Romans 6:6 Meaning: Who Is the Old Man That Was Crucified?
Romans 6:6 says your old man was crucified with Christ so that you would no longer serve sin. In this book’s teaching the old man is the old spirit you inherited from Adam, and he died with Jesus and did not come back. What still pulls on you is not him but your flesh, which remembers the habits he trained into it.
What does Romans 6:6 say?
"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 (KJV)
The verse has three parts, and they follow one another like links in a chain. First, our old man is crucified with Christ, then the body of sin might be destroyed, and then, as the purpose of both, we should not serve sin any longer. Paul begins with the word “knowing,” which tells me he is not asking us to hope this is true but to know it.
The verse also sits inside a longer argument. In verse 2 Paul asks, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” and in verses 3 and 4 he says we were baptized into His death and buried with Him, so Romans 6:6 is the center of a whole chapter about what happened to you when Christ died.
Who is the “old man” in Romans 6:6?
The old man is my old spirit. That is the clearest way I know to say it, because when the Bible talks about the old man, it is not talking about my body or my personality, but about the nature I inherited from Adam. When Adam obeyed the devil over God, his spirit died, and that dead, separated, unrighteous nature was passed down through every generation until it reached me.
This means I was a sinner because of the nature I inherited, and not because of the things I did, as though my actions were what made me one. The sinner I was is the old man, and Paul tells us exactly what happened to him. That is also why the book says you cannot keep calling yourself a sinner without disagreeing with what the Bible says happened to you.
What does “crucified with him” mean?
"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."Romans 6:4 (KJV)
Most of us were taught that Jesus died for us, and that is true, but I believe it is only half of what happened at the cross. Jesus died as me, which means He took my place so completely that whatever was true of me became true of Him, and whatever is true of Him became true of me. A substitute who dies for you takes your punishment, but a substitute who dies as you gives you a new nature.
So when Paul says our old man is crucified with Him, he means that the old man went down into that death with Christ, was buried with Him, and did not come up out of the grave. What came up was a new creation, and Ephesians 2:5 says that God “hath quickened us together with Christ.” Your old spirit was not patched or excused; it was replaced with a spirit that had been born from the dead.
I tell the whole story of that exchange in Chapter 3 of the book, and I connect it to what it means to be a new creation in Christ.
What does “the body of sin might be destroyed” mean?
I want to be careful here and say only what I have actually taught in the book. I do not think this phrase asks us to claim that our physical bodies were destroyed, because Paul says himself, in Romans 8:23, that we are still waiting for “the redemption of our body.” What I do teach is that the flesh is the place where sin is carried out, because it is the hands, the feet, the lips, and even the physical brain that act out a sin.
The good news I take from the verse is its purpose clause, “that henceforth we should not serve sin.” The very thing in you that ever wanted to sin is gone, because the old man was crucified, and nothing in the real you wants to sin anymore. What is left wanting those old things is only the part of you on the outside that still wants the benefits it used to get.
If the old man was crucified, why do I still struggle with old habits?
Your flesh was trained by the old nature for years, and it learned to get pleasure, relief, and comfort in very specific ways. When you were born again you got a new spirit, but you kept the same body, and your body does not enjoy the new nature yet because it was never trained on it. That is the tension so many believers feel, and it is not the old man fighting the new man, because the old man is dead. It is a new nature living in a body that the old one trained, which means the habits outlived the man.
I like the picture of a work coat hanging on a peg, which still holds the shape of the man who wore it even though nobody is inside. That shape is what your old habits are, and you can read more about that picture on the page about Ephesians 4:22-24.
This is also why the book reads Romans 7, where Paul speaks of a man sold under sin, as the struggle of someone still under the law, and not as a description of the born-again believer. I lay out that reading on the page about Romans 7.
How do I live in Romans 6:6 day to day?
"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."Romans 6:11 (KJV)
To reckon something is to count it as true and live accordingly, and Paul is not asking you to pretend. He is asking you to agree with what God already did. If you believe that sin is inevitable, you will brace for it and half-expect it, and when the temptation comes, part of you will have already agreed that you are going to lose.
I also do not wage war against my own flesh, because Ephesians 6:12 says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. When an old pattern pulls, I tell my flesh that it was trained by someone who no longer lives here and that it is going to learn from the One who does. That retraining comes through the four ways to receive that I teach in the book, praying in tongues, fasting, worship, and the Word, and it works because the old master is dead.
From the book
This page is drawn from New Creation, Old Habits by Benjamin Riggins. Read more in:
- Chapter 2: Two Adams
- Chapter 3: He Didn't Just Die for You. He Died as You.
- Chapter 5: The Habits Outlived the Man
- Chapter 13: You Don't Have to Fall
Questions people ask
What does Romans 6:6 mean in simple terms?
It means the old nature you inherited from Adam was crucified together with Christ, so that you would no longer serve sin. In this book’s teaching, the old man is gone and is not coming back, and what is left is a flesh that remembers his habits.
Who is the old man in the Bible?
In this book, the old man is your old spirit, the dead nature you inherited from Adam, and he is not your body or your personality. Paul speaks of him in Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22, and Colossians 3:9.
If my old man was crucified, why do I still feel pulled toward sin?
The book teaches that your flesh was trained for years on the old nature’s habits and still remembers them. The pull you feel is that memory, and it does not mean the old man is alive again.
Does Romans 6:6 mean I will never be tempted?
No, because the book teaches that your body is still waiting for its redemption and that your flesh has to be retrained. It also says that being tempted and thinking evil on purpose are two very different things, and temptation is not the same as sin.
What is the body of sin in Romans 6:6?
The book does not define the phrase beyond teaching that the flesh is where sin is carried out and that it was trained by the old nature. It does not teach that your physical body was destroyed, since Paul says we are still waiting for the redemption of our body.