What does the apostle mean by being crucified with the Lord Christ and dying with Him?

First: Abiding in the heavenly Christ. St. Paul in no way considers Christian life to obligate a person to die with Christ by withdrawing from the world. Rather, through faith, the believer partakes in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection while being in the world, and so dies to the ‘old man’ [cf. Eph. 4:22] that he was in order to live for God in Christ.

Pope Athanasius the Apostolic says, “‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20). Now our life, my brethren, truly consists in our denying all bodily things, and continuing steadfast in those only of our Savior.”⁴⁵³ Again he says, “For that is the true life, which a man lives in Christ; for although they are dead to the world, yet they dwell as it were in heaven, minding those things which are above, as he who was a lover of such a habitation said, ‘While we walk on earth, our dwelling is in heaven’ (cf. Phil. 3:20).”⁴⁵⁴

The scholar Origen says, “Christ lives in us. Therefore, at His crucifixion, He said to His mother concerning John, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ (John 19:26). Thus, whoever becomes perfect lives not for his own sake, but Christ lives in him.”

Second: Renouncing the ego. The scholar Origen says, “Moreover in regard to the saying, ‘Let him deny himself’ (Matt. 16:24), the following saying of Paul who denied himself seems appropriate, ‘Yet I live, and yet no longer I but Christ lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20); 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 (1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 2:14), and as the Power of God, who works all things in him.”⁴⁵⁵

453 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Festal Letters 5.4 (NPNF II/4:518).

454 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Festal Letters 7:3 (NPNF II/4:524).

455 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 12.25 (ANF 9:464) amended.

St. Augustine says, “For if by loving himself man is lost, surely by denying himself he is found … Let him withdraw himself from himself, but not towards things below. Let him withdraw himself from himself, that he may cleave unto God.”⁴⁵⁶

Third: Partaking of divine love. In speaking of the Church’s love for her Christ, the apostle Paul says, “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter” (Rom. 8:36). This is the voice of the whole Church from Adam until the end of times, as it continually accepts to walk in the path of witnessing to God even to the point of death. The Church accepts to partake in the sufferings of Christ with joy, and desires to be counted as “sheep for the slaughter,” just as He was led as a lamb to the slaughter (Isa. 53:7). We practice a voluntary death daily: not by literally shedding our blood, but by our spiritual striving, sacrifice, and giving to all — even non-believers — for the sake of God the lover of humanity.

St. Ignatius of Antioch says, “I am a Priest of the Most High, to whom I daily offer a sacrifice and blessed indeed should I consider myself were I to be sacrificed to His glory.”

“Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones … let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.”⁴⁵⁷

“Suffer me to obtain pure light: when I have gone thither, I shall indeed be a man of God. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God.”⁴⁵⁸

St. John Chrysostom says , “He makes them; without death, a sacrifice and offering.”⁴⁵⁹ He also says, “For it is possible in a day to die not once alone or twice, but many times. For he who is always ready unto this, keeps continually receiving a full reward.”⁴⁶⁰

Abba Dorotheos of Gaza says, “But the saints who offer [sacrifice] themselves to God, offer themselves alive, every day—as David says, ‘For your sake we are put to death all the day long, we are considered as sheep for the slaughter’ (Ps. 44:22). St. Gregory says, ‘Let us offer ourselves as first-fruits [of the resurrection],’ that is, let us sacrifice ourselves, let us die to ourselves all the day long, as did all the saints, for the sake of Christ our God. How did they put themselves to death? By not loving the world or what is in the world (1 John 2:15) … About this the Apostle says, ‘Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires’ (Gal. 5:24). This is how the saints put themselves to death.”⁴⁶¹

456 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 46.1–2 (NPNF I/6:408–409).

457 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans 5 (ANF 1:75–76).

458 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans 6 (ANF 1:76)

459 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 82.1 (NPNF I/14:301).

460 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 15 (NPNF I/11:456).

461

Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings . Cistercian Studies Series: Number 33, trans., Eric P. Wheeler (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1977): p. 222.

“And what sort of gift ought we to offer to Christ in order to please him on the day of his Resurrection, if he does not desire the sacrifice of senseless animals? The Saint [Gregory Nazianzen] in his teaching tells us the answer, for after saying. ‘It is the Day of Resurrection,’ he adds, ‘Let us offer up its first-fruits, which is ourselves.’ The Apostle too instructs us: ‘Offer up your own bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, the worship that your reason dictates’ (Rom.12:1). How then ought we to make an offering of our bodies as a living sacrifice to God? ‘By no longer following our physical desires and our own ideas’ (Eph. 2:3), but ‘walking in the spirit and not fulfilling the desires of the flesh’ (Gal. 5:16). ‘For this is to mortify our earthly members’ (Col. 3:5).”⁴⁶²

Fourth: Participating in the procession of victory. No longer can suffering and hardship shatter the soul, for they have become our entrance to the victory march led by Jesus Christ who suffered and was crucified.

Fifth: Mortifying evil desires. St. Jerome says, “Therefore, as you lie on your couch, say again and again: ‘By night on my bed I sought the one I love’ (Song 3:1). Mortify, therefore, says the apostle, your members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5). Because he himself did so, he could afterwards say with confidence: ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ, lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20). He who mortifies his members, and feels that he is walking in a vain show, is not afraid to say: ‘I have become like a bottle in the frost’ (cf. Ps. 119:83). Whatever there was in me of the moisture of lust has been dried out of me. And again: ‘My knees are weak through fasting; I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin’ (cf. Ps. 109:24).”⁴⁶³

St. Irenaeus also says, “This same, therefore, was what the Lord came to accomplish, that as in Adam we do all die, as being of an animal nature, in Christ we may all live, as being spiritual, not laying aside God’s handiwork, but the lusts of the flesh, and receiving the Holy Spirit; as the apostle says in the Epistle to the Colossians: ‘Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.’ And what these are he himself explains: ‘Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry’ (Col. 3:5). The laying aside of these is what the apostle preaches and he declares that those who do such things, as being merely flesh and blood, cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. For their soul, tending towards what is worse, and descending to earthly lusts, has become a partaker in the same designation which belongs to these which, when the apostle commands us to lay aside, he says in the same Epistle, ‘Put off the old man with his deeds’ (Col. 3:9). But when he said this, he does not remove away the ancient formation ‘of man,’ for in that case it would be incumbent on us to rid ourselves of its company by committing suicide.”⁴⁶⁴

462 Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings . Cistercian Studies Series: Number 33, trans., Eric P. Wheeler (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1977): pp. 221–222.

463 St. Jerome, Letters 22.17 (NPNF II/6:28).

464 St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies 5.12.3 (ANF 1:538).

St. Ambrose says, “What indeed is death but the burial of vices and the awakening of virtues? For this reason ‘may my soul depart among the souls of the righteous,’ that is, ‘may it be buried together with them’ (Num. 23:10 LXX; cf. Col. 2.12), that it may lay down its sins and take up the grace of the just, who ‘bear about the dying of Christ in their body’ (2 Cor. 4:10) and soul,”⁴⁶⁵ and, “The soul who is about to receive the Word should be such that she dies to the world (Gal. 6:14) and is buried together in Christ (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12)! So it is that Christ is found, and such is the reception he asks for himself.”⁴⁶⁶

St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “How can you obey Paul when he exhorts you to offer your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, when you are conformed to this world and not transformed by the renewing of your mind, when you are not walking in this newness of life, but still pursuing the routine of the old man?”⁴⁶⁷

St. Jerome also says, “Let us hear also the declaration which Ezekiel the so called ‘son of man’ (Ezek. 2:1) makes concerning the virtue of him who is to be the true son of man, the Christian: ‘I will take you, he says: from among the heathen’ … then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness … a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit … Wherefore the song also which we sing is a new song (Rev. 14:3) and putting off the old man (Eph. 4:22) we walk not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. (Rom. 7:6) This is the new stone wherein the new name is written ‘which no man knows saving he that receives it’ (Rev. 2:17).”⁴⁶⁸

Sixth: Receiving abundant crowns. St. John Chrysostom says that out of God’s abundant love for us, He permits the believer many deaths, so that the believer may receive many crowns. The crowns we receive are in proportion to the measure of our willingness to die daily. We receive crowns because the deaths we accept are regarded as an acceptable sacrifice.

St. John Chrysostom says, “‘For Your sake we are killed all day long’ (Ps. 44:22) … For it is possible in a day to die not once alone or twice, but many times. For he who is always ready unto this, keeps continually receiving a full reward … He shows too that their bodies become a sacrifice, and that we must not be disturbed or troubled at God having so ordered it.”[ 469]

Seventh: Becoming more than conquerors. What does this really mean?

• a. The very snares that are laid to destroy us are those that grant us the life of victory.

• b. We accept dying with Christ without any sense of toil or hardship.

465 St. Ambrose of Milan, Death as Good 4.15 (FOTC 65:81–82).

466 St. Ambrose of Milan, Isaac, or the Soul 6.53 (FOTC 65:43).

467 St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 24 (NPNF II/5:370).

468 St. Jerome, Letters 69.7 (NPNF II/6:146).

469 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 15 (NPNF I/11:456).

• c. We resist those who oppose us, not by opposing them in return, but by becoming greater in the eyes of God than those who harm us by violence, exclusion, or persecution. Even if they kill us, this act is considered as being directed against God the Almighty, and they shall live their lives in remorse and bitterness.

On this matter, St. John Chrysostom says, “For they did not merely conquer, but in a wondrous way, and so that one might learn that those who plotted against them had a war not against men, but against that invincible Might … And therefore he says: we are more than conquerors. For this was a new rule of victory for men to prevail by their adversaries, and in no instance to be overcome, but to go forth to these struggles as if they themselves had the issue in their own hands. For it is marvelous indeed, that though they may imprison us and beat us, they are yet at a loss for they are fighting against the Almighty who cannot be overcome.”⁴⁷⁰

St. Hippolytus says, “‘She has slaughtered her meat’ [Prov. 9:2] denotes martyrs who in every city and country are slain like sheep every day by the unbelieving, on behalf of the truth, and cry aloud, ‘For your sake we are killed all the day long, we were counted as sheep for the slaughter’ (Ps. 44:22; Rom. 8:36).”⁴⁷¹

And the martyr Cyprian says, “None of these things can separate believers, nothing can tear away those who are clinging to His body and blood. Persecution of that kind is an examination and searching out of the heart. God wills us to be sifted and proved, as He has always proved His people; and yet in His trials help has never at any time been wanting to believers.”⁴⁷²

St. Irenaeus says, “But here the expression ‘all the day long’ is put for all this time during which we suffer persecution, and are killed as sheep. As then this day does not signify one which consists of twelve hours, but the whole time during which believers in Christ suffer and are put to death for His sake.”⁴⁷³

Eighth: Becoming one with the Apostles . The apostle Paul unveils the blessing of dying with Christ, making it clear that the faithful live the life of sacrifice and dying with Christ together with the rest of the apostles. Living the life of dying with Christ enables the believer to enter into the mystery of belonging to the family of the Apostles, as St. Paul says: “you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together” (2 Cor. 7:3). In this passage, he explains to his people the concept of a true Father’s love, for he is ready to die with them and live with them. This love is not based on mere human emotions but comes from a yearning to be together as one family in God’s bosom. Their repentance, their salvation, and their eternal life is what makes the apostle rejoice. The apostle was comforted when he heard from Titus of his congregation’s repentance and the comfort they felt from God. And Titus also rejoiced

470 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 15 (NPNF I/11:456).

471 St. Hippolytus of Rome Fragments On Proverbs 9.1 (ANF 5:175) amended.

472 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistles 7.5 (ANF 5:287).

473 St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies 2.22.2 (ANF 1:390).

and they refreshed his spirit (2 Cor. 7:13). A servant always finds rest in the divine comfort his flock receives through sincere repentance.

St. John Chrysostom says, “This is the greatest affection, when even though treated with contempt, he chooses both to die and live with them … ‘For should it chance,’ says he, ‘that danger should invade, for your sakes I am ready to suffer everything; and neither death nor life seems anything to me in itself, but in whichever case, that is to me more desirable, both death than life and life than death.’”⁴⁷⁴

St. Ambrose also says, “Truly is he a man of priestly mind and spirit who with dutiful affection, like a good shepherd, offered himself for the flock of the Lord. Thus [like Moses] he broke the sting of death, checked its onslaught, refused it further course. Love assisted his merits, for he offered himself in behalf of those who were resisting him.”⁴⁷⁵

Ninth: Experiencing the righteousness of Christ. The Lord Christ died on the cross that we may die with Him and live for Him in His righteousness. The apostle Peter says that He “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24). The apostle explains that the sufferings of the cross were not just about courage or the ability to endure but are in essence an act of love and self-sacrifice, for He willed by His stripes and wounds to heal our wounds. By His own will He bent His back that He may mystically carry our sins in His body, for “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28); “Because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12). The goal of this salvific work is to make us one with Him and enable us to experience His righteousness.