Romans 6: what “consider yourselves dead to sin” means in practice

On the matter of our very real death to sin, let us now exercise our faith, that we may eventually bear the fruit of it.

I will assume that you know the importance of acknowledging your sin before God (see, for example, Psalm 32 or 1 John 1:5-10). If you are a Christian, you should be under no illusion about your need for his grace. But you have two options when you come to God for this purpose. One will leave you perpetually waiting on his grace; the other will leave you powerfully walking in it. Let’s explore both.

The first way to pray is to ask God for that which we think we do not yet have. Ask him for forgiveness, hoping to persuade him. Ask him for freedom, wondering when he will provide it. Present yourself to him broken and lacking, insisting that he must still do something to deliver you from your unholy desires and bondage to sin. Etc.

There is something about this kind of prayer that, to the natural mind, feels more humble, more righteous, and perhaps even more accurate, but it is not grounded in God’s grace and promises (i.e., the truth). It is contrary to his word, and it is the antithesis of freedom and victory, stripping faith of all its immediate practical value and turning it into nothing more than hope for the future. But hope is for the future; faith is for now. It is how we access God now and all he has given us for today.

So, the second and far better way to pray is to praise God and thank him for what he has already given us. Do we confess our sins? Yes. But then we thank him for forgiving us and cleansing us from all unrighteousness (see 1 John 1:9). Do we pray as Jesus taught us: “Father, forgive us our debts . . .” (see Matthew 6:12 and Luke 11:12)? Yes. But read it yourself and see that we are not asking him to forgive us as if we need to wait for an answer or convince him to do something he hasn’t already done. God (in Jesus) told us to tell God to forgive us because God forgives us. Thus, we call upon his forgiveness, remembering the gospel, and by faith, in unison with God, we apply it to our lives. Should we ask God for help in overcoming our sins? Yes. But rather than begging him to help us die to ourselves, we give thanks that we have already died (see Romans 6:1-11). Rather than asking that he make us new, we praise him because he already has (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

It is not the slightest bit offensive to God that we so boldly proclaim such things, for they are only accurate, and we accomplished none of them on our own. Indeed, this is the radical nature of grace that God had in mind when he sent forth his Son to save whoever would simply believe.

Thus, this kind of prayer is a great starting point for walking by faith and not by sight. It is not about what we can see or understand. It is about the fact that coming to any conclusion other than God’s conclusion is the essence of pride and deceit, thinking one knows. If God says, “You’re free from sin!” yet you continue to cry, “God, free me from sin!” what does this say about you and the state you are in? Can this prayer possibly be justified, or must we call it unbelief?

Not to mention, how I am encouraging you to think and pray is nothing short of a biblical command. As Paul says, “you . . . must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). And “present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life . . .” (Romans 6:13). What does it say about us if we always present ourselves to God as broken, empty, dirty sinners? This is certainly not the picture of the Christian life put forth in the New Testament. Call it “honest” if you like, but then you must call God a liar since, according to his gospel, Jesus has made you new, filled you with his Spirit, brought you to life, cleansed your heart, and called you a saint.

Christians are to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10). Yet many Christians have spent their whole lives coming to God weak and broken. And every time they ask that he fix them, I imagine him looking down and saying, “What more do you want me to do?” It appears to them that he never answers their prayers, but in reality, they were answered at the Cross.

I want to clarify now that I am not diminishing the importance of recognizing one’s depravity, brokenness, and need for God. To be sure, this is the only kind of soil that is receptive to the seed of the gospel. But once the gospel seed has been effectively planted and a new life born, “depravity” and “brokenness” are no longer accurate descriptions of the one who has believed and received this new life. “[Y]ou have been born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God . . . And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:23-25). “[A]t one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). The kind of prayer where we present ourselves to God as broken sinners is only appropriate until the point that we are delivered from such a state, which is at the moment we are born again, not the moment we become mature.

Once, we were broken; now, we are fixed (unless the gospel is untrue). Do we think that somehow God made us new, yet not new enough? He removed our old hearts and gave us a new one (see Ezekiel 36:26). Do we suppose the surgery was unsuccessful? Should God be sued for malpractice or false advertising? Is the work of Jesus insufficient?

You might also think of it this way. We used to be in desperate need of God in the sense that we did not have him. And while we will always continue to need him, we will never again need him in the same sense as before; for now, we have him. Therefore, a believer’s desperate plea for God’s presence in their life is a clear sign that they are living out of their feelings, not the gospel truth. Jesus promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), and now we know that he dwells within us. So it is only appropriate to say, “Lord, I need you” if we follow with the acknowledgment, “Lord, thank you that I have you.” It is only appropriate to say, “Lord, forgive me” if one simultaneously says, “Lord, thank you for forgiving me.” And, oh, what joy this brings! Try it now.

Let us never again think we must wait for freedom and sanctification. His word says that “[h]is divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). Thus, we have all that we need today for life and godliness, and if we lack anything at all, let us realize that we lack faith, not grace. If we are to ask God for help in anything, let us first ask for help to believe the good news. If we are to strive for anything, let us “strive to enter that rest,” which comes only from believing that his work is finished. There is no shame in saying, “Lord, I believe; help me with my unbelief!” (see Mark 9:24). It may even be that, for the first time in a while, we will actually be praying a prayer that he can answer.