Through out the year I have avoided the most popular verses looking to the obscure to find and mine out those precious jewels in God's Word. However, with today's reading I just can't help myself...I must look at Galatians 2:20, but let's back up one verse and start a 2:19. Paul writes, "For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Why back up one verse, because that one verse is the whole point...our entire life is to be lived to God! Galatians 2:20 tells us how it is that we who are dead in our sins "might live to God." We are free to live to God because we have been crucified with Christ...I believe that Paul teaches us something similar in Romans 6:4...what do you think? "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. A few verses later Paul tells us to consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, he teaches us to offer ourselves to God as weapons of righteousness! I know it has been a little while, but do you remember what Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 12:13? "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
Do you see it? I have been crucified with Christ, therefore I die and I am buried with Him through baptism unto death...walking in newness of life made to drink of the Spirit. Therefore, it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me. I never could live the Christian life and I never will be able to live the Christian life, BUT if idie then HE lives in me! The way that iknow that HE lives in me is a life of faith and faithfulness! Why do you say faithfulness? Don't you know Mark, that the righteous shall live by faith! Grab a good bible dictionary and checkout Habakkuk 2:4, any good study bible should point this out...if you check this verse out in the Hebrew it is "the righteous shall live by faithfulness."
Here is the definition from the Theological Word Book of the Old Testament.
116.0 !m;a' (°¹man) to confirm, support, uphold (Qal); to be established, be faithful (Niphal); to be certain, i.e. to believe inHiphil). (ASV, RSV usually the same. One notable exception is Gen 15:6 where RSV has "believed," while ASV has "believed in." )
(116a) !m,ao (°œmen) faithfulness.
What is the difference Mark? Why make a big deal about this? Meet me on the other side of the following verses:)
Habakkuk 2:4 "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."
Galatians 2:19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.
Galatians 3:11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith."
Galatians 3:12 But the law is not of faith, rather "The one who does them shall live by them."
Galatians 5:5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
1 Thessalonians 5:8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
1 Timothy 2:15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing- if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
Hebrews 10:38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him."
Hebrews 11:9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
What did James teach us about faith? In James 2:17 he wrote, "Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself." It is hard to forget what he wrote in James 2:26 "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."
What is your point Mark? The point is that if you have an encounter with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, if you meet the Lamb of God that was slain before the foundation of the world...if you meet Jesus and you die and He begins to live in you...YOUR LIFE WILL NOT LOOK THE SAME AS IT DID BEFORE! If Christ is in you, the hope of glory YOU WILL LIVE BY FAITHFULNESS...not perfectly, but faithfully!