Our Condemnation in Adam was Terminated
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Again, we want to remind you that in the structure of the book of Romans, the section from Romans 5:12 through Romans 8:39 deals with God's solution for the problem of inherent sin with which everybody is born. God, as the moral judge of the universe, has to deal with this issue of inherent sin – this problem that is within all of us. This is the problem that we were born with.

In the section below this, from Romans 5:12 through Romans 7:6, Paul explains how God, as a holy judge, has dealt with inherent sin in man. So, for this reason, we have added the words "judicial dealings" to describe this section from Romans 5:12 through Romans 7:6. This is how God as judge is dealing with our inherent sin. The reason we are stressing that is to make it clear to you that we cannot base daily living truth on this particular section of the book of Romans. There is coming a section of personal sanctification; holy daily living; and, godliness in your daily life. But that's coming a little later. And you get in a lot of trouble if you do not understand that Paul is explaining to us in this section what God is doing as the moral judge of the universe to solve the problem of our inherent sin.

In Romans 6, you will remember that Paul is actually answering an attack about salvation by grace alone. Those who attack that concept suggest that, in order to make grace increase all the more, we ought to simply give full reign to the sin nature within us, and let it continue to dominate our lives. So, Paul is explaining how that inherent sin problem has been dealt with by God to show that that is not possible, and that it's an illogical statement to suggest to let the sin quality within us have free reign and expression.

In the first part of Romans 6:5, Paul declares that believers have grown together with Jesus Christ in His death: "For we have been planted together in the likeness of His death." Now that particular section (the first part of verse 5) is actually explained in verses 6-7. And then the last part of verse 5 says, "We shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection," and that is explained in verses 8-10.

So, to anchor your thinking, we are in the section where Paul is explaining what God as judge has done relative to our inherent sin problem. And he is furthermore explaining how we have been joined – how we have been grown together with Christ in terms of His death. And verses 6 and 7 are explaining then.

So verse 6 says, "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." This verse is filled with terms that we have to understand. If we do not come up with the same explanation that the Holy Spirit had in mind for these particular terms, then this verse is going to be grossly misinterpreted and grossly misapplied. That's exactly what does happen.

You have, for example, first of all, this term, "the old man." What does Paul actually mean when he speaks about the old man? Verse 6 presents a doctrinal fact which Paul says Christians should know, relative to their inherent sin guilt. So, he begins with that expression, "Knowing this," meaning, "You ought to know this." And he is going to make sure that we know this by explaining and declaring this to us.

The term "old man" (we pointed out last time) refers to the position of the whole human race in Adam, sharing his guilt. All the verses previous to Romans 6 (in Romans 5) kept dealing with the man Adam and the man Jesus Christ. And they constantly were matched one against another: the old life of sin and death in Adam; and, the new life of righteousness and life in Christ.

So, following right through that context, Paul is coming up with a technical term that he invents. He just invents this on the spot under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to describe humanity as a whole in that position of judgment and death and condemnation in Adam. Adam is the old man, and all of humanity that are joined with him in that position of death are part of the old man.

Adam's guilt was imputed to all of us because he acted as our federal representative. He was the head of the human race. And what he did was imputed to all of us. For this reason, we are joined to him. Paul refers to this joining with Adam and his guilt as "the old man." It's a position which we enter by birth, and it is one which is under divine condemnation and under the wrath of God.

So, the human race is viewed as a whole under this position of death because of its relationship to Adam, its federal head. The old man refers to the whole old creation in Adam, in contrast to the new creation in Jesus Christ. The thing that we want to stress is that the term "the old man" does not refer to the inherent sin nature which is in everyone, and continues to be there even after salvation. The term "old man" does not refer to your inherent sin tendency. What it refers to is your position in Adam, and that is a position of death.

The Lake of Fire

The problem is horrendous when you realize that you and I as human beings can do absolutely nothing to remove ourselves from the position in the old man Adam. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to remove ourselves from the position of death in Adam. That's where God, in His grace, had to come into the picture to provide a solution.

So, what Paul is referring to here is that whole desperate condition into which we were all born, where we have imputed to us the guilt of Adam when he disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, and brought upon himself, and all the human race, the condemnation and the wrath of God. That is being part of the old man.

What we have here is a summary of the position of condemnation before a holy God because of the imputation of Adam's guilt to each of us. He uses the technical term "the old man" to describe the position of the human race under eternal death in Adam. So, don't talk about the old man in terms of your old sin nature. It's not that. Don't talk about the old man in terms of that inborn tendency to sin. It's not that. The old man is your position in Adam; the position of death; and, the position of condemnation. You're born into it; you're helpless in it; and, there's nothing you can do to get out of it.

It's in contrast to the position in Christ, which is the new man, which is the position in which the grace of God must place you if you are ever to go to heaven. That is the problem. For all of us, the problem is very simply reduced in Scripture to being here in Adam or being here in Christ. The issue is that we're born here in Adam. How are we going to get into heaven? If we die in the position in Adam, we will go to the lake of fire. If we die in the position in Christ, we will go to heaven.

This transfer point is the issue. Somehow we have to terminate this relationship in Adam, and we have to inaugurate this relationship in Christ. We ourselves can never do it.

Crucified

However, here in Romans 6:6, this word is being used in a spiritual sense to connote identification with Christ in his death on the cross. It is our co-crucifixion as has been reckoned to us by God, the judge – a judicial reckoning. And here we are told that this old man, the old humanity in Adam, has been crucified.

Now, crucifixion indicates one thing. And don't try to slither around this. Crucifixion indicates termination. It indicates the end of the line. When a person is crucified, his life comes to an end. It does not mean merely squelched in some way. And we have a problem in interpreting this verse when we try to say that the old man refers to our sin nature, our inborn tendency to sin. That is because we, at the same time, know that we don't quit sinning. We know very well that there is an inclination and an evil quality within us that continues even after we have been born-again. So, we slither into saying, "Well, this crucifixion doesn't mean termination. It just means it squelches the old sin nature."

So, what you have is the image here of the cross, and on the cross you have the old sin nature placed. And the old sin nature has been nailed here to this cross, and it just sits up there, not terminated and dead. It just wiggles all the time. It just wiggles up on the cross. And you have a completely false scriptural picture. You have your old sin nature up there wiggling on the cross, but you never finish it off. However, some people, as you know, read these words, and they are very consistent. They say, "If my old man (and by that I mean my sin nature) has been crucified, then it has been terminated. That means that it's dead.

So, the eradicationist the idea evolves that a person can become sinless – that a person comes to the place where he doesn't sin again. Thousands upon thousands of Christians in hundreds and hundreds of churches will testify to that their old sin nature was crucified on the cross, and now it's dead, and they don't sin anymore. And they'll look you straight in the eye, and tell you that they don't sin anymore.

However, that is the result of misunderstanding what the old man is here. When you understand that the old man is not your inward tendency to sin, but your position in Adam (that place of death and condemnation), and that that is what God has terminated, then you can make all the verses fit together with reality, and you do not try to make the Bible say something that you find later just would not possibly, and could not possibly, and does not possibly, fit your experience.

So, the word here means "terminated," not merely "squelched." This is in the aorist tense in the Greek language. Therefore, it indicates that this took place once-for-all at a point in the past. Therefore, "is crucified" is a very bad translation. It should be translated "was crucified," because it is a past action, and it is complete and terminated. It is important that you understand that God is not calling upon you to crucify yourself by some kind of devoted life, or some kind of personal punishment. God is asking you to recognize here something that He as judge has already done for you. And what he has done is crucified that old man, your position in Adam. It does not mean a process of being crucified, as if this were some kind of an experience of sanctification, and you're gradually becoming more and more godly. We've already shown you that is what Paul is talking about in this section. That starts at Romans 7:7. That's when he starts talking about your experience. Right here, he's talking about your position before God as the judge.

So, he's referring to something which is true of every Christian now. Your position of moral guilt and of slavery in Adam has been terminated. That's the glorious truth that we have here. Your position of moral guilt in Adam, which was taking you to the lake of fire, has been terminated once and for all. Your sin nature certainly has not been terminated.

Now, it has been terminated in the aorist tense: once-and-for-all. I cannot stress that enough. It's dead; terminated; crucified; done in the past; and once-and-for-all. And that means that you can never again be in Adam.

Now, . . . if we say that you can never again be in Adam, that also says that you can never again be headed for hell. You understand that, don't you? You can never again be headed for the lake of fire. To be in Christ means the only direction you can go is up to heaven. And once you have terminated in Adam, and since it is aorist tense; permanent; once-for-all; and, never to be returned again to Adam, you are secure in salvation. Here is one of those evidences of: once saved; always saved. You're not going to get that just by reading the English words. You're going to get that by understanding the nature of the Greek grammar. This word for "crucified with" is passive voice, and passive voice means that it's done by God the judge to the old creation in Adam. And that's what Paul is talking about here. He's telling us what God, as the moral judge of the universe, has done with our tendency to sin. It's indicative. It's a statement of fact about the significance of the Christian's union with Christ in His death for sin.

So, this is teaching us, first of all, a judicial joint crucifixion with Jesus Christ of fallen mankind in Adam as a whole, of which the individual believer was a part. All that the believer was in Adam is included in this crucifixion with Christ. It's not just part of you – your tendency to sin (the whole thing that you were in Adam) is what he has in view. And all of that has been wiped out with God. That no longer exists.

So, for you as a believer, you must understand that when God looks at you, He never sees you in the place of condemnation. I don't care how far you may go into sin, and, of course, that's a problem. Someone brings up: "Well, what about people who don't act right? They sin. They do terrible moral things." God will deal with that in a disciplinary way, but it never changes the fact that you have been permanently removed from Adam. That position has been crucified, and it's terminated.

A Christian is completely dead, therefore, to his old position in Adam, which is one of doom under the wrath of God. Crucifixion results in death, and therefore, in separation from that former position in life.

Now, about this time, somebody is going to come up and say, "All right, just a minute. Look over here in Ephesians 4. You've been saying that here is something that God has to terminate, and that we cannot terminate. You're saying that the old man is not the sin nature. You're saying that the old man is something of our relationship in Adam. It's a position. But look what he Ephesians 4:22-24 say: "That you put off concerning the formal manner of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, in that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

Here you have a statement that sounds like it's exactly saying that you put off the old man. But if you will notice carefully, it is not telling us to put off the old man himself. It is telling us to put off the lifestyle of the old man: "That you put off concerning the former manner of life of the old man." That's what it is saying. You cannot crucify the old man – that position in Adam. Only God can crucify and terminate that for you. But once that's been done, now you build on that. And this verse is pointing us in the direction that Paul is going here in Romans. He's going toward the direction about how you find that there is within you a power now working which enables you to live a godly life, that God can prosper and that God can bless, and that brings happiness into your relationships with others. We're moving toward experiential sanctification.

We have the same thing in Colossians 3. Sometimes people will point to this passage because there are three passages that use the term "the old man." Romans is one; Ephesians is one; and, here's the last one – Colossians 3:9-10: "Line up one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man that is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." But again, here it is not telling us to put off the old man per se himself, but rather the lifestyle associated with that old condition in Adam: "Line up to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds:" lying; and, all the deeds that were associated of evil with the old lifestyle in Adam. That we are now, in our experience, to put off, as in our position, it has been put off.

The old man, Adam, of whom we Christians were a part of before regeneration, is dead and gone. Now, that's a fact, and that's the truth. We're never told in the Bible, therefore, to crucify our old man as if we had some kind of an ability to terminate sin within ourselves – that somehow we could do something to our tendency to sin to bring it under control. If you think that you can crucify that tendency to sin within you, and bring it under control, you are chasing a phantom, and you never, never will do it.

Now, if you know this (if you understand that the old man in Adam, your old humanity position in Adam, has been terminated), then you'll be ready to learn how to hold your head high as a member of the royal family of God, and to start living as befits a member of that royal family. You know this fact, not because you feel it, and not because you sincerely believe it's true, but simply because God has revealed it to you. This is the source of our knowledge of being in Adam. This is the source of our knowledge of being transferred into Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is the source of our knowledge that we dead to the sin nature's sovereign control, and that we are alive to newness of life in Christ. The Bible is the source – the information of God's revelation.

So, you should believe these things, just as Abraham believed God – the staggering statements that God was making to him. He was a man 99 years old with a wife that's 90 years old, and they're going to have their first baby. Now, that is staggering information. And Abraham is a fine example of just believing God's staggering statements.

It's hard for you to believe, indeed, that the old position in Adam, with all that condemnation and guilt before God, has been terminated. But the Bible says that that's so. That's what Paul is saying here in Romans 6:6. Just believe it. No matter what the devil says to you about yourself and your shortcomings, forget that. Just push him aside, and ignore the devil, and believe the Word.

The Body of Sin

The Soul is Sinful – Not the Body

In Romans 6:19, Paul says, "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, for as you have yielded your members (your physical body) servants unto uncleanness and unto iniquity, even so now, yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." So, Paul, in that verse, makes it very clear that your body is a neutral element. It does not have a tendency to sin or not to sin. But it is the soul (you who live within your body – your mentality) that decides whether to move toward righteousness or whether to move toward evil.

Therefore, abusing your human body will not cause it to sin less. It will not restrict it from sinning. This is a human-viewpoint, false approach, and it is the source of monasticism. All the monasteries and all the convents in the world today are based upon the basic false view that the body in itself is sinful. All of the self-torture, and the flogging, and the abuse of the body in one way or another – all of these are based on the concept that the body is evil. And if I can punish the body, the body will just lose its taste for evil. But it never will. It never works.

The human body is not what Paul means here by "the body of sin." The human body obviously has not been crucified with Christ to achieve the results that we have in this context. Nor is the body of sin a reference to some kind of mass of evil within you, or some kind of an evil nature, as if some foreign element were attached to the inside of your body which had to be removed. "The body of sin" is affected by the previous crucifixion. The crucifixion of the old man affects the body of sin. This crucifixion is brought about so that this thing called "the body of sin" itself may be done away with, and may be destroyed.

The crucifixion here is in the aorist tense, which again means a completed past act so that the termination of the body of sin is indicated. Just as the old man was terminated, so the body of sin here is terminated.

So, "the body of sin" is neither the human body nor the inherent sin nature. No Christian has ever experienced absolute death to sin, so it cannot be referring to that inherent sin tenancy. No Christian has ever been physically crucified with Christ, so it cannot be referring to that.

What is he referring to? Well, Paul is again referring to the morally guilty Adam humanity as a whole. What you have to understand is that the terms "the old man" and "the body of sin" are referring to the same thing – just two different aspects. It's just speaking about it from two different viewpoints, but it is referring to the same thing. That's why Paul says, in the first part of verse 6, that the old man is crucified, and then he immediately says that the result of that is that something is terminated. What is terminated? The body of sin.

Now, the only thing that's going to be terminated is what was crucified. So, that's your clue immediately that what was crucified as the old man, looking at that from another point of view, is also the body of sin. That's the same thing that was crucified and thus terminated. In the future, the sin-contaminated, physical creation, which we have from Adam, will indeed actually be done away with. However, the creation in Adam is now already done away with judicially by God – that whole body of sin. And that's again looking at Adam as a source of evil, and as the fountainhead of evil, and as the sum of evil that we inherited – all that, judicially, God has said, "I've already gotten rid of it."

Now, the Bible indeed tells us that what Adam did contaminated all of creation, and the time is coming when our physical bodies, and the creation, and everything that God made is going to be cleansed from that effect. And everything is going to be restored to its operational excellence that it was originally. But here he's talking about the fact that creation in Adam has already been judicially judged by God.

So, the old humanity in Adam is his body of sin, just as the new creation in Christ is the body of His righteousness. That's the comparison. Keep comparing Adam and Christ. Adam has a body. His is the body of sin. His is a group of humanity that is saturated with the guilt of sin. That's the body of sin. That's the old man.

On the other hand, Jesus Christ, the new man, also has a body – the body of absolute righteousness made up of believers who have been joined to Him by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Remember that Romans 5 kept matching these two men: Adam and Christ; Adam and Christ; and, Adam and Christ, right down the line. Then Paul says, "Now," going into Romans 6, "I'm going to build upon that comparison. Then you follow the context and see that he is still matching old man Adam, with all the guilt and sin, to the new man, Christ, with all the perfections of absolute righteousness.

So, the body of sin equals the whole Adam's humanity as viewed in its moral guilt before God. When he says, "The old man," he's looking upon Adam as the fountainhead of evil. When he says, "The body of sin," he's looking at humanity in Adam with the emphasis upon the evil that is there in that humanity, where before he was looking upon Adam as the source, the old man, who began this whole thing.

So, the old man and the body of sin are two aspects of the same thing. I want you to notice this. Paul uses the word "our" with "old man:" "our old man." The reason he says that is because we all were part of that humanity in Adam. But you notice that he does not see "our body of sin." But what he says is "the body of sin." Paul says, "The body of sin," not "our body of sin," because the moral guilt of the humanity of Adam was Adam's guilt. We received it by imputation. But it is our old man because we're part of Adam as our federal head. But we received imputation of his guilt, so that it is the guilt that comes from him.

Those who are in Adam are Destroyed

Done Away With

So, now we've got something of a problem here. If that's what this Greek word means ("to do away with"), we're being told by Paul that this body of sin is being done away with. Actually, "destroy" is not too bad a translation for it. It is certainly being done away with. It is certainly being brought to naught. It is certainly being put out of operation.

Nonexistence

You have this word also used in 1 Corinthians 15:26. Here it has the idea of termination: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed (that shall "katargeo") is death. Now, what does that mean? That means cessation. The last thing that God is going to do is wipe death out of existence and terminate it. Period. Gone. Never to return.

Brought to Naught

Another good example is Luke 13:7, where it is referred to a piece of ground: "Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, 'Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit of this fig tree, and find none. Cut it down. Why cumbereth ("katargeo") it the ground? No, did it terminate or eliminate the ground, or cause the ground to cease to exist, in which it is going? No. It was causing the ground to be nothing. It was brought to naught. The ground was, in effect, rubbed out of operation by this fig tree which would not bear fruit.

Terminated

You will read many fine commentators of the Bible who will tell you that the word destroyed here should be translated as "rendered inoperative." Your Schofield Bible does that as a matter of fact. And that is not what the word means. It does not mean "to render inoperative." It means something far more than that. "Rendered inoperative" means that the thing is there, and now it's not operating, but a little later, it can operate again. That's because the body of sin is being viewed as the inherent sin nature.

Doing Away With

Our Condemnation in Adam was Terminated

Now, even if the position of condemnation in the Adam humanity is merely viewed as being made inoperative, if it's made inoperative, then you shouldn't have any trouble with your sin tendency anyhow. But you know it does. Therefore, it hasn't really been made inoperative. You just stomped on it for a little bit. Then as soon as you turned your back, the thing jumps up, and it's going again. That's not inoperative. It doesn't even make sense that way. And if the body of sin is viewed as the inherent sin nature, then the verse is teaching eradication of sin in the believer. And we know that that's not true.

So, it doesn't fit either way. You cannot make this refer to your sin nature as being either put into a squelched position, or either being put into an eradicated position. Neither one of those is true in experience. Romans 6:6, furthermore, is not in the section in which Paul is giving instruction on dealing with sanctification in experience. And eradication and the counteraction of your sin nature has to do with experience. This section has to do with what God, as judge, has done to remove condemnation from you as a believer – to remove the condemnation of guilt that was upon you once in Adam.

So, once and for all, God has judicially dealt with sin as a hereditary evil in man by putting the whole Adam humanity representatively in Christ on the cross.

So, that's where you stand today: "Knowing this: that old man is crucified." Our old relationship to Adam, and our being part of that humanity of death in Adam is terminated: "Consequently, the body of sin, the moral guilt that rested upon us because we were in Adam, has been done away with. Now you can hold your head a little higher now. Now, no matter what your problem has been, and your failures, and your shortcomings, you can hold your head a little higher, and you can breathe a little easier because you know that God has said, "As judge, I have forever put an end to the position that you held in Adam. That is done with. I killed it. I crucified it. Furthermore, I have taken that whole mass body of guilt that was placed upon you because of your relationship to Adam, and I've done away with that guilt."

Well, what is he saying? If he's saying that to us, then he is telling us that we are no longer in Adam, because as long as you are in Adam, you're under his guilt, and the body of sin (the evil) is against you. He is saying that you are in Christ. And since he has told us that this is always a permanent move (that's what the Greek chorus means) – it's not reversible, and this can't go both ways (it can only go in one direction), that means that your destiny is heaven; period; over and out; and, no matter what.

You can enjoy your Christian life here on earth a whole lot more if you learn how to live a sanctified and a holy life. We're going to get to that. But it's based upon this great fact of the crucifixion of that position in Adam, and the termination of the guilt (the moral guilt of Adam) upon you. And the purpose of all that, the end of verse 6 tells us, is that henceforth we should not serve that sin. We should not serve. We should not be enslaved (that is what it means) to that position of moral guilt. We'll go into those words in a little more detail next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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