St Paul Holding Gospel Iconographic | I am crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) | Orthodox Christian Hardcover Journal

Theme: Do Not Be the Ruin of Your New Life in Christ

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.

- St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians 2:20

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How, it is asked, can a man now living and breathing have been crucified? That Christ has been crucified is manifest, but how can you have been crucified, and yet live? He explains it thus:

In these words, I' am crucified with Christ,' he alludes to Baptism and in the words 'nevertheless I live, yet not I,' our subsequent manner of life whereby our members are mortified. By saying Christ lives in me, he means nothing is done by me, which Christ disapproves; for as by death he signifies not what is commonly understood, but a death to sin; so by life, he signifies a delivery from sin. For a man cannot live to God, otherwise than by dying to sin; and as Christ suffered bodily death, so does Paul a death to sin. 'Mortify,' says he, 'your members which are upon the earth'; fornication, uncleanness, passion; [Colossians 3:5], and again, our old man was crucified [Romans 6:6] which took place in the Bath [of Baptism]. After which, if you remain dead to sin, you live to God, but if you let it live again, you are the ruin of your new life.

+ St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians