For years after my conversion I had been taught that the way of deliverance was to reckon myself dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). I 'reckoned' from 1920-27 and the more I did so, the more alive to sin I clearly was. I simply could not believe myself dead to sin. The problem was that no one had pointed out to me that knowing (vs 6) must precede reckoning (vs 11). For months I was troubled and prayed earnestly, reading the Scriptures and seeking light. I said to the Lord, "If I cannot understand this-which is so fundamental-I will not preach anymore.'
I remember one morning I was sitting upstairs reading Romans and I came to the words: 'Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.'Knowing this! How could I know it? I prayed, 'Lord, open my eyes!' and then, in a flash, I saw.
I had earlier been reading I Cor 1:30: 'You are in Christ Jesus.' I looked at it again. I thought, the fact that I am in Christ Jesus is God's doing! It was amazing. If Christ died, and that is a certain fact, and if God put me into Him, then I must have died too. All at once I saw my oneness with Christ: that I was in Him, and that when He died I died. My death to sin was a matter of the past and not of the future.
I jumped from my chair and ran downstairs to the young man working in the kitchen. 'Brother, I said, do you know that I have died?' He looked puzzled so I went on. 'Do you not know that Christ has died? Do you not know that I died with HIm? Do you not know that my death is no less truly a fact than His?' It was so real to me. From that day to this I have never for one moment doubted the finality of that word: 'I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
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