You are sinner and saint, dead and alive. Old Adam, New Adam describes the existence of every baptized believer.
Old Adam, New Adam, that is what is going on in Romans 6 (really the entire arc of Romans 5-8). Old and New, and they are both you. This is what Paul is teaching, and what you will be preaching this week. Dichotomies abound here, so get used to talking in that simul language. You are sinner and saint, dead and alive. Old Adam, New Adam describes the existence of every baptized believer, and getting this right is essential not only for this pericope, but for all of Romans. Romans 7 is coming up for a couple of weeks as well. Therefore, this week’s sermon could well lay the foundation for teaching through the boots-on-the-ground experience of the sanctified life, the struggle between flesh and spirit, between death and life, between a party in paradise or a rave in the grave, which characterizes the entire life of the baptized.
Paul is talking to the baptized, who are at the same time dead and alive, sinners and saints. Our theological shorthand for this is simul iustus et peccator. But Paul knows exactly how sinners misuse grace, and so should you, preacher. Old Adam actively weaponizes the Gospel against God. “If grace abounds where sin increases, why not keep sinning?” That is not some kind of first-century misunderstanding, it is the natural theology of fallen man. Old Adam hears forgiveness and immediately begins drafting a permission slip. That is the tension which drives Paul’s rhetoric in this portion of the letter, and it can drive your sermon too. He is doing something more pointed than just making suggestions about how to live like a Christian, for sure. He is describing the Christian life as simul: Not just dead and alive, not just sinner and saint, but also, and very directly, slave and free at the same time. The old man is still kicking and screaming while the new man actually delights in the Law of God.
As a preacher, you need to resist two equal and opposite errors. The first is some kind of triumphalist assumption that Christians (some folks would say “real” Christians or “true” Christians or “authentic” Christians – always beware those qualifiers!) simply do not struggle with sin. This sort of distinction rears its head in perfectionist bodies of Christian faith through the west. The modern exponents of this are affected more or less by Wesleyan thought, Christian practice being a rehearsal (or audition/qualification?) for Heaven. But you need to notice how Romans 6 does not teach that Christians graduate beyond struggle or finally achieve moral perfection in this life. Old Adam does not improve. He does not become cooperative (in fact, that is what the Law is for, to beat the recalcitrant ass back into submission!). Old Adam never actually becomes spiritual. He remains hostile to God. He hears the Law and gnashes his teeth at it. He hears the Gospel and tries to turn it into libertinism. Old Adam remains an expert theologian of glory right up to the grave. You cannot do anything about Old Adam except kill him. So, kill him already!
You cannot do anything about Old Adam except kill him. So, kill him already!
The other error, of course, is antinomianism, the twin heresy of the libertine. Paul absolutely does not preach grace as permission to sin. In fact, one of the great insights of Romans 6 is that the Christian actually has two competing relationships to the Law at the same time. This is what simul is all about! Old Adam hates the Law. New Adam loves it. Lean hard into that paradox, preacher, because it resonates profoundly with Christian experience. It is real life. The hearer knows this contradiction intimately. “Why do I resist what I know is good?” “Why do I excuse what I know destroys me?” “Why do I simultaneously love Christ and resent His commands?” Romans 6 gives us a vocabulary, a language for that war inside the struggling saint.
Psychology is not the answer that resolves it for Paul here, or in Romans 7 as we will see in subsequent pericopes. Paul does not resolve things psychologically, but sacramentally, and that is a move I encourage you to make when preparing this text yourself. What we are broadly talking about here is “sanctification,” which is how God makes His people holy, how He creates faith, gives His gifts, and empowers and preserves the faithful in their real Christian lives. But biblical preaching and teaching avoids locating sanctification in some kind of inner, emotional development or moral strategy, and you should avoid that too. Do not frustrate yourself and your hearer by attempting to adjust their mindset. Instead, give them what Paul gives the Church: Baptismal death and resurrection. Christianity is not about getting your hearer to try harder, because the Christian is someone who has already died... really (see Romans 6:3-4). There is no symbol here, just a matter-of-fact drowning, execution and burial, a death in, with, and under the death of Christ Himself.
Paul preaches that materially, and in like manner, your preaching will be strongest when yours is material too, concrete instead of abstract. Old Adam is much more than just a “part of your personality.” He is a corpse, coughing and spewing in his death rattles on the shore of your baptism, an old pain that pops up all the time like a bad penny, a constant dead weight which refuses to lie down quietly in spite of the fact that his death certificate is already signed and notarized by the judgment and promise of Christ. Old Adam is the rebellious flesh clinging to autonomy and self-rule, individualism and self-sufficiency. You do not need to pull a punch here, preacher. Speak concretely, bodily, and materially. Sin has appetites and the flesh has habits. Temptation lives in mouths, eyes, hands, wallets, and tongues, not to mention the southern hemisphere of the human body, too. Romans 6 should sound earthy because Christianity itself is earthy, a watery, bodily, and blood-soaked affair.
Old Adam especially abhors boundaries, hates limits. That is one of the great themes preachers can exploit here. “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” Notice the language of reign and dominion, resonating with the task masters and slave drivers of Exodus. Sin wants sovereignty. Sin wants to be a slaver. Old Adam believes he should govern himself. This is why the commandments feel offensive and intrusive. But he is just fooling himself. Fallen man forever says: “Why can’t I do what I want?” As a preacher, you are called to expose this rebellion, not merely in obvious public sins, but in the ordinary, spiritual instinct toward self-definition and self-justification (incurvatus in se!).
Humor helps here (Paul in fact models it!), especially satire directed at the absurdity of sinful self-reliance and self-rule. Old Adam simultaneously insists he is spiritually mature enough to govern himself. Yet, he collapses immediately into appetites, excuses, and rationalizations. He is ridiculous. I am chuckling right now as I recall my friend Bill Cwirla’s summary of Old Adam as a rambunctious, out-of-control frat boy; one worse than the stereotype! But notice how sometimes the best way to expose sinful pride is not with outrage but with mockery. The old sinner is not noble. He is pathetic, recalcitrant. He is like a stubborn mule that keeps wandering toward cliffs, unnecessary risks, and outright damage to self and others, while all the while insisting on his own freedom. And what does God do with Old Adam? What can He do? He just needs to die. So, He kills him.
Do not soften that point, preacher. You are not looking for moral improvement in your message. Your sermon is there to slay and vivify. The Word is delivered to kill and make alive. So, do not go for improvement. Go all the way for mortification. Paul’s imagery is far more violent than some modern religious sensibilities might prefer. But that is the message he resolved to focus on: No message but crucifixion, death, and slavery overturned by a new master. The Law was not given to negotiate with Old Adam. The Law was given to expose him, to accuse him, and, finally, to drive him to death. Old Adam cannot be discipled into righteousness because he fundamentally does not want it. He wants autonomy dressed up in religious language, so he can do whatever he wants without consequence. He wants freedom from God, which is (tragically ironic!) no freedom at all, but slavery to sin which leads to death.
The Word is delivered to kill and make alive. So, do not go for improvement.
Preacher, this is why the simul distinction, the distinction between Old Adam and New Adam, is so essential here. New Adam actually loves the Law. The regenerate man hears God’s commands not as arbitrary oppression but as the good and holy will of a good and holy Father. Obedience unto righteousness is not presented by Paul as legalistic striving, but as the fruit of resurrection life already begun, gifted by the gifts of this giver God. That is comprehensive sanctification language. Once again, it is not trying harder to be holy, but organically growing the fruit of being made holy by God. You are made new, vivified, and now living in the resurrection life of Christ (even as previously dead in His death). All of this is baptismal boots on the ground, “What such baptizing with water indicates” (to use Martin Luther’s language from the catechism).
Paul never portrays the baptized life as a miserable, moral obligation, and neither should you as a preacher. On the contrary, New Adam delights in holiness because New Adam belongs to Christ. Location, location, location: New Adam is in Christ! And his Christian life is not just restraint from evil but participation in a new creation. Paul’s slavery language gets positive here too: Slaves of righteousness, slaves of God. That slavery language might raise an eyebrow. After all, we are modern westerners, and we tend to elevate freedom and self-rule. We worship autonomy. But Paul insists everyone serves a master. The only question is, which one: Whether sin, which reigns unto death, or Christ, who reigns unto life.
Once again, the sermon that delivers is the one that is sacramental and external. If your hearer is left staring inward at her divided self, despair or pride will always follow. The answer to Old Adam is not introspection. The answer to Old Adam is always Christ: Christ crucified, Christ buried, Christ risen. It is Christ applied concretely in baptism, where the old man is drowned daily and the new man rises again to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Notice too how Paul’s movement is always from death into life, never around death. A theology of glory wants transformation without execution, victory without death. But the theology of the cross insists that resurrection only comes through crucifixion. God kills before He makes alive. That rhythm should shape the sermon itself. Let the Law crush the old rebel. Let the hearer feel the hopelessness of trying to reform the flesh. And then proclaim the outrageous promise that God has already pronounced a verdict over the baptized: Dead to sin and alive to Christ.
Finally, preach Christ historically and bodily. No abstract grace floating in Heaven somewhere, but the incarnate Son who took flesh, carried sin in His body, was crucified publicly, buried really, and raised historically. The Christian’s hope is not in spiritual progress, but in union with this Christ, because Old Adam is still very much alive in us. But the risen Christ is more alive still.
God bless your preaching this week!
Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Romans 6:12-23.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Romans 6:12-23.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
