Pastor Jerry Rockwell
I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
“Living the Christian Life”
Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:6
Introduction: One of the difficulties in the 21st Century concerning the church and believers is the misstep of understanding the “Spiritual Life” taught in the New Testament by the Missionary the Apostle Paul. In our study of Galatians, it has been clear that he is the central figure whom God used to develop the church and the New Testament. There are 27 books in the New Testament. The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were produced by the Spirit of God to verify who Jesus Christ is and what his objective was in God’s plan for the future. Israel had rejected Jesus Christ, their Messiah, and had him crucified to rid the world of Him and His doctrine. The main reason for this is that the new teaching ran headlong into the Law of Moses. The result of this rejection is seen in the battle Paul had with the Jewish men who were telling believers that they must be “circumcised” to be a valid Christian. We have explored this in Galatians 1-2. The battle continues in Galatians 3-4, but viewed from a biblical/historical perspective.
The rest of the New Testament consists of 23 books. Acts give us the perspective of the development of the church and Paul’s missionary work. After Acts comes fourteen books (if Hebrews is attributed to Paul). That leaves eight books attributed to writings by some of the Apostles called by Jesus Christ when He appeared at the Baptism of John (Matt. 3). Leaving out the four gospels and Acts, since these five books were focused on the Life of Christ, and Acts gives a history of the development of the church, that means the 22 books after Acts develop the church's doctrines. Of these 22 books, Paul wrote 63.6% of the New Testament's doctrinal books. If you include the five books, Matthew-Acts, Paul was still the instrument God used to write 51.8% of the entire New Testament. The twelve apostles had the privilege of walking with Christ in the 3.5 years of His ministry and hearing first hand the teachings He was delivering to the Jews. Jesus, after calling His twelve disciples, “sent forth and commanded them saying” in Matthew 10:5–7 (KJV) 5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Then He spoke to a “woman of Canaan” who came to him and cried out to Jesus to have mercy because here daughter was “vexed with a devil.” (Matt. 10:21-28). Jesus told her in, Matthew 15:24 (KJV) But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jesus was sent to the “house of Israel” because the Old Testament had prophesied that the Messiah would come to Israel. They were looking for Him, but they thought He would come, fight against Rome, and deliver the nation from the oppression. They were looking for what is again prophesied in Revelation 19, which describes the second coming. The rejection of Christ, the Jews Messiah, culminated in His cruci
fixion, burial, and resurrection. Few of them anticipated this. When the women discovered the resurrection at the grave site, and Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, she went and told the disciples (Mark 16:9-11), the text says in Mark 16:11, And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. Luke 24:10-11 gives the same story but adds other women with Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James, and other women (vs. 10). They told the disciples what they had seen and their response is classic. The text records their response in Luke 24:11 (KJV) And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. One has to wonder why God chose Paul to be the theologian and recorder of what was going on in God’s transition to the church? Maybe because he was not biased with the things the disciples saw and still doubted.