My Saviour, Thou hast offered rest
Oh, give it then to me;
The rest of ceasing from myself,
To find my all in Thee.
Oh Lord, I seek a holy rest,
A victory over sin;
I seek that Thou alone should’st reign
O’er all without, within.
The Old Man, or Old Self died on the cross in Christ, and the New Creation is alive unto God in Christ. Everything about the old that we once were, and the new that we now are, was, and is taken care of in the person of Jesus. The old self was the person you once were before you became a Christian. That person was under the condemnation, and the power of sin. It was the self willed person who lived by his own willpower and strength, without the ability to break free from the slavery of sin, or the guilt of sin. There was only one thing to do with that guilty serial sinner and that was death. In the person of Jesus that old self went to the place of execution in His crucifixion. Jesus took us in his person, as our representative, to the Cross, and in his person our sins were paid for, and the old self, that is the self willed self, was crucified and buried. He didn’t just die for us; He died as us. At the heart of the gospel is that not only in Christ was the old self taken care of, but in His resurrection a totally new self emerged. His resurrection is our resurrection to be celebrated every minute of every day. Just as we were in union with him at his death, we were also in union with him in his resurrection, forever sharing his life as our life. Listen to these words from Colossians 3, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now when Christ who is (now, at this moment, in every situation, facing every temptation) our life is manifested, then you will be manifested with him in glory.” As the poem I quoted earlier from Charles Trumbull so gloriously states, there is a rest that is ours in Christ that we can know on the inside, as we allow him to reign, trusting him to live his victorious life in every situation, facing every temptation. At the heart of the New Creation is the person of Jesus who declares himself to be the very power source, flowing from his infinite adequacy, to live a supernatural new kind of life in all the large and small things that make up our daily life and routine. Our calling is to put off the Old Man; that is to declare by faith what Jesus says is already true concerning its death, and to go on with the business of the new creation which is to abide (rest) in him, step by step, who is our life.