Crucified with Christ

"Galations 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ." How have you understood that phrase?

I think the average Christian assumes Paul is saying something like "Christ died for me." I've heard theologians discuss whether this isn't merely a "positional" statement, whether it was only "as if" Paul had been crucified with the Lord Jesus. But as a pastor, having walked alongside so many broken people who have looked to the cross for redemption and restoration, I have to conclude that no, this statement from Paul is absolutely real."

"...At every turn in the process, Paul watched His dying Savior, he would cry out, "My Lord! This is where I should be!"
"Yes, I know," he Lord would say to him. "But, Paul you cannot pay this price; only I can. And i cannot avoid it, or else you will never live. You'll have no life, Paul, unless I shed My blood for you."

"I have been crucified with Christ, Paul said. How does that statement apply to you and me?

Again, the average Christian would think, 'Well, it doesn't really."
I disagree.
If you saw Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, did oyu sense that you were being crucified with Christ, or that He was being crucified for you? I'm sure most of those who watched it had great sympathy with Jesus, but I doubt many of us sensed that we were up there on that cross, crucified, and bleeding with Him. Yet I believe you and I are called to begin understanding those depths just as Paul did, and to know the transformation that Paul knew as well."

"There must be a point in your life where you can say- not just doctrinally, but experientially-
"I have been crucified with Christ." Only the living Lord himself can bring you to that place.

The deepest meaning of the cross and it's transforming power can be understood experientially. Don't ever equate knowing a doctrine with having experienced the reality of the truth. The cross must be experienced to be understood."

Taken from Experiencing the Cross by Henry Blackby