A Christian’s Self-Conception

Paul, in Romans 6:11, tells a Christian a glorious truth about how he should view himself: “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” 

God doesn’t tell his children to believe this about themselves just because it makes them feel good. God tells them to believe it because it’s true.

United to Christ

How is it true? The previous verses told us. Christ died to sin and is alive to God (Romans 6:9–10), and believers are united to Him in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:3–8). As a result of this union, we are no longer enslaved to sin (Romans 6:6) but are set free from sin’s power (Romans 6:7) and empowered to live a new life (Romans 6:4).

Now verse 11 tells us we need to do something with that glorious truth about our union with Christ. It gives us a command to obey in light of that reality: we need to believe it. And we need to believe this truth specifically with respect to how it effects the way we think about ourselves.

The 19th century commentator Charles Hodge would counsel: “What is true in reality, needs to be true in your convictions and in your consciousness . . . if believers really do participate in the death and life of Christ . . . then they should think of themselves in this way. They should receive this truth, with all its consoling and sanctifying power, into their hearts.”¹

Do you want more of the consoling and sanctifying power of the gospel at work in your heart? Learn to live believing not only that “Jesus died for me,” but also “I died with Him.”

Full faith in gospel truth involves more than believing certain things about Christ; it also means we come to believe certain things about ourselves, which are true of us because of Christ. The gospel gives us a new sense of self: the old you was crucified on His cross and died, once for all; the you that lives now is new.

A First Duty

The flow of Romans suggests this battle of self-conception comes early in the fight to win the battle against sin. I say that because Romans 6:11 is the first imperative in the book.

Before Romans gives any commands to live righteously, it tells us first that we must regard ourselves as those who actually can live righteously, because of our union with Christ. This is the obedience that is preparatory for all other obedience: you must reckon yourself to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.

Along these lines, and drawing on Romans 6:11, pastor Heath Lambert wrote, “If you want to use Jesus’ transforming grace, you have to do something so easy that many people find it impossible. You have to believe it. Transforming grace works when you believe that Jesus gives it to you. The moment you believe in Jesus’s grace to change you, you are changing. The more you continue to believe it, the more you will continue to change. . . . If you want to change and be like Christ . . . you must believe that in Jesus you have the power to change.”²

You’re Not Stuck

Too often, Christians stay stuck in some sin because they believe (wrongly) that they are.

They see themselves continuing to struggle, so they don’t consider themselves dead to sin because they think their track record suggests otherwise. They start thinking they can’t defeat a particular sin simply because they haven’t.

These Christians need to remember that our ability to make progress against sin does not depend on our track record in the last several months and years! It depends on what Jesus did two thousand years ago. And it depends on what is true about Jesus today; that He is dead to sin (still) and alive to God (forever), and we are in Him (right now).

You must learn to stop depending on how well you have obeyed in the past and start depending on the death and resurrection of Jesus. None of your recent, recurring, or egregious sins have pulled Jesus down from heaven and put him back dead in the grave! If you are a Christian, then you must believe you are not enslaved to any sin you now struggle against.

If you are not counting that truth to be true for you, then your fire to fight against sin is going to burn low and cold because you won’t have hope that you can overcome. But Christians have every reason for hope in their sanctification: we have all the efficacy of Christ’s death and life available to us, by the Spirit in us who unites us to Him.

Our Challenge in Ministry

Sinclair Ferguson once relayed some wisdom from the Puritan minister John Owen about this matter.³ Owen said that there are, in a sense, only two basic issues that a minister of the gospel has to deal with. The first is an evangelistic challenge: persuading those who are under the dominion of sin that this is the truth about them. The other is the pastoral challenge: persuading those who are no longer under sin’s dominion that this is who they really are.

Biblical counselors must keep in mind this ever-important “pastoral challenge” whenever they are working with believers. Seek to persuade Christians of who they really are!

The more you can get Christians to “consider themselves” as they ought, the more you should expect to see the power of the gospel working in their lives.

¹ Charles Hodge, Romans (The Crossway Classics Commentaries, 1994), 186.

² Heath Lambert, Finally Free (Zondervan, 2013), 22–23.

³ Sinclair Ferguson, Devoted to God (Banner of Truth, 2016) 91.