Studying and expounding this passage is one thing. Living it is another. Early in my Christian life I committed verse 20 to memory so that I could not just remember it, but also meditate on it. It was in this meditation that the heart of the Christian life became more clear. Some passages in Scripture lend themselves to our consideration more poignantly than others–and this is one of them.

To live, yet not live; to consider oneself to have died with someone else living life through him has the ingredients of psychological imbalance in a world that teaches us to “find ourselves,” “love yourself,” “look out for number one.” This is no new concept, for Jesus said, “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it” (Matt 10:39). In our passage, germane to the core of Christian living is a dying and a living, but a kind that is radically Other-centered, with the “Other” being God. This is described by Paul as believing ultimately that, “Christ lives in me.” My life at that point become indistinguishable from Christ’s life. It is as though He were living in me, animating my every move.

So when confronted with a particular life difficulty, I remind myself of this verse: I am dead with Christ, it is not I that is living in this body anymore; Christ lives in me; I live by faith in Christ; He loved me first. Simple words to say, and to be sure ascetic or mystical sounding. But the Christian who forgets those things that lie behind and reaches forward to the mark of the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:13-14) reorients his thinking and imagination to where he acts on the truth and reality of our passage. It is not spiritual mumbo jumbo, but the very words of revolutionary life-change.

In Romans 7, Paul records his struggle with sin and the weak human will, the duplicity of life forces within his body. The solution for finding freedom from the guilt problem is found in Romans 8:1 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The solution to living in freedom from sin is found in this verse, Galatians 2:20. This is the grace of God. Not that we live a good life that merits anything, but that Christ lives His life in us. We are His hands, His feet, His eyes, and His mouth. He lives His life through us. All for His glory!