I Am Crucified With Christ, Galatians 2:20 Wooden Cross Print

Just the cross and its shadow

There is no figure on this cross and no hill behind it. Two split timbers, streaked in brown and gray with the grain still showing, are joined by four dark nail heads where the beams cross. The cross is planted among a few tufts of green grass and three smooth white stones, and the light comes from the left, throwing a long blue-gray shadow across the empty paper.

The restraint is the point. With so little else to look at, the eye moves between the wood, its shadow and the line lettered above in dark brown: “I am crucified with Christ”, followed by Galatians 2:20.

Paul's sentence in full

The printed words open one of the most personal verses Paul ever wrote. In the King James Version it continues: “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.”

The setting is a dispute. Paul has just told the Galatians how he confronted Peter at Antioch, when Peter stopped eating with Gentile believers under pressure from others. For Paul the question was whether faith in Christ alone makes a person right with God, or whether the old boundaries of the law still have to be kept. His answer is this verse: the self that tried to earn its standing has died, and a new life now runs on trust in someone who loved him first.

Notice the grammar. “Who loved me, and gave himself for me” is singular. Paul, who spent his life preaching to crowds, speaks here as one man thinking about what the cross meant for him.

A gift for an adult baptism

Galatians 2:20 is a favorite verse for grown believers going under the water, because baptism is pictured in the New Testament as a death and a rising. Paul makes the same link in Romans 6:4: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.” A friend or pastor giving this print is marking a decision made with open eyes.

The design suits a study, an office or a man's bedroom as easily as a church foyer, and a plain black frame keeps it sharp.