Is it an act, or a gradual process, this "putting off the old man?" It is both. It is a resolve taken once for all, but carried out in detail day by day. The first hour that the sap begins to withdraw, and the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is sealed: there is never a moment's reversal of the decision. Each day that follows is a steady carrying out of the plant's purpose: "this old leaf shall die, and the new leaf shall live." So with your soul. Come to the decision once for all: "every known sin shall go - if there is a deliverance to be had, I will have it." Put the Cross of Christ, in its mysterious delivering power, irrevocably between you and sinning, and hold on there. That is your part, and you must do it.
God had spiritual victory as His thought when He first forgave us our sins, and in His mind this is to be the normal development of every Christian's life. Every movement forward, however, is related to the cross, and there is a sense in which there is not one step forward in the spiritual life which is not preceded by a step backward. What I mean is this, that there has to be some undoing before there can be any upbuilding. The Christ who is the power of God to us is the crucified Christ who progressively applies the cross to us also, so that being released from the flesh which so holds us back, we may advance in the realm of the Spirit. So spiritual progress is not conditioned by special teaching but by ever deeper experiences of the in-working of the cross of Christ.
I found I had to accept His strength, through forgiveness and cleansing, for all my weakness. I had to recognize and acknowledge that in me (as well as in others whom I see around me) lies no good thing, apart from His indwelling presence. Only as I am daily willing for Him to crucify the self-life, the capital "I", can He live in and through me in His own triumphant, victorious life. So often I seem to have to learn lessons over and over again. Yet God is so graciously willing to go on teaching, so patiently waiting to fill and overflow with His daily enabling by His indwelling Holy Spirit.
We have before us three things: a fact—“our old man was crucified with him”; a consequence—“that the body of sin might be done away”; and a design—“that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin.” (Romans 6:6) Nevertheless, even after we take the action and maintain the attitude of reckoning our old man to be dead, the sinful nature in us does not henceforth become annihilated and disappear. For as long as we live in this mortal body, the sinful nature will co-exist with us. To say that our sinful nature can be annihilated in this life is a great heresy. We can deliver the old man to death by the power of the cross of Calvary and render it powerless and withered as though dead, but we cannot annihilate it. Whenever we are careless and unwatchful, whenever we do not stand on the death ground of Calvary, our old man will renew its activities and resume its office. Satan is always looking for an opportunity to reactivate the old man. And as soon as there is a loophole, the old man will recover its original position.
In the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee. That will prove true in our inner experience. If we are honest in our longing for holiness and in our prayer to be wholly the Lord’s, His holy presence will arouse and discover hidden sin and convict us of our evil nature, its opposition to God’s law, and its inability to fulfill that law. The words will come true: "Who may abide the time of his coming? And who shall stand when he appears? For he shall be like a refiner’s fire" (Malachi 3:2). "Oh that thou would... come down... as when the melting fire burns" (Isaiah 64:1-2). God executes His judgments upon sin within the soul in great mercy, as He makes it feel its wickedness and guilt. Many try to flee from these judgments; the soul that longs for God and for deliverance from sin bows under them in humility and in hope.
We are to live the life of the cross experientially. In going through to the place where we are made "conformable to His death," His Cross must become our cross. Then, what others see and hear of us bears the mark of the Cross which crucifies all manifestations of the fleshly life. All those who are progressing in the pursuit of the Lord and who live in the world should have no other compelling purpose but to receive constantly the power of resurrection life and to live out before men the life of the Cross. This is what gives the Lord full satisfaction and is so well-pleasing to Him.
As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.
He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who ‘do business in great waters,’ these see his ‘wonders in the deep.’ Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man. Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God’s greatness and lovingkindness... Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of his glory in his wonderful dealings with you.