ls offering sacrifices acceptable
to God by Christ. He describes priesthood and offering in these words:
"Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ." 1 Pet 2, 5.

6. Peter says "spiritual sacrifices," but Paul says our bodies are to
be offered up. While it is true that the body is not spirit, the
offering of it is called a spiritual sacrifice because it is freely
sacrificed through the Spirit, the Christian being uninfluenced by the
constraints of the Law or the fear of hell. Such motives, however,
sway the ecclesiasts, who have heaped tortures upon themselves by
undergoing fasts, uncomfortable clothing, vigils, hard beds and other
vain and difficult performances, and yet failed to attain to this
spiritual sacrifice. Rather, they have wandered the farther from it
because of their neglect to mortify their old Adam-like nature. They
have but increased in presumption and wickedness, thinking by their
works and merits to raise themselves in God's estimation. Their
penances were not intended for the mortification of their bodies, but
as works meriting for them superior seats in heaven. Properly, then,
their efforts may be regarded a carnal sacrifice of their bodies,
unacceptable to God and most acceptable to the devil.

7. But spiritual sacrifices, Peter tells us, are acceptable to God;
and Paul teaches the same (Rom 8, 13): "If by the Spirit ye put to
death the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Paul speaks of mortifying
through the Spirit; Peter, of a spiritual sacrifice. The offering must
first be slain. Paul's thought is: "If ye mortify the deeds of the
body in your individual, chosen ways, unprompted by the Spirit or your
own heart, simply through fear of punishment, that mortification--that
sacrifice--will be carnal; and ye shall not live, but die a death the
more awful." The Spirit must mortify your deeds--spiritually it must
be done; that is, with real enjoyment, unmoved by fear of hell,
voluntarily, without expectation of meriting honor or reward, either
temporal or eternal. This, mark you, is a spiritual sacrifice. However
outward, gross, physical and visible a deed may be, it is altogether
spiritual when wrought by the Spirit. Even eating and drinking are
spiritual works if done through the Spirit. On the other hand,
whatsoever is wrought through the flesh is carnal, no matter to what
extent it may