What does Paul mean by "...our old man was crucified with Him..."?
This is related to Galatians 2:20. Paul is more specific in the Roman letter about how or what was crucified with Christ. It was our "old man", or the sinful man we once were. When we crucify (put to death) the old man, we become a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:17). The process by which the old man is put to death, is through our burial into Christ Jesus -- baptism.
Some suppose that we have new life in Christ before baptism. It is the dead who are buried, not the living. In baptism, we bury the old man of sin, and rise to walk in new life. Newness of life is not our's until after we are united in the likeness of His death; not until our old man is crucified with Him. |
ROMANS 6:1-6
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin."
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