You In Christ and Christ In You

Okay, we are in Lesson 8. Open up your Bibles to Romans Chapter 6 because that's kind of where we're going. Maybe to set it up today. We have spent quite a few weeks discovering that there are two men. Adam and Christ and these are what we would call representative men or federal heads of races. We discovered that every human being is born in the Adamic race with Adam being his head and that Christ in his work on the cross has paid the penalty for the sins of the whole world. But there's a greater issue than that and that is God has determined that the only men that are going to be acceptable to him are those that have changed from Adam to Christ, that they left their position in Adam and entered into a position in Christ. And so what Romans 6 really tells us, teaches us, is the mechanics and how God did it. It's really important to know how he did it. It's one thing to say, well, you're not in Adam anymore, you're now in Christ.

And you can by faith say, okay, that's fine. How'd you do it? And that's what Romans, the first part of Romans 6 lays out for us, how the mechanics, I call them the mechanics, and how we did it. So, as we're, we talked, I think we got through question 4, right? Describe the newness of life, what the newness of life is and what it means. Did we do that? Did we do three? What does verse four tell us it took to raise Christ from the dead? I think we did that. OK. So let's do this. I'm going to read four through six.

Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be enslaved to sin."

So, we're down to newness of life. Therefore, bear this in that, and raised by the glory of the Father, we should also walk in newness of life. And I know that, I've mentioned this before, in that sentence, would you say the noun in that sentence is life or newness? Are we going to walk in life or are we going to walk in newness? Newness. Yeah, newness is the noun. Life describes what the newness is. And it's the Greek word kynos, which really means, among other things, to come into a new state of being.

It isn't fixed up. You're not a fix and flip. You real estate people don't know what a fix and flip is. It's a ratty old house you buy and fix it up and flip it and sell it. You're not a fix and flip. You're not renovated. You're brand new. Never was that kind of person before. You're brand new.

And so the newness of life has to do with separating yourself or you being separated by the work of the Spirit from your attachment to and the life of Adam and attached to or united to Christ risen And when Christ rose from the dead, he brought with him brand new life.

Remember when he said, if the corn of wheat fall on the ground, it doesn't die, it dies alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He's the corn of wheat. And if he didn't die, this life that we're talking about here remains in him. Nobody else gets it. But just like corn or wheat, if it dies and disintegrates, it brings forth new life. New in kind and quality here. A new state of being. And so he did die. He was buried and we died and were buried and resurrected with him. So now here comes the harvest and it's new life. Okay.

Question. Sorry about five there. What condition is in the Greek? Say that again? It says, for if we have become united. Can you elaborate on... It's a first class conditional, it should be since. Since we were united, we are. So, that leads to question... Oh, one more thing.

This life here is not mere manner of living. It's a new kind of life. You understand what I'm saying? A lot of times when we talk about life, what we mean is a way in which we live. That's not what this means. This is a new kind of life that exists. Resurrection life was never known until Christ was raised from the dead. Steve? I'm kind of backing up to last week for a bit. You were talking about Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father and you were kind of elaborating on glory being the sum total of God's attributes and that took all the power of God at that point through Christ to accomplish what he did through glory. So I was kind of wondering what First of all humanity was separated from God and all humanity and the creation, the first creation, lived under the dominion of death and sin.

And it's a dominion. It isn't night time and tomorrow is going to be daylight again. It's an absolute controlling factor. Now, when the Lord Jesus died, two incredible things happened. Number one, he was united with those that are in death, in that dominion. He went into that dominion, which means that the control over him was absolute. When he's made sin for us, the result is that he has to die. The second thing that happened to him was that once he's made sin, the father enters in and does his work. He separates himself from the Lord Jesus. God separates himself.

And that's what the agony in the garden was about. Which of those is worth it? The rejection and the subjection and the identification with the old man? With the dead ones? Or was it the father's work? on Christ to pay the penalty for sins. Here he is, in this position of separation from God, and he is God. So now, because the father and the son worked out this transaction called the eternal covenant, the father said, if you'll do this and satisfy us about the offense of sin, I will raise you up. And so he had fulfilled his part.

Now to take him and this life that is his out of death and bring in a whole new creation, this is not just, how do I say this, that moment was the beginning of an entirely new creation. It took God six days to do the first one. He did the new one in one swoop in the resurrection. Resurrection life or the new creation is not a creation that was created by God and for God like John 1 says.

It is Christ. It isn't for him, it is him. Does that make sense? When I say that Christ himself is the new creation, he created the old one, but he is the new one, it's different than just moving from Colorado to Kansas. It's a whole new existence that never was before.

Now, for God to do that, It took the power of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit to do it. And there isn't any one place in the Bible that talks about that specifically, except for that individually, you'll see, and I should have the list of the verses. The Lord Jesus is said to have raised Himself. The Father has said to have raised Christ. The Spirit has said to have raised Him. All three of them were engaged in this process. That's the depth of my understanding. OK. Yes, sir.

Jesus died on the cross, but he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now I know God could not look upon sin and everything else, but have you actually had a feeling that God hadn't forsaken you? Or was that just a theoretical thing of the humanity of it?

There's a couple of things there. One, when the second person of the Trinity became a man, those two natures were united together and Christ will never be separated from his manhood. He's a man. And as a man, he possesses a human spirit, a human soul and a human body.

So when he's on the cross, I don't think in any sense you can say, well, the 100% God part kind of went over here and the man part, because he is one person. He experienced the full rejection of God because he was sin, as a man. Not as God, but as a man. But he wasn't sitting over here and God saying, you know, nice work.

He was involved 100% in that. Because now that he is a man, you can't separate the manhood from the deity. It's all together now. And it was a plan from creation. That's right. What's his name? I forget the guy's name. He used to say, a great saying, he said, God slain of God, who can understand it? Because that's really what happened.

You know, those Jewish guys, the Romans didn't slay him, God did it. And the spiritual death that took place was the big issue, not the physical death. And spiritual death means Death means separation and when you spiritually die you separate from the source of life and the source of life is the Father. And he had in all of his existence as a second person of the Trinity and as the Son of God and the Son of Man had this incredible intimacy with the Father that ended. No wonder he cried out, no wonder he sweat blood in Gethsemane.

Okay, so is there a difference between the resurrection of Christ and newness of life and the coming forth of Lazarus from the grave? Easy yes or no, and whoever says yes, I'm going to say, okay, explain. What's the difference? Now, there's other people, other incidences. There's the widow of Nain's son, and Jarius, the daughter, were brought back to life. There's other incidences of people who had died and were raised. But Lazarus is probably the most famous one. So what's the difference?

He was brought forth in his glorified body through Jesus. Not glorified, but resurrected body. I was just wondering if that was part of it. Part of it, sure. Because when Lazarus came out of the grave, he's all wrapped up. What body is he in? Same old body. And what life did he have? Same old life. As a matter of fact, if you look at Jairus' daughter, Yeah, Ajari's daughter, the saying is, maiden arise and her spirit returned, and she rose up instantly.

So, now, can you imagine if you're Lazarus and you understand what's happening? What's your thought process? You mean I've got to do this again? I mean, once I'm out of here, I don't want to come back. Lazarus is raised to the same life that he was before. Human life, created life, not newness of life. That's huge.

It says that the Lord Jesus was the first born from the dead, the first fruit of them that slept. It was not back into the old flesh and blood, earthly existence that he came. He had indeed his body, because he told his disciples, you know, touch me, check out my hands. He ate, he said, have you got anything to eat? Yet he had poured out his blood, and we've talked about this before, this was kind of my opinion, the life of the flesh is in the blood. The resurrected body of Christ didn't have any blood in it. No scabs. You understand that? Why not? Why wouldn't Christ's resurrected body not have any blood in it? Okay, but how come it's moving around then?

See, the life of the old man is the blood. You separate the blood from a creature and the creature dies. The resurrected Christ, this newness of life, doesn't need blood to function. its source of life is not blood anymore. That alone points out one of the huge differences between newness of life and return to Lazarus. Lazarus, when he came forth from the grave, his body got cracked up again, his heart was working, the blood was going through his system and everything.

Not Christ. He didn't need the blood. He was still wrapped in his old grave clothes too. Christ was all folded up. That's right. He wasn't left at all behind. That's right. So, although he could eat and interact and be visibly recognizable, he didn't need blood to live. That's a really important thing. In the new creation, when we all come back to rule and reign with Christ in the Millennial Kingdom, you won't need Band-Aids. There won't be any blood. You don't need it.

Those people living in that day are a bunch of freaks too, aren't they? Well, you know what they're going to think. They're going to see us, and the glory of Christ radiating out of us, and they're going to instantly know who we are. Let's see. Christ had laid down the old life. He's now resurrected, and oh, by the way, He's not an earthly man anymore. He's a heavenly man. And you don't need blood for that.

Okay, so question six, if we were baptized into Christ's death, what involvement do we have with him when he's raised to newness of life? So we've talked a lot about the fact that we were baptized or placed into Christ at the point of his death. And my question is, okay, so that's happened. We're convinced that that's good. Now he's raised to newness of life. What association do we have with him in that? Do we? Okay, yes or no? Do we? Yeah, we do.

So, once we are identified with Christ, once the Holy Spirit places us in Christ into His death, we're there permanently. You're not leaving. So, 1 Corinthians 6.17 says, But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

And Philippians 3.20 says, For our citizenship is in heavens, we wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We, as believers who have been joined to Christ, when He's raised from the dead, so are you. So are you. So...

I was just thinking, especially the first Corinthians one, that He that is one and the Lord is one spirit. You know, I go back to the other half of our identification class that we usually have the 33 things and all that. I go back to the same questions. I went through all those. Do you believe that? That's a great question. You know, when you really read that, but he that is joined under the Lord is one spirit. Yeah. I mean, right now. Right now. It's not later. I mean, just how transforming that is if you really understand that and believe that. Do you believe it? Yeah, I agree with you.

The thing that you discover, especially studying Paul's epistles, they are written to this resurrected man. and it's information specifically designed for that man, right? And if you go at it from that perspective, what you learn about is what newness of life is.

And you discover how this newness functions and operates. That's why someone who's of Adam's race cannot understand the word of God, especially philosophists, have no idea what they mean. They're foolishness. because it's written to a resurrected man with a new kind of life. Everything is new. So the information stream is going to be new. That's why the old man can't understand what it's about.

But that's also why we can understand it. But the problem is, like Courtney says, when you start to read these stupendous facts, what does God want us to do about them? He wants us to believe them. That's it. Because, trust me, newness of life isn't in your pockets, on TV. It's not there. It's in Christ.

And the modus operandi of this newness of life is faith. So, if that's true, and it is true, We are involved with the Lord's resurrection to newness of life. Then question seven is, what's our identity with the sin nature and the whole sphere of the first atom life now? What is your relationship to it? You're separated from it. What's that? You're separated from it. Yeah, you have no relationship to it.

And you're going to say to me, yeah, but you know, if I don't, who's doing all this sinning? Isn't that right? Isn't that a legitimate question? So what's the deal? Am I, and that's the first question here, has my relationship to the first creation, including my sin nature and all that's part of it, have I been separated from it? Answer, yes I have. positionally. Part of this class is three months on position and condition, but position is really important here.

You don't have any identity with your sin nature anymore, you know that? What do you think about that statement? Do you think that's true? Yet, it's your sin nature, right? How about your identity to the world? We're not citizens of this world anymore. We're not. Yeah, you're not from the world anymore either.

So what do you care who the Broncos signed? We're trained. I almost jumped all over Courtney last night. He says to me, did you hear Rush Limbaugh speak today? I said, no, I was walking with the Boy Scouts. Oh, he was terrific. I almost quoted this to him. when I was leading, you know, I'm a political junkie, but I fully realized my citizenship, it means nothing.

It's like watching a football game. It means nothing. That's right. You don't care about the outcome. You can sit on the sidelines and you can laugh and be all excited, but it means absolutely nothing. So politics is like a football game. Yeah, it is. It's sport. Until they send you the tax bill. That is not sport anymore. Why do you cry? You get the results. I don't cry, I pray.

Lord, lift me above that. So, if the Lord Jesus and his death, he himself individually, separates from all the old life, then you should be separated too, shouldn't you? Answer, yeah. You should be, and know what? You are. And so your viewpoint Your mindset should be just that. I'm getting those looks like I think you're half-crazy, Bill. You know, Mike, I want to thank you for saying that.

I was thinking about this and thinking about whenever you point to the guy next to her, who someday we've got to meet. Yeah, I think, you know, with all this and, you know, we're believers, you know, we beat ourselves up so much. Why do we beat ourselves up? dealt with it.

We have the loss of fellowship in 1 John 1.9.

But I think the only question left, even for the guy across the street, there's only one question left. His sins have been paid for. Everything's been paid for. There's only one question left. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? And that's the only question that is left. His sins are all paid for. Our sins are all paid for. There's only one thing that is left. Do you believe Jesus Christ, Son, Savior, all the things? That's the only thing left. Even for him across the street. That's exactly right. As well as us. That's all that's left. That's the only question for us who believe. The only thing we have is loss of fellowship.

And to show you how difficult it is to It's not too difficult to understand that we died in Christ. I mean, that's pretty up here. But to actually live and function separated, that's another story. And to show you how difficult the process was, even in Colossians, we're studying Colossians on Tuesday, at the end of chapter 2, Paul says, therefore, if you died, since you died with Christ, from the basic principles of the world. That's the premise, right? He says, why as though living in the world do you subject yourself to regulations? In other words, if you're dead to the law, how come you're still living under law?

If you've been separated, how come you're living like you're not? I have to tell you, it takes a while for the Spirit of God to settle you down on the fact that you have been separated from your sin nature. That you don't have to go there anymore. It takes a while. Because I used to say to the Lord, you know, boy, if I'm dead, who's doing all this dancing? You know, whenever the music starts, my feet are moving. Whenever the temptation comes, I'm going for it.

You know, and then you discover, well, I don't have to. Wasn't that the motivation of the scripture in chapter 6 of Ephesians? But God has provided the armor for us. Well, John says over and over again, we write these things so that you would know. Because if you don't know, you have no chance of living in it. You have no chance of living in newness of life if you don't know it. So you've got to have the information in order to believe. Faith has to have an object. You've got to know. This is the know class. Question 8.

In verse 4 the King James says that we should walk in newness of life. The word walk means, among other things, to grow together. What do you think is the source and energy of this new walk? What do you think? Maybe to go at that question is to do it this way. What's the source and energy of the walk of the resurrected Christ? Holy Spirit. How about this new life? Energized by the Holy Spirit.

See, here's the thing about life. We're not talking about practicing a life. I use this example a lot. I don't have to go home and teach my dog how to bark. Why not? Because he's a dog. He's got the nature of a dog, and you know what? Dogs bark. I don't have to teach Adam how to sin. I used to say when John was little, I'd been looking all over for a sinning academy to send him to, but you know what, I didn't have to do that. It came with the package. He knows how to sin, because that life sins.

So how about this walk in newness or grow together, if we're joined with the resurrected Christ, and we daily and hourly we walk, how does that happen? Paul said, for me to live is Christ. Does this newness of life need help from any outside source? And the reason I ask it that way is that the law was put on the Jews, which was an outside source, actually to condemn them, but they thought it was to get them to walk in life, but they couldn't do it. So does this new life in Christ need anything from the outside to boost it up?

No, it's His life. Yeah, it's His life. And you know what? Life functions based on its own intrinsic character. God is holy. The resurrected Christ is holy. He's separated unto the Father. The new life doesn't sin. John says that. The new life doesn't sin. The new life doesn't need any help from any earthly motivation to function. Christ doesn't get up in the morning and say, Oh, I've got to glorify the Father by ten. I've got to get all this stuff done today. No, the life just is that way.

And I think that's the point I'm after, that we would understand that our inward man is being renewed day by day so that this new life would come, we would grow in newness of life. I'll read a quote from Andrew Murray from The Hungry Heart. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Christian's very life and the Holy Spirit dwells within our spirit to manifest Him to work out all that is in him and to reproduce him in us, we must remember that there is something in the sight of God that is greater than work. There is Christ-likeness. That is our Father's purpose and it is his work.

It is evidenced by the exhortation to Christian living being mainly challenges to pray more, study more, give more, witness more, surrender more, the emphasis is predominantly on the active dedication of the Christian to his Lord, and not too much, and to a much lesser degree, of the dynamic remolding of the believer by his Lord. So, I am bouncing off of position and condition here a little bit. This new life we have in Christ is our position, and that's who we are. Now, who we are positionally may not show up in our condition, our everyday walking around existence. But we have the life of Christ and the Spirit of God in us to do exactly that. So that... Can that happen without the Word? No. I don't think it can. I really don't think it can. It doesn't happen by osmosis. No, I don't think so.

And I think that's why John says we write these things that you might know and that you might believe. You've got to know what you believe. So without the word, conditionally, the life can't be manifested. I agree. I think you're right about that. Everybody else agree with what Don is saying? If you don't know, how can this life be manifested through you?

Because to live by faith, faith must have facts. You must have an object. You must know what you believe. It isn't just faith for faith's sake. You must know what you believe. You must know that you've been crucified, buried, and resurrected. You must know that. Otherwise, what do you do? You're left with trying to get the old man to act like the new man. He ain't going there. So what's the distinction, or is there one, between us being in the new life and us being in Christ and the new life in us in Christ. I don't think there really is a distinction there. I think really what we're talking about is union.

When I am baptized by the Spirit into Christ's death, not only am I placed into his death and then subsequently everything that happens to Christ happens to me, but he's also placed in me. Because the Spirit of Christ comes to dwell in me. So there's a union of life where we're not separated. We're different persons, same life. The Father and Son and the Holy Spirit are different persons, but they're the same God. They're one God. Not that we're deity, I don't mean to say that. But you think about this. We as human beings, who came from the Adamic race, God has set it up so that we share and are united to the very resurrected life of the Son of God. His life. It isn't that he carved off a piece of his life and gave it to us like he did Adam. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives. It is his life resurrected. That's what makes it new. It's uncreated. Maybe that's another way to say it.

Clarification, you say the source, the energy, Christ? You mentioned the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the convictor, the encourager. But he's also the manifester of the life. He's the energy, maybe is to put it another way. You're saying he's the source?

He's the source of the life, because you can't separate God's life from God, and all three of them have it. Do you understand what I'm saying? The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as deity all share the same life, but they're separate persons. They all, I don't know how to say this the right way, I think the life and the love flows between them. When it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ as he's a man and resurrected, resurrected life, that's what we have. And we have the Spirit to maybe enable or energize that life.

What's the Spirit's job? The Spirit's job is to reveal Christ to the believer, right? As He does that, there's a conforming process that goes on, and that conforming is a spiritual process in which the life of Christ begins to be manifested through us. But what are we doing? We're doing what the Spirit is directing us to do, which is to behold the glory of the Lord. You have the life in you positionally, the program that goes on every day is to get that life to manifest itself through you, and it can't be manifested through you unless you're conformed, because he won't do it through the flesh.

In verse 6, From an identification standpoint, this is the keynote verse, knowing this, notice how he starts out with the issue of knowing, and here's what knowing this is, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be, my version says done away, I don't like that, done away with, that we no longer should be slaves to sin. So, knowing this can also mean coming to know this, The word here is Gnosco, which means to get to know on an intimate level, on an intimate basis, to come into a fuller knowledge, to be acquainted with these facts intimately. So, if you've never seen or studied this verse before, you could start today and say, well, I've discovered today that my old man was crucified with him. That's really cool information. but through the rest of your life now, God will make that information more intimate to you. That will become more and more and you will have a greater and greater understanding of what my old man was crucified with him means, because it means everything to the believer. If God is going to get us to walk in newness of life. He isn't going to do it in any sense of making you better in Adam. He's not going to do it. I ask this question a lot and we discuss it in this class. I wish Monique was here today.

The blood of Christ and the death of Christ paid for the penalty of your sins. What did God do with your old man? What's this verse say He did? He crucified him. Oh, that means I don't have to mess with him anymore? Yeah, that's what it means. When you come to the realization that your old man, your sin nature, all you were in Adam, is not worthy of being fixed up, you'll abandon him. You won't fix him up anymore. You'll stop trying to get better. Does that make sense?

So question 10 is describe what your old man is. You guys are all real familiar with him. Tell me what he's like. Describe your old man. How would you describe him? As we were in Adam. What's that? As we were in Adam. As we were in Adam. Okay. He's crucified. But your old man is crucified. How come he's still dancing around? Should he have been gone away? Is he still there? Is he dancing around because of me a lot?

Or what? Yeah, that's a good point. I'm going to answer that in a minute. What? You don't believe what Christ did? Well, here's what I'm after. Let's see, my old man is a dirty, rotten, sinner, scumbag, everything I can think of that's awful, that's what I am in Adam. Paul said, in me, that is in my flesh, my old man dwells, 80% bad, 20% good. No, he said, no good thing. Right? Nothing, there's nothing in Adam, there's nothing in my old man that is good, not a thing.

Okay? Would you allow that you probably think you're a bigger sinner now than the first week you were saved? Sure. Why? Because you can see Adam for who he really is, rather than this smoke and mirrors thing that Satan does. So, you will, as you grow spiritually, not only grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, you're also going to grow in the knowledge of your old man. And that's done on purpose, so you'll abandon him. You won't trust him, you won't depend on him anymore, and you'll stop trying to fix him up. You'll stop buying car polish because it doesn't work. And if you're a Catholic, holy water. It doesn't work.

You hear a lot of these sometimes on talk shows or religious shows even on Sunday morning. They're talking about how men were created in the image of God. So they don't want to accept the reality that that was true initially. It's that man has fallen. Right. He's in a state of falling asleep. But the proof don't. Yeah, that's right, they don't. And so if that's the case, then in Romans 6, you ought to cut that out of your Bible.

Why do you need to be crucified if you can fix up, if you haven't fallen? Well, why did Christ have to come and die? That's right. Well, he could have come and died to pay the penalty for my sins, but then we could fix me up. Yeah. You know. But then you've got to take Romans 6 and Galatians 2.20 and Colossians 2 and all this stuff and rip it out of the Bible. Because this crucifixion discussion is everywhere. I was just thinking about it too. I think the process of growing grace and knowledge. I think it's easy reading a lot more and thinking more about this. It's a lot easier to see who we are in Christ.

The harder thing is to identify the old man and how bad that is. I think God takes us in our growth, most of it is identifying the old man. He takes us to points where we either trust in him or the old man. The early part, it's trusting in the old man and how bad and how inadequate. It's the weaning off of the old man, I think, is the spiritual maturity.

Because you get rid of that. That's the whole thing of the identification class, I think, is seeing how bad the old man is. When you just asked a minute ago, I think our first few classes are, there's nothing good in our old man. And you have to understand that. And that's really tough because The old nature, he just wants to be a part, get us back in the log, do everything. And you have to realize how bad that is. And I think that severing of the old man is the hardest part. Because it wants to do good, it'll fake good, it'll do everything. And that's the harder part, is to identify the old man.

Once you do that, then I think growth in him begins. Well, along those same lines, I think about the good side, too, though. You default to your own logic, you default to your own reasoning, you default to your own analysis of what's happening around you. Sure. Yeah, I went to college, I'm smart, I can handle this. Yeah, where you're just not totally dependent on the Lord. That's right. See, there comes a time in your life as you grow spiritually where you stop comparing what your life is with what the rules and regulations are, or your goodness is, or your religion is, and you start to compare yourself to who Christ is.

And who is he? Who is this Christ? That's always the issue. He's God. And you know what? Boy, if I compare myself to Christ, I don't measure up. Oh, that's a big mystery. Guess what? Yes, you do. Because of this event. You're in him. You're just like him. The guy that first introduced me to the identification truce used to say to me, Galatians and these others, you read about the Lord Jesus Christ, you're reading about yourself. That's you you're reading about. Well, I thought, you know, that's really right. Well, you walk around with this sort of euphoric opinion about, yeah, that's exactly right.

Well, don't I have to come down to reality and sin once in a while? Why would you do that? Why would Lazarus come out of the grave if he knew it was going to be a bad deal? wouldn't do it. So, that's why, and I'm probably not going to get to your questions until next week, that's why the next question I ask, how come, and this is a discussion that may take longer than we have time, does the old man being crucified mean that he's been obliterated, eradicated, and he's gone forever? Because there's a whole school of theology that believes that, based on covenant Really a covenant premise.

What do you think? When he says, my old man was crucified, does that mean he died? He's gone? Answer no. Because death and separation doesn't mean obliteration. See that? So when the death takes place, a separation takes place. And the separation is between you, the person, and your union with your old man. Now, your old man is alive and well and living in your body. Right? Isn't he there? Better say yes. Yeah, he's there. See? The thing is, is that you have died to him.

Now, if you buy the other premise that, well, my old man was eradicated, then you don't understand position versus condition because you're making it a conditional issue. Now probably with this group don't have to go much farther in that argument about it. But there's a whole group of theology within Christianity that says that the old man was eradicated. He wasn't. And next week I'll show you there's one little word in Romans 6 that proves it. And the word is unto. That word proves that the old man didn't die. You died to it. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you. It's always exciting to learn that not only were we crucified with you, with your son, in earth. And our separation from the sin nature is permanent and complete, but we were resurrected into newness of life, Father. And as you say, the first really positive reason for that is that we would no longer have to serve sin. What a tremendous fact, Father. We thank you and we pray in your son's name. Amen.