You’ve probably heard of “dead reckoning”. “In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one’s current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time and course.” (Wikipedia) “Reckon yourselves to be dead” is wording that is found in Romans 6:11 The whole verse is, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Instead of the word “reckon”, you could use the word “consider”.
To really understand what Paul is talking about, we need to start back at verse 4, “Therefore we were buried with Him (Jesus) through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.”
So, our “old man” is indeed dead. We need to “reckon” or “consider” it as being so. This is not a mind game that God asks us to play. It really is so. This is why Paul can say, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
The death of our “old man” can be traced back to an OT Scripture, found in Ezekiel 36, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone (the old man) out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
A dead man is indeed free from sin, so do some “dead reckoning” … go from your last known position … “dead to sin” … to your current position … “alive to God” … and consider it to be so. Your map and compass, the Bible, shows it to be a fact that you can rely on.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Cor. 5:17