Having just celebrated the Easter season, our thoughts were turned to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, but what really happened at Golgotha? When Paul said "I. have been crucified with Christ," it meant he had been judged, condemned, cast out, stripped naked and nailed to the cross. The very thought of crucifixion to a Jew, and especially to a Pharisee, brought a sense of shame and horror.

 When Saul of Tarsus identified himself with the man Jesus, accepted Him as his Savior, and confessed Him as his Lord, that moment he became a crucified man to the Jewish people. He became an outcast. No wonder he said in Galatians 6:14 that "the world had been crucified unto him, and he had been crucified unto the world." The world had been stripped naked to Paul. There was no longer any delusion in regard to it. He could no longer be deceived. He knew its cruelty. He had felt its lash upon his back. He remembered the stoning that had left him unconscious. He remembered that in every place he went he faced the anger, bitterness, and jealousy of men. He had been stripped naked to the world.  There was nothing in him that the world desired. That little Jew, with his mighty message and his tremendous power in prayer, had been crucified to the world. We understand what crucifixion actually means. Paul saw his identification with Christ in His crucifixion. We understand that crucifixion did not mean death. It meant union with Christ in His disgrace and suffering.  

Romans 6:6 - "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the bondage of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin. "

 Crucifixion points the way to death. In the Spirit's great argument of our identification with Christ, He said that our old man, this hidden man of the heart, our spirit, the real man who was filled with spiritual death and satanic nature was nailed to the cross in Christ.

 Christ went there, not for Himself and not as a martyr, but as a substitute. We were nailed to the cross with Christ. We were crucified with Him. The object of the crucifixion, in the mind of the mob, was to get rid of this man whom they hated. In the mind of justice, it meant His identification with humanity in its sin and suffering, and our identification with Him in His crucifixion.