“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Romans 6:11-12).

How intimately the believer’s duties are interwoven with his privileges! Because he is alive unto God, he is to renounce sin, since that corrupt thing belongs to his estate of death. How closely both his duties and his privileges are bound up with Christ Jesus his Lord!

CONSIDER AND THINK

Think about these things, consider what is right and fit, and carry out those thoughts to their practical issues. We have in our text:

1. A great fact to be considered: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
2. We are dead with Christ to sin by having borne the punishment in him. In Christ we have endured the death penalty, and are regarded as dead by the law (Rm 6:6-7).
3. We are risen with him into a justified condition and have reached a new life (Rm. 6:8).
4. We can no more come under sin again than he can (Rm. 6:9).
5. We are therefore forever dead to its guilt and reigning power (Rm 6:12-14).

LET’S CLEAR SOME THINGS UP

Considering yourself dead to sin does not mean that you boast as if you do not sin at all as that would be a reckoning based on falsehood (and exceedingly mischievous). There is no man without sin except Jesus (1 Kings 8:46; 1 John 1:8). No one provokes God more than sinners who boast their own fancied perfection.

“Considering yourself dead to sin does not mean that you boast as if you do not sin.

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To consider yourself dead to sin in the spiritual sense is full of benefit both to heart and life. Be a ready reckoner in this fashion.

1. Sin will strive to reign. It remains as an outlaw, hiding away in your nature. It remains as a plotter, planning your overthrow. It remains as an enemy, warring against the law of your mind.
2. Its field of battle is the body. Its wants, hunger, thirst, and cold may become occasions of sin by leading to murmuring, envy, covetousness, robbery, etc. Its appetites may crave excessive indulgence, and unless continually curbed, will easily lead to evil. Its pains and infirmities, though engendering impatience and other faults, may produce sin. Its pleasures, also, can readily become incitements to sin. Its influence upon the mind and spirit may drag our noble nature down to the groveling materialism of earth.
3. The body is mortal, and we shall be completely delivered from sin, when set free from our present frame, if indeed, grace reigns within. Till then we shall find sin lurking in one member or another of “this vile body.”
4. Meanwhile we must not let it reign. If it reigned over us it would be our god. It would prove us to be under death, and not alive unto God.  It would cause us unbounded pain and injury if it ruled only for a moment.

Sin is within us, aiming at dominion; and this knowledge, together with the fact that we are nevertheless alive unto God, should help our peace; for we perceive that men may be truly the Lord’s, even though sin struggles within them. It should also draw us to grace where the Lord meets with us and refreshes our new life.

“Praise and blame equally are nothing to him who is really dead and buried with Christ.

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A FINAL STORY

In the fourth century, when the Christian faith was preached in its power in Egypt, a young brother sought out the great Macarius. “Father,” said he, “what is the meaning of being dead and buried with Christ?”

“My son,” answered Macarius, “you remember our dear brother who died, and was buried a short time since? Go now to his grave, and tell him all the unkind things that you ever heard of him, and that we are glad he is dead, and thankful to be rid of him, for he was such a worry to us, and caused so much discomfort in the church. Go, my son, and say that, and hear what he will answer.”

The young man was surprised, and doubted whether he really understood: but Macarius only said, “Do as I bid you, my son, and come and tell me what our departed brother says.”

The young man did as he was commanded, and returned.

“Well, and what did our brother say?” asked Macarius.

“Say, father!” he exclaimed; “how could he say anything? He is dead.”

“Go now again, my son, and repeat every kind and flattering thing you have ever heard of him; tell him how much we miss him; how great a saint he was; what noble work he did; how the whole church depended upon him; and come again and tell me what he says.”

The young man began to see the lesson Macarius would teach him. He went again to the grave, and addressed many flattering things to the dead man, and then returned to Macarius.

“He answers nothing, father; he is dead and buried.”

“You know now, my son,” said the old father, “what it is to be dead with Christ. Praise and blame equally are nothing to him who is really dead and buried with Christ.” – Anon.