ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Romans 6.11

Book: Romans · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

9. knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over him. 10. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

11. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

  1. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof: 13. neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:9-13, ASV)
WEB

9. knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him! 10. For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.

11. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

  1. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:9-13, WEB)
KJV

9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

11. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

  1. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. instruments: Gr. arms, or, weapons (Romans 6:9-13, KJV)
YLT

9. knowing that Christ, having been raised up out of the dead, doth no more die, death over him hath no more lordship; 10. for in that he died, to the sin he died once, and in that he liveth, he liveth to God;

11. so also ye, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to the sin, and living to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

  1. Let not then the sin reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires; 13. neither present ye your members instruments of unrighteousness to the sin, but present yourselves to God as living out of the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God; (Romans 6:9-13, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: Paul the Apostle
  • Audience: the mixed Jewish and Gentile house churches at Rome, a congregation Paul had neither founded nor yet visited
  • Location: composed at Corinth, addressed to Rome
  • Time period: c. AD 57

Theological reading

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. The verb is logizomai, the accounting term that dominated chapter 4, and its reappearance here is deliberate: what God reckoned to the believer in justification, the believer is now to reckon about himself in sanctification.

The grammar settles a common misreading. Reckon is an imperative, but its object is an accomplished fact stated in the indicative at verses 2 to 10. Paul is not telling believers to pretend, nor to achieve a death to sin by force of concentration. He is telling them to count as true what is true. Verse 11 is the first imperative in the letter's argument, and it arrives only after nine verses of description.

This verse is the pivot of the "exchanged life" teaching associated with the Keswick tradition and, most influentially in the modern devotional literature, with Watchman Nee, whose The Normal Christian Life organises Romans 6 to 8 around the sequence know, reckon, present. The strength of that reading is that it takes the indicative seriously. The standard Reformed criticism is that it can be pressed until sanctification becomes purely a matter of correct reckoning, whereas Paul immediately follows with active imperatives: let not sin reign (v. 12), neither present your members (v. 13), and at 8:13 the believer must put to death the deeds of the body. Both the reckoning and the effort are commanded, and neither is a substitute for the other. See Sanctification.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Lexicon:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.