Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
To reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God is to take your place with Christ in His death and resurrection, buried with Him by baptism so that as He was raised you walk in newness of life. The reckoning itself is an act of simple faith, to be counted true whether feeling agrees or not, made real by Christ strengthening the moral powers. To be dead to sin is to no longer continue in it or let it reign, refusing it the members of the body and yielding them to God as instruments of righteousness. That death reaches to self and the world, dying to living for self, to covetousness and indulged appetite and passion, and to the world's corrupting affections and customs. To be alive to God is to abide in Christ with heart and will wholly His, in conscious sense of His presence and keeping, bearing the Spirit's fruit in holy character and active service.
Baptism Setting and Meaning
Likewise reckoning oneself dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ belongs to those baptized into Jesus Christ, for baptism into Christ is baptism into His death. Buried with Him in baptism, they walk in newness of life just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, planted together in the likeness of His death and of His resurrection. This deadness to the reigning power of sin and aliveness to God comes through the same divine power that raised Christ from the dead.
The old man is crucified with Him so that the body of sin is destroyed and they no longer serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. If dead with Christ, they shall also live with Him, since Christ being raised dies no more and death has no more dominion over Him. In that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He lives, He lives unto God.
That death to sin is shown by believing on Christ Jesus and being buried with Him by baptism, which upon profession of faith in Jesus Christ is an open renunciation of sin before many witnesses. Baptism is a semblance of death to the world, to its fashions, its customs, and its evil practices, and those baptized are to be dead to the world but alive unto God, in whom there is the power of life for them.
Rising from the watery grave professes a changed life hid with Christ in God. Coming up out of the water is the symbol of the resurrection, and by believing in Christ believers experience that resurrection power in their own persons. They claim to be dead to sin and cleansed from hereditary and cultivated traits of evil, pledging before God to remain dead to sin.
After baptism the person is to live a new life dead to sin and alive to God, with life hidden with Christ in God. This life depends on the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit upon words, spirit, and character, and God's power is able to keep them from falling. A person should not be rebaptized until dead to sin and freed from selfishness and self-exaltation, ready to rise from the water to live a new life for God, since faith and repentance are the essential conditions for forgiveness of sin.
Reckoning by Simple Faith
Even while people are still carnal they are to count themselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ, which means no longer serving sin but living for God through Christ. This reckoning rests on simple faith irrespective of feeling rather than on feelings. Jesus as Author of salvation and Finisher of faith by His precious grace strengthens the moral powers to make this death to sin real, so that the believer can resist sin. Simple faith with the love of Christ in the soul unites the believer to God.
This life cannot be built on past experience but requires a present work wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit of God, lived by constant dependence on Him. Self must be crucified and the person must come out of self to receive the righteousness of Christ, for when self is dead he is alive unto God. It requires Christ enthroned in the heart by His abiding presence, with self no longer a controlling power, giving self wholly to Him for service so that the likeness of His character is stamped on the heart by His Spirit. It is entered through the baptismal vow kept sincerely by the Holy Spirit put within the heart in answer to earnest prayer, through Christ's intercession made effective, and through a life-practice that bears the fruit of the Spirit rather than claiming God's service while unbelief and a perverted will show otherwise.
Unless a person looks away from self to Christ, sin gives no relief. By yielding to Christ's control the desire to be harsh or overbearing is lost. Dying to self means ceasing to cling to self and to live for self and surrendering to God in order to live unto Him, trusting the merits of the blood of the crucified and risen Saviour to cleanse from the least and greatest sin, committing the keeping of the soul to God as unto a faithful Creator without fear that He will leave unless departed from, opening the door of the heart for Christ to come in and dwell, and bringing perfect harmony with the Father and the Son. Living for self leaves no knowledge of God's will and makes life a sum of good resolutions made and broken, especially when trials press and despondency, dark unbelief, and selfishness control thought and action.
There is never time to sin and it is always perilous to continue in transgression. But in a special sense now upon the very borders of the eternal world every person must search his own heart and plead for cleansing from spiritual darkness and defilement. The one who thus reckons himself dead to sin toils on as a faithful soldier of Christ in battle, with the sympathy of the whole loyal universe and ministering angels round about him to aid in the conflict so that he shall not be overcome.
Death to Sin and Self
Those reckoned dead to sin must not continue in sin that grace may abound nor live any longer in it. Sin is not to reign in the mortal body nor to be obeyed in its lusts. The members are not to be yielded as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but the self is to be yielded to God as one alive from the dead and the members as instruments of righteousness to God. The one obeyed is the master served, whether sin unto death or obedience unto righteousness. Sin shall not have dominion because they are not under law but under grace, and while the wages of sin is death the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Being dead to sin means dying to self, ceasing to cling to self and to live for self, and living for God instead. It means dying to covetousness and to love of pleasure and self-indulgence, abandoning idols and choosing self-denial. Pride, selfishness, love of the world, hatred, jealousy, and other sinful traits are to be subdued. Perverted appetites and passions are never to be glossed over or kept, nor is the person to remain a slave of passion, but they are to be uprooted and cast away. When these desires die there is no spiritual inactivity, for the one alive to God brings abilities and talents into active service.
It means being dead to the world and its corrupting influences, crucified to the world. The old affections and desires pass away and new ones arise, with a real change of character and new creation that separates in spirit and practice from what is earthly, leaving no place for idols or friendship with the world. Those joined to Christ become children of light and a dwelling for God through the Spirit, with Jesus abiding within. Claiming to be dead to sin and to the world and alive to God calls for keeping from everything that would stain the soul and for counting oneself dead to everything in conduct that Christ would not approve, while striving to grasp eternal realities.
When self is dead the person is alive unto God and no longer ruled by self, so that under Christ's probing test self does not rise up feeling hurt or abused. This life cannot be built on past experience but requires a present work wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit. Unless one looks away from self to Christ, sin gives no relief, but by yielding to Christ's control the desire to be harsh or overbearing is lost. Living for self leaves no knowledge of God's will and makes life a sum of good resolutions made and broken, with despondency, dark unbelief, and selfishness controlling thought and action when trials press. That cycle is exchanged for looking away from self to Jesus as all and in all, trusting the merits of the blood of the crucified and risen Saviour to cleanse from least and greatest sin, committing the keeping of the soul to God as unto a faithful Creator, opening the heart for Christ to dwell, and coming into harmony with the Father and the Son. It is realizing God as heavenly Father and oneself as His little child, made complete through Christ as Saviour, which lofty learning and the highest worldly honor cannot give.
Conversion as death to self and life to Christ comes through God's transforming influence, seen in a changed heart, purposes, and life with love for Jesus, gratitude, and fruitfulness to God. It means dying to self and sin, living for God, and honoring Him each day by the power Christ gives, with weakness and inefficiency put away.
Life Alive to God
To be alive to God is to pass from spiritual death to life received from God, no longer remaining dead in trespasses and sins after heavenly truth has been received. Creative power from above imparts life to human agents so that with weakness and inefficiency put away they work with Him and cooperate with divine intelligences. That passage from death to life is wrought when God puts His own power within the Spirit-inspired speaker, so that words of warning, appeal, reproof and correction in righteousness reach the dead and arouse them to receive life.
It is to have peace and rest and fullness in Jesus by knowing what it is to abide in Christ. Heart and mind and flesh become wholly the Lord's and the will is set to do the will of God, while Christ becomes the very substance and fountain of life to every believing heart with the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness shining in the heart. It is living in God in the conscious sense of His presence, protection, preserving care and favor, which is more precious than human praise or honor. It is living under One who never slumbers nor sleeps, knowing that every step and every beat of the heart and every motion of the pulse is the action of His power, since self cannot help soul or body try as hard as it may.
Grace subdues the natural sinful propensities and desires that would make heaven undesirable, and divine love fills the heart. The new life sanctifies the understanding and brings joy and knowledge and the light of life, fitting fallen people to enjoy heaven and the company of the pure and holy. Those alive to God bear the fruit of the Spirit, including love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness and goodness, with old affections and desires passed away and new ones arisen in union with Christ and separation from the world and its corrupting influences. Dying to self, covetousness and love of pleasure does not leave believers spiritually inactive but alive to God bringing abilities and talents into active service for the Master. Through faith in Jesus Christ every member is to be alive to God by waiting and watching and working and discerning the signs of the times.
Being dead to sin and alive to God makes the eye single to His glory and fills the whole person with light. With affections fixed on heavenly things where Christ is rather than breathing the atmosphere of the world, such ones are misunderstood by the world as strangers. Purified by faith that works by love, they see and appreciate the preciousness of Christ, and this fitness prepares them to see God.
New Life in Practice
The new life is being dead to sin and alive to God through Christ, and it marks believers as distinct from the world in spirit and practice as children of light. It is a real change of character, a being born again and created anew in Christ, not merely profession of godliness or a form of godliness. Being thus renewed in knowledge and true holiness and crucified to the world, they are separated from what is earthly and from worldly ways, with no place left for idols or friendship with the world. So separated they become a dwelling place for God through the Spirit, with Jesus abiding within them.
Claiming to be dead to the world and alive to God must show in where thoughts and interests are directed. Minds are to be set on heavenly things rather than on earthly vanity and pride, for thoughts fixed on earthly vanity and pride contradict that claim. This is dying to self and withdrawing the heart from love of the world while living in connection with God, consecrating affections and possessions to Him. It is separating from worldly friendship and spirit and living in holiness as a witness to the world.
Spiritual life gives unmistakable evidence of itself, for those alive unto God reveal it in words, prayers, testimony, walk and work. It is to be visible in faith and life, shining as light and bearing witness to the precious advantages of believing the truth, which every believer is responsible to give. When that witness is clear, people recognize the solemn, sacred power of truth and many may be converted. Those who have it are themselves infused with the Spirit of God and infuse others, drawing nourishment from Christ who is light and life and revealing fresh, new life principles to others.
Having the name on the church books pledges a life dead to worldly inducements and living unto God in active service of Christ. That life is shown by constantly learning how to reflect light to the world and by earnest devotion to the cause of the coming King that makes the believer a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. It testifies unfailingly in the words of the mouth, in modest dress, and in a humble spirit that the believer is a laborer together with God. Yet the professed people of God are not yet as earnest and devoted as they should be, and few have become dead to the world and alive to God. A church that has refused greater light, turned from the holy commandment, and failed to follow the way to renewed knowledge, holiness and victory over the world cannot reckon itself dead to sin or alive to God while walking contrary to the light and conditions of the gospel in truth and righteousness.
Remaining dead to sin means the mouth remains a sanctified mouth and the tongue a converted tongue, speaking of God's goodness and praising His holy name so as to be a great help and blessing to the church. It means giving self wholly to Him for service in constant dependence on Him, so the likeness of His character is stamped on the heart by His Spirit, working as He worked and bearing the message He bore. This gives power to become sons of God and power to obtain victory over sin, living the Christ-life in purity and holiness and revealing sanctification of soul by truth in daily life. It means never glossing over sin and never keeping perverted appetites and passions but uprooting and casting them away and refusing to be slaves of passion. It means guarding sanctified reason as a precious heaven-sent gift, and living radiant with heaven's brightness, gladdened by rich promises and filled with thanksgiving.
Reckoning oneself dead indeed to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ requires not letting sin reign in the mortal body by obeying its lusts. It means not yielding the bodily members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but yielding self to God as alive from the dead and the members as instruments of righteousness to God. This includes rejecting sinful habits such as tobacco use and living for God rather than yielding to them. It includes presenting mind, soul, body and strength to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, to answer the purpose of creation. It requires self-denial, temperance, intelligent obedience to light in the Word about eating and drinking and habits of life, control of appetite, lust and passions, so as to speak and act intelligently and avoid bringing feebleness on the body, especially for those living in the last days that they may walk in the light for Christ's sake. This belongs with teaching the knowledge of salvation, sin, and redemption from sin's bondage and defilement.
Being dead to the world means being dead to fashion and pride and careful in expenditure of means. Those who have died to the world contribute liberally to support gospel messengers entering new fields to carry truth to those who never heard it, giving to this work every dollar they can save and spending nothing for selfish gratification or adornment. God-fearing parents who are dead to sin do not allow children to dress as worldlings dress even if the children do not profess conversion, for money is the Lord's and must not indulge children in worldly fashions and pleasures; they dress them neatly and tastefully, refuse to sustain following the fashions, and do not let children's minds control theirs. As God-fearing parents they lead children very young to give hearts to God, tell them the desire to see them converted and baptized, and work to that end. After baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, remaining dead to the world and alive to God presents those three heavenly Worthies as power and efficiency to keep doing missionary work through the cities without discouragement, living humbled and converted before God and cooperating with Him in others' conversion, sustained by His blessing and daily comfort of grace unto final triumph in the kingdom of glory.
Those alive to God through Christ are dead to self, separating from sin and selfishness and developing a character fit to remain in the book of life. The names retained there belong to those who love God with all powers and neighbor as self. Abiding in Christ is being crucified with Him, dead to the world and alive to Christ, becoming a partaker of His resurrection-life so He is glorified in the life. It requires a personal work for the Master no one else can do, and to wear the crown of life Christ must be formed within as the hope of glory.
Becoming alive unto God is passing from being dead in trespasses and sins in spiritual death to receiving life from God. That passing is the aim of preaching, reached when truth is applied in every address so that whoever hears, men, women and youth from least to greatest, understands it, and by leading all to search the Word. It is worked when God puts His own power within a speaker under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, enabling words of warning, appeal, reproof and correction in righteousness to reach the dead and arouse them to receive life.
To reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God is to take your place with Christ in His death and resurrection, buried with Him by baptism so that as He was raised you walk in newness of life. The reckoning itself is an act of simple faith, to be counted true whether feeling agrees or not, made real by Christ strengthening the moral powers. To be dead to sin is to no longer continue in it or let it reign, refusing it the members of the body and yielding them to God as instruments of righteousness. That death reaches to self and the world, dying to living for self, to covetousness and indulged appetite and passion, and to the world's corrupting affections and customs. To be alive to God is to abide in Christ with heart and will wholly His, in conscious sense of His presence and keeping, bearing the Spirit's fruit in holy character and active service.
Baptism Setting and Meaning
Likewise reckoning oneself dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ belongs to those baptized into Jesus Christ, for baptism into Christ is baptism into His death. Buried with Him in baptism, they walk in newness of life just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, planted together in the likeness of His death and of His resurrection. This deadness to the reigning power of sin and aliveness to God comes through the same divine power that raised Christ from the dead.
The old man is crucified with Him so that the body of sin is destroyed and they no longer serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. If dead with Christ, they shall also live with Him, since Christ being raised dies no more and death has no more dominion over Him. In that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He lives, He lives unto God.
That death to sin is shown by believing on Christ Jesus and being buried with Him by baptism, which upon profession of faith in Jesus Christ is an open renunciation of sin before many witnesses. Baptism is a semblance of death to the world, to its fashions, its customs, and its evil practices, and those baptized are to be dead to the world but alive unto God, in whom there is the power of life for them.
Rising from the watery grave professes a changed life hid with Christ in God. Coming up out of the water is the symbol of the resurrection, and by believing in Christ believers experience that resurrection power in their own persons. They claim to be dead to sin and cleansed from hereditary and cultivated traits of evil, pledging before God to remain dead to sin.
After baptism the person is to live a new life dead to sin and alive to God, with life hidden with Christ in God. This life depends on the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit upon words, spirit, and character, and God's power is able to keep them from falling. A person should not be rebaptized until dead to sin and freed from selfishness and self-exaltation, ready to rise from the water to live a new life for God, since faith and repentance are the essential conditions for forgiveness of sin.
Reckoning by Simple Faith
Even while people are still carnal they are to count themselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ, which means no longer serving sin but living for God through Christ. This reckoning rests on simple faith irrespective of feeling rather than on feelings. Jesus as Author of salvation and Finisher of faith by His precious grace strengthens the moral powers to make this death to sin real, so that the believer can resist sin. Simple faith with the love of Christ in the soul unites the believer to God.
This life cannot be built on past experience but requires a present work wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit of God, lived by constant dependence on Him. Self must be crucified and the person must come out of self to receive the righteousness of Christ, for when self is dead he is alive unto God. It requires Christ enthroned in the heart by His abiding presence, with self no longer a controlling power, giving self wholly to Him for service so that the likeness of His character is stamped on the heart by His Spirit. It is entered through the baptismal vow kept sincerely by the Holy Spirit put within the heart in answer to earnest prayer, through Christ's intercession made effective, and through a life-practice that bears the fruit of the Spirit rather than claiming God's service while unbelief and a perverted will show otherwise.
Unless a person looks away from self to Christ, sin gives no relief. By yielding to Christ's control the desire to be harsh or overbearing is lost. Dying to self means ceasing to cling to self and to live for self and surrendering to God in order to live unto Him, trusting the merits of the blood of the crucified and risen Saviour to cleanse from the least and greatest sin, committing the keeping of the soul to God as unto a faithful Creator without fear that He will leave unless departed from, opening the door of the heart for Christ to come in and dwell, and bringing perfect harmony with the Father and the Son. Living for self leaves no knowledge of God's will and makes life a sum of good resolutions made and broken, especially when trials press and despondency, dark unbelief, and selfishness control thought and action.
There is never time to sin and it is always perilous to continue in transgression. But in a special sense now upon the very borders of the eternal world every person must search his own heart and plead for cleansing from spiritual darkness and defilement. The one who thus reckons himself dead to sin toils on as a faithful soldier of Christ in battle, with the sympathy of the whole loyal universe and ministering angels round about him to aid in the conflict so that he shall not be overcome.
Death to Sin and Self
Those reckoned dead to sin must not continue in sin that grace may abound nor live any longer in it. Sin is not to reign in the mortal body nor to be obeyed in its lusts. The members are not to be yielded as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but the self is to be yielded to God as one alive from the dead and the members as instruments of righteousness to God. The one obeyed is the master served, whether sin unto death or obedience unto righteousness. Sin shall not have dominion because they are not under law but under grace, and while the wages of sin is death the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Being dead to sin means dying to self, ceasing to cling to self and to live for self, and living for God instead. It means dying to covetousness and to love of pleasure and self-indulgence, abandoning idols and choosing self-denial. Pride, selfishness, love of the world, hatred, jealousy, and other sinful traits are to be subdued. Perverted appetites and passions are never to be glossed over or kept, nor is the person to remain a slave of passion, but they are to be uprooted and cast away. When these desires die there is no spiritual inactivity, for the one alive to God brings abilities and talents into active service.
It means being dead to the world and its corrupting influences, crucified to the world. The old affections and desires pass away and new ones arise, with a real change of character and new creation that separates in spirit and practice from what is earthly, leaving no place for idols or friendship with the world. Those joined to Christ become children of light and a dwelling for God through the Spirit, with Jesus abiding within. Claiming to be dead to sin and to the world and alive to God calls for keeping from everything that would stain the soul and for counting oneself dead to everything in conduct that Christ would not approve, while striving to grasp eternal realities.
When self is dead the person is alive unto God and no longer ruled by self, so that under Christ's probing test self does not rise up feeling hurt or abused. This life cannot be built on past experience but requires a present work wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit. Unless one looks away from self to Christ, sin gives no relief, but by yielding to Christ's control the desire to be harsh or overbearing is lost. Living for self leaves no knowledge of God's will and makes life a sum of good resolutions made and broken, with despondency, dark unbelief, and selfishness controlling thought and action when trials press. That cycle is exchanged for looking away from self to Jesus as all and in all, trusting the merits of the blood of the crucified and risen Saviour to cleanse from least and greatest sin, committing the keeping of the soul to God as unto a faithful Creator, opening the heart for Christ to dwell, and coming into harmony with the Father and the Son. It is realizing God as heavenly Father and oneself as His little child, made complete through Christ as Saviour, which lofty learning and the highest worldly honor cannot give.
Conversion as death to self and life to Christ comes through God's transforming influence, seen in a changed heart, purposes, and life with love for Jesus, gratitude, and fruitfulness to God. It means dying to self and sin, living for God, and honoring Him each day by the power Christ gives, with weakness and inefficiency put away.
Life Alive to God
To be alive to God is to pass from spiritual death to life received from God, no longer remaining dead in trespasses and sins after heavenly truth has been received. Creative power from above imparts life to human agents so that with weakness and inefficiency put away they work with Him and cooperate with divine intelligences. That passage from death to life is wrought when God puts His own power within the Spirit-inspired speaker, so that words of warning, appeal, reproof and correction in righteousness reach the dead and arouse them to receive life.
It is to have peace and rest and fullness in Jesus by knowing what it is to abide in Christ. Heart and mind and flesh become wholly the Lord's and the will is set to do the will of God, while Christ becomes the very substance and fountain of life to every believing heart with the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness shining in the heart. It is living in God in the conscious sense of His presence, protection, preserving care and favor, which is more precious than human praise or honor. It is living under One who never slumbers nor sleeps, knowing that every step and every beat of the heart and every motion of the pulse is the action of His power, since self cannot help soul or body try as hard as it may.
Grace subdues the natural sinful propensities and desires that would make heaven undesirable, and divine love fills the heart. The new life sanctifies the understanding and brings joy and knowledge and the light of life, fitting fallen people to enjoy heaven and the company of the pure and holy. Those alive to God bear the fruit of the Spirit, including love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness and goodness, with old affections and desires passed away and new ones arisen in union with Christ and separation from the world and its corrupting influences. Dying to self, covetousness and love of pleasure does not leave believers spiritually inactive but alive to God bringing abilities and talents into active service for the Master. Through faith in Jesus Christ every member is to be alive to God by waiting and watching and working and discerning the signs of the times.
Being dead to sin and alive to God makes the eye single to His glory and fills the whole person with light. With affections fixed on heavenly things where Christ is rather than breathing the atmosphere of the world, such ones are misunderstood by the world as strangers. Purified by faith that works by love, they see and appreciate the preciousness of Christ, and this fitness prepares them to see God.
New Life in Practice
The new life is being dead to sin and alive to God through Christ, and it marks believers as distinct from the world in spirit and practice as children of light. It is a real change of character, a being born again and created anew in Christ, not merely profession of godliness or a form of godliness. Being thus renewed in knowledge and true holiness and crucified to the world, they are separated from what is earthly and from worldly ways, with no place left for idols or friendship with the world. So separated they become a dwelling place for God through the Spirit, with Jesus abiding within them.
Claiming to be dead to the world and alive to God must show in where thoughts and interests are directed. Minds are to be set on heavenly things rather than on earthly vanity and pride, for thoughts fixed on earthly vanity and pride contradict that claim. This is dying to self and withdrawing the heart from love of the world while living in connection with God, consecrating affections and possessions to Him. It is separating from worldly friendship and spirit and living in holiness as a witness to the world.
Spiritual life gives unmistakable evidence of itself, for those alive unto God reveal it in words, prayers, testimony, walk and work. It is to be visible in faith and life, shining as light and bearing witness to the precious advantages of believing the truth, which every believer is responsible to give. When that witness is clear, people recognize the solemn, sacred power of truth and many may be converted. Those who have it are themselves infused with the Spirit of God and infuse others, drawing nourishment from Christ who is light and life and revealing fresh, new life principles to others.
Having the name on the church books pledges a life dead to worldly inducements and living unto God in active service of Christ. That life is shown by constantly learning how to reflect light to the world and by earnest devotion to the cause of the coming King that makes the believer a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. It testifies unfailingly in the words of the mouth, in modest dress, and in a humble spirit that the believer is a laborer together with God. Yet the professed people of God are not yet as earnest and devoted as they should be, and few have become dead to the world and alive to God. A church that has refused greater light, turned from the holy commandment, and failed to follow the way to renewed knowledge, holiness and victory over the world cannot reckon itself dead to sin or alive to God while walking contrary to the light and conditions of the gospel in truth and righteousness.
Remaining dead to sin means the mouth remains a sanctified mouth and the tongue a converted tongue, speaking of God's goodness and praising His holy name so as to be a great help and blessing to the church. It means giving self wholly to Him for service in constant dependence on Him, so the likeness of His character is stamped on the heart by His Spirit, working as He worked and bearing the message He bore. This gives power to become sons of God and power to obtain victory over sin, living the Christ-life in purity and holiness and revealing sanctification of soul by truth in daily life. It means never glossing over sin and never keeping perverted appetites and passions but uprooting and casting them away and refusing to be slaves of passion. It means guarding sanctified reason as a precious heaven-sent gift, and living radiant with heaven's brightness, gladdened by rich promises and filled with thanksgiving.
Reckoning oneself dead indeed to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ requires not letting sin reign in the mortal body by obeying its lusts. It means not yielding the bodily members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but yielding self to God as alive from the dead and the members as instruments of righteousness to God. This includes rejecting sinful habits such as tobacco use and living for God rather than yielding to them. It includes presenting mind, soul, body and strength to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, to answer the purpose of creation. It requires self-denial, temperance, intelligent obedience to light in the Word about eating and drinking and habits of life, control of appetite, lust and passions, so as to speak and act intelligently and avoid bringing feebleness on the body, especially for those living in the last days that they may walk in the light for Christ's sake. This belongs with teaching the knowledge of salvation, sin, and redemption from sin's bondage and defilement.
Being dead to the world means being dead to fashion and pride and careful in expenditure of means. Those who have died to the world contribute liberally to support gospel messengers entering new fields to carry truth to those who never heard it, giving to this work every dollar they can save and spending nothing for selfish gratification or adornment. God-fearing parents who are dead to sin do not allow children to dress as worldlings dress even if the children do not profess conversion, for money is the Lord's and must not indulge children in worldly fashions and pleasures; they dress them neatly and tastefully, refuse to sustain following the fashions, and do not let children's minds control theirs. As God-fearing parents they lead children very young to give hearts to God, tell them the desire to see them converted and baptized, and work to that end. After baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, remaining dead to the world and alive to God presents those three heavenly Worthies as power and efficiency to keep doing missionary work through the cities without discouragement, living humbled and converted before God and cooperating with Him in others' conversion, sustained by His blessing and daily comfort of grace unto final triumph in the kingdom of glory.
Those alive to God through Christ are dead to self, separating from sin and selfishness and developing a character fit to remain in the book of life. The names retained there belong to those who love God with all powers and neighbor as self. Abiding in Christ is being crucified with Him, dead to the world and alive to Christ, becoming a partaker of His resurrection-life so He is glorified in the life. It requires a personal work for the Master no one else can do, and to wear the crown of life Christ must be formed within as the hope of glory.
Becoming alive unto God is passing from being dead in trespasses and sins in spiritual death to receiving life from God. That passing is the aim of preaching, reached when truth is applied in every address so that whoever hears, men, women and youth from least to greatest, understands it, and by leading all to search the Word. It is worked when God puts His own power within a speaker under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, enabling words of warning, appeal, reproof and correction in righteousness to reach the dead and arouse them to receive life.