"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin." Romans 6:6-7

Romans 6 

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 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. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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"God’s way was, not to “change” the old man, but to send it to the cross unto death, and release us from it. No one who remains in Adam’s race will be saved!

“Ye must be born again!”

should sound the tocsin of alarm, yea, terror, to every one not yet in Christ. For God’s method was to set forth a Second Man, a Last Adam,—Christ; (with whom indeed all God’s eternal plans were connected), whom God would not only set forth to make expiation of guilt, but would make to become sin itself: thus to get at what we were, as well as what we had done. Our old man would thus be crucified with Christ, so that all the evil of the old man, and all his responsibilities also, would be completely annulled before God for all believers. For they must righteously be released from Adam, before they are created in Christ, another Adam! And this must be by death.

Thus God would say to believers, to those in Christ, “Your history now begins anew!” just as He said to Israel at the Passover:

“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.”

So Paul triumphantly writes,

“If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.”

What a day was that when Christ, made to be sin itself, died to it, and was forever done with it! So that now He lives unto God in light and joy eternal without measure! 

Verse 11: Therefore the eleventh verse becomes a necessity: God must say to us: Thus [because of the facts of the preceding verse] do ye also reckon, yourselves dead, indeed, to sin, but living to God, in Christ Jesus! Your relationship to sin is exactly the same as Christ’s! Why? Because Christ is now your only Adam: you are in Him! His act of death unto sin involved all who are connected with Him.

Thus, in His death, all Christ’s connection with sin was broken, ended, forever. Not only did He no longer bear sin; but He had died unto sin. When He was raised, it was as One who lived unto God, in an endless life with which sin had nothing to do,—resurrection-life, newness of life!

And, because believers were united with Him in His death, they too died to sin in and with Him. And their relationship to sin is now exactly His relationship: they are dead to it. They are also “alive unto God” in Christ Jesus.

This is not a matter of “experience,” but of fact. The truth about believers is, that they are dead to sin and alive to God, being in Christ! And they hear it said by God, and are asked to reckon it so! Their path of faith is plain:

“Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus.” 

John Wesley truly counselled:

“Frames and feelings fluctuate:

These can ne’er thy saviour be!

Learn thyself in Christ to see:

Then, be feelings what they will,

Jesus is thy Saviour still!”

Lay to heart the very words of the eleventh verse: Reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but living to God, in Christ Jesus. There are two words signifying death in this passage. The word for dead (nekros) here in verse 11, does not refer to the act or process of dying, but to the state or effect produced by death. The other word (thnēsko) signifies the act, and occurs in verses 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10; and is used when Christ’s dying, or our dying with or in Him, is set forth. It is, therefore, with the already accomplished death unto sin of our great Substitute and Representative, Christ, that believers—those now in Christ—find themselves connected; and as we said above, the believer is to reckon himself dead (nekros) unto sin, but alive unto God,—because he is in Christ Jesus, who died unto sin once for all; but now, in resurrection life, is living unto God. You will realize anew the meanings of these two words for death, when you notice, in verses 4 and 9, that Christ, having died (thnēsko) was raised “from among dead ones” (nekroi). Christ’s body lay in Joseph’s tomb. He was not now dying: that was over. He was dead. And so we are not told to die to sin: because we are in Christ who did die to it; and therefore we also are dead to it, in His death; and reckon it so.

This should make the believer’s task simplicity itself. The only difficulty lies in believing these astounding revelations! That we should be dead to sin, and now alive unto God as risen ones, sharing that newness of life (verse 4) which our Lord began as “the First-born from among the dead,” is at first too wonderful for us. We see in ourselves the old self-life, the flesh—and straightway we forget God’s way of faith, and turn back to our “feelings.” We say, Alas, if I could escape from this body, I would be free. But that is not at present God’s plan for you and me. We wait for the redemption of our body. This body is yet unredeemed. Nevertheless, we are to reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God. Not dead to sin, notice, through prayers and strugglings, nor dead to sin in our feelings or consciousness; but in that death unto sin which Christ went through on the cross, and which we shared, and in that life which He now lives in glory!

Indeed, when we come down to verses 12 and 13, we shall find Paul’s definite directions to us to present ourselves unto God “as those that are alive from among dead ones.” (All out of Christ are of course “dead ones,” in God’s sight.)

This is really the heart of the struggle in the matter of our walk,—of our having our “fruit unto sanctification.” It is hard to reckon and keep reckoning that we shared Christ’s death to sin, and that we are alive unto God in Him. Yet, there is no establishing of our souls along any other line! To turn back from this sheer faith that we died with Christ and now are alive to God in Him, is to turn back—to what? to the weary, hopeless struggle Paul tells us in Chapter Seven he “once” went through to make the flesh obey God; or else back to groanings before God, begging Him to give us personal deliverance. And all the time God is saying, The word of the cross is the power of God. It is God’s word as to what was there done that will establish your heart. God says you died with Christ. Reckon it so. “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” (Isa. 7:9).

Now if the declaration in verse 2 that we died to sin meant that sin is now absent from our flesh, there could be no exhortation in verse 11 to “reckon” ourselves dead to sin. If the fact that we died to sin with Christ means that sin is gone from these bodies of ours, there would be no thought of “reckoning.” The statement would simply have been, “Sin is absent,—no longer a present thing with you!” The word reckon is a word for faith—in the face of appearances.

The same place for faith is left in the matter of our justification. Christ is “the propitiation for the whole world” (I John 2:2). But in Romans 3:25 it is said,

“God set Him forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood.”

So in Romans 6:2 it is said that we died to sin, while here in the eleventh verse we are told to “reckon ourselves dead to sin.” The reckoning does not make the fact, but is commanded in view of the fact.

It has pleased God to call for our faith, both in connection with salvation and with deliverance. Therefore, if we would obey and please God, let us follow His method! Let us learn to reckon ourselves dead,—that Christ’s death to sin was our death; and is the present relation of us who are in Christ, unto sin.

The path of faith is always against appearances,—or, if you will, against human consciousness. God says certain things; and we, obeying the “law of faith,” say the same things; like Abraham, not regarding our own body, which says the contrary thing. Facts are facts: and these are what God reveals to us. Appearances, or “feelings,” are a wholly different thing from facts! God says, “You died to sin: reckon yourself dead!”

Obedient souls do so, and enter the path of deliverance in experience. Doubting souls fall back on their “feelings,” and turn back to prayers and struggles, avoiding faith.

. . . it is the very essence of a holy walk according to Scripture, to receive God’s testimony concerning the old man’s having been crucified. To reckon ourselves dead to sin while conscious of sin in our members, is faith indeed; and is walking according to God’s Word, instead of according to our feelings.

“Those that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh and its lusts”:

because they know that the federal thing, the “old man,” has been crucified (Gal. 5:24). It is in the power of the faith that God has dealt with all that we were, that we are able to deal with the manifestations of the self-life.

Nevertheless, this life in this present world, is not the Christian’s place of resting. Christ will bring him rest at His second coming (II Thess. 1:7).

It is to those who are described in the opening chapters of Romans,—guilty, under Divine judgment; and also in the flesh, under the old man; far from God, without hope,—to such the gospel message has come! These statements that we belong up there, in Christ, are issued by the High Court of Heaven, itself. God says that no matter how things may seem, we died with Christ, and share His newness of life; and we are to present ourselves unto God as those alive from the dead. The glorious promise follows:

“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace.”

We have not been brought to a Sinai, to a hard, demanding master, but are under the sweet favor in which Christ Himself is, being ourselves in Him, yea, the very righteousness of God in Him!"

William R. Newell

Excerpt from Romans Verse by Verse Chapter 6

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