ON THE OLD AND NEW MAN

^[p. 511] ON THE OLD AND NEW MAN

I quite agree with you that the “old man” refers to the state and position of a man as born of Adam; old now, because a new one has come in, but the first man. I think the old man is gone for God on the cross judicially, and hence the believer can die to sin; but it is certain that the flesh is still seen as existing in the christian, though the christian is not in it. What is true for God, as the ground and basis of His dealings in grace, is to be made good spiritually in the believer. If the old man were not ended before God, I do not see how the Spirit could have been given for the forming of the new — nor how we could put off the old man.

The christian has to put it off, but this is a question of spiritual power, and not of non-existence.

I rather question the connection of Jordan with Romans 6. It seems to me that reckoning yourself dead to sin is the furthest point reached in Romans 6; whereas Jordan is that death is realised to the whole course and system in which flesh lives, so that the place of spiritual circumcision is reached, and the believer enters into an out-of-the-world, heavenly condition of things in the circle of christian affections and fellowship.