Reckoning

Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. – Romans 6.11-12

I grew up in the American South. People have their own dialect and way of speaking down there. One of the phrases that is almost unique to the south is the phrase ‘I reckon.’ We said someone said something like ‘Reckon we oughta get started?’ to which the reply might be ‘Reckon so.’

So ‘reckon’ is not an unusual word for me. However, the meaning here is quite a bit different. There it just meant ‘I suppose’ or ‘we might as well’ or ‘do you think?’

This English word reckon, just like the Greek word it is translated from, means to calculate. The Greek word comes from a word meaning ‘to take inventory.’

Now that may sound like a very technical way to deal with a spiritual issue, but I think it is key to the problem of ever present sin to the truth that we are dead to.

No one can argue about the reality of sin. No one can argue that we battle it all the time. No one can argue that sometimes we give into sin. Sometimes it just seems so powerful that we can’t seem to beat it.

That’s where this passage comes in. When tempted to sin, and when it seems powerful and dominating it is our job to calculate that it doesn’t have any power over us because we are alive in Christ! Then, we choose not to let sin reign.

In other words, instead of rolling over and playing dead when sin comes knocking we remember that it has no power over us and we don’t submit to its power. Instead we remember that we are alive to Christ and we no longer have to serve it.

A children’s song keep coming to mind that I think fits here.

When sin comes knocking at your door

Say no

When sin comes knocking at your door

Say no, no no

Even better is a quote I just saw trying to google that chorus. I like this even better.

‘When sin comes knocking at your door let Jesus answer.’