October 29

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. - Romans 6:11.

CHRISTIANS are herein reminded of what they are. The Apostle would have them form a correct estimate of themselves: “Reckon yourselves” as such, says he. And there are three reasons to be assigned for this. We should reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God, in order to maintain the conduct that is suitable to such. For our conduct should correspond with our character and condition. The way to know what we ought to do is to ascertain what we are; for our duties grow out of our conditions and relations. “If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” “Seeing ye look for these things, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.” Christians are not to live like others; more is expected from them than from others. Therefore let us be concerned to “walk worthy of God, who has called us unto his kingdom and glory.”

Secondly, We should thus reckon ourselves to be such, in order that we may be kept from wondering at the treatment of such. By their principles and practice, Christians censure and condemn the world, and if we oppose them they will oppose us as far as they have the power. They wish to be in darkness, and hate the light that Christian conduct flashes upon them. They wish to be asleep, and they dislike to be aroused; nor will they easily forgive the disturbance. The Saviour says, “Marvel not if the world hate you; ye know that it hateth me.” And why did it hate him? What he said to the Jews he could now say to many empty and inconsiderate professors of religion who live so much in the world: “The world cannot hate you” (because they were so much like it), “but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil.”

Thirdly, We are to reckon ourselves as being thus “dead” and “alive,” in order that we may rejoice in the portion of such. “Oh, how great is the goodness which God has laid up for them that fear him; which he has wrought for them that trust in him before the sons of men.” If the world frowns on us, he smiles. If they condemn us, he is near to justify us. Such a death and such a life as this demands self-denial and sacrifices, which will be more than indemnified if there be any meaning and truth in the Scriptures.

We may be losers in his service, but we can never be losers by it. “There is no man who hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come life everlasting;” for “the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”