13. The cross is God's sentence against the old man in us. " If we have been planted together [with Christ] in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin." (Rom. 6:5-75For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin. (Romans 6:5‑7).) The Holy Ghost is here telling us how, because God looks upon believers as having died with Christ when He died, they ought so to think of themselves, and live the life which they do live as " alive unto God through Jesus Christ." (Ver. 11.) But I observe that we do not only get "dead with" and " alive with," &c., in such passages, but here " that our old man was crucified with." And herein doubtless we get one reason of our
Lord's death being by the cross as well as a word of warning and comfort to ourselves. God not only sought blood for atonement, but Jesus did indeed stand in our place and experience the treatment we deserved; and He was therefore crucified, or put to open shame in His death, as to the mode of it. Well, says Paul, Christian! have you hope because God tells you to think of yourself as one who died with and revived in Christ? then remember that where you found this comfort, in God's declaration about Christ crucified, there you found God putting your old man to open shame in a cruel lingering death. And when you think of the cross, and that the cross of the Son, O see how utterly God abominated and loathed, from the very bottom of His soul, the evil nature which is in you; so that when its guilt was seen by Him on Jesus, He hid His face even from Him. And as Christians, we see there is in this verse a word for us-for it is a constant memento of God's detestation of the old man in us, on the ground of which Christ was crucified.