Fourth: We are alive unto God. Romans 6:11, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Not only are we justified and kept safe and crucified with him and buried with him but in the plan of God we are risen with him. What a wonderful mercy this is!
Fifth: We have deliverance from the self life. The seventh chapter of Romans is just the cry of a breaking heart and reaches its climax in the twenty-fourth verse, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But the deliverance is in the eighth chapter, especially in the second verse, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." What a mercy this is!
Sixth: For those of us who believe there is no condemnation. Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Judgment is past because he has been judged. We have nothing to do with the great white throne; Christ as our substitute has met sin's penalty and paid our debts. What a mercy this is! No wonder Paul is thrilled with the thought of it.
Seventh: No separation. Romans 8:38-39, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." So that for time we are safe and our eternity is sure. Was there ever such a catalogue of mercies? In the light of all this the Apostle exclaims, "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" (Romans 12:1).
It is a good thing to study Paul's "therefores." He is a logician of the highest type.
In Romans 5:1, there is the "therefore of justification."
In Romans the eighth chapter and the first verse there is the "therefore of no condemnation."
In Romans the twelfth chapter and the first verse there is the "therefore of consecration," and this as a matter of fact is the outline of the Epistle.
II
Present your bodies. This means the entire yielding of one's self to Christ. It corresponds to the Old Testament presentation of the burnt offering all of which was consumed. Back in the Old Testament times for fourteen years there had been no song in the temple, for it was filled with rubbish and uncleanness, but the rubbish was put away and the uncleanness vanished, the burnt offering was presented and the song of the Lord began again. If you have lost your song and have been deprived of the harmony of heaven then present your bodies a living sacrifice.