st, the second Adam, and as really
as I am united by my birth to the first Adam, I am made partaker of the
life of Christ. What life? That life which died unto sin on Calvary, and
which rose again; therefore God by his apostle tells us: "Reckon yourselves
indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus." You are to reckon
it as true, because God says it--for your new nature is indeed, in virtue
of your vital union to Christ, actually and utterly dead to sin.

If we want to have the real Christ that God has given us, the real Christ
that died for us, in the power of His death and resurrection, we must take
our stand here. But many Christians do not understand what the 6th chapter
of the Epistle to the Romans teaches us. They do not know that they are
dead to sin. They do not know it, and therefore Paul instructs them: "Know
ye not that as many of you as are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized
into His death." How can we who are dead to sin in Christ live any longer
therein? We have indeed the death and the life of Christ working within
us. But, alas! most Christians do not know this, and therefore do not
experience or practice it. They need to be taught that their first need is
to be brought to the recognition, to the knowledge, of what has taken place
in Christ on Calvary, and what has taken place in their becoming united
to Christ. The man must begin to say, even before he understands it, "In
Christ I am dead to sin." It is a command: "Reckon ye yourselves indeed to
be dead unto sin." Get hold of your union to Christ; believe in the new
nature within you, that spiritual life which you have from Christ, a life
that has died and been raised again. A man's acts are always in accordance
with his idea of his state. A king acts like a king, otherwise we say,
"That man has forgotten his kingship," but if a man is conscious of being
a king, he behaves like a king. And so I cannot live the life of a true
believer unless I am filled with a consciousness of this every day: "I
thank God that I am dead in Christ. Christ died unto sin, and I am united
with Christ, and Christ lives in me and I am dead to sin." What is the life
Christ lives in me? Ask what is the life Adam lives in me? Adam lives in me
the death life, a life that has fallen under the power of sin and death,
death to God. That life Adam lives in me by nature as an unconverted man.
And Christ, the second Adam, has come to me with a new life, and I now live
in