Romans 6:6, consider where Romans 6:6 takes you, because the old self did not die of old age, it was crucified and the word Paul uses tells you exactly who did it. Imagine it is the middle of the afternoon and the sky has gone dark, on the middle cross hangs a man who did nothing wrong. The crowd has mostly gone quiet, the soldiers are bored, the religious leaders are satisfied, the sun is hidden and the air has gone strange and heavy and then that man on the middle cross breathes out his last breath. Now, here is the detail most people never see, when that man on the middle cross died, you were there, not physically, but in him. This is the great mystery of the Christian life, union with Christ, the way a branch is in a vine, the way a body part belongs to a body, the way a child carries the family name, you were in Christ when he died.
So his death counts as yours, his crucifixion was your crucifixion, his burial was your burial and the word Paul uses for it in Romans 6:6 is one word in Greek synestaurothe, it means was crucified with and it is what grammarians call the aorist passive which sounds like a grammar lecture. Aorist means it is a completed event, a single point in the past, finished. Passive means it happened to you, you did not do it, it was done to you, you were crucified with him. Paul is not telling you to crucify yourself, he is telling you that you already were crucified with Christ and if you have ever felt like you had to earn your freedom by how hard you tried, the work is done, the event is finished, the crucifixion happened.
Now, Paul ties Romans 6:6 to something you can actually see, baptism, in Romans 6:3-4, he writes that you were buried with Christ through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, you also might walk in newness of life. Consider what happens in baptism, you go down into the water, for a moment, you are under, everything goes quiet, the noise of the room disappears, the arguments in your head go silent, it is a picture of a burial and then you come up out of the water into the air alive. The water runs off your face, the light hits your eyes, the room comes back into focus and you are not the same, that is not a ritual you perform to become something, it is a picture of what already happened to you.
Romans 6:6, you went down with him, you came up with him and the person who went down is not the person who came up, Paul says it plainly in Romans 6:5, united, you are not a spectator at the cross, you are not a fan of the resurrection, you are not someone who read about it and approved of it, you are united to him, his death is yours, his life is yours. Feel the weight of that, the old self, the whole person you were under sin in Adam was crucified with Christ, it is finished, it is done, it happened.
So his death counts as yours, his crucifixion was your crucifixion, his burial was your burial and the word Paul uses for it in Romans 6:6 is one word in Greek synestaurothe, it means was crucified with and it is what grammarians call the aorist passive which sounds like a grammar lecture. Aorist means it is a completed event, a single point in the past, finished. Passive means it happened to you, you did not do it, it was done to you, you were crucified with him. Paul is not telling you to crucify yourself, he is telling you that you already were crucified with Christ and if you have ever felt like you had to earn your freedom by how hard you tried, the work is done, the event is finished, the crucifixion happened.
Now, Paul ties Romans 6:6 to something you can actually see, baptism, in Romans 6:3-4, he writes that you were buried with Christ through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, you also might walk in newness of life. Consider what happens in baptism, you go down into the water, for a moment, you are under, everything goes quiet, the noise of the room disappears, the arguments in your head go silent, it is a picture of a burial and then you come up out of the water into the air alive. The water runs off your face, the light hits your eyes, the room comes back into focus and you are not the same, that is not a ritual you perform to become something, it is a picture of what already happened to you.
Romans 6:6, you went down with him, you came up with him and the person who went down is not the person who came up, Paul says it plainly in Romans 6:5, united, you are not a spectator at the cross, you are not a fan of the resurrection, you are not someone who read about it and approved of it, you are united to him, his death is yours, his life is yours. Feel the weight of that, the old self, the whole person you were under sin in Adam was crucified with Christ, it is finished, it is done, it happened.