I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
"I have been crucified with Christ" is a violent way to describe a spiritual change, and that's probably the point. Paul isn't describing self-improvement or a shift in attitude. He's describing something ending — a version of himself he considers dead — and something else taking its place.
"It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" could sound like erasure, like losing yourself into something else. But the sentence doesn't stop there. It keeps going: "the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith." There's still a life being lived, still a body, still a person walking around doing ordinary things. What's changed is the source it's running on.
The last phrase is the quiet center of the whole verse: "who loved me and gave himself for me." Whatever you make of the theology, notice the shape of the claim. It's not that Paul earned this new identity through effort. It traces back to being loved first, specifically, by name, before anything was asked of him in return.
If a version of you had to end for something truer to take its place, what do you think that old version has been running on?
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.