Well then, my brothers, I appeal to you by all the mercy of God to dedicate your bodies as a living sacrifice, consecrated and acceptable to God; that is your cult, a spiritual rite.
(for this was why the gospel was preached to the dead as well, that while they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live as God lives in the spirit).
Once convinced of this, then, I estimate no one by what is external; even though I once estimated Christ by what is external, I no longer estimate him thus.
and he has further qualified me to be the minister of a new covenant — a covenant not of written law but of spirit; for the written law kills but the Spirit makes alive.
Truly, truly I tell you, he who listens to my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he will incur no sentence of judgment, he has already passed from death across to life.