Reckoning and Romans

Discover the Power of Reckoning to Set You Free in Christ

Explore in Depth the Book of Romans

Welcome!

Reckoning is a biblical term that helps Christians understand two things:

What God thinks of us.
How therefore we should think of ourselves.

As you can see, reckoning is vital to the spiritual growth of every Christian. It’s unfortunate that few Christians are aware of the term, and even fewer can recognize it when reading their Bibles. Readers are not to blame, because most modern Bible translations make such recognition difficult.

For this reason, it comes as a surprise to many believers that the Apostle Paul’s most cherished epistle contains multiple uses of the verb to reckon. This term is at the heart of Paul’s argument in Romans for justification by faith. And reckoning on the truths of our position in Christ is Paul’s command to every believer. Paul tells us to recognize what God has done through Jesus Christ to free us from the control of sin and make us alive to worship and obey him.

The purpose of this website is to help you understand reckoning and put it into practice in your life. As I say in my book,

Reckoning is the launch point for decisive action to make real in our experience what God has declared to be true. It enforces in our thought life what God has said about us, and thought becomes father of action. The Holy Spirit beckons us to use this power of enforcement to remove everything that stands in the way of satisfying our heart’s desire for intimacy with God.

The site’s resources are in three categories.

1. My Book on Romans 6:11
Learn to think of yourself as God thinks of you. That is the goal of my book, Dead to Sin, Alive to God: Discover the Power of Reckoning to Set You Free in Christ. I show you how to obey this command by Apostle Paul:

“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be
dead indeed to sin,
but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord”
(Romans 6:11 NKJ)

To advance your sanctification, release the power of reckoning in your life. Read about the book here and decide if you wish to purchase it from the publisher or Amazon.

2. Exposition of Romans
This work comes from my pastoral experience and lifetime of Bible study. My method derives from my career in information analysis at the University of Oregon. Knowledge and method come together to create a synthesis of my own insights and the findings and conclusions of Romans scholars. Through my exposition many difficult Romans passages will come alive to you as never before.

For the analysis of each verse I freely reference the authors of modern Romans commentaries and other biblical and theological works. See the bibliography for my sources. Many chapters await you already.

3. Resources on Reckoning
You can study in depth the important biblical concept of reckoning. The moment we were saved by placing our trust in Christ, God reckoned us righteous. We now reckon ourselves righteous on the basis of God’s declaration. For his teaching on justification by faith in chapter 4 of Romans, Paul uses the verb to reckon 11 times. I explain the significance of this term wherever it appears in Romans.

This section of the website includes a definition of the Greek verb (logizomai), Bible verses on reckoning from both Old and New Testaments, and extensive quotes by scholars. I don’t think you will find another website that presents as much information on this important subject as you will find here.

What Do You Reckon as True?
Don’t let the word reckoning mislead you. We are not talking about the “day of reckoning,” as if you will be called to account for your actions. Nor will you find here reviews of the Reckoning music albums by the rock bands Grateful Dead and R.E.M. And no character in a Western movie will say, “I reckon I’ll mosey over to the saloon.” Well, one just did, but that’s all.

Simply put, reckoning is a type of thinking that considers something to be true. Everyone considers some things true—even if they are not true—so everyone reckons.

In my book Dead to Sin, Alive to God I describe biblical reckoning as follows:

Reckoning is a concept that comes from the world of mathematics and accounting, and here is what the Bible wants us to know: when we believe in Christ for salvation, God deposits in our spiritual bank account the righteousness of Christ and all the blessings that come from being in him. We draw from the riches in our account by reckoning these blessings ours. It’s like writing a check when we know that we have money in our account.

God’s reckoning, our reckoning
God himself reckons in the sense that he counts a person righteous on the basis of his or her faith in Christ. Genesis 15:6 says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness” (NASB). Because God credited righteousness to Abraham, Abraham was then entitled to reckon himself righteous. When we reckon, we do it the same way Abraham did—agreeing with what God says about us.

If you have been born again through trust in Jesus Christ, God has united you with Christ in his death and resurrection. As a result, God now thinks of you as dead to sin and alive to him, and he wants you to think of yourself the same way. Reckoning brings your thoughts in alignment with God’s thoughts about you.

As you learn more about this subject, you will find that it has the power to set you free!