Romans 6:11

Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

This is one of the boldest and most daring statements imaginable. Paul had already explained that by reason of the Christian's being in the spiritual body "in Christ," he was thereby a participant in God's righteousness, was legally dead to sin, having died "in Christ" when he died, and as a consequence of such a heavenly arrangement was possessed of a status of absolute innocence and justification, all of this being retrospective in regard to what Christ has already done; but in this verse, the same marvelous arrangement of the Christian's being "in Christ" and thus legally a part of Christ and justly identified with him, is projected heavenward. Christians are not merely dead to sin in him, but are upon the throne of God in him, as well! Our being "alive unto God" in this verse answers to Christ's living "unto God" in the preceding verse. What an exalted view of the Christian's Christ-identified life! It staggers the imagination itself. All of the glories and endowments of the upper and better existence into which Christ has already entered - all such things which are utterly beyond the power of human comprehension - already belong to the Christian, not in the sense of his actually possessing them in the present time, but they are all his legally "in Christ." So vast an inheritance is a legacy of such extravagant dimensions and a treasure of such surpassing value that no human description is capable of portraying the tiniest fraction of its true worth and glory. But all of that weight of glorious inheritance shall ultimately belong to the Christian only if Christ continues to reign in his heart and his identity with Christ is not effaced through sin. Is this motive enough to empower the Christian to reject the old reign of sin that ever and anon seeks to dethrone the Christ and resume it tyrannical sway over the human heart? Paul thought it was, as he immediately stated; and every Christian who has welcomed the Christ upon the throne of his heart knows that it is indeed motive enough!