ADDRESSES ON ROMANS
head. Our Head is Christ. God sees us identified with Him in His resurrection. This is what Paul meant when he was led by the Holy Spirit to write to the Ephesian and Colossian Christians, say- ing: "God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ •.. and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" ( Eph. 2: 4-6). "Ye are ... buried with him in baptism, where- in also ye are risen with him" (Col. 2:12). "If (or 'since') ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God ... for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:1. 3). When I was a child, I had a grub that I kept in a can. It was passing through the chrysalis: and when it had matured into a beautiful butterfly, I let it go. Up and up it flew into the sunlight, with new life, leaving behind the empty shell that once had bound it. Something like this took place in us when we died to the old master that bound us as slaves. We died with Christ; we were buried with Him; we were raised with Him to "walk in newness of life." In the sunlight of His love we "mount up with wings as eagles," for we are seated "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," our Lord. "RECKON ... YOURSELVES TO BE DEAD ... UNTO SIN, BUT ALIVE UNTO GOD" This is our standing before God, and we are called upon to reckon on this fact day by day. To reckon is to take a certain thing into account, to act as though it were true because God says it is true. Even if you do not see evidence of its being true, act upon it. My friends, this doctrinal truth is intensely practical and real. not mythical. Some years after I was converted, I kept trying to die to sin, but certain tendencies kept bothering me. My heart was filled with the very things over which I wanted victory. Then [Page 99
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