Through the law I died to the law … I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Galatians 2:19-20)
Daily reading: Song of Songs 6
Christian experience is a series of paradoxes: we live by dying, gain strength through weakness and rise by descending—even to die is gain! Today’s text illustrates this. The law exacted its penalty—death—so Saul the sinner ‘died,’ and the risen Christ now animates a new man. Saul’s former life—cultured, zealous, flawless by human standards—was nonetheless murderous and God-hating, a product of a corrupt religious system that prized externals while ignoring faith and love. Reformation couldn’t cure it; only new birth could. As Paul said, circumcision or uncircumcision is nothing; a new creation is everything. Old and new cannot mingle; Christ and self cannot share the throne. The apostle’s preaching was driven home by a life in which people saw Christ, not Saul. May the same unmistakable Christ-life be visible in us.
