Galatians 2:20 (KJV)
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
In this passage, Paul reveals the secret to the spectacular Christian life he lived. A life where he (one man) made all in Asia to hear the Word of God. A Christian life where God performed special miracles such that people touched his body with handkerchiefs and used the handkerchiefs to touch the sick and they were healed. Acts 19:8-12. A Christian life where God used him to write about half of the New Testament scriptures. What a life! But Paul in the above passage (Galatians 2:20) reveals the means by which he was able to experience such things. He said: “… and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God …”. Paul is saying that the faith of the Son of God is the means by which he was able to live such a life.
But this is not exclusive to Paul. Every Christian is to live like this. Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38 all echo this, saying: “… the just shall live by faith …”. We (Christians) are the just; those who have been justified before God by the blood of Jesus. And scripture says we are to live by faith. One helpful way to understand this is to think of everyday life and the economy. If someone asks you: what is your source of living? Or: what do you do for a living? Your mind will go to your job, your income from businesses, your salary, etc. These are your source of living; the means by which you are able to live; the means by which you are able to afford things: apartment or house, furniture, car, clothing, electronics, holiday trips, etc. Your income, or the amount of money you have, determines the quality of life you are able to live, as far as the physical financial economy is concerned.
But there is a spiritual economy; an economy where spiritual realities can be obtained; and the currency for transactions in that economy is faith. Faith is thus the spiritual shekel of the sanctuary (the currency used for God’s dealings, as in Exodus 38:21-29). Meaning, when scripture says “… the just shall live by faith …” it means that just as money (through the sources of income) is the means by which one lives in the physical economy and is able to afford things for higher quality living, so also, in the spiritual economy, faith is the means by which one is able to afford Christ-like realities for a higher quality Christian experience, just like Paul said. That is why Romans 5:2 says: “… we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, …”. The grace of God is God’s goodwill to enable us experience various Christ-like possibilities. As such, “having access by faith into this grace” is another way of saying “affording (or obtaining) different aspects of the grace of God through faith”.
Some of these Christ-like realities that faith enables us to obtain include: character (e.g. holiness, love, self-control, forgiveness, etc), health (freedom from sicknesses), supernatural financial provision, power to heal others (from all manner of diseases), power to work miracles, wisdom to understand and communicate the truths of God’s word, ability to see into the future or to know things supernaturally, and many more. These are the things that with faith you can afford to obtain and thus experience a higher-quality Christian life, beyond the ordinary, just like Paul said: “… and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God …”.
As this Paul’s statement reveals, the faith we are to use to transact in the spiritual economy (to obtain Christ-like realities) is the faith of the Son of God. In other words, it is Jesus’s faith we are to live by. As a husband serves as the primary breadwinner and makes resources available for his wife to spend in providing for the family, so also Jesus (as the Husband of the Church) has made available the riches of His faith (His abundant shekels) to us His Church, and each believer is to draw from this His faith in order to obtain different kinds of possibilities.
How are we to draw from His faith to make it our faith?
Romans 10:17 says: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”. Simply put, this verse is saying that: faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Meaning, you draw from the faith of the Son of God to make it your faith by exposing yourself to His words. It is as you hear Him (through scriptures) and meditate on, study on, believe on, and pray on His words (the Word of God) that you receive His faith (receive His sheckels); and it is when you receive His faith (when you believe what He believes; when you receive His shekels) that you can use it to obtain Christ-like realities (in the spiritual economy) to experience a higher-quality Christian life.
As an example of the different values for different realities in the spiritual economy, Exodus 30:22-25 shows different amounts of sanctuary shekels for different things, e.g. for the making of the anointing oil, 500 shekels of myrrh, 250 shekels of cinnamon, 250 shekels of sweet calamus, 500 shekels of cassia. These give a clue that in the spiritual economy, different realities have different units of faith (spiritual shekels) required to obtain them. But in all cases, and irrespective of the amount, faith comes into you as you expose yourself to the Word of God, by hearing, studying, meditating on, and praying with it.
Prayer for today:
O Lord, thank You for making Your faith available for me. Help me to expose myself to Your word so that Your faith can become my faith, and with it I can afford to obtain spiritual realities that will make my Christian life of higher quality, like that of Paul, be it in my health, my spiritual life, my finances, or my ministry. Let me not live a mediocre Christian life. Let me live by the riches of the faith of the Son of God. Amen.
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