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“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” So wrote British poet John Masefield, romanticizing the call of the sea and the age of sail.
Of course, if Masefield was at all familiar with the realities of sailing, he knew that a navigator required a bit more than a single star to guide his vessel safely across the seas. At the very least, he needed knowledge of the stars’ courses and world geography. But then there was the all-too-frequent problem of having the ship without a star to steer by. What was a navigator to do on a cloudy night?
The answer: dead reckoning, a method of determining a ship’s position by calculating its direction and speed from its last known location. If, for instance, the ship’s log showed that it had been traveling in a certain direction at a certain speed since the last astronomical observation, it was a simple matter to come up with a fairly precise reckoning of the ship’s position.
Paul prescribes something very similar for living the Christian life, and in very similar language: “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:11).
The Apostle has been teaching that grace is greater than sin, and he opens chapter 6 of Romans with a hypothetical question: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!” But he then poses a tougher query: “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” I’m tempted to answer, “Very easily, thank you,” since sin is an ever-present reality in my life. But Paul is not saying the Romans have gained a complete victory over temptation. He is reminding them that their encounter with Christ brought an end to their lives of sin. Their hearts were changed and their wills renewed; they were made able to please God. Sin’s power was broken, and they cannot become subject to it again.
The reality, therefore, is that Christians are dead to sin. Yes, we still sin. But by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, sin can be overpowered. And we never will be wholly under its sway again.
However, as noted above, this truth can be forgotten as our failures outnumber our victories over temptation. It is then that we must resort to dead reckoning. We must remember our last known position—dead to sin, a state affirmed by the star by which we steer, the Word of God. We were in sin, but we have sailed out of those waters by the grace of God. Furthermore, our course is set and unalterable—we are alive to God in Christ. These are facts, and the clouds of temptation and failure cannot obscure them.
Let us navigate the Christian life by a sure and certain faith. Come to a conviction of the truth—reckon yourself dead to your life of sin.