The Old Man Crucified
A sermon
(No. 882)
Delivered on Sunday Evening, APRIL 11, 1869, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him." – Romans 6:6.
EVERY new man is two men–every Believer in Christ is what he was and
not what he was–the old nature and the new nature exist at the same
time in each regenerate individual. That old nature the Apostle calls a
man, because it is a complete manhood after the image of fallen Adam.
It has the desires, the judgment, the mind, the thoughts, the language
and the action of man as he is in his rebellious estate. He calls it
the "old man," because it is as old as Eden's first transgression. It
is as old as we are. It is the nature born with us, the natural
depravity, the fleshly mind which we inherited from our parents. It is
tainted by the old serpent and bears within it a dread propensity to
his old sin.
When Adam first plucked the forbidden fruit, sin polluted our race and
the original stain abides in all mankind–it is manifest in the most
ancient history and continues to reveal itself all along the pages of
the story of this blighted world. The old nature, then, is what the
Apostle means. The lusts of the flesh, the carnal desires, the
affections of our estranged hearts–these he calls the old man. I am
much mistaken if every Christian does not find this old man still
troubling him.
He has a new nature which was implanted in him, as through the Spirit's
sacred working he was led to hate sin and believe in Jesus to his
soul's salvation. It is the heavenly offspring of the new birth, the
pure and holy result of regeneration. That new nature cannot sin–it is
as pure as the God from whom it came and like the spark which seeks the
sun, it aspires always after the holy God from whom it came. Its
longings and its tendencies are always towards holiness and God and it
utterly hates and loathes that which is evil, so that, finding itself
brought into contact with the old nature, it sighs and cries as the
Apostle tells us, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
the body of this death?"
Hence a warfare is set up within the Believer's bosom–the new life
struggles against the old death–as the house of David against the
house of Saul, or as Israel against the accursed Canaanites. The enmity
is irreconcilable and lifelong. As the Lord has sworn to have war with
Amalek throughout all generations, so does the holy seed within the
saint wage war with inbred sin so long as it remains. Neither nature
can make peace with the other. Either the earthy water must quench the
heavenly fire, or the Divine fire, like that which Elijah saw, must
lick up and utterly remove all the water in the trenches of the heart.
It is war to the knife–exterminating war.
In the text the Apostle says that the old nature is in every Believer
crucified with Christ. I take the liberty also to refer you to two or
three words which occur in the verse before the text, where he speaks
of baptized Believers as having taken upon themselves the likeness of
Christ's death. And then he speaks of the old man being crucified,
which was Christ's death and therefore without straining the text we
may gather from it that the old man in us dies in the same way as
Christ died–that the death of Christ on the Cross is the picture of
the way in which our old corruptions are to be put to death.
That shall make our first point, the old nature crucified. The second
point shall be that if ever the old nature is put to death at all, it
must be with Christ–we are crucified with Him. The old man is
crucified with Him. And then, in the third place, we shall have some
practical and solemn applications to make.
I. Now, first, THE OLD MAN IS TO DIE, BUT IT IS TO DIE IN THE LIKENESS
OF CHRIST'S DEATH BY CRUCIFIXION.
1. What kind of death was that? First, our Lord died a true and real
death. There were certain heretics who disturbed the early Christian
Church who said that our Lord did not really and actually die. But we
know that He died, for His heart was pierced by the spear and the
flowing of the blood and water proved that He was, in very deed, most
truly dead.
Moreover, the Roman officer would not have sanctioned that the body be
given up if he had not made sure that He were dead already and even
made doubly sure by piercing our Lord's most blessed side. Christ
really and truly died. There was no sham or make-believe. It was no
phantom which bled and the atoning death was no fainting spell or long
swoon.
Even thus it must be with our old propensities–they must not pretend
to die, but actually die. They must not be restrained by holy customs.
They must not be mowed up by temporary austerities, or laid in a trance
by fleeting reveries, or ostentatiously buried alive by religious
resolves and professions. They must actually die and die a real and
true death before the Lord and within our souls. Sometimes persons who
are really alive appear as dead, because death reigns over a part of
their bodies. The heart beats exceedingly indistinctly. The pulse is
but faintly felt, the lungs are languidly heaving–they lie in a state
of coma, their hands are powerless as those of a corpse and their eyes
are closed and every member palsied–yet they are not dead. They are,
in some measure and really and truly, as to their vital organs, still
in the land of the living.
So have I known some that have given up a part of their sins. They have
been persuaded to renounce the most gross vices, or the more abominable
lusts–but yet they have never made a clean renunciation of all their
sins. They have never, within their hearts, in all integrity of
purpose, given up every false way. They still indulge some one or other
sin secretly, or, if they have not carried their desires into practice,
they have, at least, a secret goodwill towards evil–a love towards
some sweet sin in the core of their heart of hearts.
O my Brothers and Sisters, this must, with those who are renewed in the
spirit of their minds–the old nature must–so far as our will is
concerned, endure a real crucifixion! No man shall enter Heaven while
one propensity to sin lies in him, for Heaven admits nothing that
pollutes. And, further, no man should expect to enter the abode of
bliss while he cherishes and desires to keep alive a solitary sin
within him. I do not say that no one is a saved soul who is not perfect
here! God forbid I should thus interpret the hopes of the faithful and
the Word of God! But I do say that you must desire perfection. You must
will it. You must seek it, or Divine Grace is not in you. I do not say
that any man lives perfectly and absolutely free from sin in this
life–but I do say that no man is a Christian who does not wish it to
be so with him.
There must be in our soul a wish–deep, hearty, thorough and real–for
the death of every sin of every sort, or we are not in union with
Christ. Our prayer must be–
"Return, O holy Dove! return,
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made You mourn,
And drove You from my breast.
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol is,
Help me to tear it from Your throne,
And worship only You."
I beseech you be careful on this point, for let mere creed lovers prate
as they will, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," sin must be
slain! You must utterly hate evil. Sin must be to you as a condemned,
detestable thing, to be hunted down and put to death, or else the life
of God is not in you. No mere professions or shams will suffice! Sin
must really and truly be crucified!
2. The death of our Lord, in the next place, was a voluntary death. He
said, "I lay down My life for the sheep…no man takes it from Me, but
I lay it down of Myself." Jesus need not have died. He could have come
down from the Cross and saved Himself, but He willingly gave Himself up
as a Sacrifice for our sins. Brethren, such must essentially be the
death of sin within us–it must be on our parts, as we put it to death,
perfectly voluntary. Oh, what a sieve is this in which to sift the
chaff from the wheat!
Some men part with their sins with the intention of returning again to
them if they can, as the dog returns to its vomit and the sow to her
wallowing in the mire. Or they part with them as of old the oxen parted
with their calves at Bethshemesh, lowing as they went because of the
calves they had left behind. Like Lot's wife they set out to leave
Sodom, but their eyes show where their hearts are. How many a drunkard
has given up his cups because he would otherwise have lost his
situation or been laid by with illness? How many a foul one has
renounced a vice because he felt that it was too great a strain upon
his constitution, or brought too much shame upon him?
They drop their sins as the dog does the meat when it is too hot to
hold–but they love it none the less–they will be back when it cools.
Such sinners leave sin as Orpah did Moab, but they soon find
opportunity to return. They fight sin as stage actors fight on the
stage–it is mimic conflict– in reality they do not hate sin. Ah, but
Friends, we must have our whole hearts burning with an intensity of
desire to get rid of our sins! And such intensity we shall be sure to
feel if there is a work of Divine Grace in our soul worked by the Holy
Spirit. To will is present with us. No, we are not merely willing–that
is a poor cold term–we are vehemently desirous, insomuch that we would
be content to give up our eyes and live in lifelong blindness if we
could but be wholly delivered from our sins!
There is no martyrdom to which any saint would be reluctant to subject
himself if he could thereby escape from the tenfold plague of his daily
corruptions and temptations. I would make any bargain with God if He
would leave me free from sin. It should be left to Him whether I should
shiver amid northern ice, or stagnate in a poorhouse, or lie in prison
till the moss grew on my eyelids, or quiver in perpetual fever–if I
might henceforth never again in this world fall into a single sin! The
execution of sin, then, must be undertaken by us with a willing mind
and a vehement determination.
3. At the same time, mark you, in the third place, our Lord's death was
a violent death. He was no suicide. He willed to die in obedience to
the highest law of His being, which was not self-preservation (which
makes it necessary for us to do all we can to live), but consecration
to the will of God and to human welfare, which highest law rendered it
necessary for Him to die. He died, I have said, voluntarily, but yet by
wicked men He was taken, by violent hands and by force put to death. So
the crucifixion of sin is voluntary as to the person who crucifies
sin–but it is both violent and involuntary as to the sin itself.
Believe me, my dear Brothers and Sisters, sin struggles awfully in the
best of men–especially besetting sins and constitutional sins. Outward
iniquities are, in most cases, soon conquered, but inward
constitutional sins are hard to overcome. One man is proud and oh, what
prayers and tears it costs him to bring the neck of old pride to the
block! Another man is naturally grasping, his tendency is to
covetousness and how he has to humble himself before God and to cry out
and lament because his gold will stick to his fingers and will rust and
corrode within his soul! Some are of a murmuring spirit and so rebel
against God, and to conquer a spirit of contention and murmuring is no
easy task.
And envy, too, that horrible monster, so obnoxious in a Christian. Why,
I think I have known God's ministers indulge in it and it has not
always been easy to kill it. To let another star eclipse you in the
firmament, or suffer another servant of God to do more for Him and to
have greater success than yourself is, too often, a bitter trial when
it should be a theme for joy! Yet, Brethren, cost us what it may, these
sins must die! Violent may be the death and stern the struggle, but we
must nail that right hand, yes, and drive home the nail!
We must pierce the left hand, too, and fasten the foot, yes and nail
that other foot and hammer fast the nail. And while the struggling
victim seeks to live, we must take care that no nail stops, but run to
the Master, if it must be so and pray Him to drive the nails yet closer
home that the monster of the old man may not in any one of its members
regain its liberty. It will be a violent death, indeed, if my inward
experience is really a sample of what we are to expect.
4. In the fourth place, crucifixion was a painful death. The suffering
of crucifixion was extreme. All men have put that into their general
belief–their language creed–for we say of great pain it is
excruciating, that is to say, it is like crucifixion. So the death of
sin is painful in all and in some terribly so. Oh, it has cost some men
nights, days, weeks and months of misery and anguish to overcome their
deep-seated sins!
Read John Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding," and see how year after year that
wonderful mind of his had red hot harrows dragged across all its
fields. The inmost vitals of his spirit were pierced as with barbed
shafts. His soul was as a great battlefield, covered with armies who
trampled it down, tore it up in all directions and made it tremble with
their furious shocks of combat. The new man was struggling against the
old death that was within him. Believe me, none of us would wish to go
over the same ground again, for the scars remain upon us to this hour.
There was a plucking out of right eyes and a tearing off of right
arms–and this hacking and maiming could not be done without poignant
suffering. And meanwhile, in the case of some of us, there was such a
horror of darkness cast over us concerning our guilt, that our soul
chose strangling rather than life and it was of the Lord's mercies that
our griefs did not utterly consume us. Some, I grant you, are brought
unto salvation much more easily, but even they find that the death of
sin is painful, at least to this degree–they have a humbling sense of
the guilt of sin–they feel bitter regret that ever they should have
fallen into it and they are depressed with great fear and horror lest
they should fall into it again.
Along the valley of death shade, most, if not all pilgrims to Heaven
occasionally wend their way. Sin dies hard. Such a hundred-headed Hydra
has many lives. it will not die without much pain and the violence of
the pain proves the natural vitality of that which is put to death.
5. Brethren, let us remind you of yet another point. The death of our
Lord Jesus Christ was an ignominious death. It was the death which the
Roman Law accorded only to felons, serfs and Jews–few were condemned
to it but slaves. It was not a freeman's death–a nobler execution was
allotted to citizens. So our sins must be put to death with every
circumstance of shame and self-humiliation. I must confess I am shocked
with some people whom I know who glibly rehearse their past lives up to
the time of their supposed conversion and talk of their sins–which
they hope have been forgiven them–with a sort of smack of the lips, as
if there was something fine in having been so atrocious an offender.
I hate to hear a man speak of his experience in sin as a Greenwich
pensioner might talk of Trafalgar and the Nile. The best thing to do
with our past sin, if it is, indeed, forgiven, is to bury it! Yes, and
let us bury it as they used to bury suicides–let us drive a stake
through it in horror and contempt and never set up a monument to its
memory. If you ever do tell anybody about your youthful wrongdoing, let
it be with blushes and tears, with shame and confusion of face. And
always speak of it to the honor of the infinite mercy which forgave
you. Never let the devil stand behind you and pat you on the back and
say, "You did me a good turn in those days."
Oh, it is a shameful thing to have sinned! A degrading thing to have
lived in sin! And it is not to be wrapped up into a telling story and
told out as an exploit as some do. "The old man is crucified with him."
Who boasts of being related to the crucified felon? If any member of
your family had been hanged, you would tremble to hear anyone mention
the gallows. You would not run about crying, "Do you know a brother of
mine was hanged at Newgate?" Your old man of sin is hanged–do not talk
about him, but thank God it is so–and as He blots out the remembrance
of it, do you the same, except so far as it may make you humble and
grateful.
6. Crucifixion was a lingering death. Our old nature has not been put
to the death by the sword, or stoning, or burning. It has been
crucified. This will bring on a sure death in due time, but it is slow.
A man crucified often lived for hours and days and I have read even for
a week. Our old man will linger on his cross as long as we are alive on
earth. Each one of our sins has a horrible vitality about it. "As many
lives as a cat," John Bunyan said unbelief had. And the like may be
said of every sin within us! It is crucified, but it is not wholly
dead. Expect to have to fight with sin till you sheathe your sword and
put on your crown.
I speak with great respect to my dear friends who wear the honorable
insignia of old age, but they may let one who is a child compared to
them remind them that old age does not bring with it such a weakening
in the man to sin as to permit them to cease from watchfulness. When
passions cannot be indulged, they often rage the more furiously. And if
one sin is driven out by change of life, another will often labor to
possess the soul in its place. Alas, alas, alas, that men should ever
begin to trust to their experience or their acquired prudence–for then
they are the most likely persons to fall into sin! Your lusts are
crucified, but they live and there is vitality enough in them to make
you rue the day if the nails of Divine Grace do not hold them fast and
keep the demons to their tree of doom.
The last remark is that our Lord died a visible death. It could be
discovered that He was dead. So we must put our sins to a visible
death. Do not tell me, you men-servants and maid-servants who profess
godliness, that you have crucified your sins when you are such lazy and
dishonest servants that your masters and mistresses would be right glad
to do without you! Do not tell me, you masters and mistresses, that you
have crucified your sins when you fall into such ugly tempers and
tyrannize your servants and treat them like dogs! Do not tell me, you
men of business, that your sins are banished when you help to set up
bubble companies, falsify your weights and measures, defraud your
creditors by villainous bankruptcies, or grind the faces of the poor.
Do not sneak into this Tabernacle–or rather, if you come at all, do
sneak in, for you ought to wear a hang-dog look if you answer to any of
these descriptions!
Do not come into Prayer Meeting and pray with the saints if you are
behaving as unregenerate sinners do. If there is no visible difference
between you and the world, depend upon it, there is no invisible
difference. I have generally found that a man is not much better than
he looks and if a man's outward life is not right, I shall not feel
bound to believe that his inward life is acceptable to God. "Ah, Sir,"
said one in Rowland Hill's time, "he is not exactly what I should like,
but he has a good heart at the bottom." The shrewd old preacher
replied, "When you go to market and buy fruit and there are none but
rotten apples on the top of the basket, you say to the market woman,
'These are a very bad lot.' Now, if the
woman replied, 'Yes, they are rather gone at top, Sir, but they are
better as you go down,' you would not be so silly as to believe her,
but would say, 'No, no, the lower we go, the worse they will be, for
the best are always put on the top.'"
And so it is with men's characters. If they cannot be decent, sober and
truthful in their daily life, their inner parts are more abominable
still! The deeper you pry into their secrets the worse will be the
report. O dear Hearers, do be sincere in renouncing outward sin! You
sinful men, put away your drunkenness, your swearing, your lying, your
fornication and uncleanness. These must be nailed up before God's sun
in open day. Let all men know by your outward conduct that you are dead
to sin and cannot live any longer in it.
II. There was much room in this first point to have enlarged, but I
must not, for time flies so swiftly. This crucifixion of the old nature
is, let us remember, WITH CHRIST. The old man was crucified with Christ
representatively. Christ represented the Church. When He died He died
for the Church and the Church died in Him–all His people died
representatively when He died. Christ's dead body represents to us, in
its death, the death of our old man, and virtually and before God, the
body of this death died for each of us when Jesus died. We have not the
time, however, to go into that doctrine, but the experience is what I
would say a word upon.
Depend upon it, my dear Brothers and Sisters, if ever our sins are to
die, it must be with Christ. You will find you cannot kill the smallest
viper in the nest of your heart if you get away from the Cross. There
is no death for sin except in the death of Christ. Stand and look up to
His dear wounds. Trust in the merit of His blood. Love Him, love Him
with a perfect heart and sin-killing will not be difficult. You will
hear the Savior say, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil
the vines," and you will note His words, take us, not take them, but
take us. Come with me, says the spouse, we will go together and we will
do it. Your killing of your sin is not in your power, but if Jesus goes
with you, it will be done.
I have known some people struggle against a horrible temper and they
never quite overcame it until they grew into closer communion with
Christ. Some dispute the doctrine before us and assert that
contemplations of death are the most effectual helps in overcoming
sin–very likely. Others have thought that the study of the beauties of
holiness might do it–it may be so. But in my experience the mightiest
gun to blow down the cesspool of sin within me is to flee to the Cross
of Christ! I am persuaded that nothing but the blood of Jesus will kill
sin. If you go to the Commandments of God, or to the fear and dread of
Hell, you will find such motives, as they suggest, to be as powerless
in you for real action as they have proven themselves to be to the
general world.
But if you remember gratefully that the first death of sin in you was
by the blood of Jesus, you will firmly believe that all the way through
you will have to overcome by the same weapon–
"Tears, though flowing like a river,
Never can one sin erase.
Jesus' tears would not avail you–
Blood alone can meet your case.
Fly to Jesus!
Life is found in His embrace."
Do you see yonder blood-washed host? Without spot or wrinkle they stand
before the Throne of God. Ask them whether they had to fight with sin
and they will tell you that they were men of like passions with us. Ask
them how they overcame sin–you glorious ones, out of what armory did
you take your weapons and who girded you for the sacred conflict?–
"I ask them from where their victory came.
They, with united breath
Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to His death.
They marked the footsteps that He trod,
His zeal inspired their breast,
And, following their Incarnate God,
Possess the promised rest." You must get to Christ, nearer to Christ
and you will overcome sin.
III. I must now conclude with these two observations. First, Christian,
here is your practical lesson tonight–Fight with your sins. Hack them
in pieces as Samuel did Agag! Let not one of them escape. Take them as
Elijah took the prophets of Baal–hew them in pieces before the Lord!
Revenge the death of Christ upon your sins, but keep to Christ's
Cross for power to do it. Think more of Jesus' Cross! Spend more time
in contemplation of His blessed Person, of His death and of His rising
again. Drink in more of His life and live more upon Him. I pray you do
this.
The words may sound in your ears as very common and such as you have
heard 10,000 times before, but the sense is weighty and all-important.
If I had but one sentence that I might utter to Believers, I think I
should make it this–live nearer to Christ. All virtues flourish in the
atmosphere of the Cross. All vices die beneath the shade of the
Cross–but get away from your Master and you will be undone.
The other word is to the unconverted. You say you do not care much
about death unto sin. Well, then, you shall have but one choice–if you
will not have death unto sin–you shall have sin unto death! There is
no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin–and if
you do not slay sin, sin will slay you! As surely as you live, my
unsaved Hearers, you cannot harbor any sin and go to Heaven! Let no man
deceive you. I try to preach a very free and open Gospel and these lips
have spoken 10,000 invitations to the very chief of sinners. In fact, I
never seem to have a more suitable theme for myself than when I am
opening Mercy's gate wide, so as to admit the vilest of the vile.
Still I am bound to tell you–wide as God's mercy is to those who are
willing to give up their sins–there is not a grain of mercy in the
heart of God towards that man who goes on in his iniquities. "God is
angry with the wicked every day." Bunyan tells us he was one day
playing the game of "cat" on Sunday, when a voice seemed to sound in
his ears, "Will you have your sins and go to Hell, or leave your sins
and go to Heaven?" You have dropped into this Tabernacle and this is
the question I have to put to you–"Will you leave your sins and go to
Heaven, or will you have your sins and
go to Hell!"
I know what you would prefer. You would like to have your sins and
Heaven, too, but it is utterly impossible! Not only because God forbids
it, but because nature forbids it. You are sitting in a room with a
fire tonight and the windows are closed and you say, "I would like to
be cool." Put out the fire, then. "No, but I would like to be cool and
yet keep the fire." It cannot be done–nature forbids it. And so a
lover of sin cannot be a saved soul–not because of any enmity on God's
part–but because it is contrary to nature. Sin is a poison, you cannot
drink it and yet live the life of Divine Grace. If a man loves sin, sin
is its own punishment. To be an enemy of God is Hell.
Even if the flames of Gehenna could be quenched and the pit of Tophet
could be closed, yet as long as a man was out of accord with God, there
must be a Hell, for sin is misery and only let it develop itself and
evil is sorrow, be it in what breast it may. You have heard of the
Spartan youth who concealed a stolen fox under his garment, and
although it was eating into his stomach, he would not show it and
therefore died through the creature's bites. You are of that sort,
Sinner! You are carrying sin in your bosom and it is eating out your
heart!
God knows what it is and you know what it is. You cannot keep it there
and be unbitten, undestroyed. Why keep it there? O cry to God with a
vehement cry, "God save me from my sin! O bring me, even me, to the
foot of Your Son's Cross, and forgive me and then crucify my sin, for I
see clearly, now, that sin must perish or I must."
God give you Grace, dear Hearer, not to go to bed tonight till you have
had your sins nailed up to Christ's Cross! The Lord grant it for His
mercies' sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON.–Romans 6