώ ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Ξριστός); and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. It was essential to the apostle's argument that he should assert himself to be, in spite of the Law's anathema, "alive," in the full possession of life in God; but he hastens to qualify this assertion by explaining how entirely he owes this life of his to Christ; and, in his eagerness to do this, he compresses the assertion and the qualification in one clause so closely together as, in a way not at all unusual with him, well-nigh to wreck the grammatical construction. A method, indeed, has been proposed by critics of disposing this clause with respect to the preceding in such a manner as to make the sentence run quite smoothly; thus: Ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἀγώ ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Ξριστός: that is, as given in the margin of the Revised English Version, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." But not only does this method of construing altogether efface the apostle's assertion of his being alive notwithstanding the Law's malediction - an assertion which agrees so thoroughly with the defiant tone of the argument, but the abruptness of the construction as presented in the ordinary reading of the passage is its very recommendation; for such uncouthness of style is wont to show itself in St. Paul's more eager, impassioned passages. "No longer I;" as in those old days when I prided myself on being an especial favourite of Heaven, eminently righteous through meritorious doings of my own, through my punctilious observance in particular of all that the Law prescribes for gaining and maintaining ceremonial sanctity (comp. Philippians 3:4, 6). "In those days it was I that was alive; it is not so now." The ἐγὼ ἔζων, "I was alive," of Romans 7:9, serves again as a perfect illustration of the phraseology of the present passage; only we have still to bear in mind that the apostle is at present contemplating the ceremonial aspect of his old life, rather than, as in the Romans, the moral; the two being no doubt, however, in his former Pharisee scheme of religion, essentially conjoined. The in-being of Christ is to be understood as blending in one the two notions, of Christ as the ground of our acceptableness before God and of our being alive unto God, and of Christ as the motive spring of true practical well-doing (Romans 8:10). The two things, though notionally distinct, cannot exist apart, but the former is the more prominent idea here. And the life which I now live in the flesh (ο{ δὲ νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί). "Life" still denotes his spiritual state of being, and not his moral activity, though by inference in-relying this latter; as if it were "the life which I now possess." The construction of ο{ ζῶ is paralleled by the ο{ ἀπέθανε, "the death that he died, he died," and the ο{ ζῇ, "the life that he liveth, he liveth," of Romans 6:10. "Now," as well as "no longer," stands in contrast with his old life in Judaism. But, on the other hand, "in the flesh," viewed in conjunction with (ἐν πίστει) "in faith," or "by faith," must be taken as in Philippians 1:22, that is, as contrasted with the future life; while we are in the flesh "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). I live by the faith of the Son of God (ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ); I live by faith, the faith which is in the Son of God. By faith, not by works of the Levitical Law. It was by faith in Christ that I first became partaker of this life; it is by faith in Christ that I continue to partake of it; letting go my faith in Christ, I partake of the life no longer. The especial relevancy of this statement of the apostle's, whether with respect to the matters agitated at Antioch, or with respect to any such revival of Levitical notions of acceptableness with God as was now perplexing the Churchmen of Galatia, is the warning which it implicitly conveys that, to revert to Levitical notions of uncleanness or of righteousness, was to sin against faith in Christ, and therewith against the very essence of a Christian's spiritual life. It was the strong sense which the apostle had of the absolutely fatal tendency of such relapses towards Judaism that inspired the deep pathos which here tinges his language. Hence the magnificent title by which he recites Christ's personality, "the Son of God;" possessing as such an absolutely commanding claim to his people's adherence, which they dare not decline. Hence, too, the words which follow. Who loved me, and gave himself for me (τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με καὶ παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ); who loved me, and gave himself up for me. Fain would the reader realize to his mind the fervid, thrilling tones and accent of voice in which the apostle, while uttering these words, would give vent to the sentiment which so powerfully swayed his whole life, and which he so vividly describes in writing to the Corinthians: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died [namely, to all but him]. and he died fur all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15). The same appropriation of Christ's love to his own individual self which the apostle here gives utterance to, "who loved me, and gave himself up for me," may every human creature also express in whom only is the faith which takes hold of his love. In fact, the apostle speaks thus for the very purpose of prompting every individual believer who hears him to feel and say the same. This, he indicates, should be their feeling just as much as his; a sentiment just as irresistibly regulative of their life. Why not? Do they not also owe to him all their hope on behalf of their souls? For the expression, "gave himself up," comp. Galatians 1:4 and note. The Greek verb παραδόντος is distinguished from the simple δόντος, "gave himself," by its bringing more distinctly into view the notion of Christ's giving himself over into the hands of those who sought his life.