the Old Testament should use discriminative words for sacrifice, for at the

very heart of its ceremonial were the varying types of sacrifice.  There was

the minchah, a present, which is translated over 130 times 'meat offering',

where no animal sacrifice is allowed.  There was the chag, a 'festival' or

'fest', and the todah, a 'thanksgiving' from which is derived the name Judah

and Jew, and zebach which means something slaughtered.  We must be prepared

therefore to find in the covering word thusia of the New Testament, room for

all phases of offering that were enjoined under the Old Covenant.

Anyone acquainted with the teaching of the apostle Paul, and who had

intelligently followed his teaching through the first eleven chapters of

Romans, would know that the most unreasonable thing to counsel the believer

to do would be to offer himself or anything else as a sacrifice for sin that

involved death or the shedding of blood.  Such an aspect of the word thusia

has been gloriously filled to the full, so that there remaineth no more

sacrifice for sin.  Wherever the Offering of Christ is in view which was

accomplished by Him on the cross, that offering is always considered as being

'for sin', 'for our sins', 'putting away sin', 'dying for our sins'.  Such a

Sacrifice is impossible to man either saint or sinner and is never used of

him.  In Romans 12:1, the apostle gathers up all the grace and all the mercy

that has been revealed in the preceding eleven chapters, and says that our

rational service in view of such grace is to:

'Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,

which is your reasonable service'.

Now, paristemi 'present' has occurred earlier in Romans, where we read:

'Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto

sin: but yield yourselves unto God, As Those That Are Alive From The

Dead' (Rom. 6:13).

That the translation 'yield' is inadequate, the next occurrence of

paristemi in Romans will prove:

'We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ' (Rom. 14:10).

The word would be better rendered 'present' in all its occurrences.

It

is this word that comes in those glorious passages that read:

'That He might present it to Himself a glorious church' (Eph. 5:27).

'In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy' (Col.

and the high ideal before the apostle,

'That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus' (Col. 1:28).

The believer, because of the deliverance from sin and its dominion, is

free to present himself to God as one that is alive from the dead.  He knows

that in 'that day' he shall be presented holy and blameless, so far as his

acceptance in the Beloved is concerned.  Should it not be the rational

response of such a one to 'present' himself to God, his body a living

sacrifice, something that takes hold of the sacredness that grace has

completed, and experimentally carries it through?  We find in the Scriptures

a great emphasis upon the thought that in all service there is sacrifice, and

anything that enables us to serve more acceptably should be eagerly