But
God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by
whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
Galatians 6:14
What Paul had written in Galatians 2 is here
confirmed at the end of the epistle and is expressed even more strongly. He
insisted that his only glory was that, in Christ, he had been crucified to the
world and entirely delivered from its power. When he said, “I am crucified
with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), it was not only an inner spiritual truth,
but also an actual, practical experience in relation to the world and its
temptations.
Christ had spoken about the world hating Him
and about His having overcome the world. Paul knew that the world that had
nailed Christ to the cross had in that deed done the same to him. He boasted
that he lived as one who had been crucified to the world, and that the world as
a powerless enemy was now crucified to him. It was this that made him glory in
the cross of Christ. It had brought him complete deliverance from the world.
How very different is the relationship of
Christians to the world today! They acknowledge that they must not commit the
sins that the world allows. But still they are good friends with the world, and
they feel free to enjoy as much of it as they can, if they only stay away from
“open sin.” They do not know that the most dangerous source of sin is the love
of the world with its lusts and pleasures.
Dear Christian, when the world crucified
Christ, it crucified you with Him. When Christ overcame the world on the cross,
He made you an overcomer, too. He calls you now, at whatever cost of self‑denial,
to regard the world, in its hostility to God and His kingdom, as a crucified
enemy over whom the cross can ever keep you a conqueror.
The Christian who has learned to say by the
Holy Spirit, “I am crucified with Christ…[the crucified] Christ lives
in me” (Galatians 2:20), has a very different relationship to the
pleasures and attractions of the world. Let us ask God fervently that the Holy
Spirit, through whom Christ offered Himself on the cross, may reveal to us in
power what it means to “glory…in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
the world is crucified unto me.”
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