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 (Galatians 2:20).
Christ, who is God incarnate, was crucified in the flesh. He was beaten, flogged, and nailed to a cross on the day that Christians now call “Good Friday.” At the time, his disciples rejected Jesus and the cross.
They did not die to self but were consumed with the purpose of self-preservation. Yet something did happen on that day: did believers die with Christ on Good Friday to rise again with him on the third day?
Crucifying the Flesh
“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23). Christ said this to his followers.
He also said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 11:24).
Jesus declared, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).
Jesus made it very plain that the life of a disciple would be a new life, and the old life would have to die. We cannot stitch the new to the old; that would be like putting “new wine into old wineskins” (Mark 2:22).
Christ invites us to be freed from the old destructive ways and the path that leads away from God. “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).
This is not the same thing as emptying your mind and becoming a puppet or a spiritual zombie. The Lord wants us heart and soul, to surrender our direction in favor of his; to shape our desires according to his heart and his longings for us and for his kingdom.
Our longings will, when given over to the Lord, have more to do with the Kingdom and the body of Christ and with the needs of people around us than with our personal, tiny goals for self-enjoyment.
The metrics for our success in this life will no longer come from the world’s ideas but will be measured against our willingness to follow Christ in everything. Crucifying the flesh means that we no longer live for ourselves. We live for Jesus.
What Is Wrong with the Flesh
Strong’s Concordance defines the negative sense of “flesh” or sarx in the Greek as “referring to making decisions [...] independent from God's inworking,” which means satisfying the “untouched (unchanged) part of us — i.e., what is not transformed by God.”
When Paul instructed the church at Galatia to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), he was talking about the part of human nature that rejects God.
Sin offends God and hurts the sinner, even if it seems harmless. John Piper taught that “as long as we live for ourselves, misery will result, because in us, that is, in our flesh, dwells no good thing.” Our desires are distorted by sin. We want things that do not line up with God’s plans.
The objects of our yearning become ultimate things instead of simply being enjoyable things. Sex, food, or exercise become gods — they consume us. The Lord made those things for us to enjoy, not to worship.
We start to want them more than we long for the counsel of God, for his presence. We yearn for something when we can have someone; that is, the Person of Christ.
Think of buttoning a shirt but lining up the second button with the first hole. For a while, everything lines up, but not at the end. There you see it was wrong the whole time.
Saying “no” to sin leaves a gap in the life of a believer, which the Holy Spirit fills with peace, joy, rest, and guides the Christian through the narrow gate towards prayer and worship, towards encouraging and serving others, towards wholeness and relationship with God.
The flesh is weaker than the Spirit. Since Christ was fully man and fully God, how did he avoid sinning? He turned to God. He filled himself with scriptural truth, he prayed to the Lord in solitude, and he served.
Christ’s ministry was all about service, and there were few comforts in that life. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). The flesh wants to be served, which is the opposite of our purpose.
Being Crucified with Christ
Does a Christian have to go through the process of real crucifixion in order to prove that he or she loves Jesus and does not want to live in the flesh but by the Spirit of God? Some Christians will experience physical torture; some will be emotionally rejected by friends and family.
Others will lose their jobs or experience the loneliness of a single life. When we face these challenges, we might sin either in deed or thought. We might want to reject Christ just to make the hurting stop.
“When we recognize and acknowledge that this is our state, it brings us into need and causes us sorrow. Thus, God is able to open our eyes to see that we were crucified with Christ; not only was our certificate of debt nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:14), but also the debtor himself!” (Ibid.).
We are also able, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to see how we are protected in Christ. Though our flesh suffers, we will never be separated from God so long as “our lives are hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
We cannot hide there without relying on Christ. We have to leave our old ways behind, or we will forever be looking out from under the shelter of his perfect care, out in the open, where sin, Satan, and death are waiting to pounce.
We do not literally have to be crucified but only rely on the one who was crucified for our sakes — rely on him and no one else.
Life of Pain?
Some think that choosing to crucify the flesh leads to a life of misery or at least boredom, but this is not the case. Paul declared in Philippians 1:18, “I will rejoice.” His letter from prison was full of joy. “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (1:21).
He did not merely capitulate to what was the most reasonable thing in his estimation; he fell in love with the person of Jesus Christ. Nothing else mattered to him than obeying, loving, and sharing Jesus with anyone who would listen.
Certainly, he suffered, and so did the church; he acknowledged as much: “it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Philippians 1:29).
This suffering is not from God but from those who choose not to see him. People who live in the flesh are offended by selfless humility.
Not that Christians are perfectly selfless and humble, but their desire to emulate and follow Christ demonstrates his power in our lives and points to the aspects of his ministry that so many individuals cannot understand or accept. The world tends to be angered by anything it does not recognize or understand.
“This, dear reader, is the position of faith that we must take; and once we have received grace to take this position, it is vital that we are not moved away from it” (Piper).
On Good Friday?
Believers were crucified with Christ, but did this happen on the day he died? Christ’s death made the only way for us to be restored to God. If he had not paid for our sins, what good would it be to crucify the flesh?
We already realized that our sacrifices were insufficient. At Calvary, on Good Friday, Jesus made the one way to God, and he showed us how we must approach the throne; carrying our own cross. He showed us what to do, how to do it, and then triumphed over death.
Now we also see that if we crucify the flesh, we share in Christ’s suffering and in his victory over death.
Good Friday is the day in which Christ made the way for all believers to come; he laid the trail of obedience, showing that the power to crucify our sin and to be reconciled with the Father starts not with the sinner but with our Savior.
For further reading:
What’s So Good about Good Friday?
3 Things Christians Should Know about Holy Week
What’s it Mean to Be Crucified with Christ?
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