Our Old Nature Is Crucified with Christ

God has freed us from bondage to the body and to the law through the work of Christ Jesus on the cross of Calvary. We are free; now we must live that life of righteousness and holiness.

And how do we do that? By bringing our lives to the Lord. Notice that Paul also says something interesting here. He says, “As a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” Now he develops this idea of presenting the body a little further. How should we present our bodies to the Lord? Well, I see that it says here to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”—as a living sacrifice.

You see what I was explaining earlier: to present means to bring a sacrifice, as the priests brought a sacrifice. They presented it before the Lord and then burned it so that it would be consumed before the Presence of God. That burning, that flesh, represented the death and consumption of what is fleshly, animal, earthly, and diabolical before the Presence of the Lord. And when God saw that flesh burning, it was as though He said: Okay, My wrath is satisfied, My justice is satisfied. I have said that the wages of sin is death, that when man sins he will die, as I told Adam and Eve.

Now, this animal, which represents the sinner, in being consumed and destroyed, represents the satisfaction of My justice. Well, Paul is saying that this is how we must present our bodies, our flesh, our human nature: as a living sacrifice. Again, it is interesting how the Bible returns time and again to this idea, linking the death of one part of our being—the earthly and fleshly part—with sanctification and rising to a different, new life.

The apostle Paul says, for example, in Romans 6:6: “Knowing this: that our old man”—you see? “Old man” is a key term the apostle Paul uses to refer to the old nature: sin, the body, the flesh, the earthly, animal, and fleshly part of the human being—“knowing that our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin.”

This is a deeper elaboration of what the apostle Paul says in shorthand, very compactly, when he tells us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. How was Christ presented through the cross of Calvary? As a spotless lamb, it says, as a sacrifice, right? Christ was the final sacrifice, the highest kind of sacrifice God could receive. The perfect being that He was, He was crucified, offered up like a holy, spotless lamb before the Lord. He presented Himself, didn’t He, before God.

And you know what? What Paul says here is that we too must go through a kind of sacrifice; we too must be crucified. He says that our old man was crucified with Him. In other words, when we give ourselves to the Lord, it is as though God considers our old nature crucified with Christ, and God already sees it that way.

Now, in daily life, we must make that absolute spiritual act something that is repeated day after day; we must make it a present reality. What God has done in a legal, judicial sense, we now make in our daily lives a real, ongoing, gradual fact that is fulfilled, perfected, and carried out day by day.

“Our old man was crucified with Him”—like a sacrifice, right? Remember? Let us present our bodies as a living sacrifice so that the body of sin, Romans 6 says, may be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin, because the one who has died has been justified from sin.

It is a wonderful idea, isn’t it? God is continually dealing with us in this way. It is this idea that we die in order to live, that a part of us dies, that the old nature dies day after day so that we may rise to a new life in Christ Jesus. Romans chapter 6, verse 4: “For we are buried with Him into death through baptism, so that just as Christ rose from the dead for the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.”

How interesting: there is a connection between death to sin and new life in God’s righteousness and holiness. And the way that happens is by presenting ourselves as a sacrifice and dying more and more each day so that the life of Christ may be manifested more and more in us.

Incidentally, it is interesting that this is the symbolism of baptism. When you are baptized, you are making a visual and symbolic expression of what has already taken place in your life and of what will continue to take place throughout your life as well.

When the new believer enters the waters of baptism and the pastor or the person officiating takes their body and immerses it in the water, and the person being baptized disappears beneath the water for a moment, that moment represents the new believer’s death. It represents their death to the world, to the flesh, to sin, to serving sinfulness and injustice. And then, when they rise to the surface again an instant later, it represents the new life of holiness to which that believer is being called.

That is the profound meaning of baptism: the meaning of dying, dying to the flesh in order to live in holiness. Again, Romans chapter 6 says: “What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! For we who have died to sin, how can we still live in it?

Then Paul clarifies: “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? For we were buried with Him into death through baptism, so that just as Christ rose from the dead for the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.”

In other words, Paul says: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. How wonderful, again, is the symbolism, the depth of the Word of the Lord. What we must do every day in our lives, in our pursuit of holiness, is present the elements of our being to the Lord as a living sacrifice.

That is the point. We do not take a knife and cut our veins or literally kill ourselves. But in a sense, what we do is this: every day the believer must die a little, must present themselves before the Lord as a living sacrifice. Of course, we are alive every day, but every day we die a little more to the flesh.

The Christian life is a gradual death, a gradual death of all the bad, harmful, destructive things in us. No one can be a good Christian without dying a little each day. How interesting! Yet in this way, that person can also become a creature who is truly alive and truly powerful with God.

Present your life to Christ as a sacrifice. Die a little more each day, and then you will be able to live according to the purpose God has for your life. May God bless you. I say goodbye to you, and until our next meditation, it has been a pleasure to be with you. God bless you all.