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Before we pass on, let us have another look at verses 20 and 21: first, verse 20 "But ye
have not so learned Christ". We might have thought that this is important to learn the
truth, and indeed so it is: there are those things which we quite rightly wish to learn. But
Paul concentrates on the essential fact that we need to "learn Christ". He is the Truth, and
He is the Great Teacher. We need to know Him (as Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10) and
be taught by Him. There is a phrase in verse 21 that may surprise us, for it reads, "...and
have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus". This is often misquoted as "the truth as
it is in Jesus", but the actual words are "as the truth is in Jesus". The apostle Paul usually
gives Christ His exalted name; Christ Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, or the great God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ. But here he uses the name by which He was known while on
earth. It brings to mind Philippians 2:5-11 where we read that He humbled Himself,
became a man, and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He defeated sin
and Satan and overcame death. If we learn Christ we need to bear in mind all that He did
when He came down to this earth. We are asked to put off concerning the former
conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts (vs. 22).
Jesus Christ was both man and God, and it is as man that His example is set before us.
The old man in us cannot evolve into a perfect man. By faith, we must reckon the old
man, the flesh, to be dead. We died with Christ, Paul writes to Romans:
"Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4)
We read in verse 6 of the same chapter:
"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".
To read "put off...the old man" is easy, but to put it into practice is a very different
matter. Charles Welch says "No believer is told to put off the old man in an absolute
manner". This is undertaking beyond the power of any living soul and nothing but the
power of the cross of Christ can effectuate it. He goes on to quote Romans 6:6, which we
have quoted above. He then comments further and we quote from page 149 of his book
The Testimony of the Lord's Prisoner:
"Three most important divisions of truth are presented in this verse (Rom. 6:6), and failure to
apportion its teaching correctly has led some children of God to the brink of despair. The first
statement refers to a work entirely outside ourselves: "Our old man was crucified with Him".
The verb is passive indicating something in which we ourselves had not part; it is aorist, an
indefinite tense, in this case referring to the past, by reason of the added words, "with Him. No
is ever told to crucify the old man; this was the work of the Son of God alone, and is finished.
The second statement arises out of the first: "that the body of sin might be rendered inoperative".
The body of sin being no longer dominant, the third statement follows: "that henceforth we may
no longer be enslaved to sin".
The "henceforth" of Romans 6:6 finds its parallel in Ephesians 4:17: "that we henceforth walk
walk not as other Gentiles walk".