Galations 2:20 - Seeing the Universe by Faith

Galatians 2:20
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.

In its immediate context, this verse is part of a series of very sharp contrasts that Paul uses to show the marked difference between law and grace in salvation and in sanctification.  The contrasts include:

·         Law                                        / Grace

·         Crucifixion and death     / Life and living

·         Flesh                                     / Faith

·         Sin                                          / Justification

There is much that needs to be said about this verse, but everything we say begins with an understanding of faith.  To begin, we must understand that Paul is addressing the fact that we all live in two separate universes – the universe of time and matter, the physical universe; and the universe of eternity, the spiritual universe.  This may sound mystical, but it is not.  The Bible is very clear that we have both a physical and a spiritual existence.  We understand and perceive the physical universe through our senses as part of our flesh.  The flesh, being physical, relates and communicates with the physical reality.  All men are created by God and also exist in a spiritual universe – we admit this by saying we are “spiritual beings.”  That spiritual universe and reality, however, is beyond human perception.  We cannot see or know the spiritual universe through physical senses.  We see and know the spiritual only as God reveals that universe to us. 

When we died with Christ by faith, in faith we became alive in the spiritual reality of this new relationship.  Being made alive in Christ by faith, through that faith our spiritual understanding and ability to see suddenly came alive in Him.  For the redeemed, faith is as much a mode of perception into the spiritual reality as sight is our perception of the physical world.  Faith is the mode of spiritual perception.
That being true – that faith is the spiritual mode of perception – the believer by faith can now “see” spiritual reality as well as the physical and can compare the two very real universes in which he exists.  The spiritual universe which is eternal is also the reality in which we died with Christ on the cross and were made alive by His resurrection.  By the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are now alive by faith in both the spiritual universe which is primary and in the physical universe which is immediate.  It is the primacy of our life with Christ that must govern our priorities and decisions in our immediate, day-to-day physical life.
Coram deo