Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.
—Romans 6:8
The reason God’s children live so little in the power of the resurrection life of Christ is that they have so little understanding of or faith in their death with Christ. How clearly this appears from what Paul said: “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” Such is the knowledge and experience that give us the assurance of His resurrection power in us. “He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God” (verse 10). Only as we know that we are dead with Him can we live with Him.
On the strength of this, Paul pleaded earnestly with his readers: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ” (verse 11). The words “likewise reckon ye also yourselves” are a call to bold and confident faith. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin” as much as Christ is, “but alive unto God through Jesus Christ.” These words give us a divine assurance of what we actually are and have in Christ—not as a truth that our minds can master and take hold of, but as a reality that the Holy Spirit will reveal within us. In His power, we accept our death with Christ on the cross as the power of our daily lives.
Then we are able to accept and obey the command: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body…but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead…for sin shall not have dominion over you” (verses 12–14). “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness…so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness…But now being made free from sin…ye have your fruit unto holiness” (verses 18–19, 22).
All of Romans 6 is a wonderful revelation of the deep meaning of its opening words: “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (verse 2). Everything depends on our acceptance of the divine assurance that if we died with Christ, we have the power to live for God, just as Christ who died now lives for God.