The Joy of Dying

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 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 2:19-20 ESV

How absolutely critical is it to understand what Paul is saying to the Galatians? There can be no Christian life without death, and there can be no death except through the law. Spiritual death is absolutely necessary if we are to live to God.

The law is awesome in its power to decimate our reliance on the nature of Adam. It kills us by finally showing us that there is nothing we can do in the old nature to please or satisfy God’s wrath. It proves to us that all of our doing, trying, learning, and struggling against God are pointless. These things cannot turn away the condemnation and wrath of the law. The law brings us to the utterly bleak realization that every road leads to the death of ourselves; either death by law or the death of Christ who redeemed us from the law. When the law does its proper work, all trust in the old nature of Adam is finally brought to death.

Ultimately, this must lead to the death of our dream of free will. We are prisoners of the law until death. We do not choose to die (we never will) but by the grace of God the law shows us that we are already dead. Dead men can do nothing, good or bad, to change their destiny. It is the divine intervention of God that awakens us to the fact that we are dead in our trespasses and sins under the law and brings us to a state of despair in our own ability to save ourselves. It is this final agreement with God that we call repentance – the moment when we recognize that we can do nothing to change our lot. All of our self-salvation projects come to an end and we begin searching desperately for a Savior. That is death to ‘a righteousness of our own.’ (Phil. 3:9)

Without all of this the good news is mediocre at best. Many people hear the gospel as being something of some value that they can add to an already decent life. They just tack the teachings of Christ onto the old Adamic nature and call it good. There is no death in a ‘decision for Christ.’ There is merely the exercise of the law-bound will to improve one’s old Adam. This leads to all kinds of misery because we become, in effect, spiritual zombies; half dead and half alive. We have been awakened just enough to the law that it makes us miserable by its constant condemnation, but not enough that it kills the old nature and forces us to the resurrection.

The ultimate goal of the law is to put us to death that we might live to Christ; so that we can say, with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” This is the glorious good news of God. You were dead in trespasses and sins with no hope of redeeming yourself. The law had imprisoned your entire being – mind, body, will – under sin. Without even realizing it, you had no hope at all. When you became aware of this, you despaired to death. And at that moment you became aware – to your great joy – that God had provided a redeemer! When the law brought the revelation of the very real mortality of your old nature, you shook free the bonds of death and were resurrected with Christ!

Or were you? I would be willing to bet that most have never thought very deeply about dying to the law. When we tack the teachings of Jesus onto the law and mingle them together as if they were a road map to guide the old Adam, we have not yet died to the law. And we are not yet living to Christ. Take a long hard look at the law. If you are honest in evaluating yourself against its demands, it will show you whether you are in Adam or in Christ. If you still want to argue and bargain with the law – toeing the line – then Adam is alive and well within you. If you can respond to the law as a dead man would, knowing that it cannot condemn you because your righteousness does not depend on law, then you have truly died to the law. For through the law you died to the law, so that you might live to God. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless.