True Christianity ever magnifies Christ, and we may test the claims of that which assumes to be true by proving whether Christ is glorified by it or not. Let us look at the inspired words of the apostle Paul:"I am crucified with Christ:nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). Now, much Christianity which is accepted as devout, looks for perfection in a result which may be summed up thus:"I am Crucified." This being crucified is regarded as the highest attainment. Self is mastered; the world conquered. There is victory over passions and temptations, and the "crucified," being dead to all that to which he was once a slave, is in this world a superior power to the world. To such as have reached this elevation our paper is not addressed. But there are many who are striving to crucify themselves, to put themselves to death, to be master over themselves and the temptations and allurements of the world and their enemy, sin, and to those especially our few words are directed.

Now, the apostle does not say, "I am crucified," but he says, "I am crucified with Christ." It is quite possible to say, "I am crucified," and yet to leave Christ out of one’s religion, and all the while to be an enemy of Christ’s cross. "I am crucified" may be merely the outcome of fancied spiritual attainment and the result of spiritual pride. But "I am crucified with Christ" is in no sense whatever a sign of superior goodness; on the contrary, it is the evidence of the terrible nature of sin which demanded for our salvation the cross of the Son of God; and it is the blessed assurance that, vile as we are in ourselves, by being crucified with Him we have been judged and condemned, when Christ in mercy was judged and took our condemnation upon Him, on Calvary.

"Crucified with Christ" does not allow us, in ourselves, one single standpoint before God. It sweeps away all our hopes of self-betterment, and of our dying to what we are by nature, and instead, it accepts with reverence and with love, the position our Lord and Saviour took for us on the cross in grace as our position. In His judgment we were judged, in His death we died. As a man might say of his substitute, "He died not only for me, but I died with Him," so we are privileged to say of our Saviour and Substitute, "He died for me and met my deserts, and I died with Him and receive the satisfaction rendered to God by His death."

Here is the true beginning for the Christian-"I am crucified with Christ." He does not, therefore, look to himself for power to die to himself, but he looks to Christ’s cross and knows that there he was crucified with Christ. The cross of Christ is his judicial end in the sight of God, and when by faith he takes in God’s fact about himself, he starts his spiritual career with the reality of his utter badness by nature, and the condemnation of what he is by Christ’s cross.

Having spoken of the end of the old, the apostle proceeds to the beginning of the new. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." The apostle lived in the energy of the Holy Spirit of God; he was a witness on the earth to divine love and power. Whence then this life? Of himself He had spoken:" I am crucified with Christ." Now of himself as the Christian, he in effect says, Though crucified, still I am a living man, spiritually, but the source of this life is Christ. This is not victorious self reasserting itself. It is not Paul, the Jewish Pharisee, nor Paul, the Christian Pharisee-no, Not I, not self, but Christ. " I live, yet not I, but Christ who liveth in me."

Neither could it be said Paul so became crucified that Christ could live in him, for he says, "I am crucified with Christ." He did not become crucified by slow degrees, but with’ Christ who was crucified on Calvary. To leave out "with Christ" would be to leave us a crucified Paul without Christ. And this would be that kind of Christianity which endeavors by following Christ, to arrive at Christ crucified, whereas God begins with Christ crucified for us and our being crucified with Christ, and thus opens up to us the Christian life in its power and faith.

" I am crucified with Christ" is grace and not attainment. It is the portion of every believer, and we should so deport ourselves as to conform to the reality.

"Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," is also not attainment; it is grace, absolute grace, and it is as much for us as for the apostle. There is none other life for any Christian whereby he lives before God in holiness than this:"Christ liveth in me." There are not two lives for the Christian whereby he lives to God, one more exalted than the other-one for the selected saints, the other for the general class. All God’s children are in Christ, and Christ is in all God’s children. But when we speak of the manner of our living, another subject is before us-then we have degrees of excellence before us, and attainment in practical holiness.

The apostle said, further, "And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Now, in this there is attainment-there is spirituality and true holiness. From Christ he drew his strength for each day and hour. The wonder of his zeal, the beauty of his character, arose from Christ, in whom he lived daily by faith. Faith is our own. Each believer has faith for himself; and a life of faith is the personal and constant reliance of the soul upon the Lord in heaven.

It is very delightful to hear the great apostle say, "Yet not I," also of his labors for God. He magnified God’s grace in all that God did by him:"I labored more abundantly than they all:yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me " (i Cor. 15:10). He gives us the true secret of power, of living and of working, and the secret is Christ, "not I."