Romans 6:11

“ Thus also reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ”

The οὕτω, likewise, indicates the inference to be drawn from the conformity between the case of believers and that of Jesus.

Ye also: ye, as well as he. Λογίζεσθε, reckon, consider, is evidently an imperative, not an indicative: comp. the following imperatives, Romans 6:12-13. The apostle means: Behold, in consequence of what you witness in Jesus Himself, the view-point at which you ought to put yourselves when you regard your own case. You have no longer to see your condition as you were in yourselves: slaves of sin, dead unto God. You have to regard yourselves as you are in Christ, as I have just explained to you: dead to sin, alive to God. Beside and above the old man which still lives in him, the believer possesses a new ego contained in Christ who lives in him; this ego has broken with sin, it is wholly consecrated to God. Such is the being whom he ought henceforth to regard as his true self; he ought consequently to appropriate it subjectively by constantly substituting it for his natural self, which is henceforth denied at the foot of the cross. Such is the divine secret of Christian sanctification, which distinguishes it profoundly from simple natural morality. The latter says to man: Become what thou wouldst be. The former says to the believer: Become what thou art already (in Christ). It thus puts a positive fact at the foundation of moral effort, to which the believer can return and have recourse anew at every instant. And this is the reason why his labor is not lost in barren aspiration, and does not end despair. The believer does not get disentangled from sin gradually. He breaks with it in Christ once for all. He is placed by a decisive act of will in the sphere of perfect holiness; and it is within it that the gradual renewing of the personal life goes forward. This second gospel paradox, sanctification by faith, rests on the first, justification by faith.

After having shown the believer how he is to regard himself in virtue of his union with Christ, the apostle calls him not to let this new position be a mere matter of theory, but to work it into his real life, to make it his life from moment to moment. As Philippi says, Christians ought to begin with discerning what they are, and then labor to manifest it. Such is the subject of Romans 6:12-14.