by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
September, 1935
Crucified with Christ
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 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” (Gal. 2:20). That all mankind are in the same condition as the Apostle, in the days of his unregeneracy, was, is, a melancholy fact, of which every renewed soul is by sad consciousness too sensible. Born in the sinful likeness of fallen Adam, they are all partakers of the curse under which he brought himself and all his posterity by his transgression, namely, “thou shalt surely die.” But to every contrite soul awakened to its state of loss and ruin, the Gospel of the grace of God proclaims salvation from the curse, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
When this saving truth is brought home with power to the heart of a child of God, through the almighty working of the eternal Spirit, his understanding is enlightened to see himself in the position of the regenerated Apostle in the language of our text, in which is to be observed he speaks of the change of which he had been the subject. He had been “dead in trespasses and sins,” but now he was dead to sin and alive unto God. Observe also with what energy he speaks of two persons—Christ and me—and with what determination he clings to Christ, and claims the merits of His death, the privileges of His life.
The first branch of the text is “I am crucified with Christ.” He claims to have fully paid the penalty of sin when Christ died, from which we gather: 1. That Christ, on the cross, was not a private, but a public Person, representing all His people; so that when He died and suffered, we died and suffered in Him. As the first Adam did not sin only for himself, but for all his natural seed that should come of him, by ordinary generation, so the last Adam did not die for Himself at all, but for all His seed. 2. There is a real, spiritual, and indissoluble union between Christ and all His people that believe in Him, insomuch that His being crucified is the same as if they had been crucified in their person.
The second branch of the text is, “Nevertheless, I live.” It is not an annihilation of my being, but a renovation and reformation of my former being. Though I be crucified and dead, yet I live a new life. I am not what I was, nor whose I was, nor where I was. I am not what I was: I am not Saul the persecutor, but Paul the believer, the preacher. I am not whose I was: I was Satan's, but now I am Christ's. I am not where I was: I am living in another world, breathing another air—I live.
The third branch is, “Yet not I.” “Not I.” Who then? Why, what solemn contradictions are here! “I am crucified and dead.” Then there is an end, for death is the end of all. Nay, but hear him again: “Nevertheless I live.” Why, this is a short death that is so soon restored to life! Or is he at one and the same time both dead and alive? Yes, Paul is dead, and Paul lives. “I live.” It is not “I was crucified and dead,” but, “I am crucified with Christ.” “I am dead, and yet I am living,” and “yet not I.” Here is another contradiction or paradox—”Not of myself but by the life of Another.” No soul can animate this body but my own; yet neither soul nor body can live but by God. Thus does he annihilate himself, that he may magnify his Master, and that Christ may be all in all.
The fourth branch of the text is, “Christ liveth in me.” Christ is the Root and Fountain of all spiritual life, having it so superabundant in Himself that He can convey it to all His members. Christ is said to live in the believer by virtue of the spiritual union, whereby He and they are one spirit. The soul doth not more properly live in the body than He doth quicken the soul, and will quicken the body. Christ is the Sun of Righteousness to the soul. His absence leaves us dead; His presence revives us; and happy he that can say, “Christ liveth in me.”
The fifth branch is, “The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” “I live, and live in the flesh.” By “flesh” he means not the corruption of nature, for to that he was dead when “crucified with Christ,” but the mortal body. It is one thing to live in the flesh, another to live to the flesh or after the flesh. Paul did not lead such a life as he did before, for that was to the flesh. His life now is but in the flesh. In the former state he was dead while he lived, “but now I am alive,” says he. What a mercy were it if all who read this could say, they live before they go hence, and cease living.
But what sort of a life is it? “I live,” says he, “by the faith of the Son of God.” Here is life—”I live.” He was very sure of it, for he had said it before—”I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”; and here again, “I live.” Well, here is the means of this life: “I live by faith”—”by the faith of the Son of God.” We live primarily and properly by Christ, as the body by the soul; but mediately and instrumentally by faith, as by the spirits which are the bonds of soul and body. “He that hath the Son hath life”; he that hath faith hath the Son.
Here further is the designation given to this faith. It is called “faith of the Son of God,” because, first, He is the Revealer of it. Neither nature nor law could open the door of faith. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (v. 18). Secondly, He is the Approver and Favourer of faith. There is nothing more acceptable to Him. When He finds it strong in man or woman, He is ready to say, “O man, O woman, great is thy faith. Be it to thee even as thou wilt!” Thirdly, He is the Author of faith. He is both the Seeker and the Giver of it. Faith is the gift of God; and He that calls us to believe, He only works it in us. Fourthly, he is the Increaser of it, therefore the disciples pray, “Lord, increase our faith”—He that gives it, gives the increase of it. Fifthly, He is the “Finisher of our faith”—both the Author and Finisher (Heb. 12:2). He that begins this good work, He perfects the work of faith with power. Sixthly, He is the Object of faith. Faith desires to know nothing but “Christ and Him crucified.” On these accounts it may be called, “the faith of the Son of God,” where again you have the Object of faith described from His glorious Person. He is the Son of God, a Person of quality, and of such quality as to be equal with God the Father, “higher than the highest, without beginning and without end, the Faithful Witness, the Prince of the kings of the earth, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, which was, and which is, and which is to come, the Almighty, He who hath on His vesture and on His thigh this name written, KING of kings and LORD of lords.”
And then the Object of faith is described from His works—”He loved me and gave Himself for me,” which is the sixth branch of the text. The Apostle had, in the preceding words, challenged Christ for his own: “I am crucified with Christ, and I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” He engrosses Him to himself, as if He were his own, and no man's else. “And the life I live I live is by the faith of the Son of God, who is likewise mine, for He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” It is the noble art of faith to challenge Christ for his own, and that with an “I” and “me,” as if none else were concerned but itself; and hence this whole verse is made up of so many “I's” and “me's.” Oh glorious Lover! the Son of God! Oh gracious act! “He loved” and Oh strange object whom He loved—me—unlovely me! But how did He manifest His love? Even by His gift—He gave. What did He give? Himself. For whom? For me, unworthy me! Every word hath weight, and every act of faith hath a “me” in the bosom of it—Christ liveth in me; He loved me; and gave Himself for me.—An ancient Author, unknown.
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