The Reality Escapes Me

"I am crucified with Christ,
therefore I no longer live:
Jesus Christ now lives in me."
(Galatians 2:20)

The strangeness of that thought: to be crucified with Christ, yet still living...

We, as Biblically taught Christians, understand that this death is the death of our sin natures on the cross of Jesus ("And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" Gal. 5:24) but how strange this truth is! None of us has the concept, not really, of what it would be like to be crucified...I mean, personally I've stepped on a few rusty nails, which caused me to then be stuck with a long, pointy needle, but that's the closest I've been to having nails driven through my hands and feet! And whipped? How many of us have actually been whipped intensely with such a whip as Jesus was scourged with? Not that many people...and carrying your own instrument of death? Those on Death Row in America certainly don't experience that...And yet, none of these things were what made His crucifixion so truly horrific.

"My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) Jesus cried out to God, His Father, Himself! NONE of us know what it is like to have such an intimate, deep, passionate relationship with God as Jesus has with Him. And NONE of us can even fathom the agony Jesus went through when separated from God when He took on the sins of the world (John 1:29, Isaiah 53). It is my belief, through various studies on Mark 14 (Jesus' agony in Gethsemane), etc., that separation from God is what made the crucifixion so horrific. Yes, Jesus' humanity was complete in every way on earth: terrible pain, terrible hunger, terrible loss, terrible sorrow. Jesus experienced these all, along with great joy, happiness, peace and other positive emotions and experiences of humanity. But His deity was not diminished in the slightest, despite how people have tried to twist Philippians 2:6 ("Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God"). Jesus IS God. And setting aside His immortality, His perfection, His sinlessness to BECOME sin for humanity was the greatest agony of all. To be separated from God is more devastating than any of us can or want to imagine. Many nights I have laid awake thanking God that I will never be separated from Him, for life eternal without God is truly hell.

Oh, that we might truly understand what it means when we say "I am crucified with Christ"! None of us truly does, at least experientially. I don't know that any of us truly will on this earth, for we still shall struggle against the flesh. But, as my friend pointed out, Christ has already DONE the crucifying of this flesh. So, in heaven someday, we shall finally have the full concept of this crucifixion of the flesh, for there, we will no longer struggle against the Old Man.

In the meantime, are you attempting to understand what this crucifixion of the flesh truly is? If not, why not? If you're not living a life behaving as one whose flesh has been crucified, then you're not living the glorious, joyous life that God has intended for you! Jesus wants us to have an abundant life, and that abundance only comes through HIS gift of New Life: revel in it!