Reckon Yourselves to Be Dead to Sin

“Likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. 6:11.

If we believe that this verse means that we are to experience being alive to God in reality, then we have to believe that we must reckon ourselves dead to sin in reality. We are to be dead indeed, truly dead. This is really the whole point of the matter and the point of Christianity itself; it must be something real, something we experience! When a person is unbelieving (to a greater or lesser degree), as most people unfortunately are, it is so easy for him to interpret the word “reckon” as meaning something which is not real, something “pretend.”

This is the source of the problem: Thousands of Christians have tried to be dead, pretended to be dead, and rightly found out that it did not work; and because they have not grasped the real mystery of believing themselves to be dead indeed with Christ, they have given up seeking full victory over all sin!

How can a person make being crucified with Christ a reality? By faith and faith alone! By faith in the finished work, by faith that our own real death to sin was part of the finished work, by faith in the Scriptures, which deal with this subject. We must keep this mystery of faith in a pure conscience.

In other words, not “make believe,” but dead indeed.