Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
For I say through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith. For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don’t have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another, having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us: if prophecy, let’s prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or service, let’s give ourselves to service; or he who teaches, to his teaching; or he who exhorts, to his exhorting; he who gives, let him do it with generosity; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good. In love of the brothers be tenderly affectionate to one another; in honor preferring one another; not lagging in diligence; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; enduring in troubles; continuing steadfastly in prayer; contributing to the needs of the saints; given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless, and don’t curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Don’t set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Don’t be wise in your own conceits. Repay no one evil for evil. Respect what is honorable in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men. Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”
Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 After having handled those things necessary for the erection…
After having handled those things necessary for the erection of the kingdom of God, — that righteousness is to be sought from God alone, that salvation is to come to us alone from his mercy, that all blessings are laid up and daily offered to us in Christ only, — Paul now passes on, according to the best order, to show how the life is to be formed. If it be, that through the saving knowledge of God and of Christ, the soul is, as it were, regenerated into a celestial life, and that the life is in a manner formed and regulated by holy exhortations and precepts; it is then in vain that you show a desire to form the life aright, except you prove first, that the origin of all righteousness in men is in God and Christ; for this is to raise them from the dead.
And this is the main difference between the gospel and philosophy: for though the philosophers speak excellently and with great judgment on the subject of morals, yet whatever excellency shines forth in their precepts, it is, as it were, a beautiful superstructure without a foundation; for by omitting principles, they offer a mutilated doctrine, like a body without a head. Not very unlike this is the mode of teaching under the Papacy: for though they mention, by the way, faith in Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit, it yet appears quite evident, that they approach heathen philosophers far nearer than Christ and his Apostles.
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But as philosophers, before they lay down laws respecting morals, discourse first of the end of what is good, and inquire into the sources of virtues, from which afterwards they draw and derive all duties; so Paul lays down here the principle from which all the duties of holiness flow, even this, — that we are redeemed by the Lord for this end — that we may consecrate to him ourselves and all our members. But it may be useful to examine every part.
1. I therefore beseech you by the mercies (miserationes — compassions) of God, etc. We know that unholy men, in order to gratify the flesh, anxiously lay hold on whatever is set forth in Scripture respecting the infinite goodness of God; and hypocrites also, as far as they can, maliciously darken the knowledge of it, as though the grace of God extinguished the desire for a godly life, and opened to audacity the door of sin. But this exhortation teaches us, that until men really apprehend how much they owe to the mercy of God, they will never with a right feeling worship him, nor be effectually stimulated to fear and obey him. It is enough for the Papists, if they can extort by terror some sort of forced obedience, I know not what. But Paul, that he might bind us to God, not by servile fear, but by the voluntary and cheerful love of righteousness, allures us by the sweetness of that favor, by which our salvation is effected; and at the same time he reproaches us with ingratitude, except we, after having found a Father so kind and bountiful, do strive in our turn to dedicate ourselves wholly to him.
And what Paul says, in thus exhorting us, ought to have more power over us, inasmuch as he excels all others in setting forth the grace of God. Iron indeed must be the heart which is not kindled by the doctrine which has been laid down into love towards God, whose kindness towards itself it finds to have been so abounding. Where then are they who think that all exhortations to a holy life are nullified, if the salvation of men depends on the grace of God alone, since by no precepts, by no sanctions, is a pious mind so framed to render obedience to God, as by a serious meditation on the Divine goodness towards it?
We may also observe here the benevolence of the Apostle’s spirit, — that he preferred to deal with the faithful by admonitions and friendly exhortations rather than by strict commands; for he knew that he could prevail more with the teachable in this way than in any other.
That ye present your bodies, etc. It is then the beginning of a right course in good works, when we understand that we are consecrated to the Lord; for it hence follows, that we must cease to live to ourselves, in order that we may devote all the actions of our life to his service.
There are then two things to be considered here, — the first, that we are the Lord’s, — and secondly, that we ought on this account to be holy, for it is an indignity to God’s holiness, that anything, not first consecrated, should be offered to him. These two things being admitted, it then follows that holiness is to be practiced through life, and that we are guilty of a kind of sacrilege when we relapse into uncleanness, as it is nothing else than to profane what is consecrated.
But there is throughout a great suitableness in the expressions. He says first, that our body ought to be offered a sacrifice to God; by which he implies that we are not our own, but have entirely passed over so as to become the property of God; which cannot be, except we renounce ourselves and thus deny ourselves. Then, secondly, by adding two adjectives, he shows what sort of sacrifice this ought to be. By calling it living, he intimates, that we are sacrificed to the Lord for this end, — that our former life being destroyed in us, we may be raised up to a new life. By the term holy, he points out that which necessarily belongs to a sacrifice, already noticed; for a victim is then only approved, when it had been previously made holy. By the third word, acceptable, he reminds us, that our life is framed aright, when this sacrifice is so made as to be pleasing to God: he brings to us at the same time no common consolation; for he teaches us, that our work is pleasing and acceptable to God when we devote ourselves to purity and holiness.
By bodies he means not only our bones and skin, but the whole mass of which we are composed; and he adopted this word, that he might more fully designate all that we are: for the members of the body are the instruments by which we execute our purposes. He indeed requires from us holiness, not only as to the body, but also as to the soul and spirit, as in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. In bidding us to present our bodies, he alludes to the Mosaic sacrifices, which were presented at the altar, as it were in the presence of God. But he shows, at the same time, in a striking manner, how prompt we ought to be to receive the commands of God, that we may without delay obey them.
Hence we learn, that all mortals, whose object is not to worship God, do nothing but miserably wander and go astray. We now also find what sacrifices Paul recommends to the Christian Church: for being reconciled to God through the one only true sacrifice of Christ, we are all through his grace made priests, in order that we may dedicate ourselves and all we have to the glory of God. No sacrifice of expiation is wanted; and no one can be set up, without casting a manifest reproach on the cross of Christ.
Your reasonable service This sentence, I think, was added, that he might more clearly apply and confirm the preceding exhortation, as though he had said, — “Offer yourselves a, sacrifice to God, if ye have it in your heart to serve God: for this is the right way of serving God; from which, if any depart, they are but false worshippers.” If then only God is rightly worshipped, when we observe all things according to what he has prescribed, away then with all those devised modes of worship, which he justly abominates, since he values obedience more than sacrifice. Men are indeed pleased with their own inventions, which have an empty show of wisdom, as Paul says in another place; but we learn here what the celestial Judge declares in opposition to this by the mouth of Paul; for by calling that a reasonable service which he commands, he repudiates as foolish, insipid, and presumptuous, whatever we attempt beyond the rule of his word.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 20 Yourselves: in times past, other bodies than our own,…
Yourselves: in times past, other bodies than our own, now our own must be offered.
Spiritual.
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The fourth part of this Epistle, which after the finishing of the chief points of Christian doctrine, consisteth in declaring of precepts of Christian life. And first of all he giveth general precepts and grounds: the chiefest whereof is this that every man consecrate himself wholly to the spiritual service of God, and do as it were sacrifice himself, trusting to the grace of God.
By this preface he showeth that God’s glory is the utmost end of all our doings.
In times past the sacrifices were presented before the altar, but now the altar is everywhere.
In times past, dead sacrifices were offered, but now we must offer such as have the spirit of life in them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–21 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies…
1 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.
Ver. 1. I beseech] Volumus et iubemus we wish and we order, became the pope’s style, A. D. 606.
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By the mercies of God] His manifold mercies, δια των οικτιρμων. Per miserationes amplificationis causa. (Beza.) We that have received so many mercies, must not only servire Deo, sed et adulate, serve God but even worship him, saith Tertullian. Mercy calls for duty; deliverance commands obedience, and there is so milch disingenuity in the contrary, that holy Ezra thinks heaven and earth would be ashamed of it, Ezr 9:13-14. The cords of kindness are called "the cords of a man," Hos 11:4; rational motives befitting the nature of a man. So that to sin against mercy is to sin against humanity; it is bestial, and fits a man for destruction, Rom 9:22; like as when medicine which should remove the disease, doth co-operate with it, then death comes with the more pain and speed. No excess more dangerous than that of bread: no judgment more terrible than that of mercy despised and abused. Abused mercy turns into fury. Patientia laesa fit furor.
That ye present] As they of old did their sacrifices at the altar. With the burnt offering, which signified the sacrificing of the flesh, was joined the sin offering, that is, Christ. Faith applies Christ to the believer, and the believer to Christ.
Your bodies] That is, your whole person. Cainistce sunt, saith Luther, offerentes non persoham, sed opus personae. They are Cainists that offer to God the work done, but do not offer themselves to God.
A living sacrifice] In the old law they had many kinds of sacrifices killed and offered. Now, saith Origen, instead of a ram we kill our ireful passions; instead of a goat our unclean affections; instead of flying fowls our idle thoughts, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Hitherto the apostle hath discoursed of matters of faith;…
Hitherto the apostle hath discoursed of matters of faith; in this and the following chapters he sets down precepts of holy life.
By the mercies of God: he useth the word in the plural number, to amplify and set forth the manifold mercies of God, in election, justification, adoption, &c.: q.d. Seeing you Gentiles have received so many and so great mercies from God; seeing he hath preferred you to his ancient people the Jews, and hath chosen and called you, when he hath rejected them; as you value these mercies, let the consideration of them engage you to all manner of holiness and new obedience.
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That ye present; that you give, dedicate, and offer up, as spiritual priests.
Your bodies; yourselves, or, your whole man; a part is put for the whole; the body is named, because it is the soul’s instrument in the service of God.
A living sacrifice; the sacrifices of old were presented alive to God, and their blood was shed at the feet of the altar: a beast that died of itself, or was torn by wild beasts, was not so much as to be eaten, Exo 22:31; Lev 22:8. Conformable hereunto, God will have us offer up ourselves
a living sacrifice; i.e. we must be quickened and alive to God, and not dead in sins and trespasses.
Holy; as the sacrifices under the law were to be without blemish or defect, Exo 12:5; Lev 1:10; Deu 15:21.
Acceptable unto God; or, well pleasing uuto God. So were the appointed sacrifices under the law, Lev 1:9; so was the sacrifice of Christ the Lamb of God, Eph 5:2; and so are all spiritual sacrifices under the gospel, Phi 4:18; Heb 13:16.
Which is your reasonable service; or, which is agreeable to reason; nothing is more reasonable, than that you should devote yourselves to God in this manner. Some think this is added, to show a difference between the sacrifice here required, and that of the Jews, which was of unreasonable beasts. Others, by reasonable service, understand spiritual service, and expound this place by 1Pe 2:5, where you read of spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Others think, that by reasonable you must understand such service as is according to the word of God; and this suits best with the Greek phrase in the text, λογικην latreian. The same word is used, 1Pe 2:2, and there it is rendered the milk of the word, and not reasonable milk. And so the service or worship here spoken of is opposed to that will worship, of which you read in Col 2:23.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Observe here, 1. The apostle’s loving and courteous compellation,…
Observe here, 1. The apostle’s loving and courteous compellation, brethren: so he calls the believing Romans. They were brethren by place and nation, and brethren by religion and profession: eodem sanguine Christi conglutinati, cemented together by the blood of Christ, and by the bands of love.
Observe, 2. The manner of the apostle’s exhortation: it is by way of obsecration and entreaty, I beseech you, brethren. It imports great lenity and meekness. The apostle did not want authority to command, but uses such humility as to entreat. The minister’s work and office is not only to be a teacher, but a beseecher. He must not barely propound and recommend the doctrines of the gospel to his people’s understanding, but must endeavour to work upon their wills and affections to embrace and entertain them. The understanding is the leading, but the will the commanding, faculty.
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Observe, 3. The exhortation itself: Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Present your bodies, that is, dedicate your persons, devote yourselves, your whole man, soul and body, to the service of God and his glory. Christians are priests, or a royal priesthood; they offer up themselves in sacrifice unto God, as a whole burnt-offering.
Observe, 4. The properties of the Christian sacrifice: it must be voluntary; present yourselves. It must be a living sacrifice, an holy sacrifice, a reasonable sacrifice; otherwise it will find no acceptance with God.
Observe, 5. The argument or motive which the apostle makes use of, to persuade persons to present and give up themselves to God and his service, and that is drawn from the mercies of God; I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God.
Learn thence, That the mercies of God, revealed in the gospel, are the most proper, powerful, and effectual argument, to persuade with, and prevail upon, sinners, that have not given up and devoted themselves to God, to do it; and those that have done it, to do it more and more: I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye present yourselves, &c.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 We may observe here, according to the scheme mentioned…
We may observe here, according to the scheme mentioned in the contents, the apostle's exhortations,
I. Concerning our duty to God, We see what is godliness.
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1. It is to surrender ourselves to God, and so to lay a good foundation. We must first give our own selves unto the Lord, Co2 8:5. This is here pressed as the spring of all duty and obedience, Rom 12:1, Rom 12:2. Man consists of body and soul, Gen 2:7; Ecc 12:7.
(1.) The body must be presented to him, Rom 12:1. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, Co1 6:13, Co1 6:14. The exhortation is here introduced very pathetically: I beseech you, brethren. Though he was a great apostle, yet he calls the meanest Christians brethren, a term of affection and concern. He uses entreaty; this is the gospel way: As though God did beseech you by us, Co2 5:20. Though he might with authority command, yet for love's sake he rather beseeches, Plm 1:8, Plm 1:9. The poor useth entreaty, Pro 18:23. This is to insinuate the exhortation, that it might come with the more pleasing power. Many are sooner wrought upon if they be accosted kindly, are more easily led than driven. Now observe,
[1.] The duty pressed - to present our bodies a living sacrifice, alluding to the sacrifices under the law, which were presented or set before God at the altar, ready to be offered to him. Your bodies - your whole selves; so expressed because under the law the bodies of beasts were offered in sacrifice, Co1 6:20. Our bodies and spirits are intended. The offering was sacrificed by the priest, but presented by the offerer, who transferred to God all his right, title, and interest in it, by laying his hand on the head of it. Sacrifice is here taken for whatsoever is by God's own appointment dedicated to himself; see Pe1 2:5. We are temple, priest, and sacrifice, as Christ was in his peculiar sacrificing. There were sacrifices of atonement and sacrifices of acknowledgment. Christ, who was once offered to bear the sins of many, is the only sacrifice of atonement; but our persons and performances, tendered to God through Christ our priest, are as sacrifices of acknowledgment to the honour of God. Presenting them denotes a voluntary act, done by virtue of that absolute despotic power which the will has over the body and all the members of it. It must be a free-will offering. Your bodies; not your beasts. Those legal offerings, as they had their power from Christ, so they had their period in Christ. The presenting of the body to God implies not only the avoiding of the sins that are committed with or against the body, but the using of the body as a servant of the soul in the service of God. It is to glorify God with our bodies (Co1 6:20), to engage our bodies in the duties of immediate worship, and in a diligent attendance to our particular callings, and be willing to suffer for God with our bodies, when we are called to it. It is to yield the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness, Rom 6:13. Though bodily exercise alone profits little, yet in its place it is a proof and product of the dedication of our souls to God. First, Present them a living sacrifice; not killed, as the sacrifices under the law. A Christian makes his body a sacrifice to God, though he does not give it to be burned. A body sincerely devoted to God is a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice, by way of allusion - that which was dead of itself might not be eaten, much less sacrificed, Deu 14:21; and by ways of opposition - "The sacrifice was to be slain, but you may be sacrificed, and yet live on" - an unbloody sacrifice. The barbarous heathen sacrificed their children to their idol-gods, not living, but slain sacrifices: but God will have mercy, and not such sacrifice, though life is forfeited to him. A living sacrifice, that is, inspired with the spiritual life of the soul. It is Christ living in the soul by faith that makes the body a living sacrifice, Gal 2:20. Holy love kindles the sacrifices, puts life into the duties; see Rom 6:13. Alive, that is, to God, Rom 6:11. Secondly, They must be holy. There is a relative holiness in every sacrifice, as dedicated to God. But, besides this, there must be that real holiness which consists in an entire rectitude of heart and life, by which we are conformed in both to the nature and will of God: even our bodies must not be made the instruments of sin and uncleanness, but set apart for God, and put to holy uses, as the vessels of the tabernacle were holy, being devoted to God's service. It is the soul that is the proper subject of holiness; but a sanctified soul communicates a holiness to the body it actuates and animates. That is holy which is according to the will of God; when the bodily actions are no, the body is holy. They are the temples of the Holy Ghost, Co1 6:19. Possess the body in sanctification, Th1 4:4, Th1 4:5.
[2.] The arguments to enforce this, which are three: - First, Consider the mercies of God: I beseech you by the mercies of God. An affectionate obtestation, and which should melt us into a compliance: dia tōn oiktirmōn tou Theou. This is an argument most sweetly cogent. There is the mercy that is in God and the mercy that is from God-mercy in the spring and mercy in the streams: both are included here; but especially gospel-mercies (mentioned ch. 11), the transferring of what the Jews forfeited and lost by their unbelief unto us Gentiles (Eph 3:4-6): the sure mercies of David, Isa 55:3. God is a merciful God, therefore let us present our bodies to him; he will be sure to use them kindly, and knows how to consider the frames of them, for he is of infinite compassion. We receive from him every day the fruits of his mercy, particularly mercy to our bodies: he made them, he maintains them, he bought them, he has put a great dignity upon them. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, that our souls are held in life; and the greatest mercy of all is that Christ hath made not his body only, but his soul, an offering for sin, that he gave himself for us and gives himself to us. Now surely we cannot but be studying what we shall render to the Lord for all this. And what shall we render? Let us render ourselves as an acknowledgment of all these favours - all we are, all we have, all we can do; and, after all, it is but very poor returns for very rich receivings: and yet, because it is what we have, Secondly, It is acceptable to God. The great end we should all labour after is to be accepted of the Lord (Co2 5:9), to have him well-pleased with our persons and performances. Now these living sacrifices are acceptable to God; while the sacrifices of the wicked, though fat and costly, are an abomination to the Lord. It is God's great condescension that he will vouchsafe to accept of any thing in us; and we can desire no more to make us happy; and, if the presenting of ourselves will but please him, we may easily conclude that we cannot bestow ourselves better. Thirdly, It is our reasonable service. There is an act of reason in it; for it is the soul that presents the body. Blind devotion, that has ignorance for the mother and nurse of it, is fit to be paid only to those dunghill-gods that have eyes and see not. Our God must be served in the spirit and with the understanding. There is all the reason in the world for it, and no good reason can possibly be produced against it. Come now, and let us reason together, Isa 1:18. God does not impose upon us any thing hard or unreasonable, but that which is altogether agreeable to the principles of right reason. Tēn logikēn latreian humōn - your service according to the word; so it may be read. The word of God does not leave out the body in holy worship. That service only is acceptable to God which is according to the written word. It must be gospel worship, spiritual worship. That is a reasonable service which we are able and ready to give a reason for, in which we understand ourselves. God deals with us as with rational creatures, and will have us so to deal with him. Thus must the body be presented to God.
(2.) The mind must be renewed for him. This is pressed (Rom 12:2): "Be you transformed by the renewing of your mind; see to it that there be a saving change wrought in you, and that it be carried on." Conversion and sanctification are the renewing of the mind, a change not of the substance, but of the qualities of the soul. It is the same with making a new heart and a new spirit - new dispositions and inclinations, new sympathies and antipathies; the understanding enlightened, the conscience softened, the thoughts rectified; the will bowed to the will of God, and the affections made spiritual and heavenly: so that the man is not what he was - old things are passed away, all things are become new; he acts from new principles, by new rules, with new designs. The mind is the acting ruling part of us; so that the renewing of the mind is the renewing of the whole man, for out of it are the issues of life, Pro 4:23. The progress of sanctification, dying to sin more and more and living to righteousness more and more, is the carrying on of this renewing work, till it be perfected in glory. This is called the transforming of us; it is like putting on a new shape and figure. Mateamorphousthe - Be you metamorphosed. The transfiguration of Christ is expressed by this word (Mat 17:2), when he put on a heavenly glory, which made his face to shine like the sun; and the same word is used Co2 3:18, where we are said to be changed into the same image from glory to glory. This transformation is here pressed as a duty; not that we can work such a change ourselves: we could as soon make a new world as make a new heart by any power of our own; it is God's work, Eze 11:19; Eze 36:26, Eze 36:27. But be you transformed, that is, "use the means which God hath appointed and ordained for it." It is God that turns us, and then we are turned; but we must frame our doings to turn, Hos 5:4. "Lay your souls under the changing transforming influences of the blessed Spirit; seek unto God for grace in the use of all the means of grace." Though the new man be created of God, yet we must put it on (Eph 4:24), and be pressing forward towards perfection. Now in this verse we may further observe,
[1.] What is the great enemy to this renewing, which we must avoid; and that is, conformity to this world: Be not conformed to this world. All the disciples and followers of the Lord Jesus must be nonconformists to this world. Mē suschēmatizesthe - Do not fashion yourselves according to the world. We must not conform to the things of the world; they are mutable, and the fashion of them is passing away. Do not conform either to the lusts of the flesh or the lusts of the eye. We must not conform to the men of the world, of that world which lies in wickedness, not walk according to the course of this world (Eph 2:2); that is, we must not follow a multitude to do evil, Exo 23:2. If sinners entice us, we must not consent to them, but in our places witness against them. Nay, even in things indifferent, and which are not in themselves sinful, we must so far not conform to the custom and way of the world as not to act by the world's dictates as our chief rule, nor to aim at the world's favours as our highest end. True Christianity consists much in a sober singularity. Yet we must take heed of the extreme of affected rudeness and moroseness, which some run into. In civil things, the light of nature and the custom of nations are intended for our guidance; and the rule of the gospel in those cases is a rule of direction, not a rule of contrariety.
[2.] What is the great effect of this renewing, which we must labour after: That you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. by the will of God here we are to understand his revealed will concerning our duty, what the Lord our God requires of us. This is the will of God in general, even our sanctification, that will which we pray may be done by us as it is done by the angels; especially his will as it is revealed in the New Testament, where he hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son. First, The will of God is good, and acceptable, and perfect; three excellent properties of a law. It is good (Mic 6:8); it is exactly consonant to the eternal reason of good and evil. It is good in itself. It is good for us. Some think the evangelical law is here called good, in distinction from the ceremonial law, which consisted of statutes that were not good, Eze 20:25. It is acceptable, it is pleasing to God; that and that only is so which is prescribed by him. The only way to attain his favour as the end is to conform to his will as the rule. It is perfect, to which nothing can be added. The revealed will of God is a sufficient rule of faith and practice, containing all things which tend to the perfection of the man of God, to furnish us thoroughly to every good work, Ti2 3:16, Ti2 3:17. Secondly, That it concerns Christians to prove what is that will of God which is good, and acceptable, and perfect; that is, to know it with judgment and approbation, to know it experimentally, to know the excellency of the will of God by the experience of a conformity to it. It is to approve things that are excellent (Phi 1:10); it is dokimazein (the same word that is used here) to try things that differ, in doubtful cases readily to apprehend what the will of God is and to close in with it. It is to be of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, Isa 11:3. Thirdly, That those are best able to prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God, who are transformed by the renewing of their mind. A living principle of grace is in the soul, as far as it prevails, an unbiassed unprejudiced judgment concerning the things of God. It disposes the soul to receive and entertain the revelations of the divine will. The promise is (Joh 7:17), If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. A good wit can dispute and distinguish about the will of God; while an honest, humble heart, that has spiritual senses exercised, and is delivered into the mould of the word, loves it, and practises it, and has the relish and savour of it. Thus to be godly is to surrender ourselves to God.
2. When this is done, to serve him in all manner of gospel obedience. Some hints of this we have here (Rom 12:11, Rom 12:12), Serving the Lord. Wherefore do we present ourselves to him, but that we may serve him? Act 27:23, Whose I am; and then it follows, whom I serve. To be religious is to serve God. How? (1.) We must make a business of it, and not be slothful in that business. Not slothful in business. There is the business of the world, that of our particular calling, in which we must not be slothful, Th1 4:11. But this seems to be meant of the business of serving the Lord, our Father's business, Luk 2:49. Those that would approve themselves Christians indeed must make religion their business - must choose it, and learn it, and give themselves to it; they must love it, and employ themselves in it, and abide by it, as their great and main business. And, having made it our business, we must not be slothful in it: not desire our own ease, and consult that, when it comes in competition with our duty. We must not drive on slowly in religion. Slothful servants will be reckoned with us wicked servants. (2.) We must be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. God must be served with the spirit (Rom 1:9; Joh 4:24), under the influences of the Holy Spirit. Whatever we do in religion it is pleasing to God no further than it is done with our spirits wrought upon by the Spirit of God. And there must be fervency in the spirit - a holy zeal, and warmth, and ardency of affection in all we do, as those that love God not only with the heart and soul, but with all our hearts, and with all our souls. This is the holy fire that kindles the sacrifice, and carries it up to heaven, an offering of a sweet-smelling savour. - Serving the Lord. Tō kairō douleuntes (so some copies read it), serving the time, that is, improving your opportunities and making the best of them, complying with the present seasons of grace. (3.) Rejoicing in hope. God is worshipped and honoured by our hope and trust in him, especially when we rejoice in that hope, take a complacency in that confidence, which argues a great assurance of the reality and a great esteem of the excellency of the good hoped for. (4.) Patient in tribulation. Thus also God is served, not only by working for him when he calls us to work, but by sitting still quietly when he calls us to suffer. Patience for God's sake, and with an eye to his will and glory, is true piety. Observe, Those that rejoice in hope are likely to be patient in tribulation. It is a believing prospect of the joy set before us that bears up the spirit under all outward pressure. (5.) Continuing instant in prayer. Prayer is a friend to hope and patience, and we do in it serve the Lord. Proskarterountes. It signifies both fervency and perseverance in prayer. We should not be cold in the duty, nor soon weary of it, Luk 18:1; Th1 5:17; Eph 6:18; Col 4:2. This is our duty which immediately respects God.
II. Concerning our duty which respects ourselves; this is sobriety.
1. A sober opinion of ourselves, Rom 12:3. It is ushered in with a solemn preface: I say, through the grace given unto me: the grace f wisdom, by which he understood the necessity and excellency of this duty; the grace of apostleship, by which he had authority to press and enjoin it. "I say it, who am commissioned to say it, in God's name. I say it, and it is not for you to gainsay it." It is said to every one of us, one as well as another. Pride is a sin that is bred in the bone of all of us, and we have therefore each of us need to be cautioned and armed against it. - Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. We must take heed of having too great an opinion of ourselves, or putting too high a valuation upon our own judgments, abilities, persons, performances. We must not be self-conceited, nor esteem too much our own wisdom and other attainments, not think ourselves to be something, Gal 6:3. There is a high thought of ourselves which we may and must have to think ourselves too good to be the slaves of sin and drudges to this world. But, on the other hand, we should think soberly, that is, we must have a low and modest opinion of ourselves and our own abilities, our gifts and graces, according to what we have received from God, and not otherwise. We must not be confident and hot in matters of doubtful disputation; not stretch ourselves beyond our line; not judge and censure those that differ from us; not desire to make a fair show in the flesh. These and the like are the fruits of a sober opinion of ourselves. The words will bear yet another sense agreeable enough. Of himself is not in the original; therefore it may be read, That no man be wise above what he ought to be wise, but be wise unto sobriety. We must not exercise ourselves in things too high for us (Psa 131:1, Psa 131:2), not intrude into those things which we have not seen (Col 2:18), those secret things which belong not to us (Deu 29:29), not covet to be wise above what is written. There is a knowledge that puffs up, which reaches after forbidden fruit. We must take heed of this, and labour after that knowledge which tends to sobriety, to the rectifying of the heart and the reforming of the life. Some understand it of the sobriety which keeps us in our own place and station, from intruding into the gifts and offices of others. See an instance of this sober modest care in the exercise of the greatest spiritual gifts, Co2 10:13-15. To this head refers also that exhortation (Rom 12:16), Be not wise in your own conceits. It is good to be wise, but it is bad to think ourselves so; for there is more hope of a fool than of him that is wise in his own eyes. It was an excellent thing for Moses to have his face shine and not know it. Now the reasons why we must have such a sober opinion of ourselves, our own abilities and attainments, are these: -
(1.) Because whatever we have that is good, God hath dealt it to us; every good and perfect gift comes from above, Jam 1:17. What have we that we have not received? And, if we have received it, why then do we boast? Co1 4:7. The best and most useful man in the world is no more, no better, than what the free grace of God makes him every day. When we are thinking of ourselves, we must remember to think not how we attained, as though our might and the power of our hand had gotten us these gifts; but think how kind God hath been to us, for it is he that gives us power to do any thing that is good, and in him is all our sufficiency.
(2.) Because God deals out his gifts in a certain measure: According to the measure of faith. Observe, The measure of spiritual gifts he calls the measure of faith, for this is the radical grace. What we have and do that is good is so far right and acceptable as it is founded in faith, and flows from faith, and no further. Now faith, and other spiritual gifts with it, are dealt by measure, according as Infinite Wisdom sees meet for us. Christ had the Spirit given him without measure, Joh 3:34. But the saints have it by measure; see Eph 4:7. Christ, who had gifts without measure, was meek and lowly; and shall we, that are stinted, be proud and self-conceited?
(3.) Because God has dealt out gifts to others as well as to us: Dealt to every man. Had we the monopoly of the Spirit, or a patent to be sole proprietors of spiritual gifts, there might be some pretence for this conceitedness of ourselves; but others have their share as well as we. God is a common Father, and Christ a common root, to all the saints, who all drive virtue from him; and therefore it ill becomes us to lift up ourselves, and to despise others, as if we only were the people in favour with heaven, and wisdom should die with us. This reasoning he illustrates by a comparison taken from the members of the natural body (as Co1 12:12; Eph 4:16): As we have many members in one body, etc., Rom 12:4, Rom 12:5. Here observe, [1.] All the saints make up one body in Christ, who is the head of the body, and the common centre of their unity. Believers lie not in the world as a confused disorderly heap, but are organized and knit together, as they are united to one common head, and actuated and animated by one common Spirit. [2.] Particular believers are members of this body, constituent parts, which speak them less than the whole, and in relation to the whole, deriving life and spirits from the head. Some members in the body are bigger and more useful than others, and each receives spirits from the head according to its proportion. if the little finger should receive as much nourishment as the leg, how unseemly and prejudicial would it be! We must remember that we are not the whole; we think above what is meet if we think so; we are but parts and members. [3.] All the members have not the same office (Rom 12:4), but each hath its respective place and work assigned it. The office of the eye is to see, the office of the hand is to work, etc. So in the mystical body, some are qualified for, and called to, one sort of work; others are, in like manner, fitted for, and called to, another sort of work. Magistrates, ministers, people, in a Christian commonwealth, have their several offices, and must not intrude one upon another, nor clash in the discharge of their several offices. [4.] Each member hath its place and office, for the good and benefit of the whole, and of every other member. We are not only members of Christ, but we are members one of another, Rom 12:5. We stand in relation one to another; we are engaged to do all the good we can one to another, and to act in conjunction for the common benefit. See this illustrated at large, Co1 12:14, etc. Therefore we must not be puffed up with a conceit of our own attainments, because, whatever we have, as we received it, so we received it not for ourselves, but for the good of others.
2. A sober use of the gifts that God hath given us. As we must not on the one hand be proud of our talents, so on the other hand we must not bury them. Take heed lest, under a pretence of humility and self-denial, we be slothful in laying out ourselves for the good of others. We must not say, "I am nothing, therefore I will sit still, and do nothing;" but, "I am nothing in myself, and therefore I will lay out myself to the utmost in the strength of the grace of Christ." He specifies the ecclesiastical offices appointed in particular churches, in the discharge of which each must study to do his own duty, for the preserving of order and the promotion of edification in the church, each knowing his place and fulfilling it. Having then gifts. The following induction of particulars supplies the sense of this general. Having gifts, let us use them. Authority and ability for the ministerial work are the gift of God. - Gifts differing. The immediate design is different, though the ultimate tendency of all is the same. According to the grace, Charismata kata tēn charin. The free grace of God is the spring and original of all the gifts that are given to men. It is grace that appoints the office, qualifies and inclines the person, works both to will and to do. There were in the primitive church extraordinary gifts of tongues, of discerning, of healing; but he speaks here of those that are ordinary. Compare Co1 12:4; Ti1 4:14; Pe1 4:10. Seven particular gifts he specifies (Rom 12:6-8), which seem to be meant of so many distinct offices, used by the prudential constitution of many of the primitive churches, especially the larger. There are two general ones here expressed by prophesying and ministering, the former the work of the bishops, the latter the work of the deacons, which were the only two standing officers, Phi 1:1. But the particular work belonging to each of these might be, and it should seem was, divided and allotted by common consent and agreement, that it might be done the more effectually, because that which is every body's work is nobody's work, and he despatches his business best that is vir unius negotii - a man of one business. Thus David sorted the Levites (Ch1 23:4, Ch1 23:5), and in this wisdom is profitable to direct. The five latter will therefore be reduced to the two former.
(1.) Prophecy. Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. It is not meant of the extraordinary gifts of foretelling things to come, but the ordinary office of preaching the word: so prophesying is taken, Co1 14:1-3, etc.; Co1 11:4; Th1 5:20. The work of the Old Testament prophets was not only to foretel future things, but to warn the people concerning sin and duty, and to be their remembrancers concerning that which they knew before. And thus gospel preachers are prophets, and do indeed, as far as the revelation of the word goes, foretel things to come. Preaching refers to the eternal condition of the children of men, points directly at a future state. Now those that preach the word must do it according to the proportion of faith - kata tēn analogian tēs pisteōs, that is, [1.] As to the manner of our prophesying, it must be according to the proportion of the grace of faith. He had spoken (Rom 12:3) of the measure of faith dealt to every man. Let him that preaches set all the faith he hath on work, to impress the truths he preaches upon his own heart in the first place. As people cannot hear well, so ministers cannot preach well, without faith. First believe and then speak, Psa 116:10; Co2 4:13. And we must remember the proportion of faith - that, though all men have not faith, yet a great many have besides ourselves; and therefore we must allow others to have a share of knowledge and ability to instruct, as well as we, even those that in less things differ from us. "Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself; and do not make it a ruling rule to others, remembering that thou hast but thy proportion." [2.] As to the matter of our prophesying, it must be according to the proportion of the doctrine of faith, as it is revealed in the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament. By this rule of faith the Bereans tried Paul's preaching, Act 17:11. Compare Act 26:22; Gal 1:9. There are some staple-truths, as I may call them, some prima axiomata - first axioms, plainly and uniformly taught in the scripture, which are the touchstone of preaching, by which (though we must not despise prophesying) we must prove all things, and then hold fast that which is good, Th1 5:20, Th1 5:21. Truths that are more dark must be examined by those that are more clear; and then entertained when they are found to agree and comport with the analogy of faith; for it is certain one truth can never contradict another. See here what ought to be the great care of preachers - to preach sound doctrine, according to the form of wholesome words, Tit 2:8; Ti2 1:13. It is not so necessary that the prophesying be according to the proportion of art, the rules of logic and rhetoric; but it is necessary that it be according to the proportion of faith: for it is the word of faith that we preach. Now there are two particular works which he that prophesieth hath to mind-teaching and exhorting, proper enough to be done by the same person at the same time, and when he does the one let him mind that, when he does the other let him do that too as well as he can. If, by agreement between the ministers of a congregation, this work be divided, either constantly or interchangeably, so that one teaches and the other exhorts (that is, in our modern dialect, one expounds and the other preaches), let each do his work according to the proportion of faith. First, let him that teacheth wait on teaching. Teaching is the bare explaining and proving of gospel truths, without practical application, as in the expounding of the scripture. Pastors and teachers are the same office (Eph 4:11), but the particular work is somewhat different. Now he that has a faculty of teaching, and has undertaken that province, let him stick to it. It is a good gift, let him use it, and give his mind to it. He that teacheth, let him be in his teaching; so some supply it, Ho didaskōn, en tē didaskalia. Let him be frequent and constant, and diligent in it; let him abide in that which is his proper work, and be in it as his element. See Ti1 4:15, Ti1 4:16, where it is explained by two words, en toutois isthi, and epimene autois, be in these things and continue in them. Secondly, Let him that exhorteth wait on exhortation. Let him give himself to that. This is the work of the pastor, as the former of the teacher; to apply gospel truths and rules more closely to the case and condition of the people, and to press upon them that which is more practical. Many that are very accurate in teaching may yet be very cold and unskilful in exhorting; and on the contrary. The one requires a clearer head, the other a warmer heart. Now where these gifts are evidently separated (that the one excels in the one and the other in the other) it conduces to edification to divide the work accordingly; and, whatsoever the work is that we undertake, let us mind it. To wait on our work is to bestow the best of our time and thoughts upon it, to lay hold of all opportunities for it, and to study not only to do it, but to do it well.
(2.) Ministry. If a man hath diakonian - the office of a deacon, or assistant to the pastor and teacher, let him use that office well - a churchwarden (suppose), an elder, or an overseer of the poor; and perhaps there were more put into these offices, and there was more solemnity in them, and a greater stress of care and business lay upon them in the primitive churches, than we are now well aware of. It includes all those offices which concern the ta exō of the church, the outward business of the house of God. See Neh 11:16. Serving tables, Act 6:2. Now let him on whom this care of ministering is devolved attend to it with faithfulness and diligence; particularly, [1.] He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. Those church-officers that were the stewards of the church's alms, collected money, and distributed it according as the necessities of the poor were. Let them do it en aplotēti - liberally and faithfully; not converting what they receive to their own use, nor distributing it with any sinister design, or with respect of person: not froward and peevish with the poor, nor seeking pretences to put them by; but with all sincerity and integrity, having no other intention in it than to glorify God and do good. Some understand it in
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–21 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of…
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,.... The apostle having finished the doctrinal part of this epistle, proceeds to that which is more practical; and enforces the several duties of religion, upon the principles he had before laid down, a method generally observed by him in all his epistles. The illative particle "therefore", shows that the following exhortations are so many conclusions, consequences, and inferences, deduced from what had been said in the latter part of the preceding chapter; that since all things are of God, and by him and to him, then the saints ought to present their bodies to him, and to know, approve, and do his will; and since they have nothing but what they have received from him, they ought not to think too highly of, or glory in their attainments. The introduction to these exhortations, is in a very kind and affectionate manner; the saints are addressed as "brethren", and very appropriately; since this expresses the relation they stood in to the apostle, for whom he had an hearty love and concern; and therefore what he pressed them to was out of a sincere regard to their good, as well as to the glory of God; also their relation to each other, and which several of the duties he urges had a connection with; likewise their relation to God, being of his family, having one and the same Father, and so under obligation to regard his will, honour and reverence him: moreover, these things are moved, not in an imperious way, in an authoritative manner, but by way of entreaty, "I beseech you"; as an ambassador of Christ, and as though in his stead: nor are they enforced by terrors, threats, and menaces, but "by the mercies of God"; that is, the abundant mercy of God, displayed in their election, regeneration, and calling; than which, nothing can have a greater influence on a believer, to engage him to holiness of life and conversation; and shows, that the doctrines of grace are no licentious ones, nor do they render useless precepts, exhortations, entreaties, cautions, and advice, particularly such as follow;
that ye present your bodies; not barely that part of them commonly so called, for this is not to be understood of a mere presentation of the body in public worship: for though this ought to be, yet not without the heart engaged therein, otherwise bodily exercise will be of no avail; nor of a bare abstinence from grosser sins done in the body, and against it, and which defile and dishonour it; much less of a maceration, and keeping under the body, by watchings, fasting, &c. and still less of an offering of the body at death in a way of martyrdom, though this ought to be cheerfully complied with when called for: but by their bodies are meant, themselves, their whole souls and bodies, all the powers and faculties of their souls, and members of their bodies; and the presenting of them, designs a devoting of them, with all readiness and willingness, to the service of God for his honour and glory, without putting any confidence in, or placing any dependence upon them; which would be sacrificing to their own net, and burning incense to their drag; it includes the whole of their service, conversation, and religion, internal and external. So the Jews (k) say,
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"worthy is the portion of the righteous, who offer every day this offering before the Lord; and what is it? , "their bodies and their souls", which they offer before him.''
The allusion is to the rite of sacrificing, to the bringing of the slain beast, and laying it on the altar, and there presenting and offering it to the Lord. Under the Gospel dispensation all believers are priests; and the sacrifices they bring are not the bodies of slain beasts, but their own bodies, their whole selves; and these
a living sacrifice, in opposition to the bodies of slain beasts offered under the legal dispensation, and to the dead works of such as are destitute of faith in Christ, and to the lifeless performances of the saints themselves at certain times; and designs such a presentation of themselves in the performance of religious duties, as springs from a principle of life under the quickening influences of the Spirit of God, with faith and fervency; though without any view to obtain life hereby, for that is only by the offering up of the body of Christ once for all. Another epithet of this sacrifice of our bodies to God is
holy, in allusion to the sacrifices under the law, which were separated from common use, and devoted to God, and were not to have the least spot and blemish in them; and regards men sanctified by the Spirit of God, and whose actions flow from a principle of holiness, and are performed under the influence of the Holy Spirit; and such sacrifices as are both living and holy, cannot but be
acceptable to God through the mediation of his Son, by whom, as the persons, the souls and bodies of his people, so their spiritual sacrifices, whether of prayer or praise, are only acceptable to him:
which is your reasonable service; it is agreeably to reason, and especially as sanctified, that men who have their beings from God, and are upheld in them by him, and are followed with the bounties of Providence; and especially who are made new creatures, and are blessed by him with all spiritual blessings in Christ, that they should give up themselves to him, and cheerfully serve him in their day and generation; such service is also agreeably to the Scriptures of truth, the standard of filth and practice, and contain and enforce nothing but what is highly reasonable to be complied with; it is such service as lies not in the slaying of irrational creatures, but in the presenting of men endued with rational powers unto God; and is of a spiritual nature, performed by spiritual men, under the influence of the Spirit of God: and is suitable to the nature and perfections of God, and stands opposed to the corporeal and carnal service of the Jews.
(k) Zohar in Lev. fol. 4. 2.
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John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 I exhort you - St. Paul uses to suit…
I exhort you - St. Paul uses to suit his exhortations to the doctrines he has been delivering. So here the general use from the whole is contained in the first and second verses. The particular uses follow, from the third verse to the end of the Epistle. By the tender mercies of God - The whole sentiment is derived from Romans. The expression itself is particularly opposed to "the wrath of God," chap. i, 18. It has a reference here to the entire gospel, to the whole economy of grace or mercy, delivering us from "the wrath of God," and exciting us to all duty. To present - So chap. vi, 13; xvi, 19; now actually to exhibit before God. Your bodies - That is, yourselves; a part is put for the whole; the rather, as in the ancient sacrifices of beasts, the body was the whole. These also are particularly named in opposition to that vile abuse of their bodies mentioned, chap. i, 24. Several expressions follow, which have likewise a direct reference to other expressions in the same chapter. A sacrifice - Dead to sin and living - By that life which is mentioned, chap. i, 17; vi, 4, &c. Holy - Such as the holy law requires, chap. vii, 12. Acceptable - chap. viii, 8. Which is your reasonable service - The worship of the heathens was utterly unreasonable, chap. i, 18, &c.; so was the glorying of the Jews, chap. ii, 3, &c. But a Christian acts in all things by the highest reason, from the mercy of God inferring his own duty.
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Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–21 Such displays of God's mercy as Jews and Gentiles…
CHAPTER XII.
Such displays of God's mercy as Jews and Gentiles have received
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should induce them to consecrate themselves to Him; and not be
conformed to the world, 1, 2.
Christians are exhorted to think meanly of themselves, 3.
And each to behave himself properly in the office which he has
received from God, 4-8;
Various important moral duties recommended, 9-18.
We must not avenge ourselves, but overcome evil with good,
19-21.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII.
The apostle having now finished the doctrinal part of this epistle, proceeds to the practical; and here it may be necessary to take a view of his arguments in the preceding chapters.
The election, calling, and justification of the believing Gentiles, and their being admitted into the kingdom and covenant of God, and having an interest in all the privileges and honours of his children.
(1.) That they have a clear and substantial title to all these he has proved in Rom. 1, 2 and 3.
(2.) That this right is set on the same footing with Abraham's title to the blessings of the covenant he proves Rom. 6.
(3.) That it gives us a title to privileges and blessings, as great as any the Jews could glory in, by virtue of that covenant, Ro 5:1-12.
(4.) He goes still higher, and shows that our being interested in the gift and grace of God in Christ Jesus is perfectly agreeable to the grace which he has bestowed upon all mankind, in delivering them from that death of the body brought on them by Adams' transgression, Ro 5:12-21.
(5.) He fully explains, both with regard to the Gentiles and Jews, the nature of the Gospel constitution in relation to its obligations to holiness, and the advantages it gives for encouragement, obedience, and support, under the severest trials and persecutions, Rom. 6, 7, 8.
(6.) As to the pretences of the Jews, that "God was bound by express promise to continue them as his only people for ever, and that this was directly inconsistent with the election and calling of the Gentiles, on the condition of faith alone;" he demonstrates that the rejection of the Jews is consistent with the truth of God's word, and with his righteousness: he shows the true cause and reason of their rejection, and concludes with an admirable discourse upon the extent and duration of it; which he closes with adoration of the Divine wisdom in its various dispensations, Rom. 9, 10, 11. Thus, having cleared this important subject with surprising judgment, and the nicest art and skill in writing, he now proceeds, after his usual manner in his epistles and the apostolic method of preaching, to inculcate various Christian duties, and to exhort to that temper of mind and conduct of life which are suitable to the profession of the Gospel, and the enjoyment of its privileges. - Dr. Taylor.
Verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren] This address is probably intended both for the Jews and the Gentiles; though some suppose that the Jews are addressed in the first verse, the Gentiles in the second.
By the mercies of God!] Δια των οικτιρμων του Θεου· By the tender mercies or compassions of God, such as a tender father shows to his refractory children; who, on their humiliation, is easily persuaded to forgive their offences. The word οικτιρμος comes from οικτος, compassion; and that from εικω, to yield; because he that has compassionate feelings is easily prevailed on to do a kindness, or remit an injury.
That ye present your bodies] A metaphor taken from bringing sacrifices to the altar of God. The person offering picked out the choicest of his flock, brought it to the altar, and presented it there as an atonement for his sin. They are exhorted to give themselves up in the spirit of sacrifice; to be as wholly the Lord's property as the whole burnt-offering was, no part being devoted to any other use.
A living sacrifice] In opposition to those dead sacrifices which they were in the habit of offering while in their Jewish state; and that they should have the lusts of the flesh mortified, that they might live to God.
Holy] Without spot or blemish; referring still to the sacrifice required by the law.
Acceptable unto God] ευαρεστονυ The sacrifice being perfect in its kind, and the intention of the offerer being such that both can be acceptable and well pleasing to God, who searches the heart. All these phrases are sacrificial, and show that there must be a complete surrender of the person-the body, the whole man, mind and flesh, to be given to God; and that he is to consider himself no more his own, but the entire property of his Maker.
Your reasonable service.] Nothing can be more consistent with reason than that the work of God should glorify its Author. We are not our own, we are the property of the Lord, by the right of creation and redemption; and it would be as unreasonable as it would be wicked not to live to his glory, in strict obedience to his will. The reasonable service, λογικην λατρειαν, of the apostle, may refer to the difference between the Jewish and Christian worship. The former religious service consisted chiefly in its sacrifices, which were δι αλογων, of irrational creatures, i.e. the lambs, rams, kids, bulls, goats, c., which were offered under the law. The Christian service or worship is λογικη, rational, because performed according to the true intent and meaning of the law the heart and soul being engaged in the service. He alone lives the life of a fool and a madman who lives the life of a sinner against God; for, in sinning against his Maker he wrongs his own soul, loves death, and rewards evil unto himself.
Reasonable service, λογικην λατρειαν, "a religious service according to reason," one rationally performed. The Romanists make this distinction between λατρεια, and δουλεια, latreia and douleia, (or dulia, as they corruptly write it,) worship and service, which they say signify two kinds of religious worship; the first proper to GOD, the other communicated to the creatures. But δουλεια, douleia, services, is used by the Septuagint to express the Divine worship. See De 13:4; Jdg 2:7; 1Sa 7:3, and 1Sa 12:10 : and in the New Testament, Mt 6:24; Lu 6:23; Ro 16:18; Col 3:24. The angel refused δουλειαν, douleia, Re 22:7, because he was συνδουλος sundoulos, a fellow servant; and the Divine worship is more frequently expressed by this word δουλεια, douleia, service, than by λατρεια, latreia, worship. The first is thirty-nine times in the Old and New Testament ascribed unto God, the other about thirty times; and latreia, worship or service, is given unto the creatures, as in Le 23:7, Le 23:8, Le 23:21; Nu 28:18; yea, the word signifies cruel and base bondage, De 28:48: once in the New Testament it is taken for the worship of the creatures, Ro 1:25. The worshipping of idols is forbidden under the word λατρεια, latreia, thirty-four times in the Old Testament, and once in the New, as above; and twenty-three times under the term δουλεια, doaleia, in the Old Testament; and St. Paul uses δουλευειν Θεὡ, and λατρευειν Θεὡ indifferently, for the worship we owe to God. See Ro 1:9, Ro 1:25; Ro 12:1, Ga 4:8, Ga 4:9; 1Th 1:9; Mat 6:24. And Ludouicus Vives, a learned Romanist, has proved out of Suidas, Xenophon, and Volla, that these two words are usually taken the one for the other, therefore the popish distinction, that the first signifies "the religious worship due only to God," and the second, "that which is given to angels, saints, and men," is unlearned and false.-See Leigh's Crit. Sacra.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 12, 19, 21 Rom 12:1. I beseech you therefore, brethren — Paul…
Rom 12:1. I beseech you therefore, brethren — Paul uses to suit his exhortations to the doctrines he has been delivering. So here the general exhortation to universal holiness, grounded on, and inferred from, the whole of the preceding part of the epistle, is contained in the first and second verses. Particular advices and precepts follow from the third verse to the end of the epistle. By the mercies — Δια των οικτιρμων, the bowels of mercies, or tender mercies of God — The whole sentiment is derived from chap. 1.-5.; the expression itself is particularly opposed to the wrath of God, Rom 1:18. It has a reference here to the entire gospel, to the whole economy of grace or mercy, delivering us from the wrath of God, and exciting us to all duty. “The love,” says Macknight, “which God hath expressed in our redemption by Christ, and in making us [true] members of his church, is the most winning of all considerations to engage us to obey God; especially as his commands are calculated to make us capable of the blessings he proposes to bestow on us in the next life. We should therefore habitually recollect this powerful motive, and particularly when any difficult duty is to be performed.” That — Instead of the animal victims, whose slaughtered bodies you have been accustomed to offer, either to the true God, or to idols, you would now present — As it were, at his spiritual altar; your own bodies — That is, yourselves, as he expresses himself, Rom 6:13, a part being put for the whole; and the rather, as in the ancient sacrifices of beasts, to which he alludes, the body was the whole. These also are particularly named, in opposition to the abominable abuse of their bodies, of which the heathen were guilty, mentioned Rom 1:24. And several other expressions follow, which have likewise a direct reference to other expressions in the same chapter. To this we may add, that having taught, Rom 7:5; Rom 7:18; Rom 7:23, that the body, with its lusts, is the source and seat of sin, he exhorted the Romans, very properly, to present their bodies to God a sacrifice, by putting the lusts and appetites thereof to death. It may be proper to observe, also, that the word παραστησαι, here rendered to present, is the word by which the bringing of an animal to the altar to be sacrificed was expressed. A sacrifice — Dedicated to God entirely and irrevocably; (for in the ancient sacrifices, the animals were wholly given, and were not taken back again;) made dead to the world and sin, being slain by the commandment, (Rom 7:9,) or by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and is quick and powerful to effect this death, (Heb 4:12,) and living by that life which is mentioned Rom 1:17; Rom 6:4, &c.; that is, by faith in the gospel, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus; and thus made a living sacrifice indeed; holy — A sacrifice such as the holy law requires, and the Holy Spirit produces. This is spoken in allusion to the sacrifices under the law being required to be without blemish. Acceptable — A sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour. The sum is, Let your whole souls, with all their faculties, and your bodies, with all their members, being sanctified and animated by divine grace, be dedicated to, and employed in the service of him to whom you are under such immense obligations. Which is your reasonable service — Such a sacrifice is reasonable, not merely because, as Beza observes, it is the sacrifice of a rational creature; whereas the sacrifices of birds and beasts, &c, were sacrifices, αλογων ζωων, of irrational animals; but because the whole worship and service is highly, nay, infinitely reasonable, being the worship and service of faith, love, and obedience, the objects of which are divine truth and love, and wise, just, holy, and kind commands: or, in other words, affections and dispositions, words and actions, suited to the divine perfections, and the relations subsisting between us and God, as our Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, Saviour, friend, and father in Christ Jesus. And as the sacrifice is thus reasonable, it is equally reasonable that we should offer it, being under indispensable, yea, infinite obligations so to do. So that in offering this sacrifice, and in all things, a Christian acts by the highest reason, from the mercy of God inferring his own duty.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–21 I beseech you - The apostle, having finished the…
I beseech you - The apostle, having finished the argument of this Epistle, proceeds now to close it with a practical or hortatory application, showing its bearing on the duties of life, and the practical influence of religion. None of the doctrines of the gospel are designed to be cold and barren speculations. They bear on the hearts and lives of people; and the apostle therefore calls on those to whom he wrote to dedicate themselves without reserve unto God.
Therefore - As the effect or result of the argument or doctrine. In other words, the whole argument of the eleven first chapters is suited to show the obligation on us to devote ourselves to God. From expressions like these, it is clear that the apostle never supposed that the tendency of the doctrines of grace was to lead to licentiousness. Many have affirmed that such was the tendency of the doctrines of justification by faith, of election and decrees, and of the perseverance of the saints. But it is plain that Paul had no such apprehensions. After having fully stated and established those doctrines, he concludes that we ought therefore to lead holy lives, and on the ground of them he exhorts people to do it.
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By the mercies of God - The word “by” διὰ dia denotes here the reason why they should do it, or the ground of appeal. So great had been the mercy of God, that this constituted a reason why they should present their bodies, etc. see 1Co 1:10; Rom 15:30. The word “mercies” here denotes favor shown to the undeserving, or kindness, compassion, etc. The plural is used in imitation of the Hebrew word for mercy, which has no singular. The word is not often used in the New Testament; see 2Co 1:3, where God is called “the Father of mercies;” Phi 2:1; Col 3:12; Heb 10:28. The particular mercy to which the apostle here refers, is that shown to those whom he was addressing. He had proved that all were by nature under sin; that they had no claim on God; and that he had showed great compassion in giving his Son to die for them in this state, and in pardoning their sins. This was a ground or reason why they should devote themselves to God.
That ye present - The word used here commonly denotes the action of bringing and presenting an animal or other sacrifice before an altar. It implies that the action was a free and voluntary offering. Religion is free; and the act of devoting ourselves to God is one of the most free that we ever perform.
Your bodies - The bodies of animals were offered in sacrifice. The apostle specifies their bodies particularly in reference to that fact. Still the entire animal was devoted; and Paul evidently meant here the same as to say, present Yourselves, your entire person, to the service of God; compare 1Co 6:16; Jam 3:6. It was not customary or proper to speak of a sacrifice as an offering of a soul or spirit, in the common language of the Jews; and hence, the apostle applied their customary language of sacrifice to the offering which Christians were to make of themselves to God.
A living sacrifice - A sacrifice is an offering made to God as an atonement for sin; or any offering made to him and his service as an expression of thanksgiving or homage. It implies that he who offers it presents it entirely, releases all claim or right to it, and leaves it to be disposed of for the honor of God. In the case of an animal, it was slain, and the blood offered; in the case of any other offering, as the first-fruits, etc., it was set apart to the service of God; and he who offered it released all claim on it, and submitted it to God, to be disposed of at his will. This is the offering which the apostle entreats the Romans to make: to devote themselves to God, as if they had no longer any claim on themselves; to be disposed of by him; to suffer and bear all that he might appoint; and to promote his honor in any way which he might command. This is the nature of true religion.
Living - ζῶσυν zōsun. The expression probably means that they were to devote the vigorous, active powers of their bodies and souls to the service of God. The Jew offered his victim, slew it, and presented it dead. It could not be presented again. In opposition to this, we are to present ourselves with all our living, vital energies. Christianity does not require a service of death or inactivity. It demands vigorous and active powers in the service of God the Saviour. There is something very affecting in the view of such a sacrifice; in regarding life, with all its energies, its intellectual, and moral, and physical powers, as one long sacrifice; one continued offering unto God. An immortal being presented to him; presented voluntarily, with all his energies, from day to day, until life shall close, so that it may he said that he has lived and died an offering made freely unto God. This is religion.
Holy - This means properly without blemish or defect. No other sacrifice could be made to God. The Jews were expressly forbid to offer what was lame, or blind, or in anyway deformed; Deu 15:21; Lev 1:3, Lev 1:10; Lev 3:1; Lev 22:20; Deu 17:1; compare Mal 1:8. If offered without any of these defects, it was regarded as holy, that is, appropriately set apart, or consecrated to God. In like manner we are to consecrate to God our best faculties; the vigor of our minds, and talents, and time. Not the feebleness of sickness merely; not old age alone; not time which we cannot otherwise employ, but the first vigor and energies of the mind and body; our youth, and health, and strength. Our sacrifice to God is to be not divided, separate; but it is to be entire and complete. Many are expecting to be Christians in sickness; many in old age; thus purposing to offer unto him the blind and the lame. The sacrifice is to be free from sin. It is not to be a divided, and broken, and polluted service. It is to be with the best affections of our hearts and lives.
Acceptable unto God - They are exhorted to offer such a sacrifice as will be acceptable to God; that is, such a one as he had just specified, one that was living and holy. No sacrifice should be made which is not acceptable to God. The offerings of the pagan; the pilgrimages of the Muslims; the self-inflicted penalties of the Roman Catholics, uncommanded by God, cannot be acceptable to him. Those services will be acceptable to God, and those only, which he appoints; compare Col 2:20-23. People are not to invent services; or to make crosses; or to seek persecutions and trials; or to provoke opposition. They are to do just what God requires of them, and that will be acceptable to God. And this fact, that what we do is acceptable to God, is the highest recompense we can have. It matters little what people think of us, if God approves what we do. To please him should be our highest aim; the fact that we do please him is our highest reward.
Which is your reasonable service - The word rendered “service” λατρείαν latreian properly denotes worship, or the homage rendered to God. The word “reasonable” with us means what is “governed by reason; thinking, speaking, or acting conformably to the dictates of reason” (Webster); or what can be shown to be rational or proper. This does not express the meaning of the original. That word λογικὴν logikēn denotes what pertains to the mind, and a reasonable service means what is mental, or pertaining to reason. It stands opposed, nor to what is foolish or unreasonable, but to the external service of the Jews, and such as they relied on for salvation. The worship of the Christian is what pertains to the mind, or is spiritual; that of the Jew was external. Chrysostom renders this phrase “your spiritual ministry.” The Syriac, “That ye present your bodies, etc., by a rational ministry.”
We may learn from this verse,
That the proper worship of God is the free homage of the mind. It is not forced or constrained. The offering of ourselves should be voluntary. No other can be a true offering, and none other can be acceptable.
(2)We are to offer our entire selves, all that we have and are, to God. No other offering can be such as he will approve.
(3)The character of God is such as should lead us to that. It is a character of mercy; of long-continued and patient forbearance, and it should influence us to devote ourselves to him.
(4)It should be done without delay. God is as worthy of such service now as he ever will or can be. He has every possible claim on our affections and our hearts.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 9, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21 With this chapter St. Paul begins his second part,…
With this chapter St. Paul begins his second part, in which he gives us most excellent lessons of morality, after which every Christian should aim to form his life, and thus resemble Jesus Christ and his saints. (Haydock) --- That you present your bodies a living sacrifice. And how must this be done? says St. John Chrysostom, hom. xx. Let the eye abstain from sinful looks and glances, and it is a sacrifice; the tongue from speaking ill, and it is a sacrifice, &c. --- Your reasonable service, or worship,[1] from you; nothing being more reasonable, than for men to serve God with their souls and bodies, &c. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Rationabile obsequium, Greek: logiken latreian.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Romans Chapter 12
Romans Chapter 12
The apostle resumes the thread of his instructions, by taking up-as he does in all his epistles-the moral consequences of his doctrine. He places the believer at the outset on the ground of God’s mercy, which he had fully developed already. The principle of grace that saves had been established as the basis of salvation. The ground of all Christian morality is now laid in this fundamental principle:-to present our bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God-an intelligent service, not that of the hands, not consisting in ceremonies which the body could perform-a simple but deep-reaching and all-efficacious principle. This was for man personally. As to his outward relationships, he was not to be conformed to the world. Neither was this to be an outside mechanical nonconformity, but the result of being renewed in mind, so as to seek for and discern the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect; the life being thus transformed.
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This connects itself with the end of chapter 6. It is not those sitting in heavenly places, imitators of God as dear children, but men on earth set free by the delivering power of redemption and grace, yielding themselves up to God to do His will. The exhortation follows the character we have seen to be that of the epistle.
Thus the Christian walk was characterised by devotedness and obedience. It was a life subjected to the will of another, namely, to the will of God; and therefore stamped with humility and dependence. But there was absolute devotedness of heart in self-sacrifice. For there was a danger, flowing from the power that acted in it, of the flesh coming in and availing itself of it. With regard to this, every one was to have a spirit of wisdom and moderation, and to act within the limits of the gift which God had dispensed to him, occupying himself with it according to the will of God; even as each member has its own place in the body, and should accomplish the function which God has ascribed to it. The apostle passes on insensibly to all the forms which duty assumes in the Christian, according to the various positions in which he stands, and to the spirit in which he ought to walk in every relationship.
It is in chapter 12 only that the idea of the assembly as a body is thus found in this epistle; and that, in connection with the duties of the members individually-duties that flowed from their positions as such. Otherwise it is the position of man in his individual responsibility before God, and this met by grace, and then the delivered man, that is set before us in the Epistle to the Romans. The directions given by the apostle extend to the Christian’s relationship with the authorities under which he is placed. He recognises them as accomplishing the service of God, and as armed with authority from Him, so that resisting them would be resisting that which God had established. Conscience therefore, and not merely force, constrained the Christian to obey. In fine he was to render to every man that which was due to him in virtue of his position; to leave nothing owing to any one, be it of whatever character it might-excepting love-a debt which never can be liquidated.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 The Practical Theme: The calling of the Roman Christians,…
PART SECOND
The Practical Theme: The calling of the Roman Christians, on the ground of their accomplished redemption, or the universal mercy of God (which will be extended to all), to represent the living worship of God in the completion of the real burnt-offering, and to form a universal Christian church-life for the realization of the call of all nations to praise and glorify God, so that they too may recognize and sustain the universal call of the Apostle. In correspondence with this is the recommendation of his companions, assistants, and friends, in sending his greetings to them; in contrast with which is his warning against Judaizing and paganizing false teachers; Rom_12:1 to Rom_16:20.—Conclusion. Salutations of friends. Amen (Rom_12:21-21).
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Literature.—Borger, Dissertatio de parte epistolœ ad Romanos parœnetica. Lugd. Bat., 1810.
FIRST DIVISION
THE CALLING OF THE ROMAN CHURCH TO A UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN DEPORTMENT
Rom_12:1 to Rom_15:13
First Section.—The practical theme (Rom_12:1-2). The proper conduct of Christians toward the fellowship of the brethren for the establishment of a harmonious church-life (Rom_12:3-8).
Rom_12:1-8
1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye [to]1 present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable [well-pleasing] unto God, which is your reasonable [rational] service. [,] 2And be not [And not to be]2 conformed to this world: but be ye transformed [but to be transfigured]3 by the renewing of your4 mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God [or, what is the will of God, what is good, and well-pleasing, and perfect].5
3For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly [or, not to be high-minded above what he ought to be minded, but to be so minded as to be sober-minded],6 according as God hath dealt to every manthe measure of faith. 4For as we have many members in one body, and all5members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ,and every one7 members one of another. 6Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy8 according7to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching; 8Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Summary.—The practical theme controlling the whole of the second part. The proper conduct of Christians, or the calling of (Roman) Christians to the living worship (service) of God,9 Rom_12:1-2; a. The proper conduct toward the fellowship of believing brethren, the Church (ecclesiastical duties), Rom_12:3-8; b. The proper conduct of Christians in all personal relations, Rom_12:9-21; c. Toward civil authorities (duties toward the government), Rom_13:1-6; d. Toward the world in general. Recognition of the rights of the world, and of legal fellowship with it. Separation, on the contrary, from the ungodliness of the world, Rom_12:7-14; e. The proper practice of the living worship of God, and its universality in the removing of the differences between the “weak” and the “strong,” Rom_14:1 to Rom_15:4; f. Exhortation to unanimity of all the members of the Church to the praise of God, on the ground of God’s grace, for realizing the destination of all nations to glorify God, Rom_15:5-13.
See also the headings of the sections. Meyer: “General exhortation to holiness.” But this “general” exhortation is very characteristically defined according to the characteristic, fundamental thought of the whole Epistle, in its essential as well as in its personal reference. According to the essential reference, the Apostle has shown, in the first part, that the corruption of the world consists in its having fallen from the living worship of God, and that therefore redemption is a restoration of the fundamental principles of this living worship. The entire holiness of Christians is, accordingly, portrayed as the development of a living spiritual worship. But in the personal reference, the Apostle shows how the Roman Christian congregation should be developed into a congregation of living worship, in order to be the instrument of its extension to all the world, to serve as a central organ for the Apostle, who has perceived his calling in the extension of this worship into all the world.
1. The practical theme (Rom_12:1-2). A summons to develop the service restored by redemption. [Comp. here the third part of the Heidelberg Catechism, On Thankfulness to God for Redemption.—P. S.]
Rom_12:1. I beseech you therefore, brethren[Παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί]. According to Meyer and Tholuck, the οὖν does not introduce an inference from the whole of the previous didactic part (as Calvin, Bengel, De Wette, Philippi, and others, would have it), but from Rom_11:35-36. But it must be observed, that the conclusion of chap. 11. constitutes the organic apex of the entire doctrinal division; this is especially true of Rom_11:32, with which Rückert, and others, would connect this verse. Tholuck fails to perceive the Apostle’s practical theme, in saying: “The Apostle was accustomed to make some exhortations follow the chief, and therefore the didactic, contents.”
By the mercies of God [διὰ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ] (Rom_15:30; 1Co_1:10; 2Co_10:1). The objective ground of Divine mercy in their experience of salvation, is made the subjective ground of his admonition. He refers to the experience of Divine mercy, its consequence, and its light and right, as if he said, by the name of Divine mercy. The only difference is, that, in the asseveration διά, by, the speaker allows the subject of his asseveration itself to speak as motive and motor. The plural οἰκτιρμοί corresponds to the Hebrew רַחֲמִים; but the Apostle has also instituted, in the foregoing, a threefold gradation of the Divine demonstration of grace.
To present, παραστῆσαι. The expression, which was used of placing the sacrificial beast before the altar, conveys the thought of the complete resignation and readiness which, on the one hand, does not in the least hesitate, but, on the other, makes no intrusion by an arbitrary slaying of the offering.
Your bodies [τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν]. The holding of the body in readiness for an offering well-pleasing to God, is the expression for the highest measure of the renunciation of every thing earthly and temporal. Explanations:
1. Figurative designation of personality itself, according to the figure of the offering (Beza, De Wette, and Philippi [Stuart, Hodge]).
2. The bodies in the real sense, as the holiness of the νοῦς is added in the second verse (Fritzsche, Meyer).
3. The sensuous nature of man, which leads him to sin (Köllner, and others).
Against (1): The Apostle speaks, according to the apostolic standard, to believers, who, according to Romans 6 :, have already given their personal life to death. But the body is the organ and symbol of all the individual parts, which must be offered in consequence of this principial offering. Against (2), Cocceius: Non possumus offerre corpus sine anima. The real service performed in making the offering is, indeed, finished with the shedding of blood, or with the resignation of the body. But the heart, or the life of the spirit, is given to God as an expression that the body is offered. Against (3) Whatever is sinful is not fit, as such, for an offering.—The body is the organ and symbol of the present life in all its relations and parts. Comp. Rom_6:12-13, where the question under consideration is the active consecration of all the members of the body.10
Sacrifice. Θυσίαν. We hold that the Apostle has in mind the symbol of the central offering—that is, of the burnt-offering (comp. Tholuck, p. 651). But the burnt-offering was a symbol that the whole life, with all its powers, should be consumed in the fire of God’s sovereignty, for His service and glory. The predicates, living, ζῶσαν, &c., particularly the first, which the Apostle ascribes to this θυσία, are thought, by Meyer, to denote the antithesis of this New Testament offering to that of the Old Testament: “as an offering which lives (antithesis to the real offerings which lose their life).” Tholuck, on the other hand, says with propriety: “the thought that in the Old Testament only dead offerings were brought to God, is neither Jewish nor Pauline; to present not only dead offerings, but even sick ones, was an abomination before the Lord; Mai. Rom_1:8.” Yet this applies only to Meyer’s expression; his distinction in itself is well founded. The predicates, holy [ἁγίαν] and well-pleasing to God [εὐάρεστον τῷ Θεῷ], do not in themselves fully constitute an antithesis to the Old Testament. The antithesis is comprised: (1) In the designation, your bodies, human bodies; which is necessary to the idea of a spiritual offering; (2) In the emphasis on the presenting and holding in readiness for the Lord, as the Finisher of the real offering; in which all their own external self-offering on the part of the Roman Christians is absolutely precluded. By this means the predicates acquire a stronger meaning. The higher and real newness of life, the holiness of, and Divine pleasure in, the life of faith given up to the service of God, take the place of the symbolical newness of life, holiness of, and legal Divine pleasure in, the offering of the beast. Estius, Bengel, and others, have connected the τῷ Θεῷ with παραστῆσαι; this is correctly opposed by Meyer and Tholuck (see Php_4:18; comp. Rom_6:13; 1Pe_2:5).
Which is your rational service. [Dr. Lange: Euer vernünftiger (geistiger) Gottesdienst.] The accusative τὴν λογικὴν λατρείαν is in apposition with the foregoing clause, characterizing more specifically what has been said, according to the New Testament conception of offering, in antithesis to that of the Old Testament. The λατρεία, service, worship, which, in its central idea, is everywhere an offering (see Joh_16:2). But this sacrificial worship of believers should be λογική (see Joh_4:21; Rom_1:9; 1Pe_2:5). The λογικόν denotes that which is inspired by reason, in harmony with real reason, and consequently spiritual, real; in antithesis to merely external symbolical service (Melanchthon, cultus mentis),11 but not in antithesis to the ζῶα ἄλογα (Theodoret, Grotius, and others); for, as Meyer observes, the question here is λατρεία, but not θυσία. Indirectly, indeed, the λογικὴ λατρεία is also an antithesis to the cultus commentitii; for if the symbolical service would establish itself beyond its time, against the real service, it would then become cultus commentitius.
Rom_12:2. And not to be conformed. On the difference of the readings, see Textual Note2. The infinitives must be referred to the παρακαλῶ. The συνσχηματίζεσθαι is passive, with a reflexive meaning, in eandem formam redigi, se conformare. Philippi: “The original difference between σχῆμα and μορφή may be, that the latter denotes rather the organic form, while the former denotes more the mechanical form, the external and adventitious habitus (σχῆμα from ἔχω, σκεῖν); comp. 1Co_7:31. Hence σκῆμα is also the external semblance, the pompa, and σκηματίζεσθαι, synonymous with προσποιεῖσθαι, to assume a form, a seeming shape, to appear, to take the shape of; comp. the passages cited by Wetstein; μορφή also the beautiful form, forma; comp. formosus. Thus μορφή more fitly designates the real inward form, while σχῆμα denotes rather the external and accidental appearance.” Comp. Php_2:6-8. See also Tholuck, p. 652. Meyer holds [as the E. V. assumes], that the antithesis of both verbs is comprised only in the prepositions; these, indeed, increase it. The σύν denotes the torpidity of the external form of the Church by uniformity with the world, worldliness; the μετά denotes the organic change and transformation of the organic shape, according to the new inward form. Meyer: “The present infinitives denote a continued action, while παραστῆσαι represents the presenting of the offering as a completed act.”
To this world [τῶ αἰῶνι τούτῳ]. הַוֶּה עוֹלָם . The pre-messianic and relatively anti-messianic form of the world in its perverted course. [Comp. Lange’s Comm., Gal_1:4, p. 13.—R.]
But to be transfigured [ἀλλὰ μεταμορφοῦσθαι. The difference in preposition and verb is better preserved by transfigured, which also conveys the distinctions suggested above. See Five Anglican Clergymen.—R.] The μεταμ. is reflexive, as συνσχ.
By the renewing of your mind; Rom_7:24; Eph_4:23. The καινότης πνεύματος (Rom_7:6; comp. Rom_6:4), as an impelling principle, results in the ἀνακαίνωσις of the νοῦς; for the νοῦς, the conscious, thoughtful, or reflective moral and religious spiritual life (disposition) is constantly renewed, in part restored, and in part developed, in its mastery over the natural part of life. The transformation and shaping of the life of the Christian are determined not by external worldly forms, but by this inward renewing, or renewing ascending to the whole of the external life (ἀνακαίνωσις) through the productive power of the Spirit. The νοῦς, as such, does not then receive the new μορφή (Tholuck), but rather the whole Christian life from the νοῦς outward.12
That ye may prove. Literally: εἰς τὸ δοκιμάζειν. [Infinitive clause of design (Meyer).—R.] The Christian life should not receive its development by means of an external legislation, but by the inward one, which is directed by spiritual proving and self-determination (see Gal_6:4; Eph_5:10; Php_1:10, and other passages). Meyer appropriately says: “In the unrenewed man this proving is altogether foreign to the activity of his conscience. Comp. Eph_5:10.” But with this there is also connected the being able to prove (Rückert, Köllner [Hodge, apparently]), although the actual proving is conjoined with it. Meyer: “The regenerate one proves by the verdict of his conscience, aroused and illuminated by the Spirit.” The νόμος of the Spirit, the Christian principle of life, is an infinitude, whose explanation and concrete application to life is committed to the proving of Christian illumination and Wisdom 13
The will of God [τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ]. That which is willed by God in every relation of life. The reference of the definitions τὸ ἀγαθόν, καὶ εὐάρεστον καὶ τέλειον, as adjectives, to God’s will (Vulgate, Chrysostom, the most of the early expositors, Luther, Rückert, &c.), is opposed, first of all, by the εὐάρεστον, but, in general, by the tautology that would be contained in the expression. Therefore Erasmus, Castalio, Tholuck, Meyer, and the most of the early commentators, have regarded the additions as a substantive apposition.
What is good, &c. We may ask whether a climax of three members is designed [Meyer], or whether we should render explicit that double relation of the good, by which, on the one hand, it is that which is well-pleasing to God, and, on the other, that which is perfect in itself, because it arises from the righteousness of faith, the principle of perfection. We prefer the latter rendering. The repetition of the article would, of course, not be necessary with the first interpretation.14
2. The proper conduct of Christians toward the community of brethren for the establishment of a harmonious church-life (Rom_12:3-8). Tholuck is correct in finding, in what follows, a reference to the different spheres of activity in the Church. Meyer speaks only of an exhortation to individual duties.15
Rom_12:3. For I say (say definitely). The γάρ is rendered namely, by Tholuck and Meyer. [Alford also takes it as resumptive.] First of all, namely appears as inappropriate as for. If it is the matter of the self-proving and self-determination of believers, how they should act toward each other, how can the Apostle lay down his precepts immediately afterward? The answer lies in the fact, that their subjective judgment should be subordinated to the known objective will of God. This requirement, that they should be certain as to whether their conduct corresponds to God’s perfect will, is so great, that it causes the Apostle to lay down regulations for it. Therefore we may also translate the γάρ by for. The λέγειν is used in the sense of injunction.
Through the grace, &c. [διὰ τῆς χάριτος, κ.τ.λ.] Even here διά. He will not prescribe for them by virtue of his subjective opinion or authority, but by virtue of the grace which is given to him (see Rom_1:5), which establishes his office, and is at the same time the element of life common to his office and their church-life (see Rom_15:15; 1Co_3:10; Eph_3:7-8).
To every man that is among you [παντὶ τῶ ὄντι ἐν ὑμῖν. Alford: “A strong bringing out of the individual application of the precept.”—R.] This would therefore have applied to Peter also, if he had been in Rome, or Paul would not have spoken thus, or, indeed, would not have written to them at all.
Not to think of himself [μὴ ὑπερφρονεῖν. See the text, and Textual Note6.—R.] Tholuck: φρονεῖν is here not “to strive after,” and also not “to be disposed, to think,” but “to think (of himself)” (see p. 654).
Soberly, σωφρονεῖν. It is wise conduct or good behavior, especially as moderation.—Proper self-knowledge and esteem, apart from over-estimation, should, by modesty, come to proper and wise moderation in the reciprocity of the personal life with the society. Meyer understands φρονεῖν as to be disposed, and explains the details accordingly; the Vulgate, Calvin, and others, interpret in the same way. The mode of thinking and feeling is undoubtedly connected here with the holding and demeaning, which is proved by the σωφρονεῖν.
According as God hath dealt to every man [ἑκάστῳ ὡς ὁ θεὸς ἐμέρισεν]. The ἑκάστῳ is dependent on ἑμέρισε: According as God hath dealt to every man, &c., is therefore made antecedent by inversion (see 1Co_3:5).—The idea of a different distribution of the measure of faith leads to the idea of the gift (Rom_12:6). No one should apply more than the gift of grace, for what lies beyond this is presumption; but the whole of the gift of grace should be applied, for if this be not done, something would be withheld from the society which is designed for it. Comp. 1Co_12:4-6; 1Co_12:11; Heb_2:4.
The measure of faith [μέτρον πίστεως]. When Meyer maintains that faith here means only faith in the ordinary sense, he overlooks the fact that the measure of faith is spoken of in concrete unity; or rather, he interprets this measure erroneously, by understanding only different degrees of the strength of faith, and, accordingly, he not only rejects the reference of the expression to Christian knowledge (Beza, and others), or to the power of working miracles (Theophylact), but also to the gift of grace (Chrysostom, and most other commentators). The purely Divine element in the gift is undoubtedly emphasized here, for what is not of faith is sin. [Alford explains the phrase: “The receptivity of χαρίσματα, itself no inherent congruity. It is, in fact, the subjective designation of ‘the grace that is given unto us;’ Rom_12:6.” He rightly distinguishes it from the gifts and graces themselves. So Philippi in substance. The objective sense of “faith,” which is implied in the view of Beza, is open to decided objection.—R.]
Rom_12:4. For as we have many members in one body [καθάπερ γάρ ἐν ἑνὶ σώματδ πολλὰ μέλη ἔχομεν]. Establishment of the foregoing. The individual Christian is only a member of Christ’s body, and should conduct himself as a member, avow himself as a member, and should permit himself to be strengthened as a member; Christ alone is the Head.16 “On the commonness of the parallels between a human body and a corpus sociale (1 Corinthians 12), even among the ancients, see Grotius and Wetstein in loco;” Meyer.
Rom_12:5. So we, being many. In antithesis to the unity of the body.
In Christ. The head is the organic vital centre of the whole, in which (not to which) every thing in respect to dominion and glory is comprised (Eph_1:22, and other passages).
And every one. Τὸ δὲ καθ̓ εἷς is a solecism of the later Greek, instead of τὸ δὲ καθ̓ ἕνα; Mar_14:19; Joh_8:9, and other passages.
Rom_12:6. Having then gifts differing according to the grace [ἕχοντες δὲ χαρίσματα κατὰ τὴν χάριν τὴν δοθεῖσαν ἡμῖν διάφορα]. Different constructions here enter into consideration.
1. With ἔχοντες a new sentence begins, which continues in a succession of elliptical exhortations (Beza, Olshausen, Philippi, and others). Meyer: “The elliptical expression after κατὰ τὴν ἀναλ. τ. πίστ. may be supplied by προφητεύωμε; by ὦμεν after ἐν τῇ διακονίᾳ by ἔστω after ἐν τῆ διδασκαλίᾳ; by the same after ἐν τῇ παρακήσει; and, finally, by the imperatives of the corresponding verbs (μεταδιδότω, &c.) after the three following parts, ἐν ἁπλότητι, &c. [So E. V., Hodge, &c.] Comp. the analogous mode of expression in 1Pe_4:10 f.
2. The ἔχοντες is connected with the foregoing, but in such a way that the following clauses are, according to Meyer, all ellipses (Erasmus, and others). Meyer also places Tholuck here, but Tholuck declares now for (1).
3. The ἔχοντες δὲ is joined with ἐσμεν (Rom_12:5), in appositional meaning, and the following clauses are, at the outset, not hortatory, but descriptive, yet pass over into the hortatory (Reiche, Rückert, De Wette, Lachmann). We accept this construction with the modification, that we construe the ἔχειν emphatically in the meaning of to have and to hold fast, to put into practice, to exercise. Comp. Rom_1:28. With the gifts, as with every thing spiritual, we must bear especially in mind that they cannot be possessed aright without exercising them. Thus the hortatory character under the descriptive form lies in the force of the ἔχειν, and in the added δέ. [This δέ is rendered by Alford: “and not only so, but.”—R.]
As for the apparent fluctuations in the construction, they resolve themselves into regular forms, if we observe the subdivisions,17 The Apostle distinguishes, first of all, two principal categories: a. προφητεία; b. διακονία. The διακονία is then divided into the διδάσκων and the πραικαλῶν; this latter is again divided into the μεταδιδούς, the προϊστάμενος, and the ἐλεῶν. This is proved by the forms:
1. The antithesis of the abstract nouns, προφητεία and διακονία. The latter, in its broader meaning, was evidently a church office; while, on the other hand, the προφητεία was, in the fullest sense, also an office.
2. εἴτε ὁ διδάσκων, εἴτε ὁ παρακαλῶν. This παρακαλῶν must, at all events, be regarded as a superintendent of the society, presbyter, or man having the gifts of the presbyter, whether, as ὁ μεταδιδούς, he devoted himself to the care of the poor; as ὁ προϊστάμενος, to the κυβέρνησις, in the narrower sense; or, as ὁ ἐλεῶν, to the healing of the sick and casting out of devils.18—Gifts differing according to the grace. Gifts; that is, modifications of the one Divine grace in the differences of the human individual talent (see 1Co_12:4 ff.).
Whether prophecy. Prophecy, in the Old Testament as well as in the New, is the gift and calling to declare, by the prompting and communication of God’s Spirit, what is new—that which concerns the future, and the development of God’s kingdom; in order, like the compass, to direct aright, in the present, the ship of the kingdom. The reason why it appears more in the foreground in the Old Testament than in the New, is, that the former was the time of expectation and longing, and the latter the time of fulfilment and satisfaction.19
According to the proportion (harmony) of faith [κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως]. The expression defines exactly: according to the relation, the proportion, or harmony of faith; that is, according to the proportion defined by faith. Explanations:
1. Subjective faith, including the measure of faith, is meant (the early commentators; Origen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and others; Bengel and Meyer [Alford, De Wette]. Tholuck: “The prophet keeps within the limits of his prophetical gift, assigned him by his individuality ”).
2. The objective rule of faith (Abelard, Aquinas, Hervæus, &c.; Flatt, Klee, Philippi, and others). Tholuck, on the contrary, observes, that we may ask whether Paul could have appealed already to such a regula fidei. But, in reality, Moses has already established the features of the analogia fidei, Deu_18:18 ff. It is well known that the Jews crucified Christ by a false application of this rule; but it is equally well known that the New Testament proofs of faith from the Old Testament, which first introduced Christianity into the Jewish world, have only been a living application of this rule. At all events, Paul could not yet appeal to ecclesiastical confessions, but he could appeal to a fundamental canon of truth; see Gal_1:8; Gal_6:16; Php_3:16; 2Ti_3:15-16, &c. However, Tholuck has other grounds for preferring the explanation, that the prophet keeps within the sphere of his calling; namely, because the deacon should remain within the sphere of his diaconate, &c. But is the sphere of the prophet described by the measure of his subjective faith, or would not this be here rather a nugatory generality?20 The sphere of the prophet, who reveals what is new for the enlargement of the old revelation, is just the real character of the revelation itself, harmonizing with itself through all the stages of development. Yet the Apostle does not say ἀποκαλύψεως, but πίστεως, because the faith of the Church is also called to the office of watchman, in order that the development of the truth be not corrupted by false prophets. The application of this rule to the exposition of the Scriptures in the early period (see Tholuck, p. 664) is not explicatio, but applicatio; but it cannot be denied that this applicatio itself is made κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως.
Rom_12:7. Or ministry [εἴτε διακονίαν, das Dienstamt (Lange). Governed by ἔχοντες, like the preceding accusative]. A threefold idea of the διακονία can be distinguished in the New Testament. 1. The most comprehensive idea understands by διακονία the ecclesiastical office in general; see 1Co_12:5. There, prophecy is designated as a diaconate; here, it is distinguished from it. 2. Therefore, the special office for a definite congregation. So here. [Dr. Lange apparently includes here all the permanent offices in a single church, as he makes διακονία a category, under which the five following terms fall. If, however, it be considered as coördinate with what follows, then the still more restricted view must be adopted.—R.] 3. The diaconate, in distinction from the presbyterial episcopacy, 1Ti_3:8. At the time when this Epistle was written, the ecclesiastical distinctions were less developed than when the First Epistle to Timothy was written, but yet more so than in the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
Let us wait on our ministering [ἐν τῇ διακονίᾳ. We must supply an imperative, either let us be in, remain in, or wait on (as E. V.). The sense is the same.—R.] Meyer thus explains the ἐν: The one who was “diaconally endowed” shall not wish to be of authority beyond the sphere assigned him by this endowment, but to be active within it. But it is not necessary to understand the εἶναι ἐν quantitatively; it can also be understood qualitatively. And since all the apostolic functions of the Church were diaconal, qualitative ministering is undoubtedly the meaning. The proof of the true office is, that it consists simply in service; just as, inversely, pure divine service becomes the true office, even if it had no human official seal. With the positive filling of his sphere, it is always supposed that he does not commit improprieties beyond his sphere.
Or he that teacheth, on teaching [εἴτε ὁ διδάσκων, ἐν τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ]. According to Meyer, Paul should have continued uniformly, εἴτε διδασκαλίαν (sc. ἔχοντες), “as [Cod.] A. actually has.” We have seen, in the arrangement of the gifts (see above), what grounds he had for not thus continuing.21 Thus he has his gift in his labors as teacher. This appears self-evident; but how many, who would be deemed teachers, are mere babblers!
Rom_12:8. Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation [ὁ παρακλῶν, ἐν τῇ παρακλήσει]. As the παρακαλῶν here is definitely distinguished from the διδάσκων, nothing else can be understood by it than a fraction within the more general presbyterate. Evidently the more definite distinction, in 1Ti_5:17, between presbyters who devote themselves to teaching, and ruling presbyters, thus begins to take shape; while, on the other hand, the diaconate is developed in a presbyterate from the date of Act_11:30, and has not yet positively been separated from it. The exhorter, according to what follows, comprises the different sides of the subsequently developed presbyterial office; he is undoubtedly synonymous with the pastors, Eph_4:11. The division of his office appears in the following statements.22
He that giveth [ὁ μεταδιδούς]. According to Meyer, the official functions to the Church cease with the εἴτε. We have, on the contrary, laid down further subdivisions here. Every Christian is indeed a μεταδιδδος, and not less an ἐλεῶν; but as here there stands midway between the two a προϊστάμενος, which not every one can be, special functions recognized by the Church are evidently meant. Meyer argues against such functions, by observing: a. The diaconal gift could not be thus analyzed; b. The position of the προϊστάμενος as the presbyter between two deaconal employments, would be inappropriate. Instead, therefore, of bearing in mind the growing relations, he does violence to them by preconceived opinions; a presbyter is a presbyter, a deacon is a deacon, &c.; and then, according to him, Paul casts the presbyter right in the midst of the membership.23
With simplicity. This term is characteristic of the penetration of the Apostle, since accessory views might be easily connected with all exercise of beneficence.24
He that ruleth, προϊστάμενος. According to Meyer, the presbyter, but not the presbyter exclusively. See 1Co_12:28. The order there laid down by the apostles is as follows: 1. Prophets; 2. Teachers; 3. Miraculous powers; then healing of the sick, then bestowals of help, then κυβερνήσεις, and finally γένη γλωσσῶν. Therefore the bestowals of help would thus fall under the rubric of the present παρακαλῶν, and especially of the μεταδιδούς. Undoubtedly the κυβερνήσεις there stands in the same line with the προϊστάμενος here. The ones concerned as having care of the external affairs of the Church, had, at the beginning, no great things to manage. We then find the parallel of the ἐλεῶν in the gift of specific miracles: the healing of those possessed with devils, and the restoration of the sick.25
With diligence. Σπουδή may mean haste, zeal, or diligence. But the latter idea is most definite; zeal was a common duty of all.
With cheerfulness [ἐν ἱλαρότητν, i. e., hilarity]. “With gladness and friendliness,” says Meyer, “the opposite of unwilling and ill-humored behavior.” But the question here is not a conventional good conduct, but that cheerfulness from heaven which, in a despondent world, among other duties, must conquer and banish the demons of sadness.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Rom_12:1 ff. As man’s ideal destination was to perceive God aright in His works, and to praise and glorify Him, and, accordingly, the fall consisted in the omission of this living worship, according to Rom_1:20-21; then, as human corruption consisted fundamentally in the false worship of heathen idolatry and of Jewish zeal for the letter, according to chaps. 1. and 2.; as, further, redemption was instituted that God might effect and manifest the real atonement in Christ as the mercy-seat of the Holy of Holies sprinkled with His own blood, according to Rom_3:25; as then, consequently, also Christian saving faith consisted (according to Rom_5:1-2) of free access to God into the Holy of Holies, and is developed in the most varied features of a New Testament call to worship; so, according to the practical part of this Epistle, should believers begin the development of their worship (Rom_12:1), by finishing the real burnt-offering by the pure presentation of their own bodily life to God’s service. On the passages of heathen and Jewish wise men relating to the moral consecration to God as a self-offering, quoted in Wetstein and Koppe, see Meyer, p. 453. See the same author on the “rational service,” p. 453; Tholuck, p. 651 ff.; Philippi, p. 500. It is noteworthy that the “rational service” is recommended to the Roman Church. On the συσχηματίζσθαι and μεταμορφοῦσθαι, see the Exeg. Notes. On αἰὼν οὗτος, see Philippi, p. 202.
2. Just as the First Epistle of Peter appears as an evangelical prophecy, in opposition to the later false image of Peter, so is it with the Epistle to the Romans; and especially does the expression of the living offering and the reasonable service stand in opposition to the later picture of the life of the Romish Church. The same assertion holds good of the expression with which Paul prescribes for all Christians in Rome, that every one should not think too highly of himself, that we are all members one of another, &c.
3. The first application which the Christian has to make of the principle of his new life is, that he should not arrogantly abuse his charism [gift] in a hierarchical or sectarian way, but should exercise it purely for the service of the Church, by adapting himself to the requirements of the community, and yet preserve his evangelical freedom. The rule is: (1) The whole gift for the Church; (2) Nothing but the gift; see 1 Corinthians 12. On the idea of the charism, see the Exeg. Notes; also Tholuck, p. 655 ff.; p. 661.—The difference between the ἐλεῶν and him that giveth, applies to an early period in the Church. The support of the poor brethren in the first period was not the alms of charity. On the disposition and character of the increasing offices in the Church, see the Exeg. Notes. For fuller information on the gifts, see my Gesch. des apostol. Zeitalters, p. 555 ff.; and on the offices, p. 535 ff.
4. The defective understanding, which is still apparent in many ways, in reference to the rule that prophecy is according to the measure of faith, arises from the want of perception of the lawfulness of organic development in the department of spiritual as well as of natural life. With the lawfulness of development there is combined the development of lawfulness in all the spheres of life. But in the ecclesiastical department of faith, many will know nothing of the development expressed in prophecy, and, in contrast to them, many will know nothing of the lawfulness expressed by the measure of faith. Hence arise such foolish, noisy decisions of the day as this: The confessions of the Church are no longer obligatory! Every one must know what is obligatory for him, according to his own conscience and calling. But no one has any right to deny the validity of what the Church of God, in its real development of life, regards as its duty. At all events, it follows most from the Apostle’s rule, that the meaning of confessions is thoroughly dependent on the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. But then it may be asked, whether a legal development has been committed to the Church in its essential and substantial life, or whether the custom of declaiming against the boundless culpability of the Church, now in doctrine and now in life, has arisen because the tradition of bishops’ caps and doctors’ hats is regarded as the most exact history of the Church.
[5. On church polity, as taught in this section. The most remarkable fact is, that so little is said. The doctrines of grace are fully treated; the practical theme is distinctly announced. Then, after an exhortation to humility, comes an exhortation apparently to church officers, yet so indistinct in its distinctions that nothing definite as to the usages of the Roman Church can be based upon it. A warning against the hierarchy of Rome can readily be found in it; but is it not also suggestive of a certain “freedom of adaptation” in the external polity of Christ’s Church? To one who has puzzled over this and parallel passages with the honest purpose of finding out what is the form of church government given jure divino, and failed to discover, in any present form, the counterpart of the apostolic Church, it gives a happy relief from perplexity to conclude that church polity was purposely sketched by the apostles only in “silhouette;” that the details are to be of ecclesiastical rather than of Divine enactment; that, while despotism and anarchy are excluded, both by the nature of the case and the hints given in the New Testament, the external form of the Church of the future may be as different from any organization at present existing, as its spirit will transcend that of mere ecclesiasticism. Mayhap, when the Church shall return to the apostolical spirit, it will find in its outward form the true exegesis of these disputed passages. He who reads prelacy here, reads through colored glasses; and he who finds ruling elders alluded to, must first derive his knowledge of their existence from other sources, and then make his exegesis correspond. If, however, any will not be satisfied until a jure divino form is found, a search into later Epistles will be more profitable; yet that fact of itself admits development in the apostolic age, and who shall say when that development shall cease? Comp. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, i. pp. 130 ff., and the list of authors there referred to; also a discussion on Lay and Primitive Eldership, in the Amer. Presbyterian Review, Drs. R. D. Hitchcock and E. F. Hatfield, vol. vi. pp. 253–268, 506–531.—R.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
[In the original, the Homiletical Notes are inserted at the close of the chapter.—R.]
Rom_12:1-2. Our thank-offering for God’s mercy. 1. What sort of a sacrifice should it be? a. Living; b. Holy; c. Well-pleasing to God. 2. With what disposition should it be presented? a. Not so that we should conform to the world, and therefore not with unconverted hearts; but, b. That our minds should be renewed, that we may continually perceive God’s will aright.—Our rational service. 1. The sacrifice which is presented, is not the sacrifice of slain beasts, but the living sacrifice of our bodies. 2. The sanctuary is not the tabernacle or temple, but the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. 3. The priests are not Levites, but all believing Christians whose mind is renewed.—The restoration of rational service was a prime advantage conferred by our Reformers.—How rational service, in conformity with its nature, should not be limited to the celebration of Sundays and holy days, but should embrace the whole life.—The exhortation to rational service is still necessary. 1. In opposition to the Catholic Church; 2. In opposition to certain sects.—Paul exhorts to reasonable worship, but not to the worship of reason.—Reasonable service is not subtilizing service. 1. The former is living and inspiring; 2. The latter, dead and cold.
Luther: St. Paul here calls all offerings, works, and worship, unreasonable, when performed without faith and the knowledge of God.—The law has a sacrifice of many kinds of irrational beasts, all of which are combined in one sacrifice, in order that we ourselves may become reasonable men.
Starke: Nothing so urges us to what is good as the sense of God’s sweet grace and mercy.—The death of the old man is the life of the new man; where Adam’s wrath ceases, Christ’s meekness begins; and where Adam’s pride goes down, Christ’s humility rises.—Cramer: The Christians of the New Testament are spiritual priests, and bound to sacrifices, but they should sacrifice themselves: laying their obedience (1Sa_15:22), their lips (Hos_14:3), faith (Php_2:17), alms (Php_4:18), mercy (Hos_6:6), and all such things, on Jesus Christ, the golden altar, God will accept them.
Spener: It is not enough to do good and leave evil undone, but the Christian must present himself a complete sacrifice to God.—If, in short, we would know at what we should aim in Christianity, it is the Divine will, and therefore the Divine word. Whatever this forbids must be evil, though even the whole world should permit and praise it; and whatever it enjoins is good, though it should be displeasing to every one.—Bengel: They very improperly shirk from this perfect will who are always in search of what they, as they think, are at liberty to do without sin. But their course is just like that of a voyager, who, having lost his reckoning, is constantly in search of the most distant shore (Rom_12:2).
Roos: God wills every thing that is good, every thing that is well-pleasing to Him, and every thing that is perfect. That is good which harmonizes with God’s commandments; and it is good (καλόν) in so far as it is well-pleasing to Him; and it is perfect if presented to the extent of our capacity (Rom_12:2).
Gerlach: The Apostle compares the worship of Christians in spirit and in truth (Joh_4:24), which he accordingly calls reasonable (comp. 1Pe_2:2), with the typical and figurative sacrificial worship of the Old Testament (Rom_12:1-2).
Heubner: The love and mercy of God should be the incentive and source of the Christian sense. This constitutes the characteristic difference between Christian piety and every other kind: it flows from faith and the experience of Divine love in Christ.—The mutual devotedness of God and pious people.—The holiness of the first commandment.—Christian faith is the foundation of Christian piety (Rom_12:1).—Mastery over the fashion of the world: love for God, and the wish to have only His grace, conquers.—Proper and improper accommodation to circumstances.—Christian life must be something in motion, otherwise it will stink. Accipiunt vitium, ni moveantur, aquœ.
Besser: A Christian man presents his body as a daily offering, when he, 1. Crucifies that which impedes the spirit willing for God’s service; 2. When he offers all the powers of his body and soul for God’s honor and his neighbor’s good (Rom_12:1).—Our service is reasonable (“logical”) when it consists in Christian self-sacrifice, because this service is worthy of God, and well-pleasing to Him; just as the pure milk of the gospel (1Pe_2:2) is called reasonable (sincere) because it is the proper nourishment for God’s children.—Paul Speratus preached at Vienna, from this apostolical text, his powerful Reformation sermon on “The Glory of the reasonable Gospel Worship, and the Punishment of the unreasonable Popish Worship” (Rom_12:1).—We should flee from conformity to the world (Rom_12:2).
Rom_12:3-8. Humility as the fundamental law of reasonable service in the Church. 1. It should show itself in no one’s thinking too highly of himself, but in every one’s thinking soberly of himself. 2. It should be manifested by patient consecration of gifts to the service of the Church (Rom_12:3-8).—True Christian humility: 1. Its nature; 2. Its source (Rom_12:3).—The figure of the body and the members; comp. 1 Corinthians 12. (Rom_12:4-5).—Healthy church-life. To this belong two things: 1. Unity in Christ; 2. Diversity of gifts (Rom_12:4-8).—Proof of the necessary connection of unity and diversity in the Church. 1. Unity without diversity is death; 2. Diversity without unity is disorder (Rom_12:4-8).—The gift of prophecy. 1. In what does it consist? 2. What purpose should it serve? Comp. 1Co_14:3 (Rom_12:7).—Has any one an office, let him wait on his office. This is said, first of all, of the special care of the poor (διακονία); but then it applies to every office (Rom_12:7).—What belongs to waiting on our teaching? 1. The appropriation of the material for teaching. 2. Observation of the proper mode of teaching (method). 3. The consecration of our own persons (Rom_12:7).—We should give with simplicity—that is: 1. From an unselfish heart; 2. With a single eye (Mat_6:22); 3. With a pure hand (Rom_12:8).—Proper care in government. 1. It protects order; 2. It regards freedom (Rom_12:8).—Christian mercy. 1. Its nature; 2. Its exercise (Rom_12:8).
Luther: However precious be all prophecy which leads to works, and not simply to Christ, as our comfort, it is nevertheless not like faith; since those who practise it seek the revelation of hobgoblins, and masses, pilgrimages, fasts, and the worship of saints (Rom_12:7).—Let those be taught who do not know it, and those be admonished who know it already (Rom_12:7-8).
Starke: Man—a little world; such a glorious, artistic masterpiece of the Almighty Creator, that it cannot be too much contemplated and wondered at (Rom_12:4).—If you are appointed to the office of preacher, take your hand from the oxen, from the plough, and from your worldly business! Every one to the work to which God has assigned him! Sir_38:25 (Rom_12:8).—Cramer: Let no one think that he knows, and can do, every thing alone. If that had been designed, God would only have created one member to the body; Pro_22:2 (Rom_12:4).—The proper touchstone of all exposition of the Holy Scriptures, is the constant and impregnable harmony of the writings of the prophets and apostles; Act_26:22 (Rom_12:7).—Hedinger: Not out of the nest! How will you fly without feathers, judge without understanding, boast without a reason, be called pious without proof, be skilful without God? God does every thing, and you nothing. Therefore glorify Him, but not yourself. Be still and humble (Rom_12:3).—Listen! You are your neighbor’s servant. Happy he, who, as the servant of his neighbor, lives in love (Rom_12:4).—Many rules, little work. What may it be? Great cry, little wool. Perform your office well, and regard yourself as unworthy of praise and reward (Rom_12:7).—Müller: Teaching instructs and lays the foundation, exhortation builds upon the foundation (Rom_12:8).
Spener: God has given one kind of faith to all—that is, as far as the matter itself is concerned. Therefore Peter says: They who have obtained like (ἰσότιμον) precious faith with us (2Pe_1:1). Therefore we must regard ourselves, mutually, as members of one body (Rom_12:3).—On Rom_12:7 : Here belong preaching and catechetical instruction (characteristic of Spener).
Roos: Every one should act according to the proportion of his faith, and especially deliver Divine truths—that is, prophesy. That which is beyond them is the work of nature, and is worth nothing (Rom_12:4).—To the words, “he that teacheth,” and “he that exhorteth,” &c., we must mentally add, “because he has received his gift to do it from the Lord.” Now he should exercise himself in this employment (Rom_12:7—9).
Gerlach: True humility is, to be conscious of what God gives to it; and it is not a self-acquired possession, but a free gift, and therefore is most intimately one with sobriety and clearness of spirit; while false patience, with an apparently deep self-humiliation, gives man a sullen look at his own heart, and in his gloom it increases the dark spirit of selfishness and pride (Rom_12:3).—The gift of prophecy should not draw the Christian into the sphere of obscure feelings, where he can no longer distinguish the truth revealed by God from the imaginations of his own mind, but should have a guiding star and rule of conduct for common Christian faith (Rom_12:7).
Heubner: God has given us, in the human body, an eloquent picture of human society, and of the inward union of all men. [Comp. the address of Menenius Agrippa to the people in monte sacro, Livy 2:32] (Rom_12:4-6).—The sense of Rom_12:7 is: Let no one manifest or affect more fervency or enthusiasm than he has, according to the measure of his faith, according to the degree of his strength and religious conviction. How common it is for one to wish to appear more than he is, or can be! Even religion is brought out for a show, and perverted to a desire to please (Rom_12:7).—Nothing beyond the Christian’s office is required of him; that is the first thing for him.—Christian fidelity to office as the fruit of faith (Rom_12:7).
Besser: It is very important to distinguish the measure of faith, and yet not to separate from the measure of gifts (Rom_12:3).—To prophesy, means to declare God’s mysteries, impelled by the Holy Spirit (Rom_12:7).—The prophecy of an unbelieving preacher and expositor can, indeed, resemble faith; but we pray the Lord for prophets whose measure of faith holds the rule of faith alive within them, who preach, with hearts believing according to the received measure of faith, the faith which the Church confesses (Rom_12:7).
The Pericopes. Rom_12:1-6 for the first Sunday after Epiphany. Heubner: The sacred obligations of the Christian as a member of a holy community.—Every Christian should be a minister. 1. Proof; 2. Blessing.—Christian piety. 1. Its nature; 2. Its effects.—Buddeus: The real fruits of faith. They are shown: 1. In true service, or proper conduct toward God; 2. In proper conduct toward the world; and, 3. In proper conduct toward ourselves.—Kapff: What is necessary for the offering of a sacrifice well-pleasing to God? 1. That we should no longer seek salvation in ourselves or in the world; 2. That we should fully appropriate Christ as the perfect sacrifice; 3. That we should wholly surrender ourselves to the perfect will of God.—Standt: How far a true Christian must alienate himself from the world. 1. As a sacrifice on the Lord’s altar; 2. As a work of the Lord’s hand; 3. As a member of the Lord’s body.—Burk: The Christian’s life a daily priestly service. 1. In the feeling which pervades him; 2. In the denial which he exercises; 3. In the service which he renders.
[Bishop Hall, on Rom_12:2 : Sermon on the fashions of the world. Outline: I. The world. II. The forbidden fashions. 1. The head. 2. The eyes: (1) The adulterous eye; (2). The covetous eye; (3) The proud eye; (4) The envious eye. 3. The forehead—the seat of impudence. 4. The ear: (1) The deaf ear; (2) The itching ear. 5. The tongue: (1) The false tongue; (2) The malicious tongue; (3) The ribaldrous tongue. 6. The palate, or belly. 7. The back. 8. The neck and shoulders. 9. The heart. 10. The hands and feet. III. The ugliness and disgustiveness of worldly fashions in God’s sight.
[Farindon, on Rom_12:6 : On the proportion of faith. Plato, when asked what God does in heaven, how He busies and employs himself there, how He passes away eternity, answered: “He works geometrically.” So is the “proportion of faith6,” as St. Paul calls it, also geometrical; where we must not compare sum with sum, as they do in a market, or value the gift more or less by telling it; but argue thus: “As what He bestows is in proportion to his estate, so is what I bestow unto mine.” And in this sense, the widow’s two mites were recorded as a more bountiful and a larger present than if Solomon had thrown the wealth of his kingdom into the treasury. It was the faith, therefore, from which their liberality proceeded, which cheered the Apostle in all his distresses; not the gift itself.
[Leighton, on Rom_12:1 : On the sacrifice of the godly. The children of God delight in offering sacrifices to Him; but if they might not know that they were well taken at their hands, it would discourage them much. How often do the godly find it their experience, that, when they come to pray, He welcomes them, and gives them such evidence of His love as they would not exchange for all worldly pleasures! And when this doth not appear as at other times, they ought to believe it. He accepts themselves and their ways when offered in sincerity, though never so mean; though they sometimes have no more than a sigh or a groan, it is most properly a spiritual sacrifice.
[Jeremy Taylor: Religion teaches us to present to God our bodies as well as our souls; for God is the Lord of both; and if the body serves the soul in actions natural, and civil, and intellectual, it must not be eased in the only offices of religion, unless the body shall expect no portion of the rewards of religion, such as are resurrection, reunion, and glorification.
[Charnock, on Rom_12:1 : God, who requires of us a reasonable service, would work upon us by a reasonable operation. God therefore works by way of a spiritual illumination of the understanding, in propounding the creature’s happiness by arguments and reasons, and in a way of a spiritual impression upon the will, moving it sweetly to the embracing that happiness, and the means to it, which He proposes; and, indeed, without this work preceding, the motion of the will could never be regular.
[J. Howe, on Rom_12:1 : Sermon on self-dedication. I. Explanation of the terms in the text. II. How the act enjoined must be performed. 1. With knowledge and understanding; 2. With serious consideration; 3. With a determined judgment that it ought to be done; 4. With liberty of spirit; 5. With full bent of heart and will; 6. With concomitant acceptance of God; 7. With explicit reference to Christ; 8. With deep humility and self-abasement; 9. With joy and gladness of heart; 10. With candor and simplicity; 11. With full surrender to God; 12. With solemnity. III. Inducements to self-dedication.
[Bishop Hopkins, on Rom_12:2 : On God’s will. This is all contained in the Holy Scriptures, which are a perfect system of precepts given us for the government of our lives here, and for the attaining of eternal life hereafter; and therefore it is likewise called His revealed will; whereas the other, namely, the will of purpose, is God’s secret will, until it be manifested unto us by the events and effects of it.—To be governed by our own or other men’s wills, is usually to be led by passion, and blind, headlong affections; but to give up ourselves wholly to the will of God, is to be governed by the highest reason in the world; for His will cannot but be good, since it is the measure and rule of goodness itself; for things are said to be good because God wills them. And whatsoever He requires of us is pure and equitable, and most agreeable to the dictates of right and illuminated reason; so that we act most like men when we act most like Christians, and show ourselves most rational when we show ourselves most religious.—J. F. H.]
Footnotes:
[1]Rom_12:1.—[The infinitive should be retained in the English rendering, for the sake of convenience in connecting the infinitives, which are to be accepted as the correct readings in Rom_12:2.
[2]Rom_12:2.—[The Rec. (with א. B1. L., many versions and fathers) reads: συσχηματιζεσθε, which is adopted by Wordsworth and Tregelles. The majority of modern editors and commentators (Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tholuck, De Wette, Meyer, Alford, Lange) accept the infinitive; so A. B2. D. F. Most of these support συνσχηματίζεσθαι, rather than συσχ. Meyer says: “It is quite as likely that the imperative was written, to make Rom_12:2 an independent sentence, as that the infinitive, was substituted for the sake of conformity with Rom_12:1.” Accepting the infinitive, we place a comma at the close of Rom_12:1, and emend as above.
[3]Rom_12:2.—[Here the infinitive μεταμορφοῦσθαι receives the additional support of א.—The E. V. is more euphonious than exact in rendering these verbs: conformed, transformed. Transfigured (Five Ang. Clergymen) is more accurate, and reproduces, in a measure, the variety in the form of the Greek.
[4]Rom_12:2.—[After νοός, the Rec. (א. D3. L.) inserts ὑμῶν. It is omitted in A. B. D1. F.; rejected by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Tregelles, Lange; probably a mechanical repetition from Rom_12:1.
[5]Rom_12:2.—[This emendation accords with Dr. Lange’s exegesis. It is taken from Noyes; the Amer. Bible Union gives a similar rendering.
[6]Rom_12:3.—[The bracketted rendering is that of Alford, Wordsworth, &c.; but is, at best, a chumsy attempt to reproduce the play on the words ὑπερφρονεῖν, φρονεῖν, σωφρονεῖν.
[7]Ver 5.—[The reading of the Rec. (ò) is very poorly supported, though defended by Philippi on exegetical grounds. א. A. B. D1. F. read τό; which is adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, and most. The clause contains a solecism, and means: what (is true) as regards individuals, (they are) members of one another.
[8]Rom_12:6.—[The difficulties of construction are discussed fully in the Exeg. Notes. The E. V. has so happily filled out the elliptical clauses, and preserved the force of the original, that it is not necessary to make any alterations. The clause: let us wait on our ministering (Rom_12:7), might perhaps be improved; yet, on the whole, it presents the correct meaning.—R.]
[9][The word Gottesdienst, used here, and frequently throughout this section, means, literally: Service of God; but, technically: public service, Divine service, public worship. Dr. Lange seems to combine both meanings, for he implies that all the duties here set forth form not only a service of God, but the best, truest worship, the real liturgy of the New Testament Church.—R.]
[10][So Tholuck. While it must be admitted that we are bidden to present our entire selves, the choice of the word “bodies” is probably “an indication that the sanctification of Christian life is to extend to that part of man’s nature which is most completely under the bondage of sin” (Alford). This view is not open to the objection urged above by Dr. Lange, and accords with Paul’s use of σῶμα.—R.]
[11][So Hodge, Stuart, and most. Rational is preferable to reasonable, because the latter conveys ordinarily the idea of something for which a good reason can be given, rather than the exact idea of λογικόν, rational, vernünftig.—R.]
[12][The mind is renewed in the newness of the Spirit, and from within the transforming impulse proceeds to transfigure the whole life. This seems to be Dr. Lange’s meaning.—R.]
[13][The verb occurring here is rendered discern (Amer. Bible Union), approve (Erasmus, and others); but prove, test by actual experience, is to be preferred (so Meyer, De Wette, Alford, and others). Wordsworth: assay the value of.—R.]
[14][The non-repetition of the article, which is urged against the “substantive apposition,” is readily explained. It shows that all three refer to one thing. See Winer, p. 120.—R.]
[15][So Alford. Meyer subdivides these verses thus: Rom_12:3-5, exhortation to humility in general; Rom_12:6-8, with special reference to official charisms.—R.]
[16][Alford: “γάρ, elucidating the fact that God apportions variously to various persons: because the Christian community is like a body, with many members, having various duties.”—R.]
[17][Tholuck: “The first two accusatives are grammatically dependent on ἒχοντες: by degrees the Apostle loses sight of this construction, and continues with the concrete ὀ διδάσκων, which he still binds on to the foregoing with εἲτε; but, at ὁ μεταδιδούς, omits this also, and, at Rom_12:9, introduces the abstract ἠ ἀγάπη.” This view or that of Dr. Lange will be preferred, as one does or does not seek definiteness of arrangement in the verses.—R.]
[18][Dr. Lange’s classification is ingenious, and perhaps the most satisfactory one, if all seven terms be referred to official positions. Meyer, Alford, and others, refer the last three (in Rom_12:8) to persons endowed with certain charisms, without any special official position. The reason for this change in application is found in the omission of εἲτε, the difficulty of referring these to official persons and functions, the change in the admonitions, which do not define the sphere, as before, but the mode. Besides, as the Apostle (Rom_12:4) has been speaking of “all members,” he would naturally allude to others than official persons. See further in the notes on the separate clauses.—R.]
[19][“Prophecy” undoubtedly includes more than the prediction of future events, yet the tendency has been to identify the. New Testament prophet with the preacher. Dr. Hodge remarks: “The gift of which Paul here speaks, is … that of immediate occasional inspiration, leading the recipient to deliver, as the mouth of God, the particular communication which be had received.” This view, which is undoubtedly correct, removes this office out of the discussions respecting Church polity and offices at the present day. It belongs to the extraordinary gifts of the apostolic age.—R.]
[20][Alford (with most modern commentators) defends the subjective view of “faith,” from the context, “which aims at showing that the measure of faith, itself the gift of God, is the receptive faculty for all spiritual gifts, which are therefore not to be boasted of, nor pushed beyond their provinces, but humbly exercised within their own limits.” Besides, there is very little warrant for the objective sense of πίστις; it was unknown to the early Greek fathers (Meyer), and cannot be established as a New Testament usus; comp. Lange’s Comm. Gal_1:23, p. 27; Lightfoot. Galatians, pp. 152 ff. It would seem, then, that the technical theological phrase: analogy of faith, has a meaning not strictly in accordance with Paul’s use of the phrase. Certainly the application is quite different—here, to the extraordinary gift of prophecy; theologically, to a regula fidei. Dr. Lange seems to take middle ground.—R.]
[21][The change to the nominative is deemed by Dr. Lange a sufficient warrant for taking this, and the corresponding participle which follows, as directly subordinate to the idea expressed in διακονίαν. If a reason must be found for the irregularities of the Apostle’s syntax, this is the simplest and most satisfactory explanation.—R.]
[22][Meyer confines the charisms of exclusively official significance to the four terms already discussed, though he thinks these four are examples chosen out of a larger number: (1) The gift of theopneustic discourse, prophecy. (2) The gift of oversight of the external affairs of the Church, diaconate. (3) The gift of teaching by ordinary methods, not yet limited to any special office. (4) The gift of exhortation, i. e., of encouraging or admonitory remarks upon the passage of Scripture read after the usage of the synagogue. This last differs from the teaching, in being directed to the heart and will; while teaching was directed to the understanding. Philippi, whose notes are very full and valuable, agrees with him in the main, but differs from him in regard to what follows.—R.]
[23][Meyer guards against this position, by making the gift a general one, not exclusively that of presbyter or ἐπίσκωπος. Hodge and Philippi, however, refer the first and third to Christians generally, and the second to the ecclesiastical rulers. The latter defends such a promiscuous arrangement as warranted by the Apostle’s purpose. It may be observed, that διαδούς would better express official beneficence, while μεταδούς, it is claimed by many, refers to private giving of one’s own substance.—R.]
[24][Tholuck and Alford render: with liberality; but this seems to be but poorly supported. Dr. Hodge retains the common meaning in the case of the deacons, and adds: “Considered in reference to private Christians, this clause may be rendered, he that giveth, with liberality.” But this is only an inference. The Apostle says: with simplicity, which is as difficult in the case of private as of official beneficence.—R.]
[25][It is evident how difficult it is to deduce from the hints given in these Epistles, written to different Churches at different times, any consistent theory of Church government during the apostolic age. In regard to this particular word, most commentators refer it to “the rulers”—i. e., the ruling elders; but the great objection is, that so important an office would scarcely be put in the position it here occupies. Meyer formerly held that it meant those who entertained stranger (so Stuart, in an excursus on this passage), but he has abandoned this view. Alford refers it to ruling in the household, &c. In favor of the common view, it may well be urged, however, that the Churches grafted on the synagogue did have such officers, and we might expect a reference to them here. If referred to at all, it must be by this word.—R.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 And be ye not conformed to this world--Compare Eph…
And be ye not conformed to this world--Compare Eph 2:2; Gal 1:4, Greek.
but be ye transformed--or, "transfigured" (as in Mat 17:2; and Co2 3:18, Greek).
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by the renewing of your mind--not by a mere outward disconformity to the ungodly world, many of whose actions in themselves may be virtuous and praiseworthy; but by such an inward spiritual transformation as makes the whole life new--new in its motives and ends, even where the actions differ in nothing from those of the world--new, considered as a whole, and in such a sense as to be wholly unattainable save through the constraining power of the love of Christ.
that ye may prove--that is, experimentally. (On the word "experience" see on Rom 5:4, and compare Th1 5:10, where the sentiment is the same).
what is that--"the"
good and acceptable--"well-pleasing"
and perfect, will of God--We prefer this rendering (with CALVIN) to that which many able critics [THOLUCK, MEYER, DE WETTE, FRITZSCHE, PHILIPPI, ALFORD, HODGE] adopt--"that ye may prove," or "discern the will of God, [even] what is good, and acceptable, and perfect." God's will is "good," as it demands only what is essentially and unchangeably good (Rom 7:10); it is "well pleasing," in contrast with all that is arbitrary, as demanding only what God has eternal complacency in (compare Mic 6:8, with Jer 9:24); and it is "perfect," as it required nothing else than the perfection of God's reasonable creature, who, in proportion as he attains to it, reflects God's own perfection. Such then is the great general duty of the redeemed--SELF-CONSECRATION, in our whole spirit and soul and body to Him who hath called us into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. Next follow specific duties, chiefly social; beginning with Humility, the chiefest of all the graces--but here with special reference to spiritual gifts.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 B. THE ETHICAL DEDUCTION: and PERSONAL CONCLUSION.
B. THE ETHICAL DEDUCTION: and PERSONAL CONCLUSION.
1. ETHICAL DEDUCTION, Rom_12:1 to Rom_15:14.
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I. THE ACT OF ENTIRE SELF-SURRENDERING FAITH IS THE GROUNDING FOR ALL CHRISTIAN HOLINESS OF HEART AND LIFE, 1, 2.
1. Therefore—As the grand deduction from the great doctrine of justification and sanctification by perfect faith taught in the last eleven chapters, I beseech you, brethren, consecrate yourselves by full faith unto God’s perfect will. (Note on Rom_2:6; Rom_10:10.) Thus this ethical section becomes a full and beautiful expansion of chapter 6, in which the apostle denies that the doctrine of faith is conducive to sin, and shows theoretically that it is the powerful incentive to holiness. That production of holiness he now deduces from that faith.
By the mercies of God—As revealed through the way of faith.
Bodies—In spiritual parallelism with the body of the sacrificial victim. Yet not only is there parallelism, but there is contrast. The victim’s body is a dead body; the Christian’s a living, active body. The sacrifice of the victim was a mere animal service; that of the Christian is a rational one. And though both were alike holy and acceptable, yet there is an immeasurably higher gradation of the holy and acceptable in the Christian just because his is a rational service.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–21 Ch. Rom_12:1-8. Christian practice as the result of Christian…
Ch. Rom_12:1-8. Christian practice as the result of Christian truth: self-dedication to the service of God in the Christian Church
1. I beseech you therefore] The Doctrinal Part of the Epistle, strictly so to be called, is now closed. Not that Doctrine, in the special sense of dogmatic revelation, is absent from the remaining chapters; for morality is always in Scripture traced to dogmatic truth, and constantly occasions statements of it. But the main object, by far, in the remainder of the Epistle is instruction in the application of truth to life—Christian practice.
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therefore] i.e. in view of the whole previous argument, in which gratuitous remission of sin, and acceptance of the guilty, for Christ’s sake, has been explained; and the consequent gift and influences of the Holy Spirit; and the assurance of glory: in which, too, the closing sections have reminded both Gentile and Jewish believers of the special aspects of sovereign mercy in their respective cases.
the mercies] the compassions; His motions of tenderness and pity. The same word, or cognates, is used Rom_9:15; Luk_5:36; 2Co_1:3; Php_2:1; Col_3:12; Heb_10:28; Jas_5:11.
This gracious word is doubly noteworthy here, just after the unqualified assertion of Divine Majesty and Sovereignty in Rom_11:33-36.
present] Same word as Rom_6:13; Rom_6:16; Rom_6:19; where E. V. “yield.”
your bodies] i.e., practically, your energies. The soul, in the present state, works through the body; so that its action for its Master can take effect only through the dedication of the body to Him—hands, feet, eyes, tongue, and brain.
a living sacrifice] A metaphor used elsewhere of the Christian’s tokens of thanksgiving: Php_4:18, (of liberal gifts, for Christ’s sake, to the Apostle;) Heb_13:15, (of praise, the “fruit of the lips;”) 16, (of beneficence for Christ’s sake;) 1Pe_2:5, (of tokens of thanksgiving of any kind, offered up by believers, who, as such, are “a holy priesthood.”) See below on Rom_15:16 for further sacrificial metaphor.
reasonable] rational, of the reason. Same word as 1Pe_2:2, where render “the rational pure milk;” i.e. the pure milk which has to do with the mind not the body. So here:—the “service” which is not of “meats and drinks and washings,” but is the dedication of the inmost self with its energies; spiritual service, not mechanical.
service] Same word as Rom_9:4. See on Rom_1:9, where the cognate verb occurs. In Heb_12:28 the words “service” and “acceptable” reappear, in another but kindred connexion.—Meyer renders the Gr. word here by Opfer-cultus.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–21 (1) At this point the Apostle turns from the…
XII.
(1) At this point the Apostle turns from the speculative, or doctrinal, portion of his Epistle, and begins a series of practical exhortations to his readers as to their lives as Christians. In the first two verses of the chapter he speaks of this in general terms, but then goes on to give a number of special precepts in no very distinct arrangement or order.
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Therefore.—We may well believe that the Apostle having brought his argument up to a climax at the close of the last chapter, would make a pause in his dictation, and perhaps not resume it until another sitting. The one prevailing impression left on his mind, both by the argument just ended and by the whole previous portion of the Epistle, is a profound sense of the merciful and benevolent purposes of God, who, out of seeming evil, only educes the highest good. This sense is still strong upon him, and he makes it the link of transition by which the earnest practical exhortations which follow are bound to what precedes. The sequence is as much one of feeling as of ratiocination.
Your bodies.—Not merely a periphrasis for “yourselves,” but in the strict sense “your bodies,” i.e., the very part of you which is apt to be “an occasion of falling.” The Apostle takes the two main parts of human nature separately. In this verse he deals with the bodies of men, in the next verse with the “mind,” or the intellectual and spiritual faculties.
A living sacrifice.—“How is the body to become a sacrifice? Let thine eye look upon no evil thing, and it hath become a sacrifice; let thy tongue speak nothing filthy, and it hath become an offering; let thy hand do no lawless deed, and it hath become a whole burnt offering. But this is not enough, we must do good works also; let the hand do alms, the mouth bless them that despitefully use us, and the ear find leisure evermore for the hearing of Scripture. For sacrifice can be made only of that which is clean; sacrifice is a firstfruit of other actions. Let us, then, from our hands, and feet, and mouth, and all our other members, yield a firstfruit unto God” (St. Chrysostom).
The idea contained in sacrifice is that of dedication. We are to dedicate our bodies to God. But there is to be this distinction between the old Jewish sacrifices and the Christian sacrifice: the one was of dead animals, the other of the living man. The worshipper must offer, or present, before God, himself, with all his living energies and powers directed consciously to God’s service.
Holy, acceptable unto God.—The qualification sought for in the Jewish sacrifices was that they were to be unblemished, without spot. In like manner the Christian’s sacrifice must be holy and pure in God’s sight, otherwise it cannot be acceptable to Him.
Reasonable service.—The English phrase is somewhat ambiguous. It might mean “a service demanded by reason.” Such, however is not the sense of the Greek, but rather “a service of the reason,” i.e., a service rendered by the reason. Just as under the old dispensation the mind expressed its devotion through the ritual of sacrifice, so now under the new dispensation its worship takes the form of a self-dedication; its service consists in holiness of life, temperance, soberness, and chastity.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18 Rom_14:23. III HORTATORY. (See summary of contents, p. 17)…
Rom_14:23. III HORTATORY. (See summary of contents, p. 17) It is St. Paul"s way to supplement his doctrinal treatises with detailed practical directions as to the conduct that should of necessity ensue on belief in the doctrines propounded. So also in Eph_4:1, etc., where, as here, he connects his exhortations with what has gone before by the initiatory parakalw oun . Beyond his exposition of the truth for its own sake, he has always a further practical aim. Saving faith is ever with him a living faith, to be shown by its fruits. Nor, according to him, will these fruits follow, unless the believer himself does his part in cultivating them: else were these earnest and particular exhortations needless. If, on the one hand, he is the great assertor of our salvation being through faith and all of grace, he is no less distinct for the necessity of works following, and of the power of man"s free-will to use or resist grace; cf. 1Co_15:10, where, speaking of himself, he does not mean to say that grace had made him what he was in spite of himself, but that grace had not been in vain, because he himself had worked with grace. All was of grace, but he himself had laboured, assisted by grace working with him. It will be observed how comprehensive is the survey of Christian duty that here follows, reaching to all the relations of life, as well as to internal disposition.
Rom_13:14. E. Various practical duties enforced.
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I beseech you therefore, brethren (he does not command, as did Moses in the Law; he beseeches; he is but a fellow-servant, with his brethren, of Christ; he does not "lord it over God"s heritage", (cf. 1Pe_5:3) but trusts that they will of their own accord respond to "the mercies of God" in Christ, which he has set before them), by the mercies of God ("Qui misericordia Dei recte movetur in omnem Dei voluntatem ingreditur. At anima irae obnoxia vix quiddam juvatur adhortationibus," Bengel), that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. The verb parasthsai is the usual one for the presenting of sacrificial animals at the altar (Xen., "Anab.," 6:1.22; Lucian, "De Sacrif.," 13. The LXX in Lev_16:7, Lev_16:10, has sthsei . Cf. Luk_2:22Co Luk_1:22, Luk_1:28, and supra, 6:13). Our bodies are here specified, with probable reference to the bodies of victims which were offered in the old ritual. But our offering differs from them in being "a living sacrifice," replete with life and energy to do God"s will, (cf. Psa_40:6, Psa_40:7, Psa_40:8, and Heb_10:5, Heb_10:6, Heb_10:7) yea, and oven inspired with a new life a life from the dead. (Rom_6:13) Further, the thought is suggested of the abuse of the body to uncleanness prevalent in heathen society. (cf. Rom_1:24) The bodies of Christians are "members of Christ," "temples of the Holy Ghost," consecrated to God, and to be devoted to his service; (cf. 1Co_6:15, etc.) and not in heart only, but in actual life, of which the body is the agent, we are to offer ourselves, after the example of Christ. Your reasonable service (than umwn) must be taken in apposition to "present your bodies, rather than to "sacrifice," it being the act of offering, and not the thing offered. that constitutes the latreia . This word is especially used for the ceremonial worship of the Old Testament, (cf. Exo_12:25, 26 13:5 Rom_9:4 Heb_8:5 Heb_9:1, Heb_9:6, 9 10:2 13:10) the counterpart of which in Christians is, according to St. Paul, not ceremonial service, but rather that of a devoted life. (cf. Act_27:23 Rom_1:9 Php_3:3 2Ti_1:3) The epithet logikhn has been variously understood. It probably means rational, denoting a moral and spiritual serving of God, in implied opposition to mechanical acts of outward worship. "Respectu intellectus et voluntatis" (Bengel). It may be taken to express the same idea as oi Pneumati Yew latreuontev , (Php_3:3) and pneumatikhan . (1Pe_2:7; cf. Joh_4:24) Though the offering of the body is being spoken of, yet "bodily self-sacrifice is an ethical act" (Meyer). Cf. 1Co_6:20. The word itself occurs in the New Testament only here and in 1Pe_2:2, where its meaning, though obscure, may be similar.
Christian sacrifice and worship.
In commencing the practical part of this Epistle, St. Paul adopts a tone of gentle and affectionate persuasion. He might have addressed his readers as disciples, and have used towards them the language of authority and command. But, on the contrary, he calls them his "brethren," and he "beseeches," entreats them, as employing the appeals of love to enforce the precepts of duty. At the same time, his language implies that compliance with his admonitions is not a matter optional and indifferent. He beseeches them because they are brethren, and because he has a right to expect that they will not only listen with respect, but obey with alacrity. Before entering upon the specific duties of the Christian life, and depicting in detail the Christian character, the apostle exhibits in this verse the general,and comprehensive principle of practical Christianity. As religious men, these Roman Christians must, as a matter of course, offer a sacrifice and a service of worship. And they are here told that the presentation to God of themselves is the one great act in which all specific acts of obedience are summed up and involved. Let them enter into the temple of God, and bring with them a living sacrifice; let them join in offering to Heaven a reasonable, a spiritual worship; for with such the Father will be well pleased.
I Consider THE MOTIVE WHICH THE APOSTLE URGES in order to induce to consecration. "By the mercies of God." To every sensitive and appreciative mind this is a cogent motive. The mercies of God have been, and are, so many, so varied, so suited to our case, so unfailing, that we cannot meditate upon them without acknowledging the claim they constitute upon us. The word used here is peculiar; the apostle speaks of the pity, the compassions, of the Lord. Language this which brings out our condition as one of dependence, helplessness, and even misery, and which brings out also the condescension and loving-kindness of our heavenly Father. There is, no doubt, an especial reference to the spiritual favours which have been so fully and powerfully described in the earlier portion of the Epistle. The mercies of God are nowhere so apparent as in redemption; and human sin requires a great salvation. In exhibiting the marvellous interposition of Divine grace on behalf of sinful humanity, in explaining the reconciling work of Christ, in depicting the immunities, privileges, and hopes of those who receive the gospel, the apostle has laid a good foundation for the appeal of the text. Mercies may well excite gratitude, for they are undeserved, sovereign, and free; and gratitude in the mind of the Christian, who is under the influence of the Holy Spirit, is a motive of no mean order. And gratitude to such a God, and for such gifts, can only be a motive to virtue and holiness.
II Consider WHAT THE APOSTLE ENJOINS US TO PRESENT TO GOD. "Your bodies." The vigorous understanding of St. Paul preserved him from that sentimental form of religion which many, professing to be his followers, have adopted and advocated. It will not do to treat men, to regard ourselves, as possessing only a spiritual nature. We have body as well as soul. The most ethereal and ecstatic spiritual experiences do not prove a man to be a true Christian. God requires that body, soul, and spirit should be consecrated to him. For the bodily nature is intended to express and manifest the character, the spiritual life, the true man. If the spirit be renewed and purified, the effect of this Divine work within will be apparent in the outer life. Thus it is that the new creation, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, extends to the whole nature and life. The body, therefore, shares in the death unto sin, and in the new life unto righteousness and holiness. The body is consecrated to him who has redeemed the body as well as the soul; and its members are employed as weapons or instruments, not of sin, but of righteousness. It cannot be supposed that the apostle intends us to understand that bodily service alone is sufficient. Nothing would have been more alien from his whole teaching, or from the spirit of the New Testament, than such a doctrine. Christ has taught us that worship, in order to being acceptable, must be in spirit and in truth; and St. Paul himself has assured us that bodily exercise profiteth nothing, that circumcision availleth nothing, but a new creation. In presenting our bodies unto God, we offer the praises of our lips and the service of our hands. The body is the instrument of toil. The Christian"s daily activity is consecrated to his redeeming God; and this is so, whatever be the employment to which Providence has called him. The body is also the agent of spiritual ministry. Accordingly, the Christian"s special efforts to do good, his teaching and preaching, his ministering to the wants of his fellow-men and relieving them from their sufferings, his evangelistic journeys in order to seek the lost and to proclaim the gospel, all are instances of his consecration of the body as well as of the soul to his redeeming Lord.
III Remark that such PRESENTATION ON THE PART OF THE CHRISTIAN IS REGARDED AS SACRIFICE. From a study of the religions of mankind, we learn that the sacrifices, alike of the heathen and of the Jews, may be regarded as
(1) offering, and
(2) propitiation.
Now, as far as expiation, propitiation, is concerned, we, as Christians, know that there has been one, and only one, real and acceptable sacrifice of this kind the sacrifice of himself offered to the Father by our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the substance of which all that went before was merely the shadow, and which can neither be repeated nor imitated. But as far as the tribute of thanksgiving, adoration, and obedience is concerned, we are taught that this is to be offered to God continually. (Heb_13:15, Heb_13:16) It is in this respect that all Christians are priests unto God; all, irrespective of the position they hold in the Church, or the special services they render in the congregations of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jewish sacrifice, which this perpetual offering most closely resembles, is the burnt offering, which the Hebrew worshipper brought to Jehovah as the expression of his personal devotion and consecration to Heaven, as the public declaration that he owed everything to the Lord, and that he withheld from him nothing which he possessed. In like manner Christians present their bodies their whole nature and life to him who gave himself for them. "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies, which are his." Of this sacrifice, in which all Christians unite, the apostle reminds us that it possesses three qualities.
1. It is living. The sacrifices which the Jews offered were either living creatures, or substances which by their nature ministered to life; and in offering such gifts the worshipping was presenting a symbol of his own life. But ordinary sacrifices were slain; the life was consumed in the offering. The Christian"s life is not forfeited in being presented to God. Yet in the presentation there is both death and life. It has been said, "There is in every sacrifice a death, and in this sacrifice a death unto sin, out of which there arises a new life of righteousness unto God. Thus the living sacrifice is that in which, though the natural life is not lost, a new life of holiness is gained." What a privilege is ours, who are expected to bring unto God, not the bodies of brute animals, not the blood of bulls and goats, but our own bodies our very selves, our living nature and gratefully and willingly to lay this sacrifice upon the altar of God!
2. It is holy. The animals which were presented under the Mosaic economy were, according to the prescribed regulations, to be free from blemish. This was doubtless an ordinance intended to impress upon the mind of the worshipper a sense of the holiness of the Being who was approached. All who officiated were to be ceremonially clean. The substance, of which these symbols were the shadow, was holiness, spiritual purity, freedom from iniquity. There is nothing upon which greater stress is laid than the requirement that every offering to God shall be such as a Being of perfect purity can accept. A sprinkled body is not sufficient; a pure heart is the demand of him who is himself the all-holy Lord.
3. And such an offering is well pleasing to God. This, indeed, may be inferred from a consideration of God"s moral character as a truth-loving and holy Governor, who cannot endure dissimulation and hypocrisy. The enlightened among the ancient Hebrews saw clearly enough that ceremonial purity and ritual correctness were not enough to secure Divine acceptance and favour. And none who enters into the teaching of our Saviour, and sympathizes with the spirit of his religion, can fail to discern the necessity of a living and holy sacrifice in order to please the Searcher of hearts, and satisfy the requirements of Christ.
IV The offering of the Christian is further represented as A REASONABLE SERVICE OR WORSHIP. The Revisers have, in the margin, "spiritual." It is a service rendered by the intelligent, reasonable, spiritual part of our nature. Though the body is presented, he presentation of the body is the expression of inner, spiritual worship. For the word means "worship outward act of religious worship." Worship is a universal expression of the religious nature of man. The heathen practised their ritual of ceremony, sacrifice, prayer, adoration; and the Jewish religion imposed an elaborate system of public worship. The superiority of Christian worship is marked. Obedience is the highest and most acceptable form of worship which can be offered to God. This "reasonable worship" is distinguished from worship that is merely mechanical and formal. It is similarly distinguished from all substitutionary worship. It is personal, not representative; not by a priest who worships for the congregation, and professes to offer sacrifice as their representative, but by each individual Christian who has his own tribute to offer, his own service to render.
APPLICATION. The language of the text appeals to those who neglect or withhold this sacrifice, this service, and reproaches them as unreasonable, ungrateful, indefensible, disobedient, self-destructive. It urges them to yield what God asks, through Christ, who makes obedience and praise acceptable offerings to God.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Ver 1. The living sacrifice.
In the oldest records that can be found of the various nations of the earth, sacrifice is always found to have formed part of their religious services. Thus we find an idea universally existing that something was needed to obtain pardon for guilt, and to express gratitude to the supreme being or beings whom they regarded as the givers and benefactors of their life. But it is only when we come to the religion of Israel that we find the idea of sacrifice having any influence upon the life. The other nations offered sacrifices, but there was no turning away from evil. Nay, in the case of many heathen countries, their acts of religious worship became, and have become, associated with immoral and degrading practices. The religion of Israel, however, taught the necessity of personal holiness. True, their religion was largely composed of rites and ceremonies, but it was a religion of practical morality also. Very plainly the Jewish psalmist recognizes that it is the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart that is most acceptable to God, and that without this it is vain to offer the blood of bulls and goats. But the high precepts of their religion were sadly neglected by the Jews in later years. In the time of Jesus Christ on earth, the religion of most of them was a religion of ritual and routine. He told the Pharisees that though they outwardly appeared righteous unto men, within they were full of hypocrisy and iniquity. But Jesus came to teach men true religion. The worship that he demands is a worship in spirit and in truth. The sacrifice that he requires is a sacrifice of our life. He wants the activities and energies of body, soul, and spirit to be consecrated to his service. This is what the apostle means when he speaks of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.
I IT IS TO BE A SACRIFICE OF OUR FEELINGS. The whole heart must be given up to God, so that whatever is right may be strengthened, and that whatever is wrong may be taken away. Many Christians render to Christ an imperfect sacrifice in this respect They keep back part of their life from him. They allow themselves to be dominated by feelings which are inconsistent with his spirit and precepts. They will excuse themselves for some besetting sin by saying, "That is my nature; I can"t help it." The evil nature is still with us, it is true; but it is our duty to strive against it, to overcome it. Moses appears to have been at first a man of hasty and violent temper. Yet the Divine discipline, and no doubt also his own obedience to the Divine will, produced such a change in his character that it is afterwards recorded of him, "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men who were upon the face of the earth." It is a natural thing to be angry when things are said or done to provoke us; but is it Christian? So with the other feelings of envy, of pride, of revenge, of hatred instead of yielding to them or excusing them, the true Christian will be ashamed of them and sorry for them, and will do his best to overcome their influence in his heart.
II IT IS TO BE A SACRIFICE OF OUR AFFECTIONS. The love of God should ever be the chief affection of our heart. Not that we are to love our friends less, but we are to love God more. Hence, when our natural affections become hindrances in the Christian life, they must be restrained and subdued. The strongest temptations to the Christian are not always those that come from the baser part of his nature, but sometimes those that come from the purer and better emotions of the soul. The love of a friend it might seem strange that there should be anything wrong in that. Yet even this affection, right and natural in itself, becomes wrong when it interferes with love to God. The love of home how can there be anything wrong in that? Yet there is wrong in it when it interferes with the call of duty. "He that loveth father or mother more than me," says Christ, "is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." When the din of war begins to resound throughout a land, the man who has dedicated himself to the military service of his country does not hesitate to obey the trumpet-call. His farm or his business may require his presence, and may suffer seriously by his absence. It is a sore trial to tear himself away from his wife, from his family, and from his friends, whose faces he may never see again in this world. But however pressing the claims of his daily work may be, however strong his domestic ties, all these considerations must now give way to the demand of patriotism and of duty. And shall not the Christian soldier sacrifice all earthly affections rather than be unfaithful to Christ? Shall he not hear the voice of Jesus above all earthly voices? Of such complete self-denial Christ himself has given us the best example. "He pleased not himself." Not merely in his death, but in his life, he gave himself a living sacrifice. When we think of how much we owe to Christ, any sacrifice that we can make will seem but a poor and feeble effort to show our gratitude and our love. Yet we are encouraged to present even our poor sacrifice by the assurance that it will be "acceptable unto God. C.H.I
HOMILIES BY T.F. LOCKYER Vers. 1, 2. The living sacrifice.
The great argument of the Epistle to the Romans is to the effect that God"s favour is not to be earned, but accepted, and this is justification by faith. The earlier chapters dealt with this; and the apostle now proceeds to a development of the doctrine which completely reverses the old ideas. Judaism sought mercy by sacrifice and service; St. Paul teaches that God seeks man"s true sacrifice and service by showing mercy. We are to come to him, not that he may love us in the end, but because he loves us from the beginning. Our obedience to God is to be, therefore, no task-work, but love-work; not servitude, but sonship. God"s love is the great motive-power of the new life. We consider here the results which such love should produce: the sacrifice and service of the body; the renewing of the mind.
I THE SACRIFICE AND SERVICE OF THE BODY. There was a total change from Judaism to Christianity in the point of sacrifice. The old dispensation was one of blood and death. Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, on various ever-recurring occasions, the altars of the temple ran with blood from the dead bodies of slain beasts and birds. The temple was one vast slaughter-house. But Christianity said, "This no more!" For there has been offered one sacrifice for sins for ever; and what is wanted now, says the apostle, is your bodies, not the bodies of beasts and birds, and these bodies living, not dead. There was a vast change in the point of service (latreia) also. What an elaborate ritual of service had gathered round the sacrifice! part ordained by God, part added by man. There were feasting and fasting; times and seasons, days and years; meats and drinks; purifyings; prayers. Christianity swept this away too, in all its ceremonial character. And what is wanted now, says the apostle, is not an elaborate ritual and minute observance, but the life; a service, not mechanical and befitting children, but rational and befitting men. All this the apostle points to by his words. Your own living bodies are to be the sacrifice; the holy, consecrated life of your bodies is to be the service. But let us gather the significance of his words more fully. The body is an integral part of man: consider in this connection the creation, death, and the resurrection. The body is sacred: consider old dualistic heresy, leading to severe repression or gross sin; also the modern error of despising the body now, and hoping to be freed from it as from a burden by-and-by. The body? it is the instrument of our active life in God"s creation deed, speech, thought. The spirit in itself may live towards God; but only by the medium of the body can it live for God amongst men. And to present the body a living sacrifice is thus to offer the whole life to God. Think, then, of the meaning of this. Think of your life: busy work, with manifold industries of limb, or speech, or brain, and intervals of rest which continually re-create you for new work; social relationships, with all the continuous interchange of affection and thought which they involve; of the life of your own mind, your reasonings, your beliefs, your fancies, your memories, your hopes: think of all these things, and a thousand others; and then remember that all this is to be offered up to God, a living sacrifice. This demands that the life be pure. Jewish sacrifices without spot. So conduct, words, imaginings, must be undefiled. Demands also that the life be consecrated. Just as sacrifice, when pronounced pure, was offered on altar, so our activities, being undefiled, are to be all given to God, that they may be employed for him. Nothing neutral: activities of brain, of tongue, of hand, having many subordinate ends, must be governed by the great controlling purpose to please God and do his will. Is it so? Is the undefiled life God"s life? Do you make everything inexorably bend to this? Is your great "sacrifice" the sacrifice of the life? your great "service" the service of the life? All else is as nothing compared with this.
II THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. But how? The "age" is against us. Whether or not conspicuously an age of impurity, certainly an age of greed and self-worship. Consider the plastic and binding influences exerted by the world: it imperceptibly educates us to itself if we yield; it restrains us as with iron bands if we attempt to break away. And the current of our own nature sets with the stream. (Eph_2:2, Eph_2:3) Self-seeking; self-pleasing. Not only are the lusts (epiyumiai) of the flesh worldwards, themselves controllable if the inner life were right; but the desire (yelhma) of the mind is worldwards too. The interior springs of life are bad; the "willing" nature ( nouv) is diseased. And the secret of all this is that the inward life is wrong with God; there is death, not life. (Eph_2:1) For this reason, God"s governance and succour being lost, the will is sunk in the lusts that it should control, and it is thus that the desires of the flesh (epiyumiai) have become actually volitions (yelhmata) of the flesh. (see Eph_2:3 again) Hence "be not conformed" is immediately followed by "be transformed." This is the great doctrine of the new birth: a reattachment to the life of God, which shall make all things new. Has been fully elaborated in ch. 6-8 in which the apostle sets forth regeneration as the natural and necessary accompaniment of true justification. It is here insisted upon once more, as the only guarantee of a life of consecration such as he is about to set before his readers in the following chapters, which are an unfolding of the principle of the first verse of this chapter. The Spirit of God is the regenerating power: what is the regenerating principle? Love love evoked, fed, perfected by the mighty, changeless love of God. An enthusiasm for the highest good, which wings its way through all that obstructs a lower energy of life, and triumphs evermore. So now the nouv is renewed, the yelhmata set with the current of the new life, and the epiyuiai of the flesh fall into their proper place. Thus a power of nonconformity to the "course of this world" is ours; the bonds are broken, and the plastic influences break like spray upon a rocky shore. And so, with the altar set in order, the sacrifice is offered up; with the worshipful heart restored, a living service is rendered. We "prove" what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God; it is known, loved, obeyed.
In conclusion, let us remember that we are besought to this renewal and consecration by the yearning pity (oiktirmwn) of our God. His tears! Oh, let us be persuaded to accept our healing at his hands! eyesight for blindness, love for our dead, cold, barren selfishness. And being alive unto God within, let us live to God without. Away with fictitious sacrifices and fictitious service! The sacrifice is to be the living sacrifice of ourselves; the service the rational service of a pure and consecrated deed and speech and thought. T.F.L.
"A living sacrifice.
The text suggests to us the spiritual teacher"s platform. He does not so much command or threaten as "beseech his brethren." Various terms are, indeed, used in the Authorized Version to translate the word parakalew . But the feature of the word is speaking to some one for a particular purpose, to get him to do or refrain from something, to help him in difficulty or console him under trouble. The Saviour is spoken of in John"s Epistle as our "Advocate," our Paraclete, according to our Lord"s own description of himself when he promised, "I will send you another Comforter." And who has so great a right to speak faithfully as a brother? The very nearness of kin implies affectionate solicitude, precludes evil suspicions. As brethren should the members of Churches stimulate each other with kindly jealousy for each other"s welfare.
I THE DEDICATION DESCRIBED. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice." The law of offerings is not abrogated, is spiritually fulfilled. The daily Christian sacrifice is not propitiatory like the Saviour"s, but consequent upon that one efficacious atonement, and intended in like manner to glorify the righteousness and goodness of God, and to redeem man from evil. Sin has corrupted the entire organism, and the sacrifice is to consist of the whole being. The body is expressly named as the part which visibly was immersed in sin, and bowed under idolatry. But as the organ and symbol of the life, and the vehicle of information and action, bringing the powers of the soul into exercise, the surrender of the body to Christian principle means that the entire self is yielded to God. If sacrifice signifies self denial, there is yet a joy that swallows up the pain of privation in the thought of the honour conferred on the garlanded victim accepted by the Most High as an act of worship and praise. Note some of the qualities of this sacrifice. It is "living," as contrasted with the dead sacrifices of Jewish rites. True religion is not a galvanized life, but an inward principle that vivifies the entire frame. The mere saying of prayers, attendance at God"s house, the avoidance of ill places and company, is a dead and worthless sacrifice if unaccompanied by love and devotion. The love of Christ flaming within the body makes it no longer a dull lump of clay, but an illumined spiritual temple. It is a "holy" sacrifice; the sacredness of consecration to a holy Being rests upon it, and there is real and actual holiness of heart and life. It is "acceptable," well-pleasing to him who despises not the weak, but rejoices in humble, devout sincerity, where the leaven is cast out in order to a true celebration of the feast. We need not fear the rejection of our offering, since to us has been revealed the proper mode of approach; nor will the shortcomings and sinful accompaniments that in spite of our best attempts mingle with our words and deeds cause them to be abhorred of him who perceives therein the sweet savour of Christ and incense of the Spirit. The "calves of our lips" will not pollute his courts, nor our "doing good and communicating" pollute his holy altar. We have also a general characterization of the sacrifice. It is a reasonable service. " It is engaged in and ratified by the highest powers, the enlightened intellect and the quickened spirit. Unlike an unmeaning ritual, the service of the Christian is to him emblematic of deepest truths. He sees himself not an isolated unit which has itself merely to please and cherish, but a child of God, a constituent of society, with the obligation and dignity of obedience and self-abnegation for the service of God and man. And there is great meaning in the word employed to denote our "service." It compares our lives to the ministrations of the priests in the temple. When we raise our voices in supplication to the throne, when we seek to lead others to the Saviour of our choice, when we strive to discharge the duties of our calling as unto the Lord, when we relieve the distressed or comfort the afflicted, we are as much employed in temple-worship as if, like Aaron, we wore the high priest"s robes, or, like Zacharias, offered incense before the veil. What a noble idea of the vocation of the people of God this metaphor conveys! Expect not a path of flowery ease that the mountains should be levelled and the valleys raised to facilitate your progress! At the altar say, "I feel the cord that binds me; the knife is keen that severs the tender flesh; the flames are hard to bear; but withal I can rejoice that I am exalted to the honour of a holocaust accepted of God, and not consumed but purified by the sacrifice.
II THE WEIGHTY ARGUMENT TO URGE THE DEDICATION. There is a therefore" in the text; the exhortation is grounded on previous reasoning and previously stated facts. Herein lies the strength of the religious teacher. He may have no excommunication with bell, book, and candle to pronounce, no fire and sword with which to wring reluctant assent; but he has decisions of a recognized court to allege, and motives of unequalled potency to appeal to. Every one who has to do with machinery knows the importance of motive-power. And Christianity is strong where philosophical systems of ethics are weak. "You admit," the apostle seems to say, "these premises; now supply the practical conclusion" He has been rehearsing the mercies of God" to Jews and Gentiles. Gratitude for the Divine goodness impels to his service, and the hope of future benefits is a lawful constraining force. Surely the grace that has granted pardon, peace, eternal life, is a voice to demand, a magnet to attract to, such a sacrifice as that entreated. Providential mercies cry aloud, "Yield yourselves unto God." Where shall we begin, how end their recital? There are seasons, such as the beginning of a new year, or the anniversary of a birthday, when the remembrance of the Divine forethought and loving-kindness overwhelms the soul with thankfulness and praise. The darkest night has had its star; in the coldest day some gleam of sunshine has cheered our landscape. Family and household mercies, blessings bestowed on Church and town and country, fresh discoveries in nature or art, "sweet voices from the distant hills, all these renewed compassions of a benevolent God evoke the old inquiry, "What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me?" The text furnishes the answer, the full New Testament programme, outlined in the psalmist"s "cup of salvation" and "thanksgiving," and "payment of vows" and "prayer. S.R.A.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-3. Individualism.
After the lengthened exposition of the Divine "mercies" given in the preceding eleven chapters, the apostle feels himself in a position to apply the truth and enforce Christian morals. He accordingly proceeds to base his exhortation upon the "mercies of God," and the flint matter he urges is becoming individuality. These brethren at Rome ought to dedicate themselves as living sacrifices unto God, realizing how reasonable such a service is, and exhibiting due unworldliness of character in all things. Let us, then, with Paul as guide, consider the elements of Christian individualism as here set before us.
I OUR BODIES ARE TO BE LAID AS LIVING SACRIFICES ON GOD"S ALTAR. (Ver. 1) If we have been called with a holy calling, if the risen Saviour has given us the needed helping band, then we are bound to realize our obligation to him in dedicating our bodies as "living sacrifices" unto him. The reason why we can dedicate them as living sacrifices is that he has offered the atoning sacrifice our pardon and acceptance require, and we can consequently dedicate ourselves living to his glory. Now, when we look into the order of the Jewish sacrifices, we find that the sin offering came first, then the burnt offering, and then the peace offering. The leading idea in each was atonement, consecration, and fellowship. The sin offering emphasized atonement, the burnt offering or holocaust emphasized consecration, and the peace offering emphasized fellowship. Now, the self-dedication to which the apostle here calls us corresponds in the ritual to the burnt offering; and just as in this particular sacrifice the entire carcase was consumed in the sacred fire, so the idea is that our whole personality, body, soul, and spirit, is to be consecrated by the fire of the Holy Spirit to the service of our Lord and Master. The idea, in short, is that our bodies should be organs of the Holy Ghost. What a holy and blessed thought is thus associated with the body of the believer! It dare not be dedicated to any profane use. It is a holy thing, and is to be laid on God"s altar and thus dedicated in its entirety to him. Miss Havergal"s "Hymn of Consecration" will occur to every one, with the dedication of" hands," and "feet," and "voice," and "lips" and, in a word, "all" we are, to the glory of our Lord. Dean Goulburn, in his suggestive work on the " Study of the Holy Scriptures," gives a sketch upon this passage, from which the following will be found useful: "Consider the members of the body which must thus be yielded:
(1) The eyes. The lust of the eye must be mortified, and the eye employed in reading God"s Word, or surveying his works.
(2) The ears. We must be "swift to hear" the voice of instruction, and must turn away the ear from temptation and from flattery. (see Act_12:22, Act_12:23)
(3) The hands. "Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth". (Eph_4:28)
(4) The feet. "I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me". (Mat_25:36)
(5) The mouth. "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers". (Eph_4:29) "Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt". (Col_4:6)
II WE ARE TO REALIZE THAT THIS ENTIRE DEDICATION IS ONLY OUR REASONABLE SERVICE. (Ver. 1.) It seems at first a large demand. But it becomes reasonable the moment we consider our obligation. If Jesus has dedicated his body in life and in death to our interests and salvation, the dedication of our living bodies in return to him is surely a reasonable service. M. de Rougemont has brought out the reasonable character of this self-dedication in his own pointed fashion. Writing in his "La Vie Humaine avec et sans la Foi" upon this passage, he says, "The word body signifies here the complete man; the victim, it is ourselves, and the sacrifice, to which St. Paul exhorts us, is that of our soul, of our will, of our thought, of our heart, without which that of our flesh would be impossible. But on hearing this term "sacrifice," the vicious takes to flight, the honest man is up in arms (resiste), the semi-Christian frets. All say it is impossible, or at least it is too difficult. And St. Paul contends that it is reasonable! Yes, reasonable, and irrational, senseless, absurd, to refuse God such a worship (culte). In fact, to refuse it to him is to refuse him all worship; it is to condemn ourselves to a life of worldliness and irreligion. Is it a true religion which consists in giving to prayer a half-hour a day, to the Divine service two or three hours on Sunday, when, even during those hours, one says to God, "I give thee, indeed, a part of my time; but my heart? no, I keep that for myself"? If at least, by guarding thus for ourselves our heart, we were happy! Let us leave aside here the lusts and passions which enslave and shame us. Let us speak only of our plans of happiness, of our favourite occupations, of our legitimate affections. We cannot bring ourselves to lay them on the altar, to present them to God, and minus these to sacrifice ourselves to him. But are we then our masters? do we dispose events according to our will? do we hold in our hands the threads of our life and of the life of our relatives (la vie des notres)? Can we do anything against God? If he wishes to take away from us the objects of our affections, to snatch us away from our labour or our pleasures, to overturn all our projects, who are we to struggle against him? Is it not more reasonable to offer ourselves altogether unto him, like docile and trustful lambs, and to say to him, "Here we are; make us what thou pleasest: thou canst take no more from us, since we have given all to thee; we are besides without fear, because we know by Jesus Christ how great are thy mercies? Can such living and holy victims be anything but acceptable to God? and is not this worship the only reasonable one, as it is also the only loyal, free, and joyous one?" (pp. 122-124).
III Such A SELF-DEDICATION IMPLIES NONCONFORMITY TO THE WORLD AND TRANSFIGURATION INTO THE DIVINE WILL. (Ver. 2) The conduct of others is not to be our standard, but the will of God. Worldliness consists essentially in this making the fashion our standard of life. Now, in this respect we are not to conform to the worldly and prevailing ideas. Saurin has a fine sermon on this verse, in which he exhorts his hearers not to conform to the multitude in faith, or in worship, or in morals, or in our exodus at death.And then, if we take the Divine will as our proper standard, we shall find ourselves "transfigured" (metamorfousye) by the renewing of our minds, so that we shall "test" (dokimazein) and so come to understand what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (cf. Shedd, in loc. ). Now, it is in this way, by surrendering ourselves to the Divine idea concerning us, that we shall realize that individuality and influence among men which is so desirable. In fact, we become most original, in the best sense of that term, when we do not try to be original, but simply to be and do what is God"s will concerning us. It was the same with our blessed Master. He professed to do nothing of himself, but simply to mediate to men what the Father gave him; (Joh_5:19) and yet he has been out of sight the most original personality which has ever appeared in this world. So will it be with us in our little spheres if we will only allow God to transfigure us.
IV SUCH ABANDONMENT TO THE DIVINE WILL SECURES DUE SOBRIETY IN OUR ESTIMATE OF OURSELVES. (Ver. 3) The gospel delivers us from egotism; we dare not think highly of ourselves; we can only think of how we are realizing God"s will concerning us. And so, as merely mediating God"s wiser will, we think soberly and humbly of ourselves. The apostle thus commends to the Romans and to all men what Leighton calls that "gracing grace of humility, the ornament and safety of all other graces, and what is so peculiarly Christian." Our individualism will thus be found delivered from the egotism and self-esteem of worldly men, and projected along the path of meekness and lowliness of heart which the Master trod before us. Such sober self-knowledge makes the Christian life a wondrous power. Contrasting with the self-assertion and self-esteem which are so valuable in the world"s regard, the humility of the Christian becomes a power and influence radically different in kind from, but far more fruitful in results than, the noisy efforts of the world. May the Master help us all to follow in his meek and lowly steps! R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19 I beseech you.
Rom_12:1
I beseech you.
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A lesson to ministers
Ministers of the gospel should be gentle, tender, and affectionate. They should be kind in feeling, and courteous in manner--like a father or mother. Nothing is ever gained by a sour, harsh, crabbed, dissatisfied manner. Sinners are never scolded either into duty or into heaven. Flies are never caught with vinegar. No man is a better or more faithful preacher because he is rough in manner, coarse, or harsh in his expressions, or sour in his intercourse with mankind. Not thus was the Master or Paul. (A. Barnes, D.D.)
Therefore--
The connection between the two parts of the Epistle
Religion among the ancients was service (cultus), and cultus had for its centre sacrifice. The Jewish service counted four kinds of sacrifice which might be reduced to two: the first, comprising the sacrifices offered before reconciliation and to obtain it (sin and trespass-offering); the other the sacrifices offered after reconciliation and serving to celebrate it (whole burnt-offering and peace-offering). The great division of the Epistle to which we have come is explained by this contrast. The fundamental idea of Part I. (chaps. 1-11), was that of the sacrifice for the sin of mankind. Witness the central passage (Rom_3:25-26). These are the mercies of God to which Paul appeals here, and the development of which has filled the first eleven chapters. The practical part which we are beginning corresponds to the second kind of sacrifice, which was the symbol of consecration after pardon had been received (the halocaust, in which the victim was entirely burned), and of the communion established between Jehovah and the believer (the peace-offering, followed by a feast in the court of the temple). The sacrifice of expiation offered by God in the person of His Son should now find its response in the believer in the sacrifice of complete consecration and intimate communion. (Prof. Godet.)
Doctrine and practice
The doctrinal and dispensational portions of the Epistle being ended, the apostle, as a wise master-builder, erects the superstructure of personal religion upon the foundation of redemption, which he has laid deep and substantial. No doctrine, remarks H. W. Beecher, is good for anything that does not leave behind it an ethical furrow, ready for the planting of seeds, which shall spring up and bear abundant harvests. The connection between doctrine and exhortation is quaintly explained by Bishop Hall: Those that are all in exhortation, no whit in doctrine, are like to them that snuff the lamp, but pour not in oil. Again, those that are all in doctrine, nothing in exhortation, drown the wick in oil, but light it not; making it fit for use if it had fire put to it; but as it is, neither capable of good nor profitable for the present. Doctrine without exhortation makes men all brain, no heart; exhortation without doctrine makes the heart full, but leaves the brain empty. Both together make a man, one makes a wise man, the other a good; one serves that we may know our duty, the other that we may perform it. Men cannot practise unless they know, and they know in vain if they practise not. (C. Neil, M.A.)
The relation between doctrine and life
1. The link which unites doctrine and duty is like the great artery that joins the heart to the members--the channel of life and the bond of union. If that link is severed, the life departs. If doctrine and duty are not united, both are dead; there remains neither the sound creed nor the holy life.
2. A common cry is, Give charity, but no dogma, i.e., Give us fruit, but dont bother us with mysteries about roots. We join heartily in the cry for more fruit; but we are not content to tie oranges with tape on dead branches. This may serve to amuse children; but we are grown men, and life is earnest.
3. In the transition from chap. 11 to chap. 12, the knot is tied that binds together doctrine and duty. At the point of contact Paul defines the relations between the gifts which flow from God to men, and the service rendered by men to God. Christians having gotten all from God are constrained to render back to Him themselves and all they have. Here is a leaden pipe which, rising perpendicularly from the ground, supplies the cistern on the roof. Water flow up? Dont mock us. Water flows down, not up. Place your ear against the pipe. Is not the water rushing upward? Yes. The reason is that the water flowing from the fountain on the mountains side forces the water up. So the soul is constrained, by the pressure of Divine mercy flowing through Christ, to rise in responsive love. The word therefore is the link of connection between doctrine and life. It unites the product to the power.
I. The mercies of God constitute the motive force.
1. Paul is a scientific operator--skilful in adapting means to ends. To provide the water-power may be a much more lengthened and laborious process than to set the mill agoing; but without the reservoir and its supply, the mill would never go round at all. So Paul takes every step on the assumption that a devoted and charitable life cannot be attained unless the person and work of Christ be made clear to the understanding and accepted with the heart.
2. There is a class of men pressing to the front whose maxim is, A grain of charity is worth a ton of dogma. But, as I have seen a mechanic, after applying the rule to his work, turning the rule round and trying it the other way, lest some mistake should occur, so it may be of use to express the same maxim in another form; A small stream flowing on the ground is worth acres of clouds careering in the sky. In this form the maxim is nonsense; but the two forms express an identical meaning. Wanting clouds, there could be no streams; so, wanting dogma, there could be no charity. The Scriptures present the case of a man who was as free of dogma as the most advanced secularist could desire. What is truth? said Pilate, who was not burdened with even an ounce of dogma; yet he crucified Christ, confessing Him innocent.
3. Those who lead the crusade against dogma are forward to profess the utmost reverence for the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. But Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, was a dogma He received with approbation and died for it. Therefore, if He be not the true God, He must be a false man. Thus the Scriptures have rendered it impossible for modern secularists to reject the great dogma of the gospel, and yet retain the life of Jesus as the highest pattern of human character.
4. The word therefore is like the steel point which constitutes the fulcrum of the balance. To one extremity of the beam is fixed, by a long line, a consecrated life; but that life lies deep down in the dark, a possibility only as yet. No human arm has power to bring it up. Here is a skilful engineer, who has undertaken the task. What is he doing? He is making fast to the opposite extremity of the beam some immense weight--nothing less than the mercies of God as exhibited in Christ. He has fastened it now, and he stands back--does not put a hand to the work in its second stage. What follows? They come! they come! the deeds of charity.
5. Ask those great lovers who have done and suffered most for men what motive urged them on and held them up. They will answer unanimously, The love of Christ constraineth us. They are bought with a price, and therefore they glorify God in their lives.
6. In the scheme of doctrine set forth in the first half of the Epistle, we behold the reservoir where the power is stored; and in the opening verses of the second section the engineer opens the sluice, so that the whole force of the treasured waters may flow out on human life, and impel it onward in active benevolence.
II. A consecrated life is the expected result. This consists of--
1. Devotion to God, the constituents of which are--
(1) A living sacrifice--the offerers own body, not that of a substitute; and not dead, but living. It is not a carcass laid on the altar to be burned; it is a life devoted to God. Love is the fire that consumes the sacrifice; and in this case, too, the fire came down from heaven.
(2) A reasonable service. It is not the arbitrary though loving command addressed by a father to his infant son, that he may be trained to habits of unquestioning obedience; it is rather the work prescribed by the father to an adult son, which the son understands, and in which he intelligently acquiesces.
2. In the remaining portion of the Epistle Paul labours to stimulate practical charity, in one place reducing the whole law to one precept, to one word--love. After devoting so much attention to the roots, he will not neglect to gather the fruit.
Conclusion:
1. We must look well to our helm as we traverse this ocean of life, where we can feel no bottom and see no shore, lest we miss our harbour. But we must also look to the lights of heaven. The seaman does not look to the stars instead of handling his helm. This would be as great folly as to handle his helm vigorously and never look to the stars. So we must not turn to the contemplation of dogma instead of labouring in the works of charity; but look to the truth as the light which shows us the way of life, and walking in that way with all diligence.
2. Want of faith is followed by want of goodness, as a blighting of the root destroys the stem and branches of a tree. But does the converse also hold good? Many trees when cut down grow again. But some species--pines, for example--die outright when the main stem is severed. Here lies a sharp reproof for all who bear Christs name. True it is also that, if from any cause the life cease to act, the faith, or what seemed faith, will rot away underground (1Ti_1:19). While faith, by drawing from the fulness of Christ, makes a fruitful life, the exercise of all the charities mightily increases even the faith from which they sprung. While, on one side, the necessity of the day is to maintain the faith as the fountain and root of practical goodness in the life; on the other side, the necessity of the day is to lead and exhibit a life corresponding to the faith it grows upon. (W. Arnot, D.D.)
By the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Wherein our Christian sacrifice, with respect to the body, principally consists; and the reasonableness of it
I. The character of the person exhorting. Whoever speaks to us in the name of God, or by a special commission from Him, has certainly a right to our attention. When we consider that the generality of men are more governed by example than precept, or the intrinsic reason of things, we must acknowledge it adds a very great force to instructions we hear from any person when they come recommended by his own practice, and that upon two accounts.
1. Because the actions of men discover most evidently to us the secret bent and disposition of their hearts.
2. Because a good example is a more moving and sensible argument to the practice of piety than the most beautiful images whereby we can otherwise represent it.
II. The manner of the apostles exhortation.
1. Brethren is the general appellation of Christians which St. Paul uses in all his Epistles.
2. By the mercies of God, that is, from the consideration of those great things our good and merciful God has done for us.
3. The subject-matter of the apostles exhortation in the following words, That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.
(1) By presenting our bodies a living sacrifice is implied that we perform to God a ready and cheerful obedience, that no difficulties or discouragements step us in the course of our Christian progress.
(a) Living may be here understood as it is opposed to those sensual lusts and passions which have their source from the body, and upon the account of which the apostle cries out (Rom_7:24). By indulging our sensual appetites we vitiate the best constitution, put the organs of the body out of tune, and by degrees perhaps do render it a sink of mortal diseases. All which disorders must necessarily render the body a very unfit and dull companion for the soul, or rather, as it were, a dead weight hanging upon it, in the more lively exercises of reason and devotion. And therefore we must take care never to indulge our bodily appetites to any excess, but rather endeavour to mortify our members which are upon the earth, that the soul operate with its full force and activity; which it is impossible we should do while we study nothing so much as to gratify our bodily appetites.
(b) Living, that is, a continual sacrifice. Our whole life in every part and period of it should be consecrated to the service of God. Our incense must burn continually before Him, and the sacrifice of our body, while we are in the body, never cease to be offered. But this leads me to consider--
(2) The other affection of this sacrifice, in order to render it acceptable to God, and that is holiness. A thing is said to be holy that is set apart to the more immediate service or worship of God. So that to present our bodies holy, is to keep them in a constant preparation for the duties of religion; to preserve them in a regular, pious, and composed temper; not to suffer our imagination to be defiled, or our sensual appetites gratified to any excess. And in particular to any of those sinful excesses which in the Holy Scriptures are termed the works of the flesh, and which are so contrary to the purity of that Divine Spirit who has chosen our bodies to be a habitation for Himself.
III. The reason and ground of the apostles exhortation. There is nothing here required of us but what is proper to the state and condition of human nature; nothing but what is fit and reasonable to be done.
1. God being the Creator and absolute Governor of the world, has power to lay what restraints upon men He sees fit, not exceeding the benefits of their creation.
2. He has laid no restraints upon our natural appetites but what generally tend to our own good and the perfection of our reasonable nature.
3. We think it no injustice in secular potentates to restrain subjects in their natural rights and liberties when such liberties are found inconvenient to themselves, or others, or to the government in general.
4. We often, upon a prospect of a future and greater good, are willing to deny ourselves a present pleasure or satisfaction. Nothing is more common or thought more reasonable.
5. The restraints which are complained of in the Christian religion are no more than what some of the wisest moralists and teachers of natural religion have laid upon themselves and prescribed to others. (R. Fiddes, D.D.)
Are you grateful?
Ingratitude is one of the meanest of vices. You know the old fable of the man who found a frozen viper and in kindness took it home and put it on his hearth-stone to be revived; but when the creature felt the warmth and began to renew its life, it bit its benefactor. This meanest of vices is often seen in men, but scarcely ever in a dog. Perhaps one of its worst forms is when it is shown towards parents; and children who are most indulged are generally the most ungrateful. Note:--
I. The compassions of God.
1. Was it not compassionate of God to create us? There might have been so much better men in our shoes than we are. How shameful then that some of us are little better than logs in a stream! How mean that some of us should wallow in mire like swine, and then say we cannot help it! The wonder is that God can bear with us; but having in mercy created us, He has followed it up with infinite forbearance. Many people are like the Prodigal--they do not care about God until they meet with disaster. Yet God, in His compassion, does not spurn them.
2. God shows His compassion in preparing a heavenly life for us. I dare say that some mother here has taken her little son to market, and when he began to be fagged, encouraged him by saying, Now, Johnny, be a brave lad, and when we get home Ill love you and make it up to you! Then the little feet trot on more gaily. My weary friend, take courage! God will make it up to you in the other world.
3. Then what compassion to redeem us and to save us from our sins!
II. Our reasonable service. God does not expect aa impossibility from us--only a reasonable service. Men are ready enough to profess their willingness to love God, but they are not so ready to show their love to Him by loving one another. Some of you may be living lonely lives, but, if you will, you may people the uninhabited island of your life. You long for sympathy. Well, others feel just the same, and they very likely think you are cold and reserved. Is there not somebody to whom you can say a gentle word, or to whom you can do a kind act? This is your reasonable service. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Take an interest in the joys and sorrows of your fellow.creatures. Those who have money to spare should enjoy the pleasure of dispensing it while they live. When a man gives his money while he lives it is a living sacrifice; but when he dies, his money is no longer his. If we have not treasures in money, we have the more precious treasures of love. Some people are like the picture of a rose, which has no perfume. Be perfumed, that is, living Christians; be fragrant of good deeds, which are the sweet breath of heaven; and thus you will show your gratitude to God, be an honour to the gospel of Jesus and a comfort to mankind. (W. Birch.)
True life a priesthood
The life of every man should be that of a priest. The earth should be trod, not as a garden, a playground, or a market, but as a temple. The text indicates that true priesthood is characterised by:--
I. Individuality. Bodies here stand for the whole nature--man himself. In this priesthood--
1. Every man is his own sacrifice. The wealth of the world would not be a substitute for himself. What does this imply?
(1) Negatively; not--
(a) The loss of personality. Man does not lose himself by consecrating his existence to the Eternal.
(b) The loss of free agency. Man does not become the mere tool or machine of Omnipotence. In truth he only secures his highest liberty.
(2) Positively; it includes--
(a) Yielding to Gods love as the inspiration of our being.
(b) Adopting His will as the role of our activities.
2. Every man is his own minister. None can offer the sacrifice for him. He must do it freely, devoutly, manfully.
II. Divinity. It is a vital connection with the Great God.
1. God is the object of it. Men are sacrificing themselves everywhere to pleasure, lucre, fame, influence. There are gods many in England at whose altars men are sacrificing themselves.
2. God is the motive of it. Gods mercies, which are infinite in number and variety, are the inciting and controlling motives. The true priest moves evermore from God to God.
3. God is the approver of it. Acceptable unto God. He approves it because it is--
(1) Right in itself;
(2) Blessed to man.
III. Rationality. Its reasonableness will be seen if you consider what it really means, viz.--
1. Cherishing the highest gratitude to our greatest Benefactor. Reason tells us that we ought to be thankful for favours generously bestowed upon us. But who has bestowed such favours as God?
2. The highest love to the best of beings. Reason tells that we should only love a being in proportion to his goodness. God is infinitely good, therefore He should be loved with all our hearts, minds, souls.
3. That we should render our entire services to our exclusive proprietor. God owns us; all we have and are belong to Him. If this is not reasonable, what is? In truth religion is the only reasonable life.
Conclusion: Such is true priesthood.
1. All other priesthoods are shams, mimicries, and impieties.
2. Christs priesthood will be of no avail to us unless we become true priests to God ourselves. His priesthood is at once the model and the means of all true human priesthood. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Gratitude requires expression
President Hopkins, of Williams College, used to tell his classes that if our religious feelings have no appropriate forms of expression, the feelings themselves will die out. If we do not take a reverential attitude in prayer, we shall lose the spirit of prayer. It is true that if a tree is stripped of its leaves, and kept so, it will die. If we do not express our gratitude and love to God, we shall lose what we have; but by expressing them they are increased--hence these offerings.
Bodily consecration
I. The persons addressed. You, brethren. Church members. Paul regarded conversion as an initial step, which, to amount to anything, must be followed by a going on to know the Lord. His favourite words were run, strive, fight, grow. He saw the potentialities of Christian manhood in the babe in Christ. This gave him weighty convictions as to the importance of prompt and proper attention to the nursing.
II. The duty enjoined. Present your bodies. The body, as well as the soul, is redeemed, and both must go together into Gods service. It is man yielding his members, as servants of iniquity, that gives power to the kingdom of darkness. So, to be of any service in the cause of God, we must yield, not our sympathy merely, but our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
III. The state of condition of the offering. A living sacrifice. Allusion is here made to the Jewish sacrifices--which, to have any moral value, must be dead; the Christian sacrifice must be presented living. Man is a priest who lays upon the altar his own living body. And as it was the business of the Jewish priest, not only to present the sacrifice, but to keep it on the altar and see that it be properly offered, so the Christians sacrifice is to be--
1. Holy. He is to see that his body is kept from all contact with the degrading or sensual.
2. Therefore, acceptable to God. Jewish sacrifices were the best of their kind; and man must consecrate all his powers, or God will reject his offering as a mockery and a sham.
3. Reasonable. Nothing more reasonable than that the creature should serve the Creator. If man was made to rule, it is equally true that he was made to obey; and in obedience is his greatest pleasure and profit.
IV. The motive prompting the sacrifice. The mercies of God. This motive is--
1. Strange. Other religions motive their devotees by the judgments and terror of their gods. None but Christianity ever thought of love as the motive to obedience.
2. Winsome.
3. Adequate. (T. Kelly.)
Entire consecration
The force of the aorist suggests that our self-dedication is to be entire, for once and for all. This act embraces three things--being, doing, and suffering. We must be willing to be, to do, and to suffer, all that God requires. This embraces reputation, friends, property, and time. It covers body, mind, and soul. These are to be used when, where, and as God requires; and only as He requires. Such a consecration should be made--
1. Deliberately;
2. For all coming time;
3. Without any reserve; and
4. In reliance upon Divine strength. (C. Nell, M.A.)
Personal consecration for Divine service
I. This is a summons to a service of worship.
1. The priestly service is required of all Christians without distinction. Every believer is assumed to be anointed, to have passed through the preliminary purification, to have been called and separated (1Pe_2:9), and to have passed through the consecration ritual (Rev_1:5-6). Therefore every one of them has boldness to enter into the holiest (Heb_10:19; Eph_3:12). And therefore they are all here summoned to holy service. Clearly the act of worship is to be continuous. The Jewish priests had to minister day by day. Morning and evening sacrifices must be offered: the altar fire must be kept burning; the lamps must be lit, and, generally, worship must be offered up continually. And these all symbolised for the people of God the necessity of constant service (1Co_10:31; Heb_13:12-15).
2. This priestly service of worship is to be one of sacrifice--is not indeed of atonement, for the one offering of our great High Priest needs never more to be repeated. But now, the reconciliation having been effected by that offering, we must draw near to God for holy fellowship, as in the peace-offering; to praise, as in the thank-offering; and for perpetual dedication, as in the burnt-offering.
(1) The Christian must present his own body. The Jew had to present the body of an animal: the Christian must offer his own. Under the law the priest sacrificed the animal; the Christian must offer up himself. The free, intelligent soul must be the presenting priest: the body, animated by the soul, and serving as its many-mannered instrument, must be the ever-presented offering (Rom_6:13).
(2) The sacrifice must be living. The servant of God is not at liberty, by neglect of the body, to put an end to its life. Rather must it be carefully preserved that its providential term may be available for Divine service. For this life belongs to God (Rom_14:7-8).
(3) This sacrifice must be holy. This holiness includes--
(a) Full and perpetual dedication to Divine service.
(b) Sanctification by the blood of Jesus, or it will become anathema.
(c) Sanctification of the Spirit, so that all the appetites, instincts, and members of the body, and all the powers and properties of the inspiring soul, shall be brought into true harmony with the will of God.
3. This priestly service of sacrifice shall be acceptable to God. It is at once worthy of the priest, the temple, and God. That could not be said of the ritual service of the Jewish temple, except in so far as it was type of better things (Isa_1:11-15).
II. The spirit in which these priests are required to perform their service (Rom_12:21)
1. Negatively--Be not conformed to this world. The special characteristics of worldliness vary according to the variations in the tendencies of thought and of ethical aim and effort at different periods, in different countries, and amongst different peoples. The spirit of the age in which Moses lived was the spirit of gross, sensuous idolatry. Hence the prohibition thereof in the Decalogue. The spirit of the age amongst the Jews, in the time of the apostles, was that of dependence upon external services (Gal_4:3; Gal_4:9). The spirit of the age by which the Colossians were in danger of being contaminated was that of philosophy and vain deceit (Col_2:8-23). There is in almost every age a twofold world-spirit, each being the others opposite, the most energetic working of which was perhaps most strikingly manifested in the early ages of monasticism, when those who became earnestly religious sought for the perfection of the spiritual life in seclusion and asceticism. Both were injurious to true spiritual religion, and the remedy will be secured by attention to the true Christian requirement. Present your bodies, and they are as capable of true spiritual service within their sphere as are your spirits. Therefore marriage is honourable among all right-minded men. Therefore to them that believe and know the truth, every creature of God is good (1Ti_4:3-5). Therefore all the honest occupations of life may be pursued in a truly religious spirit (1Co_7:29-31).
2. Positively. Observe
(1) The result to be produced; a transformation into something the very opposite of that conformation to this world, which is produced by the energy of merely secular powers. The form is that of likeness to the image of the glory of the Lord (2Co_3:18).
(2) This result is to be produced by the renewing of the mind, i.e., the progressive growth and ever-increasing power of Christian life, bringing the mind, and through that the whole person, into ever-increasing approximation to the perfect likeness of the Lord (2Co_4:16).
(3) This renewing of the mind is a work of the Holy Ghost (Tit_3:5) carried on with our own free and active Concurrence. Therefore the command is laid upon us.
III. The arguments by which the priests are urged to attend diligently to this service.
1. The apostles personal influence. He himself had consecrated all to the service of God (Php_2:17). And therefore with great urgency of moral power could he say, I beseech you.
2. The mercies of God, in which there is at once a backward reference to the foregoing arguments and illustrations, an onward reference to the duties about to be inculcated, and a central reference to the consequential link which binds on the one to the other.
3. That ye may personally prove the will of God--
(1) The thing to be proved is that which God wills, ordains, and prescribes as the rule and end of our whole activity--even our sanctification.
(2) The method of proving this will is the practical one of rendering to it obedience under the influence of saving grace. If any man will do His will, he shall know, etc.
(3) This will of God prescribes only that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. This is to be the result of the test in the personal experience.
(a) He will prove it to be good, and also productive of good.
(b) He will prove it to be acceptable both to God and man (Rom_14:18; 2Co_1:12).
(c) He proves that the course prescribed for him by the will of God is perfect. (W. Tyson.)
The consecrated body
The body is--
I. The seat of our animal propensities. These are not necessarily criminal. They are only so when they cease to be subordinate to God. When we are living in His power, the question will not be, Is this self-indulgence right, or wrong? but, Does it interfere with the work of the Holy Spirit within me, and the fulfilment of the mind of God in my life?
II. The seat of our sensuous experiences. Is the love of music to be indulged, or may we take long journeys for pleasure? Surely none of these things are wrong in themselves; but with the child of God the question is not, How shall I most gratify my sensuous propensity? but, How most please God?
III. The seat of our physical sensibilities--those which are acted upon by the sense of pain, pleasure, lassitude, etc. A duty has to be done, but it is a hot day, and we have some approach to a headache, and we do not feel disposed to do it. What is it will enable us to rise above that? Why, to be filled with the Spirit, and then the body will present itself to Gods service joyfully.
IV. Our medium of communication with the physical world. Now, it is not a bad thing that we should have to do with the physical world; but what effect is our bodies producing upon this world? Is it the better for us? Is Holiness to the Lord written upon the very vessels of our households? If we are filled with the Spirit of God, our bodies will be the medium through which this world will be continually affected by Him, etc.
V. The medium through which we hold intercourse with mankind. Now, what is the nature of that influence? If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, it will be a revelation of Christ. In these bodies we should carry about the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. The tone of our voice, the line of our conduct, the look of our eye, everything about us, will speak of Christ.
VI. The veil which conceals the things unseen. Strip off these bodies, and in a moment we are landed in the presence of invisible realities. There is only this between me and eternity, between me and God. Now, that is something for which to be thankful. If it were not for this veil it would be impossible for me to fulfil the work of my probation. At the same time, the devil employs it as a means of deadening our spiritual sensibilities. When the Holy Spirit has free course within our being, then the veil becomes almost transparent. There are times when God draws so near to us that it seems more like seeing than thinking, more like touching than simply contemplating. (W. Hay Aitken, M.A.)
Consecrated and transformed
The key of this chapter is found in the preceding verse. The law of the universe, the great march of all things is from God, through God, to God. But all things about us are wrought upon by a great compulsion. From reason, not from blind necessity, we yield ourselves to the sweep of this great law. Yet there is a compulsion even for us--nobler, as our service is nobler, viz., love: by the mercies of God.
I. The entreaty: I beseech you. But we object to be besought to do a reasonable thing. Show us that a thing is reasonable, and at once and of course we do it. Think, then, that for our highest good we have to be besought! For God alone we play not the part of reasonable men. How amazing that we should have to be urged when God invites us to give ourselves to Him that He may give Himself to us! That ye may prove what is that good … will of God. The ear is deaf to the voice of God, calling us to Paradise again. This is the entreaty of a man--
1. Who was living this life of blessedness. Of, through, and to God, was the rhythmic flow of his whole being. And then, in all the consciousness of this blessed life, he thinks of the half-hearted, of those who come far enough out of the far country to lose the husks of the swine, but not far enough to get the bread of the fathers house, who, like the fabled coffin of Mahomet, lie suspended between earth add heaven, unclaimed by either, and yet fretting for each. To these the apostle cries, I beseech you, etc.
2. Who had lingered at the Cross until its great love possessed him. He had seen something of Gods unspeakable gift. With that mercy kindling his soul he asks, What acknowledgment can we make? Only ourselves. The power that prompts and sustains this consecration is only here--the love of God in Jesus. There let us seek it.
II. The consecration to which we are urged. Turn again to the great law of all things and trace its application.
1. Nothing in Gods world is any good until it is given up to that which is above it. What is the worth of the land, however fruitful, and whatever title we may have to it, unless we can do something with it? The soil must minister to us, or it is merely waste land. The seed again and all its products--what should we give for them if we could do nothing with them? And what use are cattle and sheep, except as they clothe and feed us? And what are we for? Here lies our worth and our good, in giving ourselves a living sacrifice to Him, of, through, and to whom are all things.
2. Every thing by sacrifice not lost, but turned into higher life. Very beautiful is this law of transformation. Listen to the parable of the earth. Here am I, it mutters, so far away from Him who made me, without any beauty of form, or richness of colour, or sweetness of smell! How can I ever be turned into worth and beauty? And now there comes the seed, and whispers, Earth, wilt thou give me thy strength? No, indeed, replies the earth, it is all I have got, and I will keep it for myself. Then, saith the seed, thou shalt be only earth for ever. But if thou wilt give me thy strength thou shalt be lifted up and be turned into worth and beauty. So the earth yields, and the seed takes hold of it. It rises with wondrous stem; it drinks in sunshine and rain and air, mingling them with the earths strength and changing all to branch, leaf, flower, and fruit. The parable repeats itself in the case of the seed. It has a kind of life, but all unconscious. It cannot see, or hear, or move. But it yields itself to the animal, and then its strength is turned into part of the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the subtle nerve, the beating heart. And the animal gives itself in turn to serve man, and is exalted to a thousand higher purposes. And man gives himself up to God, and is transformed--into what? Ah! who can tell of that wondrous transformation when it is completed? Once when I was a schoolboy going home for the holidays, I embarked at Bristol with just money enough to pay my fare, and thought in my innocence that that included meals. By and by came the steward with his bill. Ive got no money, said
I. What is your name and address? I told him. I should like to shake hands with you, he said instantly, with a smile. Then came the explanation--how that some years before some little kindness had been shown by my father to his widowed mother. I never thought the chance would come for me to repay it, said he, pleasantly; but I am glad it has. I told my father what had happened. Ah, said he, see how a bit of kindness lives! Now he has passed it on to you. Remember, if ever you meet anybody that needs a friendly hand, you must pass it on to them. Years went by, and I had forgotten it all, until one day I was at a railway station, and saw a little lad crying. What is the matter, my lad? I asked. If you please, sir, I havent money enough to pay my fare. I have all I want but a few pence; and I tell the clerk if he will trust me I will be sure to pay him again. Instantly flashed the forgotten story of long ago. Here, then, was my chance of passing it on. I gave him the sum he needed, and told the little fellow the story of the stewards kindness to me. Now, to-day, I said, I pass it on to you; and remember, if you meet with any one that needs a kindly hand, you must pass it on to them. My story is the illustration of the law of Gods great kindness that runs through all things. Here lies the earth, and it says: I have got in me some strength. It belongs to God. Then it whispers to the seed, I will pass it on to you. Then the seed passes it on to the animal, and the animal to man, who completes the circle. Think how all things minister to him. If he serves not God, he hinders all things, and diverts them.
III. The result of this consecration. Be not conformed to this world. How great a drop is this! We were dreaming of heaven, and now we have a string of moral commonplaces. Be not wise in your own conceits. Be given to hospitality. Be not slothful in business. Live peaceably with all men. But that this should seem a coming down makes the lesson all the more needful. Do we not too often think that our way upward is first to be right with ourselves, and then to be right with the world, and then somewhere far off we may some day come to be right with God? No, the order is reversed. First right with God, then, and then only, right with all things. First present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God; then the world, and all belonging to it, is put in its right place. How vain are all other attempts at curing conformity to the world! There never was a time when there were so many man-made, church-made Christians. Who does not know the receipt? Tie up the hands and say, You must not do that. Tie up his feet and say, You mustnt go to such and such places--at least, when you are at home. Cut him off from certain things at which society is shocked, and there is your Christian: a creature with his heart hungering for the world as fiercely as ever. To present our bodies a living sacrifice to the opinions of religious society is no cure for conformity to the world. This is the only way--a glad, whole-hearted giving up of ourselves to God. Then comes the being transformed by the renewing of the mind. Transformed, not from without, but from within; exactly as the earth is transformed when it gives itself up to the seed. That ye may prove, etc. The renewed mind has new faculties of discernment--new eyes to see the will of God, and a new heart to do it, and to be it. We cannot know Gods will until we are given up to it. Once as I meditated on these words I heard the children pass my study door. I shant, rang out a little voice. This wont do, said I, gravely; you must stand in the corner until you come to a better mind. Think now, said I to myself, if she should say, Well, I suppose it is my fathers will, and I must submit to it, should I not answer, Nay, it is dead against your fathers will? Your fathers will is that you should be in the garden playing with the others, but you have gone against your fathers will, and now your fathers will has gone against you. And as I turned it over, I thought I saw where all the crosses come from. When Gods will goes one way and our will goes another, there is the cross. When Gods will and mine are one the cross is lost. Already the crown is ours--for what makes heaven? Not white robes, not golden streets, not harps and anthems, but this only--the eternal harmony of wills; and we can have that down here. And what is hell? The eternal collision of wills. We may have that here, and this it is that makes the madness of many a life. Conclusion: And now here is a thing to be done. It shall help us nothing to know all this, to believe it all, and yet to stop short of doing it. Will you do it? (Mark Guy Pearse.)
How is the body to become a sacrifice?
Let thine eye look upon no evil thing, and it hath become a sacrifice; let thy tongue speak nothing filthy, and it hath become an offering; let thy hand do no lawless deed, and it hath become a whole burnt-offering. But this is not enough, we must have good works also. Let the hand do alms, the mouth bless them that despitefully use us, and the ear find leisure evermore for the hearing of Scripture. For sacrifice can be made only of that which is clean; sacrifice is a firstfruit of other actions. Let us, then, from our hands, and feet, and mouth, and all our other members, yield a firstfruit unto God. Such a sacrifice is well-pleasing, and not, as that of the Jews, unclean, for their sacrifices, says the Scripture, shall be unto them as the bread of mourners. Not so ours. Theirs presented the thing sacrificed dead; ours maketh the thing sacrificed to be alive. For when we have mortified our members, then we shall be able truly to live. For the law of this sacrifice is new, and the fire of a marvellous nature. For it needeth no wood under it, but liveth of itself, and doth not burn up the victim, but rather quickeneth it. This was the sacrifice that God sought of old. Wherefore the prophet saith, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. And the three children offered this when they said, At this time there is neither prince, nor prophet, nor leader, nor burnt-offering, nor place to sacrifice before Thee, and to find mercy. Nevertheless, in a contrite heart and an humble spirit, let us be accepted. (Chrysostom.)
A living sacrifice
Here is--
I. Something to be done. Note--
1. The terms of the text.
(1) Present is elsewhere rendered yield (Rom_6:13; Rom_6:16; Rom_6:19), a word commonly used for bringing to offer in sacrifice (Luk_2:22).
(2) Bodies, a part of human nature, is here used to represent the whole. Our whole nature consists of body, soul, and spirit. But as the body is the visible part of our nature, the organ of practical activity, as soul and spirit cannot now be devoted to God, except as connected with the body, nor themselves without the body, and as the body cannot be presented as a sacrifice separate from the spirit; moreover, as the allusion to the ancient sacrifices required the recognition of the material part of our nature, we may conclude that by your bodies is intended yourselves.
(3) The animals required by the law were brought alive to the altar, and in offering them up they were slain. So soon as the offering was made they were dead sacrifices. Yield yourselves a sacrifice in life, a sacrifice for life, a sacrifice rich in life.
(4) Holy, not nominally but really, cleansed from guilt, purified; passively and actively, not ceremonially, but experimentally; not outwardly only, but inwardly.
(5) Acceptable; the sacrifice real, the bringing of the offering sincere; the Mediator recognised in the offering, therefore acceptable, i.e., well-pleasing unto God. The sacrifices under the law were pleasing to God as representing certain ideas and facts, and as expressing certain sentiments; but the sacrifice before us is in itself an object of Divine complacency (Psa_147:11; Isa_62:4-5; Mal_3:16-17).
2. That which is here required is not devotions, but devotion. Present the offerings of true worship, but above all, present yourselves. All that we are is required, beside that which we have. Bring money, time, and influence as offerings, but above this, offer yourselves, your natural selves, your redeemed selves, the best in yourselves, and the whole of yourselves.
(1) That you may be what He requires, His children, servants, witnesses, and as such, poor or rich, least or greatest, according to His will.
(2) That you may do what He requires, in obedience as a son, and in work as a servant, and in testimony as a witness, etc.
(3) That you may suffer and submit to all that He requires.
3. Now there are three things necessary to this--
(1) Knowledge of God. No such sacrifice as that described in my text was ever offered to an unknown God.
(2) Reconciliation to God. There can be no devotion or consecration where there is indifference or alienation.
(3) Love to God.
II. A strong motive power by which to do it.
1. The mercies of God, which are the manifestations of His goodness recorded in the previous part of this Epistle (see Rom_2:4; Rom_5:8; Rom_5:20-21; Rom_8:38-39). But there are mercies which Paul does not mention, and which the Christian shares with all men. The mercies of God are countless in number, infinite in variety, and inestimable in value. Gratitude is a strong motive-power, by whose aid we may present our bodies an offering for life, holy and acceptable.
2. And is there not some force in the statement that this offering is a reasonable service? The victims under the law were irrational. This yielding ourselves to God is a reasonable service because--
(1) Worthy of our nature and constitution as rational beings.
(2) In harmony with the object of mans creation.
(3) The natural fruit of our redemption to God.
(4) A meet and right acknowledgment of our obligations to God.
(5) It commends itself to our judgment and conscience and heart.
(6) While involving thorough enthusiasm, it is far from all fanaticism and superstition.
3. And is there not something due to the earnestness of Paul in this matter? I beseech you. This man knew what it was to offer himself a sacrifice to God, and did what he recommends, by powers and aids within reach of all Christians. Here lies the secret of his power (2Co_12:9; Php_4:13).
Conclusion:
1. Young brethren, render my text into life. In the school, home, place of business, present yourselves living sacrifices. The religious habits you now form are of immense moment to you. Let them be right habits even from the beginning.
2. Lukewarm and backsliding brethren, my text shows you what you ought to be, and indirectly what you are. A sacrifice it may be, but to self, to vanity, covetousness, pleasure, etc.
3. False brethren, why do you creep into our churches? You are as wood, hay, and stubble in our spiritual building, You are a cancerous growth on the body of Christ. Why do you not leave Christians alone? If you be an infidel, be honest, and do not profess to be a Christian. Go to your own company, but know that there is forgiveness for your falseness if you repent and turn from your evil ways.
4. And let the Pharisees of doctrine and of ritual digest my text. Theory without practice, doctrine without duty, a creed without spiritual life, will avail you nothing. (S. Martin.)
A living sacrifice
I. The motive of the sacrifice: the mercies of God--the most cogent motive that can possibly influence a Christian soul.
II. The method. It is to be an act of presentation. Here am I; send me. Make what use of me Thou canst and wilt.
III. The subject. Our bodies.
IV. The object. Acceptable to God. (W. Hay Aitken, M.A.)
A living sacrifice
We have here--
I. A highly figurative but exceedingly significant representation of practical and daily virtue. It is given under the form of a presentation.
1. The Romans could not fail to be alive to its meaning. They had always been accustomed to sacrifice and splendid ritualism. They had to turn away from this, and to become members of little private societies, in which there was nothing of the kind. And I can imagine that they would almost feel the want of it; and in consequence of the absence of it to the heathen they did not seem to have any God or religion at all. But the Christian convert was now taught that he himself was a priest of God, that everything he did should be presented on the altar of a religious faith.
2. By the term bodies we are to understand the whole person. Though the body is the instrument, yet the mind is that which we always consider as acting. Of course you may take the term as it stands. You are to present your hands by keeping them from violence and fraud, and putting them to honest work. You are to present your eyes by turning them away from objects which may excite concupiscence, or fill you with the workings of unholy passion. The senses and appetites must all be controlled; and the understanding must learn to cultivate the knowledge of truth.
II. be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed.
1. Here, again, the primitive Christian would have a stronger feeling than we can have. The Church and the world were things very distinct then. On the one side were the idolatry, godless philosophy, and vicious habits of heathen society; on the other a little flock, bearing the marks of that holiness which the Christian faith was designed to produce. But things are so wonderfully intermixed now that we do not know where the Church ends and where the world begins. There is a kind of border land; and there they are, going to and fro. Of course there are a number of things which the Church and the world must do in common, and in many cases non-conformity to the world consists, not so much in doing different things as in the different feelings that underlie what we do. Why, says the apostle, if you are not to come in contact with certain persons, you might just as well be out of the world. If an unbeliever ask you to dine with him, and you are disposed to do so, go; only bear in mind that you are a Christian, and that whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, you are to do all to the glory of God. Now there can be no doubt at all about one thing. If anything presents itself as sinful there must not be conformity. Well, then, if you are really wishing to be a Christian; and if you find something which is injurious to you--you are not to enter into the question whether it is injurious to your neighbour; if you find it injurious to you do not be conformed to it. You may be conscious, e.g., that a certain kind of reading or music is a hindrance to your religious life. Take care, then, that in these respects you be not conformed to the world. So with respect to anything that is doubtful with regard to the expenditure of time or money. Let me here whisper to you young people--whenever you find anything condemned by your intelligent and cultivated elders, you may depend upon it that there is something right lying at the bottom of their antipathy.
2. But besides this negative abstinence outwardly, there is to be a positive opening and development of the mind and affections towards that brighter world of Divine truth and goodness, to which it becomes us to be conformed. You must not be contented with outwardly resisting and inwardly longing. There is plenty of non-conformity to the world in the inside of a jail. Butts there the renewal of the mind? Unlike the man coming out of prison, who immediately returns from the force of the life that is within him to the things from which he has been parted for a season, there must be in you such a renewal of the soul that you will detest the things which have been given up; you must feel that you have meat to eat which the world knoweth not of. You will then have the satisfaction of another kind of life within you.
III. The result of this is that you may know by a positive, subjective experience the will of God, how beautiful, how perfect, how good it is; how it is just the thing for which man was evidently made.
1. There have been men of great genius who have been very immoral. Well, now, let us suppose such a man to have studied Divine truth until he apprehends it just as he might apprehend astronomy. He has knowledge; he has a perception of the beauty of the system, but he has not tasted and seen. There it is, lying above the intellect just as the stars lie above the sky; he has not within him the sense of an actual loving spirit, instinct with the spirit of truth.
2. Take a man of inferior faculties--who, having some little to begin with--the lessons of his father, the prayers of his mother, by which his young heart was early, taught to love holiness and to hate sin; having very few ideas, and those not well arranged, but still daily presenting himself as a living sacrifice unto God, and going on learning the truth by loving it--oh, what different feelings will such a man have, as the whole system of truth gradually opens and reveals itself to him, and he gets more and more an apprehension of it! That is the way in which I want you to come to a knowledge of the Christian system.
IV. This sacrifice is a very reasonable thing. It is a service agreeable to your rational nature. Take the case of a man who does not believe in God; suppose that man to come in contact with another who is disgracing humanity by drunkenness or licentiousness. Can you not conceive him saying, Well, now, you know you were not made for that? Or if he did not believe man to have been made at all, can you not imagine him saying, However, you were made, considering what your mind is, and what society is, with your own knowledge of what is becoming, it is a most irrational thing for you to sink down into such a low, gross existence? Ay, and we say to the man who talks thus, Sir, if theres a God that made him, and you, and me; and if the relations which we sustain to Him as reasonable creatures are far more important than our relations to one another, then is it not required by our rational nature that we should not only avoid the abominations which you have denounced, but that, by the culture of what is good and beautiful and pure, we should present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice?
V. The exhortation is enforced by the mercies of God. The word therefore connects the exhortation with the preceding argument of the apostle, and without referring to that you cannot understand what are the mercies to which he especially refers. That argument bears principally on two points--the mediation of Christ, and the work of the Spirit. These are the two pillars on which the mercies of God are inscribed. You are to present yourselves a living sacrifice; you are not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind. Hard sayings. But you are not to take them by themselves. There is a provision to meet your weakness. (T. Binney.)
A living sacrifice
This verse makes a transition from the first to the second half of this letter. All before it is what we call doctrinal, the most of what comes after it is practical. There are many men that say, Give us the morality of the New Testament; never mind about the theology. But you cannot get the morality without the theology, unless you like to have rootless flowers and lamps without oil. On the other hand, many forget that the end of doctrine is life, and that therefore the most orthodox orthodoxy, divorced from practice, is like the dried flowers which botanists put between sheets of blotting-paper--the skeletons of dead beauty. Let us, then, always remember this little word therefore, that binds together indissolubly Christian truth and Christian duty. Note--
I. The sum of Christian service.
1. Sacrifice means giving up everything to God. That is the true sacrifice, when I think as in His sight, and will, and love, and act as in obedience to Him. And this sacrifice will become visible in the sacrifice of the body, when in all common actions we have a supreme and distinct reference to His will, and do, or refuse to do, because of the fear and for the sake of the Lord. The body has wants and appetites; you have to see to it that these are supplied with a distinct reference to, and remembrance of, Him, and so made acts of religious worship. The excess which dulls the spirit and makes it all unapt to serve Him, the absorbing care about outward things which checks all the nobility of a mans life, are the forms in which the body comes in the way of the soul, and the regulation and suppression of these are the simplest parts of the offering. There is no need in this generation to preach against asceticism. Better John the Baptists garment of camels hair and his meat--locusts and wild honey, if, like John the Baptist, I shall see the heavens opened, and the Spirit of God descending on the Son of Man, than this full-fed sensualism which is the curse and the crime of this generation.
2. This offering makes a man live more nobly and more truly than anything else. Not mutilation but consecration is the true sacrifice. We are not called upon to crush our desires, tastes, appetites, or to refrain from actions; only they are to be controlled and done in obedience to God.
(1) Now and then circumstances may come in which it is Christian duty to put your hand down there on the block and take an axe in the other and chop it off. But that is second-best; and if the man had always consecrated his faculty to God, he would never have had need to cut it off. To harness and tame it, to yoke it to the cart, and make it work, not to shoot the wild beast, is the right thing to do.
(2) Thus to consecrate ones self is the way to secure a higher and a nobler life. Just as when you take a flower out of the woods and put it into a greenhouse and cultivate it, you will get a broader leaf and a finer flower than when it was wild, so the disciplined, consecrated man is the man whose life is the richest every way. If you want to go all to rack and ruin live according to your own fancy and taste.
3. This sacrifice is your reasonable service. The antithesis is with the material sacrifices, and the Revised Version gives the true meaning in its marginal rendering spiritual. It is a service or worship rendered by the inner man, transacted by the mind or reason, and thus, as indicating the part of our nature which performs it, is reasonable. Now there is no need to depreciate outward forms of oral worship. But still we have all need to be reminded that devout daily living is true worship. Where the common food is eaten with thankfulness and in the consciousness of His presence, it is holy as the Lords Supper. The same authority that said of the one, This do in remembrance of Me, said by His apostle of the other, Whether ye eat or drink, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. To work is to pray, if done from a right motive. The bells on the horses may bear the same inscription as blazed on the high priests mitre, Holiness to the Lord, and the shop-girl behind the counter may be as truly offering sacrifice to God as the priest by the altar. The mere formal worship is abomination without this. There are people that think they have done a meritorious thing in coming here to this service, and whose only notion of worship is a weary sitting in this place for an hour and a half. Do you think that is of any use? The sacrifice of praise is right, but to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
II. The great motive of Christian service. By the mercies of God, the apostle means the great scheme of mercy set forth in the previous chapters. The diffused and wide-shining mercies, which stream from the Fathers heart, are all, as it were, focussed as through a burning-glass into one strong beam, which can kindle the greenest wood and melt the thick-ribbed ice.
1. Only on the footing of Christs sacrifice can we offer ours. He has offered the one sacrifice of His death in order that we may offer the sacrifice of our life. He has offered the dying sacrifice which is propitiation, in order that, on the footing of that, we may offer the eucharistic sacrifice of grateful surrender of ourselves to Him.
2. These mercies are also the only motive power that will be strong enough to lead to this consecration of ourselves to Him. The fierce wants, passions, and appetites that rage and rule in men will be subdued by nothing short of the mighty motive drawn from the great love of God revealed in the dying love of Jesus. There is one magnet strong enough to draw reluctant hearts and reluctant limbs, and that is Jesus lifted up on the Cross. Other restraints from propriety, prudence, or even principle will reach their breaking point at a much lower strain than the silken bonds of Christs love.
III. The gentle enforcement of this great motive for Christian service. Law commands, the gospel entreats! Christs yoke is easy, not because His precepts let down the ideal of morality, but because the motive is love, and the manner of command gentle and beseeching. Hence its power; for hearts, like flowers, which could not be burst open by the crow-bar of law, may be wooed open by the sunshine of love. Surely as the morning sunrise drew a note from the stony lips of the statue, which storm and thunder could not awaken, His pleading voice will bring an answer that could not have been won by any commandments, however rigid, or by any threatenings, however severe. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
A living sacrifice
The words are very familiar, or they certainly would strike us powerfully. None of us ever saw a sacrifice; but the readers of this Epistle knew the sight well; and whether they as Gentiles thought it a mere ceremony, or, if they argued about it, as the Scriptures almost compelled an Israelite to argue, they must have been startled at Pauls words. Does he mean us, they may have said, to treat our bodies as either sinful and to be got rid of, or as things so sacred, that to offer them in self-devotion will have power to make peace for us with God? A little reflection would show them that neither of these interpretations could be the right one. St. Paul held the body in high honour; but, on the other hand, there was no thought in his heart, when he spoke of the body as a sacrifice, of anything meritorious. We shall best grasp the apostles meaning if we consider--
I. The terms used. St. Paul had never yet visited Rome, and could not say as he said to the Thessalonians, Remember ye not that when I was with you I told you of these things? And therefore he has gone with great fulness into the whole system of grace and redemption, and now he turns to the practical inference.
1. He appeals to his readers by the mercies of God. They for whom God has done all these great things had, by their very nature, no claim whatever to the love of God; and therefore mercy, kindness to the undeserving, is the right word for Gods dealings with them; and if mercy is to be indeed a blessing, it must lead to something in the heart and life, responsive and corresponding to it.
2. Your bodies. St. Paul gave no encouragement to that sort of religion which dreams and cultivates beautiful ideas and rapturous feelings, and there stops. If he had written minds he might have given the notion of an intellectual attainment; if souls he might have opened the door to a languid and useless existence, such as hermits and mystics delight in; but when he says bodies he strikes at the root of all such errors. The word he uses is not carcase, but living body; which includes all the powers of intercourse and exertion.
3. Present applies to the worshipper who places his victim by the altar and to the priest who officially makes the presentation, in either of which senses the word would be suitable here. In the one sense the Christian is the priest of his own sacrifice. Scripture speaks of us as offering up spiritual sacrifices, as being ourselves a royal priesthood. In the other sense the Christian places his offering by the altar that Christ may offer it up to God, and so make it acceptable. There is no conflict between the two; for, if the Christian is Gods priest, he is so in virtue of the one process and the one sacrifice, and the moment he would officiate independently he becomes a priest of Baal.
4. Sacrifice was of two kinds.
(1) Lev_16:1-34, with its commentary in Heb_9:1-28; Heb_10:1-39, is the great study of the sin-offering. There we find how absolutely this is restricted to the work done on Calvary. It would be blasphemous to apply the term to a human being as meaning atonement. When we even speak of atoning for a sinful past we are going perilously near to the edge of this precipice.
(2) But though the sin-offering is absolutely Christs, it is not quite thus with the burnt-offering, the essence of which is the penetrating, transfiguring fire, the emblem of the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost. The sacrifice here is the life indwelt, kindled, inspired, transformed by the fire of the Holy Spirit.
II. The clause as a whole.
1. It prepares us for a somewhat painful life. Sacrifice implies death. Look, then, upon yourselves as men who have already died with Christ, and who are now being burnt upon Gods altar. The figure sets before us the life of a Christian as a life through which a fire is passing, that it may come out from it in a new form, the sinful having become pure, the earthly heavenly, and the whole man meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. A process like this must be painful if the holy flame is really alight, if the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire is really at work in us, consuming our base passions, etc.
2. The painful life is also a glorious life. There is something in the word to which all but hearts of earth and stone are responsive. What will not a friend sacrifice for his friend? Will he not go through fire and water may he but prove his love? Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Wherefore? and for what? To show that you feel what God has done for you in Jesus. If Christian ambition were just a refurbishing and regilding of this poor tarnished thing which sin and the fall has made us, I can well imagine noble hearts saying, I will none of it. I despise your decencies and decorum. But men cannot speak in this way of the sacrifice of the body, of the flame kindled at the cross-altar, and kindling the creature and the sinner into the sufferer and into a doer and into a darer. Man would give worlds to live that life if he could. He cries in his shame and bitterness, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. One reason why there are not more Christians is because so few have entered into the thought of the inward fire which alone can make the outward surface aught but a delusion or a hypocrisy. (Dean Vaughan.)
A living sacrifice
These words breathe the fervour of a heart which has made the surrender to which it would constrain others, and had they been read to us for the first time without context we might have pictured the apostle not dictating a letter, but standing as he does in the cartoon of Raffaelle with uplifted arms pleading with men. We have here--
I. A demand.
1. The living sacrifice stands in contrast with the animals which were slain in order to be presented to God, and the holiness which is to mark it has reference to the Mosaic sacrifices which had to be without spot or blemish. Believers as a royal priesthood are here exhorted to offer that spiritual sacrifice prefigured by the burnt-offering, without which the sacrifice of praise by the lips, and of almsgiving with the substance, will be unacceptable to God. Remember that the expiatory sacrifice has gone before, and by virtue of it only are we priests unto God (Rev_1:5-6). When the Jewish priests were consecrated the blood of the sacrifice was applied to the ear, the hand, and the foot, signifying that it needs a blood-stained ear to listen to the Divine commandments, a blood-stained hand to minister before God, a blood-stained foot to tread His courts. So being now consecrated by the blood of the atoning sacrifice, believers are to offer the eucharistic sacrifice of the text.
2. The body does not signify here the whole man. True, the altar on which this victim is offered is the heart, but the reference to the body is not to be frittered away. The body shared largely in the fall, and is to share largely in the redemption. It is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and an instrument in Divine service, and is to be transformed in the likeness of our Lords glorious body. So, then, we are called upon to present our bodies to God in useful service, and to take heed that it is not withheld or impaired by indolence, allowance of evil habit, or lack of self-discipline.
II. This demand is enforced by a twofold plea.
1. It is our reasonable service, which has been understood to point a contrast between the Christian sacrifice and those made prior to the Divine command, or those which are superstitious, or mechanical, or carnal. It is enough, however, that the service is dictated by reason in response to a reasonable demand. Granted the apostles premises, no one can deny the rationality of this his conclusion. Hence sin is identified with folly, and wisdom constantly defined as being the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments.
2. The mercies of God. Note the emphatic therefore, one of many which constitute the links of an irresistible argument for consecration based upon the mercy of God in Christ. It would be enough to mention Gods temporal mercies, but in Pauls view these sink into insignificance compared with Gods redeeming mercies, which form the substance of the Epistle. (Canon Miller.)
A living sacrifice
As the smith casts the iron he wishes to mould into shape into the fire, so the apostle has been smelting the minds of his readers in the fires of sacred argument, till now they are prepared to receive those strokes of his hammer which are to shape them into practical Christians. The object of all Christian doctrine is to fuse the life of a man with Divine fire, and mould it into a Divine form, so that it shall not be conformed to the fashion of any passing age, but transfigured by the renewal of the mind with the life and beauty of God. Note--
I. The consecration of ones self to God.
1. In our human relations we know the nature of such self-consecration and what it involves. When two human beings give themselves to one another they swear in the name of love that they will be true to each other as long as life shall last. If the surrender be really entire and mutual, then marriage is really a holy sacrament, consecrating each to each as under the eye of God. It means such a oneness of life henceforth as shall not tolerate the thought of division; such mutual devotion that each shall lose himself in the service of the other--and the anguish of the thought of parting at death is consoled by the confident hope of reunion hereafter.
2. Our relations to God being spiritual cannot always be realised with the same intensity as our visible relations. But some things help to make them stronger and nobler.
(1) Think of the motives that constrain our consecration. Love is the only guarantee for the enduring fellowship of souls, whether Divine or human. But the love of two human beings may not endure for ever But if we have come to know Gods love in Christ, a love that does not depend for its existence or strength upon our love to Him, or upon the continuance of our love, but has its origin in infinite and eternal goodness, we have a motive for love and consecration which transcends all others that can affect the heart. Hence the force of the appeal by the mercies of God, etc.
(2) We can now understand also the purpose of such a consecration. Why do two human beings give themselves to one another? What does love mean by the surrender of self? Identity, so that two become one like perfect music joined to noble words. And this is what the soul means when it gives itself unto God, that we may become one with Him, that our hearts may beat in sympathy with His, that our wills may keep time with the Divine will, that we may help in the accomplishment of His plans.
II. The manner in which this consecration vow is fulfilled. And be not conformed, etc. The offering of ourselves, and the carrying out of the vow, are two different things. The one act is the work of a moment, the other is the work of a lifetime. The one is coming to God under the constraint of His love; the other is abiding in Him and growing up into Christian manhood. When a young man inflamed with the passion for scholarship is sent to the university, he enters his name upon the college books, and becomes pledged to the life of a student. But he is not yet therefore a learned man. He must attend classes, scorn delights, and live laborious days. If he can learn to love hard work and stern self-discipline he shall become at length what his first ambition aimed at. When a soldier takes the oath of allegiance it is but the first step of a soldiers life. He will have to pass through much monotonous drill before he is fit for service; and if ever called into the field of battle he will have to endure fatiguing marches and brave death itself. And we can be good soldiers of Jesus Christ only upon the same conditions. The case sometimes happens that a profligate man is smitten with the love of a pure woman and swears that if she will give him her love he will become a new man. And if she believes his promise and accepts his love, and he earnestly sets himself to redeem his vow, do you think he is able to become a new man in a day? Yes, in purpose, but not in achievement. The battle with former habits cannot he completely fought out at once, but the victory is won at last because the battle has been faithfully fought under the inspiration of a love that has been stronger than all his other passions. And what a pure earthly love is able to accomplish for a man, shall not the love of God in Christ accomplish for us?
2. We are to become transformed by the renewing of the thinking faculty. That is, instead of being occupied, as we once were, in thinking and planning about the old life and ways, we are to busy our thoughts with the new life, and not only try to feel right, but to think right. And so we shall cease to be conformed to this world, and become transformed by the progressive renewal of our minds till we learn by experience that the will of God is good, and acceptable, and perfect.
III. Such a service to God is in the highest degree reasonable.
1. The religion of Christ appeals to all our highest faculties. It recognises also our understanding as well as our affections, and says that one of the great arguments for the surrender of the life to God is that it is eminently a right and reasonable thing. With some religion is all feeling, all sentiment; with others it is a round of dull proprieties, or a scrupulous and painful performance of prescribed duties; with others it is cloistered communion; with others it is all a matter of reason and argument. Now the apostle intimates that faculties the widest apart are to be brought into the closest alliance in the service of God. Love and reason, the mercies of God, and the judgment of man seem to be things far asunder, and yet here they are united in the apostles argument.
2. We live in the most enlightened age the world has seen; when all claims are brought to the bar of reason. Christianity itself cannot escape this test. But if we are true to the teaching of Christ, and insist that consecration to God means the highest love to God and the purest love to men, need we fear that the most enlightened sages can gainsay that doctrine? For is not such love the richest outcome of the nature of man? Is self-sacrifice reasonable or unreasonable? Conclusion: The two things most needed in the religion of our day are a greater spirit of consecration to God, and a greater conviction of its reasonableness. We need greater love and more reason in our religion. A love that shall cast out sordid fear and low-minded calculations of the profit and loss of our religion; a love that can render greater service to God and greater service to the needs of our fellow-men: and in conjunction with this, a more enlightened reason that shall teach us to be afraid of no foes to religion but falsehood, indifference, or superstition. (C. Short, M.A.)
A living sacrifice
The expression may include--
I. Active service. The victims slain could do no further service. But the sacrifice spoken of here is that of a living, voluntary agent, presented, not by others, but by himself, and presented for life in all his powers.
II. Continued devotedness. The victims at the altar could be offered but once, and could never appear at the altar again. But the living sacrifice is one which is presented anew every day in the unremitting homage of the life.
III. As the apostle is addressing himself to believers, we ought to include the idea of the new life as distinguishing them from the world and from their former selves when they were in a state of spiritual death. The sacrifice must not possess mere animal life, but must be instinct with the new life of holy sensibilities and spiritual principles to which the soul is born again by the incorruptible seed of Gods Word and the power of the Spirit.
IV. Although it is a living sacrifice, it is a sacrifice ready for death, should God require it. The life is to be so devoted to God as to be at all times and entirely at His service, and, if need be, cheerfully surrendered for His glory. It includes, in a word, willingness to be, to do, or to suffer whatever He may see fit to appoint. (R. Wardlaw, D.D.)
A living sacrifice
Ellerthorpe, the hero of the Humber, who had rescued many from drowning, was at his duty on board ship, when a cry was raised, A child overboard! In an instant he was in the sea, and soon both were again on deck. Next day the mother took the child up to the brave man and said, This is the gentleman who saved you from the sea; what are you going to give him? For a moment the child was speechless, not knowing what to answer. But suddenly she put out her hands and said, If you please, I have nothing else, but I will give you a kiss. The rough sailor had received many valuable presents, but he declared that the childs kiss was more to him than all beside. Why? Because she had given all she had--her love. Such is what Paul here asks for God. Note--
I. Pauls earnestness. I beseech. He was a man in earnest, and nothing quenched his zeal; and this one mans zeal sufficed to carry the standard of the Cross in all directions. It is the earnest man who wins, as is shown in the cases of Luther and Wesley. Rowland Hill once said, Because I am in earnest men call me an enthusiast. When I first came into this part of the country I saw a gravel pit fall in and bury three human beings. I lifted up my voice for help so loud that I was heard in the town near a mile away. Help came and rescued two of the sufferers. No one called me an enthusiast then; and when I see eternal destruction fail upon poor sinners and call aloud on them to escape, shall I be called an enthusiast now? There was much force in the suggestion of a Scotchman when they were discussing where to put the new stove in the church. You had better put it in the pulpit, said he, for it is awful cold up there. Yes, put fire in the pulpit, but the best way of getting it there is to have plenty of it in the pews. Consecrated earnestness is needed in Church and Sunday-school work and by seeking sinners.
II. Our duty to God. We have been so busy in talking about saving souls that we have left no time to think about the body. Christ had but little to say about souls, but much about bodies. It is not without meaning that Paul says, Present your bodies. This sacrifice must be--
1. Personal. You, ye, your. We may transact business by proxy, but religion is a personal matter. Earnest efforts may bring blessings upon others, but a man must repent and believe for himself. A teacher cannot save his class, nor a minister his congregation, nor a mother her child.
2. Voluntary. Present yourselves. There is no compulsion. Christ made whips and drove out the buyers and sellers from the temple, but He has not made scourges to drive them in. The driving business has made many hypocrites, but never a saint. Christ knocks at the door, but the door has to be opened from within.
3. Living. God wants no dead or formal offering, but real living service. I would give Him the best buildings, singers, preachers, but unless we give Him living service all else is but the painted flower. A road surveyor, who was just finishing the levelling and paving of a long stretch of street, asked me in an enthusiastic tone if I did not think it splendid. You see, he added, I am trying to put my Christianity into the streets I make. That is just it. Drive your engines, make your coats and boots and chairs for Christ.
III. The argument by which Paul enforces all this--a threefold cord which cannot be broken.
1. By the mercies of God.
2. That God will accept us. Without this encouragement we might expect to be rejected, for we are rebels.
3. It is our reasonable service. (C. Leach, D.D.)
The living sacrifice
The ivy, twining its delicate stem round the tree, gradually increases in size and strength until the tree is overlapped and destroyed. Likewise, if allowed to grow up round the spirit of man, the selfish nature will increase in power until his life is as a stunted tree without any branches on which the fruit of love can grow. Christianity gives to the believer a new energy, which cuts off the ivy of selfishness and enables him to bring forth everlasting fruit. Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and we are besought to follow His steps and to copy His example.
I. The mercies of God are--
1. Repentance--not like the repentance of the sailor in the time of storm, who throws his goods overboard, and in the time of calm wishes he had them back, but it is a repentance unto life which gets rid of all sin and joyfully leaves it behind.
2. The remission of sins. As the dying Israelites of old who, when they looked to the serpent of brass, were saved, so we have looked to Christ on the Cross, and as we looked we believed, and we have received life.
3. Adoption into the family of God and the witness of the Spirit. When the prodigal is clasped in his fathers arms the passer by may say, I do not believe the lad knows that he is forgiven. Others add, I do not believe that anybody can know that his sins are forgiven till he dies. But that prodigal says, My beloved father is mine and I am his.
II. Divine mercies prompt the Christian to become a sacrifice unto God.
1. Living. In the olden time the bullock had to be dragged to the altar, but the Christian comes willingly. After the bullock had been dragged to the altar he was slain, but the real Christian sacrifices while he lives, and does not put off till death, as some do when they bequeath so much to the cause of God because they cannot hold it any longer.
2. Holy. If Christianity can help only our outer life we can do without it. But it enters within the body, cleanses our inner nature. God makes us to be temples for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is the filter in the muddy heart making to spring from it a fountain of holiness.
3. Acceptable unto God is not only praising God in the church, but praising Him with the melody of our daily words and actions, helping the helpless, and keeping ourselves unspotted from the world. (W. Birch.)
The living sacrifice
This therefore has in it the accumulated momentum of the whole preceding portion of the Epistle, wherein the apostle has established the doctrine of that justification which is open to every one who believeth, and which is inseparably connected with sanctification of heart.
I. The duty which Paul here lays upon us.
1. There were two kinds of offerings under the Law--the one of expiation, the other of oblation; and two orders of priests--the high priest who went in alone every year into the holy of holies, and the ordinary priests who ministered daily at the altar. Under the new economy there is but one high priest and one sacrifice of expiation, but every believer is consecrated for the daily presentation of thank-offerings to God.
2. So Paul says, Present your bodies. That, of course, does not mean that we are to do with ourselves as Abraham thought to do with Isaac, but neither does it mean that we are to give the body apart from the soul, which would be formalism and hypocrisy. Therefore many would take your bodies as equivalent to yourselves. But that diminishes the force of the original. Paul is anxious to impress the truth that the transformation of the soul should be made manifest through the body, either because the body is the organ of practical activity, or as an indication that sanctification is to extend to that which is most completely under the bondage of sin. Paul found many disposed to undervalue the body, but he confronts this error by exhorting his readers to consecrate it unto the Lord. The words are equivalent to yourselves in the body. As it is through the body that the evil in the unrenewed heart comes forth into manifestation, so it is through the body that the gracious principles and affections of believers reveal themselves. Note the singular rite of consecration (Exo_29:20), the significance of which clearly was that the priests ears, hands, and feet were sacred to Jehovah. Similarly each member of the body is to be held by the believer as specially consecrated to God.
II. The qualities that this sacrifice should possess.
1. Life in contrast with the dead victim which could do no farther good in the world; but the living body, inhabited by the Holy Ghost, is to be constantly employed. The Jewish victims could be offered only once, but the Christian sacrifice continues while the life lasts. Here is a field for the display of heroism. It is easier to die for Christ than it is to live for Him.
2. Holiness. The word literally means set apart, but it is also that which is used for the Hebrew term signifying without blemish and without spot. The idea is that it should be free from those things which would cause it to be rejected.
3. Acceptableness to God. Not only such as God can accept, but offered on such a ground as shall be well-pleasing in His eyes. Peter supplements Paul when he says, Acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
4. Rationality, i.e., a service which rests on rational grounds, or one in which the reason is engaged. Our sacrifice is mental and spiritual, and so distinguished from those which were merely ceremonial and external. It requires that the thoughts of our minds, the affections of our hearts, the decisions of our wills, and the admonitions of our consciences should all be Christianised.
III. The motive by which the offering is enforced. The term mercy as generally used denotes kindness shown, irrespective of character, but in the New Testament it designates favour done to the undeserving. That is its meaning here, for the apostle is referring not to the ordinary gifts of Gods providence, but to justification, adoption, sanctification, and glory. Tracing all these to the free mercy of God, he shows us the obligations under which we are thereby laid to dedicate ourselves to God. We see, thus, how false the assertion is that the preaching of justification by faith undermines morality. It does not discourage good works; but, instead of encouraging the sinner to purchase his salvation by his deeds, it makes good works the offering of the grateful heart for the salvation which it has believingly received. Thus the slave becomes the child, and duty is transfigured into choice. (W. M. Taylor, D.D.)
Living sacrifices
God always must be served, and that by all. Angels refused to serve Him in heaven and were cast down to hell. Man refused to serve Him and was driven out of Paradise. There are four courses open to us. We may refuse by attempting to oppose and overcome God, or to escape Him, or to endure His wrath; or, we may submit and serve Him. Which of these shall we take? We cannot succeed in the first, the second, or the third; there is nothing therefore left but the fourth.
I. What your reasonable service is.
1. The sacrifice to be offered must be--
(1) Holy. But how can we dare to lay any such sacrifices upon His altar? And if we dared, how could He accept? Turn aside and see how the priests used to act. Having killed the animal, they cut it open, and took out all that was unclean; and then, having, washed it, they consumed it on the altar with fire before the Lord. So our Great High Priest would wash us externally from our guilt in His own blood, and then, laying us open, would remove all that is corrupt within us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, that thus we may be laid as holy sacrifices upon the altar, and consumed before the Lord.
(2) Complete. Entire. Your bodies means yourselves. When the lamb was brought to the altar, the body was brought, and all that it contained. Your bodies are like precious caskets containing the more precious jewels of your souls and spirits. Keep back nothing. Ye are not your own, therefore glorify God in your bodies, etc. If you want examples read Heb_11:1-40, or take the case of Paul; or, nobler far, look at Jesus, who gave Himself for us.
2. The manner of offering it.
(1) Freely present. Do not wait to be obliged, but come of your own accord. The principle is love. If you love God, you will present yourselves to God. Suppose you have a poor friend who asks for a small loan. If you love your money better than your friend, you will keep your money. If you love your money as much as your friend, you will, most likely, waver, and at last give it grudgingly. But if you love your friend better than your money, you will give the money freely.
3. Daily. When a lamb was brought to be offered, it was first cleansed, then bound, and then burned. Now that you may be living sacrifices, it is necessary that you should be daily cleansed, bound, and burned.
II. Paul beseeches you by the mercies of God to perform it.
1. It is an appeal from the altar of God, from one who was himself, through the riches of the grace of God, a living sacrifice.
2. Look back through the Epistle for the mercies of which he speaks. Mark how he points out--
(1) Our sin and ruin.
(2) The mystery of our salvation through the riches of the grace of God.
3. If you have made the resolve to present yourselves to God, be encouraged to do so, for the text declares that this sacrifice is acceptable to God. You see the altar, the cords for binding the sacrifice, the fire for burning it, the sacrifice laid on the wood, bound with cords, and burned. Now look to Him who sits upon the mercy-seat, in the most holy place, accepting it! And that you may understand how acceptable it is, remember that it is bought with a price--a member of Christ--and a temple of the Holy Ghost. (H. Grattan Guinness.)
A reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice
1. When Christianity dethroned the previous religions of the world, it immediately did that which proved its sovereign right to the position which it claimed. It took the names, institutions, and ideas which it found, and gave them a new and better meaning; or even if it destroyed them, it immediately planted something corresponding in their place. Take, e.g., its treatment of sacrifice, so universal in the old, religions. In its ancient sense Christianity rejected it altogether; but in a higher sense Christianity is, above all others, a religion of sacrifice. It is a religion founded on the greatest of all sacrifices, and one whose whole continuance in the world depends on continual sacrifice--the sacrifice of the heart and mind in thanksgiving (Rom_15:16; Heb_13:15), the sacrifice of good deeds (Heb_13:16; Psa_50:23), and broken hearts and contrite spirits (Psa_51:17), the sacrifice of the whole man in the dedication of himself to God (Psa_50:23; 1Pe_2:5; Rom_12:1; Php_2:17).
2. There have been times when this sacrificial act must have been true to the very letter. In the ages of persecution, Christians must have felt that they were indeed presenting themselves victims in the cause of God and truth. Soldiers, too, on the eve of some great battle, must, if they reasoned at all, have felt that they were sacrificing themselves in the literal cease of the apostles words. But in the less exciting days of our ordinary lives we can enter into every word of the apostles appeal. We many of us feel its whole meaning, when at the Lords table we present to God ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice to Him. We feel it with an especial force in the beginning of the new year, when new hopes and new resolutions rise within us, and when we determine to enter on a new course of life. We feel it still more when we are entering on a new crisis, career, or position, which to be worthily fulfilled requires the sacrifice of all our energies to this one purpose.
3. Let us note the characteristics of this sacrifice. It is--
I. Reasonable. It is a dedication, not of mere impulse, fancy, affection, but of our intellect; a sacrifice in which our minds go along with our hearts. How is this to be done? The service, which the God of reason and of truth requires of us, first and foremost--
1. The sacrifice of truth. Not to authority, freedom, popularity, fear, but to truth. This is, no doubt, a hard sacrifice. Custom, phrases bound up with some of our best affections, respect of persons or acquiescence in common usage, these are what truth compels us to surrender. Dear, no doubt, is tradition, the long familiar recollection, venerable antiquity on the one hand or bold originality on the other; but dearer than any of these things is truth.
2. The preference of the Word of God, as it appears in the Bible, is above all human opinions. This, too, is a sacrifice often hard to make. To search the Scriptures thoroughly, to make out their true sense, and not force our opinions on them, is a task which may involve many a sacrifice of time and thought and ease. The Bible doubtless contains many things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable may wrest to their own destruction. But take it with all its difficulties and all the imperfections of the human agencies by which it has come down to us, and it is still true that no more reasonable service can be offered up by man to God than the study of the Scriptures. Thy Word is tried to the uttermost, tried by the investigations of science, by the undue claims made upon it, by the misunderstanding of its enemies, by the exaggeration of its friends; and yet, in spite of all, Thy servant loveth it, because he knows there is nothing else which will so well repay all the trouble which its study involves.
II. Holy. To what a world beyond ourselves does this word carry us! how near to the Great White Throne! how far away from this selfish, sinful world! How easy to feel its meaning! how difficult to apply it! A life, a worship, consecrated from the low, narrow, impure influences which dry up our better thoughts; a life set on higher aims, a life which has within it something at least which recalls the world to the sense of the saintly, the heroic, the heavenly, the Divine! Where shall this holiness be sought?
1. The Bible is the fountain and bulwark of truth; it is no less the fountain and the bulwark of holiness. There is a holiness in the Bible which speaks for itself. The spirit which breathes through it is indeed the spirit of the saints. To live in that exalted atmosphere which nursed the faith of Abraham, and the unselfishness of Moses, and the courage of Joshua, and the devotion of David, and the hope of Isaiah, and the energy of Paul, and the love of John, is better than any rule or form which scholastic ingenuity or ascetic piety has ever devised. Take even a single Psalm. Read over Psa_15:1-5; Psa_51:1-19, or 101; or even a single verse from 1Co_13:1-13, or the Sermon on the Mount; act upon it throughout a single week, make it the rule of a single family; what a holy sacrifice, salted with the salt of Gods special grace, would then be offered up!
2. And if we ascend from the Bible to Him of whom the Bible speaks, what a lifting up of our hearts above the toil, and dust, and turmoil, and controversies, and doubts of the world, if we could declare that we embraced with our whole souls the true religion of Christi Ask spiritual counsel from all quarters, but ask it especially from Him who must be above every other religious teacher. Ask not of Him questions of times or seasons, or this worlds knowledge and power, which He refuses to answer; but ask of Him the questions how we are to please God, to serve our brethren, to deal with sin and error, and assuredly we shall receive an answer, not of this world, nor of this age, nor of the will of man, nor of any sect or party, but the answer of the eternal mind of God Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
III. living. There have been those who have offered to God a reasonable sacrifice, but one cold, hard, philosophic, without warmth, sympathy, or action; a holy sacrifice, but shut up within books, or walls, the dry bones of religion. Our sacrifices must not be like the dead carcases of the ancient victims, thrown away to perish or to be burned; they must be living, walking, speaking, acting in the face of day. We know what we mean when we say that a child or a man is full of life. That is what our sacrifice of ourselves should be--happy and making others happy, contented and making others contented, active and making others active, doing good and making others do good, by our vivid vitality--filling every corner of our own souls and bodies, and every corner of the circle in which we move, with the fresh life-blood of a genial Christian heart. (Dean Stanley.)
The Christians sacrifice
I. The purport of the apostles exhortation. Here is--
1. Something to be presented unto God. Your bodies. Not that Paul was unmindful how important it was that they should present their souls. He had already acknowledged that they had obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which had been delivered unto them; but he probably thought there was some danger lest they should not to the requisite extent serve of righteousness.
2. The purpose for which this presentation must be made. It is not a gift--something which we have a right to present, or to withhold; nor a loan, to be returned, nor a service or benefit to be rewarded, but a sacrifice; i.e.--
(1) An acknowledgment of what is due to God.
(2) An entire resignation of it to the Divine use and disposal.
3. The manner in which this sacrifice must be presented. It is to be(1) A living sacrifice, i.e.--
(a) According to the original a sacrifice alive. Present your bodies a sacrifice would startle those who associated the term with death; and hence the necessity of the assurance that it was life, not death, that God required. We are neither to devote ourselves to destruction, as many of the heathen do, to satisfy the claims of their idols, nor to embitter and waste our lives by austerities, as many of the papists do.
(b) Or the apostle may have meant that the sacrifice was not to be a solitary act, nor even a frequent repetition of such acts, but the prevailing habit of our lives. There are indeed particular seasons when the sacrifice should be formally presented; but whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we must do all to the glory of God.
(2) A holy sacrifice--i.e., solemnly set apart for the Divine service. As living implies perpetuity, holy intimates entireness. Under the law that the sacrifice might in all cases be entire, the poor were permitted to present a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons. So we are not to appropriate our bodies to one master and our souls to another, nor to reserve any faculty of body or of soul.
(3) Acceptable unto God. Under the law the mode of presentation had to be attended to, or the sacrifice was spurned as an abomination. The place in which the sacrifice was to be offered was defined, and it had to be presented through the priest. And so we must take care that our sacrifice be presented at the proper altar, viz., Christ, by whom alone our gifts are sanctified. And by Him, as our High Priest, the sacrifice is to be offered to God.
II. The motive by which the apostles exhortation is urged. He might have urged terrific motives, viz., that, should they fail to present themselves, God would hereafter seize upon them for a prey. Or he might have reminded them how just and right it was, or how advantageous. Instead of this he appeals only to their gratitude. Why?
1. Considering their spiritual state, it was the most powerful motive which he could possibly employ. Had he been writing to persons who were strangers to the grace of God, or had received that grace in vain, it might have availed but little, and the other motives might have availed much. But the mercies of God strike the chord of a Christians tenderest and best affections, and touch the mainspring of all his conduct. The apostle knew this from his own experience.
2. This is the motive best suited to the character and intent of the sacrifice required. Had the apostle been exhorting us to present our bodies as a sacrifice for guilt, the motives would have been drawn from the Divine justice. As the sacrifice is a thank-offering, the apostle presses on us those considerations which may tend especially to animate our gratitude.
3. They only who have obtained mercy are capable of the sacrifice. They only can present--
(1) A living sacrifice. The man who has not yet obtained mercy, in any sense in which he may be said to live at all, lives to himself, and not to God. Or supposing that, by formal service, he presents a living body, yet while the soul continues dead in trespasses and sins, it is but a dead sacrifice he offers.
(2) A holy sacrifice. The sin which reigns in that mans heart who is a stranger to grace makes his sacrifice abomination.
(3) Acceptable to God. In order to this the sacrifice must be preceded by the pardon of sin. For how can God accept an offering from His enemies with whom the purity of His own nature constrains Him to be angry every day? (Jonathan Crowther.)
Christian self-sacrifice
I. Wherein it consists.
1. Not in particular acts of self-denial, or in undertaking certain painful duties.
2. But in full consecration to God, and in the maintenance of a living, holy, and acceptable walk before God.
II. What it requires.
1. The renunciation of the world.
2. The renewing of the mind.
3. The practical proof of the perfect will of God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Self-sacrifice
Pousa the Chinese potter, being ordered to produce some great work for the Emperor, tried long to make it, but in vain. At length, driven to despair, he threw himself into the furnace, and the effect of his self-immolation was such that it came out the most beautiful piece of porcelain ever known. So in Christian labour it is self-sacrifice that gives the last touch and excellence and glory to our work. (W. Baxendale.)
Personal sacrifice
I. The leading motive of the gospel.
1. Not self-interest; not the reasonableness, beauty, and dignity of virtue.
2. But a grateful sense of Gods many and great mercies.
II. The summary of Christian duty. Self-dedication to God, or the consecration of ourselves to do His holy will. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Acceptable to God.--
On the attributes of acceptable worship
I. Notice some of the attributes of acceptable worship implied and expressed in the text.
II. Consider the arguments used by the apostle to enforce this duty.
1. Advert to the reasonableness of the service. It has been thought by some that the apostle, in this phraseology, has an allusion to the irrational animals which were offered in the service of God under the Levitical law; but that His service is much more simple, and the reasons of duty much more obvious to the understanding of the worshipper under the present than they were under the former economy. This is certainly true in point of fact. But recollect that, however various the sacrifices, and however complex the service of God during the preceding dispensations, yet His worship, in itself considered, ever has been, and ever will be, a reasonable service. We lie under peculiar obligations, however, to bless the Lord, that the bondage and comparative darkness of the preceding economy is past, and the true light now shineth. The natural imbecility of reason in a fallen creature has been much overlooked; and her appropriate province in revealed religion much misunderstood by many of the disputers of this age. Christians also have much erred on the same subject. Instead of her having been used as an humble, submissive handmaid, to sit at the Saviours feet, and implicitly receive the authoritative dictates of heaven from His lips, she has frequently been tricked out in the fantastic drapery of infallibility, and that also, sometimes, in the very temple of God, above all that is called God, or worshipped. Now recollect it is one leading design of the revelation of mercy to humble her haughty looks, and to level all her lofty pretensions in the dust, and to draw her deluded votary to the feet of the Saviour, as an eternal debtor to free mercy, for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and complete redemption (1Co_1:4-5; 1Co_1:30-31). Glad should we be if sinners were but prompted to reason justly upon their immortal interests and on the unqualified claims which the great salvation has upon the human heart. But it is not enough that our reasoning powers first of all yield unreservedly to Gods appointed plan of redemption for pardon and peace, everlasting consolation and good hope through grace; they are brought into the school of Christ to be tutored for eternity, and to acquire the elements of implicit submission to the whole council of God. This is not so much the duty of a day as a labour for life. But, reason thus tamed, and thus taught--thus guided, and thus governed--by the principles of pure and undefiled religion is the decided enemy to all error--the sworn foe to all corruption--a powerful advocate of the honours of truth and righteousness--and a firm friend to the doctrine of the Cross, and all the social ordinances and commandments of Christ. Allow me further to observe that a well-principled mind will not dare to reason against any part of the revealed will of God. A Christian, living under the vivid impressions of the fear of God, will consider that every part of the truth as it is in Jesus demands and deserves personal obedience, for its own and its Authors sake; and he will give to each of its parts that degree of attention which its relative importance in the economy of redemption properly claims.
2. We shall now briefly notice our last, though not least powerful argument, used to enforce the duty in the text: I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. There is no law in the universe more powerful than that of love. What heart can possibly withstand the tender mercy of the Most High! It is firm as the mountains--free as the air-boundless as the ocean--durable as the pillars of heaven--and efficacious in its operations, as the sun shining in the greatness of his strength.
II. Applicatory remarks.
1. The absolute necessity of a renewed mind in order to any person serving God with acceptance.
2. The importance of Christians being deeply embued with the spirit of devotion in order to their personal comfort and public usefulness.
3. A Christian Church ought to give a fair representation of the spirit of devotion--the institutions of the kingdom of Christ--the principles of benevolence--and the standard of morals in the place where they live. (N. Macneil.)
An acceptable present
(Childrens sermon):--
I. Who the present is for. We read of all kinds of presents for all sorts of persons. Jacob brought one to Esau (Gen_32:13), and sent one to Joseph (Gen_43:11); Abigail to David (1Sa_25:18); Naaman to Elisha (2Ki_5:17); Queen of Sheba to Solomon (1Ki_10:10). Then there are birthday and Christmas presents, and the more imposing testimonials given to men and women for special work. But the present we speak of is for God. Why should we give presents to every one but Him? The wise men brought Him presents; why should not we?
II. Why should we give it.
1. We give presents to those whom we love--to parents, etc., and if we loved God we should bring something to show our love. Mary brought an alabaster box of ointment, worth about f9, to show hers.
2. We give to those who deserve well of us--especially if they have done or suffered much on our behalf. Masters give pensions to old and faithful servants, and the Queen medals to her brave soldiers. If some one were to save you from drowning or fire you would want to give something to show your gratitude. How much has God done for us!
3. We give presents to those who we think will be pleased to receive them. We know it gives them pleasure partly because of the value of the present, but chiefly because of the love that prompts it. So with God (Isa_43:24).
III. What should we give.
1. Something worth giving. What costs little is usually worth little. The gift is valuable according to its value to the giver as Jesus taught in the parable of the widows mite. God complained that His people gave Him the blind and lame. He was not pleased with it because it cost them nothing (see also1Col_14:24). What we bring must be worth something to us or it will be worth nothing to Him.
2. Something God will care to receive. We avoid what our friends already have, or what would be unacceptable, and find out what they would like. Money, gold, jewellery, land, etc., are of no value to God. The only thing we can give is ourselves--our bodies, including our souls; and God will be pleased with nothing else. But how? By using our hands to work for Him, our tongues to speak for Him, etc. A missionary tells of an Indian who offered his blanket, gun, wigwam--but got no blessing till he offered himself.
IV. Lessons.
1. We are to give, not lend. Seneca says, There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to our fingers.
2. We should give our bodies while young and worth giving. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Your reasonable service.--
Our reasonable service
I. The sacrifice. We bring not slain beasts, but living souls and bodies.
II. The sanctuary. Is not of this world, but the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. The priests. Are not Levites, but Christian believers, renewed in the spirit of their minds. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Our reasonable service
Yes; there is nothing so reasonable--nothing that gives, and will ever give, reason its full powers, but the religion of Jesus Christ. Our intellects are destined to travel much further into the moral than into the natural perfections of Jehovah; whence we see that those who spurn the religion of Jesus Christ insult their intellects as well as their hearts; robbing themselves at the same time of the sublimest pleasures God Himself has to confer upon any of His creatures. We are destined, moreover, to be more intimately acquainted with the moral perfections of God than with anything else. We shall know more of God a great deal than we shall know of each other. Here then is a sublime feast for the human intellect as well as for the human heart. Worship, then, the Lord in the beauty of holiness. What is so reasonable? Is there anything more reasonable than that a child should obey the father on whom he is dependent for everything? Indeed, communion with God is absolutely necessary, to enable us to extract all the sweets of learning or science. We must learn the happy art of leaving everything more and more with Jehovah, and then we shall be led by Himself into Himself in everything, and participate throughout the revolving ages of eternity in His purity and bliss. Contrasting what I am now telling you with what we see in Scripture, we shall find a strong reason for calling sin folly. There is nothing so opposed to right reason as sin. Gods service is a reasonable service; the slave of sin and Satan is the most unreasonable of all beings.
I. The obedience of faith as a duty. It is due to God from every being who hears the gospel without one single exception. All beings must be, and for ever will be, indebted to God for three reasons:--His own perfections--the relationship subsisting between Him and His creatures--and the many obligations conferred upon them.
II. The obedience of faith as a privilege. If asked which is the most glorious, the obedience of vision above, or the obedience of faith below, I should be obliged to say I cannot tell. I can do many things here on earth in the service of God and my fellow-creatures, which I could not possibly do if body and soul were separated from each other. There is a something which involves in it the glory of God in a peculiar degree in the triumph of faith here below. But there is another thing to be considered. The principle of obedience is, indeed, the gift and creation of God--it is likewise the purchase of One who is God. It not only involves the power of Jehovah, but His worth. It is in these, when connected together, the natural and moral perfections of Jehovah shine in all their glory, in calling into existence, and preserving in existence, true religion in the human heart on this side eternity. The believer is kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation (1Pe_1:5). And we must necessarily connect our obedience here below with the obedience of the Son Himself in glory at the present moment. He has triumphed; and the body He wears now will, in its perfect similitude, be worn for ever and ever by all His family. My brother, revere thyself! consider whose thou art!--who bought thee!--who redeemed thee!--thy high parentage!--thy glorious destiny! Consider, too, whoso representative thou art intended to be, so long as thou art a stranger and sojourner here on earth!
III. The obedience of faith in its adaptation to the state of the Church militant. The dispensation under which we are living richly blends justice with mercy. It is but just to God to require what is due to Himself. In His mercy, however, He accepts the weakest offering, proceeding from a contrite heart; while, at the same time, the blessing of perfection is reserved for His family, and He will assuredly make them what He Himself would have them to be for ever and ever.
IV. It is in the obedience of faith alone we can be conscious of an interest in Christ. Let me once be conscious that I love God and delight in Him, I have no more to doubt then. Let the principle of obedience be sublimated, as it may, nay, must be, even here, and I shall immediately echo the language of Paul, I know whom I have believed. Lessons:
1. The obedience of faith was destined to preserve man from all extremes--from his legality--from his licentiousness. It is in this obedience we are preserved; and obedience is salvation on this side eternity.
2. Are there any here strangers to Christ? You tell me you cannot come to Him. Invite Him, then, to come to you. But you have many and mighty enemies. He is determined to overcome every enemy.
3. Election is full of every possible encouragement. To whom? To every one who hears the gospel. (W. Howels.)
Religion a reasonable service
If we examine our own nature, everything within, everything around us indicates that religion is a reasonable service, and that man was intended to present it. First, because he is a weak, dependent creature. Survey him in infancy, helpless, needing parental fondness! Thus the first feelings of nature indicate his want of protection, and lead him to seek it from those whom he conceives more powerful than himself. The same sentiment is evident through the whole of his life. Conscious of his inability to guard against the numberless dangers that surround him, conscious of his insufficiency to procure the means of happiness, his desire of protection and assistance is one of the strongest ties that binds him to political society; and for the sake of this he is willing to sacrifice a part of his property, and in many cases a considerable portion of his natural rights. Yet after all he is liable to innumerable evils and dangers, from which no care of his own, and no protection of his fellow-creatures can guard him. Even in the midst of the gayest scenes of pleasure the heart feels a void, and a very slight circumstance is sufficient to render the cup of worldly bliss tasteless. But will the fun of prosperity always shine unclouded and serene? In short, in whatever view you consider man, he is a dependent being; he feels this to be the case, and naturally seeks for assistance and support. The misfortune is, that he applies to the wrong object: instead of trusting to the Rock of Ages, he leans on a feeble reed that will break under him, and wound the hand that reclined upon it, More especially will this appear when we consider that the God on whom we depend is a Being in whom every perfection centres; whose benevolence inclines Him to communicate happiness, and who has given us a rule of faith and conduct which, if we observe, He has solemnly promised that He will make all things to work together for our ultimate and greatest good. Is not religion then the reasonable service of a dependent creature like man to the God on whom he absolutely depends? Religion is likewise our reasonable service, as it is the exercise of the best affections of the heart, and of those which are most influential on the moral conduct. In the habitual exercise of that piety and devotion which religion inspires, we contemplate the ever-living source of all perfection and happiness; an object which fills the mind with pleasing astonishment, enlarges our views, elevates our sentiments and excites us to an imitation of that which we cannot but admire. That religion is a reasonable service which man was intended to present will further appear if we consider that the hopes which it inspires are consonant to his nature, and necessary to his happiness. Of all the creatures that inhabit the world, man alone is the child of hope. But alas! every expectation which has this world for its object must, inevitably perish, and man were the most wretched of creatures if all his hopes were confined to the present life. As hope is thus essentially necessary to human happiness, how excellently adapted to our nature is the religion of Jesus, which tends to improve, exalt, and direct this turn of the affections to objects more durable, sublime, and satisfactory, than any this world can afford. The glorious and Divine hope of life and happiness eternal, which is brought to life in the gospel, is the only true source of felicity to man. Every grateful idea which cheers the mind, together with every pleasing sensation that warms and dilates the heart, is the legitimate offspring of this enlivening principle. The mind of the sincerely pious Christian, inspired by the promises, invigorated by the principles, and supported by the prospects of the gospel, rises superior to every affliction. Thus is religion happily suited to the nature of man, as a dependent creature, as a moral agent, and as the child of hope. To enjoy the consolations it affords, to be inspired with the amiable dispositions it promotes, to be animated with the encouraging hopes it suggests, we must not be satisfied with the mere profession, but must diligently cultivate its duties, and endeavour to imbibe its principles. (B. C. Sowden.)
Our reasonable service
1. To sacrifice ourselves.
2. To renounce the world.
3. To regard ourselves as members of the body of Christ. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Reasonable service
I. Its nature.
1. The word rendered reasonable means what belongs to the reason, as distinct from the belongings of the body, or external law. Hence reasonable service means the service of mind.
2. The word service means worship; and reasonable service will therefore mean the worship of mind.
3. Consequently reasonable service stands in contrast to body. What you present is the body, but it is the worship of your mind.
(1) As much as to say on the one hand, that no act done by the body is worship, is acceptable to God unless accompanied by an act of thought. Every thoughtful mind rises above being satisfied with external rites. Suppose the expression of our love to our dearest friends were a simple ceremony not representing any inward feeling, it would be worthless. If man is dissatisfied with empty rites how much more God!
(2) On the other hand, the words imply that no feeling towards God is adequate worship. There must be the presentation of the body to perfect the worship of the mind. There must be something more than thinking of God, than admiring the greatness of Gods works, than even acknowledging that God is kind; and what that is we have in this verse.
4. The essence of worship is self-dedication; the perfection of worship is entire self-sacrifice, and we cannot sacrifice except in the body. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the best example of this great act of worship. He loved us from eternity. There was no sacrifice in His love; because there was no sacrifice, there was no merit.; because there was no merit there was no salvation. Now what must He do in order that His love may take the form of self-sacrifice? He must become man, and be able in the body to do bodily acts, and these bodily acts of suffering and dying will enable Him to sacrifice Himself. To die is not a great thing externally. Little children do it. Creatures who have no souls do it. Yes; but in that small act of dying on the Cross the infinite Son of God was able to do the very same thing as the little child in that cottage. He was able in that simple act to do the greatest spiritual self-sacrifice that was ever done from all eternity. He created the worlds; but something greater than creation is here. He died, and in dying showed how the infinitely rich, great, powerful, became the infinitely poor, small, weak, and how He who is the Fountain of Life sacrificed His own life for others. Now that is the highest act of worship.
II. How to render it. This verse begins the second part of the Epistle. The doctrine of the previous chapters is justification by faith; what is the connection between that and sacrifice of self? Justification means--50. That a man is profoundly convinced that he is a sinner. He is filled with shame in the presence of God. That shame is the beginning of self-sacrifice. There are other things, plenty of them, to make us feel small, but they do not create self-sacrifice.
(1) I am small in space; how small compared with the stars! Yet I do not see that I ought to consecrate my whole being to the stars, for I can weigh them in my scales. I can count them on my fingers; they cannot count us or weigh us. We are greater than they.
(2) Rise to the higher world. How small is man compared with the great truths of Gods intellect! Yet there is no worship of truth. Naked truth, mere abstract ideas, will never create love and self-sacrifice. No man ever did it, not even Socrates at his best.
(3) Rise once more to the moral law, greater than ideas, commanding me to submit myself to its omnipotence, telling me that there is an eternal difference between being good and being bad; that there is a greater difference between goodness and evil than there is between the greatest and the least creature in Gods universe. And now in the presence of this awful power what is the result? Oh, I am ashamed of myself before Gods law. I wish the mountains would crush me out of my very being, and that is the beginning of self-sacrifice.
2. Justification by faith means that you and I realise deeply that our only salvation is in trusting God. Trust not works. Trust not your own struggles for eminence. Simply trust in the unchanging goodness of God. Paul realised that great truth. That is the secret of this mans apostleship. It is the explanation of his spiritual life. He felt convinced when he was conquering himself and his pride and the world, he was able thus to conquer through simple trust. It is in that that I see the possibility and the progress of self-sacrifice and self-consecration. And then, oh! how easy it is to say, Thy will be done! That is worship. Not singing hymns with a loud voice and a hardened heart; not uttering words of prayer with wandering thoughts; not gesticulations and appearances before men, but a profound, calm, deep readiness to say, Thy will be done. (Principal Edwards.)
Sanctified reason
teaches us--
1. How to serve God.
2. How to use the world.
3. How to estimate ourselves. (J. Lyth, D..D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 Chapter 25
Chapter 25
CHRISTIAN CONDUCT THE ISSUE OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH
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Rom_12:1-8
AGAIN we may conjecture a pause, a long pause and deliberate, in the work of Paul and Tertius. We have reached the end, generally speaking, of the dogmatic and so to speak oracular contents of the Epistle. We have listened to the great argument of Righteousness, Sanctification, and final Redemption. We have followed the exposition of the mysterious unbelief and the destined restoration of the chosen nation; a theme which we can see, as we look back on the perspective of the whole Epistle, to have a deep and suggestive connection with what went before it; for the experience of Israel, in relation to the sovereign will and grace of God, is full of light thrown upon the experience of the soul. Now in order comes the bright sequel of this mighty antecedent, this complex but harmonious mass of spiritual facts and historical illustrations of the will and ways of the Eternal. The voice of St. Paul is heard again; and he comes full upon the Lords message of duty, conduct, character.
As out of some cleft in the face of the rocky hills rolls the full pure stream born in their depths, and runs under the sun and sky through green meadows and beside the thirsty homes of men, so here from the inmost mysteries of grace comes the message of all-comprehensive holy duty. The Christian, filled with the knowledge of an eternal love, is told how not to dream, but to serve, with all the mercies of God for his motive.
This is indeed in the manner of the New Testament; this vital sequence of duty and doctrine; the divine Truths first, and then and therefore the blessed Life. To take only St. Pauls writings, the Ephesian and Colossian Epistles are each, practically, bisected by a line which has eternal facts before it and present duties, done in the light and power of them, after it. But the whole Book of God, in its texture all over, shows the same phenomenon. Someone has remarked with homely force that in the Bible everywhere, if only we dig deep enough, we find "Do right" at the bottom. And we may add that everywhere also we have only to dig one degree deeper to find that the precept is rooted in eternal underlying facts of divine truth and love.
Scripture, that is to say, its Lord and Author, does not give us the terrible gift of a precept isolated and in a vacuum. It supports its commandments on a base of cogent motive; and it fills the man who is to keep them with the power of a living Presence in him; this we have seen at large in the pages of the Epistle already traversed. But then, on the other hand. the Lord of Scripture does not leave the motive and the Presence without the articulate precept. Rather, because they are supplied and assured to the believer, it spreads out all the more amply and minutely a moral directory before his eyes. It tells him, as a man who now rests on God and loves Him, and in whom God dwells, not only in general that he is to "walk and please God" but in particular "how" to do it. {1Th_4:1} It takes his life in detail, and applies the will of the Lord to it. It speaks to him in explicit terms about moral purity, in the name of the Holy One: about patience and kindness, in the name of redeeming Love; about family duties, in the name of the Father and of the Son; about civic duties, in the name of the King Eternal. And the whole outline and all the details thus become to the believer things not only of duty but of possibility, of hope, of the strong interest given by the thought that thus and thus the beloved Master would have us use His divine gift of life. Nothing is more wonderfully free, from one point of view, than love and spiritual power. But if the love is indeed given by God and directed towards Him in Christ, the man who loves cannot possibly wish to be his own law, and to spend his souls power upon his own ideas or preferences. His joy and his conscious aim must be to do, in detail, the will of the Lord who is now so dear to him; and therefore, in detail, to know it.
Let us take deep note of this characteristic of Scripture, its minuteness of precept, in connection with its revelation of spiritual blessing. If in any sense we are called to be teachers of others, let us carry out the example. Richard Cecil, wise and pregnant counsellor in Christ, says that if he had to choose between preaching precepts and preaching privileges he would preach privileges; because the privileges of the true Gospel tend in their nature to suggest and stimulate right action, while the precepts taken alone do not reveal the wealth of divine life and power. But Cecil, like his great contemporaries of the Evangelical Revival, constantly and diligently preached as a fact both privilege and precept; opening with energetic hands the revealed fulness of Christ, and then and therefore teaching "them which had believed through grace" not only the idea of duty, but its details. Thomas Scott, at Olney, devoted his week night "lecture" in the parish church almost exclusively to instructions in daily Christian life. Assuming that his hearers "knew Christ" in personal reality, he told them how to be Christians in the home, in the shop, in the farm: how to be consistent with their regenerate life as parents, children, servants, masters, neighbours, subjects. There have been times, perhaps, when such didactic preaching has been too little used in the Church. But the men who, under God, in the last century and the early years of this century, revived the message of Christ Crucified and Risen as all in all for our salvation, were eminently diligent in teaching Christian morals. At the present day, in many quarters of our Christendom, there is a remarkable revival of the desire to apply saving truth to common life, and to keep the Christian always mindful that he not only has heaven in prospect, but is to travel to it, every step, in the path of practical and watchful holiness. This is a sign of divine mercy in the Church. This is profoundly Scriptural.
Meanwhile, God forbid that such "teaching how to live" should ever be given, by parent, pastor, schoolmaster, friend, where it does not first pass through the teachers own soul into his own life. Alas for us if we show ever so convincingly, and even ever so winningly, the bond between salvation and holiness, and do not "walk accurately" {Eph_5:15} ourselves, in the details of our walk.
As we actually approach the rules of holiness now before us, let us once more recollect what we have seen all along in the Epistle, that holiness is the aim and issue of the entire Gospel. It is indeed an "evidence of life," infinitely weighty in the inquiry whether a man knows God indeed and is on the way to His heaven. But it is much more; it is the expression of life; it is the form and action in which life is intended to come out. In our orchards (to use again a parable we have used already) the golden apples are evidences of the trees species, and of its life. But a wooden label could tell us the species, and leaves can tell the life. The fruit is more than label or leaf; it is the thing for which the tree is there. We who believe are "chosen" and "ordained" to "bring forth fruit," {Joh_15:16} fruit much and lasting. The eternal Master walks in His garden for the very purpose of seeing if the trees bear. And the fruit He looks for is no visionary thing; it is a life of holy serviceableness to Him and to our fellows, in His Name.
But now we draw near again and listen:
I exhort you therefore, brethren, by means of the compassions of God; using as my logic and my fulcrum this "depths of riches" we have explored; this wonderful Redemption, with its sovereignty, its mercy, its acceptance, its holiness, its glory; this overruling of even sin and rebellion, in Gentile and in Jew, into occasions for salvation; these compassionate indications in the nearer and the eternal future of golden days yet to come; -I exhort you therefore to present, to give over, your bodies as a sacrifice, an altar offering, living, holy, well pleasing, unto God; for this is your rational devotion. That is to say, it is the "devotion," the "cultus," the worship service, which is done by the reason, the mind, the thought and will, of the man who has found God in Christ. The Greek term, "latreia," is tinged with associations of ritual and temple; but it is taken here, and qualified by its adjective, on purpose to be lifted, as in paradox, into the region of the soul. The robes and incense of the visible sanctuary are here out of sight; the individual believer is at once priest, sacrifice, and altar; he immolates himself to the Lord, -living, yet no longer to himself.
But observe the pregnant collocation here of "the body" with "the reason." "Give over your bodies"; not now your spirit, your intelligence, your sentiments, your aspirations, but "your bodies," to your Lord. Is this an anticlimax? Have we retreated from the higher to the lower, in coming from the contemplation of sovereign grace and the eternal glory to that of the physical frame of man? No more than the Lord Jesus did. when He walked down from the hill of Transfiguration to the crowd below, and to the sins and miseries it presented. He came from the scene of glory to serve man in its abiding inner light. And even He, in the days of His flesh, served men, ordinarily, only through His sacred body: walking to them with His feet; touching them with His hands; meeting their eyes with His; speaking with His lips the words that were spirit and life. As with Him so with us. It is only through the body, practically, that we can "serve our generation by the will of God." Not without the body but through it the spirit must tell on the embodied spirits around us. We look, we speak, we hear, we write, we nurse, we travel, by means of these material servants of the will, our living limbs. Without the body, where should we be, as to other men? And therefore, without the surrender of the body, where are we, as to other men, from the point of view of the will of God?
So there is a true sense in which, while the surrender of the will is all-important and primary from one point of view, the surrender of the body, the "giving over" of the body, to be the implement of Gods will in us, is all important, is crucial, from another. For many a Christian life it is the most needful of all things to remember this: it is the oblivion, or the mere half recollection, of this which keeps that life an almost neutral thing as to witness and service for the Lord.
And do not grow conformed to this world, this "aeon," the course and state of things in this scene of sin and death; do not play "the worldling," assuming a guise which in itself is fleeting, and which for you, members of Christ, must also be hollow: but grow transfigured, living out a lasting and genuine change of tone and conduct, in which the figure is only the congenial expression of the essence-by the renewal of your mind, by using as an implement in the holy process that divine light which has cleared your intelligence of the mists of self-love, and taught you to see as with new eyes "the splendour of the will of God"; so as that you test, discerning as by a spiritual touchstone, what is the will of God, the good, and acceptable, and perfect (will).
Such was to be the method, and such the issue, in this development of the surrendered life. All is divine in origin and secret. The eternal "compassions," and the sovereign work of the renewing and illuminating Spirit, are supposed before the believer can move one step. On the other hand the believer, in the full conscious action of his renewed "intelligence," is to ponder the call to seek "transfiguration" in a life of unworldly love, and to attain it in detail by using the new insight of a regenerated heart. He is to look, with the eyes of the soul, straight through every mist of self-will to the now beloved Will of God, as his deliberate choice, seen to be welcome, seen to be perfect, not because all is understood, but because the man is joyfully surrendered to the all-trusted Master. Thus he is to move along the path of an ever-brightening transfiguration; at once open eyed, and in the dark; seeing the Lord, and so with a sure instinct gravitating to His will, yet content to let the mists of the unknown always hang over the next step but one.
It is a process, not a crisis; "grow transfigured." The origin of the process, the liberation of the movement, is, at least in idea, as critical as possible; "Give over your bodies." That precept is conveyed, in its Greek form (παραστηˆαι, aorist), so as to suggest precisely the thought of a critical surrender. The Roman Christian, and his English younger brother, are called here, as they were above, {Rom_6:13; Rom_6:19} to a transaction with the Lord quite definite, whether or no the like has taken place before, or shall be done again. They are called, as if once for all, to look their Lord in the face, and to clasp His gifts in their hands, and then to put themselves and His gifts altogether into His hands, for perpetual use and service. So, from the side of his conscious experience, the Christian is called to a "hallowing of himself" decisive, crucial, instantaneous. But its outcome is to be a perpetual progression, a growth, not so much "into" grace as "in" it, {2Pe_3:18} in which the surrender in purpose becomes a long series of deepening surrenders in habit and action, and a larger discovery of self, and of the Lord, and of His will, takes effect in the "shining" of the transfigured life "more and more, unto the perfect day". {Pro_4:18}
Let us not distort this truth of progression, and its correlative truth of the Christians abiding imperfection. Let us not profane it into an excuse for a life which at the best is stationary, and must almost certainly be retrograde, because not intent upon a genuine advance. Let us not withhold "our bodies" from the sacred surrender here enjoined upon us, and yet expect to realise somehow, at some vague date. a "transfiguration, by the renewal of our mind." We shall be indeed disappointed of that hope. But let us be at once stimulated and sobered by the spiritual facts. As we are "yielded to the Lord," in sober reality, we are in His mercy "liberated for growth." But the growth is to come, among other ways, by the diligent application of "the renewal of our mind" to the details of His blessed Will.
And it will come, in its true development, only in the line of holy humbleness. To exalt oneself, even in the spiritual life, is not to grow; it is to wither. So the Apostle goes on:
For I say, through the grace that has been given me, "the grace" of power for apostolic admonition, to everyone who is among you, not to be high-minded beyond what his mind should be, but to be minded toward sober-mindedness, as to each God distributed faiths measure. That is to say, let the individual never, in himself, forget his brethren, and the mutual relation of each to all in Christ. Let him never make himself the centre, or think of his personal salvation as if it could really be taken alone. The Lord, the sovereign Giver of faith, the Almighty Bringer of souls into acceptance and union with Christ by faith, has given thy faith to thee, and thy brothers faith to him; and why? That the individual gifts, the bounty of the One Giver, might join the individuals not only to the Giver but to one another, as recipients of riches many yet one, and which are to be spent in service one yet many. The One Lord distributes the one faith power into many hearts, "measuring" it out to each, so that the many, individually believing in the One, may not collide and contend, but lovingly cooperate in a manifold service, the issue of their "like precious faith" {2Pe_1:2} conditioned by the variety of their lives. So comes in that pregnant parable of the Body, found only in the writings of St. Paul, and in four only of his Epistles, but so stated there as to take a place forever in the foreground of Christian truth. We have it here in the Romans, and in larger detail in the contemporary 1 Corinthians. {1Co_12:12-27} We have it finally and fully in the later Epistolary Group, of the first Roman Captivity-in Ephesians and Colossians. There the supreme point in the wholepicture, the glorious Head, and His relation to the Limb and to the Body. comes out in all its greatness, while in these earlier passages it appears only incidentally. But each presentation, the earlier and the later, is alike true to its purpose. When St. Paul wrote to the Asiatics he was in presence of errors which beclouded the living splendour of the Head. When he wrote to the Romans, he was concerned rather with the interdependence of the limbs, in the practice of Christian social life.
We have spoken of "the parable of the Body." But is the word "parable" adequate? "What if earth be but the shadow of heaven?" What if our physical frame, the souls house and vehicle, be only the feebler counterpart of that great Organism in which the exalted Christ unites and animates His saints? That union is no mere aggregation, no mere alliance of so many men under the presidency of an invisible Leader. It is a thing of life. Each to the living Head, and so each to all His members, we are joined, in that wonderful connection with a tenacity, and with a relation, genuine, strong, and close as the eternal life can make it. The living, breathing man, multifold yet one, is but the reflection, as it were, of "Christ Mystical," the true Body with its heavenly Head.
For just as in one body we have many limbs, but all the limbs have not the same function, so we, the many, are one body in Christ, in our personal union with Him, but in detail, limbs of one another, coherent and related not as neighbours merely, but as complementary parts in the whole. But having endowments-according to the grace that was given to us-differing, be it prophecy, inspired utterance, a power from above, yet mysteriously conditioned {1Co_14:32} by the judgment and will of the utterer, let it follow the proportion of the mans faith, let it be true to his entire dependence on the revealed Christ, not left at the mercy of his mere emotions, or, as it were, played upon by alien unseen powers; be it active service, let the man be in his service, wholly given to it, not turning aside to covet his brothers more mystic gift; be it the teacher, let him likewise be in his teaching, wholehearted in his allotted work, free from ambitious outlooks from it; be it the exhorter, let him be in his exhortation; the distributer of his means, for God, with open handedness; the superintendent, of Church, or of home, with earnestness; the pitier, (large and unofficial designation!) with gladness, doubling his gifts and works of mercy by the hallowed brightness of a heart set free from the aims of self, and therefore wholly at the service of the needing.
This paragraph of eight verses lies here before us, full all along of that deep characteristic of Gospel life, surrender for service. The call is to a profoundly passive inward attitude, with an express view to a richly active outward usefulness. Possessed, and knowing it, of the compassions of God, the man is asked to give himself over to Eternal Love for purposes of unworldly and unambitious employment in the path chosen for him, whatever it may be. In this respect above all others he is to be "not conformed to this world"-that is, he is to make not himself but his Lord his pleasure and ambition. "By the renewal of his mind" he is to view the Will of God from a point inaccessible to the unregenerate, to the unjustified, to the man not emancipated in Christ from the tyranny of sin. He is to see in it his inexhaustible interest, his line of quest and hope, his ultimate and satisfying aim: because of the practical identity of the Will and the infinitely good and blessed Bearer of it. And this more than surrender of his faculties, this happy and reposeful consecration of them, is to show its reality in one way above all others first; in a humble estimate of self as compared with brother Christians, and a watchful willingness to do-not anothers work but the duty that lies next.
This relative aspect of the life of self-surrender is the burthen of this great paragraph of duty. In the following passage we shall find precepts more in detail; but here we have what is to govern all along the whole stream of the obedient life. The man rich in Christ is reverently to remember others, and Gods will in them, and for them. He is to avoid the subtle temptation to intrude beyond the Masters allotted work for him. He is to be slow to think, "I am richly qualified, and could do this thing, and that, and the other, better than the man who does it now." His chastened spiritual instinct will rather go to criticise himself, to watch for the least deficiency in his own doing of the task which at least today is his. He will "give himself wholly to this," be it more or less attractive to him in itself. For he works as one who has not to contrive a life as full of success and influence as he can imagine, but to accept a life assigned by the Lord who has first given to him Himself.
The passage itself amply implies that he is to use actively and honestly his renewed intelligence. He is to look circumstances and conditions in the face, remembering that in one way or another the will of God is expressed in them. He is to seek to understand not his duties only, but his personal equipments for them, natural as well as spiritual. But he is to do this as one whose "mind" is "renewed" by his living contact and union with Iris redeeming King, and who has really laid Iris faculties at the feet of an absolute Master, who is the Lord of order as well as of power.
What peace, energy, and dignity come into a life which is consciously and deliberately thus surrendered! The highest range of duties, as man counts highest, is thus disburthened both of its heavy anxieties and of its temptations to a ruinous self-importance. And the lowest range, as man counts lowest, is filled with the quiet greatness born of the presence and will of God. In the memoirs of Mme. de la Mothe Guyon much is said of her faithful maidservant, who was imprisoned along with her (in a separate chamber) in the Bastille, and there died, about the year 1700. This pious woman, deeply taught in the things of the Spirit, and gifted with an understanding far above the common, appears never for an hour to have coveted a more ambitious department than that which God assigned her in His obedience. "She desired to be what God would have her be, and to be nothing more, and nothing less. She included time and place, as well as disposition and action. She had not a doubt that God, who had given remarkable powers to Mme. Guyon, had called her to the great work in which she was employed. But knowing that her beloved mistress could not go alone, but must constantly have some female attendant, she had the conviction, equally distinct, that she was called to be her maidservant."
A great part of the surface of Christian society would be "transfigured" if its depth was more fully penetrated with that spirit. And it is to that spirit that the Apostle here definitely calls us, each and every one, not as with a "counsel of perfection" for the few, but as the will of God for all who have found out what is meant by His "compassions," and have caught even a glimpse of His Will as "good, and acceptable, and perfect."
"I would not have the restless will That hurries to and fro, Seeking for some great thing to do Or secret thing to know I would be treated as a child, And guided where I go."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21 1, 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the…
1, 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. The depth of the riches of the divine mercy has been shown in the argument of the preceding chapters, mercy for Jew and Gentile believers, and mercy in prospect for all Israel. The argument is now ended; God's plans have been explained, and the apostle appeals to those who have found mercy, in the name of that mercy, “to continue in the goodness of God.” That you present your bodies a living sacrifice. The Jewish dispensation with its sacrifices was ended; it closed when Christ, “our passover,” was offered for us. But a new order of sacrifice has come in. We should give ourselves. As the victim on the altar was surrendered wholly to God, so our bodies with all their members should be consecrated to his service; not as slain, but as “living sacrifices.” We do this when they become the temple of the Holy Spirit, and are used to serve God. Reasonable service. The consecration of the body to God is not an outward act, like the sacrifice on the altar, but an act of the mind, or reason; hence “a reasonable service.”
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 13, 17, 20 Rom_12:1.—St. Paul sums up the argument of the foregoing…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_12:1.—St. Paul sums up the argument of the foregoing part of the epistle with plain rules for Christian living, and advisedly calls religion a reasonable service. Pythagoras required intelligent worship; and much more does the great Spirit demand worship in spirit. The soul stands as the priest; the body is the offering to be consecrated by the High Priest.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_12:1
The importance of our bodies.—If a man have a true feeling of spiritual relationship, he will not be able to refrain himself. The thought of the divine connection will rise above all the seemings of the present. He will say in effect: God is my father; I must love and serve as a son. God is my creator, and I must give that which is due. God made me in every part, redeemed me in body as well as soul, crowned with continuing mercies, and I must yield every part to His service. I offer myself not in mere sentiment. I give not some vague notion called “self,” but my body—the living, acting frame, the organ and instrument of the soul’s working—in evidence of the fact that my design to offer is sincere.
I. Our bodies are important.—The shape and fashion of man’s physical frame testify to its divine origin, but we here refer to its importance as enforcing the exhortation that it be presented on God’s altar as a living sacrifice. The body is important as an offering, for it is:
1. The avenue of sin. There may be sin committed in the secret chambers of the soul, while the body seems to move in the sphere of outward moral respectability. The fallen angels had no bodies, and yet sinned. A soul free from a physical nature might sin; but a soul fettered with physical entanglements has great difficulty in preserving moral purity. Soul and body are in constant warfare. Our physical sensations are the avenues along which the tempter travels. Surely it were easier to keep from sin if there were no body; the eye would not engender lust; the ear would not enthral with siren sounds; appetite would not dethrone man’s reason. And yet the soul might not be so noble. Let us ask, not to be set free from the body of this flesh, but to have grace given, so that we may present the body a living sacrifice. Let the soul do priestly work.
2. The soul’s instrument. St. Paul indirectly draws a distinction between “you” and “your bodies.” They are not the “you,” though mysteriously joined. The body is the instrument by which the man works and expresses himself. You are to “present your bodies.” You must stand as kings having power over your bodies. The soul finds its outlet and touches the external world by means of the body. There may be such a thing as soul touching soul—the unseen “you” coming into contact with another unseen “you”—but for the most part we influence and are influenced by the help of material organisations. Thought works by means of brain currents and by the method of language. The spiritual life force works through and in a measure by the material frame. Where there is high spiritual surrender in the soul, it will show itself in a beautified physical nature. The body is ennobled by being presented a living sacrifice.
3. The sure signs. Offered bodies are signs of the completeness of the offering. The soul throws open the temple of the body for the use of heaven’s King, and thus gives a token that the man is willing to serve God and to promote His glory. It is the token of a full surrender. It is an ample dedication. God lays siege to us with the sweet train of His abounding mercies. We yield to the besieging force, and give our bodies as signs of the fact that we have no reserve, that all which we call ours is God’s now and for evermore.
4. The proof of a right view, which is that the gospel has to do with man’s material and moral nature. The spiritual life is a divine force shaping our thoughts and pulsating through our bodies. Soul and body must be consecrated upon God’s altar; and it must be an ever-recurring dedication. We are priests standing daily and offering up our own bodies. The richest thoughts must be embalmed in material forms. The spiritual life expresses itself to others in outward actions. Goodness dwelling in the soul will irradiate the body.
II. God’s claim is important.—God demands, but it is put in the form of entreaty. He woos the offering as lover might beg some token of love’s return. God made the body, not only to toil on the farm, to grind in the mill, to be tossed on the ocean, to groan on the battle-field, to feel the rush of commercial strife, or to be pampered in the lap of luxury, but to be presented on His altar as a living sacrifice. Human bodies are of small account in the world’s metropolis. London is the slaughter-house of humanity. The centre of Christendom is untrue to Christianity’s great lesson that the physical nature has a noble aspect being made by God and being claimed as an offering. Thus low views are not to be taken of man’s physical nature. By our bodies we are connected with the earth, and yet even by our bodies we are connected with heaven. The body governed by the soul may minister in highest service.
III. God’s mercies are important.—Let us not ignore the mercies of God, for they are important factors in the life of man. They are still evident to observant natures. Nature still smiles through storms and tempests. Our bodies are touched by God’s mercies—charmed by sweet music, refreshed by welcome odours, nourished by many products. God’s mercy shown in redemption. The Saviour’s redemptive work had for its object the welfare of the body as well as of the soul. He spent more time in healing than in teaching. His miracles are more than His sermons. Rich as was the stream of mingled water and blood that flowed from the Saviour’s side, richer still was the stream of mercies that flowed from heaven. Jesus gave His body an atoning sacrifice; let us give our bodies a living sacrifice. Let our bodies be responsive. As they answer to outward, so let them answer to inward influences. Let them respond to the soul’s voice, to God’s voice. If the soul be strong, then the body will yield. The body, through the soul, will answer to the high voice of the divine mercies. If God have poured Himself out in mercies, shall we not answer in living sacrifices?
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_12:1
A servant of Christ truly reigns.—Very touching is the incident related in the Old Testament story when Joseph’s brethren stood before him and he could no longer refrain himself. His brethren were before him, and they silently but effectually called forth Joseph’s deeper feelings, and he could no longer feign himself the foreign despot. If a man have genuine faith, true love to God, the inward feeling of spiritual relationship, he will not be able to refrain himself. His soul will rise upward to the supreme good; he will present himself a living sacrifice. Here is noble work for the soul. Sin’s power is lessened if I stand as a priest at God’s altar and am there continually offering up the body a living sacrifice acceptable to God. Egerius the Roman asked of the conquered people, “Are you the ambassadors sent by the people of Collatia that you may yield up yourselves and the Collatine people?” And it was answered, “We are.” And it was again asked, “Are the Collatine people in their own power?” And answered, “They are.” It was further inquired, “Do you deliver up yourselves, the people of Collatia, your city, your fields vour water, your hounds, your temples, your utensils, all things that are yours, both divine and human, into mine and the people of Rome’s power?” They answer, “We deliver up all.” And he replies, “So I receive you.” Thus when a man presents his body a living sacrifice, it is a sign, unspoken but certain, that he delivers up all unto the service of God. He treats us as free agents, for we are morally free, and asks for our gifts and our services. Seneca, the heathen philosopher, declared that to serve God is to reign; and surely we can feel this as he could not. We are told that a prince abandoned the pleasures and splendours of his own court, then retired and assumed the name of Christodulus—a servant of Christ—accounting the glory of that name did outshine, not only that of other illustrious titles, but of the imperial diadem itself. A servant of Christ is he who serves with body as well as soul. A servant of Christ is he who truly reigns. Better than all titles is the title “servant of Christ.” Æschines the philosopher, out of his admiration to Socrates, when divers presented him with other gifts, made a tender to him of himself. Can man have such noble thoughts of his fellow man, and can we raise no lofty thoughts to God? Shall we not give ourselves to God? Let body as well as soul be consecrated to this divine service.
In every sacrifice a death.—It has been said there is in every sacrifice a death, and in this sacrifice a death unto sin, out of which there arises a new life of righteousness unto God. Thus the living sacrifice is that in which, though the natural life is not lost, a new life of holiness is gained.
The moral instruction the pendant of the doctrinal.—This moral instruction is therefore the pendant of the doctrinal instruction. It is its necessary complement, the two taken together from the apostle’s complete catechism. It is because the rational relation between the different sections of this part has not been understood that it has been possible for the connection of this whole second part with the first to be so completely mistaken. The practical part which we are beginning corresponds to the second kind of sacrifice, which was the symbol of consecration after pardon had been received (the holocaust in which the victim was entirely burned), and of the communion re-established between Jehovah and the believer (the peace offering followed by a feast in the court of the temple). The sacrifice of expiation offered by God in the passion of His Son should now find its response in the believer in the sacrifice of complete consecration and intimate communion. Is it not this promise which explains the choice of the word, λογικήν, “reasonable,” of which undoubtedly the true meaning is this—the service which rationally corresponds to the moral premisses contained in the faith which you profess? (Godet.) The word rendered “reasonable” is variously explained. The simplest interpretation is that which takes the word in its natural sense—namely, pertaining to the mind; it is mental or spiritual service in opposition to ceremonial and external observances.—Hodge.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12
Rom_12:1. Indian gives himself.—A missionary tells of an Indian chief who came to him and offered his belt of wampum that he might please God. “No,” said the missionary; “Christ cannot accept such a sacrifice.” The Indian departed, but soon returned, offering his rifle and the skins he had taken in hunting. “No,” was the reply; “Christ cannot accept such a sacrifice.” Again the Indian went away, but soon returned once more with a troubled conscience, and offered his wigwam, wife, child, everything, for peace and pardon. “No,” was still the reply; “Christ cannot accept such a sacrifice.” The chief seemed surprised for a moment; then lifting up tearful eyes to the face of the missionary, he feelingly cried out, “Here, Lord, take poor Indian too.” That present was accepted, and the chief went home full of joy.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 1. “Therefore I exhort you, brethren, by the mercies…
ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION
1. “Therefore I exhort you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, your reasonable service.” In view of God’s stupendous mercies evoking the above exclamations of wonder and triumph, he now exhorts all the brethren, both Jews and Gentiles, to consecrate their bodies to God, a living sacrifice, in contradistinction to the dead sacrifice which the sinner offers to God, subject to the quickening power of the Holy Ghost. It was well understood by every Jew that the sacrifice was holy from the time it came in contact with the altar. Hence, everything we commit to God is sanctified by virtue of His holiness normally imparted to it. This sanctification is not an extraordinary state of grace, but the normal, legitimate and “reasonable service” of God’s children.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. We have in the text a very remarkable…
Rom 12:1
I. We have in the text a very remarkable way of putting what I may call the sum of Christian service. The main leading idea is the gathering together of all Christian duty into the one mighty word—sacrifice. Sacrifice, to begin with, means giving up everything to God. And how do I give up to God? When in heart and will and thought I am conscious of His presence, and do all the actions of the inner man in dependence on, and in obedience to, Him. That is the true sacrifice when I think as in His sight, and will and love and act as in obedience to Him. To consecrate oneself is the way to secure a higher and nobler life than ever before. If you want to go all to rack and ruin, live according to your own fancy and taste. If you want to be strong, and grow stronger and more and more blessed, put the brake on, and keep a tight hand upon yourself, and offer your whole being upon His altar.
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II. We have here likewise the great motive of Christian service: "I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God." In the Apostle’s mind this is no vague expression for the whole of the diffused blessings with which God floods the world, but he means thereby the definite specific thing, the great scheme of mercy, set forth in the previous chapters, that is to say, His great work in saving the world through Jesus Christ. That is "the mercies" with which he makes his appeal. The diffused and wide-shining mercies, which stream from the Father’s heart, are all, as it were, focussed as through a burning-glass into one strong beam, which can kindle the greenest wood and melt the thick-ribbed ice. Only on the footing of that sacrifice can we offer ours. He has offered the one sacrifice, of which His death is the essential part, in order that we may offer the sacrifice of which our life is the essential part.
III. Note the gentle enforcement of this great motive for Christian service: "I beseech you." Law commands, the gospel entreats. Paul’s beseeching is only a less tender echo of the Master’s entreaty.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 315.
The Self-sacrifice.
Consider:—
I. The nature of the claim which is here made upon us. (1) Let us avail ourselves of the light which is shed on the nature of sacrifice by the term which is here employed. "A living sacrifice." The Apostle was addressing those to whom both the need and the thing were perfectly familiar. Sacrifice stands out with great prominence among the forms of the Jewish dispensation; and among all peoples the thing is to be met with, though the conception of its nature and relation, both to man and to God, would vary according to the moral education and condition of each particular race. But it is to be questioned whether the idea could be fully comprehended until He, in whom was life, had, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, and laid on His disciples the obligation to yield themselves a living sacrifice to God. The true sacrifice must be a living one. (2) The presenting ourselves a living sacrifice is the first act of a true man’s life. Carry on the association sacrifice with life rather than with death, and it will help you with the second principle. Our highest and holiest relations begin when we make the sacrifice of the whole heart of selfishness to God. (3) This presenting ourselves a living sacrifice is the ground of all true rendering of duty to the Church, the family, and the whole world of man.
II. Consider the ground of this claim of God; and I note: (1) The Christian sacrifice is a living sacrifice because God urges His claims, not on the ground of His right only, but of His love. The Father loves us with a love which even our sin and apostasy could not weaken. He loves us with a love which could grapple with and conquer death. (2) God has not left, He will not leave, His work for us. He sent His Son into the battle; He became perfect as the Captain of our salvation by suffering. The Father hath sent, sendeth still, the Spirit to carry on the work, and present it to Him complete in the day of the Lord Jesus. The striving and pleading of His. Spirit still is the measure of His interest and hope. He is ready to animate us to achieve the sacrifice which His love constrains us to attempt; ready with all a Father’s tender sympathy to share our burdens, to feel our pangs, to prop our weakness, to kindle our courage, to stir and plume our hope.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Life in Man, p. 139.
Sacrifice.
What are the characteristics of the sacrifice which God’s wonderful mercies have made binding upon us all?
I. First, the Apostle tells us it is to be a living sacrifice, and this is the great distinguishing mark of that personal offering required of us. Sacrifice of old was wont to imply the death of the thing or creature offered. Christian sacrifice is that of the life, and Christ has come to enable us to make that sacrifice a worthier one by giving us fuller and more abundant life to offer, by quickening and transforming all our capacities and fitting them for greater things. There have been those who have thought to offer to God a dead sacrifice, the sacrifice of a mechanical obedience, the sacrifice of stereotyped habits; and such sacrifice is not out of date. Others, again, have thought to offer a dead sacrifice in the shape of a hard, self-contained religion—a religion without warmth of sympathy or expansive power—the exclusive luxury of its possessor; all such sacrifices have but a name to live, and He who asks for nothing less than our very selves cannot away with them.
II. Secondly, the sacrifice demanded is a holy sacrifice. What awe surrounds that word, and how far away from ourselves and this miserable, selfish, sinful world that word always seems to carry us! We know what it means; we know that it implies separation; the drawing off from whatever is low and sordid and soiling, the solemn setting apart of whatever it qualifies for the express service of a pure and perfectly holy God.
III. And, lastly, this is a reasonable service which is demanded of us, or, as the words might be rendered, a ritual of thought and mind as distinguished from the outward and material ritual which has passed away. It is an intelligent offering that we are called upon to make, one that is both prompted and presented by the reason of the understanding, one in which the mind goes along with the heart. This is the glory of Christianity, that it addresses itself to man’s highest power, that it enlists his intellect as well as his affections, that it finds scope for his divinest endowment, and gives heavenward direction to all that is in him.
R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 33.
References: Rom 12:1.—R. W. Church, Human Life and its Conditions, p. 31; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vi., p. 13; E. Garbett, The Soul’s Life, p. 313; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 125; H. A. M. Butler, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 228; H. G. Hirch, Ibid., vol. ix., p. 40. Rom 12:1, Rom 12:2.—Homilist, vol. v., p. 126. Rom 12:1-3.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 32.
Rom 12:2
Conformity and Transformation.
I. There are two terms in the original language for the expression the world. One of them regards the things that now are in reference to time, the other in reference to space. The one means the things that are seen, this material world, with all its enjoyments and gratifications, its riches, pleasures, and honours; the other means the time or age to which these things belong, and by which they are limited and circumscribed; the period, longer or shorter—we know not its duration, but God knoweth—previous to what we are taught to designate as the end of all things, that consummation of the old, that introduction of the new, which shall be the concomitant of the second Advent of Jesus Christ, the consequence of that second and greater Epiphany for which the Church on earth and in heaven is ever waiting and watching.
II. In the passage before us, the term rendered world means properly the period or age that now is. Therefore "Be not conformed to this world" becomes equivalent to "Be not conformed to time, but rather to eternity." Wear not the fashion of persons who belong to time and have nothing to do with eternity. Let not the garb of your souls, let not the habit of your lives, be that which befits persons whose home, whose dwelling-place, whose all, is in the passing unreal scene, which we call human life, and who have no part nor lot in the permanent and unchanging realities of the new heaven and new earth, which shall come into view with the return of Christ and the resurrection of the just. Wear not the garb of time, but invest yourselves already with the fashion of eternity.
III. No one can be conformed to, can fashion himself according to, that which he knows not. We are conformed to this world, not because it satisfies us, not because it makes us happy; not because we find rest or peace in living by its rules and principles, but because it is the only world we know, the only world, let me say, in which we know any one. The way to escape from our worldliness is not so much to struggle with it hand to hand, but to supersede it, as it were, by the entrance into us of a new affection; by giving our hearts to another, even to Him who has already entered for us within the veil, and who now and ever liveth to be our Intercessor and our life.
C. J. Vaughan, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, p. 1.
Rom 12:2
The Christian Life a Transfiguration.
Notice:—
I. Where Paul begins—with an inward renewal, "the renewing of your mind." He goes deep down, because he had learned in his Master’s school who said, "Make the tree good, and the fruit good." This new creation of the inner man is only possible as the result of the communication of a life from without. That communicated life from without is the life of Jesus Christ Himself put into your heart, on condition of your simply opening the door of your heart by faith, and saying to Him, "Come in, Thou blessed of the Lord." And He comes in, bearing in His hands this gift most chiefly, the gift of a germ of life which will mould and shape our mind after His own blessed pattern.
II. The transfigured life which follows upon that inward renewal. What about the Christianity that does not show itself in conduct and character? What about men that look exactly as if they were not Christians? What about the inward life that never comes up to the surface? A certain kind of seaweeds that lie at the bottom of the sea, when their flowering time comes, elongate their stalks, and reach the light and float upon the top, and then, when they have flowered and fruited, they sink again into the depths. Our Christian life should come up to the surface and open out its flowers there, and show to the heavens and to all eyes that look. Does your Christianity do that? It is no use talking about the inward change unless there is the outward transfiguration. Ask yourselves the question whether that is visible or not in your lives.
III. Consider the ultimate consequence which the Apostle regards as certain, from this central inward change, viz., the unlikeness to the world around. "Be not conformed to this world." The more we get like Jesus Christ, the more certainly we get unlike the world. For the two theories of life are clean contrary—the one is all limited by this "bank and shoal of time," the other stretches out through the transient to lay hold on the Infinite and Eternal. The one is all for self, the other is all for God, with His will for law and His love for motive. The two theories are contrary to one another, so that likeness with and adherence to the one must needs be dead in the teeth of the other.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 17.
I. St. Paul had been dwelling at great length, in this Epistle to the Romans, on the unsearchable riches and goodness of God, in grafting the Gentiles into the stock of Israel, whereby they were become partakers of all the promises made to the Jews of old; which he sums up by this appeal: "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."
II. "Be not conformed to this world," be not like the age around you, and in which you live, the fashion of which perisheth and passeth away; but be ye transformed, let a continual change be taking place in you, by the renewing of your mind, by a new heart, new dispositions, and new way, such as is consistent with the new man, and the new birth in Christ, being made conformable to the Holy Child in obedience, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. "That ye may prove" the word, means to ascertain by putting it to the proof; by obedience men come to know what is pleasing to God, as our Lord says, "If ye do the will, ye shall know of the doctrine." Thus, by the renewal of your minds, ye shall learn that which is good, well pleasing to God, and perfect. The old sacrifices were not so, being but the shadows of good things to come; but the body is of Christ, He is the only good, the one well-pleasing and perfect sacrifice, and such are they who by faith shall be found in Him, perfect even as He is perfect, inasmuch as their old man being buried and dead, they are only known of God as having their life in Christ.
III. Thus in Christ must all Christian teaching begin and end. He is Himself the true Passover, and the Lamb that is offered; in Him alone is all reasonable service and filial obedience. He is the New Man to whom we are to be transformed day by day by the renewing of our mind. It is as parts of His body, as limbs and members of Him, that we are to learn humility and love to one another; it is in Him we are to be about our Father’s business and in His house. He is Himself that little child to whose pattern we are to humble ourselves.
I. Williams, The Epistles and Gospels, vol. i., p. 119.
I. When first we meet with such expressions as these, "conformed to the world," "transformed by the renewing of our mind," we may suppose that St. Paul is speaking of a state of mind which is suitable to us as inhabitants of this present earth, and of some other state which may prepare us for what is to come after death. But this is a very imperfect and slovenly method of explaining his language. The man who is in conformity with the world is not the man who understands the world best, not the man who admires the beauty of it most, not the man even who can adapt himself best to all its various circumstances and conditions. He is too much a slave of the things he sees to reflect upon them or look into the meaning of them; too much devoted to all outward shows and enjoyments to have an apprehension of their secret loveliness and harmony. The word "conformed" is used very strictly; it implies that he takes his form from the things about him, that they are the mould into which his mind is cast. Now, this St. Paul will not for an instant admit to be the form which any man is created to bear.
II. Deliverance from conformity to the world is the transformation which is spoken of in the next clause of the verse. The process of this transformation St. Paul describes as the renewing of the mind. Such a phrase at once suggests the change which takes place when the foliage of spring covers the bare boughs of winter. It is not strictly a recovery of that which had been lost. The substance is not altered, but it is quickened. The alteration is the most wonderful that can be conceived of, but it all passes within. It is not sudden, but gradual. The power once given works secretly, probably amidst many obstructions from sharp winds and keen frosts. Still, that beginning contains in it the sure prophecy of final accomplishment. The man will be renewed according to the image of his Creator and Father, because the Spirit of his Creator and Father is working in him.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 123.
References: Rom 12:2.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 28; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 290. Rom 12:2-18.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 84.
Rom 12:3
Self-Appreciation.
I. Every man’s view of himself is meant to be a correct deliberate thing, according to the facts of the case—neither degrading himself too low, nor vaunting himself too high, but thinking of himself as he really is and as God has been pleased to make him.
II. To guide us in such investigations the Apostle gives one single rule—"to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." It is a remarkable expression of his. It is not saying, Judge of yourselves according to the knowledge, or the peace, or the good works, or the attainments, or the powers you have made. But "the measure of faith." Does he say this because everything that is good in a man’s heart is faith? Or is it that every other good thing being proportioned to the faith we have, the measure of the faith is indeed the measure of everything that a man has, or that a man can attain, and so becomes the measure of the man, i.e., is the man? Whichever it be, see the important part which faith acts in all our relations. We are really before God what our faith makes us. Realise the love of God to you, and by that realisation you have it.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1865, p. 9.
References: Rom 12:4, Rom 12:5.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ii., p. 170. Rom 12:5.—A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 13; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 265; S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, p. 283. Rom 12:6.—W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 255; E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 304. Rom 12:10.—E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, p. 232; H. J. Wilmot Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 170; Saturday Evening, p. 215.
Rom 12:11
The Results of Slothfulness.
I. We frequently meet people who, on extraordinary occasions, or stimulated by some special inspiration, will exert much diligence and take great pains to produce something excellent and commendable, but who at all other times are slatternly and indolent, caring nothing, so long as a duty be performed, how slovenly may be the performance. It is against such a temper as this that our text directs its emphasis. You are not to be slothful in business—in any business whatever. Let us prevail upon men to be industrious, and we shall have called out the powers and formed the habits which religion most tasks in its commencement and demands in its progress. The industrious man, no matter what lawful objects have occupied his industry, is comparatively the most likely man to receive the gospel, and certainly the fittest, when it has once been received, for its peculiar and ever-pressing requirements. Every man takes a step towards piety who escapes from a habit of sloth.
II. God may be served through the various occupations of life, as well as through the more special institutions of religion. It needs only that a man go to his daily toil in simple obedience to the will of his Maker, and he is as piously employed, aye, and is doing as much towards securing for himself the higher recompenses of eternity, as when he spends an hour in prayer or joins himself gladly to the Sabbath-day gathering. The businesses of life are as so many Divine institutions, and if prosecuted in a spirit of submission to God and with an eye to His glory, they are the businesses of eternity, through which the soul grows in grace, and lasting glory is secured. If men are but fervent in spirit, if, that is, they always carry with them a religious tone and temper, then they are serving the Lord, through their being not slothful in business.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1793.
Rom 12:12
In the widest sense the injunction of the text lays upon us these things: (1) The habitual maintenance of a prayerful spirit; (2) the duty of embracing opportunities for prayer; (3) the duty of improving the occasions of prayer; (4) watchfulness as a part of constancy in prayer.
J. M. Jarvis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 250.
References: Rom 12:11, Rom 12:12.—E. Garbett, Experiences of the Inner Life, p. 244. Rom 12:12.—H. Alford, Plain Village Sermons, p. 1; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 18; W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, vol. ii., p. 97; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 227.
Rom 12:15
I. Christians do not enough bear in mind the duty of cheerfulness. An open and lively countenance, a free and joyous manner of address, are considered rather as happy accidents, than as results which every Christian ought to aim at as part of his spiritual life. It is astonishing, if you look through the New Testament Scriptures, how many passages you will find recommending this suavity and urbanity of manner, as a grace to be sought for and to be attained by believers in Christ. The temptation of all seriously thinking men is to slide into shadow and put on gloom. To rejoice with the rejoicing requires some of that healthy and manly vigour of character which can afford to despise the taunts of men, and go its own way in the light of God; some of that hearty and thorough Christianity which does not live by its newspaper, but by its Bible and its conscience. When shall the world find among us a joy better than its own, and say to us, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is among you"?
II. But now let us pass to the other side of our duty of sympathy—to weep with those that weep. The words here bear no mere formal meaning. They imply that entire oneness, which not a transient fit of compassion, not a tear starting at passing or hearing of a scene of misery, will satisfy; but which requires a man really to enter into and give himself to the companionship and tending of sorrow; in other words, to show active sympathy with the suffering, and endeavour to share and diminish their troubles. Nothing can be conceived more opposed to the natural selfishness of man, nothing less in accordance with the common maxims and practice of the world. It is by no means an easy thing effectually to weep with them that weep. Yet it is the duty of us all as Christians, and one the exercise of which is of very blessed use to us. And therefore we are not to turn our faces away from sorrow, not to avoid it as if it were something detrimental to us; but to feel it an obligation laid on us by Him whom we follow, a portion of our aiming at His holy example, a chosen bond of union with Him in one Spirit, to weep with them that weep.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. vii., p. 85.
Rejoicing and Weeping with Men.
I. Our first remark on this twofold duty is that it is one which requires constant watchfulness and activity. The joys and sorrows of men around us are so constant and varied, so multitudinous and changeful, that if we are to keep up a sympathy with them we must be always wakeful. And what can be better fitted to waken men up than the joys and sorrows of their fellow-men? One of the chief elements in working out your own salvation is to forget yourself and enter into the joys and sorrows of others.
II. The text presents a task that seems to some impossible to carry out by one and the same person, at least in the same period. The mistake here lies in the idea that to sympathise with the sorrowful one must himself be of a sorrowful mood, and that to be in sympathy with the joyous one must himself at the time be joyous. It is not sadness that is sympathetic, but love, benevolence. And love will take to itself the grief of the sufferer, though itself it is full of joy. It is the sympathy of a joyous, radiant spirit that helps the sorrowful, provided only it is able to enter into true accord with the sorrow. You have seen a bright day of sunshine hiding its brilliancy now and again behind clouds, and even chequering its course with rain. It is such days that have rainbow. It is not the clouds that are the main thing, but the sun shining through the clouds. Sunshine is the grand requisite for meeting either the happy or the sorrowful.
III. The earnest endeavour to perform this twofold duty will be found an effective quickener of life and a key to all the secrets of religion. One who is intent on doing both of these will find the need for much earnest prayer. Many a cry will spring from the depths of his heart as he finds himself hard and envious and selfish. And the broken heart will find that the true way to grow sympathetic is thinking much of Christ, looking to Christ, and drawing hope and confidence from Him, drawing courage and love from Him.
J. Leckie, Sermons at Ibrox, p. 109.
Reference: Rom 12:15.—H. J. Wilmot Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 167.
Rom 12:15-16
Sympathy and Condescension.
I. The first part of the text is a call to sympathy. But notice what St. Paul meant by sympathy, how he describes it. (1) It is an old remark that it is more difficult to rejoice with them that rejoice than to weep with them that weep. Let us endeavour, in little matters, within our own doors first of all to be glad when another is glad, to feel another’s as our joy, to be not willing only but thankful that another should have, even though that other’s gain may be outwardly our own loss. (2) "Weep with them that weep." The first requisite of all human consolation is sympathy, fellow-feeling, the appreciation of the calamity whatever it be, in its breadth and in its depth. Of all the designations which a human being under Christ’s teaching can acquire, none is so valuable, in the estimate of a truly Christian ambition, as this, A son of consolation.
II. "Condescend to those things which are lowly." Is it not just the neglect of this rule which makes the chief evil of what is called society? It is a constant pursuit of high things; a struggle to rise one step higher, and then one yet higher, on the ladder of ambition, whatever its particular ambition be; it may be of rank, it may be of fame, it may be of fashion, it may be of excitement generally; most often it is, in some shape or other, the ambition of distinction; but whatever the particular aim, it is briefly to be described as a minding of high things, and the proper remedy for it is that here described by St. Paul, Condescend to things that are lowly. There is a narrowing effect as well as a widening in the pursuit even of Divine knowledge, if that knowledge be chiefly intellectual. How many a man has ended his course a doubter or a disbeliever, mainly, we may well believe, for this reason, that he never forced himself to condescend to the humble, never discovered that the true way to knowledge is through love! If he had learned to condescend to things lowly, he would have entered at length, with a true insight, into the things which transcend knowledge.
C. J. Vaughan, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, p. 21.
Rom 12:16-17
Our Duty to Equals.
I. While the compassionate view of man, as compared with the ordinary view of him in his health and strength as a flourishing member of this world, is characterised by a beauty of its own, it has at the same time the defect of being a protected state of mind, a state in which the mind is for the moment relieved of all its tendencies to irritation and to asperity, and thrown into a perfect quiet by an external event which does everything for it without an effort of its own. The condescending life is sheltered from trials which very sharply beset the field of equals. The poor and dependent, the mourner, the despondent, the cast down—these exercise our active benevolence, but do not they unconsciously flatter us while they appeal to it? In the life of equals a man enters upon a vast field of relations in which his humility and his generosity pass through an ordeal of special and peculiar severity—severity far greater than that which attaches to any trial of them in the relationship to inferiors, for the simple reason that a man is in competition with his equals, and he is not in competition with his inferiors. To a superficial person it might appear that the great act of humility was condescension, and that therefore the condescending life was necessarily a more humble one than the life with equals. But this is not the true view of the case. The hardest trial of humility must be not towards a person to whom you are superior and who acknowledges that superiority, but towards a person with whom you are on equal footing of competition.
II. It is thus that a life of ordinary and common probation, which is what a man generally leads when he lives with his equals, is found, when examined, to contain a powerful supply of the most finished and subtle weapons of discipline. The trials of the sphere of equals touch the tenderest parts and apply the most refined tests; they find a man out the most thoroughly. It is common life that has the keenest and subtlest instruments at command. The ordeal of the sphere of equals is amply represented in the New Testament. If by the constitution of our nature compassion has a particular gratification attending upon it, that gratification attended upon it in our Lord’s case. His life among equals, proclaiming His cause against adversaries, invincible defiance, inflexible will—that was His hard work: it was by the struggle with equals that the battle of eternal truth was fought, and by this He fulfilled the great trial of a human life. First in the succour of man, first in the war with man, first in both hemispheres of action, the Firstborn of Creation lives in the gospel, a marvellous whole, to inspire morality with a new spirit, to soften man’s heart, to consecrate his wealth. The light of ages gathers round Him. He is the centre of the past, the pledge of a future: the great character marches through time to collect souls about it, to found new empires for the truth, and to convert the whole earth to the knowledge of the Lord.
J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 183.
Reference: Rom 12:17.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 47.
Rom 12:21
Retaliation.
I. We must read this verse first in direct contrast with the prohibition, "Be not overcome of evil." The immediate subject of both is that of injuries and their treatment. As to be overcome of evil is to let evil master us, so that it shall subdue and lead captive, instead of merely oppressing and overwhelming us; so to overcome that evil with good is to bring into conflict with injury, not anger, not sullenness, not revenge, but the very opposites and contraries of all these—patience, and meekness, and forbearance, and charity—and this so earnestly, so skilfully, so persistently, that they shall vanquish the evil, shall make it ashamed of itself, and repentant and reconciled, insomuch that the saying shall be verified, Whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Darkness shone upon is darkness no more; evil kindled by a coal from the altar becomes the good which it sought to overbear.
II. Evil, St. Paul says, is never vanquished by evil. Satan casts not out Satan, nor does the wrath of man ever work out God’s righteousness. Evil must be conquered by good. View the saying in two aspects. (1) In reference to truth and error. Not in a spirit of strife and debate, not in a spirit of disdain or defiance, not in a spirit of superiority or self-confidence—in none of these tones ought any earnest believer to address himself to the separatist from his faith. That were indeed to assail evil with evil. There is one way and but one to the mind of the unbeliever, and that way is through the heart. Not by negatives, but by positives; not by meeting this evil in hand-to-hand warfare, but by bringing into the field a wholly new and unexpected ally, by appealing to his sense of want, and then by showing how Christ has in Him the very food and remedy and rest wanted. It is thus, if at all, that the unbelief will find itself believing. (2) Sin and holiness. No might is really equal to the might of evil save the one mightier than the mightiest, which is the love of Christ constraining. Bring this good into the war with thine evil, and thou shalt overcome yet.
C. J. Vaughan, Sundays in the Temple, p. 212.
I. The most important and deepest part of the truths that are wrapped up in this great maxim of St. Paul is that the very genius of Christianity itself is a positive, not a negative. It is a life, not a code; a spirit, not a set of rules; a new impulse, not a mass of prohibitions. It is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. It is, above all, the spirit of life and of freedom, not of death and bondage. Now religion very often presents itself to the young in a very opposite light. Its commands appear to be exclusively "Thou shalt not." And this aspect of Christianity is of course a necessary one; but it is very far from complete. It is preparatory; it is the law, not the gospel; it is the schoolmaster that brings men to Christ, not Christ Himself. "I am come," says Jesus Christ, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." It was not to destroy and stunt and cripple energies, not to discourage action, not to repeat the old commands, Touch not, taste not, handle not, but to inspire new energy and new life, to give a new direction to the burning desire for action that flames in young souls; in a word, to give life. Fill your soul with new life, give it vent in action, and thou shalt not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. It is not only by avoiding sin, it is by actively doing what is good, that we make progress in holiness. Sin is not fought, it is expelled.
II. Surely there is a lesson here for all who have eyes to see Who are they who are ever ready with unhelpful grumbling, with pessimism and self-righteousness? Is it not those who have as yet no notion of the positive method of the Christian life, who have no other idea of dealing with the ever-existing evil of the world, except to proclaim that it is the duty of some one else to repress it, and to hug themselves in blind Pharisaism? How far this is from the spirit of Christ! His was the spirit of inspiration to positive action. His life was not one of self-denial so much as of activity; not of repression, but of expression. It was not His sinlessness, it was His holiness that was the example to the world; and holiness is not merely absence of sin, but the presence of an abounding, overflowing goodness; and here lies its power and its contagiousness.
J. M. Wilson, Sermons in Clifton College Chapel, p. 311.
Sometimes it has been said that Christianity is deficient in what are called the masculine virtues. The world would give it credit for meekness, for gentleness, for purity; but the world finds fault with it because it lacks that energetic force which is seen in a strong antagonism and in a power of combat with the difficulties of life. They are inclined to say, "Such courage is of a passive order. You can suffer, but you cannot contend." Our answer would be that in this twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans you have a catalogue of Christian virtues, and amongst them is given one virtue which, I imagine, does not find a place even in the catalogue of the virtues of the world. It is the virtue of hatred. We are to abhor what is evil. Christianity will link her lot with goodness, and as in happy wedlock she will live in her sweet home where goodness dwells; but when she goes forth to the world she can put on the armour of entire abhorrence and determined antagonism; she can abhor that which is evil, or, precisely because she loves the Lord, she has learned to hate evil. And hence it follows that the spirit of undying antagonism to evil is indeed a Christian spirit, and is surely one of the masculine order.
I. The consent of all our experience may lead us to believe that we can overcome evil with good. Are you trying to overcome your children’s faults in the spirit of fault-finding? You know it is not the way to success. The spirit of approbation, the spirit of appreciation, the spirit of imitation—these are the secrets of power. The spirit of Christianity carries us to things that are noble. It raises us to the stature of the fulness of Christ: that is to say, we shall be able to give expression to our nature, and that expression will reflect the image of God. To deal with it otherwise is simply suicidal; it is looking at the work and the energies of God’s creation as though it were less than He meant it to be.
II. It is irrational to suppose that we can overcome evil in any other way. The laws that govern the world are the laws of righteousness—the laws of good; and you and I, if we believe in them, must believe that it is never worth while to do evil that good may come; it is never worth while to sacrifice a great moral principle, even to achieve a great good.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 17.
I. Evil in its root is simply unregulated desire. Desire is that quality in us men which corresponds to gravitation in the physical bodies, which, while all is well with us, keeps us moving around our true centre, the Being of beings—God. Sin is the free concentration of desire upon some other centre than God—that is, upon some created being; and just as if, in the heavenly spheres, a planet could get detached from its true orbit, from loyal revolutions round its proper sun, and could thus come within the range of other and counteracting attractions, the effect would be vast and irretrievable disaster, so is it in the moral world. Sin is this disorder in the governing desires of the soul, followed by a corresponding disorder in its outward action; and in this disordered desire there lies something beyond, namely, a contradiction of the moral nature or essence of the one necessary being of God. Moral truth is in its principles as distinct from their application, just as eternal and just as necessary as mathematical truth. It is like mathematical truth, eternal, and therefore it is a law of the life of the one eternal Being Himself, since, otherwise, it would be a co-eternal principle independent of Him. And sin is thus the contradiction of God arising from disorder in those governing desires of the soul which were intended by Him to keep us men in our true relationship and dependence upon Him.
II. "Be not overcome of evil." It is not then a resistless invader, it is not invincible; for it is not the work of an eternal being or principle. Strong as it is, it is strictly a product of created wills. As Christians, we know evil to be both hateful, and not invincible. It is our duty to abhor it; yet it is also our duty, and within our power, to overcome it. Simple decision, perfectly courteous but unswervingly determined will, will carry the day. Evil may talk loudly, it may bluster; but at heart it is always a coward, and it skulks away at the show of a strong resistance. It may be hard work at first; but in the end purity and straightforwardness and charity and reverence will win the battle; opposition will die gradually away into silence, silence into respect, respect into sympathy, and even into imitation. "Thou art of more honour and might than the hills of the robbers."
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 504.
References: Rom 12:21.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. viii., p. 161; H. P. Liddon, Christmastide Sermons, p. 397; Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 50.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Subdivision 1. (Rom 12:1-21.)
Subdivision 1. (Rom 12:1-21.)
The spirit of harmonious, universal obedience.
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1. The harmony and universality of the obedience claimed are first brought before us. The principle with which we begin shows us this. The body is to be given up "a living sacrifice" to God. The body is the instrument of the spirit; and this so completely that, if it be laid hold of for Him, there is no part of the practical life but must, of necessity, be His. The feet are used to walk at His bidding, the hands to employ ourselves in His things, the tongue to speak for Him and nothing else, the ear to hear His words; the eye also, so that whatever it looks upon, it will look upon as being under His control. It is plain that the whole life, thus, finds its government. The body indeed, as the apostle has shown us, is dead; but as dead it can yet be used in the power of the Spirit of God, which, as we have seen, is in it expressly for this purpose, to make it a temple for His praise. People put the citadel of practical life too far in, and even sometimes seem to think they exalt the spirit by ignoring the body; no matter what the ear hears or the eye looks upon, the spirit may be unaffected by that, which, of course, is true in one respect; but the eye affects the heart, and if we allow the eye to wander away from His control, we have allowed the enemy thus far and he has already gained a victory. Here, as we can understand, there is indeed the call for sacrifice. We need to deny ourselves as those who belong to Another, "a living sacrifice" indeed, in contrast with those sacrifices of the law which were sacrifices in death. This is in life, but a most real one, and such a sacrifice the yoke of Christ already implies for us; easy as His yoke may be, and light His burden, still it is a yoke, a restraint upon the mere natural inclinations. There was but One who answered fully to the type of the red heifer, upon which never came yoke, He who could say with the whole heart: "I come to do Thy will," with whom there was nothing else than this; for Him there could be no yoke. But yoke as there may be, and something in us, as we all shall confess, that needs to be restrained; yet the mercies of God, as we have already seen them displayed in the gospel, persuade us to this full surrender of ourselves, not as a hard, but a joyful subjection. What, indeed, is there of freedom compared with that of walking in ways that are ways of perfect holiness, but also of perfect love, where divine wisdom guides us continually and where divine power encompasses us and guards us? Thus it is "by the mercies of God" that the apostle beseeches Christians to offer up their bodies "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, an intelligent service."
But around us is a scene in opposition to us and to God. "The age," not "the world," is that which we are not to be conformed to. In a sense it is the world, but this seen in its control of the whole scene through which we move. The age is never Christian, even though Christianity is fully come, and we may be now living in lands which are called Christian; yet the god of "the age," as the word really is (2Co 4:4), is Satan. The strongest possible expression is used. He is not merely the prince, but the god of this age, and we can understand the difficulty that all this presents for us and the need we have of power working with and through us, greater than our own. Another thing. -it was in this age that we had our part naturally, and we need actually to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that is, by our minds being made entirely anew, in order to escape from it. "Renewal" is here not that which we need as realizing the wear and tear of things, the mere refreshment and revival of strength, but the actual production of another spirit and temper altogether. We need, therefore, as is plain, the word of God as that which alone can expose the subtle influences which are all around us and deliver us from the plausible deceptions which are abroad. "The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," a "discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." We need the double edge of it, the one for ourselves, allowing our thoughts and intents to be searched out by it; the other for what is objectively before us. How blessed to know that the proving of the will of God which will thus be effected will realize how good, acceptable and perfect that will is! There is an experience here which every soul in the least divinely taught knows well, an experience which has in it the most wonderful encouragement. How can we tell rightly what the divine way is except as we walk in it? Who that has walked in it, whatever the apparent severity of its requirements, but knows the blessedness of this?
2. Now we have, in the next place, service. Service to God is what, of course, is implied in what we have already had. Now this is made practical as service to our brother. "If we do not love our brother whom we have seen, how can we love God, whom we have not seen?" Our brother is thus the representative of God, of Him who is Father to us all; and the Church, as the body of Christ, of necessity means such a field of service. The apostle has not spoken of the Church, the epistle to the Romans does not enter upon this; but when we come to practice, the Church in fact exists, and it is the nearest thing to us that does exist. This, the apostle speaks of, therefore, at the very start, only he tells us that there is something we have to do in order to be fit for service in such a field as this. We must learn to esteem ourselves aright, "not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath given to each the measure of faith." Faith is not measured in the sense of its being so limited that it might possibly fail us for any work that is ours. Its limit is only found when we get outside our own sphere, and take up, perhaps, another’s work. We shall not find faith for that. Thus we have to learn our capacity; but here again we cannot learn this by simply looking in upon ourselves. We cannot estimate our capacity until we have in measure proved it, and that is how God leads us on, not only making us know the qualification for what service He has made ours, but developing in us also the gift which He has given. Love, of necessity, sets us to work: it is the spirit of service. Love alone will prompt us, in view of needs we find, to do what we can to minister to them. Here, if it be love, we are safeguarded also, for love is the lowliest thing that can be. It "seeketh not its own," and thus pride and ambition are necessarily foreign to it; they are its contradiction, its opposite. But as we are brought into contact with the need around, and in love seek to do whatever lowly service God may give us, we find in practical working what God has indeed fitted us for, and only in such a way is knowledge truly acquired. It is noticeable, when we come to the Gentiles, how the apostle here puts together things that are clearly "gifts" in the way in which we ordinarily speak, -public gifts for the Church, -and things that are of the most private character. Prophecy comes first; then ministry; a large and general term used for it, which has been ecclesiastically narrowed into "deaconship;" then teaching, exhortation, but next, giving, and after that, ruling and showing mercy. It is as if the apostle foresaw the distinctions which have in fact come in, and that Christians would divide into different classes upon these points. In the first case even, there is a character of prophecy which applies to the whole Church. "Ye may all prophesy," says the apostle elsewhere, "one by one;" and he adds, "Covet to prophesy." Again, if we are not all teachers, we may all teach, according to our ability. Exhortation is necessarily a thing wide enough in character and all ought to find their place here also. In fact, there is never a limit to the use of anything we have, except that we do not go beyond the measure of spiritual ability. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." As already said, love and lowliness, -and the two go together, -will find their way everywhere without difficulty. To dwell upon ourselves is not the divine preparation. Love leads us out of ourselves and occupies us with others, while indeed we do learn practically, as already said, what God has qualified us for, but we learn it in the presence of others and with the necessary safeguards which practical experience furnishes for us.
But let us notice now, that in the order here, prophecy comes first. No doubt the apostle has in contemplation especially what was the gift so needed at that time, and which filled out divine revelation to its present fulness; but we are not surely to confine it to this. The first place in which we find it should make us realize the blessed position we have in Christianity as thus brought near to God, and with the most ample opportunity and encouragement in learning His mind. As the prophet said of old: "God will do nothing, but He will make it known to His servants the prophets." And now, His full mind being made known to us in Christ, the practical possession of this, and in such a way as that we shall have a word for every emergency that can arise, is open to us all. The exhortation here is that men prophesy "according to the proportion of faith," words which have been variously taken; but we can understand that faith is the whole matter here, and that for us the word of God furnishes with all that faith has to do with. It will ever be in entire dependence upon this, which, of necessity, therefore, tests all that can be called such.
In the three next cases, the great point is to occupy ourselves with that which God has really entrusted to us. We may lose the practical possession of our gift to almost any extent, by failing to use it, and, in fact, how much ministry is thus lost to the Church! Timidity, lack of confidence in God, but which necessarily goes, therefore, with a lack, more or less, of that divine love which would make us forget ourselves and break through all barriers which are not of God Himself, -these things may make us to be really unconscious of what God has endowed us with, much more, of what He would lead us on to. For "to him that hath, shall more be given." Let him that teacheth, therefore, occupy himself with his teaching, a gift which is specially apt to be encroached upon by demands of another character. Teaching is naturally of slower development than, for instance, evangelizing. We need to acquire the knowledge which we are to use in this way; but how many things come in here to hinder even the proper furnishing with this knowledge! The order of acquirement that Peter gives us is: "Add to your faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge." "Virtue" is there the soldier’s virtue, -courage. It is that spirit of decision which at any cost carries us on. If all God’s various knowledge lies open before us, who would not desire to possess himself of it? But there is need for it to be practical, for God will not give that which is to be trifled with or hoarded up merely. He gives for use, and we must have courage to use it. It seems more difficult, perhaps, to realize how "be that exhorteth" is to occupy himself with exhortation. Exhortation, we say, can only be as the need arises, but still how many needs there are. How much, in fact, is before our eyes that we excuse ourselves, perhaps, from having to do with, -and the inventive faculty is great in making excuses. Exhortation is not, as we know, apt to be always an acceptable thing, and then again we have to guard our own spirits carefully with regard to it.
Next we have: "He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity." That has been variously put as liberality, but, in fact, the two things are very similar. A man that gives simply will do it liberally. The need will appeal to him and the love that is in him be aroused by the need; and true love is wise; there is no blindness about it. Divine love is, in fact, never separate from divine wisdom.
Next, we have "he that ruleth" or "he that leadeth." The leader is of necessity, to a large extent, the ruler also, but there is no absolute rule, except that of the Spirit in the church of God; but he that realizes that he is leading others has, of necessity, much responsibility attaching to this. If his word is weighty, he must be the more careful. The apostle says here, he must rule or lead "with diligence," that is, not careless of what he is doing, not at random, but as giving thought and care to that which is having effect upon the minds of others. The apostle closes here with, "he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness."* These are, of course, only specimens of how we are to use the gifts that are given to us, and the opportunity of showing mercy is itself, in a way, a gift.
{*Showing mercy, while a general term, is sufficiently definite for us to get its meaning. It does not mean forgiveness, or showing mercy in that sense, but rather all acts of kindness and charity -as illustrated by the good Samaritan. This mercy is to be shown, not grudgingly but "with cheerfulness," "hilarity" as the word literally is -a kind of exhibition of that "merry heart which doeth good like a medicine." It need hardly be said that this is farthest removed from a worldly levity which would grieve the Spirit of God. -S.R.}
3. Next comes what we shall realize more as fruit in holiness. That word "fruit," which we do not find here, we shall find in Galatians in a striking connection (Gal 5:22, comp. ver. 19). Here we have the fruit of the Spirit in contrast with the works of the flesh. Activity is not necessarily fruit, as we must easily realize. Fruit is a growth, the product of life, and which needs nurture and maturing in order to be right and ripe. There is a unity about it which in work there is not. In how many directions the flesh may work, even religiously; but fruit in holiness cannot be mistaken for this. Here the apostle’s first word is that which brings us to the heart of the matter. Love is the divine nature. It is, in a sense, the whole thing, but then we make so many mistakes about it, that we need to have this carefully guarded. Love itself abhors that which is evil, cleaves to that which is good. You cannot, in fact, cleave to what is good without abhorring the evil which is its opposite. Then, how much there is in the world of the affectation of love, an outside show of it which may deceive even, not merely others, but one’s self also. How often we mistake in our estimation of the reality of the love we have to others. People are necessary to us, they minister to our pleasure. We appreciate that, value them in a sense, and call this love, but "love seeketh not her own." It does not claim, but ministers. The love, here again, is brotherly love. The apostle is not traveling beyond that at the present moment; and again we see how self-denying it is, all the more, perhaps, because it does not dream that it is self-denial. "In honor preferring one another," ready to give that which others might suppose to be our own due. All this clearly connects together.
The next clause has been much abused, and misunderstanding has arisen from the way in which words in course of time alter their meaning. "Business" we so naturally refer to our temporal occupations; these are the things, in fact, in which men commonly and necessarily, as they believe, are most "busy," but the word simply means "diligence": "In diligence not slothful." There is a way in which we may be busy about things without real diligence. All is to be earnest with us, we are to be "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." The character of the One we serve should be enough to enforce that. No detail of duty to Him can be a light matter.
Next we have "rejoicing in hope." Alas, how the present, with its calls and duties, may interfere with that! We need continually to have our heads up and to be contemplating the unseen realities which are ours. Here we have a material for rejoicing which will never fail us, and which will carry us, as the apostle reminds us here, through tribulation itself. "In tribulation enduring"; still not without the need of realizing our dependence upon the One who carries us, and therefore "in prayer persevering." We need to realize that the prayer which may seem little effective, has nevertheless, always its answer from God. It may not be, of course, just in the way in which we imagine, but answered in some way, it surely will be.
Next we have, "communicating to the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality." A glance now, at the outside, hostile world is given us, and yet may the exhortation be always confined to that? "Bless them that persecute you, bless and curse not." There are, alas, here also forms of persecution which may find their place even in the ranks of the saints. With all this, we are not to be shut up in ourselves. We are to "rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep." How much of joy is open to us in this way of which we do not, in fact, avail ourselves, and how much of sorrow do we shut ourselves out from, when it is just the school which God would make fruitful for ourselves! Then we are to have "same mind one towards another," an equal mind, without regard of persons. "Not affecting high things, but consorting with the lowly." That, of course, goes with this, this equal mind towards all: one who seeks high things for himself cannot practice it. "Be not wise," he adds, "in your own eyes."
Finally, as realizing the strife that is going on between good and evil, we are to abide in the good, assured that here is that which alone can overcome it. "Evil for evil" can never overcome evil. We are to be careful to have," things right before all men," as the word here means, so as to give no occasion to the adversary. As to one’s own spirit, as far as it depends upon us, (as we familiarly say, "It takes two to make a quarrel,") we are to be "at peace with all men." Nothing can invade this sanctuary of ours unless we open it to the invasion. The spirit of revenge will surely do this. On the contrary, we are to give place unto wrath, not meet it with wrath, for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord."* We must not take the judge’s place, and we must not desire to do so. Love is still that which overcomes here. "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."
{*The above is not the ordinary interpretation of this clause, though it seems to be the true one. Most commentators interpret it by what follows, "Give place to (God’s) wrath, for vengeance is Mine." That is, wait on God who will execute vengeance in due time. But this is hardly in accord with a Christian spirit, which desires neither its own nor divine vengeance. The simple and natural thought would be that of yielding, turning the other cheek to the smiter. -S.R.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19
Romans
THE SACRIFICE OF THE BODY
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Rom 12:1.
In the former part of this letter the Apostle has been building up a massive fabric of doctrine, which has stood the waste of centuries, and the assaults of enemies, and has been the home of devout souls. He now passes to speak of practice, and he binds the two halves of his letter indissolubly together by that significant ‘therefore,’ which does not only look back to the thing last said, but to the whole of the preceding portion of the letter. ‘What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’ Christian living is inseparably connected with Christian believing. Possibly the error of our forefathers was in cutting faith too much loose from practice, and supposing that an orthodox creed was sufficient, though I think the extent to which they did suppose that has been very much exaggerated. The temptation of this day is precisely the opposite. ‘Conduct is three-fourths of life,’ says one of our teachers. Yes. But what about the fourth fourth which underlies conduct? Paul’s way is the right way. Lay broad and deep the foundations of God’s facts revealed to us, and then build upon that the fabric of a noble life. This generation superficially tends to cut practice loose from faith, and so to look for grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. Wrong thinking will not lead to right doing. ‘I beseech you, therefore, brethren, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.’
The Apostle, in beginning his practical exhortations, lays as the foundations of them all two companion precepts: one, with which we have to deal, affecting mainly the outward life; its twin sister, which follows in the next verse, affecting mainly the inward life. He who has drunk in the spirit of Paul’s doctrinal teaching will present his body a living sacrifice, and be renewed in the spirit of his mind; and thus, outwardly and inwardly, will be approximating to God’s ideal, and all specific virtues will be his in germ. Those two precepts lay down the broad outline, and all that follow in the way of specific commandments is but filling in its details.
I. We observe that we have here, first, an all-inclusive directory for the outward life.
Now, it is to be noticed that the metaphor of sacrifice runs through the whole of the phraseology of my text. The word rendered ‘present’ is a technical expression for the sacerdotal action of offering. A tacit contrast is drawn between the sacrificial ritual, which was familiar to Romans as well as Jews, and the true Christian sacrifice and service. In the former a large portion of the sacrifices consisted of animals which were slain. Ours is to be ‘a living sacrifice.’ In the former the offering was presented to the Deity, and became His property. In the Christian service, the gift passes, in like manner, from the possession of the worshipper, and is set apart for the uses of God, for that is the proper meaning of the word ‘holy.’ The outward sacrifice gave an odour of a sweet smell, which, by a strong metaphor, was declared to be fragrant in the nostrils of Deity. In like manner, the Christian sacrifice is ‘acceptable unto God.’ These other sacrifices were purely outward, and derived no efficacy from the disposition of the worshipper. Our sacrifice, though the material of the offering be corporeal, is the act of the inner man, and so is called ‘rational’ rather than ‘reasonable,’ as our Version has it, or as in other parts of Scripture, ‘spiritual.’ And the last word of my text, ‘service,’ retains the sacerdotal allusion, because it does not mean the service of a slave or domestic, but that of a priest.
And so the sum of the whole is that the master-word for the outward life of a Christian is sacrifice. That, again, includes two things-self-surrender and surrender to God.
Now, Paul was not such a superficial moralist as to begin at the wrong end, and talk about the surrender of the outward life, unless as the result of the prior surrender of the inward, and that priority of the consecration of the man to his offering of the body is contained in the very metaphor. For a priest needs to be consecrated before he can offer, and we in our innermost wills, in the depths of our nature, must be surrendered and set apart to God ere any of our outward activities can be laid upon His altar. The Apostle, then, does not make the mistake of substituting external for internal surrender, but he presupposes that the latter has preceded. He puts the sequence more fully in the parallel passage in this very letter: ‘Yield yourselves unto God, and your bodies as instruments of righteousness unto Him.’ So, then, first of all, we must be priests by our inward consecration, and then, since ‘a priest must have somewhat to offer,’ we must bring the outward life and lay it upon His altar.
Now, of the two thoughts which I have said are involved in this great keyword, the former is common to Christianity, with all noble systems of morality, whether religious or irreligious. It is a commonplace, on which I do not need to dwell, that every man who will live a man’s life, and not that of a beast, must sacrifice the flesh, and rigidly keep it down. But that commonplace is lifted into an altogether new region, assumes a new solemnity, and finds new power for its fulfilment when we add to the moralist’s duty of control of the animal and outward nature the other thought, that the surrender must be to God.
There is no need for my dwelling at any length on the various practical directions in which this great exhortation must be wrought out. It is of more importance, by far, to have well fixed in our minds and hearts the one dominant thought that sacrifice is the keyword of the Christian life than to explain the directions in which it applies. But still, just a word or two about these. There are three ways in which we may look at the body, which the Apostle here says is to be yielded up unto God.
It is the recipient of impressions from without. There is a field for consecration. The eye that looks upon evil, and by the look has rebellious, lustful, sensuous, foul desires excited in the heart, breaks this solemn law. The eye that among the things seen dwells with complacency on the pure, and turns from the impure as if a hot iron had been thrust into its pupil; that in the things seen discerns shimmering behind them, and manifested through them, the things unseen and eternal, is the consecrated eye. ‘Art for Art’s sake,’ to quote the cant of the day, has too often meant art for the flesh’s sake. And there are pictures and books, and sights of various sorts, flashed before the eyes of you young men and women which it is pollution to dwell upon, and should be pain to remember. I beseech you all to have guard over these gates of the heart, and to pray, ‘Turn away mine eyes from viewing vanity.’ And the other senses, in like manner, have need to be closely connected with God if they are not to rush us down to the devil.
The body is not only the recipient of impressions. It is the possessor of appetites and necessities. See to it that these are indulged, with constant reference to God. It is no small attainment of the Christian life ‘to eat our meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.’ In a hundred directions this characteristic of our corporeal lives tends to lead us all away from supreme consecration to Him. There is the senseless luxury of this generation. There is the exaggerated care for physical strength and completeness amongst the young; there is the intemperance in eating and drinking, which is the curse and the shame of England. There is the provision for the flesh, the absorbing care for the procuring of material comforts, which drowns the spirit in miserable anxieties, and makes men bond-slaves. There is the corruption which comes from drunkenness and from lust. There is the indolence which checks lofty aspirations and stops a man in the middle of noble work. And there are many other forms of evil on which I need not dwell, all of which are swept clean out of the way when we lay to heart this injunction: ‘I beseech you present your bodies a living sacrifice,’ and let appetites and tastes and corporeal needs be kept in rigid subordination and in conscious connection with Him. I remember a quaint old saying of a German schoolmaster, who apostrophised his body thus: ‘I go with you three times a day to eat; you must come with me three times a day to pray.’ Subjugate the body, and let it be the servant and companion of the devout spirit.
It is also, besides being the recipient of impressions, and the possessor of needs and appetites, our instrument for working in the world. And so the exhortation of my text comes to include this, that all our activities done by means of brain and eye and tongue and hand and foot shall be consciously devoted to Him, and laid as a sacrifice upon His altar. That pervasive, universally diffused reference to God, in all the details of daily life, is the thing that Christian men and women need most of all to try to cultivate. ‘Pray without ceasing,’ says the Apostle. This exhortation can only be obeyed if our work is indeed worship, being done by God’s help, for God’s sake, in communion with God.
So, dear friends, sacrifice is the keynote-meaning thereby surrender, control, and stimulus of the corporeal frame, surrender to God, in regard to the impressions which we allow to be made upon our senses, to the indulgence which we grant to our appetites, and the satisfaction which we seek for our needs, and to the activities which we engage in by means of this wondrous instrument with which God has trusted us. These are the plain principles involved in the exhortation of my text. ‘He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.’ ‘I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.’ It is a good servant; it is a bad master.
II. Note, secondly, the relation between this priestly service and other kinds of worship.
I need only say a word about that. Paul is not meaning to depreciate the sacrificial ritual, from which he drew his emblem. But he is meaning to assert that the devotion of a life, manifested through bodily activity, is higher in its nature than the symbolical worship of any altar and of any sacrifice. And that falls in with prevailing tendencies in this day, which has laid such a firm hold on the principle that daily conduct is better than formal worship, that it has forgotten to ask the question whether the daily conduct is likely to be satisfactory if the formal worship is altogether neglected. I believe, as profoundly as any man can, that the true worship is distinguishable from and higher than the more sensuous forms of the Catholic or other sacramentarian churches, or the more simple of the Puritan and Nonconformist, or the altogether formless of the Quaker. I believe that the best worship is the manifold activities of daily life laid upon God’s altar, so that the division between things secular and things sacred is to a large extent misleading and irrelevant. But at the same time I believe that you have very little chance of getting this diffused and all-pervasive reference of all a man’s doings to God unless there are, all through his life, recurring with daily regularity, reservoirs of power, stations where he may rest, kneeling-places where the attitude of service is exchanged for the attitude of supplication; times of quiet communion with God which shall feed the worshipper’s activities as the white snowfields on the high summits feed the brooks that sparkle by the way, and bring fertility wherever they run. So, dear brethren, remember that whilst life is the field of worship there must be the inward worship within the shrine if there is to be the outward service.
III. Lastly, note the equally comprehensive motive and ground of this all-inclusive directory for conduct.
‘I beseech you, by the mercies of God.’ That plural does not mean that the Apostle is extending his view over the whole wide field of the divine beneficence, but rather that he is contemplating the one all-inclusive mercy about which the former part of his letter has been eloquent-viz. the gift of Christ-and contemplating it in the manifoldness of the blessings which flow from it. The mercies of God which move a man to yield himself as a sacrifice are not the diffused beneficences of His providence, but the concentrated love that lies in the person and work of His Son.
And there, as I believe, is the one motive to which we can appeal with any prospect of its being powerful enough to give the needful impetus all through a life. The sacrifice of Christ is the ground on which our sacrifices can be offered and accepted, for it was the sacrifice of a death propitiatory and cleansing, and on it, as the ancient ritual taught us, may be reared the enthusiastic sacrifice of a life-a thankoffering for it.
Nor is it only the ground on which our sacrifice is accepted, but it is the great motive by which our sacrifice is impelled. There is the difference between the Christian teaching, ‘present your bodies a sacrifice,’ and the highest and noblest of similar teaching elsewhere. One of the purest and loftiest of the ancient moralists was a contemporary of Paul’s. He would have re-echoed from his heart the Apostle’s directory, but he knew nothing of the Apostle’s motive. So his exhortations were powerless. He had no spell to work on men’s hearts, and his lofty teachings were as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Whilst Seneca taught, Rome was a cesspool of moral putridity and Nero butchered. So it always is. There may be noble teachings about self-control, purity, and the like, but an evil and adulterous generation is slow to dance to such piping.
Our poet has bid us-
‘Move upwards, casting out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.’
But how is this heavy bulk of ours to ‘move upwards’; how is the beast to be ‘cast out’; how are the ‘ape and tiger’ in us to be slain? Paul has told us, ‘By the mercies of God.’ Christ’s gift, meditated on, accepted, introduced into will and heart, is the one power that will melt our obstinacy, the one magnet that will draw us after it.
Nothing else, brethren, as your own experience has taught you, and as the experience of the world confirms, nothing else will bind Behemoth, and put a hook in his nose. Apart from the constraining motive of the love of Christ, all the cords of prudence, conscience, advantage, by which men try to bind their unruly passions and manacle the insisting flesh, are like the chains on the demoniac’s wrists-’And he had oftentimes been bound by chains, and the chains were snapped asunder.’ But the silken leash with which the fair Una in the poem leads the lion, the silken leash of love will bind the strong man, and enable us to rule ourselves. If we will open our hearts to the sacrifice of Christ, we shall be able to offer ourselves as thankofferings. If we will let His love sway our wills and consciences, He will give our wills and consciences power to master and to offer up our flesh. And the great change, according to which He will one day change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory, will be begun in us, if we live under the influence of the motive and the commandment which this Apostle bound together in our text and in his other great words, ‘Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and spirit, which are His.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Conseceated Life. The Law of Love
The Conseceated Life. The Law of Love
The doctrinal part of the Epistle being finished, St. Paul now turns to practical exhortation. God's mercy, shown in the gospel set forth in the previous chapters, calls for the sacrifice of ourselves to do His will (Rom_12:1-2), by the humble and devoted use of God's spiritual gifts (Rom_12:3-8), and in love (Rom_12:9-21).
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1-21. Paraphrase. '(1) God's redeeming love should be answered by the true sacrifice and spiritual ritual service of a life of purity and self-denial and work for God. (2) Do not follow the fashions and customs of the worldly society around you, but let your ways of thinking be so changed by the Holy Spirit that you look for and recognise God's will, and love to do it. (3) So, although the world does not value humility, as God's Apostle I charge every one of you to be contented to do that work in the Church for which God has fitted him. (4, 5) The Christian Society is like a body; each individual has his particular function; while the welfare of the whole depends upon how he performs it. (6) Let us all learn, then, from our different gifts, what it is God's will that we should do. If your gift is prophecy, speak what God Himself has taught you; (7, 8) and whatever your gift, use it to the best of your power. (9) As to other matters of conduct; let your love be sincere; have strong moral principles; (10) as one family in Christ be affectionate to one another; let each regard others as more fit for honours than himself; (11) be diligent, fervent, devoted to the Lord's work, (12) joyfully expectant of future glory, brave in affliction, unflagging in prayer, (13) generous and hospitable. (14) Bless your persecutors; (15) be sympathising; (16) enter into one another's desires and aims; do not aim at high place or honour for yourself, but be content with the humble duties that come in your way. (17) Never retaliate. Avoid even the appearance of dishonourable conduct. (18) Live at peace with every one, so far as peace is in your own power. (19) If any man wrong you, leave it to God to punish him.. (20) Do him good, and you will make him ashamed of his enmity. (21) Do not let the wickedness of others provoke evil passions in you, but conquer their wickedness by doing them good.'
1. Living sacrifice] as opposed to the sacrifice of a slain beast: cp. Rom_6:13. Reasonable] i.e. an act of the reason.
2. Conformed to] RV 'fashioned according to.' 'Fashion' implies external resemblance, 'form,' essential nature: cp. Php_2:6. World] lit. 'Æon,' or 'age.' The Jews called the Messianic age 'the age to come,' as contrasted with 'this age': cp. Mat_12:32; Luk_20:34; Eph_1:21. At present, considered as the kingdoms of Christ and of the world, the two ages co-exist.
3. Grace] cp. Rom_1:5. Faith] Faith is God's gift, and is of differing power and character, carrying with it differing 'gifts' (Rom_12:6), i.e. capacities of Christian service.
5. One body] cp. 1Co_12:12.; Eph_4:15.; Col_1:18.
6. Gifts] see on Rom_1:13. Is] RV 'was,' i.e. when the Holy Spirit was received. Prophecy] i.e. inspired speaking, whether foretelling the future, or unfolding spiritual truth: cp. Act_11:28; 1Co_12:28; 1Co_14:1; Eph_2:20; Eph_3:5; Eph_4:11. Proportion of faith] RV 'proportion of our faith,' i.e. in proportion to the revelation the prophet's faith has received.
7. Ministry] i.e. the service of others: cp. Mar_10:45 sometimes any Christian office: cp. Rom_11:13 sometimes, as here, attendance on temporal wants: cp. Act_6:1; 1Co_16:15; 2Co_8:4.
8. Simplicity] i.e. without selfish aim; RV 'liberality.' Ruleth] lit. 'presideth,' i.e. in the Church or the family: cp. 1Th_5:12; 1Ti_3:4.; 1Ti_5:17.
9. Dissimulation] RV 'hypocrisy.
10. RV 'In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another.'
11. RV 'In diligence not slothful'; 'diligence' =zeal, moral earnestness, not merely in temporal affairs.
12. Instant] RV 'stedfastly.'
13. Distributing] RV 'communicating,' i.e. sharing your goods: cp. Act_2:42.
Saints] RV 'the saints,' i.e. Christians, God's people. Hospitality] The various Churches were linked by the visits of accredited messengers: cp. Heb_13:2; 1Ti_3:2; 1Pe_4:9; 2Jn_1:10; 3Jn_1:5.
14. Cp. Mat_5:44.
16. Men of low estate] RV 'things that are lowly.'
17. Provide] RV 'take thought for.' Honest] RV 'honourable.'
19. Give place unto wrath] i.e. leave room for God's wrath to execute the vengeance deserved. Do not usurp the prerogative of God. Wrath] i.e. the wrath of God: cp. Rom_5:9. Written] Deu_32:35.
20. From Pro_25:21.
Coals of fire] i.e. melt him into shame, as a furnace melts metals.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1–21 [The theme of this great Epistle is that "the…
[The theme of this great Epistle is that "the righteous shall live by faith" ( Rom_1:17 ), and its grand conclusion is that those who seek life this way find it, and all who seek it in other ways fail ( Rom_9:30-33 ). But the popular way of seeking it was by obeying the precepts of the great moral or Mosaic law. If, then, Paul's letter overthrows all trust in morality, of what use is morality? And what bearing has his doctrine on life? May one live as he pleases and still be saved by his faith? Such are the questions which have ever arisen in men's minds on first acquaintance with this merciful and gracious doctrine. The carnal mind's first impulse on hearing the publication of grace is to abuse grace ( Rom_6:1 . Comp. Jam_2:14-26 ). Anticipating the questionings and tendencies of the weak and sinful natures of his readers, Paul proceeds to first define the life of faith ( Rom_12:1-2 ). It is a sanctified, sacrificial life. He then illustrates the workings of this sanctified life in the two grand spheres of its activities, the spiritual kingdom of God or the church ( Rom_12:3-8 ) and the civil kingdom of the world ( Rom_12:9-21 ). But the faith-life is not defined didactically, but in an impassioned, hortatory manner, for Paul is not content that his hearers should know theoretically what it is; he wishes them to have experimental knowledge of it, to actually live it. In fact, it has been for the purpose of making the exhortation of this section that all the previous chapters have been written, for no Bible doctrine is a barren speculation, but a life-root, developed that it may bear fruit in the lives of those who read it. And here is the hortatory definition of the faith-life.] XII. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [more correctly, "logical"] service . [I entreat you, brethren, in the light of all that I have written you about this faith-life, making as the motive or ground of my appeal to you these mercies of God1 which purchased for you the privilege of this life by the death of his Son ( Rom_3:23-24 ), which pardoned your iniquities that you might receive it ( Rom_3:25-26 ), which cast out his chosen people that your access to it might not be hindered ( Rom_11:12 ), etc., etc., that you continuously consecrate your lives to God as living thank and peace offerings, keeping them ever holy and acceptable to God, which is the service you should logically render in the light of the truth presented to you and comprehended by you. The word "mercies" here used (oiktermos) is a stronger word than that (eleos) used in verbal form in the eleventh chapter, expressing the tenderest compassion. God's main mercies in the gospel are of that sort. If we are not saved by works, why is sacrifice demanded? The answer was plain to the Jew. Of the four sacrifices demanded by the law, two were offered before propitiation and to obtain it. These were the sin and trespass offerings. Christ, who is our propitiation, offered these expiatory sacrifices for believers, so that they are pardoned, justified and saved not by their own merit, no matter what their sacrifice, but are redeemed by his purchase in the offering of his priceless blood, and saved by his merit as acknowledged by the Father. If the Jewish program of sacrifices had stopped here, there would have been no Biblical symbolism showing that Christians are called upon to do anything in a sacrificial way. But there were two other sacrifices offered after propitiation and expiation. These were the burnt-offering, offered as an act of worship daily and also on occasions of joy and thanksgiving ( 2Ch_29:31-32 ), and the peace-offerings, which spoke of restored fellowship and communion with God. Now, the faith-life was exempted from the expiatory or sin and trespass offerings by the cross of Christ, but it was not relieved of the burnt and peace offerings, the former of which required that the entire carcass of the victim be consumed in the flame ( Exo_29:38-42 ; Num_28:3-8 ) as a symbol of the entire consecration of the offerer or devotee to the service of God, for the life of the offering stood for his own life.2 Here, then, is the true basis or foundation principle on which the faith-life rests. Here is the supreme fundamental law which must govern its every action. Though the purposes and motives of its sacrifice may be changed so that expiation gives place to thanksgiving and communion, yet it is still essentially and intrinsically a consecrated, sacrificial life, and is as far removed from antinomianism as it was when under the Mosaic law. The force of this marvelous instruction is not weakened, but rather strengthened, by being couched in hortatory form. Let us note, in passing, the continuousness of sacrifice implied by the term "living." The animal sacrifice was over and ended when its body was consumed. If perfect and accepted as without blemish, then ( Deu_15:21 ; Deu_17:1 ; Lev_1:3 ; Lev_1:10 ; Lev_3:1 ; Lev_22:20 ; Mal_1:8 ), it had passed all danger or possibility of future rejection at God's hands. But not so the Christian's sacrifice. In presenting himself he is to "reckon himself dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus" ( Rom_6:11-13 ). For the Christian's dying leads at once to his being alive ( Rom_6:2 ; Rom_7:4 ; Gal_2:19-20 ; Col_2:20 ; Col_3:5-10 ; 1Pe_2:5 ), and therefore, as Bengel says, "it is an abomination to offer a dead carcass." The Christian, therefore, as a living, never-to-be-recalled sacrifice, is required to keep up and perpetuate his holiness and acceptability, as "an odor of a sweet smell" ( Eph_5:2 ; Phi_4:18 ; Lev_1:9 ), lest he become a castaway. For this reason Paul lays emphasis on the "body," as the corpus or substance of the sacrifice, for our fleshly nature is spoken of in Scripture as the seat of sin, which is to be transformed into a temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ( 1Co_6:19-20 ). Moreover, this direct reference to the body corrects the heresy that the faith-life is purely mental or spiritual, and devoid of bodily sacrifice or works ( Gal_5:13 ; Jam_2:14-26 ). "How," asks Chrysostom, "can the body become a sacrifice? Let the eye look on no evil, and it is a sacrifice. Let the tongue utter nothing base, and it is an offering. Let the hand work no sin, and it is a holocaust. But more, this suffices not, but, besides, we must actively exert ourselves for good; the hand giving alms, the mouth blessing them that curse us, the ear ever at leisure for listening to God." Moreover, the sacrifice of the body includes that of mind, soul and spirit, for "bodily sacrifice is an ethical act" (Meyer). The comment of Barnes on this verse is very practical. "Men," says he, "are not to invent services; or to make crosses; or seek persecutions and trials; or provoke opposition." Romish and Mohammedan pilgrimages, Catholic and Oriental penances, thorn-beds, juggernauts, flagellations, and man-made ordinances of sacrifice, are worthless ( Col_2:20-23 ). Moreover, the designs of many to wait till sickness or old age overtakes them before presenting their sacrifice are misplaced, for such conduct is analogous to presenting the maimed and halt and blind to God. Finally, it is taught elsewhere, and so it is indeed true that the Christian's sacrifice is a "spiritual [pneumatike] service" ( Phi_3:3 ; 1Pe_2:5 ; cf. Joh_4:24 ), but the apostle has here conveyed that idea in the word "living," and he does not repeat the thought. Hence he does not say pneumatiken service, but logiken service, or, literally, logical or rational service. Logiken links itself with "therefore" at the opening of the sentence. Therefore your logical service (the one rationally expected of you by reason of the truths revealed in this Epistle, especially chapter 6) is to present your bodies, etc. In short, the very purpose for which the apostle wrote this Epistle was to convince his readers that they must render this service, and this exhortation enforces that conclusion.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 9 mercies i.e. The "mercies" described in Rom 3:22; Rom…
mercies i.e. The "mercies" described in Rom 3:22; Rom 8:39.
service (Greek - τέκνον, trans). "divine service," Heb 9:1.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Chapters 12-16.
III. EXHORTATIONS AND THE CONCLUSION.
Chapters 12-16.
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CHAPTER 12
1. The Body as a Willing Sacrifice. (Rom 12:1-2.)
2. Service. (Rom 12:3-8.)
3. The Daily Walk in Holiness. (Rom 12:9-21.)
Rom 12:1-2.
Grace calls for obedience. After God has made known the riches of His grace, the fulness of the Gospel, His Spirit shows how believers should walk in a world of sin and tribulation. The first thing is to present the body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. This connects with the truth of Rom 6:19, “yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” “The body is the instrument of the spirit; and this so completely, that, if it be laid hold for Him, there is no part of the practical life but must, of necessity, be His. The feet are used to walk at His bidding, the hands to employ ourselves in His things, the tongue to speak for Him and nothing else, the ear to hear His words; the eye also, so that whatever it looks upon, it will look upon as being under His control” (Numerical Bible). It is plain that the whole life thus finds its government.” And this yielding of the body, giving it as a living sacrifice, is our intelligent service. It is the needful thing so that all which is written in the sixth chapter may become a practical thing in our lives. Is this presentation of the body as a living sacrifice an act done once for all (as some teach), or is it a daily yielding? It must be done continually. And it becomes possible to go on presenting the body thus, under all circumstances, if we remember the mercies of God, what God in Christ has done for us and in what a wonderful position He has put us in His own Son. But it needs constant watchfulness, prayer, meditation on the Word and self-judgment.
In doing this the believer will be able to carry out the exhortation, “be not conformed to this world (age).” A soul in touch with Christ, knowing the mercies of God in redemption, cannot enjoy the world. Well has it been said “true joy in the Lord renders the soul in which it dwells incapable of enjoying what the world esteems pleasure. Natural pleasures are the solace of that which is essentially alien of God.” The present age is evil and Christ died to deliver us from this present evil age. Satan is the god of this age. It is not controlled by the Spirit of God. Therefore friendship with the world, conformity to it, is enmity to the cross of Christ. Separation from it is God’s demand, for the cross of Christ has made us dead to the world and the world dead unto us. We must be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This is the work of the Spirit of God in us. The inward man is to be renewed day by day (2Co 4:16); and this will be so as we daily present our bodies as the living sacrifice.
Rom 12:3-8
Service is mentioned next. This is to be rendered in humility and according to the measure of faith as God has dealt to every man, who is a believer. Here the body, that is, the church, is touched upon. In first Corinthians and Ephesians the truth concerning the church and the different gifts is more fully revealed. All believers are members of that body, and as in the human body not all members have the same office, so in the one body there are different gifts bestowed by grace. Each must take his place given to him in that body and render the service unto which he is called and thus demonstrate the divine truth, that we are one body in Christ, and individually members one of the other. Ministry in the Word stands first and there is also ministry in other ways. The latter are, giving, ruling (or leading) and showing mercy. Giving is to be in simplicity (or liberality); ruling is to be in diligence and showing mercy in cheerfulness. The emphasis here is not so much upon the different gifts as it is upon the faithful exercise of the gift.
Rom 12:9-21
The daily walk in holiness is unfolded in these verses. These are precious exhortations and every Christian should read them often and order his daily life accordingly. Love stands first, for it is the great essential of the divine nature. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him (1Jn 4:16). It is to be unfeigned. Love seeketh not her own and therefore we are to prefer in honor one another. “Not slothful in business” is often misunderstood and many have thought it means devotion to a secular business. But the correct translation is, “In diligence, not slothful.” Then there is rejoicing in hope, patience in suffering, prayer, sympathy with others and many other blessed things into which we cannot enter in detail. The child of God desires all these things and the Spirit of God is with us to produce these blessed fruits in our lives.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 9, 17 The Christian’s Life a Reasonable Service to God. 12:1-21
The Christian’s Life a Reasonable Service to God. 12:1-21
The fundamental exhortation:
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v. 1. 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.
v. 2. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Paul has finished the first part of his letter to the Romans, the doctrinal section. He has described the manifold and varied manifestations of divine compassion and mercy to men, of God’s searching love in the midst of disobedience and ungratefulness. On the basis of this manifestation of God’s love the apostle now adds the practical part of his epistle. Now, or, therefore, I beseech you. His entire exhortation is based upon the facts contained in the exposition of his thesis, chap. 1:16-17, upon the facts of man’s justification, sanctification, salvation. He does not write: I command you, but: I beseech, call upon, ask, admonish, beg you. His is evangelical exhortation, not the demanding of the Law. The matters which he discusses are such as bring the Christian’s life into conformity with the holy will of God, but not in the sense that the works, in themselves, merit salvation. He calls the Christians at Rome brethren, as children with him of the same heavenly Father and therefore under willing obligation to Him at all times and in all things. Through the mercies of God the apostle admonishes and beseeches. What he had written till now had been a proclamation, a praise of the many evidences and manifestations of the mercy of God, of His grace in Christ Jesus. This unmerited grace of God, His unsearchable riches of mercy which the readers have experienced in their own hearts and lives, that is the proper motive and incentive for a Christian mode of living. "He does not say: I command you; for he preaches to them that are already Christians and pious through faith in the new man, that are not to be forced with commandments, but to be admonished willingly to do what is to be done with the sinful old man. For whosoever does not do it willingly, on the basis of kind admonition only, is no Christian: and he that forces it with laws out of those that are unwilling is even then no longer a Christian preacher or ruler, but a worldly jailer. Who, therefore, does not permit himself to be incited and coaxed with such sweet and lovely words of the mercy of God, given to us in Christ in such an immeasurable quantity, that he also do thus with desire and love, to the honor of God and for the good of his neighbor, is nothing, and everything is lost in his case... It is not the mercy of men, but God’s mercy that is given us, and which St. Paul wants to have us regard, to incite and to move us."
The apostle admonishes the Christians, first of all, to set forth, to present their bodies as a living sacrifice. See Rom 6:12; Rom 13:14. Their bodies, their physical organism with all its members, are to be devoted to the service of God. The Christians offer their bodies as a sacrifice to God if they do not look upon them as their own property to use or abuse as they see fit, but always consider them as the instruments of God’s holy will. In this way the bodies of the Christians are living sacrifices, their whole life is spent in the service of the Lord, and all the acts of all their members are to be good works. And therefore these sacrifices are also holy, separated unto God, devoted to God, having the hallowing of His name as their object, and acceptable, well-pleasing to God, who takes a great delight in them. And incidentally the entire offering of this sacrifice, throughout the life of a Christian, is a reasonable service, a cult, or worship, of God, seeking His honor only, made with the spirit or mind, as controlled by the Spirit of God. Thus the service which a Christian offers to God in yielding all his members to do the holy will of God is not a dead and formal ritualism, but is a cult, a worship of the spirit, the mind being ceaselessly active in planning and thinking how the body with all its members may live for the honor of God.
The same thought is now offered from another side: And be not conformed to this world, but assume a different form through the renewing of your mind, that ye seek to find out what is the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect. The Christian’s habit, behavior, his entire way of comporting himself, must not agree with the present world, with the behavior of people that live for this world only, Gal 1:4; Eph 2:1; 2Co 4:4. Believers will under no circumstances accommodate themselves to the evil customs, habits, practices that are in use in the world. Because they have been, so far as their inner man, their heart and soul, is concerned, removed from the world, because they are no longer of the world, though still living in the world, therefore they will assume a different character and appearance in the world. This they will do through the renewal of their mind, through the change in their hearts, which begins in conversion and continues through their whole life, since the battle between flesh and spirit must be carried on without intermission. The change in the external character and habit of a man is the result of the inner change. And so the Christian’s unceasing concern is to examine carefully, to try to find out always what the will of God is, that is, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect in His eyes. Natural man has only one idea and concern, namely, to do that which pleases his sinful flesh. But a Christian, in spite of the fact that his ability and his performance do not measure up to his willingness, yet is active, indefatigable in making a study of the will of God from the revelation in Scriptures, and then in practicing the knowledge thus gained in all conditions of life, under all, circumstances, toward every person in the world. Such conduct and behavior is the real character of the Christians, helping them to attain the real end and purpose of their being in the world.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 19 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul tells what the life of a believer should be and how believers should serve.
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I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God
Here "brothers" refers to fellow believers, both male and female. AT: "Fellow believers, because of the great mercy that God has given you I very much want you" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
to present your bodies a living sacrifice
Here Paul uses the word "bodies" to refer to the whole person. Paul is comparing a believer in Christ who completely obeys God to the animals that the Jews killed and then offered to God. AT: "to offer yourselves completely to God while you are alive as if you were a dead sacrifice on a temple altar" (See: Synecdoche and Metaphor)
holy, acceptable to God
Possible meanings are 1) "a sacrifice that you give to God alone and that pleases him" or 2) "acceptable to God because it is morally pure" (See: Doublet)
This is your reasonable service
"This is the right way to worship God"
Do not be conformed to this world
Possible meanings are 1) "Do not behave as the world behaves" or 2) "Do not think the way the world does." (See: Metaphor)
Do not be conformed
Possible meanings are 1) "Do not let the world tell you what to do and think" or 2) "Do not allow yourself to act and do what the world does." (See: Active or Passive)
this world
This refers to unbelievers who live in the world. (See: Metonymy)
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "but let God change the way you think and behave" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
brother
mercy
God
body
life
sacrifice
holy
servant
world
good
perfect
will of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20 12:1–15:13 This section of Romans sets out the moral…
12:1–15:13 This section of Romans sets out the moral and ethical demands of the Good News. God’s gift of salvation in Christ requires a response. God is not satisfied simply with forgiving our sin; he wants to transform our lives. Most of what Paul teaches concerning the moral duties of believers is paralleled in other letters. However, it also seems clear that he has chosen issues pertinent to the situation in Rome—most notably, the dispute between people who are weak in faith and people who are strong in faith (14:1–15:13).
12:1 Your bodies refers to the whole person in contact with the world, not just the physical body. • because of all he has done for you: As described in chs 1–11. • This is truly the way to worship him (or This is your spiritual worship; or This is your reasonable service): This phrase has at least three possible meanings: (1) Our sacrifice is reasonable in light of all God’s mercies; (2) our sacrifice is spiritual, not the offering of an animal but of ourselves in spiritual service; or (3) our sacrifice is intelligent, offered with complete awareness of God’s goodness to us.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.