Exercise: Knowing,
...Exercise thyself unto piety	Reckoning, Yielding

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him.” Romans 6:6

by J. Brett

In the first verse of Romans chapter six, the apostle Paul asks the question, “Shall we continue in sin?” and in verse two he answers it, “God forbid, How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” This makes it clear that a believer should not continue to live as he or she did before they came to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. Then he says, “As many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto His death.” He assumes those he is writing to have all been baptized. Dear young Christian, have you been baptized? The apostle states what is normal for a Christian. Not to be baptized is abnormal.

Peter in his first epistle (3:21), tells us that it is the “demand of a good conscience.” I should feel that as God in Christ has done so much for me, should I not then answer to that by yielding my life to Him?

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, “If one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.”

In verse 6 of Romans 6 we read, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him.” All that we were as born of Adam God has finished with in the cross of our Lord Jesus. The “old man,” what I am according to the flesh, has been terminated, as it is impossible for it to please God. Even Paul says, “For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell” (7:18).

If I know that God has finished with my old life, the question then is, have I finished with it? In being baptized I am saying that I have accepted the judgment of God on all that I am according to the flesh.

So Paul goes on in verse 11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ.” The Holy Spirit gives me the power to say “NO” to sin. Before I was converted, sin reigned in my life and controlled what I did. That power has been broken: “For sin shall not have dominion over you” (v. 14).

So we understand that not only has God in the death of Christ put away what I am in the flesh, but also He has given me the Holy Spirit that I might live unto Him.

So we come to our last word, "yield". Verse 13 says, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God.”

Paul says in Galatians 2: 20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”