Count Yourselves Dead

Romans 6:11. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. The verb is an accounting word. It means to reckon, to tally, to regard something as true because it is true. Paul is not asking you to feel dead to sin. He is asking you to do the arithmetic.

This is the first command in the letter to the Romans. For five and a half chapters Paul has been telling the church what God has done. Now, for the first time, he tells them what to do, and what he tells them to do is to believe the ledger. You were united with Christ in his death. His death was a death to sin once for all. Therefore your relationship to sin has been settled in him, whatever your Sunday afternoon feels like.

On the Lord's Day, that reckoning is a good place to begin. Before the week's temptations arrive, count yourself what you already are.