Old (3820) (palaios from pálai = in the past, long ago) antique, not recent, not new, old in the sense of worn out and decrepit. (see discussion of old self = old man) Palaios means in existence for a long time, and in a number of contexts conveys the sense of being obsolete, antiquated or outworn. Worn out from use is the idea in (Mt 9:16, 17 Mk 2:21, Lk 5:36) Palaios is the antonym of kainos [word study] which means brand new. Palaios brings out the idea of “worn out”, the result of the wear and tear of time, the old as outworn and clearly is not something to be desired. Palaios - 19x in 15v in NAS - Old garment=Mt. 9:16, 17; What is old out of treasure=Mt 13:52; Old garment (twice)=Mk. 2:21, Old wineskins=Mk 2:22; Old wineskins...old wine =Lk. 5:36, 37, 39; Ro 6:6; Old leaven =1Co. 5:7, 8; Old covenant =2Co. 3:14; Old man (figuratively of prior unregenerate behavior "in Adam")=Eph. 4:22; Old man =Col. 3:9; Old commandment (twice)= 1 Jn. 2:7 (Regarding 1Jn 2:7, Hiebert writes that "It is not a recent innovation, yet it is qualitatively new as experienced in Christ.”) There are two words for old, and Paul chooses palaios which means old in point of use instead of archaios (744) which is old in point of time and refers primarily to chronological age. Paul is describing this "man" as one who is completely worn out , useless, fit only for the scrap heap! For all practical purposes it is destroyed. Palaios - 12x in the non-apocryphal Septuagint (LXX) - Lev. 25:22; 26:10; Jos. 9:4f; 1 Sam. 7:12; Esther 8:12; Job 15:10; Song 7:13; Jer. 38:11; Dan. 7:9, 13, 22; Self (444) (anthropos) means a human being, a man or woman, an individual of the human race or a person. See more detailed discussion of topic - Old Man (Old Self) Old self (Old man) identifies the unsaved person dominated by the totally depraved nature inherited from Adam, and who is "under sin", is not "righteous", is "helpless" (to save himself) , is a inveterate "sinner" and an intractable "enemy" of God. And this is the old self we once were, our human nature considered apart from grace, apart from Christ. The old self is all that we were in Adam before we were saved and placed in Christ. (See old self-old man) The old self is the unregenerate man in Adam (1Cor 15:22, Ro 5:12,18,19), the person who is apart from divine redemption and the new life it brings. THE OLD SELF IN ROMANS "all under sin" Romans 3:9 "none righteous" Romans 3:10 "still helpless" Romans 5:6 "yet sinners" Romans 5:8 "enemies" Romans 5:10 Note that this Biblical description of the "old self" is only a partial list of what each of us was spiritually in Adam before God co-crucified us with Christ. John Piper says that the old self is the me that was... rebellious against God and insubordinate to God's law and blind to God's glory and unbelieving toward His promises. Middletown Bible has a lucid explanation of the old self (man) writing that this section... introduces a key fact that needs to be believed! What is the "old man" (Ro 6:6; Ep 4:22-note; Col. 3:9-note) and what is the "new man" (Col 3:10-note; Ep 4:24-note)? The old man refers to all that I am and all that I have in Adam; the new man refers to all that I am and all that I have in Christ. The old man is my old life in Adam; the new man is my new life in Christ. The one refers to the SELF LIFE; the other to the CHRIST LIFE. The one has to do with FALLEN MAN; the other has to do with REDEEMED or REGENERATED MAN. The old man is the old self; the new man is the new self, the new creature in Christ. The old man is characterized by that fallen sinful nature received from Adam; the new man is characterized by that divine holy nature received from God at the time of the new birth. The old man is born of the flesh; the new man is born of God. The old man came about by natural birth; the new man came about by the new birth. The old man is "CORRUPT according to the deceitful lusts" (Eph. 4:22-note; and compare Romans 7:24-note); the new man is "after God (according to God, patterned after God, a reflection of God, etc.) . . . created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph. 4:24-note). The new man is a new thing which did not previously exist but which was created (Eph. 4:24-note; 2Cor. 5:17). Five years before you were saved the new man did not exist at all, but the old man did! The old man is not [simply] the old nature (Ed: I think he refers here to the flesh), though it involves the old nature; the old man is characterized as having a nature that is opposed to God, and this nature stamps its character on the activities of the old man (Roy Heubner). The old man is described by his works (his deeds) in Ephesians 4:25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31: He is a wicked liar (Ep 4:25-note), he has a rotten temper (Ep 4:26-note), he is a evil thief (Ep 4:28-note), he has a corrupt mouth with garbage flowing out of it (Ep 4:29-note) and he is characterized by bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking and an unforgiving spirit (Ep 4:31,32-note). In contrast the new man speaks truth (Ep 4:25-note), gets angry in the right way at the right things (Ep 4:26-note), works hard and knows how to give (Ep 4:28-note), speaks that which is good and that which edifies (Ep 4:29-note), is characterized by kindness, tenderheartedness and a forgiving spirit. The new man is a reflection of God, the One who created Him! It is important to know that the old man is immutable! He will never change! He is ever and always CORRUPT! The old man will never improve himself (in fact, when you are saved the old man will seem even worse!). The old man will never reform. He is incorrigible! He is utterly depraved and will always be so. When a person is saved the old man is not changed and the old man is not transformed. How then does (did) God deal with the old man? God does not change the old man. God does not transform the old man. What did God do with your old self? What did God do with all that you are and all that you have in Adam? Romans 6:6 answers this: "OUR OLD MAN WAS (past tense) CRUCIFIED WITH HIM." God condemned the old man, judged him and poured out His wrath on Him when the blessed Saviour died on the cross. My old man was crucified! (Romans Chapter 6) Gregg Herrick addresses the question of the identity of the old man (old self) and its relationship to the fallen flesh (flesh) which some observers hold to be identical. Thus Herrick concludes that the old man... should not be viewed as a synonym for fallen human “flesh” (cf. Ro 7:18; sarx). When reading the Scriptures, Christians should not view it as pointing directly to some immaterial aspect of man as a sinful human being. Thus, “sinful nature” is also a misleading translation (of Ro 6:6). Again, the “old man” refers to fallen people in community “in Adam.” (Ed: All that we were in Adam before we believed and God took us out of "in Adam" and placed us "in Christ") To read it individualistically as the “flesh” or “sinful nature” robs it off its corporate focus and a great insight to us as relational creatures is obscured. The best translation of ho palaios anthropos is probably “old man” or “old community” with a note explaining its corporate sense. (See Herrick's full discussion of “Old Man” and “New Man” in Paul) H A Ironside writes that... My "old man" is not merely my old nature. It is rather all that I was as a man in the flesh, the "man of old," the unsaved man with all his habits and desires. That man was crucified with Christ. When Jesus died I (as a man after the flesh) died too. I was seen by God on that cross with His blessed Son. Wayne Barber does not totally agree with some of these other observers regarding the identity of the old self noting that... What does "the old self " mean? It’s the old man. I’m sure that’s a term familiar to a lot of folks—the old man. Who is the old man? Everything I was in Adam, that’s the old man. It’s what I used to be. The term for "old" is not the word in the Greek from which we derive the English word "archaic". Here old is the Greek word from which we derive the word "worn out" —a worn out, useless, old man. He is not good for anything...It’s never been useful for anything. It’s everything you were and I were in Adam... Some people confuse the old man with the flesh. (Ed: Not the physical flesh but the fallen flesh that always expresses an "anti-god" energy) You can’t do that... we are talking about the old man. That is the person you and I were in Adam that has now died when Christ died. Why was it necessary for the old man to die? Well, it says in Romans 6:6: "our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with." The word "that" in the Greek is hina. It means "in order that." It means "A" comes before "B". "A" has got to happen before "B" can happen. We had to die. The old man had to die before I could become a new creature in Christ (2Co 5:17). (Romans 6:6-11) John Stott writes that... our old self denotes not our lower self (Ed: this makes me think Stott agrees with Wayne Barber - i.e., that the old self is not identical with the flesh) but our former self, ‘the man we once were’ (NEB), ‘our old humanity’ (REB), the person we used to be in Adam. So what was crucified with Christ was not a part of us called our old nature, but the whole of us as we were in our pre-conversion state. This should be clear because the phrase our old self was crucified (Ro 6:6) is equivalent to we died to sin (Ro 6:2). (Ibid) F Godet adds that... The expression: our old man, denotes human nature such as it has been made by the sin of him in whom originally it was wholly concentrated, fallen Adam reappearing in every human ego that comes into the world under the sway of the preponderance of self-love, which was determined by the primitive transgression. This corrupted nature bears the name of old only from the viewpoint of the believer who already possesses a renewed nature.—This old man has been crucified so far as the believer is concerned in the very person of Christ crucified. The apostle does not say that He has been killed. He may exist still, but like one crucified, whose activity is paralyzed. Up to the solemn hour of believing, sin puts on the behavior of triumphant independence, or presents itself to us as an excusable weakness. The instant we contemplate it in Christ crucified, we see it as a malefactor condemned and capitally punished by the justice of God; and its sentence of death pronounced in our conscience is the same to it within us as the cross was to Christ—not an immediate death certainly, but the reduction of it to powerlessness.—The purpose of this moral execution, included in the very fact of faith, is the destruction of the body of sin. (Romans Commentary - Online) John MacArthur has some clarifying thoughts on an area that can be easily misunderstood and which can have negative consequences if misunderstood... The dualistic view that a Christian has two natures uses unbiblical terminology and can lead to perception that is extremely destructive of holy living. Some who hold such views go to the perverted extreme of the Gnostics in Paul’s day, claiming that because the evil self cannot be controlled or changed and because it is going to be destroyed in the future anyway, it does not much matter what you let it do. It is only “spiritual” things, such as your thoughts and intentions, that are of significance. It is not surprising that in congregations where such a philosophy reigns, immoral conduct among the membership as well as the leadership is common and church discipline is usually nonexistent. In a somewhat parallel passage in Colossians, Paul clearly states that a believer’s putting off the old self is a fair accompli (sic - should be "fait accompli"), something that has already and irreversibly been accomplished. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him (Col 3:9, 10-note). It was not that every Colossian believer was fully mature and had managed to gain complete mastery over the residual old self. Paul was saying rather that every believer, at any level of maturity, can claim that his old self already has been laid aside “with its evil practices.” (Ed: when we were justified by faith). In exactly the same way, his new self in Christ is already “being renewed” into conformity with the very image of the God who has recreated him (Ed: process of sanctification). (MacArthur, J: Romans 1-8. Chicago: Moody Press) MacArthur again reiterating the danger of a dualistic view writes that Paul is not describing a... a dualistic, schizophrenic Christian. The old man—the unregenerate person that was “in Adam” (cf. 1Co 15:22 ; Ro 5:14,15-note)—is dead. We are to “lay aside” that crucified, dead, and corrupt old self (Ep 4:22-note), and “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ep 4:24-note). It is true of every genuine believer that our old self is dead. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Ga 5:24-note). If the old self isn’t dead, conversion hasn’t occurred. Paul reminded the Colossians that they had already “laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and...put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Col. 3:9-note, Col 3:10-note). Christians sin because of the vestiges of sinful flesh, not because they have the same old active sinful nature. Certainly we sin, but when we sin it is contrary to our nature, not because we have two dispositions—one sinful and one not. (MacArthur, J. The Gospel According to the Apostles: The role of Works in the Life of Faith. Dallas: Word Pub., c1993. Nashville, TN: Word Pub) ----- Scripture does not support the dualistic view. Romans 6:6 clearly says that our old self was crucified with Christ. The person we were before we trusted Christ is no more. The tyranny of sin is nullified. Our nature is changed, transformed. We are new creations, not merely the same old creatures with a new side to our personalities. We have a new heart—not an added one, but a whole different one. This, after all, is the promise of the New Covenant: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek 36:26, emphasis added). This new heart has a conscience. It can take charge. You can count on it. Reckon it to be so. Consider it accomplished. (MacArthur, J., F., Jr. The Vanishing Conscience. Dallas: Word Pub) Hodge explains that... The word self is used because it is no one disposition, tendency, or faculty that is changed, but the man himself — the radical principle of his being, the self. Hence Paul uses the pronoun “I” — “I am sold under sin”; “I cannot do the things that I would.” It is plain from this whole presentation of his teaching that regeneration is not merely a change of actions or of the feelings as distinct from the understanding, but a change of the whole person. Another thing is also plain: that such a radical change of nature cannot fail to show itself in a holy life. This is what Paul insists on here. To the believer who knows that the old self is crucified with Christ, the objection that free justification leads to licentiousness is contradictory and absurd. The old self is said to be crucified, not because the destruction of the principle of sin is a slow and painful process, but because Christ’s death, the death with which we were identified, was by crucifixion, and because it is from him, as crucified, that the death of sin in us comes. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, also exhorts believers based upon the truth of this passage... Do not go on living as if you were still that old man, because that old man has died. Do not go on living as if he was still there. Spurgeon... One of the best men I ever knew said, at eighty years of age, "I find the old man is not dead yet." Our old man is crucified, but he is long at dying. He is not dead when we think he is. You may live to be very old, but you will have need still to watch against the carnal nature, which remains even in the regenerate. We are to regard ourselves as persons that have been dead (cp Ro 6:11-note). We are ourselves, it is true; and yet in another sense we are not our own selves. We are not to look upon ourselves as though we owed any kind of service to the power which we obeyed before we knew the Lord. We are new people, we have got a new life, and have entered upon a new existence (2Co 5:17) — the old man is crucified with Him. 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