Romans 6:6

As we sinned in Adam, so we died with Christ (cf. Galatians 2:20). Paul said it is important that we "know" this because it is crucial to understanding our relationship to sin as believers.

"Christian living depends on Christian learning; duty is always founded on doctrine. If Satan can keep a Christian ignorant, he can keep him impotent." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:530.]

"Satan’s great device is to drive earnest souls back to beseeching God for what God says has already been done!" [Note: Newell, p. 213.]

Our old "man" or "self" refers to the person we were before we experienced justification. That person was crucified with Christ (cf. Colossians 3:9). That person is now dead; he no longer exists as he once was. Nevertheless we can adopt his or her old characteristics if we choose to do so (cf. Ephesians 4:22). The believer is not the same person he or she used to be before justification (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17).

The old man (old self) is not the same as the old nature. [Note: See John R. W. Stott, Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5-8, p. 45.] The old nature refers to our sinful human nature that every human being possesses as long as he or she lives. The old nature is the same as the flesh (cf. Romans 7:5).

"’The flesh,’ which is sin entrenched in the body, is unchangeably evil, and will war against us till Christ comes. Only the Holy Spirit has power over ’the flesh’ (Chapter 8.1)." [Note: Newell, p. 212. See I. Howard Marshall, "Living in the ’Flesh’," Bibliotheca Sacra 159:636 (October-December 2002):387-403, for an excellent word study of "flesh."]

Even though the old man has died, the old nature lives on. I am not the same person I was before justification because sin no longer can dominate me, but I still have a sinful human nature.

I prefer not to use the term "new nature." It does not appear in Scripture. The New Testament presents the Christian not as a person with two natures warring within him or her. It presents the Christian as a person with one sinful nature (the flesh) that is in conflict with the indwelling Holy Spirit (cf. Galatians 5:16-23). It also speaks of the Christian as struggling with the decision to live as the new man that he or she now is. Our alternative is to live as the old man who we were but are no longer (cf. Romans 7:13-24).

"What we were ’in Adam’ is no more; but, until heaven, the temptation to live in Adam always remains." [Note: Moo, p. 375.]

Our "body of sin" is not the same as a sinful body since the body itself is not sinful (cf. Mark 7:21-23). Probably the body in this expression represents the whole person (cf. Romans 6:12-13). We express our sinfulness through our bodies. The result of our crucifixion with Christ was that the body no longer needs to be an instrument that we use to sin since we are no longer slaves of sin.