10 - The "Old Man" Crucified

The "Old Man" Crucified

"Nay, with regard to the holy Scriptures them­selves, as careful as they are to avoid it, the best of men are liable to mistake, and do mistake day by day; especially with respect to those parts thereof which less immediately relate to practice. Hence, even the children of God are not agreed as to the interpretation of many places in holy writ; nor is their difference of opinion any proof that they are not the children of God, on either side; but it is a proof that we are no more to expect any living man to be infallible, than to be omniscient."

John Wesley. what, then, does Romans 6:6 really teach? Paul says it was "our old man" which was crucified with Christ. Does that expression mean an "old nature", or "inbred sin" within you and me, as is usually taught? It does not. It is a Paulinism meaning the whole human race in Adam. This can be certified by reference to the other places where the expression occurs. Take Ephesians 4:22-24.

"That ye put off, concerning your former manner of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts . . . and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

Obviously that "old man" cannot be our innate corruption or "inborn tendency to sin", for it is something which we can "put off"—as we certainly cannot do with our "inborn tendency to sin"! As a matter of fact, Ephesians 4:22 is not strictly an exhortation to "put off" as in our King James Version. The Greek verb is another aorist (infinitive): "Ye have (or did) put off the old man [in one completed act] ... ye have put on the new man." How then can the expression, "our old man", mean our "inborn tendency to sin"? We cannot "put off" that in one completed act! Or turn to Colossians 3:9-10.

"Lie not one to another, having put off [aorist: a past transaction] the old man with his deeds, and having put on [aorist again] the new man, which is being renewed into knowledge after the image of Him who created him."

So, there again, it is we who have "put off", in one completed act, the "old man"; which proves conclusively that the "old man" simply cannot mean our inherited "corrupt nature", for that is an hereditary condition which we ourselves simply cannot "put off", as all of us know only too helplessly. W. H. Griffith Thomas rightly says, "An exhortation to ’put off the old man’ would be tantamount to an exhortation to become regenerate"—and we certainly cannot regenerate ourselves!

Let us say it again emphatically: our "old man" is not a name for a so-called "old nature" or "inbred sin". It is a Paulinism for The Whole Human Race In Adam. Just as the "new man" is the whole body of believers, the whole "new creation", the whole new relationship in Christ, so the "old man" is the "old" creation, the whole of the old relationship in Adam. In that sense, Paul’s exhorting his readers on the ground of their already having put off the "old man", and having put on the "new man" (as professed in their baptism) is at once transparently pertinent. He is telling them that inasmuch as the "old man" in Adam was now "done away" in the judicial reckoning of God, and as attested in their own baptismal testimony, they should now cast off the graveclothes of the old, and wear the resurrection raiment of the "new" in Christ. The exhortation has nothing whatever to do with our "inborn tendency to sin", or a so-called "old nature". That the phrase, "our old man", is indeed a figuration of the whole human race in Adam, is further confirmed by reference to other Pauline passages. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, the apostle speaks of "the first Adam", and in verse 47 calls him "the first man" (same Greek word as in Romans 6:6). To Paul, the first Adam is the old Adam, or the "old man". He sees all men as either in the old or in the new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Indeed, the very passage (Romans 5:12—21) which leads to the "old man" of Romans 6:6 is all about the "one man" (Adam) through whom comes death, versus the "one man" (Christ) through whom comes life. This in itself should have guided and guarded all of us in interpreting Romans 6:6. Glance again through chapter 5.

Romans 6:1-23, remember, is a continuation and application of these contrastive parallels. What, then, is more soundly contextual than to identify the "old man" (anthropos) of Romans 6:6 with the recurrent "one man" (anthropos) of Romans 5:1-21?

Apparently, one small grammatical peculiarity in Romans 6:6 is responsible mainly, though needlessly, for the orthodox misin­terpretation. It is the change from "the" to "our"—that is, "our old man". Yet this very word which has been supposed to refer to a so-called "old nature" in each Christian believer points us away from that. The plural, "our", goes with the singular, "man", indica­ting, not an "old man" in each of us, but one "old man" including all. If Paul had meant his phrase to be used distributively of indiv­iduals, would he not have used the plural? Or, if he had meant an old nature in each of us, would he not have used the actual word for "nature" (phusis), which he uses elsewhere thirteen times in his epistles? The expression, "our old man", simply cannot mean a so-called "old nature" in each of us, for in the rest of the New Testament it has corroboration nowhere, and contradiction every­where. Scripture does not say anywhere that only a part of us was crucified with Christ—whether we call it "our old man", or our "old nature’’ or anything else, but it does teach a j udicial joint-crucifixion of each individual totally, along with the whole Adam race collectively.

If further argument is required to refute the common misinter­pretation of the phrase, "old man", in the three texts where it occurs (Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9) let me here call attention particularly to the Greek word which is translated as "man". In all three texts it is the same Greek word, anthropos. It occurs in the New Testament 344 times in the singular; 192 in the plural; 10 in the possessive; making a total of 546. From beginning to end of the New Testament, in the Authorized Version, and in the English Revised Version, and in the American Standard Version, the uniform translation of it is "man" or "men" or "man’s". In only three instances out of the 546 have the E.R.V. and A.S.V. even slightly diverged from the A.V. (i.e. Mark 12:14, "any one" instead of "any man"; and John 6:14, "people" instead of "men"). With that quite trivial difference, our three greatest versions unite in demonstrating that the only exact translation of anthropos is "MAN", and that the one meaning is "man" in his totality, not some imagined sub-area such as an "old nature"’, or some such specific concentrate as a so-called "sinful self."

What about more recent translations? Their testimony is just as solid that the true translation of anthropos is "man". Not one of them translates it as "nature" (for details see appendix on Anthropos).

So, let it be settled, according to the Greek anthropos, the phrase, "our old man", in Romans 6:6 does not mean an "old nature" inside us; nor does it mean so when we relate it to its context; nor when we compare Romans 6:6 with kindred Pauline comments elsewhere. Etymology, context, and cross-reference are all against it. As we have said, "our old man" is an expressive Paulinism for The Whole Human Race In Adam. The "Body of Sin" But now, what is meant by those further words, "that the body of sin might be destroyed"? (The verb is another aorist meaning destroyed in a completed past act). The "body of sin" cannot be the physical body which each of us has, for that body has never been "destroyed", or "done away" in one completed act! Whether we render the Greek as "destroyed", or "nullified", or "done away" is immaterial. When a man has been crucified, in one completed past act, does it matter much whether we say he has been "destroyed", or "nullified", or "done away"? The effect is the same anyway! No such destruction through joint-crucifixion has occurred to our physical body. Furthermore, such an expression as "the body of sin" could scarcely refer to the physical body, for it would suggest that the body itself is sinful, an idea contradicted by the whole force of New Testament teaching.

Admittedly, some of those who teach that the "body of sin" is our physical body deny that this makes the physical body itself sinful. Paul’s meaning (they say) is, that our flesh-and-blood organism is the "instrument" or "vehicle" or "slave" of sin. But no; we cannot allow any such attempted outflankings of Paul’s clear meaning. If the "body of sin" is the physical body, yet the physical body is not itself sinful, then why had it to be "des­troyed", "rendered inoperative", "done away"? Or again, if the body itself is not sinful, how can it be, in any peculiar way, the stronghold or accomplice of sin?

Let it be settled once for all; this flesh-and-blood body is morally neutral. There can be no such quality as sin-proneness in a merely physical organism. This natural body of mine is non-sentient matter. It cannot, in itself, think or know or choose or even feel. I may say that there is a pain in my arm, but the pain is not really felt by the arm; for if the arm be severed from the body, it has no feeling whatever in itself. What is true of the arm is true of the whole body. It is the occupant of the body who thinks, knows, chooses, feels, inclines. So far as human moral patterns are concerned, the body reacts exactly, good or bad, according to the mind which is living in and moving through it. My own ex­perience, after observant introspection, is, that this flesh-and-blood mechanism of mine, so far as moral drive goes, is just as ready to serve one way or the other. It is just as ready to be the servant of righteousness as the servant of sin. Is not that why Paul says, in this same sixth chapter of Romans: "As ye presented your members servants to uncleanness, even so now present your members servants to righteousness" (19)? I am not for­getting that in chapter Romans 7:23 Paul speaks about "the law of sin which is in my members." Let it be observed, however, that even there it is not the bodily "members" themselves which are sinful, but the "law of sin" which operates through them.

Away with any such idea as that the body itself is sinful, or that it is the "seat" of sin, or that it is a Judas continually be­traying us! That is the distorted idea which lay behind much of the monasticism of the Middle Ages. It is the error which set many an agonised ascetic thrashing and disfiguring the poor body in a forlorn hope of beating sin out of it. It is the error which gave a spurious extra virtue to celibacy, and to cloistered aloofness from the vulgar crowd outside. It gave a deadly wrong turn to the concept of holiness, and sent it flogging bodies instead of saving souls. It cannot be repeated too emphatically that the body is neither moral nor immoral. Being non-sentient it is a-moral. It is good or bad according to the mind which indwells it.

Certainly, the body needs to be disciplined—as Paul himself says. So does a horse, a dog, a physical muscle. So does all co­ordinated activity. But in no instance does the discipline imply sin in that which is to be disciplined. Nor can "the body of sin" mean a supposed lump-mass or aggregate of sin in our nature, as though sin were a "foreign body" (as doctors would say) in the system. Some of those who suppose that the "old man" and the "body of sin" mean an evil "self nature" prefer the rendering, "that the body of sin might be rendered inoperative." They would fain adapt the verse to teach that the suppositionary "old nature" is fastened to the Cross, as it were, wriggling a bit maybe, not quite dead, but in a state of crucifixion, and thereby "rendered inoperative". A thrilling picture of sanctification!

Such an interpretation, however, stands self-condemned. The text no more teaches a prolongation of crucifixion or a protracted dying than yesterday can be extended into tomorrow. It teaches crucifixion as a past and completed act. The very figure of crucifixion shows that finality is meant. When a man has been crucified, he is not merely dying, he is dead. Therefore the verse cannot refer to our "corrupt self", for in no Christian’s experience has there been such an absolute death to sin.

Whatever else Romans 6:6 may or may not teach, it certainly teaches a past and completed crucifixion with a correspondingly complete effect expressed in that word "destroyed". So, if some of our brethren insist that it refers to our "inborn tendency to evil" (see Scofield note on verse), they simply must accept the teaching of a completed crucifixion and death of it. But if that inborn old "Adam" is completely "done away" or "destroyed" and "dead", what about those who (as it is put) "fall away from the blessing", or who, even after their supposed "death to sin" find subtle risings of wrong within? One naive eradicationist explained it to me as the evidence of a new "old nature" growing within! So where are we? Instead of one, final crucifixion, a crop of new "old natures" and a multiple-crucifixion doctrine!

Pauline Usage of the Word But if the "body of sin" is neither the physical body nor inbred sin, what is it? Why, surely Paul uses the word "body" figuratively to mean the whole physical part of the old humanity in Adam. The sense is,

"Our old man [the old humanity in Adam] was crucified with Him [in a completed past act] that the body of sin [the whole physical part through which the sin of the old humanity expresses itself] might be done away."

There is coming a time when the whole physical creation in Adam will be "done away" actually, but even now, it is done away judicially. Speaking of His Cross, our Lord said, "Now is the judgment of this world." Up to that time Adamic humanity had been tested in various ways; it was on probation; but now it was to be tested no more; it was to be judged. When the Adam race nailed the Son of God to that Cross it demonstrated beyond need of further proof its final failure. It was on probation no longer; it was judged and judicially done away. Romans 6:6 echoes and amplifies that; the whole Adam race is judicially done away in Christ, who now brings in the new humanity. Therefore to be living for this mortal body is to be living for that which is judicially (even though not actually) dead; which is why Paul writes in Romans 8:10, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin [in Adam]; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness [through Christ]."

Guidance from Context The more we reflect, the more evident it becomes that "the body of sin" refers to the whole Adam race. Does not the context, once again, guide us to this? The section leading up to Romans 6:6 begins at Romans 5:12. From Romans 5:12-21, all swings round, "As by one man [Adam] ... so by one man [Christ]." The one man is the old; the other is the new. The characteristic of the old is sin.

"By one man SIN ... and death" (Romans 5:12) "By the OFFENCE of the one [man] . . . many died" (Romans 5:15) "By one that SINNED . . . condemnation" (Romans 5:16) "By the TRESPASS of the one death reigned" (Romans 5:17) "By one man’s DISOBEDIENCE many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19). In the new "man" (Christ) there is righteousness and life. In the old "man" (Adam) there is sinfulness and death. As the members of the new humanity in Christ are said to be His "body" (Romans 12:5), so here, in a similarly figurative way, all the members of the old humanity in Adam are his "body". The "body of sin", then, is the whole Adam humanity as viewed in its guilt before God.

Guidance from the Wording That such is the purport of the context is clinched by the dis­criminative wording in the text itself. The two expressions, "our old man" and "the body of sin", must mean practically one and the same thing, or at least two aspects of the same thing, because the one was crucified that the other might be destroyed—which could only be if the two were practically identical. To nail culprit A to a cross would not destroy culprit B there, unless A and B were one. Just so, "our old man" and "the body of sin" are two aspects of the same reality. Notice that although Paul speaks of "our old man", he does not say, "our body of sin". Why the careful discrimination between "our" and "the"? Because "our old man" means all that we were by connection with the Adam humanity, whereas "the body of sin" is not ours but Adam’s. The body is always that which belongs. The "body of sin" is Adam’s. Thus the force of Romans 6:6 is,

Endorsement by Parallel

Now there are some of us who have been so thoroughly brought up on other "interpretations", namely, that "our old man" is an old self-life, and that the "body of sin" is either the physical body or a lump-mass of sin within us, that we still may not be wholly convinced by the corrective exposition of it which I have here submitted. So let me try to clinch the verdict by referring to yet another Pauline passage which parallels with Romans 6:6, and unmistakably endorses what we have said of it. The passage is2 Corinthians 5:14-17.

"All died" in Him! Surely the parallel is clear enough to be conclusive. Furthermore, when we thus understand Romans 6:6, it immediately harmonises with the opening question of the chapter (which it does not, if "our old man" and the "body of sin" are made to mean something inside the individual). The opening question is, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" —and the chapter answers that by arguing that since the old Adam humanity was judicially done away we should no longer live for the old, but for the new, in Christ. The chapter is not an answer to such questions as, "How shall we get victory over indwelling sin?" or "How shall we find deliverance from an Adam-nature within us?"

Another circumstance, also, which corroborates our corrective interpretation of Romans 6:6 is the non-mention of "the flesh". Mark it well: the struggle between the Holy Spirit and "the flesh", that inner evil in our nature, does not come into view until chapter 7. The Holy Spirit is never even mentioned in connection with "our old man" and "the body of sin". Why? Because, as we keep saying, "our old man" and "the body of sin" are not names for something inside us as human individuals, they point to something which was done outside us, once for all, on that Cross of long ago.

Galatians 2:20 But we are sure to be asked:"What about other texts which apparently do teach that our self-life was crucified with Christ? Where are they? Does someone refer us to Galatians 2:20?

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." To translate the verb-tense strictly here, Paul does not say "I am", but "I have been crucified with Christ". Paul means, not a present experience of being crucified, but a joint-crucifixion already completed. The preceding verse should be enough at once to settle that.

But what about the context? It has nothing to do with the inward; it is all about justification.

"Knowing that a man is NOT JUSTIFIED by the works of the Law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we [i.e. we Jews] have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be JUSTIFIED by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law; for by THE WORKS OF THE LAW shall no flesh be JUSTIFIED. But if while we seek to be JUSTIFIED by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself [again] a TRANSGRESSOR. For I through the Law DIED TO THE LAW that I might live unto God."

Yes, that is what leads right up to Galatians 2:20. It is all about justification and the Law, not about inward sanctification. Then, as soon as Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ," he completes the paragraph by adding, "I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if RIGHTEOUSNESS come by THE LAW, then Christ died in vain." Is it not as plain as can be that the context is concerned with justification, not with an inward crucifixion of self? Is it not equally clear that when Paul says, "I died to the law. ... I have been crucified with Christ," he is thinking of the Cross in its judicial sense and not of some supposed internal dying on Calvary? Why, when we reflect on it, what is Galatians 2:20, but Romans 6:6 in the singular? Do we need add more? Galatians 2:20 does not teach joint-crucifixion of a so-called self-life in present experience. Why do preachers of the inward-crucifixion theory keep treating Galatians 2:20 as though Paul said, "My old nature is crucified with Christ"? He said no such thing. He said, "I” (the total man), meaning, of course, his judicial identification with the Christ of the Cross.

Galatians 5:24

What about Galatians 5:24?—"They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." It may be said that "the flesh" here surely does refer to our inborn depravity. I agree that it does. What is more, it speaks of "the flesh" as being "crucified". But that crucifixion simply cannot be a joint-crucifixion with Christ, for very cogent reasons. In Romans 6:6, the joint-crucifixion of "our old man" (the old humanity in Adam) with Christ, was a judicial act effected by God; whereas here, in Galatians 5:24, the crucifixion is something which believers themselves do. It is a self-crucifixion.

Moreover, note the apostle’s use of the aorist tense again here: "They that are Christ’s crucified the flesh. . . ." His thought is not that of a continuing crucifixion, but rather of something which those Galatians had already done in their conversion to Christ and by their brave public avowal of Christ in baptism. In those days, to profess Jesus as Saviour, as Christ, as God, was in most places to court serious trouble, if not martyrdom. In that sense it certainly had been a crucifying of the flesh; but Paul wants them to realise, also, that it was a self-crucifixion in a deeper way, i.e. that it implied a crucifying of all fleshly appetites and ways. That such is his meaning, and not a supposed joint-crucifixion with Christ, is confirmed by his later exclamation in Romans 6:14, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Once again our Authorised Version blurs the tense of the verb. What Paul says is "... by whom the world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world". He is not thinking of a present, continuous, inward crucifixion of the "self", but of a crucifixion completed. In what sense, then, had that completed crucifixion occurred? Surely no one will contend that Paul meant his analogy here to be literalized. Not with literal actuality had either the "world" or Paul been transfixed to our Lord’s Cross outside the city wall. No; but once Paul had grasped the meaning of that awful yet glorious Cross (which was indeed "the judgment of this world": John 12:31), it had become representative of the ended relationship between himself and the "world". As for the "world", it was to him a thing crucified and done away. As for himself, every desire he formerly had for the deceptive glamours of the "world" was crucified and done away. That is what he meant; neither more nor less. It was a crucifixion complete and over, as the aorist and perfect tenses both indicate. He is not teaching a present, continuing crucifixion of a so-called "carnal nature" by some supposed "identification" of it with our Lord on Calvary. So far as I know, those are the only verses in the New Testament which speak of the believer as being "crucified"; and not one of them teaches a present, experiential joint-crucifixion of the believer’s old "self-life" with our crucified Lord. How could they? If they did, they would be teaching a palpable impossibility. [That our emended interpretation of Romans 6:6 is true is also shown by the contradictoriness of suggested alternatives. See appendix on this (page 251).] Wrong Applications!

How often wrong explanation of Romans 6:6 leads to wrong application of it! We give just one instance. In a compilation of addresses recently published one of the able contributors has an address on "Our Old Man Crucified" in which he tells us that "the body of sin" is not the totality of sin, nor the substance or essence of sin, but our natural body as used and claimed by sin. All believers were judicially identified with Christ in His death to sin, the result of which is (so he says) that our bodies are now free from sin’s claim, and need no longer serve sin. Then (the usual fallacy) this must be individually appropriated by faith if this liberation is to become real in our experience. He lucidly illustrates this as follows:

"In America the Deed of Emancipation which set free millions of slaves was first executed before a single slave could know practically what freedom meant. We come to the Cross and see that we are free, that in virtue of our identification with Christ, the body of sin, as such, is emancipated—’being now made free from sin’. Go and claim it; this is faith’s function. It is done. It is just what a slave had to do in America. The news comes to him that the Deed of Emancipation has been executed. But he is still in bondage, he is under the power of a cruel master. It is not a question of struggling out of his power, but of simply claiming his right. He is legally set free. By faith he claims that privilege. Then comes the practical experience. . . . Your old master, sin, has no legal claims upon you. . . . Claim your legal freedom, and you will know experimental freedom" (italics ours).

How apt! Yet how wrong! for it brings the speaker into flat contradiction of Paul. All we need to do is to put Paul’s words side by side with those of the theory:

That which Paul says is "destroyed" the theory says is "emancipated". Why such a contradiction? Simply because the speaker has misinterpreted "the body of sin". What he strangely fails to notice is, that in Romans 6:6 it is "WE" who are liberated (not the "body of sin"!); "that WE should no longer be in bondage to sin."

Unfortunately, that is not all. Through his wrongly using "the body of sin" to mean "our natural body", the speaker trips into further error:

"Claim your legal freedom, and you will know experimental freedom."

Such are well-meaning statements which, instead of leading to freedom, betray believers into bondage. Being made free "legally" from sin does not free my body or its members in an experiential way from indwelling sin-activities, any more than it freed Paul’s "wretched man" who (after coming through Romans 6:6) was still wailing, "Sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23).

"Claim your legal freedom," the theory exhorts us. Yet our "legal freedom" from sin is not something which is to be "claimed" at all. It is already ours if we are "in Christ". It is not one of those spiritual provisions which may be claimed in the way, for instance, that a truly consecrated heart may reverently claim the enduing of the Holy Spirit. No; my legal freedom in Christ is a status absolute and final which became fully mine the moment I became united to Him at my conversion. There are no degrees in justi­fication. All the righteousness of Christ became judicially mine, by imputation, then. The patent fallacy in the Emancipation illustration is its confusing of the legal with the moral. When those slaves were freed, did their being freed legally change their nature morally! No; neither, in Romans 6:1-23, does the judicial emancipation of the believer from Sin (as a cruel slave-master) bring any such inward deliverance from sin in the "natural body" as the theory would have us "claim". However, as it is distasteful to criticize such beloved experts as that speaker, we relegate further comments to Appendix on "The Body of Sin". We do not wish to add anything but what is strictly necessary to prove that the usual inter­pretations of Romans 6:6 are wrong. Of course, in leading us through this masterly explication of our judicial emancipation, in Romans 6:1-23, Paul is eagerly on his way to the completive master-strokes of Romans 8:1-39, where he expounds our inward liberation from sin, through the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"; but (as we have said) when holiness teachers try to argufy such inward deliverance on the basis of our judicial identification with Christ in Romans 6:1-23, they outrun Paul; they throw his dissertation "out of gear"; and then find themselves flung back again by the "wretched man" of Romans 7:1-25, who, despite having come through chapter 6 has not yet found deliver­ance. Such misapplying of the judicial to the experiential is as evidently wrong as saying that two and two make five, or that a triangle has four sides.

Frankly, when we hear holiness preachers didactically instruct­ing their audiences to "take God at His word" in Romans 6:1-23; to "reckon" themselves inwardly "dead indeed unto sin" by a supposed joint-crucifixion and death of a supposed inner "old man" on the Cross of Christ two thousand years ago, we can only deplore the doctrinaire pedagogy of the schema, and, despite the acclaim, feel sincerely sorry for the earnest people who are being well-meaningly deluded by it.

However, let me add (much to my own relief) we are now quite through the more argumentative and somewhat negative chapters of this series. They have been a necessary clearing of the ground from exotic misgrowths of complicating theory. Beginning with our next chapter we emerge from these entangling copices into an open meadow with unimpeded footway. We shall employ our­selves in interpreting the positive New Testament message concerning the sanctification of Christian believers. We shall seek to arrive at a new understanding and definition of holiness. May God grant that these succeeding chapters will prove to be the gateway into new blessing for at least some of those who may chance to read them.

Open my inward eyes,

Teacher divine, Spirit of glad surprise, Within me shine;

Quicken my inward sight, So that I see Shining in clearest light

Thy word to me.