9/5/26 I AM Inside

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Paul starts with a statement that is uninviting but we should all apply to our lives. As we start our 10^th portion of the series here, many of you have changed the video because no one is in the line to be crucified willingly. Paul at this stage had been flogged more than once, for those not familiar with flogging it is being tied to a stake and whipped with a cat of 9 tails 39 times. The tails have a mix of sharp objects tied in to shred skin from the body upon recoil. But this is not being nailed to a cross, by the wrists and the feet & made to bleed out of those wounds, plus the weight of supporting your own weight by those nails to even breathe. So no one is in a hurry to get in that line.

The thing about crucifixion is historically it was used by the Romans & is the most brutal form of death they had come up with. This is capital punishment which also entailed making example of the criminal in the public square to discourage people from engaging in these activities that would lead to being crucified. It’s a system that seems to now be foreign here in America and is one of the reasons why crime is so rampant because nobody fears punishment anymore. When a person is executed through the means of crucifixion, they are subjected in their final hours to not only being on public display and struggling to cling to life literally but they are put to shame as well. Crucifixion is also an act of humiliation before everybody in that respective area to see you and all of your glory as in naked. Am I saying that Jesus the Messiah was naked upon the cross? I mean there’s no artistic representation that represents that preacher how can you possibly say that? Because sometimes dignity gets in the way with truth. It is absolutely what happened to Jesus that’s how he bore our shame.

Crucifixion is the Greek word for cross, means primarily an upright stake or a beam of wood. It is also a word that appears as a noun and a verb in the New Testament, as it was not represented in the Old Testament. The means of punishment and execution in the Old Testament was primarily stoning and the practice of hanging dead bodies on trees were served as a warning two enemy armies and kingdoms, however Jewish law dictated that they needed to be buried before night came (Deuteronomy 21: 23). Crucifixion initially was practiced by the Phoenicians and then extensively by the Romans it was used for the lowest type of criminals never anybody of status um typically slaves were the ones upon the crosses. Comparatively Paul was beheaded rather than crucified.

Paul declares he has been crucified Which means that historically there’s something to this as an illustration. For the literalist out there who miss a great deal of biblical meaning because they take everything literal this should be another indication that you need to change your line of thinking. The claim is bold, declaring he is crucified with Christ. The complication to this is Jesus took up the entirety of the cross there’s only room for one.

Unless of course he means figuratively, symbolically, Jesus brought Paul upon the cross. And well quite honestly all of us If that’s the case then this verse applies to the all of us rather than just specifically Paul himself. This means something pretty extraordinary as we dig deep.

The instrument of death utilized by the Romans to murder, execute our Lord and savior it’s also the location where we are invited to come and die with him. This is a physical death, a task no one takes lightly. Only people like me joke about death because I’ve been dead. Not to mention the sheer brutality of this method of death. You are invited to come to the cross. You are invited to come and die. Seems like a great message doesn’t it? Ohh but it is. Because look what Paul says additionally. I no longer live. This is not a message about assisted suicide which by the way is Biblically forbidden. Paul declares something else here that is where we put the rest of our focus on. It is Christ that lives in him.

Wait a minute, Jesus Christ, the son of God, the author and perfector of our faith, the one who was who is and is to come. Who spoke the world into existence and breathe the breath of life into Adam’s lungs in the garden of Eden, and yet was raised upon a cross and bled and bled and bled and then suffocated under the weight of his own body and died who was resurrected and walked out of a grave walked out of a tomb on the third day is the source of life for Paul. Beloved I’m not sure if you fully grasp this but that means that there are a whole lot of people in this world that are The Walking Dead because they do not have the life of Christ in them.

They may be living but they are not alive. You see the source of your life is produced by the spirit and the spirit is the innermost being that was made of you before you had a body that’s biblical fact. And when your spirit is invigorated by the breadth of the source of life that only means that you have died to the ways of the world. Everything in the world everything of the world is beneath your form of living. You are now alive because you no longer submit to the things of the world. You no longer submit to the ways of the world and you no longer view the things of the world as your source Oh no they are your resource because you have recognized he is the one who owns it all and provides all of your needs.

If he is the one you are consulting and seeking every morning to assign your steps to make deliberate your direction and your destination then he will supply your needs. Walk in his ways seek his paths and be alive amongst the people who are merely living.