Wednesday Read: The Myth of the Old Self

Paul wrote: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Not "I'm trying to crucify the old self" or "I hope someday the old self dies" - it already happened. Past tense. Accomplished fact. Your old self was crucified with Christ. You are, right now, a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

But this doesn't match our experience. We still sin. We still struggle with the same temptations. We still feel like the same person we were before conversion. So we doubt the transformation actually happened. We think maybe we're still the old self trying really hard to become new, rather than new creations learning to live into our new identity.

This confusion creates exhausting Christianity. We try to kill what's already dead. We try to become what we already are. We try to achieve a position we already occupy. It's like married people trying to earn their spouse's commitment - you already have it! The wedding happened! You're trying to achieve what's already accomplished!

Paul addresses this in Romans 6: "We know that our old self was crucified with him... Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him" (Romans 6:6, 8). The old self isn't something you're trying to kill - it's already dead. Your job isn't to crucify it but to stop resurrecting it. Stop living like it's still alive. Stop identifying with what you're no longer identified as. Stop being who you no longer are.

This is the difference between becoming and being. We think Christian life is about becoming new through effort. But Scripture says you already became new through Christ's work. Now you're learning to be who you already are. Not trying to achieve transformation but living out transformation already accomplished.

Think about it this way: when you became a Christian, did your DNA change? Did your personality completely transform overnight? Did every struggle immediately disappear? No. You're still the same person in many ways. But your identity fundamentally changed. You moved from "in Adam" to "in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:22). You transitioned from "child of wrath" to "child of God" (Ephesians 2:3-5). Your legal standing before God completely changed.

Sanctification - becoming more like Christ - is the process of your life catching up with your identity. You're learning to think, feel, and act consistently with who you already are in Christ. Not trying to become someone different but becoming more fully yourself - your true self as God defines it, not your false self as sin shaped it.

This matters practically in February when you're discouraged by how little you've changed, how persistent your struggles remain, how familiar your failures feel. The temptation is to think you haven't really changed, that you're still fundamentally the same sinner trying to be better. But that's not true. You're a new creation learning to live like one. There's a difference.