Galatians 2:20—What Does It Mean to Live upon Christ?

Galatians 2:20—What does it mean to live upon Christ?

by Jay Wegter

In his landmark commentary on the book of Galatians Luther explains that God intends that the believer live by ‘passive righteousness’ (Christ’s righteousness imputed to us); and not by active righteousness (the righteousness necessary to our daily obedience). The righteousness which justifies (Christ’s ‘alien’ righteousness) is not the same righteousness as our righteous living—necessary to our progress in sanctification. Active righteousness (the believer’s obedience) is what God requires of His people (Rom 6:13, 19), BUT, the righteousness we live by is Christ’s righteousness. “Christ’s sacrificial death provides eternal payment for believers’ sins (Heb 7:25), and does not need to be supplemented by any human works” (MacArthur Study Bible, p. 1792).

How we need to hear this frequently. For our hearts carry a latent form of the Galatian error in which we imagine that there are things we can do to earn God’s acceptance. Paul corrects this error by thundering out the believer’s relationship to law and the gospel. “The law is not of faith” (Gal 3:12). Why is the law ‘not of faith’? Here is why: the law calls out to our flesh suggesting that God’s favor is linked to our efforts to do our best (Gal 3:12). The law does NOT present to the eye of faith a perfect, all-sufficient, unrepeatable atonement by which we have right-standing with God—the gospel DOES.

In Galatians 2:20, the Apostle Paul lays out a quintessential summary of new covenant living. For in this single verse of seven clauses, the Apostle tells us what it means to live upon Another; upon Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ”—Christ’s work on my behalf was the source of my death to sin and self. My old Adamic life has been judged in the dying of Christ. I am set free from the tyranny of the self-life, and from the religious, self-occupied legalistic pride of the self-life. I am set free to obey out of overflowing gratitude; for Christ has established my status before God: in Christ I am right with God’s righteousness. I don’t have to live as a castaway ‘marooned’ on a desert island of performance.

“And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”—Christ is defined as my life. By means of my union with Him through His Spirit living in me, Christ is expressing His personality through me. He is accomplishing His mission through me. When I read the Word, meditate upon it, pray, preach, witness, worship, or love the brethren; it is Christ living through me. If it is Christ living through me; thus there is no crediting self with religious deeds or good works. Self is out of the picture!

“And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God”—I am now living a life of faith in the Son of God. He is my divine enablement for Christian living. By trusting in Him, I find the strength necessary to love, serve, obey, and enjoy God. Christ ‘my life’ fills my consciousness— as my focus is upon Him, I realize afresh each day that I am alive in Him. I am ‘organically’ alive in Him every moment. This feeds my faith so that the natural outcome is reliance upon Him for everything.

“Who loved me and gave Himself up for me”—As I exercise faith in Christ who was willing to be betrayed to death by crucifixion for me, His love controls and animates me. His love received pushes ego to the periphery. I find that His willingness to deny Himself for the sake of me motivates me to deny myself for His sake. The all-sufficient propitiation He wrought for me is the apex of love (1 Jn 4:10).

The sheer beauty of Paul’s description of living upon Christ is as powerful as it is lovely. For in Galatians 2:20, the Apostle brings justification into the daily life and walk of the believer. How needful this is if we are going to live upon Christ’s righteousness and not our own active righteousness! Luther describes this reliance upon our Savior’s righteousness with a dramatic word picture. Says Luther, we must not allow the law to crawl back up and reign as king in the conscience. For when we allow it to do so, self is the focus (the ‘religious’ self). The gospel must stay enthroned upon the conscience; for when the gospel reigns there in the conscience, so does Christ.

Countless Christians see justification ONLY as how we get into the Christian life and not as the essential foundation and motive for all of our efforts in service, sanctification, and mortification of sin. Justification is the ‘staging area’—for all of our working, walking, warring, and witnessing. Justification brought into the present gives us ‘grace motives’ for all we do. Without justification central (Christ’s imputed righteousness), our flesh teams up with the law in a coup against the glory and honor of Christ.

Let’s examine for a moment what this fleshly opposite or carnal ‘mirror image’ of Galatians 2:20 looks like. If we do not reckon our co-crucifixion with Christ, the self (the old “I”) will imagine that a massive renovation or overhaul of self will do the trick—as opposed to what God has done in Christ: judicially condemned the Adamic man to be slain with Christ. So, when we fail to reckon co-crucifixion, we will continue to be stunned at the impotence of self. These bouts of self-disillusionment are not negative if they point us to Christ! All of our resolutions to do better (apart from ongoing faith in the gospel) will only lead to dejection and failure).

Next, if we do not define ourselves by union with Christ (“I am alive in Christ—I have His imputed righteousness”) we will define ourselves by our sin and by our efforts at active righteousness. This trajectory always is filled with preoccupation with self and its performances or lack thereof. With the law ruling the conscience instead of justification in the gospel, efforts at service, obedience, and mortification of sin will be contaminated with a legal motivation (the enhancement of self and my acceptance with God).

As a consequence, rather than Christ’s honor being the motive for every Christian endeavor, the advancement, promotion, and glory of self will be our covert incentive. When things go well; self will get the ‘honor’—when things go poorly, self becomes the whipping boy in a painful string of recriminations. This legal/performance orientation produces self-reliance rather than Christ-reliance. If we are not animated by His love, we will be animated by our goals as they rotate in orbit around self. Our ‘mission’ will drift off of the center of Christ expressing His purpose and personality through me.

Depressing isn’t it! A little news of these consequences goes a long way. Let’s focus instead upon God’s glory in our salvation. That Christ is our covenant; our status; our right-standing with God. All that God is toward us in Christ is our ‘meat and drink’—the fountain of life; the constant nourishment of soul we need. Only the Person and work of Christ can bring our conscience to a full stop—to a place rest, refreshment and peace. No other means of conscience ‘book keeping’ will avail. What are you preaching to your conscience today? Is the inner conversation a perfect atonement, OR, is the dialog about your performance?

Galatians 2:20 bids us to live upon Christ instead of upon an ‘arm of flesh’ (Jer 17:5-6). The legal pronouncement of justification is what has reconciled us to God and made us His friends forever (2 Cor 5:18-21). The Apostle Paul shows us that by union with Christ, we are alive in the Son of God—and all that He is, what He has done, and what He is doing belong to us. Through ongoing faith in the gospel, we can learn to live upon Christ and be controlled and transformed by His redeeming love for us.