02.20. I. The: Living Sacrifice (12: 1, 2).
I. The: Living Sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2).
1. I beseech you (Rom 12:1). The verb here is parakaleo, from Paraclete, the Holy Spirit’s title so often translated Comforter. It is also applied to the Lord Jesus as our Advocate (1Jn 2:1). The verb itself is frequently found in the New Testament, and is variously translated, beseech, call for, comfort, desire, exhort, intreat, and pray. It is a strong word, hard to render into English. But the Spirit uses it here, in seeking to induce His people to fully yield themselves to Him. It is as if God Himself were on His knees before His people, if we may so speak, begging them to once and for all give themselves over to Him, and thus enter into the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.
2. Therefore (Rom 12:1). This word calls attention to all that has preceded it in the epistle. Doubtless, the special connection is with the argument which ends with Rom 8:1-39, the theodicy of Rom 9:1-33, Rom 10:1-21, Rom 11:1-36 being parenthetical; and yet it may well be that even those chapters were also in the writer’s mind as he wrote the therefore. The practical exhortations which are to follow are based upon the doctrines already set forth. What the eye is in the body, that faith is to the soul, and the knowledge of divine things. Yet it has need of practical virtue, as the eye has need of hands and feet and the other parts of the body. And therefore the divine apostle in his doctrinal argument subjoins ethical instruction also (Theodoret).
3. Brethren (Rom 12:1). It is a message for the brethren, and not for the unbeliever. Let no one distort this passage into a gospel text. The unsaved sinner cannot give himself to God, and if he could the offering would not be acceptable. The only thing for a lost man to do is to receive the Lord Jesus as his personal Saviour. After that is done, he may speak of making an offering.
4. By the mercies of God (Rom 12:1). The mercies of God are surely exhibited in the gospel, as so graphically portrayed in the preceding chapters of our epistle. By these very facts, he says, I beseech you, by which ye were saved: as if anyone wishing to make an impression on one who had received great benefits, were to bring his benefactor himself to supplicate him (Chrysostom).
5. That ye present your bodies (Rom 12:1). The verb is connected with sacrifice. Present, says Dr. Stifler, is a temple term for the bringing thither of anything to God. So Jesus was presented (Luk 2:22), and so Paul would present each believer (Col 1:28). He entreats the Romans to make themselves a sacrificial offering to God. The word ‘present’ occurs first in the epistle at Rom 6:13, a verse which this chapter now unfolds. It is there translated ‘yield.’ ‘Bodies’ is the comprehensive term for the whole man, body, soul, and spirit (1Th 5:23). It is equivalent to ‘yourselves,’ but better suited than the latter word to Paul’s sacrificial idea.
6. A living sacrifice (Rom 12:1). The sacrificial victims under the old covenant were slain. But since the one sacrifice for all has been accomplished on Calvary there is no further need of dead sacrifices. What God wants is that we make a present of ourselves to Him, as living sacrifices, putting ourselves into His hand, for His pleasure.
7. Holy (Rom 12:1). We are holy brethren (Heb 3:1), by reason of the substitutionary sacrificial work of the Son of God on our behalf; we are sanctified (made holy) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb 10:10).
8. Acceptable unto God (Rom 12:1). How wonderful it is that we are permitted and enabled to make an acceptable offering, who were once sinners of the Gentiles! The glory for it all belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ; we are accepted in the Beloved, in Whom we have redemption through His blood (Eph 1:6-7).
9. Which is your reasonable service (Rom 12:1). The adjective here is logical. Alford renders it rational, and remarks that it is opposed to carnal or fleshly (see Heb 7:16). So Chrysostom: having in it nothing corporeal, nothing gross, nothing subject to sense. The contrast is between the fleshly sacrifices of Judaism and the spiritual sacrifices of the new dispensation (compare 1Pe 2:5; John 4:23-24).
10. And be not conformed to this age: but be ye transfigured (Rom 12:2). The two verbs used here, usually translated conformed and transformed, are radically different from each other:
(1) The former is from suschematizo, to fashion alike (Strong), or to become like shaped (H. A. W. Meyer). To be conformed to this age is to yield oneself to it, following the line of least resistance, as jelly in a mould, until one becomes like the age, having given up the good fight of faith. Thus Demas forsook Paul, having loved this present age (2Ti 4:10), and forgot Him Who gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver, us from this present evil age, according to the will of God and our Father (Gal 1:4). The word translated conformed is rendered in 1Pe 1:14, fashioning yourselves according.
(2) On the other hand, the word translated transformed is from metamorphoo, which gives us our English word metamorphosis, and means literally transfigured. The same Greek word is used in the gospel accounts of the transfiguration on the mount (see Mat 17:2; Mark 9:2). Our Lord’s transfiguration did not result from outward conditions, but rather from an unveiling of that which was within. So we are called upon here to be transfigured. Quite a different word is rendered transform in 2Co 11:13-15, where Satan and his agents are said to be transformed into angels and messengers of light and righteousness. The word there is metaschematizo, and is defined by Strong as meaning to disguise. The same word reads transferred in 1Co 4:6—”These things … I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes.”
11. By the renewing of your mind (Rom 12:2). Renewing occurs but once elsewhere in the New Testament. In Tit 3:5 it is written, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit. This renewing is not our work, but the Spirit’s. We are not called upon to renew our minds in order that we may be transfigured: we are only to yield ourselves unto God, and He does all the rest. In other words, as Alford puts it, the renewing of your mind is not the instrument by which, but the manner in which the metamorphosis takes place: that wherein it consists. The process is set forth clearly enough in 2Co 3:18, where it is written, But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transfigured (metamorphoumetha) into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (Improved Version).
12. That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (Rom 12:2). The R. V. marginal rendering here is: that ye may prove what is the will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect. Prove here has the force of discern or recognize.
Dr. Stifler warns us to beware of the chapter mark which cuts off these two verses from what precedes, as if an entirely new thought were taken up with Rom 12:1-21. These two verses are intimately connected with the summing up at the close of Rom 11:1-36. That summary led Paul to adoring worship as he viewed God’s wide-reaching plans. And the idea of these two verses is worship evoked and provoked by the same view. The Romans are to present themselves for a rational service, a worship in which the spiritual reason leads. This worship is impossible except by men dissevered from conformity to the world. He who is ruled by the world’s spirit and pursuits, to whom the world is the only great thing, cannot worship. The spring of the worship, as well as its power, is just what it was in Paul, a mind that discerns God’s will in the dispensational ordering of the world to bring about its ultimate salvation (see Eph 3:14-21), a mind that sees that will as good and acceptable and perfect. When the corner-stone of creation was laid, all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job 38:6-7); and he, too, will worship, who sees the corner-stone laid by God in Christ for the new creation. It takes mind (Rom 12:2) to know mind (Rom 11:34). These two mentions of the word look each other in the face across the chapter bar, and man’s mind in its mortal activity never acts normally except in adoring worship. ‘Present your bodies’ is the first step. ‘That ye may prove the will’ is then, first of all, His will in Christ for the redeeming of the nations, Jew and Gentile. And only as this will is known can anyone see how he is himself to act. The renewed mind dwelling on the sublime purposes of God gains an increasing delicacy of discernment of its own moral action, and is prepared for personal guidance in all questions of duty and living, and to occupy spiritual offices acceptably. It is at this point that Paul branches off on duties. The qualification to discharge them is a knowledge of God’s ways.