The Crucified “I”

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the {life} which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. -- Galatians 2:20


What is the “I” that was crucified with Christ, and exactly how did that “I” get crucified? I am always making a feeble attempt to give definition to phrases that have for so long been used by believers that few stop to think about and grasp their meaning. Think of how the phrase, “How are you today?” got so overused that saying it today just means, “Hello.” Rarely does someone care to hear a prolonged assessment of the state of another’s health and disposition. The world and the enemy have plotted to overuse words to reduce their significance, words like Jesus or love. “I have been crucified with Christ” has been thrown around, quoted, and memorized to the point that its meaning and importance have been diminished. My motive in discussing what it could mean is that believers might increasingly understand it and incorporate it into their being. If the reader differs with my definitions and descriptions, I urge you to search for a definition that you can satisfactorily accept, that it might encourage you in your walk with Christ.


Imagine a team of physicians converging on a live man lying on an operating table; they were charged with the task of finding the “I” in the man. Would they be able to find it? No! It is because the “I” of Galatians 2:20 is not a material thing but an attitude; the “I” has wrapped itself, like the roots of a great tree, around every visible fiber of the man. Try to cut it out of the mind and next find it in the will; remove it from the will and discover it has grown back into the mind. “I” is the attitude of glory, pride, righteousness, and strength; in short, it is the attitude of wanting to be God. Being made in His image is not enough, for “I” wants to be worshipped and occupy the center of the universe that belongs to God. The body cooperates, for since it was made from the dust, it is not drawn to the spirit and therefore enjoys the indwelling “I” that allows the flesh to follow flesh.


A wet sponge placed on a dry one will become dry itself, because its water will flow to the other in transference. The day one believes on Jesus, God takes his body and nails it together with Christ on the cross, nailing, as it were, the two sponges together, the believer’s dripping with proud “I” and Christ’s empty “I” of humility. What happens next is transference; the believer loses all of his “I” attitude and life as it soaks into Him. When it is all over, the believer is nothing but a dry sponge, no anti-God attitudes and no life. The believer’s “I” coming into Jesus to do battle for supremacy is no different than the other battles He had already won; He kills the believer’s “I” attitude or life center. It may not be hard to imagine one sponge soaked with “I” being nailed to the One void of “I,” but what of the billions of people, and all at one time? There was so much anti-God “I” in Jesus on the cross that the Father had to cut the umbilical cord. The great I AM, Jesus, the Word, had always been in unbroken fellowship with God, Who was Jesus’ “I” attitude and life. The break killed His body. II Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”