25. Reference to the
Saying of Paul About Crucifixion with Christ.
Moreover in regard to the saying, “Let him deny
himself,”
5723
the following
saying of Paul who denied himself seems appropriate, “Yet I live,
and yet no longer I but Christ liveth in me;”
5724
for the expression, “I live, yet no
longer I,” was the voice of one denying himself, as of one who
had laid aside his own life and taken on himself the Christ, in order
that He might live in him as Righteousness, and as Wisdom, and as
Sanctification, and as our Peace,
5725
and as the
Power of God, who worketh all things in him. But further also,
attend to this, that while there are many forms of dying, the Son of
God was crucified, being hanged on a tree, in order that all who die
unto sin may die to it, in no other way than by the way of the
cross. Wherefore they will say, “I have been crucified with
Christ,” and, “Far be it from me to glory save in the cross
of the Lord, through which the world has been crucified unto me and I
unto the world.”
5726
For perhaps
also each of those who have been crucified with Christ puts off from
himself the principalities and the powers, and makes a show of them and
triumphs over them in the cross;
5727
or rather,
Christ does these things in them.
5723
Matt. xvi. 24
.
5724
Gal. ii. 20
.
5725
1 Cor. i. 30; Eph. ii. 14
.
5726
Gal. ii. 20; vi. 14
.
5727
Col. ii. 15
.