Old being (Moffatt and An American Translation* “old self”; Jerusalem Bible “our former selves”; New English Bible “the man we once were”) is literally “old man” (see old self of Ephesians 4.22 and Colossians 3.9). Paul’s reference, of course, is to the kind of person that the believer was before his conversion.

In some languages our old being may be rendered as “what we used to be,” “the way in which we used to live,” or “as far as our being what we used to be.”

There are certain complications in translating put to death with Christ on his cross. In some languages it is best to take with Christ on his cross as being temporally related to the phrase put to death—for example, “what we used to be was, as it were, put to death at the same time that Christ was put to death on the cross,” “… when Christ was crucified,” or “… when people crucified Christ.”

The power of the sinful self (New English Bible “the sinful self”) is literally “the body of sin” (An American Translation*, Moffatt, Jerusalem Bible “sinful body”). Here “body” is used as a means of speaking of one’s total being, and so self seems to be a more adequate translation than “body.” The Good News Translation takes the phrase “the body of sin” with the extended meaning of the power of the sinful self; this assumes that Paul is speaking of the power that the sinful self holds over one’s person rather than of the sinful self itself.

The power of the sinful self may be equivalent in some instances to “our strong desire to sin” or “we who desire strongly to sin.” The passive expression might be destroyed can be made active, in which case God would have to be the agent—for example, “in order that God could destroy our strong desires to sin.” In some instances “the old man” may be translated as “the old heart,” and therefore one may render this clause as “in order that our old heart might be destroyed” or “in order that the old heart which sins might be destroyed.”

There is a special complication in verse 6, since there are two purpose clauses. The first purpose clause depends upon our old being having been put to death with Christ, and the second purpose clause, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin, is the purpose of “our sinful self having been destroyed.” In some languages it may be necessary to make a break between the first and second purposes and recapitulate briefly—for example, “our sinful self has been destroyed in order that we should no longer be slaves of sin.”

The expression the slaves of sin is rendered in some languages as “to have sin boss us,” “to have sin command us,” or “to do what sin says, just as slaves do what their masters say.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .