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The apostle exhorts us to reckon ourselves to be —

I. "DEAD UNTO SIN."

1. This involves death.

(1) To its ensnaring artifices. Moses "chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Hence we learn that sin is not without its pleasures, and that if we will cast in our lot With the people of God we must lay our account with losing them.

(a) But these pleasures last but for a season.

(b) They are only pleasures when viewed in a false light. Let but the light of truth dawn in upon the soul, and we find that we have been embracing disappointment and vanity and pain (ver. 21).

(2) To the indwelling love of it. This will follow on the true discovery of its nature. When we are conscious of having had a deception practised upon us, our hatred is proportionate to the measure of our former love. We find that we have been nursing a viper in our bosom, and therefore, on discovering it, we are anxious to cast it away.

(3) To its reigning power. This, indeed, is the only true mortification of sin. "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." Let the natural man be pierced through and through, until ye have crucified the whole "body of sin." The head of pride must be crowned with thorns; the hands of covetousness must be pierced with nails; the unruly appetites must be put off with vinegar and gall. Yea, the whole man must be laid in the grave, must be buried with Christ, in order that with Christ also it may rise to newness of life.

2. Here is the design of all religious ordinances, viz., that the root of bitterness may be destroyed in the soul. We are buried with Christ in baptism, in faith that our corruptions shall be drowned, even as the Egyptians were when they lay dead on the seashore. We approach the Lord's table in faith that the food which we there receive spiritually into the soul shall operate as a poison to all those corruptions which yet reign within us. Every prayer we offer up is a blow at sin; every self-denial we practise is to starve out corruption from the soul. But, in order to the completeness of this death of sin within us, it is needful that we take away all the means of life. "Fire is as effectually put out by taking wood away as by throwing cold water upon it." We must take care to blockade all the avenues of temptation; we must intercept those supplies which "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," are forever conveying into the soul.

II. "ALIVE UNTO GOD." We are not to give a dead carcase to a living God; neither, on the other hand, when the members of the old man have been crucified, are they to remain idle. No; after they are buried, they are to rise again, and be laid as a free will offering on the altar of God. Being dead to sin we must henceforth be alive to God.

1. To the honour of God's name.

2. To the interests of His kingdom.

3. To the glory of His grace in the entire sanctification of our souls.Conclusion:

1. All comes to us through Jesus Christ our Lord. If there be any subjugation of the power of sin in the soul, "His right hand hath got the victory"; if there be any quickening to a renewed existence, He it was who began, and who must complete the work.

2. Let shame prompt you to die to sin. If Christ died for sin, the least we can do is to die to sin.

3. Let gratitude prompt us to "live to God."

(D. Moore, M. A.)

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KJV: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

WEB: Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.