Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

5. “For if we have been grown together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the
likeness of his resurrection.” “Planted together” in E.V. is wrong (see R.V.), the translators
mistaking sumphuoo, grow together,” for sumphuteuoo, “plant together.” Hence the true reading is,
“we have been grown together,” a beautiful allusion to frugiculture, in which the graft, having been
inserted into the trunk, grows fast, assimilating itself, and the two becoming organically identical.
The fruit-grower supplies his nursery with seedlings whose fruit is utterly worthless, symbolizing
the people born into this world in a state of total depravity, bearing fruit which is good for nothing.
Then he proceeds to cut down these seedlings, at the same time grafting into each trunk the scion
which produces the good fruit he proposes to cultivate for the market. This is regeneration, each
branch growing fast to the trunk and bearing fruit. If these trees remain in the nursery, they will be
stunted and dwarfed for want of room and prove a failure. Therefore they must be transplanted into
the orchard, putting each one off alone where it has plenty of room to grow and develop; meanwhile,
the strong winds beating against it, no longer protected by its comrades in the nursery, bend it hither
and thither, circulating the sap, and keeping it from becoming bark-bound, and at the same time
loosening up the roots so they can penetrate deep down into the earth and lap around the great rocks,
thus holding it steadfast amid all the storms, the roots penetrating into deeper depths, running far out,
and absorbing new fields of fertility, while the branches mount high and spread out, bearing an
abundance of delicious fruits, making glad many hearts. This is the sanctified experience
contemplated in this beautiful metaphor.
6. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified, in order that the body of sin may be destroyed,
that we may no longer serve sin.” Here we have the golden key which unlocks all the mystery
involved in this profoundly interesting, though much controverted, paragraph. Paul is grand in the
utilization of illustrative metaphors, using the term “man” in quite a diversity of significations; e.g.,
“new man,” indicating the new creation wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost in regeneration, also
synonymous with inner man” (2 Corinthians 4:15), and the “hidden man of the heart” (1 Peter 3:4),
the “outer man,” meaning simply the physical body, and destitute of spiritual signification; while he
actually, in a diversity of phraseology, rings changes on the “old man of sin” throughout all of his
writings, everywhere thus symbolically alluding to the old Adam, i.e., the fallen nature, the corrupt
tendency transmitted to us and hereditary from the Fall. This “old man” does not mean our personal
sins, which are not as old as we are, but original sin, which is as old as Adam’s transgression; and
therefore so pertinently denominated the “old man.” You see here that this old man is crucified, i.e.,
killed dead. The burial here described is the legitimate counterpart of the crucifixion, consistently
carrying out the metaphor pursuant to the legitimate logical sequence that the dead are to be buried.
Then, if you want to know what is buried in this transaction, you have only to ascertain what is dead.
You see it is that old crucified man, now a loathsome dead corpse, and must be buried out of sight,
there to remain forever. There is only one place to bury this body in case that the soul is saved, and
that is the death of Christ, the vicarious atonement, the
“Fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”