Your “Old Man” Is Dead!

What the Apostle [Paul] is saying is this: if you are a Christian, if you have been born again, the you that you were is dead; it is gone.  That “old man” died with Christ upon the cross on Calvary’s hill; it was “crucified with him.”  Now Romans 6:6 and the following verses are not an appeal to us to die with Christ (there is no more tragic misinterpretation of Scripture than that); they are telling us that we have already done so.  There are those who say, “Ah well, you believe that Christ died for you?  Now you must die with him.”  You cannot do that.  As Romans 6:6 tells us, you have died with him, you were “crucified with him.”  He does not tell you to die.  If you are in Christ you have already died with him; the “old man” is already dead.

Now let us be clear about this.  it does not mean that the old nature is dead; it is “the old man” that was crucified with Christ.  There are relics and remnants of the old nature still left in us.  That is why Paul has to tell us, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (6:12).  It is there, but do not let it reign.  Why? Because you are dead.  You once were one, but you are now two as it were; you are a “new man.”  You are aware of the old nature in you, but you know for certain that as a being you are no longer what you were born as.

Is this clear to you?  This is what gives you an assurance that you are a Christian.  You are imperfect still, you sin still, you fail still.  There are many things about you that are wrong, but you know that the man you once were is dead; you are not that man.  You are not a perfect man yet in Christ, but you are not that “old man.”  The old man has died; he has been crucified and buried with Christ.  You no longer belong to the world; you are no longer under the dominion of sin and Satan.  Oh, the apostle Paul has again summed it up by saying, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Experiencing the New Birth: Studies in John 3,” pg.216-217