Knowing Christianity

  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (Rom.12:1 NKJV).   In the last four chapters of Romans Paul takes up the matter of our duty as children of God. He kicks this chapter off by dealing with the believer’s consecration. We learn here that consecration is not only the will of God, but also the reasonable service of every believer.      Paul first makes an appeal to a consecrated life. Therefore refers to the believer reckoning himself dead to sin and alive unto God as established in the previous chapters. Beseech means “to entreat; to supplicate; to implore; to ask or pray with urgency.” In the context here it is better to consider the word not as a command. Paul is urging believers to respond willingly from within themselves rather than be influenced or even forced by apostolic authority to conform. Paul is imploring believers to die to

  I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).   Galatians 2:20 provides a succinct statement of the very heart of the Christian’s new condition. The believer has died so far as the law is concerned because he has been crucified with Christ . Crucified with is used figuratively, describing the identification of the believer with Christ in the theological aspects of His crucifixion. The tense of the verb is perfect, which looks at an action that occurred in the past, but which produced effects that continue. When the Lord Jesus was crucified, God identified every believer with Him, therefore believers were crucified with Him; they died to the law when Christ died on the cross. The penalty demanded by God’s broken law was satisfied by the crucifixion and its effects have never changed. Because the believer was and s