Much has been lately said on this verse, and stress has been laid on the word “our.” The inference drawn therefrom is that the phrase, “our old man,” refers solely to the evil nature in us. Accompanying this is an effort to separate the nature from the man in whom the nature is. A few words as to the bearing of this verse may be helpful to souls.
The Holy Spirit is dealing with the question of sin, that evil nature which is inherent in the whole race of Adam. Now it is not in part that we are affected by sin, but “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it.” (Isaiah 1:5, 65Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. (Isaiah 1:5‑6)) This has been fully brought to light in the cross. Before the cross the Lord could give the law its full moral force as forbidding certain acts, and say that if either of the members became a cause of stumbling, it were better that it should perish than the whole body be cast into hell (Matthew 5); but the cross has demonstrated the entirely sinful condition of man. Who can read such words as, “Away with this Man!” “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” and not feel that the true character of sin was developed as law could not do. “Now have they, both seen and hated both me and my Father.” Consequently, it is not now the question of this member or that being affected, but of the whole man. Hence Christians can say, “Our old man has been crucified with Him.” It is the man—what they were, looked at as of Adam’s race—which has been crucified with Christ; that the body of sin, not sin in this member or in that but as a whole “the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Note, it is the person (“we”) who does not serve sin. The members can now be presented as instruments of righteousness, and no longer of sin, to God. The old man —what we were as of the first Adam—is put off with his deeds, the fruit of deceitful lusts. It is not this deed or that which is put off, but the man; and the new man is put on, that is, Christ. To use the words of a beloved servant of God, “I acknowledge Him alone as my ‘I,’ and as this new ‘I’ I reckon myself dead to the old ‘I.’” This leads to one more point of great importance—that practical freedom from sin is by our having the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:22For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)) It is only as we live the life of this new “I” (Galatians 2:2020I 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. (Galatians 2:20)) that we see the hatefulness of the old “I,” and approve God’s sentence of condemnation upon it, executed as it has been in the cross. For believers there is no condemnation. Delivered from the old “I,” they are in, Christ, and in the power of His life they live to God. It is Christ in them. The pulses of his life in us must beat towards His God and Father, and delight in His righteousness and holy love, to enjoy which unhinderedly will be our eternal portion. Nothing of the old “I” could ever be there. Thank God, our old man has been crucified with Christ!
T. H. R.