(1.) In Rom. 6:2,2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (Romans 6:2) the Christian is said to be “dead to sin”: why does the Holy Ghost say also, then, in verse 11 “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin?”
Ans. — Because we may have the position itself before God, and not have the faith of the position in our own souls. Now, if I am “dead,” because Christ my substitute died for me on the Cross, I am to understand it to be so, and take the place of being dead, myself. On the one hand, God reckons me so; on the other hand, I am to reckon myself so.
Ans. — It is the practical remembrance that what the world gave Him, — the place which in grace He was content to take for us — was death. And as is the Master so is His disciple. We are “dead with Him,” for faith, even while in the world. “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” To realize His death in its relation to the character of our walk down here, is to bear it about in the body.