Throughout Romans 6:6–11 Paul once again highlights what he had already said concerning the third way (as alternative to both the law and to sin). This third way consists of the new life with Christ Jesus in the glory of God’s imminence: We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin
(Romans 6:6). Paul identifies our old existence with the expression our old self.
Here he employs a word which means old, worn out, or outdated. Our life under God’s wrath has become worn out on the path to death (Romans 1:18–32). That life has now been crucified unto death with Christ, and through that crucifixion we have survived: [f]or one who has died has been set free from sin
(Romans 6:7). Christ’s death destroys the organization or kingdom of sin on earth, because the slaves of that kingdom symbolically die in Christ and now belong to another Lord. The dominion of sin on earth has to be destroyed completely by depriving it of its subjects, and since believers have now already died with Christ, we are no longer part of that kingdom. We have been deregistered as earthly citizens because of the burial with Christ and registered as citizens of heaven by virtue of his resurrection! That is how the believer escapes this worn-out existence of the old life: the outdated man is dispatched; what matters now is the New Man, the One who has been resurrected.1
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.