Killing My Old Man

"For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."
Galatians 2:16-21

As we have been reading through these early verses here in the book of Galatians, Paul is talking to us about the difference between living under the law and under grace. The law is a set of rules that, having left the bondage of sin, we put ourselves under the bondage of trying to keep. So we go from bondage to bondage, because we were under the bondage of sin, and now we are under the bondage of the guilt that comes from trying to keep the rules and failing. We have been freed from the bondage of sin, and we have been freed from the bondage of the law. Paul says that if we are saved by grace, and then place ourselves under bondage to the law again, then we sin. The law, the Ten Commandments for example, make it very clear that I cannot keep them. They make me very aware that if I am going to make it, I need a Savior, that I need Jesus. So through that law, I die to that law - not to the requirement contained therein, but to the guilt and the bondage associated to my awareness of failure to comply - because now I live my life to God, Jesus living through me. I do not live under the law anymore, but under grace. In Christ, the law requirements are fulfilled. This is what was happening to the Galatians. They were saved, and then listening to false teachers telling them that they needed Jesus, but they better be keeping all of those rules too. Paul is saying a loud and resounding "No."

We must take our "old man," the person we were before coming to Christ, the person who we were, living in bondage to the sin in our lives, often times unaware that we are even IN bondage, we take that old man, and we kill him. Before you stop reading, let me explain. When we come to Christ ("saved," "born again," "come to faith"), we become a new person. The Bible says that we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). When Christ died on the cross, He took all of the sin of every person in the world upon Himself. Every person who has ever lived, is living now, and who will live in the future. He took all of that sin upon Himself when He was crucified on the cross. That is where that "old man" went, when we became a follower of Jesus Christ. We are not the same person anymore. Do we still live in the fleshly body that is ours from birth? Yes. But our "old man" is not our physical flesh and bones. Our "old man" is our sin nature, the natural inclination (our "default" if you will) to sin. Our old man was nailed to the cross with Christ, so that we live, not defaulting to sin, but to Christ's example. We must do this, kill our old man, every day, because he wants to come down from the cross and take over again. Paul says that he must die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). So too, must we make sure that old man is dead, every day.

When we kill our old man, then Christ can live through us, as we walk by faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God every day. Jesus Christ gave Himself on the cross as the substitution for our death, because the wages of sin is death, the Bible tells us, so someone has to die. We deserve to die for our sins, but God loves us so much, that He gave His one and only Son, to die in our place, so that we don't have to. That is God's mercy. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. We deserve death, but we don't get it. We get life, because of what Jesus did on the cross: He died in our place. And because Christ died for us, we get to experience eternal life with Him, if we turn to Him and repent of our sins and accept Him as Lord and Savior of our lives. That is God's grace. Grace is getting what we don't deserve. We deserve death, and we get life. What a deal! No one in their right mind would turn that down. We exchange our death for life eternal. Beloved, I pray I have not muddied the waters for you on this issue. If you have any questions or comments, you can reach me by posting a comment to this blog. We must walk with our heads held high, not in arrogance, but in the confidence that we live in Christ, and He lives through us. True righteousness comes through Christ, not through the keeping of the rules. If it came through the law, or the keeping of the rules, then, as Paul says, Christ died in vain. Beloved, know that God loves you, with a perfect love, and He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die as the substitution for us, to die on the cross in our place, so that we might live. That makes my heart swell in thanksgiving and love for Him. I pray it does your heart too. Incidently, I got the title for today's devotional from an old song by the group Petra of the same name, about the same subject. Beloved, walk well. Have faith. Pray. Enjoy your walk with Him. Amen.