12 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
I.) The Premise Behind Paul’s Instruction
The Mercies of God
The mercies of God have been a theme in this letter. The Holy Spirit has set forth over and over again the mercies of God in the book of Romans. The word for “Mercies” here communicates the idea of God’s favor, compassion, and or pity. It speaks of the goodness of God to His people. God has been and continues to be tender towards His people. Paul has written already of these mercies repeatedly,
Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:8 God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who[a] do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
These are just a few times in the preceding chapters Paul has written of the mercies of God. These preceding chapters of Romans have emphasized doctrine. From here on out Paul is going to emphasize our duty in light of the doctrine.
But before we rush into that pause with me again and realize the greatness of God’s mercies towards us in Christ. Remind yourself of how the Triune God has revealed and continues to reveal His great compassion and mercy towards His people. It is important to be settled on this because our response to walk in terms of these great mercies of the Triune God towards, which Paul now calls for, will only reach as high as we are deeply convinced of God’s tender mercies towards His people. The Triune God was never obligated by outside forces to call and cherish you and yet He has loved y’all with a everlasting love. Scripture teaches that God delights in His people (Psalm 149:4). He has poured out His mercies upon us by not leaving us without God and without hope.
Everything that follows in Romans 12 is dependent upon us being confident of God’s tender mercies towards us.
II.) The Two Practices Paul’s Calls For
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
This language is reaching back to the OT and the sacrificial system. In the OT the sacrifices that were offered up ended up dead in the sacrificial rite. However, we are now living in the new covenant where Christ has fulfilled all the sacrificial imagery. Still, however, we see here that there are sacrifices left to be made by the believer. The sacrifice of the believer is to no longer walk as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind. (Eph. 4:17)
In the original Greek, the term “sacrifice” (thysia) implies a complete offering. Unlike the dead sacrifices of the Old Testament, a living sacrifice is ongoing and involves daily dedication to God.
The reference here to bodies might be a reference to the whole man or the reason “bodies” is mentioned is because of the gross immorality that was so common among the ancient world.
Paul is writing here to the Christian that he is not his own and so is to live unto God as a living sacrifice. The idea that we are God’s living sacrifices reminds us that our living isn’t self centered but is God centered. As a living sacrifice to God all of our living is like the OT sacrifices, in so far as just as their dying was for Him so our living is for Him.
That is also brought out in the idea that we, as living sacrifices, are Holy, acceptable to God. The reminder here is that just as the OT sacrifices were set apart for God (and so Holy) so our living is to be set apart to God. That is the idea of Holy. Of course, if something is Holy it is unique and different from all that is around it that is not Holy. This again emphasizes that our lives are lived before the face of God understanding that our living belongs to Him.
The Heidelberg reminds us that this kind of living is connected to the truths that we are Priests under sovereign God.
I am a member of Christ and thus a partaker of His anointing,2 in order that I also may may present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him (LD 12, Q. 31).
We note here also that this sacrificial living as unto God is acceptable to God.
Holy and acceptable implies the idea that what is being offered up is what God requires. In the OT sacrificial system the sacrifice would not be received apart from being without spot or blemish. In the same say that which is holy and acceptable to God be ourselves as living sacrifices is going to be consistent with what God calls for in a sacrifice. Now, we understand that our lives, as living sacrifices, are never without spot or blemish. However, God’s standard is what we press towards as living sacrifices.
Here we must remind ourselves that all of our living unto God is acceptable for the sake of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit works in us to be living sacrifices and our living as sacrifices is received as acceptable as offered up by Christ our living Head before the Father who finds in our living of sacrifice pleasure.
We are reminded here that because of God’s mercies, we live as God’s sacrifices distinct from those who live with themselves as their own God offering themselves unto themselves for their own glory.
The Greek word λογικὴν has been debated. It probably means rational, denoting a moral and spiritual serving of God. The implied opposition to reasonable or rational that the Apostle calls for would be worship that is mechanical rote performative acts.
It is a reasonable/rational act of service because of the great mercies of God towards us.
The second practice the Holy Spirit calls for is to be a distinct people. This is captured in the idea of not being conformed to this world.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The world in Paul’s lexicon operates according to a different axis. The world lies under the evil one. The world is in opposition to God’s authority and calling. Elsewhere in Scripture we learn that friendship with the world is enmity (warfare) against God. To be conformed to the world is to live as if the sky above is bronze and the earth below is iron. To be conformed to the world presupposes that there is no God except the self. The world lies in opposition to God.
The Holy Spirit says we are not to be conformed to this world. This implies that there is going to be something different about us vis-a-vis the world and the more the world is consistent with being the world the greater the distinction there will be between who we are as we are transformed by the renewing of our mind and who they are. The greater the distinction between the “world conformed” and those “transformed by the renewing of their minds,” the more the animosity is going to rise between world conformed and mind transformed.
The text gives us a means by which we can avoid being conformed to the world and that is by being transformed by the renewing of your mind. R. C. Sproul built his whole ministry with “renewing your mind” as his trademark.
There is a great deal that can needs be said on the idea of the renewing of your mind. We may take some time here beyond this message.
First, we note that this teaching reinforces the idea that the Christian life is the life of the mind. Jesus Himself said, “This is eternal life that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.” Elsewhere Paul can write, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Elsewhere Paul writes that “we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” The whole of Scripture is posited in order to instruct our thinking.
Of course, it is true that we can not renew our mind apart from the Holy Spirit turning on the lights but that is not inconsistent with the need to be constantly sanctifying our minds.
Perhaps the worlds greatest achievement in working so that we are conformed to the world is by keeping us so accelerated and so busy that we find no time to renew our minds. The conforming world educates us into imbecility from the tenderest of ages and keeps the pressure up all the way through Ph. D. programs. The world conforms us to the world by disallowing us to learn how to think critically. The world conforms us to the world by serving up, from our tenderest ages, the centrality and priority of man centered thinking. From learning the “see and say” system of reading, to Ph.D. Thesis on History or philosophy that explicitly rules out the necessity of presupposing God in understanding History or philosophy all of our systems, both inside and outside the church, labor arduously to NOT allow our thinking to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
This renewing of our minds requires us to think about the world as presupposing God and His Word. Of course, even here the conforming world is hostile. The conforming world doesn’t want us thinking how the God of the Bible informs how we think about beginnings, about how we know what we know, about the purpose, goal, and end of life, about what it means to seek the Kingdom of God above all else. The conforming world tells us to “settle down,” and “you have to go along to get along.” “Don’t make waves.”
This renewing of the mind called for is a staple especially for historic Calvinists. Calvinists have always taught that in light of this call to have renewed minds that therefore Christianity was not just a fire insurance program. A way to escape the lapping flames of hell. Historic Calvinism, above all other expressions of Christianity, understood the Christian faith to be a totalistic world and life view.
Our Calvinistic fathers saw mind renewal as touching every area of life. Not only for the individual, but also for whole cultures and civilizations. All of Christ for all of life was their trademark.
Consider this quote from Machen about the impact of mind renewing on a corporate scale,
“Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed … [I]t is not true that the Christian evangelist is interested in the salvation of individuals without being interested in the salvation of the race.” Christianity & Liberalism.
What is in this quote is the idea that mind renewed individual Christians desire to live in mind renewed cultures and civilizations. The mind renewed Christian is interested in the salvation and mind renewal of the whole human race. Machen is letting is postmillennial slip show here.
As most of you know I have tried to make this idea of All of Christ for All of Life a cornerstone of my ministry. I have tried, and no doubt admittedly failed at times, to explain what the renewed mind looks like for every area of life. For history. For anthropology. For philosophy. For the arts. For every area of life. It has been an uphill climb in the wider church because the wider church desires, notable exceptions notwithstanding, desires to be conformed to this world.
This was seen again recently as a conservative denomination just last week in a very public action deposed a minister for having his mind renewed on the subject of male and female gender roles. The governing body demonstrated in a 41-0 vote that they desired to be conformed to this world.
Well, there you have it. Two simple verses but implicit in this call for the renewing of the mind is warfare both inside and outside the church. We will look more closely at this warfare the next few weeks considering particularly what it means to have a renewed mind vis-a-vis a conformed mind. This will mean looking at competing ideas of conformity to the world with being transformed by the renewing of our minds.
