p. 5 | Bodily Consecration by C. A. Rhodes

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 26, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 38.

Bodily Consecration

By C. A. Rhodes

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Rom. 12:1.

HE apostle Paul entreats the believers in Christ to offer their bodies as a rational sacrifice. Paul himself considered that he was a "prisoner," a "bondslave" of his Lord. He therefore thought it nothing strange for a brother to present to God his body with all its functions, powers, and inherent worth. Rather it was the "reasonable service" of reciprocal love to offer his body to Christ as the Master had given His own person to redeem the servant.

The implied relation suggested by the terms "servant" and "Saviour" would to any consistent mind demand compensation from the servant for his redemption from servitude. And what more reasonable recompense could be made than that the servant should offer his living body in appreciable, loving service for the Master? His body is no longer his own. Had he not been redeemed from his slavery, he still would have belonged to his old master. So Paul says in another epistle (1 Cor. 6:19, 20; 7:23), "Ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body."

It is not only the rational religious privilege of a professed Christian to present his body as a living sacrifice, but it is only a consecration consistent with a trustful, abiding love for the Master.

He whose love is infinite, but is so far discernible to us in giving His life for our ransom, can assuredly be trusted in perfect confidence that He will care for the body that is presented to Him free from worldly restrictions and indulgences. A failure to impose this confidence in Him is basely to accuse Him of inability to provide for bodily needs, or is a weak admission on our part that we fear to trust Him — Him who provides for the sparrow and clothes the field with verdure.

He who makes life his altar, and his body a living sacrifice, will not fret when the purifying fire of God descends. If that sacrifice has been full, the sin-consuming flame will but purge out the dross and leave the character purified; but if feigned, that fire in its sin-hating nature must consume the drossful servant of sin, as typified by the divine cremation of Nadab and Abihu. Lev. 10:1, 2. "I entreat you therefore, brethren, by the tender compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God — your rational religious service." (Emphatic Diaglott.)