A New Way of Living

KEY VERSE: “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.” —Romans 6:6

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Romans 6:1-14

OUR text declares that we are crucified with Christ, “that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” In the tenth verse, Paul explains that Christ “died unto sin,” and in the next verse we read, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Thus it is made plain that we are dead unto sin in the same sense that Jesus was dead unto sin. Jesus did not possess sinful flesh—he was a perfect human, and he died unto sin in the sense that he gave up his human life as a sacrifice for sin. Through the merit of Christ our imperfect flesh is made acceptable to God as a sacrifice, so we can, as Paul explains, “reckon” ourselves to be dead unto sin even as Jesus was.

In other words, we, like Jesus, are laying down our lives in sacrifice as part of God’s plan to destroy the great body of sin throughout the earth, and to restore fallen and dying humanity to life and at-one-ment with the Creator. This is our calling. This is what is implied in being “crucified” with Christ.

Since we are thus being crucified with Christ, sacrificially, as a part of what Paul describes as the “better sacrifices” of the present age, and since this is a part of God’s plan to eradicate sin from the earth, it would be inconsistent for us, as individuals, to have any sympathy with, or association with, sin. (Heb. 9:22,23) There could be no greater motive for putting off the works of the flesh than this.

Those who have consecrated themselves to the doing of God’s will, and have received the begetting of the Holy Spirit, have a new outlook on life—an outlook which Paul referred to as walking in the Spirit. He wrote, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust [desire] of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”—Gal. 5:16,17

Every devoted Christian has found, as Paul has stated, that it is impossible fully to keep the desires of the flesh under control, and that the struggle to do so is a continuing one. We all rejoice, however, that our unwilling imperfections are covered by the robe of Christ’s righteousness, and that under the covering of this robe our imperfect works are acceptable to our Heavenly Father.

What the Apostle Paul describes as the works of the flesh are all evil, and the Christian should fight against these evil tendencies as resolutely as possible, looking to the Lord at all times for help in this struggle to crucify the flesh.

The Lord’s help reaches us through the power of his in-dwelling Spirit, holy power or influence in our hearts and lives which produces the fruitage of “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such,” Paul says, “there is no law.”

The Scriptures reveal that the will of God for us is that we lay down our earthly lives in sacrifice. This, of course, is contrary to human desires, so our new, Spirit-enlightened and Spirit-led minds have a constant struggle to keep our human desires under control, and, symbolically speaking, to keep our human bodies on the altar of sacrifice.

From the human standpoint, it was a very difficult thing for Jesus to submit to the experience of crucifixion. How his flesh must have cried out against this kind of sacrifice. But Jesus did not listen to the voice of human desire; rather he listened to the voice of God, speaking through the Holy Spirit. Likewise must those who are symbolically crucified with him, even though the task at times seems very difficult, keep their minds and hearts alert to what the Holy Spirit counsels.

And what does it say? ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:24,5) Paul said that this created a warfare in his life, that his flesh, not wanting to be crucified, warred against the law of his mind. (Rom. 7:23) And so it is with all of us. Paul also wrote, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

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