Romans 6:1-11

6 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? ² Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? ³ Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? ⁴ For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

⁵ Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. ⁶ We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. ⁷ For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. ⁸ And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. ⁹ We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. ¹⁰ When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. ¹¹ So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

________________________________________________________________

“Consider yourselves . . . .”  This is a passage based on seeing ourselves differently.  We are to consider ourselves to have died with Christ through our baptism.  That leads to our considering ourselves dead to sin and therefore no longer a slave to the power of sin.

And if we died with Christ, we are also, like him, raised from the dead as a changed person.  We are to consider that to be true as well.  Because Christ was raised from the dead, we are free from death, which Paul equates with freedom from the power of sin.  It is a powerful argument and it is based on “our considering it so!”