Bury Your Old Man

When asked what he’s done to live a healthy life into his nineties, Clint Eastwood once quipped:

“I get up every morning and I don’t let the old man in.”

This sounds like a great mental strategy to help impede the normal process of metabolic aging. If I don’t let him near me, he can’t rub off on me. And I’d be a better man for it—or maybe just an older one.

Because while longevity is an inherent objective, it can be pointless trying to achieve it as a natural man. That man is more of a threat to me than some dude with a sickle and hoodie:

“…a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. He cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” [1Cor. 2:14] [my emphasis]

He’s the old man I’m determined not to let in.

The apostle Paul wouldn’t let him back in either. In his letter to “all who [were] beloved of God in Rome, called as saints, he confirms that the faithful regenerate man—that is, the one who continues to walks in newness of life, has shed the old sinful temperament [or “old man”] that once controlled him:

“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall also be of the resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, because he who has died is freed from sin.” [Rom. 6:4-7] [my emphasis]

[ἄνθρωπος: (ân’-throw-pôs) man, people, mankind, person]

That old man tries to find his way back in my life once in a while. But I’m every bit as confident about my struggle as Clint is about his—actually more so, because his battle is all his to fight.

But not mine.

Because whenever I think I could lose a battle, I remember that Jesus Christ has already won the war. So if I can keep my old man down in his grave, I can rest assured I’ll be raised from mine someday.

Can you say that Clint?

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him…” [Rom. 6:8]