What is your best explanation of what it means to "consider yourself to be dead unto sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus"?

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It took a few reads of the full chapter of Romans 6 to grasp the meaning of the words.

Sin is what happens when you overlook the needs of the many in order to satisfy the whims of the flesh. The Old Testament is full of stories of God making commandments to stop doing all these bad things.

Let’s examine an example from the Biblical texts. The story of Bathsheba has David desiring her so badly that he sent her husband away to war and purposefully had him killed on the front lines. David very clearly sinned and so he was punished accordingly by God, his firstborn of the marriage succumbed to illness.

So what does Romans 6 have to say about David’s actions? Well the passage: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts,” indicates that David should not let his desire to own Bathsheba overtake him. Indeed, it wasn’t David’s lust that prompted God to punish him, it was the action that David took to keep her for his own.

Further on, the chapter reads: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?”

This concerns, rather than weakness, a choice over which to obey. If you are weak to the flesh, then satisfy your flesh and ask later for forgiveness. If you have a choice, choose to obey God instead. Indeed, God said to David through Nathan that if all the things He had given to David hadn’t been enough, he would have given him more.

David did not have a personal relationship with God, God had to send the prophet Nathan in order to discuss the incident with him. But Christians can talk directly to God and hear His instructions.

So the passage encourages Christians to think not in terms of sin, to consider the concept dead, so long as they’re also talking to and obeying God. Had David taken the opportunity to consult with God beforehand, perhaps they could have worked out a compromise that didn’t involve killing Bathsheba’s husband.

Jesus understands our needs. Allow Him to provide.