We Must Cooperate with the Holy Spirit in Keeping the Old Man Crucified

What Christ has made possible for us, the Holy Spirit makes real within us, but only with our intelligent cooperation. God states very clearly in His Word what our part is, and it is the duty of every believer to know and to do his part.

1. Reckon yourself dead unto sin.

Romans 6:11

“Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Through the crucifixion of “the old man” with Christ, the believer has been made dead unto sin, he has been completely freed from sin’s power, he has been taken beyond sin’s grip, every claim of sin upon him has been nullified. This is the flawless provision of God’s grace but this accomplished fact can only become an actual reality in the believer’s experience as faith lays hold upon it and enables him moment by moment, day by day, though temptation assail him, “to reckon” it true. As he reckons the Holy Spirit makes real; as he continues to reckon, the Holy Spirit continues to make real. Sin need have no more power over the believer than he grants it through unbelief. If he is alive unto sin it will be due largely to the fact that he has failed “to reckon himself dead unto sin in Christ.” We cannot expect God to do His part and our part too. His part has been done perfectly, He waits now for us to cooperate with Him through faith in making this perfect salvation a reality in experience. Through grace “the old man” was nailed to the cross and buried in the tomb: through faith “the old man” will be kept there. Continuously reckon yourself to be totally severed from all that belonged to the old life and all that pertained to the old sphere, and faith will eventuate into experience.

Because I know in personal experience the defeat and discouragement that ensues from failure to reckon one’s self dead unto sin and because I believe it is the common experience of scores of Christian workers I am quoting at length from a letter received from a missionary. God will use this testimony to help many, I confidently believe, to see the place of failure.

“Last night I had a long conference with my Father. It was like other nights in my life, when after long periods of perplexity and prayer for light, the Lord has settled matters for me. I asked Him to show me why I was failing, why my life was not more even and assured. He knew I was keeping back nothing, and that I believed Jesus had met the whole sin question, branches and root, on the Cross. Why was my experience so fluctuating?

“It was not long before the answer came, and I saw, what I had never realized before, that while I had taken the work of Christ on the Cross as the perfect and complete satisfaction for the guilt of my sin, so that the devil in all his assaults had not been able to move me from my confidence that all my sins, past, present and future are under the blood, and powerless to bring me again under the condemnation of God; I had never appreciated to the full the value of His dealing with the root of sin in me. I believed He had dealt with it. I believed He had identified me with Himself on the Cross, and that in Him I was crucified, “dead unto sin and alive unto God.” I believed it as a fact in the Lord’s glorious work, but I had been appropriating the value of it only piecemeal, so to speak. It had been the way of victory to me for years. Many of the temptations resisted, the victories won, were through a definite reckoning of myself as dead to sin and alive to God. Such victories have lasted months sometimes, blessed seasons! But I saw that just as I would have fallen into distressing condemnation under Satan’s assaults, if I had not taken Christ’s atoning work in its entirety, once for all; so my failure to appropriate the work of the Cross for my sinful self, in its entirety, had left me an occasional prey to its power. I had been reckoning just parts of myself dead, instead of my whole self. As a result I was afraid of self, often uneasy and not sure of victory. And he that feareth is not made perfect in love.

“Your words Sunday helped me, “Who giveth us the victory, not victories.’ Well, dear friend, I have taken Christ in death and resurrection as the full and perfect solution for the whole of the sin problem. He has done it and it is done. I have asked for the same immovable assurance about sin as I have enjoyed for years about my sins, and I believe He has given it and will maintain it. He has given me deep calm about it all.

“I see how my failure to trust fully the work of the Cross has hindered the inflow and outflow of the Holy Spirit. The failure to give Christ the full glory due Him has meant that my carnal self was able to keep me, much of the time, without the Holy of Holies of the presence of Father and Son, where in the Spirit it is my privilege to dwell.

“Glory be to God, the triune God! You will give Him glory with me, for this unfolding of His truth to His unworthy child. I believe this was the one thing needed to enable me to be used to work all the good pleasure of His will.”

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, thank You that through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can know our responsibility as believers to keep the old man crucified.