Section 5
Our gospel should not be a kind of heaven-going gospel; it must be a gospel which ministers Christ to people. We need to minister Christ to people that they may be sanctified and transformed with the very essence of Christ and thereby become an offering to God. Whenever and wherever the church preaches the gospel, we must do it with the conviction that we are ministering Christ to people, that we are serving Christ as food for hungry sinners. We must minister Christ to them in order that Christ might become within them the sanctifying element to change their very being.
A Sweet Offering to God
In 15:16 Paul says that "the offering of the nations might be acceptable, having been sanc tified in the Holy Spirit." To be sanctified means to be separated, to be made holy with transfor mation in life. Paul considers the Gentile believ ers as a sweet offering to God. Once they were unclean and defiled people, but now they are sanctified and have become an offering pleasing to God. They have been transformed and con formed to the image of God and thus are fully acceptable to Him. This was the result of Paul's ministering Christ into the Gentiles. When Christ