THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians
Message Two—No Longer I but Christ
Scripture Reading: Gal. 2:19-20; 1 Cor. 6:17; John 14:19; 15:4
I. Paul wrote the book of Galatians both according to truth and according to experience—Gal. 2:5, 14; 4:16; 5:7; 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
II. The Christian life is a life of organic oneness with Christ—John 15:4; Gal. 2:19-20: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
A. God desires that the divine life and the human life be joined to become one life; this oneness is a union in life—1 Cor. 6:17. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
B. The Christian life is not an exchanged life, the exchange of a lower life for a higher one, but a grafted life—the grafting of the human life into the divine life and the mingling of the human life with the divine life—Rom. 11:24: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. In grafting two similar lives are joined and then grow together organically; in the process of spiritual grafting, two lives—the divine life and the human life—are grafted and become one—Gen. 1:26; 2:7. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. In order for us to be grafted into Christ, He had to pass through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit—John 1:14; Matt. 1:1; 1 Cor. 15:45b. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
3. When the preciousness of the Lord Jesus was infused into us and we began to appreciate Him, we were grafted into Him; we were joined to Christ in His resurrection and were organically united with Him—1 Cor. 6:17: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
a. By believing into Christ and being baptized into Him, we have been grafted into Him—John 3:15; Gal. 3:27. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
b. We have been grafted into the One who is the seed to fulfill God’s promise and also the life-giving Spirit as the blessing of the good land—vv. 16, 14. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
4. As regenerated ones, we should live a grafted life—John 15:4: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
a. After we have been grafted into Christ, we should no longer live by ourselves; rather, we should allow the pneumatic Christ to live in us—Gal. 2:20. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
b. We should no longer live by our flesh or by our natural being; instead, we should live by our regenerated spirit, a spirit grafted with Christ—1 Cor. 6:17. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
5. In the grafted life, the divine life works to discharge the negative elements and to resurrect our God-created being—1 Thes. 5:23; Rom. 8:10, 6, 11. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
6. Through this grafting, we are united, mingled, and incorporated with Christ to become in Him an enlarged, universal, divine and human incorporation—the Body of Christ, which consummates the New Jerusalem—1 Cor. 6:17; John 15:4; 14:20; Rev. 21:2. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
III. In the organic union with Christ, we have the experience of being dead to the law and alive to God—Gal. 2:19: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
A. To be dead to the law means to be discharged from the law in which we were held; to live to God means to be obligated to God in the divine life—Rom. 7:6: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. In Christ’s death our obligation under the law has been terminated—v. 4a. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. In Christ’s resurrection we are responsible to God in the resurrection life—v. 4b. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
B. If we are not actually organically united with Christ but are in ourselves, then we are neither dead to the law nor alive to God—1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 2:16-17: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. To be dead to the law and alive to God implies the death and resurrection of Christ—Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. Only by being grafted into Christ to have an organic union with Him can we be one with Him in His death and resurrection. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
C. In the organic union with Christ, His history becomes our history—Gal. 2:20: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. One aspect of our history includes the crucifixion by which we have been cut off from everything other than God—6:14. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. Another aspect of our history includes the resurrection in which we have been united to the Triune God—Rom. 6:5; Matt. 28:19. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
D. When we are cut off from the law by means of the organic union with Christ, we spontaneously live to God—Gal. 2:19. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
E. Because we and Christ are one, whatever belongs to Him is ours; through our organic union with Him, we share whatever He is and has—Eph. 3:8. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
IV. In Galatians 2:20 we see the most basic truth of God’s New Testament economy—no longer I but Christ living in me: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
A. According to God’s economy, we should no longer live; rather, Christ should live in us: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. God’s economy is that “I” be crucified with Christ and that Christ live in me in His resurrection. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. In His economy God’s intention is for the processed Triune God to be wrought into our being to make us a new person, a new “I.” (2003 WT, msg. 5)
B. As regenerated people we have both an old “I” and a new “I”; the old “I” has been terminated, but the new “I” lives: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. The “I” who has been terminated is the “I” who was without divinity. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. The “I” who still lives is the “I” into which God has been added. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
3. The old “I” had nothing of God in it, whereas the new “I” has received the divine life. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
4. The old “I” has become the new “I” because God as life has been added to it. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
5. The new “I” is the “I” who came into being when the old “I” was resurrected and had God added to it. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
C. We and Christ do not have two lives; rather, we have one life and one living: (2003 WT, msg. 5)
1. We live by Him, and He lives in us—John 6:57. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
2. If we do not live, He does not live, and if He does not live, we cannot live. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
3. Christ lives in us by causing and enabling us to live with Him. (2003 WT, msg. 5)
D. “I,” the natural person, is inclined to keep the law that I might be perfect, but God wants me to live Christ that God may be expressed in me through Him; hence, God’s economy is that “I” be crucified in Christ’s death and that Christ live in me in His resurrection—Phil. 3:6. (2003 WT, msg. 5)