The question concerning the identity of the “old man” or the “new man” has received a notable amount of attention in Pauline studies. Scholarship generally separates into two camps: (1) ontological and (2) relational. The second question concerning an underlying rationale for the categories of old and new has not received the attention it deserves.

Romans 6:6: Identity. Who is this “old man” (ho palaios anthōpos)? The ontological view asserts that when Christians experience salvation, they receive a “new nature,” and the “old nature” receives a mortal blow. Even though the old nature “was crucified,” it remains alongside the new nature. Cranfield states “our fallen human nature” received crucifixion, but this fact does not imply the destruction of the old man because the “old fallen nature lingers on in the believer.” The believer makes progress in the Christian life by denying the desires of the old nature, daily dying to sin, and walking according to the ways of the new nature.

The relational view asserts that the old man stands for who we were in Adam. Paul can describe this reality as “our”… old man because of Adam’s representative connection to all humanity. This view states that the cross did not “kill” the “old nature”; the cross but an end to our relational ties to Adam. Paul asserts that one connection was severed and a “new” one was established. The Cross cancels our formal relationship with Adam, and faith in Christ initiates a new representative connection with Christ so that the believer is no longer “in Adam,” but “in Christ.”

(Jason C. Meyer, The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology, Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group, 2009, 40-42; Excerpt from Chapter 3, The Old and New Antithesis in Paul)