Can you please explain Romans 6:7? I’m having trouble understanding it.
To answer your good question, let’s read Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Before we were saved, we were helpless against sin. We were truly the servants of sin. The expression, “our old man” is in reference to our old standing before the Lord prior to our salvation. Notice that ‘our’ is plural, while ‘man’ is singular. This shows that before salvation, we all had the same standing before the Lord; we were all sinners with the same sin nature. We all can say as King David said in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Ephesians 4:22 describes our old man as being, “…corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” Colossians 2:11 describes our old man as, “…the body of the sins of the flesh…” Upon accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior, we find that, “our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” When Christ died, our old standing before God died, too. We ‘identify’ with Christ in His crucifixion. We became a new person in Christ. Colossians 3:9-10 says of this, “…ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” When we are saved, our old man is crucified and we become a new man! 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Now let’s consider Romans 6:7, “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” When we accept the Lord Jesus as our savior, Colossians 3:3 tells us, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” We are dead. The old man, or our old standing before God, is positionally dead before the Lord. Not only have we been freed from the penalty of sin, we have been freed from the bondage of sin. We are no longer servants of sin, but we are servants of Christ. What a privilege that is…servants of the Most High God! We are dead, yet we are alive. As those who have been crucified with Christ, and raised again with Him, through faith in Him, may we heed the instruction of Colossians 3:1, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” (168.2)