(20) In the last verse the Apostle had spoken of himself as "dead to the Law, and living unto God." The prominent idea in the first half of this clause had been the release from that burdensome ceremonial which the Judaising party wished to bind upon Christian consciences. By a natural transition, the Apostle's thought had passed from what the Law could not do to what Christianity could do.
The Law could not make men righteous before God. In Christ they were made righteous. How? Here, too, there was death. The Christian died with Christ to something else besides the Law. With his eye fixed upon the cross, he died a spiritual death and rose to a new spiritual life. The "old man" in him, the self-seeking and sinful element in his nature, is slain, and for it is substituted a life of such close and intimate communion with Christ that it seems as if Christ Himself were dwelling in the soul. Living upon the earth in a body of human flesh, as he is, he is animated by an intense faith in the Saviour who has given him such proofs of self-sacrificing love.
Here we come upon the same vein of mysticism that is developed in Romans 6. One main way of conceiving of the specially Christian life is through the idea of union with Christ. This idea, when ultimately pressed to precise logical definition, must necessarily contain a certain element of metaphor. Consciousness, rigorously examined, tells us that even in the most exalted souls there is no such thing as an actual union of the human and divine. At the same time, there is possible to man an influence from above so penetrating and so powerful that it would seem as if the figure of union could alone adequately express it. Nor ought this to be questioned or denied because the more common order of minds do not find themselves capable of it. (See the Notes on Romans 6, and Excursus G to that Epistle.)
I am crucified . . .--The idea is something more than that of merely "dying with Christ"--i.e., imitating the death of Christ after a spiritual manner: it involves, besides, a special reference to the cross. It is through the power of the cross, through contemplating the cross and all that is associated with it, that the Christian is enabled to mortify the promptings of sin within him, and reduce them to a state of passiveness like that of death.
Nevertheless I live.--This death unto sin, death upon one side of my nature, does not hinder me from having life upon another side. The fact is that I live in a truer sense than ever before.
Yet not I.--It is, however, no longer the old natural man in me that lives: it is not that part of the human personality which has its root in matter, and is "of the earth, earthy," but that part which is re-formed by the Spirit of Christ.
Now.--In my present condition as a Christian opposed to the old condition prior to the conversion.
In the flesh.--In this bodily human frame; man though I be. The Christian is outwardly the same as other men; it is his inner life which is "hid with Christ in God."
By the faith.--The article is better omitted: by faith. The Apostle does not quite go so far as to say that faith is the cause of his physical life, though we may see, by other passages, that he is at least prepared to look upon faith as the great pledge, and even cause, of the physical resurrection. Here he is speaking of faith rather as the element or atmosphere in which the Christian lives. He is, as it were, steeped in faith.
Of the Son of God--i.e., faith of which the Son of God is the object; faith in the Son of God.
There is a curious variation of reading here. Some ancient authorities (including the Codex Vaticanus) instead of "faith in the Son of God," have "faith in God and Christ." This might appear to have some internal probability, as the less obvious expression of the two; but it may be perhaps explained satisfactorily in another way. On the whole, it seems best to abide by the Received text, which is that of the majority of MSS.
Who loved me.--Christ died for the whole world, but each individual Christian has a right to appropriate His death to himself. The death of Christ was prompted by love, not for the abstraction humanity, but for men as individuals.
Verse 20. - This verse brings out into fuller detail the several points bound up in the succinct statement of ver. 19. I am crucified with Christ (Ξριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι); I have been crucified with Christ. I am on the cross, fastened thereto with Christ; the object, therefore, with him of the Law's abhorrence and anathema. If we ask, how and when he became thus blended with Christ in his crucifixion, we have the answer suggested by himself in Romans 6:3, 6, "Are ye ignorant, that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" - "that our old man was crucified with him?" It was by believing in Christ and being baptized into him; comp. Galatians 3:27, "All ye who were baptized into Christ did put on Christ " - words which have to be taken in connection with the reference to "faith in Christ" in ver. 26. The perfect tense of the verb συνεσταύρωμαι points to a continued state of being, following upon that decisive crisis of his life; the apostle images himself as still hanging on the cross with Christ, while also sharing in his resurrection-life; his "old man" is on the cross, while his spirit partakes in and is renewed by Christ's life in God (Romans 6:6, 8, 11). The pragmatism of the passage, however, that is, its relevancy to the subject discussed by him with St. Peter, consists in the twofold statement:
(1) that the Law as a ceremonial institute has now nothing to do with him nor he with it, except as mutually proclaiming their entire disseverment the one from the other; and
(2) that nevertheless, while thus wholly apart from the Law, he has life in God, as he further proceeds to declare. Nevertheless I live (ζῶ δέ). Notwithstanding all the Law's anathema, I am alive unto God (comp. Romans 6:11), the object of his love, and an heir of his eternal life. With this exalted blessedness of mine the Law cannot in the slightest degree meddle, by any determination which it will fain propound of cleanness or uncleanness. No ceremonial pollution of its constituting can touch this my life. My own life and my fellow-believer's life in God is infinitely removed from the possibility of receiving taint of pollution through eating (say) of blood, or suet, or pork, or through touching a leper or the remains of a deceased man. Nothing of this kind can mar or stain my righteousness or my fellow-believer's righteousness. Both he and I, sharing in the like "life" and righteousness, rejoice and exult together; let the Law denounce us for unclean as loudly and as bitterly as it will. Nay, if I were to allow myself to be disquieted by any such denouncement of pollution, I should, in fact, be allowing myself to harbour misgivings and unbelief touching the very essence of the grace of Jesus Christ. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (οὐκ ἔτιἐγώ ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Ξριστός); and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. It was essential to the apostle's argument that he should assert himself to be, in spite of the Law's anathema, "alive," in the full possession of life in God; but he hastens to qualify this assertion by explaining how entirely he owes this life of his to Christ; and, in his eagerness to do this, he compresses the assertion and the qualification in one clause so closely together as, in a way not at all unusual with him, well-nigh to wreck the grammatical construction. A method, indeed, has been proposed by critics of disposing this clause with respect to the preceding in such a manner as to make the sentence run quite smoothly; thus: Ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἀγώ ζῇδὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Ξριστός: that is, as given in the margin of the Revised English Version, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." But not only does this method of construing altogether efface the apostle's assertion of his being alive notwithstanding the Law's malediction - an assertion which agrees so thoroughly with the defiant tone of the argument, but the abruptness of the construction as presented in the ordinary reading of the passage is its very recommendation; for such uncouthness of style is wont to show itself in St. Paul's more eager, impassioned passages. "No longer I;" as in those old days when I prided myself on being an especial favourite of Heaven, eminently righteous through meritorious doings of my own, through my punctilious observance in particular of all that the Law prescribes for gaining and maintaining ceremonial sanctity (comp. Philippians 3:4, 6). "In those days it was I that was alive; it is not so now." The ἐγὼ ἔζων, "I was alive," of Romans 7:9, serves again as a perfect illustration of the phraseology of the present passage; only we have still to bear in mind that the apostle is at present contemplating the ceremonial aspect of his old life, rather than, as in the Romans, the moral; the two being no doubt, however, in his former Pharisee scheme of religion, essentially conjoined. The in-being of Christ is to be understood as blending in one the two notions, of Christ as the ground of our acceptableness before God and of our being alive unto God, and of Christ as the motive spring of true practical well-doing (Romans 8:10). The two things, though notionally distinct, cannot exist apart, but the former is the more prominent idea here. And the life which I now live in the flesh (ο{ δὲ νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί). "Life" still denotes his spiritual state of being, and not his moral activity, though by inference in-relying this latter; as if it were "the life which I now possess." The construction of ο{ ζῶ is paralleled by the ο{ ἀπέθανε, "the death that he died, he died," and the ο{ ζῇ, "the life that he liveth, he liveth," of Romans 6:10. "Now," as well as "no longer," stands in contrast with his old life in Judaism. But, on the other hand, "in the flesh," viewed in conjunction with (ἐνπίστει) "in faith," or "by faith," must be taken as in Philippians 1:22, that is, as contrasted with the future life; while we are in the flesh "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). I live by the faith of the Son of God (ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ); I live by faith, the faith which is in the Son of God. By faith, not by works of the Levitical Law. It was by faith in Christ that I first became partaker of this life; it is by faith in Christ that I continue to partake of it; letting go my faith in Christ, I partake of the life no longer. The especial relevancy of this statement of the apostle's, whether with respect to the matters agitated at Antioch, or with respect to any such revival of Levitical notions of acceptableness with God as was now perplexing the Churchmen of Galatia, is the warning which it implicitly conveys that, to revert to Levitical notions of uncleanness or of righteousness, was to sin against faith in Christ, and therewith against the very essence of a Christian's spiritual life. It was the strong sense which the apostle had of the absolutely fatal tendency of such relapses towards Judaism that inspired the deep pathos which here tinges his language. Hence the magnificent title by which he recites Christ's personality, "the Son of God;" possessing as such an absolutely commanding claim to his people's adherence, which they dare not decline. Hence, too, the words which follow. Who loved me, and gave himself for me (τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντόςμε καὶ παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ); who loved me, and gave himself up for me. Fain would the reader realize to his mind the fervid, thrilling tones and accent of voice in which the apostle, while uttering these words, would give vent to the sentiment which so powerfully swayed his whole life, and which he so vividly describes in writing to the Corinthians: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died [namely, to all but him]. and he died fur all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15). The same appropriation of Christ's love to his own individual self which the apostle here gives utterance to, "who loved me, and gave himself up for me," may every human creature also express in whom only is the faith which takes hold of his love. In fact, the apostle speaks thus for the very purpose of prompting every individual believer who hears him to feel and say the same. This, he indicates, should be their feeling just as much as his; a sentiment just as irresistibly regulative of their life. Why not? Do they not also owe to him all their hope on behalf of their souls? For the expression, "gave himself up," comp. Galatians 1:4 and note. The Greek verb παραδόντος is distinguished from the simple δόντος, "gave himself," by its bringing more distinctly into view the notion of Christ's giving himself over into the hands of those who sought his life.
2:20,21 Here, in his own person, the apostle describes the spiritual or hidden life of a believer. The old man is crucified, Ro 6:6, but the new man is living; sin is mortified, and grace is quickened. He has the comforts and the triumphs of grace; yet that grace is not from himself, but from another. Believers see themselves living in a state of dependence on Christ. Hence it is, that though he lives in the flesh, yet he does not live after the flesh. Those who have true faith, live by that faith; and faith fastens upon Christ's giving himself for us. He loved me, and gave himself for me. As if the apostle said, The Lord saw me fleeing from him more and more. Such wickedness, error, and ignorance were in my will and understanding, that it was not possible for me to be ransomed by any other means than by such a price. Consider well this price. Here notice the false faith of many. And their profession is accordingly; they have the form of godliness without the power of it. They think they believe the articles of faith aright, but they are deceived. For to believe in Christ crucified, is not only to believe that he was crucified, but also to believe that I am crucified with him. And this is to know Christ crucified. Hence we learn what is the nature of grace. God's grace cannot stand with man's merit. Grace is no grace unless it is freely given every way. The more simply the believer relies on Christ for every thing, the more devotedly does he walk before Him in all his ordinances and commandments. Christ lives and reigns in him, and he lives here on earth by faith in the Son of God, which works by love, causes obedience, and changes into his holy image. Thus he neither abuses the grace of God, nor makes it in vain.
I am crucified with Christ,.... Not literally, for so only the two thieves were crucified with him, but mystically; Christ was crucified for him in his room and stead, and so he was crucified with him, and in him, as his head and representative. Christ sustained the persons of all his people, and what he did and suffered was in their name, and on their account, and so they were crucified and suffered with him, as they are said to be buried with him, and to be risen with him, and to sit together in heavenly places in him. Moreover, their old man was crucified with him; when he was crucified, all their sins, the whole body of them, were laid upon him, and he bore them, and bore them away, destroyed and made an end of them; they received their mortal wound by his crucifixion and death, so as never to be able to have any damning power over them; and in consequence of this the affections and lusts are crucified, and the deeds of the body of sin mortified by the Spirit and grace of God, in regeneration and sanctification, so as not to have the dominion over them; the world is crucified to them, and they to the world; and this is another reason proving that justification by Christ is no licentious doctrine. This clause is, in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, put at the end of the preceding verse.
Nevertheless I live; which is to be understood, not of his natural, but of his spiritual life; the life of justification he lived, by faith, on the righteousness of Christ; and the life of sanctification which he had from Christ, by the quickening influences of his Spirit, by virtue of which he walked in newness of life. The believer is a mere paradox, he is dead to the law, and "yet lives" to God; he is crucified with Christ, and yet lives by him; yea, a crucified Christ lives in him.
Yet not I; not the same I as before, but quite another man, a new creature: he did not now live as in his state of unregeneracy, and whilst in Judaism; he was not now Saul the blasphemer, the persecutor, and injurious person; nor did he now live Saul the Pharisee: or the life he had was not of his own obtaining and procuring; his life of righteousness was not of himself, but Christ; his being quickened, or having principles of life and holiness implanted in him, was not by himself, but by the Spirit; and the holy life and conversation he lived was not owing to himself, to his power and strength, but to the grace of God; or it was not properly himself, or so much he that lived,
but Christ liveth in me: who was not only the author and maintainer of his spiritual life, but the life itself; he was formed in his soul, dwelt in his heart, was united to him, was one with him, whence all vital principles and vital actions sprung, and all the communion and comforts of a spiritual life flowed.
And the life which I now live in the flesh; in the body, whilst in this mortal state, whereby he distinguishes that spiritual life he had from Christ, and through Christ's living in him, both from the natural life of his body, and from that eternal life he expected to live in another world; and which, he says,
I live by the faith of the Son of God; meaning, not that faith which Christ, as man, had, but that of which he is the author and object, by which the just man lives; not upon it, for the believer does not live upon any of his graces, no, not upon faith, but by faith on Christ, the object; looking to him for pardon, righteousness, peace, joy, comfort, every supply of grace, and eternal salvation: which object is described as "the Son of God"; who is truly God, equal with his Father; so that he did not live upon a creature, or forsake the fountain of living waters, but upon the only begotten Son of God, who is full of grace and truth: of whom he further says,
who loved me; before the foundation of the world, from everlasting, prior to his love to him; and freely, without any regard to worth or merit, and though he was a blasphemer and a persecutor; and him personally, and particularly, in a distinguishing manner, of which he had a special knowledge and application by the Spirit of God; and was a reason and argument constraining him, and prevailing on him to live to him who loved him, and died for him, or, as he adds,
and gave himself for me; his whole self, his soul and body, as in union with his divine person, into the hands of justice, and unto death, in his room and stead, as an offering and sacrifice for sin, and which he did freely and voluntarily; and is a strong and full proof of his love to him. Now though Christ gave his life a ransom for many, and himself for his whole church, and all the members of his mystical body, yet the apostle speaks of this matter as singularly respecting himself, as if almost he was the only person Christ loved and died for; which shows that faith deals with Christ not in a general way, as the Saviour of the world, but with a special regard to a man's self: this is the life of faith; and these considerations of the person, love, and grace of Christ, animate and encourage faith in its exercises on him.
The Law could not make men righteous before God. In Christ they were made righteous. How? Here, too, there was death. The Christian died with Christ to something else besides the Law. With his eye fixed upon the cross, he died a spiritual death and rose to a new spiritual life. The "old man" in him, the self-seeking and sinful element in his nature, is slain, and for it is substituted a life of such close and intimate communion with Christ that it seems as if Christ Himself were dwelling in the soul. Living upon the earth in a body of human flesh, as he is, he is animated by an intense faith in the Saviour who has given him such proofs of self-sacrificing love.
Here we come upon the same vein of mysticism that is developed in Romans 6. One main way of conceiving of the specially Christian life is through the idea of union with Christ. This idea, when ultimately pressed to precise logical definition, must necessarily contain a certain element of metaphor. Consciousness, rigorously examined, tells us that even in the most exalted souls there is no such thing as an actual union of the human and divine. At the same time, there is possible to man an influence from above so penetrating and so powerful that it would seem as if the figure of union could alone adequately express it. Nor ought this to be questioned or denied because the more common order of minds do not find themselves capable of it. (See the Notes on Romans 6, and Excursus G to that Epistle.)
I am crucified . . .--The idea is something more than that of merely "dying with Christ"--i.e., imitating the death of Christ after a spiritual manner: it involves, besides, a special reference to the cross. It is through the power of the cross, through contemplating the cross and all that is associated with it, that the Christian is enabled to mortify the promptings of sin within him, and reduce them to a state of passiveness like that of death.
Nevertheless I live.--This death unto sin, death upon one side of my nature, does not hinder me from having life upon another side. The fact is that I live in a truer sense than ever before.
Yet not I.--It is, however, no longer the old natural man in me that lives: it is not that part of the human personality which has its root in matter, and is "of the earth, earthy," but that part which is re-formed by the Spirit of Christ.
Now.--In my present condition as a Christian opposed to the old condition prior to the conversion.
In the flesh.--In this bodily human frame; man though I be. The Christian is outwardly the same as other men; it is his inner life which is "hid with Christ in God."
By the faith.--The article is better omitted: by faith. The Apostle does not quite go so far as to say that faith is the cause of his physical life, though we may see, by other passages, that he is at least prepared to look upon faith as the great pledge, and even cause, of the physical resurrection. Here he is speaking of faith rather as the element or atmosphere in which the Christian lives. He is, as it were, steeped in faith.
Of the Son of God--i.e., faith of which the Son of God is the object; faith in the Son of God.
There is a curious variation of reading here. Some ancient authorities (including the Codex Vaticanus) instead of "faith in the Son of God," have "faith in God and Christ." This might appear to have some internal probability, as the less obvious expression of the two; but it may be perhaps explained satisfactorily in another way. On the whole, it seems best to abide by the Received text, which is that of the majority of MSS.
Who loved me.--Christ died for the whole world, but each individual Christian has a right to appropriate His death to himself. The death of Christ was prompted by love, not for the abstraction humanity, but for men as individuals.
(1) that the Law as a ceremonial institute has now nothing to do with him nor he with it, except as mutually proclaiming their entire disseverment the one from the other; and
(2) that nevertheless, while thus wholly apart from the Law, he has life in God, as he further proceeds to declare. Nevertheless I live (ζῶ δέ). Notwithstanding all the Law's anathema, I am alive unto God (comp. Romans 6:11), the object of his love, and an heir of his eternal life. With this exalted blessedness of mine the Law cannot in the slightest degree meddle, by any determination which it will fain propound of cleanness or uncleanness. No ceremonial pollution of its constituting can touch this my life. My own life and my fellow-believer's life in God is infinitely removed from the possibility of receiving taint of pollution through eating (say) of blood, or suet, or pork, or through touching a leper or the remains of a deceased man. Nothing of this kind can mar or stain my righteousness or my fellow-believer's righteousness. Both he and I, sharing in the like "life" and righteousness, rejoice and exult together; let the Law denounce us for unclean as loudly and as bitterly as it will. Nay, if I were to allow myself to be disquieted by any such denouncement of pollution, I should, in fact, be allowing myself to harbour misgivings and unbelief touching the very essence of the grace of Jesus Christ. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (οὐκ ἔτι ἐγώ ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Ξριστός); and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. It was essential to the apostle's argument that he should assert himself to be, in spite of the Law's anathema, "alive," in the full possession of life in God; but he hastens to qualify this assertion by explaining how entirely he owes this life of his to Christ; and, in his eagerness to do this, he compresses the assertion and the qualification in one clause so closely together as, in a way not at all unusual with him, well-nigh to wreck the grammatical construction. A method, indeed, has been proposed by critics of disposing this clause with respect to the preceding in such a manner as to make the sentence run quite smoothly; thus: Ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἀγώ ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Ξριστός: that is, as given in the margin of the Revised English Version, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." But not only does this method of construing altogether efface the apostle's assertion of his being alive notwithstanding the Law's malediction - an assertion which agrees so thoroughly with the defiant tone of the argument, but the abruptness of the construction as presented in the ordinary reading of the passage is its very recommendation; for such uncouthness of style is wont to show itself in St. Paul's more eager, impassioned passages. "No longer I;" as in those old days when I prided myself on being an especial favourite of Heaven, eminently righteous through meritorious doings of my own, through my punctilious observance in particular of all that the Law prescribes for gaining and maintaining ceremonial sanctity (comp. Philippians 3:4, 6). "In those days it was I that was alive; it is not so now." The ἐγὼ ἔζων, "I was alive," of Romans 7:9, serves again as a perfect illustration of the phraseology of the present passage; only we have still to bear in mind that the apostle is at present contemplating the ceremonial aspect of his old life, rather than, as in the Romans, the moral; the two being no doubt, however, in his former Pharisee scheme of religion, essentially conjoined. The in-being of Christ is to be understood as blending in one the two notions, of Christ as the ground of our acceptableness before God and of our being alive unto God, and of Christ as the motive spring of true practical well-doing (Romans 8:10). The two things, though notionally distinct, cannot exist apart, but the former is the more prominent idea here. And the life which I now live in the flesh (ο{ δὲ νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί). "Life" still denotes his spiritual state of being, and not his moral activity, though by inference in-relying this latter; as if it were "the life which I now possess." The construction of ο{ ζῶ is paralleled by the ο{ ἀπέθανε, "the death that he died, he died," and the ο{ ζῇ, "the life that he liveth, he liveth," of Romans 6:10. "Now," as well as "no longer," stands in contrast with his old life in Judaism. But, on the other hand, "in the flesh," viewed in conjunction with (ἐν πίστει) "in faith," or "by faith," must be taken as in Philippians 1:22, that is, as contrasted with the future life; while we are in the flesh "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). I live by the faith of the Son of God (ἐν πίστει ζῶ τῇ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ); I live by faith, the faith which is in the Son of God. By faith, not by works of the Levitical Law. It was by faith in Christ that I first became partaker of this life; it is by faith in Christ that I continue to partake of it; letting go my faith in Christ, I partake of the life no longer. The especial relevancy of this statement of the apostle's, whether with respect to the matters agitated at Antioch, or with respect to any such revival of Levitical notions of acceptableness with God as was now perplexing the Churchmen of Galatia, is the warning which it implicitly conveys that, to revert to Levitical notions of uncleanness or of righteousness, was to sin against faith in Christ, and therewith against the very essence of a Christian's spiritual life. It was the strong sense which the apostle had of the absolutely fatal tendency of such relapses towards Judaism that inspired the deep pathos which here tinges his language. Hence the magnificent title by which he recites Christ's personality, "the Son of God;" possessing as such an absolutely commanding claim to his people's adherence, which they dare not decline. Hence, too, the words which follow. Who loved me, and gave himself for me (τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντός με καὶ παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ); who loved me, and gave himself up for me. Fain would the reader realize to his mind the fervid, thrilling tones and accent of voice in which the apostle, while uttering these words, would give vent to the sentiment which so powerfully swayed his whole life, and which he so vividly describes in writing to the Corinthians: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died [namely, to all but him]. and he died fur all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15). The same appropriation of Christ's love to his own individual self which the apostle here gives utterance to, "who loved me, and gave himself up for me," may every human creature also express in whom only is the faith which takes hold of his love. In fact, the apostle speaks thus for the very purpose of prompting every individual believer who hears him to feel and say the same. This, he indicates, should be their feeling just as much as his; a sentiment just as irresistibly regulative of their life. Why not? Do they not also owe to him all their hope on behalf of their souls? For the expression, "gave himself up," comp. Galatians 1:4 and note. The Greek verb παραδόντος is distinguished from the simple δόντος, "gave himself," by its bringing more distinctly into view the notion of Christ's giving himself over into the hands of those who sought his life.
Nevertheless I live; which is to be understood, not of his natural, but of his spiritual life; the life of justification he lived, by faith, on the righteousness of Christ; and the life of sanctification which he had from Christ, by the quickening influences of his Spirit, by virtue of which he walked in newness of life. The believer is a mere paradox, he is dead to the law, and "yet lives" to God; he is crucified with Christ, and yet lives by him; yea, a crucified Christ lives in him.
Yet not I; not the same I as before, but quite another man, a new creature: he did not now live as in his state of unregeneracy, and whilst in Judaism; he was not now Saul the blasphemer, the persecutor, and injurious person; nor did he now live Saul the Pharisee: or the life he had was not of his own obtaining and procuring; his life of righteousness was not of himself, but Christ; his being quickened, or having principles of life and holiness implanted in him, was not by himself, but by the Spirit; and the holy life and conversation he lived was not owing to himself, to his power and strength, but to the grace of God; or it was not properly himself, or so much he that lived,
but Christ liveth in me: who was not only the author and maintainer of his spiritual life, but the life itself; he was formed in his soul, dwelt in his heart, was united to him, was one with him, whence all vital principles and vital actions sprung, and all the communion and comforts of a spiritual life flowed.
And the life which I now live in the flesh; in the body, whilst in this mortal state, whereby he distinguishes that spiritual life he had from Christ, and through Christ's living in him, both from the natural life of his body, and from that eternal life he expected to live in another world; and which, he says,
I live by the faith of the Son of God; meaning, not that faith which Christ, as man, had, but that of which he is the author and object, by which the just man lives; not upon it, for the believer does not live upon any of his graces, no, not upon faith, but by faith on Christ, the object; looking to him for pardon, righteousness, peace, joy, comfort, every supply of grace, and eternal salvation: which object is described as "the Son of God"; who is truly God, equal with his Father; so that he did not live upon a creature, or forsake the fountain of living waters, but upon the only begotten Son of God, who is full of grace and truth: of whom he further says,
who loved me; before the foundation of the world, from everlasting, prior to his love to him; and freely, without any regard to worth or merit, and though he was a blasphemer and a persecutor; and him personally, and particularly, in a distinguishing manner, of which he had a special knowledge and application by the Spirit of God; and was a reason and argument constraining him, and prevailing on him to live to him who loved him, and died for him, or, as he adds,
and gave himself for me; his whole self, his soul and body, as in union with his divine person, into the hands of justice, and unto death, in his room and stead, as an offering and sacrifice for sin, and which he did freely and voluntarily; and is a strong and full proof of his love to him. Now though Christ gave his life a ransom for many, and himself for his whole church, and all the members of his mystical body, yet the apostle speaks of this matter as singularly respecting himself, as if almost he was the only person Christ loved and died for; which shows that faith deals with Christ not in a general way, as the Saviour of the world, but with a special regard to a man's self: this is the life of faith; and these considerations of the person, love, and grace of Christ, animate and encourage faith in its exercises on him.