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May 1, 2005

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Lectionary: 
Proper 19 [A]:2nd  of Advent [A]


Unless Jesus returns before.

  May 8, 2005 

Sunday School Project
This Week's
International Sunday School Lesson

 

Galatians 2:15-21

Galatians 3:1-5

 

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.

Galatians 2:20
 


 

Quotes & Notes on:    Galatians 2:20   
  • John Wesley's Notes:
        The Apostle goes on to describe how he is freed from sin; how far he is from continuing therein.

    I am crucified with Christ-Made conformable to his death; the body of sin is destroyed. Ro 6:6.

    And I-As to my corrupt nature.

    Live no longer-Being dead to sin.

    But Christ liveth in me-Is a fountain of life in my inmost soul, from which all my tempers, words, and actions flow.

    And the life that I now live in the flesh-Even in this mortal body,

    I live by faith in the Son of God-I derive every moment from that supernatural principle; from a divine evidence and conviction, that he loved me, and delivered up himself for me.
     

  • Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:
    * crucified. Ga 5:24; 6:14; Ro 6:4-6; 8:3,4; Col 2:11-14
    * nevertheless. Ro 6:8; 8:2; Eph 2:4,5; Col 2:13; 3:3,4
    * but. Joh 14:19; 17:21; 2Co 4:10; 13:3,5; Eph 3:17; Col 1:27 1Th 5:10; 1Pe 4:2; Re 3:20
    * the life. 2Co 4:11; 10:3; 1Pe 4:1,2
    * I now. Ga 2:16; 3:11; Joh 6:57; Ro 1:17; 5:2; 2Co 1:24; 5:7,15; Php 4:13; 1Th 5:10 1Pe 1:8; 4:2
    * the Son. Joh 1:49; 3:16; 6:69; 9:35-38; Ac 8:37; 9:20; 1Th 1:10; 1Jo 1:7 1Jo 4:9,10; 5:10-13,20
    * who. Ga 1:4; Mt 20:28; Joh 10:11; 15:13; Ro 8:37; Eph 5:2,25; Tit 2:14 Re 1:5
     
  • Adam Clarke's Commentary:
      I am crucified with Christ] The death of Christ on the cross has showed me that there is no hope of salvation by the law; I am therefore as truly dead to all expectation of justification by the law, as Christ was dead when he gave up the ghost upon the cross. Through him alone I live-enjoy a present life, and have a prospect of future glory.

    Yet not I] It is not of my natural life I speak, nor of any spiritual things which I myself have procured; but Christ liveth in me. God made man to be a habitation of his own Spirit: the law cannot live in me so as to give me a Divine life; it does not animate, but kill; but Christ lives in me; he is the soul of my soul; so that I now live to God. But this life I have by the faith of the Son of God-by believing on Christ as a sacrifice for sin; for he loved me, and because he did so he gave himself for me-made himself a sacrifice unto death, that I might be saved from the bitter pains of death eternal.
     
  • Family Bible Notes:
       Crucified with Christ; through his death Paul had become dead to all expectation of salvation in any way except through faith in Christ; yet he was more active than ever, and from better motives. I live; a heavenly and divine life. Not I; not by my own power or goodness. Christ liveth in me; by his Spirit; and he is the cause of every thing right and good in me. The author and sustainer of divine life in the soul is Christ; and the means of rendering it vigorous is faith in him--forming between the soul and him a union, by virtue of which it receives of his fulness, grows in conformity to his image, and shows forth his glory.
     
  • 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
    The same that I was before.  In this mortal body.
     
  • People's New Testament Commentary:
     I have been crucified with Christ. By faith Paul was crucified at his conversion, crucified in the flesh, died to the old life with Christ. Now he lives, or rather,

    Christ liveth in him. The old life is laid aside, and the new life is a Christlike life, due to the spirit of Christ. He is now merged in Christ.

    Live by faith. Faith is the bond that binds him to Christ and enables him to live the new life.
     
  • Robertson's Word Pictures:
     I have been crucified with Christ (Christôi sunestaurômai). One of Paul's greatest mystical sayings. Perfect passive indicative of sustauroô with the associative instrumental case (Christôi). Paul uses the same word in Ro 6:6 for the same idea. In the Gospels it occurs of literal crucifixion about the robbers and Christ (Mt 27:44; Mr 15:32; Joh 19:32). Paul died to the law and was crucified with Christ. He uses often the idea of dying with Christ (Ga 5:24; 6:14; Ro 6:8; Col 2:20) and burial with Christ also (Ro 6:4; Col 2:12). No longer I (ouketi egô). So complete has become Paul's identification with Christ that his separate personality is merged into that of Christ. This language helps one to understand the victorious cry in Ro 7:25. It is the union of the vine and the branch (Joh 15:1-6). Which is in the Son of God (têi tou huiou tou theou). The objective genitive, not the faith of the Son of God. For me (huper emou). Paul has the closest personal feeling toward Christ. "He appropriates to himself, as Chrysostom observes, the love which belongs equally to the whole world. For Christ is indeed the personal friend of each man individually" (Lightfoot).
     
  • Albert Barnes' Commentary:
      I am crucified with Christ. In the previous verse, Paul had said that he was dead. In this verse he states what he meant by it, and shows that he did not wish to be understood as saying that he was inactive, or that he was literally insensible to the appeals made to him by other beings and objects. In respect to one thing he was dead; to all that was truly great and noble he was alive. To understand the remarkable phrase, "I am crucified with Christ," we may remark,

    (1.) that this was the way in which Christ was put to death. He suffered on a cross, and thus became literally dead.

    (2.) In a sense similar to this, Paul became dead to the law, to the world, and to sin. The Redeemer, by the death of the cross, became insensible to all surrounding objects, as the dead always are. He ceased to see and hear, and was as though they were not. Hie was laid in the cold grave, and they did not affect or influence him. So Paul says that he became insensible to the law as a means of justification; to the world; to ambition and the love of money; to the pride and pomp of life; and to the dominion of evil and hateful passions. They lost their power over him; they ceased to influence him.

    (3.) This was with Christ, or by Christ. It cannot mean literally that he was put to death with him, for that is not true; but it means that the effect of the death of Christ on the cross was to make him dead to these things, in like manner as he, when he died, became insensible to the things of this busy world. This may include the following things:

    (a) There was an intimate union between Christ and his people; so that what affected him, affected them. See Joh 15:5,6.

    (b) The death of the Redeemer on the cross involved as a consequence the death of his people to the world and to sin. See Ga 5:24; 6:14. It was like a blow at the root of a vine or a tree, which would affect every branch and tendril; or like a blow at the head, which affects every member of the body.

    (c) Paul felt identified with the Lord Jesus; and he was willing to share in all the ignominy and contempt which was connected with the idea of the crucifixion. He was willing to regard himself as one with the Redeemer. If there was disgrace attached to the manner in which he died, he was willing to share it with him. He regarded it as a matter to be greatly desired to be made just like Christ in all things, and even in the manner of his death. This idea he has more fully expressed in Php 3:10, "That I may know him, [that is, I desire earnestly to know him,] and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." See also Col 1:24; 1Pe 4:13.

    Nevertheless I live. This expression is added, as in Ga 2:19, to prevent the possibility of mistake. Paul, though he was crucified with Christ, did not wish to be understood that he felt himself to be dead. He was not inactive; not insensible, as the dead are, to the appeals which are made from God, or to the great objects which ought to interest an immortal mind. He was still actively employed, and the more so from the fact that he was crucified with Christ. The object of all such expressions as this is to show that it was no design of the gospel to make men inactive, or to annihilate their energies. It was not to cause men to do nothing. It was not to paralyze their powers, or stifle their own efforts. Paul therefore says, "I am not dead. I am truly alive; and I live a better life than I did before." Paul was as active after conversion as he was before. Before, he was engaged in persecution; now, he devoted his great talents with as much energy, and with as untiring zeal, to the cause of the great Redeemer. Indeed, the whole narrative would lead us to suppose that he was more active and zealous after his conversion than he was before. The effect of religion is not to make one dead in regard to the putting forth of the energies of the soul. True religion never made one lazy man; it has converted many a man of indolence, and effeminacy, and self-indulgence, to a man actively engaged in doing good. If a professor of religion is less active in the service of God than he was in the service of the world--less laborious, and zealous, and ardent than he was before his supposed conversion--he ought to set it down as full proof that he is an utter stranger to true religion.

    Yet not I. This also is designed to prevent misapprehension. In the previous clause he had said that he lived, or was actively engaged. But lest this should be misunderstood, and it should be inferred that he meant to say it was by his own energy or powers, he guards it, and says it was not at all from himself. It was by no native tendency; no power of his own; nothing that could be traced to himself, he assumed no credit for any zeal which he had shown in the true life. He was disposed to trace it all to another. He had ample proof in his past experience that there was no tendency in himself to a life of true religion, and he therefore traced it all to another.

    Christ liveth in me. Christ was the source of all the life that he had. Of course this cannot be taken literally that Christ had a residence in the apostle; but it must mean that his grace resided in him; that his principles actuated him; and that he derived all his energy, and zeal, and life from his grace. The union between the Lord Jesus and the disciple was so close that it might be said the one lived in the other. So the juices of the vine are in each branch, and leaf, and tendril, and live in them and animate them; the vital energy of the brain is in each delicate nerve--no matter how small--that is found in any part of the human frame. Christ was in him, as it were, the vital principle. All his life and energy were derived from him.

    And the life which I now live in the flesh. As I now live on the earth, surrounded by the cares and anxieties of this life. I carry the life-giving principles of my religion to all my duties and all my trials.

    I live by the faith of the Son of God. By confidence in the Son of God, looking to him for strength, and trusting in his promises and in his grace.

    Who loved me, etc. He felt under the highest obligation to him, from the fact that he had loved him, and given himself to the death of the cross in his behalf. The conviction of obligation on this account Paul often expresses. See Barnes for Ro 6:8 and Ro 6:9-11 See Barnes for Ro 8:35, and Ro 8:36-39; See Barnes for 2Co 5:15. There is no higher sense of obligation than that which is felt towards the Saviour; and Paul felt himself bound, as we should, to live entirely to him who had redeemed him by his blood.

    {a} "crucified with Christ" Ga 5:24; 6:14
    {b} "liveth in me" 1Th 5:10; 1Pe 4:2
    {c} "gave himself" Joh 10:11; Eph 5:2
     

  • Jamieson-Faussett Brown:
     I am crucified--literally, "I have been crucified with Christ." This more particularizes the foregoing. "I am dead" (Ga 2:19; Php 3:10).

    nevertheless I live; yet not I--Greek, "nevertheless I live, no longer (indeed) I." Though crucified I live; (and this) no longer that old man such as I once was (compare Ro 7:17). No longer Saul the Jew (Ga 5:24; Col 3:11, but "another man"; compare 1Sa 10:6). ELLICOTT and others translate, "And it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." But the plain antithesis between "crucified" and "live," requires the translation, "nevertheless."

    the life which I now live--as contrasted with my life before conversion.

    in the flesh--My life seems to be a mere animal life "in the flesh," but this is not my true life; "it is but the mask of life under which lives another, namely, Christ, who is my true life" [LUTHER].

    I live by the faith, &c.--Greek, "IN faith (namely), that of (that is, which rests on) the Son of God." "In faith," answers by contrast to "in the flesh." Faith, not the flesh, is the real element in which I live. The phrase, "the Son of God," reminds us that His Divine Sonship is the source of His life-giving power.

    loved me--His eternal gratuitous love is the link that unites me to the Son of God, and His "giving Himself for me," is the strongest proof of that love.
     
  • Spurgeon Commentary:
    (No comment on this verse).
     
  • William Burkitt's Notes:
    Several things are here observable, St. Paul's spiritual death declared, and his spiritual life described, together with the author and instrument of it.

    Observe, 1. St. Paul's spiritual death, I am crucified with Christ; that is, with Christ I am dead to the law (in the manner mentioned in the foregoing verse) dead to sin, and dead to the world.

    Learn hence, that all true believers are crucified with Christ Jesus; or that all justified persons have fellowship with Christ in his death: They have fellowship with him,

    1. In the merit and value of his death; they are ransomed by it, as a price paid down to the justice of God for them.

    2. In the virtue and efficacy of his death; which doth not only merit pardon for us, but mortifies sin in us: Our old man is crucified; that is, the power of sin is subdued in us.

    3. A justified person hath fellowship with Christ, in the likeness and similitude of his death, and that is a crucifixion: As Christ died a painful, shameful, lingering, and accursed death for him, so doth sin die painfully, shamefully, and gradually in him: They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts, Ga 5:24.

    Observe, 2. St. Paul's spiritual life described, I live, yet not I, but Christ in me.

    Learn hence, that a crucified Christian is a living Christian; I am crucified, nevertheless I live; a life of justification and sanctification at present, in hope of, and as an earnest for, a life of glorification to come.

    Yet, observe, 3. How the apostle corrects, or rather explains himself, after what mind, and in what manner he lives; he denies himself to be the author and root of his own life; and declares Christ to be both. I live, yet not I, but Christ in me. Christ is both the author and efficient cause, the exemplary cause, the end or final cause of the Christian's life; a living Christian lives not himself, but Christ lives in him.

    Observe, 4. As the author of the Christian's spiritual life, Christ; so the instrument of it, and that is faith: The life which I live in the flesh, that is, the spiritual life which I live as a Christian here in the world, I live by faith in the Son of God; my life of justification, is by faith in his blood; my life of sanctification and consolation, is through faith, in and by influences derived from his holy Spirit.

    Observe, 5. How the apostle appropriates to himself in particular, what Christ had done for all believers in general; He loved me and gave himself for me.

    Where note, though a firm persuasion, and a full assurance of Christ's special love to ourselves, and his dying for us in particular, is not of the essence and being of justifying and saying faith, yet it is attainable without an extraordinary revelation; and, as such, every sincere Christian ought to aim at it, to labour and endeavour after it.
     
  • Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:
    Here, in his own person, the apostle describes the spiritual or hidden life of a believer. The old man is crucified, Ro 6:6, but the new man is living; sin is mortified, and grace is quickened. He has the comforts and the triumphs of grace; yet that grace is not from himself, but from another. Believers see themselves living in a state of dependence on Christ. Hence it is, that though he lives in the flesh, yet he does not live after the flesh. Those who have true faith, live by that faith; and faith fastens upon Christ's giving himself for us. He loved me, and gave himself for me. As if the apostle said, The Lord saw me fleeing from him more and more. Such wickedness, error, and ignorance were in my will and understanding, that it was not possible for me to be ransomed by any other means than by such a price. Consider well this price. Here notice the false faith of many. And their profession is accordingly; they have the form of godliness without the power of it. They think they believe the articles of faith aright, but they are deceived. For to believe in Christ crucified, is not only to believe that he was crucified, but also to believe that I am crucified with him. And this is to know Christ crucified. Hence we learn what is the nature of grace. God's grace cannot stand with man's merit. Grace is no grace unless it is freely given every way. The more simply the believer relies on Christ for every thing, the more devotedly does he walk before Him in all his ordinances and commandments. Christ lives and reigns in him, and he lives here on earth by faith in the Son of God, which works by love, causes obedience, and changes into his holy image. Thus he neither abuses the grace of God, nor makes it in vain.
     
  • Matthew Henry's  Commentary on the Whole Bible:
     (No comment on this verse).

     
  •  The Fourfold Gospel:
       (No comment on this verse).




     

 


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