“Alive Unto God” by C. A. Coats “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead

“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:11). It is an immense thing to see how we are “alive unto God”. I think a great many are trying to live to God. That is, they want to reach it in their responsible life, instead of seeing it is “in Christ Jesus.”

I believe that many conceive of living to the Father as being in their responsible life down here; that is, they think that it is in a life of practical righteousness and holiness that they are to live to the Father. The “likewise” is either forgotten or misunderstood, it would seem.

The Lord Jesus has died unto sin and lives unto God. He lives not only personally free from sin (He was ever this), but He is outside the whole range of sin. He lives unto God in scenes where sin can never come and where all things are of God. His death and risen life are my title to live unto God in the same sphere.

Such is the grace of God that I may appropriate the Lord Jesus’ death and count that I have died unto sin. It is appropriation that tests us. How often we stop at admiration! It is as we appropriate that we become spiritually robust. It is only thus that I could reach “alive into God in Christ Jesus.” Death unto sin is not the terminus—it is the station en route—the terminus is “alive unto God in Christ Jesus.”

I could not live in sin—that is, in the life of Adam—and live unto God in Christ Jesus at the same time.
I must have died unto sin by reckoning upon my death in Him in order to be able to live unto God in Him.
“Dead unto sin” is not that I abstain from sinning, but I quit the life of sinful Adam altogether by the appropriation of the Last Adam’s death unto sin and count myself as a new creation alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

The result of this is that in my responsible life I yield myself to God and my members as instruments of righteousness to Him (Rom 6:13). It is because I know what it is to be “alive unto God” that I can do this. A good many are reversing the process. They are trying to live to God by putting the responsible life right. What a blessed thing it is to be under grace!

As we are attracted to the Lord Jesus by His love, we find His death between us and “our old man” and between us, the world, law and Satan. This is the way of real deliverance and happy freedom from what is evil here in ourselves and in the scene around.