“And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power (Col. 2:10).”

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: 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 (Galatians 2:20).”


“…..yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”

This means we no longer live to self. Instead, we live for Christ. His abiding presence lives in us and comes to us in the form of the Holy Spirit; which lives in the lives of each believer.

The believer is empowered by God’s Spirit. Fundamentally, the believer’s security in Christ comes through faith in the work of the Holy Spirit in his life. Importantly, faith in God causes one to permit the work of the Holy Spirit in his life.

By being united with Christ through His Spirit we share in His death, burial, and resurrection. Significantly, salvation means that one has agreed to yield his/her life to Christ. This yielding places our lives in the hands of God; thus in the love and strength of Jesus Christ. This is not an automatic operation; it comes by having faith in the Son of God. This faith releases the power to live a Christian life. If Christ loved us enough to die for us, then His love for us will sustain our life here on earth.

God looks at us as if we had died with Christ. Because our sins died with him, we are no longer condemned (Col. 2:13-15). Relationally, we have become one with Christ, and his experiences are ours. Our Christian life began when, in unity with him, we died to our old life (see Romans 6:5-11). In our daily life, we must regularly crucify sinful desires that keep us from following Christ. This too is a kind of dying with him (Luke 9:23-25).

And yet the focus of Christianity is not dying, but living. Because we have been crucified with Christ, we have also been raised with him (Romans 6:5). Legally, we have been reconciled with God (2 Cor. 5:19) and are free to grow into Christ’s likeness (Romans 8:29). And in our daily life, we have Christ’s resurrection power as we continue to fight sin (Ephes. 1:19-20). We are no longer alone, for Christ lives in us—he is our power for living and our hope for the future (Col. 1:27).

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ) Romans 6:1-12)”

“For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Cor. 12:13).”