What is the meaning of "Christ lives in me" in Galatians 2:20?

All this, however, involves a paradox which the apostle states in verse 20. "I am crucified," says he, "nevertheless I live." Crucifixion has reached me, yet has it left me a living man. It has reached me in identification with Christ, and its effect is the displacing of self, the old "I," in favour of Christ; so that He, vitally in us now by His Spirit (see Rom. 8:9 and 10), may live in us characteristically — that is, that His character may be seen in us.

Such a life is not possible apart from instant and continuous dependence upon Himself. If Christ is to live in me, and consequently be displayed as to His character by me, He must be abidingly my Object. Hence Paul adds, "The life which I now live in the flesh [that is, in the body, as a man in this world] I live by the faith of the Son of God." By-and-by, when out of the flesh, and in bodies of glory, we shall live by the sight of the Son of God; now we live by the faith of Him. Faith makes Him a living, bright reality to us, and that which acts as the motive force in it all is His love. "The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

In, which here signifies character. Though crucified we live. We are still living people on earth, yet we no longer live the old character of life. We live a life of a new order, a life, the character of which, summed up in one word, is CHRIST. Saul of Tarsus had been crucified with Christ. Yet the individual known as Saul of Tarsus was still living. Still living, yet in another character entirely. As you observed him you saw not the Saul-of-Tarsus character coming into expression, but Christ. In keeping with this he did not retain his old name, but soon after his conversion he became known as Paul, which means, "Little one." He must be little if Christ is to live in him.

By which introduces us to the Object that controlled Paul's soul, and made this new character of life possible. Presently, when the life we now live in the flesh — that is, in our present mortal bodies — is over, we shall live by the sight of the Son of God. Meanwhile we live by the faith of Him. If faith is in activity with us He is made a living bright reality before our souls. The more He is thus before us objectively, that is, as "… the object bright and fair, To fill and satisfy the heart." the more will He be seen in us subjectively.

The apostle gives us a full statement of this blessed truth, as in his own case. "I am crucified with Christ," he says, "nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Here he speaks of himself, in one point of view, as dead; and in another, as alive. How can this be understood? By faith only. He speaks of two "I's "; the old "I," or self, as slain — or crucified. The new "I," as his new life — Christ in him. The first, he treats as dead, and for ever done with; the second, as his only life now. "Christ lives in me." The practical effect of this truth, when believed, is immense. Self, wretched self, which is the end and object of the natural man, in all he does, is gone — gone, I mean, to faith. Christ enters and takes the place of self. "For me to live is Christ" — is to have Christ, not self, for my end and object. Christ, not self, is the spring now. We know, of course, that Paul had his natural life here below — the life he ever had as a man, but the life in which he lived, was a wholly new one — Christ in him. "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

All this is as true now, in principle, of every Christian, as it was of the apostle, though it may not be so brightly manifested. There must first be faith in the truth, then a life answering to the strength which that faith gives. However, it is plainly written, "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Not, observe, are crucifying it, but have crucified it. But of whom is this great truth stated? Of highly advanced Christians? No, simply of "they that are Christ's." It is as true of the babe, as of the young man, or the father in Christ. What was it that needed crucifying on the cross? Something that belonged to Christ, or to me? It was the old and great "I," that needed to be slain — nailed to the tree, and that was done in Christ, for ever, blessed be His name. Oh! to believe it, — to keep self where the cross has put it — to walk in the liberty and power of the Holy Spirit, and be only, and always, occupied with the risen and glorified Christ.

The Galatians had been brought, not long since, under the immense privilege of the apostle's preaching, into the enjoyment of the power and blessing of Christianity; and now, sad to say, they were in danger of slipping away, and they had lost the sense of grace in their souls. By what means had they originally received blessing from God? This question was raised by the last verse of the chapter before. Because the apostle had there pressed home the great point the Holy Spirit is illustrating in this epistle, namely, that it is not the law, but the grace of God in Christ, that freely gives all the blessing the Christian enjoys. He had brought us up to this already, that "I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." He showed how this came to pass in his own case, who was a Jew, and was therefore necessarily under the law of God in a way in which no Gentile, as such, could be; how it was that he had been delivered from it and could now adopt such different language. He says, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." So that, in one point of view, he speaks of himself as dead, in another as alive; but that life in which he lived now, was Christ in him. The old "I" he treats as a dead thing. All that constituted his natural character, the old self which was amenable to the law, is treated as crucified. The reason is obvious. What is the spring of a man's energy and the end of everything in this world? What mingles with and corrupts all thoughts and desires? It is self. Whether you look at courage, or generosity, or care for one's family, and country, and religion — all these things had been found in Paul before conversion; but one thing lay deeper than any other, and that was self. Yet was it all slain in the cross of Christ, which judged his whole moral being as being founded upon that which was corrupt — i. e., himself. Paul's character was dealt with from its inmost depths. Henceforward he starts from the principle of having now another for his life, even Christ; and while he was found entering into His love, and carrying out His will, it was Christ, an object before him, who was the power of life, through the Holy Ghost, in him.

With this before us, let us read verse 20 again:—I—as a child of Adam—am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I—the individual person—live; yet not I—as a child of Adam—but Christ lives in me; and the life which I—the individual person—now live in the flesh, I—the new creation man—live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I was identified with Him in His death, and captivated by His mighty love, I accept as regards myself, as regards the flesh and its motions, the crucifixion that took place with Christ my Lord. Crucifixion brought home inwardly, privately, to the individual conscience and heart, so that Christ may now come out in the life: this is what accounted for the manner of life that characterized the Apostle Paul.

But all this, not apart from the cross. "I," says Paul, identifying himself with the Adamic life and nature of which he participated in common with the rest of us, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I" — the "I" here being just Paul himself, the person, the "ego," as we speak — "I live; yet not I" — here again Paul as the man who expressed the Adamic life and nature because participating in it — "but Christ lives in me." Paul was living now in the life and nature of the Risen One who was the Object of his faith. The Cross severed him from the old life of Adam that he might live, even while here upon earth, in the life of Christ.

But such questions are only satisfactorily settled by the true doctrine of the Cross of Christ. The more we enter into that doctrine, the more trivial and childish do such questions appear. The apostle Paul adduces his own experimental acquaintance with the doctrine of the Cross, as the most complete answer to the legalist: "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." The doctrine, which the apostle Paul teaches so lucidly in the sixth chapter of the Romans, he here shows to be the life of his own soul. He regards himself to have judicially died, when Christ was crucified. That act was perfect and complete; so that he could say, "I am crucified with Christ;" just as he taught in the epistle to the Romans: "Our old man is crucified with Him." The doctrine of the apostle Peter is essentially the same: "Forasmuch as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." The great point is, to fully recognize the judicial act of God in the death of Christ. Faith recognizes that which God has wrought; and the sinner, looking unto Jesus on the Cross as his surety, sees death, as the wages of sin, inflicted by the hand of God on his Divine Surety; so that death in its penal character is to him abolished. Yea, he can regard himself as having already passed through it, saying with the apostle, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." Is then Saul the Pharisee alive from the dead? Not so. "Our old man is crucified with Him." Saul the Pharisee, with all his religious accomplishments, as well as with all his sins, has come to his end in the Cross of Christ, and a new man is risen up in his stead. "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." "Not I." How deeply had Paul learned to set self aside, because he realized that God had set it aside in the Cross. But "whatever God doeth, He doeth for ever; nothing can be added to it, nothing taken from it." "His work is perfect." This is our rest. God has done it. But for ourselves while down here, it must be a continuous effort to set self aside; and this is our trial. To know Christ's finished work for us is one thing, and when that is well realized, it follows almost as a necessary consequence, that we must take up the Cross and deny self. "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." Paul had made a blessed exchange — self for Christ. Christ was his substitute on the Cross; and now he says, "Christ liveth in me." It is, therefore, a life which is death-proof — a life communicated from the risen Jesus, which death cannot touch. As this life has its source from above, so also its tendencies are to things in heaven. It is a new life, in the strictest sense of the word; not the old improved. Its struggles here are against the old life, in whatever form it may appear. It is spiritual life, in opposition to natural life. Hence the apostle adds, "The life which I now live in the flesh." It is lived in the flesh now, in a poor, groaning, earthy tabernacle; but it will not always be so lived. It will be lived in heaven, in a spiritual and glorified body, perfectly suited to it. Whilst in the flesh, this life has every thing to contradict it; but when in its own native home, it will indeed spring up, without hindrance, as a well of water, unto everlasting life. Even now, all its own tendencies are upward; it is only nourished by that which comes from heaven. Its meat and drink are heavenly; its worship, its priest, its temple, are in heaven; while the old life is occupied beneath with its worldly sanctuary and successional priesthood. Nothing so much hinders the tendencies of this life as the Jewish ritual, and Christian copies of it. "I live by the faith of the Son of God." "When Christ our life shall be manifested, then shall we be manifested with Him in glory;" but meanwhile, before we see Him as He is, we live by the faith of the Son of God. In His own emphatic words — "We eat Him, and live because of Him." And, as he that eats, eats for the nourishment of himself, and not another; so the believer appropriates Christ to himself. "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." How blessedly does the apostle bring us to this great cardinal point; and if He has loved me, and given Himself for me, it is not assuredly for me to add the law to His perfect work, and thus to dim my perception of His perfect love. What strength is in the expression, "I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come by law, then Christ has died in vain." And yet, if we look round and see what the Christian religion actually is, it falls under the heavy censure of frustrating the grace of God, and of making Christ to have died in vain.

Therefore the apostle says, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (ver. 20). Here we get Christian life in a nutshell. Crucified with Christ, the old life closed with all its appurtenances; a new life possessed — Christ. The life is sustained by faith in its heavenly object, the Son of God. How blessed is this for the Christian! A positive new life implanted in the soul from God, indestructible, eternal, and divine; and its true object set before it. This is put too in the most touching possible way, for the apostle adds, "Who loved me, and gave himself for me." This draws out the affections, and produces heavenly fruit for God. Who would not be for ever adoringly occupied with such an One? What a contrast to mere cold legalism! Yet the heart is ever ready to return there, to its own loss and the Lord's dishonour.

(V. 20.) For the one that believes in Jesus, this sentence of death has been carried out in the death of Christ our Substitute. His death was the death of our old man — the man under judgment. So the believer can say, "I am crucified with Christ." Thus having passed through death, in the death of our Substitute we are free from the law. The law can condemn a man to death because of the life that he has led; but directly the man is dead, he no longer lives in the life to which the law applied. The law can have nothing to say to a dead man. Moreover, if as believers we have died to the old life to which the law applies, we have a new life in Christ. So the Apostle can say, "Nevertheless I live: yet not I but Christ lives in me." If I would see this new life in all its perfection, I must look at Christ. As one has said, "When I … turn my eyes to Jesus, when I contemplate all His obedience, His purity, His grace, His tenderness, His patience, His devotedness, His holiness, His love, His entire freedom from all self-seeking, I can say, That is my life … It may be obscured in me; but it is none the less true, that that is my life" (J.N.D.). Thus it is our privilege to hold ourselves dead to the law that we may live this new life to God.

A further great truth is that this new life, like all life in the creature, has, and must have, an object to sustain the life. If the Lord Jesus is our life, He is also personally the object of the life. So the Apostle adds "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me." Faith sees Christ, looks to Him, confides in Him, feeds upon Him, abides in His love, in the blessed consciousness that He is for us in all the depths of love that led Him to give Himself for us.

Now remark that when he went into the river Jordan he was a leper; but when he came out of Jordan he was not a leper. After dipping seven times in Jordan his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Though he retained his individuality, his state was changed. The old man, the leper, was left behind in Jordan. He was typically a new man. It was in figure a new creation. So it is with the believer through faith in Christ. My personality remains, but my state is changed; so that my personality, instead of being identified with sin and with the first Adam, is now identified with Christ. For faith the old man, the sinful man, is condemned and left behind in the cross, and I am a new man in Christ. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal. 2:20.)