Romans 6:6, Paul gives you something to do, Romans 6:11, consider yourselves, that word in Greek is logizesthe and it does not mean feel, it does not mean hope, it does not mean try really hard to believe something you do not believe, it means reckon, count, calculate, do the math, it is accounting language. Imagine a man sitting at a table with a ledger open in front of him, on one side of the page the debt, on the other side, the payment and he runs his finger down the column, checks the numbers and writes the word at the bottom, paid, he does not hope it into existence, he counts it, because it is true. That is what Paul is telling you to do with the cross, the old self was crucified, count it true, you are alive to God in Christ, count it true and then live like it.
Here is the order that most people get backwards, Paul does not say stop sinning so that you can become dead to sin, he says the opposite, you are dead to sin, so stop sinning, the declaration comes first, the command comes after. Romans 6:1-10 are all declaration, what is true, what happened, what is finished and then starting in verse 11, the commands begin, reckon, do not let sin reign, present yourselves to God, the order is the message. You do not become free by trying, you are free and you live out of the freedom that is already yours, it is the difference between a prisoner working to earn his release and a freed man walking out of an open door, the prisoner works, the freed man walks.
This is where the whole thing could sound like positive thinking, but that is not what this is, because the reckoning is not the power, the reckoning is the door, the power is something else entirely and this is the deepest answer and here is where the chapter is really heading, if you keep reading past Romans chapter 6, past the war of Romans chapter 7, you come to Romans chapter 8 and Romans chapter 8 opens with one of the greatest sentences ever written, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation, not reduced condemnation, not you are forgiven for now, but we will see how you do, none and then it tells you where the power comes from. Romans 8:2, it is the Spirit who makes you free, not your willpower, not your discipline, not your grit, the Spirit and in Romans 8:11, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power at work in you, the same breath that woke the dead is the breath you are invited to live by.
Here is the order that most people get backwards, Paul does not say stop sinning so that you can become dead to sin, he says the opposite, you are dead to sin, so stop sinning, the declaration comes first, the command comes after. Romans 6:1-10 are all declaration, what is true, what happened, what is finished and then starting in verse 11, the commands begin, reckon, do not let sin reign, present yourselves to God, the order is the message. You do not become free by trying, you are free and you live out of the freedom that is already yours, it is the difference between a prisoner working to earn his release and a freed man walking out of an open door, the prisoner works, the freed man walks.
This is where the whole thing could sound like positive thinking, but that is not what this is, because the reckoning is not the power, the reckoning is the door, the power is something else entirely and this is the deepest answer and here is where the chapter is really heading, if you keep reading past Romans chapter 6, past the war of Romans chapter 7, you come to Romans chapter 8 and Romans chapter 8 opens with one of the greatest sentences ever written, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation, not reduced condemnation, not you are forgiven for now, but we will see how you do, none and then it tells you where the power comes from. Romans 8:2, it is the Spirit who makes you free, not your willpower, not your discipline, not your grit, the Spirit and in Romans 8:11, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power at work in you, the same breath that woke the dead is the breath you are invited to live by.