Old Man

March 9

Old Man

palaios anthropos

The very opposite of the new man (see Jan.1) is the old man. A key verse here is Rom_6:6: "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." Oddly, this verse has been a battleground for centuries. The question has been not whether we become holy in Christ—all agree there—but rather how this holiness is brought about.

All misunderstanding, however, comes from the misconception that Rom_6:6 refers to something that happens in our own experience, that it is something that we do in our efforts, something that comes as a result of our own struggling against sin. But that is the exact opposite of what the text says.

The key to understanding this verse comes in recognizing that all the verb tenses in Romans 6 are past tenses (aorist or perfect). In other words, every verb tense that refers to our identification with Christ in His death refers to it being completed in the past. Rom_6:6, therefore, says that our "old man was crucified" way back when Christ died and that it was completed then and there. It does not say that we must each morning get up and "crucify ourselves again to sin." Rather it says that by God’s judicial act, not by our experiential effort, the old man was "crucified" and therefore "destroyed." Old is palaios (G3820), which means "old in the sense of worn out, decrepit, useless." So, the old, worn out, decrepit person we used to be has been "destroyed" (past tense of katargeō, G2673), "to render inactive, put out of use, cancel, bring to nothing, do away with." This has been replaced by the new man.

Based on that fact of the language, the old man can refer to only one thing: all that we were in Adam, that is, all the guilt, penalty, power, and dominion of sin that was in Adam. Immediately we want to ask, "But I do still sin—why?" We’ll deal with that tomorrow. The point here is that sin is not the rule of life like it was before. We are not dominated by sin as we once were. The old man is gone because of what Christ accomplished on Calvary. We are not sinless, as we’ll see, but we do "sin less" because we are no longer dominated and controlled by sin. While sin used to rule, it is now Christ who rules.

Scriptures for Study: What is the contrast in Rom_7:6 ("oldness" is palaiotes, "antiquated")? Palaios also means "not recent, what is of long standing." What is the point, then, of 1Jn_2:7?

 
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