RECKON YE ALSO YOURSELVES TO BE DEAD

If there was ever a Bible command that needed to be understood in light of its context it is this one. Some believers have had a sense of disillusionment, discouragement or defeat that springs from a failure to grasp what the Lord is telling us here.

It has been assumed that this verse tells us, that, by the mental act of ‘reckoning’, we can be delivered from the experience of committing sin. In other words, by simply using our own mental discipline we can be free from sin. However, experience soon raises its ugly head, sin is experienced, and believers are left frustrated or bewildered as to whether such victory over sin is practically attainable.

A key to understanding, and therefore obeying, the command is found in the very first word, ‘likewise’. Like what? Verse 10 is the answer, where it says, ‘For in that he (Christ) died, he (Christ) died unto sin once’. In what sense did the Lord Jesus Christ ‘die unto sin’? We know He did not die to the experience of committing sin. He was sinless, 1 Peter 2. 22. He ‘died unto sin’ in the sense that He died to the judicial demands sin placed upon us, although not upon Him. Paul puts it another way, ‘Christ died for our sins’, 1 Cor. 15. 3. As long as sin was not judged, it had an ongoing claim upon us. We were not judicially free from it. But the death of Christ has delivered us from the power of sin once and for all.

Romans chapter 6 establishes beyond all doubt that the death of Christ releases us from sin’s power. We are to ‘reckon’ or count this to be true. This forms a basis or foundation by which we live for God, and righteousness becomes the rule or dominion in our lives, not sin. Paul puts it, ‘that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord’, Rom. 5. 21.

This chapter does not state that sin is an impossibility in our lives, but that it is morally inconsistent with what Christ has done. The first step in knowing victory over sin in our lives is to accept or ‘reckon’ this as true. Romans chapters 7 and 8 lead us to the practical experience of the Holy Spirit’s power in overcoming the experience of sin.