Galatians 2:19-21 NIV
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. [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. [21] I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
I am normally not a big fan of the NIV version of the Bible, because it is a thought for thought translation instead of a word for word translation. As a teacher I like the word for word translations better, because it gives more accurate details to what the original meaning actually is saying. Having said that, I like the translation of Galatians 2:20 in the NIV because it gives a very accurate word for word translation in the early part of the verse. The King James version says I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ who lives in me. The NASB version size I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The NIV says it correctly. It is very clear in the original Greek; “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” The I, as an independent entity no longer exist for the Christian. Each of us have individual personalities, and in that sense there is individuality to our new selves in Christ, Paul makes it very clear that the one who now lives (the new ME), is someone in and through whom Jesus lives. We might act like the Old Man; but we aren’t. I love the way Grant Maccaskill ( a really bright theologian puts it), “it is not just how we get saved; it is what we are saved into and what we become within that reality. We are saved IN CHRIST, and in Christ we do good works (Ephesians 2:10); these are done not by independent centers of identity, by people who can say “with the help of the spirit I can obey,” but by those who collectively say “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
To live under the law, is to live under the power, strain of your own best self effort to live a life that pleasing to God, and man’s independent self effort to live a godly life only left him under the condemnation of the law (because man’s best effort for God always ends up in failure), and in that sense the law condemned humanity to death. That’s why Paul said in verse 19 that through the law he died to the law, because the law condemned him to death, and therefore, he was crucified with Christ (the old independent guilt ridden, helpless fallen self), and raised up as a new creation in union with Jesus, who now lived in him the godly life he could not live for God in his own strength. If we understand our new identity as Paul understood his, when he said “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” then a very different way of speaking about the Christian moral life emerges; one recognizing that I’m not being changed into a better version of myself by the help of the Holy Spirit, but I am literally participating in the radical goodness and purity of Jesus Christ. It is the very moral and godly presence of Jesus in our lives, that becomes the source of godliness, not the strain of sincere effort. That’s why Paul said in verse 21 that he would not put aside what God accomplished by grace, to once again try to accomplish righteousness through the law (his best and sincere self effort); for if righteousness could be gained by external self effort then Christ died for nothing. Christ died, so that the helpless and hopeless independent condemned self could be crucified, that a new self in union with Jesus could come forth.