15. Paul gives the reason for new growth. He says: "Knowing this,
that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might
be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin." It
does not become us, as baptized Christians, to desire to remain in
our old sinful estate. That is already crucified with Christ; the
sentence of condemnation upon it has been pronounced and carried out.
For that is what being crucified means. Just so, Christ, in suffering
crucifixion for our sins, bore the penalty of death and the wrath of
God. Christ, innocent and sinless, being crucified for our sins, sin
must be crucified in our body; it must be utterly condemned and
destroyed, rendered lifeless and powerless. We dare not, then, in any
wise serve sin nor consent to it. We must regard it as actually
condemned, and with all our power we must resist it; we must subdue
and put it to death.
16. Paul here makes a distinction. He says, "Our old man was
crucified with him [Christ]," and "that the body of sin might be done
away." He intimates that the "old man" and "the body of sin" are two
different things. By the term "old man" he means not only the
body--the grossly sinful deeds which the body commits with its five
senses--but the whole tree with all its fruits, the whole man as he
is descended from Adam. In it are included body and soul, will,
reason and understanding. Both inwardly and outwardly, it is still
under the sway of unbelief, impiety and disobedience. Man is called
old, not because of his years; for it is possible for a man to be
young and strong and vigorous and yet to be without faith or a
religious spirit, to despise God, to be greedy and vainglorious, or
to live in pride or the conceit of wisdom and power. But he is called
the old man because he is unconverted, unchanged from his original
condition as a sinful descendant of Adam. The child of a day is
included as well as the man of eighty years; we all are thus from our
mother's womb. The more sins a man commits, the older and more unfit
he is before God. This old man, Paul says, must be crucified--utterly
condemned, executed, put out of the way, even here in this life. For
where he still remains in his strength, it is impossible that faith
or the spirit should be; and thus man remains in his sins, drowned
under the wrath of God, troubled with an evil conscience which
condemns him and keeps him out of God's kingdom.
17. The "new man" is one who has turned to God in repentance, one who
has a new heart and understanding, who has changed his belief and
through the power of the Holy Spirit lives in accordance with the
Word and will of God. This new man must be found in all Christians;
it begins in baptism or in repentance and conversion. It resists and
subdues the old man and its sinful lusts through the power of the
Holy Spirit. Paul declares, "They that are of Christ Jesus have
crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts," Gal 5, 24.
18. Now, although in those who are new men, the old man is crucified,
there yet, Paul says, remains in them in this life "the body of sin."
By this we understand the remaining lusts of the old man, which are
still felt to be active in the flesh and blood, and which would fain
resist the spirit. But inasmuch as the head and life of sin are
destroyed, these lusts cannot harm the Christian. Still the Christian
must take care not to become obedient to them, lest the old man come
to power again. The new man must keep the upper hand; the remaining
sinful lusts must be weakened and subdued. And this body of ours must
finally decay and turn to dust, thereby utterly annihilating sin in
it.
19. Now, he says, if ye be dead to sin under the reign of the spirit
and the new man, and adjudged to death under the reign of the body,
ye must no longer permit sin to bring you under its dominion, lest it
inculpate and condemn you. But ye must live as those who are wholly
released from it, over whom it no longer has any right or power. For
we read, "He that hath died is justified from sin." This is said of
all who are dead. He that has died has paid for his sin; he need not
die for it again, for he no longer commits sin and evil deeds. If sin
be destroyed in man by the Spirit, and the flesh also is dead and
gone, man is completely released and freed from sin.
20. Paul comprehends the whole existence of the Christian on earth in
the death of Christ, and represents it as dead and buried, in the
coffin; that is, the Christian has ceased from the life of sin, and
has nothing more to do with it. He speaks of sin as being dead unto
the Christian and of the latter as being dead unto sin for the reason
that Christians no longer take part in the sinful life of the world.
And, too, they are doubly dead. First, spiritually they are dead unto
sin. And this, though painful and bitter to flesh and blood, is a
blessed, a comfortable and happy dying, sweet and delightful, for it
produces a heavenly life, pure and perfect. Secondly, they are
physically dead--the body dies. But this is not really death; rather
a gentle, soothing sleep. Therefore ye are, Paul would say, beyond
measure happy. In Christ ye have already escaped death by dying unto
sin; that death ye need die no more. It--the first death, which ye
have inherited from Adam through sin--is already taken away from you.
That being the real, the bitter and eternal death, ye are
consequently freed from the necessity of dying. At the same time
there is a death, or rather only the semblance of one, which ye must
suffer because ye are yet on earth and are the descendants of Adam.