The Old Man Is Dead: Episode 1

Summary

Andrew Wommack begins a teaching on Romans 6 by asking whether God’s grace means Christians can continue sinning. His answer is an emphatic no. He argues that grace means people are accepted by God through Jesus—not by achieving moral perfection—but that sin still has destructive consequences.

Main Ideas

• Salvation is based on Jesus, not human performance. Wommack says the gospel is “good news” because Jesus took humanity’s punishment. People cannot earn acceptance by being comparatively good; everyone has sinned and falls short of God’s standard.
• The law reveals sin rather than providing a way to earn salvation. In Wommack’s interpretation, God gave the law as an unchanging standard that exposes people’s failure and their need for a Savior. It does not grade people on a curve: breaking even one part makes a person guilty, so moral achievement cannot establish a right relationship with God.
• Comparing yourself with others is misleading. Wommack contrasts measuring oneself against other people with measuring oneself against Jesus. He illustrates the point through Jesus’ story of the self-righteous Pharisee and the repentant tax collector: the tax collector, who asked for mercy, was justified rather than the man who trusted his own virtue.
• Grace is not permission to sin. Wommack says believers are not under God’s wrath because Jesus bore the judgment for them. But sin remains harmful. Drawing on Romans 6:16 and 1 Peter 5:8, he warns that yielding to sin gives Satan an opportunity to bring destruction.
• A believer’s identity has changed. Wommack teaches that being born again changes a person’s inner nature. Continued sinful behavior, he argues, does not prove that the old sinful nature is still in control; it can result from an unrenewed mind and not knowing or applying the truth.
• Renewing the mind is essential to freedom. He says that recognizing one’s new identity in Christ—rather than continuing to identify as an “old sinner”—can break sin’s perceived dominion. He cites Jesus’ statement that knowing the truth makes people free.

Argument and Practical Takeaway

1. Do not treat grace as permission to continue in sin.
2. Do not rely on good behavior to earn acceptance with God.
3. Recognize that the law exposes the need for a Savior; it cannot make someone worthy through performance.
4. Trust Jesus’ work rather than comparing your conduct with other people’s.
5. Take sin seriously because, Wommack says, it can open the way to harmful consequences.
6. Understand yourself as changed through faith, and renew your thinking with what Scripture says about your identity.

The program includes a brief advertisement for Andrew Wommack’s Living Commentary and a closing appeal to support the ministry.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Andrew Wommack — the primary speaker.
• Program announcer — introduces the Living Commentary advertisement, returns the program to Wommack, and delivers the closing information about the teaching and ministry partnership.
• Biblical passages and figures referenced: Romans 6:1–2 and 6:16; Romans 3:23 and 6:23; James 2:10; 2 Corinthians (on self-comparison); John 12:32 and 8:32; Hebrews 1:3; 1 Peter 5:8; and Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Wommack also refers broadly to the first five chapters of Romans and to the Greek word translated “gospel.”