y, 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 ac