Use II. The old man in believers is crucified together with Him.
Here we are to enquire how it is crucified with Him; which take in the following particulars:—
(1) Christ hung on the cross as a public person, a representative of His spiritual seed. For He was the second Adam suffering, as the other, the first Adam, sinning. So as they sinned in Adam, they suffered in Christ; the law having them all on the cross in Christ their representative, “I am crucified with Christ,” (Gal. ii, 20). (2) Christ hanging on the cross had the body of all their sins upon Him, your old man, and my old man. They were on Him by the imputation of the guilt of them, though not inherent in Him, “For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” (II Cor. v, 21). Therefore our old man is said to be crucified, not in Him, but with Him. (3) While He was hanging on the cross, He was meritoriously doing away the guilt of them, and consequently the power, pollution, and very being thereof; inasmuch as the guilt being removed, these must cease of course. For the strength of sin is the law, whereby it stakes down the sinner under the curse, (I Cor. xv, 56). (4) The sinner being united to Christ by faith, the merit and virtue of Christ’s suffering on the cross is actually applied to him. So that, his guilt being removed, there is a reigning principle of grace planted in him, going through the whole man, whereby the dominion of sin is broken, (Rom. vi, 14); and the pollution removed so far as that new man goes, (Titus iii, 5). So that the believer is an image of Christ on the cross, full of grace in Him, and of sin on Him; but the former working off the latter.
Use I.
See then, O communicants, that the crucifying of the old man, the body of sin—you—depends entirely on your uniting with Christ by faith. The sacrament is appointed to seal and strengthen that union. Therefore your great business at the Table should be, closely to knit with a crucified Christ. The more of that, the more the death of sin will be hastened on. And they that aim not at the destruction of sin in their communicating, while they pretend to remember a crucified Saviour, forget the end of His crucifixion, viz., that the body of sin, being crucified with Him, might be destroyed. 2. The old man in believers is in a state of death, though not dead outright. It is crucified with Christ. It may move and stir in them, and vehement struggles it may make, as a dying man struggling with the mortal disease: but whatever efforts it makes, it is on the cross, whence it shall not come down till it breathe out its last. 3. The practice of religion is a painful work; and Christians must not think it strange, that oft-times they are pained to the heart in it. The saints in glory have no pain in their work; for the old man is destroyed in them: but the saints here have an unrenewed part: and that is on the cross, and cannot but pain them. There are right eyes in them to be plucked out; the man has a painful struggle in denying himself, crossing his inclinations, wrestling against his own flesh and blood. Providence thrusts a spear into the old man’s side, by piercing trials and troubles; it breaks his legs by cutting disappointments from many airths, to forward his death. This cannot be but painful. The old man is long a-dying out; for crucifying is a lingering death. There must be an exercise of patience in the Christian course; for there may be many a battle ere the complete victory be got. Many a wound the old man will take ere he fall; and after he is worsted again and again, he will get up and renew the battle, till he get the final stroke from the Lord’s hand. It is a grave question: Why does the Lord suffer the old man of sin to dwell in His people after their conversion? Why is not sin quite expelled at the first entry of grace? Our text affords one weighty reason for it, viz., that the members may be conformed to the Head. Christ did not put off the body of our sins, that by imputation lay on Him, at His very first encounter with it: nay, He had a grievous struggle with it for the space of three hours on the cross, till He Himself got the first fall dying by its hand on the cross. Nay, if we reckon rightly, it lay heavy on Him the space of thirty-three years; only upon the cross was the heat of the battle, which ended in His death and burial, whereby He put it off quite and clean. So, since imputed sin was on Christ the Head all His life, inherent sin is left in believers, the members, all their life. The old man is crucified with Him.
Doctrine IV. By virtue of the cross of Christ, the old man in believers shall certainly be destroyed quite and clean at length.
Here we may require (1) What destruction is that that is certainly abiding the old man in believers? It is an utter destruction of it, with all effects of it, all marks and vestiges of it, all belonging with it to the old Adam. The old man himself shall be destroyed, utterly destroyed, out of all that are Christ’s; so that though he has many a time trod them like a field of battle, there shall not be in them the least print of his feet to be discerned. “The spirits of just men made perfect,” (Heb. xii, 23). The day will come, when there shall not be the least guilt of it on them, to draw a frown from their Father’s face against them. “The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,” (Isaiah xxxiii, 24); when it shall have no power to prevail over them in the least: nay, when it shall have no more indwelling in them (Heb. xii, 23); but shall be utterly cast forth as an abominable branch. So the new man shall possess all alone, without a competitor for ever. 2. The sinful vile body derived from old Adam, which brought him down from Adam to us, (Ps. li, 5), and continues to the end the best friend he has in believers, shall be destroyed for his sake. The soul shall leave the sinful flesh to be carried into the grave, where it shall rot and consume, till it return to the dust again, so as not the least lineament of old Adam’s image or likeness shall be discerned on it. And Christ will take the same dust, thus purified, and form it anew after His own likeness as second Adam, (Phil. iii, 21). 3. The visible heavens that covered him, and this earth that bore him, and furnished fuel to his lusts, shall for his sake be set on flames, and reduced to ashes. “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up,” (I Peter iii, 10). Compare Gen. iii, 17: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” So that it shall no more for ever be to be said, “There is the earth where the old man some time lived, and there the heaven that give him light and air.” But Christ will make new heavens and a new earth for the new man. “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,” (II Peter iii, 13). 4. Lastly, all that shall remain of him shall be buried in hell. “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire,” (Rev. xx, 14). Old Adam brought the old man into the world, and he spread his poisonous efficacy over all: so look where ye will, ye shall not see in all this world that in which there is not sin, or some effect of sin. But then all shall be gathered from off believers, and from off the now groaning creatures, and cast into the lake of fire; so that there shall not be the least sin, nor effect of sin, without the boundaries of hell.
II. When will the old man be thus destroyed?
You will easily conceive, from what is said, that destruction will have two periods: (1) At the death of the believer, and not till then. Till then the child of God must wrestle on with it; for so did Christ with it as imputed to Him, till death set Him free. It is a grave question: How come believers to die being free from the curse of the covenant of works? Answer: They die in conformity to Christ their Head; that as death came in by sin, sin may go off by death. It is not dying that does it in deed; for sin goes through death in them that are out of Christ, not moved from off them for all that death can do. But at death Christ gives the ridding stroke betwixt the new and the old man, kills the old man outright, as II Sam. i, 10. And He does it, by letting in a full measure of every grace from Himself into the believer, which takes up the whole man wholly; and so the old man is gone in a moment, as the darkness upon the sun’s displaying his beams over all. (2) At the end of the world. Then comes the utter abolition of all vestiges of it out of hell.
III. The certainty of it.
It is as sure as the death of Christ could merit its destruction, and as the end of His death cannot be frustrated, and as He rose again from the dead free from the imputed guilt of it, and sits in heaven to-day without sin so much as imputed to Him.
Use.
Let the saints then take courage, and renew the battle vigorously with the old man; for the victory will fall undoubtedly to their side. And as for you that are still for keeping the old man’s head and heart hale; as ye do interpretatively desire none of Christ’s cross, it is an argument ye have as little saving interest in it.
Doctrine V. In the meantime; till the old man be destroyed quite and clean by virtue of the cross of Christ, by virtue of the same cross the believer shall not be a servant to the old man more.
That is the present piece of freedom from it the believer has. (1) The believer has heartily given up with him for a master. Some time he said, as Exod xxi, 5: “I love my master—I will not go out free.” But now he hates him mortally, and would fain be altogether free at any rate. “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. vii, 24). The very being in the house with the old man is a burden. (2) He will get no work, but forced work, off his hand more. “For that which I do, I allow not,” (Rom. vii, 15). He will not yield his members to the old man voluntarily, as before. “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,” (Rom. vi, 13). He will never get work with whole good will at his hand more, but half will at most.
Use.
This writes death to such as have given their hand to Christ at His Table, and are ready to go back into the service of their lusts. If from henceforth ye enter not into a struggling life against sin, ye have not felt the virtue of Christ’s cross.
Doctrine VI. Believers should go out against the old man in acts of holiness, in the faith that he is a crucified man.
I.e., believe your old man is crucified with Christ, and in this belief bestir yourselves against him in the use of appointed means. If you believe it not, how can your hands be strong, having all to do yourself alone? But believe it firmly, and it will make you as a giant refreshed with wine.