So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)

I have met a lot of Christians who are tired, and I don’t mean they need more sleep. They are tired of losing the same battles year after year: a temper, a habit, a worry that keeps coming back. Many of them quietly wonder whether anything has really changed in them at all. If that is you, Romans 6:11 is a verse worth sitting with.

The Question Behind the Verse

Romans 6 opens with a question. Paul has just said that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). So someone asks, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). Paul’s answer is immediate: “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2).

Then he reminds them of their baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).

Paul’s point is that something real happened. We were joined to Christ. His death became our death to sin, and His risen life became the source of our new life. “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God” (Romans 6:10). Verse 11 follows: “So you also.”

What It Means to “Consider”

The word translated “consider” is logizomai. It is an accounting word. It means to reckon, to count something as true, to regard it as a settled fact. Paul uses the same word in Romans 4 when he says that Abraham’s faith was “counted to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:22).

So Paul isn’t asking us to pretend or to talk ourselves into a feeling. He wants us to agree with what God says is already true. In Christ, sin is no longer your master, and you are alive to God. Your feelings may not match that today. Your track record may not match it either. But God’s word about you in Christ is truer than either one.

John Calvin put it this way: “Take this view of your case, that as Christ once died for the purpose of destroying sin, so you have once died, that in future you may cease from sin; yea, you must daily proceed with that work of mortifying, which is begun in you, till sin be wholly destroyed.” I like how Calvin holds the two together: something has been decisively begun, and it has to be carried on every day.

Reformed and Catholic Voices

Reformed Christians often describe this with the phrase “definitive sanctification.” John Murray taught that, in union with Christ, the believer has made a decisive break with the reign of sin, and that this once-for-all break is the ground of the lifelong growth in holiness that follows. We are not trying to become dead to sin. We are learning to live as people who already are.

Catholic teaching ties this same reality closely to Baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are ‘dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus’ and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord” (CCC 1694). The New American Bible, Revised Edition, has a note on these verses that says, “Through baptism believers share the death of Christ and thereby escape from the grip of sin. Through the resurrection of Christ the power to live anew becomes reality for them.” Catholics speak of the grace of Baptism as truly making us new, and of our ongoing cooperation with that grace through prayer, the sacraments, and a life of charity.

The two traditions explain how this happens in different ways, and those differences are real. Both, though, would tell you that the Christian life is not a self-improvement project. It is living out the new life God has given us in Christ.

Living It Out

Paul doesn’t stop at verse 11. He goes on: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:12-14).

Notice the order. First, believe what God has done. Then, offer yourself to Him. Reckoning comes before presenting. Here are a few ways that has looked in my own life and in the lives of people I have walked with.

Start the day by remembering who you are. Before the emails and the worries, it helps to pray Romans 6:11 back to God: “Lord, today I am dead to sin and alive to You in Christ Jesus.” Many Catholics make the sign of the cross with holy water as a reminder of their Baptism. Some Protestants simply recall the promise of their Baptism in prayer. Either way, the point is to start from what God has done.

When temptation comes, it can help to say, quietly and honestly, “That is not who I am anymore.” Then turn your attention to Christ. Temptation loses some of its power when we stop treating it as our true identity.

Offer your body to God in specific ways. Paul talks about our “members,” the parts of our bodies. Our eyes, our hands, our words, and our time can all be offered to God each day.

When you fail, and you will, don’t let the failure become your new name. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Catholics receive that mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. All of us can return to the cross and begin again. Then reckon yourself alive to God once more.

And don’t try to do this alone. Worship, the Lord’s Table, prayer, and honest friends are some of the ordinary ways God keeps us alive to Him.

A Closing Word

If you are tired of fighting the same sin, I want you to hear this: your struggle does not mean nothing has changed. The very fact that sin grieves you is a sign that you are alive to God. A little further on, in Romans 8, Paul says there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Keep reckoning. Keep presenting yourself to God. He who raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you.

Lord Jesus, I have been buried with You and raised with You. Help me to believe it today. When sin calls my name, remind me that I belong to You. Amen.

For Further Reading

• Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans. Translated by Fabian R. Larcher. Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute, 2012.
• Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans. Translated by John Owen. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1213, 1262-1266, and 1691-1698. 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.
• Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
• Murray, John. “Definitive Sanctification.” In Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 2, 277-284. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977.
• New American Bible, Revised Edition. Notes on Romans 6. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.