Who is this old man of ours?

Who is this old man of ours?

The Bible is like that.

You need to hear the rest of the story if you want to make sense of the whole thing.

The book of Acts ends with the expectation that there is more to the story that is yet to come.

Paul and other apostles wrote magnificent letters of their own to Christians all across the Roman Empire.

We need to read these letters to in order to get the rest of the story.

Romans introduces all the great themes about this new age that has dawned.

A lot of people get hung up with things that come up along the way, …

when what they actually need to do is to read the rest of the story!

Jesus says at one point in the gospels that people are to pick up their cross and follow him.

Christ dies on the cross, for us.

We find out in Romans the rest of the story…

When He died, we died with Him!

All the crucifying is over.
 
Tetelestai. It is finished.

There is only one Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

When we get to Romans 6, we see the subject of crucifixion brought in view again.

What happened at the cross is dealt with in a new way. Something new is introduced.

Romans introduces a new set of story lines that will get picked up in the other letters of the New Testament.

Grace

Old man
Body of sin (or the “flesh”)

Romans is the foundation letter and we can trace the story lines as they continue in the letters which follow.

No longer presenting the members of our body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, …

but rather present ourselves to God, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God.

We will see this get picked up and moved forward in Romans 12, in Ephesians 4 & 5, and Colossians 3.

Who is this old man of ours?

He is different from the body of sin.

He was crucified with Christ.

The old man is not the sinful nature.

The old man is not the flesh.

The old man is not the body of sin.

The Old man is who we were in Adam. The old man is a kind of man whose history in God’s eyes ended at the cross.

The old man is the race of mankind who were slaves to sin and under the law.

The New Man is who we are in Christ. The new man is a kind of man whose history begins with the resurrection.

The Old Man is the inclusive term. It stands for all we were Federally from Adam.

Something that had been ours was crucified.

So that something else might be put out of business.

So we would no longer serve a third something.