The Old Man is Crucified

“Knowing this, that our oldmaniscrucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,

that henceforth we should not serve sin.”

(Rom. 6:6)

Those who interpret the ‘old man’ as our sinful nature, have a difficult time explaining this verse, particularly because our sinful nature is anything but dead. This is where careful Scripture interpretation is necessary, that we not be found confounding the Word of God.

The Apostle Paul’s use of the term ‘old man’ sinful is concerning the first Adam. There is no earthly, created human older than he and he is the representative man of all his descendants. Under Adam, we were chained and bound over to condemnation, helpless in the fall and guilty of God’s law. Dead in trespasses and sins, without life, none could perform even the least act of obedience to satisfy the Holy God, Ephesians 2:1. How precious and merciful then is the work of the LORD Jesus, Who willingly came as the last Adam and as the elect sinners’ Representative for Righteousness. Even as the ‘old man’, Adam, was for their condemnation, Christ, the New Man, Ephesians 4:24, was made sin (made the sin offering) that by His sacrificial death He should bear away in judgment the body of sin from Adam’s condemnation and completely satisfy God’s law and justice for those for whom He died, 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 15:45.

It is in this sense only that it can be said that the body of sin is destroyed. It has not been destroyed in us because as long as we are in this flesh, even as sinners made alive by the Spirit of God, the sin nature has not, cannot and will not change, Romans 8:7-8. The body of sin then is the legal condemnation of sin imputed in Adam to our account. The LORD Jesus then, by His effectual death on the cross, has completely abolished and removed it for His elect. It is destroyed in Him and by Him Who died in their place and when He died, His people were judicially put to death in Him as their Representative.

The old man (what we were in Adam), and the body of sin (the legal condemnation by imputation), were destroyed, Christ having borne it away in His obedience unto death. Therefore, we no longer serve sin, nor are liable to its curse and condemnation, even though it is still very much in us because we have been justified (freed) from its accusations and condemnations, Romans 6:7. This is the same Truth taught in Ephesians 2:15: “...having abolished in his flesh the enmity.” The enmity is not said to be forgiven, nor changed but ABOLISHED. How? In His flesh! By taking the place of His people, being made sin (bearing its judgment and condemnation), all of the elect were at once reconciled to God, their sin having been put away and God’s righteousness imputed to their Spiritual and legal account then and there. What more could give God’s redeemed, justified and adopted children comfort and assurance? By Faith revealed, we reckon it to be so because God says it is so.