6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we no longer should serve sin. 7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. (Romans 6:6-7 translated from the NA28 Greek text)
Romans 6:6 clearly shows us that true believers become holy in Christ. However, there is confusion because many do not look correctly at the Greek verb tenses in this passage. If they simply read it in English or some other translation it is easy to not see that the all the verb tenses here are past tenses (aorist or perfect)….
What this means is that every verb tense here that refers to our identification with Christ in His death refers to it being completed in the past. Romans 6:6, therefore, says ὁ παλαιὸς ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος συνεσταυρώθη or “our old man was crucified with” way back when Christ died and that it was completed then and there. What it does not say is that we must each morning get up and “crucify ourselves again to sin.” Instead, it says that by God’s judicial act, not by our experiential effort, the old man was “crucified” and therefore “destroyed.”