February 27

Read: Romans 6:11-13

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin (Romans 6:11).

Reckon Yourselves To Be Dead

The Bible tells us that we can be dead to sin. But this is not the only truth of Christian holiness which God’s Word presents. In the same breath that Paul declares Christians to be dead to sin, he urges those same Christians, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.”

Why do dead Christians need to reckon themselves to be dead? The answer is, Because they are still living persons and still subject to temptation. Paul knew and we know that there is no state of grace in which genuine effort is not required to live the Christian life. The eradication of carnality does not remove all struggle from the Christian’s fight against sin, but entire sanctification does radically change the odds in that fight. How is the change to be known?

Carnality is a power that makes itself known in our conscious experience. When it is destroyed we should be aware of some change in our inner consciousness. And there is such a change. Paul tells us how to live so that we may be always conscious of this new sanctifying power. When temptation comes, the Apostle says, reckon that you are dead to sin, remember that you belong to Christ. This kind of reckoning gives a consciousness of inner spiritual power. It is the kind of power N. B. Herrell had experienced when he wrote:

Take the world with all its pleasures; Take them, take them great and small. Give me Christ, my precious Saviour. He is sweeter than them all.

Is this not effective deadness? Can there be any better deadness to sin than this — to so love Christ that we want nothing contrary to His will?