The old man: The body of our life, is not our body of flesh

[Ghada]

The Bible speaks several times of our 'body' that is sinful or righteous. It is not speaking of our natural physical bodies, where there is neither sin nor righteousness in any flesh, blood, bones, grass, dust, or leaves on earth.

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We see here that our spirit and soul and body must be blameless unto the end, in order to be resurrected bodily unto life.

If the physical body were sinful by nature, then our physical body must somehow be made blamelessly 'righteous' in this life unto the Lord's coming. We must somehow cleanse our flesh from 'sin' and purify our blood.

What's missing in the verse is the elephant in the room: The word 'life', as in how we live. That is what the Bible is speaking of pertaining to our body being blameless in this life. Otherwise, we could blame our bodies for what our soul and spirit does with it.

And so, the old man of sin is the old life of sin lived in our bodies. The old man's and his body of life is the sinner's old inner man of the heart, not the outer man of the flesh.

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

It's the inner man that is born and strengthened by the Spirit to be pure and clean from lust and sin.

The physical body can be quickened by the Spirit in this life, to be healed, restored whole, and made more lively. However, it's not the physical body that is made blameless, since the body is never to be blamed for anything we do with it on earth.

The same thing is being spoken of when referring a person's whole 'body of work' in their life, especially pertaining to their writings and scholarship.

 

[Ghada]

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

The Bible is not making physical washing into a spiritual cleanness. (Though we could wish some people would. ) But rather once again, we cleanse within the platter, that the outward living may also be clean.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

If it were the physical body the writer speaks of, then he'd be praying for physical death as the only way out of sinning with the body.

The body of death is that of a life still lived with sinning, even after having knowledge of the truth of God's word. It's the wretched life of being a hearer only and not a doer of the word.

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

And so, finally we see that it's not the physical body that is made dead when born again in Christ Jesus. Otherwise, there would be no newborn sons of God and members of His Son's body on earth at any time.

It's the past body of life, that is the old man crucified on our own cross. Our new body of life becomes dead to sin.

The translation is accurate enough, but misleading. The old man and body of life must be put to death, in order to be in Christ and walk with Him. And so we read the verse another way: Because of sin in our old life, or because we have all sinned, all the old life must be crucified.

For Christ to be living within us, the old body of life must be made dead, because of the sin in it.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

God always ensures the right dividing of His word, by coming out and saying it plainly, so that there can be no misunderstanding about the difference between spiritual and physical things of this life.

If we continue sinning with the body, we are dead to Christ and His righteousness. But if through the Spirit we crucify the deeds of our body, not the physical body itself, we now live righteously and blamelessly in Christ Jesus.

This is indeed why there are Christians that wrongly castrate themselves, self-flagellate, or even commit suicide. By a carnal minded reading of such verses, they are made to believe by the spirit of error, that they are being commanded by God to do such things to their own physical bodies for the sake of Christ. There are also other lesser examples than these extremes.

It's not the physical body that the Bible commands us to crucify and so commit suicide, in order to obey the Spirit and stop sinning. And so it is not the physical body that is spoken of as the old man crucified on our own cross. Nor is it the physical body we need 'deliverance from' in order to walk after the Spirit.

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

It's the lust of the world in the old man and heart, that we must crucify by the Spirit, in order to be delivered from the corrupt deeds and works with the flesh.

 

[Ghada]

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

It's the body of the inner man, which is the heart and soul of man, that we must purify through the Spirit, that our outer man and life may be blameless indeed with the new pure heart of Christ Jesus.

Jesus of course always makes such things simple to understand:

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside may also be clean.

The outside is but flesh and blood and is the earthen vessel and tabernacle made for us by Christ. It's no more sinful nor righteousness in itself than the houses we live in.

Or body of life or death, is the body of works in our life, whether after the Spirit unto life, or after the flesh unto death.

We're not following the flesh's direction, like the we do the leading of the Spirit, because then our own bodies would not be us, but another person, even as the Spirit.

Sinners and trespassers are hankering after the flesh unto death, and are separating themselves from God by dead works they do with the body. These are the body of works, that we must crucify on our own cross, into order to hanker after the Spirit only.

Crucifying the old man and his deeds, is putting to death the old heart of lust and life of sinful deeds. That is when we are given the promised new heart and life of God, where all things are now only of God in Christ Jesus.