June 22
“For the death that He died He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so, consider [or reckon] yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10-11)
Continuing quoting from The Green Letters, we learn more of the importance of considering ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God:
CONSECRATION (continued)
J. C. Metcalfe sees both the problem and the answer: “The modern teaching of consecration, which is tantamount to the consecration of the ‘old man,’ seeks to bypass the death sentence and, therefore, only leads to frustration and failure. When, however, you and I are prepared, in simple humility, to make the fact of our death with Christ our daily basis of life and service, there is nothing that can prevent the uprising and outflow of new life, and meet the need of thirsty souls around us.”
Here is the crux of the matter. The question is, Which life is to be consecrated to Him, the old self-life, or the new Christ-life? God can accept absolutely nothing from the old – He sees and acknowledges only that which is centered in His Son, who is our Life. Hence God has but one stipulation for consecration: “Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead” (Rom. 6:13). This is our only ground, and from this platform we are to count ourselves dead unto sin, self, the law, the world, and alive unto God in Christ risen – to walk in “newness of life,” “risen life” (Rom. 6:11, 4b).
“ ‘Present yourselves unto God as those alive from the dead’ (Rom. 6:13, NASB) This is the true place of consecration. For believers to ‘consecrate themselves to God’ ere they have learnt their union with Christ in death and resurrection (identification) is only to present to God the members of the natural man, which He cannot accept…. God asks us to present our bodies as living sacrifices to Him (Rom. 12:1). Until we have done this, there is nothing else we can do. Notice this exhortation comes after Romans 6. There is a reason for this order – crucifixion comes before consecration. Uncrucified self refuses to be consecrated.” (H. Duncan) This is why the identification truths must be carefully and thoroughly presented, ultimately understood, and their reality entered into… “The sixth of Romans is not an aspect of the truth, but the foundation truth upon which every believer must stand to know anything about victory. All the identifi-cation truths we have learned about the cross, of our death with Christ, our death to sin with Him, of our conformity to death like the grain of wheat…are prepar-atory to the overcoming life. They are the foundation of, and fundamental to it.”
“A careful study of all the epistles of Paul will show…the fact that God consigns the old fallen Adam-life to the cross, and has nothing to say to it. God deals with all believers on the ground – ‘in Christ you died.’ But the Church of Christ, as a whole, ignores this fact. It treats the fallen creation (self-life) as capable of improvement, and the meaning of the cross bringing to death the old Adam race as fallen beyond repair, is thus nullified.”