Diogenes the Cynic wrote:(Galatians 1:15-16)
But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, 16 to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.
(Galatians 1:20)
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 5:24):
And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts
(Galatians 6:14)
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
(Galatians 6:17)
for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
(Romans 6:3-8)
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
Do I see a mirror?
Yes, if you add in Galatians 3:1
"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?"
I'll repost comments from earlier post.
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If christ lives in people then *christ* is some aspect of our human nature - not some visitation from some celestial, outer-space realm. Ancient people personified aspects of the world around them. Pauline theology/philosophy has personified an aspect of our human nature - our mind, our intellectual capacity. Our mind has it's intellectual 'furniture' just as our physical world has it's own 'furniture'. Just as flesh and blood can be crucified in our physical world - so, likewise, in our intellectual world, ideas can be 'crucified', killed off, when past their sell by date. Just as we can see a physical chair, so too can we picture a chair in our mind. One is real, the other imagined. Both reflect the other. Neither is a substitute for the other.
Thus, re Paul, christians can be "
crucified with Christ" and at the same time
"before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?". So, two types of crucifixions here. 1)The crucifixion within, the crucifixion that takes place in 'heaven', in our intellectual capacity. 2) The crucifixion that happened before
the eyes of the christians. One unseen, in the heavens, in the mind, the other public for all to see.
It was the public crucifixion, execution, that, as it were, set the ball rolling. From that tragedy a new theological/philosophical development arose. 'Salvation' was not physical but intellectual. Sure, this new theology/philosophy was dressed up in the world view of that time. Strip away the fancy dress and what is left was way ahead of it's time: That in order to move forward intellectually it is necessary to 'crucify' outdated mental images. Intellectual evolution is not an automatic process - it requires conscious deliberate action - it requires intellectual 'warfare'.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats