of explaining in a manner agreeable to reason whatever is apparently

supernatural in the records of sacred history', and to act in a rational way

excludes not only anything foolish, but anything fanatical.  In spite of this

corruption of a noble word, the apostle Paul urges upon us all a 'rational

service' (Rom. 12:1).  Now this service which he calls rational contains the

very elements that would cause a rationalist to set it aside as fanaticism,

for it sums up the whole of the believer's rational service by saying:

'Present your bodies a living sacrifice'.

The English word 'sacrifice' also has lost an essential part of its meaning.

Sacrifice may or may not involve the shedding of blood, it may or may not be

accompanied by pain, loss, or deprivation.  It belongs to a group of words

like sacrament, sacrilege, sacristan, all of which revolve round the central

idea of something 'sacred'.  The word 'sacrifice' means literally 'to render

sacred' and comes from the Latin sacri 'sacred', and ficare, for facere, 'to

make'.  Now this Latin word facere gives us the English word fact and also

the English word 'perfect', per, through or thoroughly, and facere to make,

to become a fact.  Before, therefore, we turn to the Greek to learn from the

Word and words of God, our own English tongue supplies us with a precious

meaning of the word sacrifice; it means 'to make sacredness a fact', 'to

carry sanctification to its goal', 'to perfect holiness'.  Should such

perfecting demand the giving up of anything, the loss of anything, the

suffering of anything, this will be readily accepted, and inasmuch as we are

sinful creatures living in a world of sin, any move towards turning the

theory or doctrine of 'sacredness' into the practical reality must of

necessity be accompanied by suffering because of the opposition of evil.

Take, as another example, the word 'suffer'.  Here again the root of the word

reveals that pain is accidental to the word, for it is composed of suf (sub),

under; and ferre, to bear.  The English word 'bear' is simply the Greek

pherein and Latin ferre in English dress.  It has often puzzled children, and

sometimes their teachers, why the Lord should have said 'Suffer little

children to come unto Me', for of course no idea of pain is in mind.  Here

and in parallel cases, the word simply means to bear, to carry, to allow, to

Just as sacrifice originally means carrying the idea of sacredness

through into practice at whatever cost, so suffering means to bear whatever

burden of joy, sorrow or responsibility it may be right for us to endure,

whether pain and sorrow accompany the endurance or not.

Turning from the English to the original Scriptures, we find that the

one word translated 'sacrifice' in the New Testament is thusia.  Thuo from

which thusia comes, is translated, 'to sacrifice', 'to kill and to slay', but

it must be remembered that killing is a secondary meaning.  This root word

enters into the composition of thumiama 'incense' and thumiaterion, a vessel

in which incense was burned, 'a censer' (Heb. 9:4).  The word thusiasterion

which generally refers to the altar upon which the slain animal was burned,

is nevertheless used of the altar of incense in Luke 1:11, where the idea of

death or shedding of blood cannot be permitted.  The fact, also, that the New

Testament can use the word 'sacrifice' of that which is living (Rom. 12:1),

and of the actions of believers (Heb. 13:16; Phil. 2:17), without the

remotest thought of their death being involved, shows that the slaying and

killing is not inherent in a sacrifice, it only becomes a necessity when it

deals with sin.  Then, when sin is in view, the sacrifice must involve the

shedding of blood, simply because it is offered vicariously for the ungodly,

and because the wages of sin is death.  It is rational that the language of