I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, [which is] your intelligent service.
Romans 12 turns a corner. The letter has traced what God has done for the guilty. Now Paul asks what a person who has received all that will do with himself. The appeal rests on mercy, and what God asks for is the body.
The word "therefore" reaches back over everything already written. One writer connects the appeal to the earlier chapters:
The exhortation follows on all that has been unfolded of the mercies of God in chapters 1–8. ... So when we connect the exhortation directly with the teaching of chapters 1–8, how irresistible God's claim upon us becomes.
Paul does not order; he begs, and he begs people he calls brothers. The manner of the request is itself part of the lesson:
The first lesson to be learned here is a very important one — the apostle's way of speaking. How graciously and tenderly he pleads with the saints at Rome as brothers! Great apostle as he was, he places them all on the same level as himself... "I appeal to you therefore, brothers" — this is true humility, though joined with divine authority. Only nearness to the Lord can give both.
God asks for the visible man. That closes a door many would like to leave open:
Many then, as now, would claim devotion inside while letting the outward man do as he pleased. This verse shuts out that self-deception. It is all the more striking that the appeal comes not to Jews with their system of outward observances, but to Christians who know that without faith it is impossible to please God.
Under the old system a sacrifice was an animal put to death. A sacrifice that stays alive would have sounded absurd:
In Old Testament times the sacrifices were animals given to God by death. The thought of a living sacrifice hardly appears. It would have seemed a contradiction in terms, and an impossibility. But a service that was impossible under Judaism becomes an intelligent service under Christianity. The believer's only right course is to give his body to God, wholly devoted to His will and use and glory.
This offering is made of ordinary daily actions, and it costs:
Our feet to walk in the path of obedience, our hands employed in His service, our tongues to speak as a witness for God. ... To restrain the flesh involves the sacrifice of much that nature desires... We may present our money and our goods, but such gifts, however right in their place, are not "living"... It is also to be presented as a "holy" sacrifice. God's service needs not only a living body, but a "holy" body. The sacrifice is acceptable only as the body is kept holy.
Where ESV reads "spiritual worship", other translations say "reasonable service" or "intelligent service". That does not mean each person reasoning his own way:
Worldly elements stand condemned, ceremonial rules have passed away, formal worship has ended. God will only be served now intelligently. This is not reason judging for itself without the word. It is the Spirit guiding the mind by divine revelation, understood more and more.
And "service" here does not mean duty:
"Service" here is not bondage, nor law, nor demand. It is worship — the glad return of a grateful heart in the intelligence of redemption and in the power of the Spirit.
Commentators differ here. One reads the presenting as continual, and warns that willpower cannot do it:
We are not to bring a dead sacrifice and lay it on God's altar, as the priests of old did. In the power of the Holy Spirit we are to offer up a living sacrifice. It is therefore a perpetual sacrifice, always presented to God as long as we are here on earth. But how, we ask again, do we do this? Is it by an act of will? No, that is impossible... it is Christ controlling our bodies instead of ourselves.
Another reads it as a settled act that is never reversed:
It does not mean you must keep doing it over and over. It means that what you have given to the Lord you would not take back. If you have laid it on the altar, it would be strange to take it away again!
- Mercies first — the appeal rests on the mercy God has already shown in chapters 1–8. His claim is irresistible because the mercy came first.
- Mercies plead — Paul pleads instead of ordering, and speaks to brothers on his own level: humility joined with divine authority.
- Mercies claim the body — God asks for the visible man. That shuts out any claim of devotion inside while the body does as it likes.
- Mercies keep it living and holy — a sacrifice still alive was unthinkable under Judaism. Now it costs the restraint of much that nature desires, and the body must be kept holy.
- Mercies make it intelligent — not bondage or demand, but worship, with the Spirit guiding the mind by revelation. Writers differ: a settled act once given, or an offering renewed every day.
And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [your] mind, that ye may prove what [is] the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Paul has just asked believers to give their bodies to God. Now he turns to the mind, with two commands: one says stop, the other says change. The question behind them is practical: how do you find out what God wants, and why does that depend on what you refuse to copy?
The word behind "world" points to the present era.
The word used here for "conformed" is also translated "fashioned." The word for "world" is closer to "age." So the apostle is saying to us: "Do not be shaped by this age." This age is a Christ-rejecting age, and God calls us to represent Christ in the middle of it. Can there be agreement between us and it? And if there is no inward agreement, should there be outward conformity? Never!
That "age" is not a place you can walk out of. It is an atmosphere.
The "age" is not quite the same as the world. It carries a moral meaning. It stands for all the influences at work around us at any given moment. These influences are the danger for God's people. Many give way to them and wreck their testimony — Demas, a companion of Paul who left him for love of the present world, is one example. That is why the apostle writes, "Do not be conformed to this age" (Romans 12).
The two words are not just different in style. They differ in how deep the change goes.
Instead, Paul urges us to be "transformed" by the renewing of our minds. Look up these two words and you will find a clear difference. The "form" inside "conformed" means a likeness on the surface. The "form" inside "transformed" means a deep change in the person.
Trying harder is not the alternative to worldliness that Paul offers.
Sometimes we see conformed Christians. They are shaped by this age, and their bodies show it. Sometimes we see reformed Christians, working hard to imitate Christ and do as He would do. But Paul sets a third figure before us: the transformed Christian. That change starts in the mind and works out to the body.
The change starts in the mind, not in the rules a person keeps.
This transformation can only come by the renewing of the mind. It is not an outward change made by wearing special religious clothing, like that of a monk or nun. Such clothing may be plain, but it only draws attention to self. The believer should differ from the world not only in dress, but in manner, speech and ways. That comes from having a different mind. The outward change is the result of an inward change of thought. We may ask endless questions about what is right in dress and way of life. But the inward change — the renewing of the mind — would settle a thousand of them, and show us the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
This renewing is not the same as being born again. It never finishes in one moment.
This does not refer to the new birth. God has already done that for every true child of His, so Scripture never urges us to seek it. It refers to the daily, ongoing renewing that the Holy Spirit works in us. The Word of God gives our minds light, brings them under its authority, and brings them into agreement with it.
The verse ends with proving God's will, not simply knowing it.
With a renewed understanding, a person is no longer tied to the present age. He is tied to the will of God. Notice what the apostle does here. He calls for intelligent service, and so he begs Christians to offer their bodies as a sacrifice to God. He warns against being shaped by this world, and what he wants is not merely an outward separation. He wants a separation that matches the renewing of the mind, so that we can discern the will of God. A person rarely knows His will all at once. God trains us so that we may know it, and in that training He forms us. We learn that His will is good, acceptable and perfect.
The difference shows up in ordinary decisions.
The world judges wise action by three things: convenience, money and present comfort. Suppose a man receives the offer of a good job with a good salary, far from any gathering of believers. If the world has shaped him, he will take it. If God has transformed him, he will put the Lord's interests first, because his renewed mind reasons from the Lord's viewpoint.
- Age — "this world" is the present age, the sum of influences around us. You breathe it in before you notice it.
- Surface — "conformed" is a likeness on the outside; the age only ever asks you to match its shape.
- Radical — "transformed" is a change in the person, working from the mind out to the body. Not conformed. Not reformed.
- Daily — this renewing is not the new birth. It is the Spirit's ongoing work, bringing the mind into harmony with God's Word.
- Proof — the end is not instant knowledge of God's will. It is the proving of it, learned as God trains us, and shown in real decisions.