Galatians 2: Christ Lives in Me, Conversion or Mere Membership?

Introduction

"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Faced with these words from Galatians 2:20, many people think: the apostle Paul could say that, but not me. Valerio Mungai, pastor of the Koinonia evangelical Christian church in Rome, asks the question differently: is this the claim of a first-century "super apostle," or something every Christian who has had a genuine experience with Christ can say?

The pastor reads Galatians 2:15-21 and then stops on a single verse. He sees in it the description of a true disciple, in an age when Christianity has become a mass religion and people talk more about membership than about conversion.

His message follows the three statements of the verse: "I have been crucified with Christ," "it is no longer I who live," "Christ lives in me." It ends with a simple question: what place are you giving to the Lord who lives in you?

Outline of the Message

1. Galatians, a Letter Written to Defend the Faith

Galatia was a region of Asia Minor where Paul had founded several churches. These very young communities had been unsettled by false teachers from Jerusalem, who taught that no one could be saved without circumcision.
The letter to the Galatians is therefore above all a letter defending the faith. In it Paul affirms that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.
The law, the pastor reminds us, is the ten commandments. Many people still think they will go to heaven because they keep them. But no one can keep them, especially the first ones, which concern God. "We were saved by grace."

2. Converted or Just a Member?

Being born into a Christian family or a Christian country does not make someone a Christian. Statistics on the number of evangelicals in the world say nothing about what Paul calls being a Christian.
Valerio Mungai quotes an old hymn set to the tune of a popular Roman song he did not like, but whose words sum up the verse: "I am no longer the same, no, no, no. Since he saved me, my life has changed."
Joining a religion and being converted to Christ are two completely different things. History shows it with Clovis I, king of the Franks. His wife Clotilde, a Christian, patiently sought to convert him. On the verge of losing a battle against the Germanic tribes, he prayed: "God of my wife Clotilde, if you give me the victory, I will be baptized."
He won and was baptized in 496, on Christmas night, together with his sisters and 3,000 Frankish warriors. Yet he remained a brutal king: he eliminated his own family, betrayed, lied. "He joined, but he was not converted to Christ": a baptism, a formality, a liturgy.
The pastor asks everyone the question: have I really been converted? Or am I a member because the evangelical church is more modern, friendlier, has an electric guitar, because my whole family is evangelical, or to please my spouse?
Jesus came to speak to us about eternal life. John 3:16 is "the Gospel in a nutshell": God so loved the world that whoever believes in his Son will not perish, but have eternal life. "Everything else is important, but this is the heart."
True Christianity is a personal and unique experience with the Lord. Jesus says that whoever is not born again cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). "In heaven, there are no member-only Christians."
Whoever does not go in stays outside. And outside, Jesus says, there is darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, which the pastor describes as rage, fear and remorse. "I want to be inside."

3. "I Have Been Crucified With Christ": You Must Die

Someone may object that Jesus died alone on the cross, and that Paul was writing around the year 50. What does he mean? The pastor explains that the Greek tense used does not refer only to the past: "I was crucified, but I am also crucified now." It is a reality for today.
This is not reserved for Paul. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24). All genuine believers are included.
The works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) are not limited to a certain kind of sin: they also include hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, divisions and envy. "Envy is a work of the flesh, and it must be crucified."
When Jesus says "Let each one take up his cross and follow me," people think of their mother-in-law, their boss, the government. But in those days the cross was used to put people to death. "My cross, Valerio's cross," is for nailing the old self to it every day.
Romans 6:6 says it plainly: our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with. When we believe in Jesus, the first thing that happens is that we die. "If you do not die first, you cannot even be born." You have a license to kill just one thing: your old self.
Valerio Mungai remembers a large gathering of 3,000 young people under an enormous tent. The American preacher Charles Greenaway stepped forward, looked at them, and began with: "You must die." Then he explained: unless a grain of wheat dies, it cannot bear much fruit (John 12:24).
This death is a good death: the death of the old self, which leads to a new life. Paul the Pharisee had to die so that Paul the apostle could be born. "Conversion is not membership, it is transformation."

4. Letting Go of the Old Life: the Rich Young Man and Charles Studd

Many are not born again because they do not want to let go of their old life. The rich young man throws himself on his knees before Jesus: "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Jesus, looking at him, loved him (Mark 10:21).
He claims to have kept the commandments since his youth. Jesus answers: "One thing you lack": sell what you have, give to the poor, then come and follow me. This sincere young man walks away sad. He did not want to let go of his old life.
"What the Lord is asking of you tonight is not to join something. Can you let go of the old life and start a new one?"
In contrast, the pastor tells the story of Charles Studd, an English missionary born in 1860, whose biography he reads in the morning with his wife. A wealthy young man, a student at Cambridge and a cricket champion on the national team, he was as famous as "the Totti of cricket." His father was converted at a meeting held by the evangelist Moody, and then the Lord touched Charles's heart.
Called to China in the 1880s, he lived there among cockroaches and persecution. At 25, he received his inheritance: 29,000 pounds sterling, about 5.8 million euros in today's money according to the pastor. As he read the passage about the rich young man, he took it as spoken to him.
On June 13, 1887, he "invested in the bank of heaven": 5,000 pounds to Moody, who founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, 5,000 to George Müller and his orphanages in Bristol, 5,000 to George Holland for the poor of Whitechapel, 5,000 to William Booth and the Salvation Army in India, then gifts of 1,000 pounds to orphanages, to charities in London and to a hospital.
He had 3,000 pounds left when he was about to marry. He suggested keeping them for the family, and it was his wife who decided to give them away. "What a difference from the rich young man."

5. "It Is No Longer I Who Live": a New Creation

Paul felt such a new life that he could say: I am no longer who I was, I am a new creation. For the pastor, this is the greatest miracle, greater than a paralyzed man walking or a dead man rising. What our efforts could not do, God's grace has done.
The way you speak changes. Before knowing the Lord, the pastor used a swear word every two or three words, "like commas." Then the bad words stop coming out of the mouth.
The Bible, that mysterious book you open and close without understanding anything, becomes understandable. Prayer, which was a penance and a bore, becomes something you long for.
There is victory over vices and fears: the one who smoked no longer smokes, the one who used drugs no longer does. Sometimes it happens gradually, "but it happens."
The presence of God becomes real. At first, the pastor did not understand what that expression meant. He compares it to family in the house: you are in one room, you do not see your loved ones, but you hear them and you know they are there.
Finally, a new certainty. During his military service, a young man spoke to him about Jesus and told him he had the assurance of eternal life: "If you die now, where are you going?" The future pastor answered that he was neither holy enough for paradise nor bad enough for hell, so "somewhere in the middle." The reply: "Purgatory was invented in the Middle Ages." Then he admitted: "I don't know where I'm going."
If that is also your honest answer, open your heart to the Lord. He can give you the assurance of eternal life, and you no longer fear death.

6. "Christ Lives in Me": God's Address

"I'm just a small-time Christian, a C-list, a D-list," you may think. No: this verse is for you too. Colossians 1:27 speaks of the mystery revealed to the church: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
"Christ does not live in you because you are good, holy or perfect, but because you accepted him as your Savior."
The pastor quotes another old hymn, a march from the 1930s that he found terrible, but with magnificent words: "He lives in me, he lives in me, in your heart, young people redeemed by Jesus."
People look up and wonder in which galaxy God is. What is God's address? "If Jesus lives in you, the address is your heart." In heaven's registry, the Lord has as many addresses as he has children.
Jesus promised to be where two or three are gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20). But his presence does not stay at church. When you go home alone, to your room, in secret, he is with you. Each person feels it in their own way: some cry, others laugh, get chills, or feel warm.

7. Guest of Honor or Master of the House?

If the Lord lives in us, he is at the very least a guest of honor. For an important person, we clean the house for a week, we bring out the plates, glasses and cutlery we never use, the wedding tablecloth.
The pastor tells how, when they could, he and his wife gave up their bedroom to visiting pastors and brothers and slept on a camping mattress. The guest of honor must have the best place.
What place does the Lord have in your day? A little corner? The Sunday corner, locked in a room until the following week? What have you put in the best part of your heart?
For Paul, Christ was not the guest, he was the master of the house: Paul had given him the keys to his heart. You could see it in the way he spoke, his feelings, his sufferings and his persecutions. Charles Studd did the same, and dozens of missions were born.
The old self is hard to kill, like the robot in science fiction films that gets back up every time. With the Lord's help, you have to keep it nailed to the cross every day.
Water baptism, by immersion, is not a bath: it is a burial. "Christians are the only ones who have gone to their own funeral," that of the old self, before rising to a new life.
"We will probably not be like Charles Studd," the pastor admits, and not all of us are called to go to China. But the most beautiful thing that has happened to us is the day we gave our hearts to the Lord.
"Membership is not salvation. Salvation is the new birth." The pastor wants to preach this Gospel, even though it is not fashionable and does not fill the halls. He invites everyone to ask: "Lord, am I born again? I do not want to be left outside one day."
Paul preached Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks (1 Corinthians 1:23). Salvation comes neither from the law, nor from works, nor from our own righteousness, but from the blood of Jesus, which cleanses from all sin (1 John 1:7).

Key Takeaways

You can join Christianity without having been converted to Christ. Salvation is not membership, it is the new birth.
To be born again, you must first die: the old self, with its passions and desires, must be crucified every day.
Grace produces concrete changes: the way you speak, reading the Bible, prayer, victory over vices, the assurance of eternal life.
Christ lives in you not because you are perfect, but because you accepted him as Savior. God's address is your heart.
Jesus does not ask for a little Sunday corner: he wants to be the master of the house and receive the keys to your heart.

Personal Application

If you are honest, have you been converted to Christ, or did you join out of habit, because of your family, or to please someone?
Which work of the flesh, perhaps a hidden one like envy or jealousy, do you need to nail to the cross today?
Is there something from your old life that you refuse to let go of, like the rich young man?
If you died now, would you know where you are going?
What place does the Lord have in your day: a Sunday corner, or the whole house?

Bible Passages Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between joining Christianity and being converted?

According to Valerio Mungai, you can join Christianity out of tradition, because of your family, or to please your spouse, like Clovis I, who was baptized in 496 without changing his life. Conversion is a personal experience with Christ and a transformation: you are born again. And Jesus says that whoever is not born again cannot see the kingdom of God.

What does "I have been crucified with Christ" mean?

The preacher explains that the Greek tense used describes a reality that continues: I was crucified and I still am. What is crucified is the old self with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24, Romans 6:6), including sins of the heart such as envy and jealousy. To be born again, you must first die.

How can I know whether Christ lives in me?

Christ does not live in you because you are good, holy or perfect, but because you accepted him as your Savior. Valerio Mungai describes concrete signs: a different way of speaking, a Bible that opens, a prayer life you long for, victory over vices, the felt presence of God and the assurance of eternal life.