Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. — 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 intimately both his duties and his privileges are bound up with Christ Jesus his Lord!
How thoughtful ought we to be upon these matters, reckoning what is right and fit and carrying out that reckoning to its practical issues.
We have in our text—I. A GREAT FACT TO BE RECKONED UPON. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord?"
1. 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 (verses 6 and 7).
2. We are risen with him into a justified condition and have reached a new life (verse 8).
3. We can no more come under sin again than he can (verse 9).
4. We are therefore forever dead to its guilt and reigning power: "Sin shall not have dominion over you" (verses. 12-14).
To reckon yourself to be dead to sin so that you boast that you do not sin at all would be a reckoning based on falsehood and would be exceedingly mischievous. "There is no man that sinneth not" (1 Kings 8:46; 1 John 1:8). None are so provoking to God as sinners who boast their own fancied perfection.
The reckoning that we do not sin must either go upon the Antinomian theory that sin in the believer is no sin, which is a shocking notion.
Or else our conscience must tell us that we do sin in many ways: in omission or commission, in transgression or shortcoming, in temper or in spirit (James 3:2; Eccles. 7:20; Rom. 3:23).
To reckon yourself dead to sin in the scriptural sense is full of benefit both to heart and life. Be a ready reckoner in this fashion.
II. A GREAT LESSON TO BE PUT IN PRACTICE. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof?" Sin has great power. It is in you and will strive to reign.3. The body is mortal, and we shall be completely delivered from sin when set free from our present material 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.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
Though the lowest believer be above the power of sin, yet the highest believer is not above the presence of sin. Sin never ruins but where it reigns. It is not destroying where it is disturbing. The more evil it receives from us, the less evil it does to us. — William Secker
Sin may rebel, but it shall never reign in a saint. It fareth with sin in the regenerate as with those beasts that Daniel speaks of "that had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time." — Thomas Brooks
Men must not suffer a single sin to survive. If Saul had destroyed all the Amalekites, no Amalekite would have lived to destroy him. — David Roland