What does it mean to rededicate your life to Christ?

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, your reasonable service." (Ver. l.) It is the detailed application of the principle laid down in Romans 6, where we first hear of the Christian reckoning himself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus, under grace, not under law. From this there is no receding to law now, as the tone of the exhortation itself testifies. But the compassions of God are morally to form the believer within and without. Just as in Romans 10 the apostle had taught the value of confession with the mouth as well as of believing with the heart, so here the brethren are entreated to yield their bodies as a sacrifice to God. Many then as now would have been disposed to have professed an inward devotedness with license for the outward man. The possibility of this self-deception is here precluded, the more strikingly as the exhortation is made not to Jews with their system of external observances, but to Christians who know that without faith it is impossible to please God. Thus is secured the service of the man as a whole; just as the apostle says elsewhere in his desires for the Thessalonian saints, "The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Again, the word "to present," or yield, is so put as to convey the idea of a completed act summed up in its conclusion. It is not mere effort as under law, but a thing done once for all, though of course stamped on the entire christian walk up to the last according to that beginning. The Spirit of God contemplates nothing less for every soul called of God out of this world, reconciled by the death of His Son and to be saved by His life. How could He lower the standard of Christ?

But the mention of "bodies" in God's wisdom associates itself with the thought of a sacrifice so familiar then to every mind even among the Gentiles. Only in Christianity it is an incomparably more intimate and personal question than in Judaism. Animals devoted to death and sacrifice do not suffice or suit, but our own "bodies," and this of course as a living sacrifice contrasted with those of dead beasts, which of themselves left self unjudged and untouched. With the Christian's self-sacrifice God is well pleased. It only is holy now, what was once legally so being in truth proved profane, now that the true light shines; it is acceptable to Him as the expression of giving God His true place, and of man, the believer, taking his. Without this the show of doing good and communicating is vain; with it such sacrifices are indeed well pleasing to God. Further, this is "our intelligent service." Worldly elements are condemned, carnal ordinances passed away, formal worship at an end. God will only be served now intelligently. It is no question of reason judging for itself without the word, but of the Spirit guiding the mind by divine revelation understood growingly.

The exhortation in Romans 12:1 links itself with the doctrine of chapter 6, though the appeal is based upon the truth developed up to the close of chapter 8. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren," says the apostle, "by the mercies of God." The mercies are those unfolded in redemption, and which have been detailed in this epistle. Reminding us thus of what God is for us in Christ, and what He has done, the apostle, on this ground, beseeches us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, our reasonable service. Again, the exhortation, as in chapter 6, concerns our bodies — bodies, it must be remembered, which have been emancipated from bondage to sin, and which, according to the teaching of chapter 8, are now indwelt by the Holy Ghost. This will explain the apostle's meaning. Not now, as with the priests of old, are we to bring a dead sacrifice and lay it on God's altar, but in the power of the Holy Spirit we are to offer up a living sacrifice — a perpetual sacrifice therefore, — one that is ever to be presented to God as long as we are here upon the earth. But how is this, we ask again, to be accomplished? Is it by an act of will? Nay, this is impossible. It is by the application of death — it is, in fact, the truth of Romans 8:10 — "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin:" it is Christ controlling our bodies instead of ourselves, as we hope to explain more fully afterward; and this is both a sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, and our reasonable service — the recognition of what is due to God on the ground of redemption. Our bodies, in other words, belong to Him who has redeemed us; but the acceptance of this truth will involve their presentation to God moment by moment, as a living sacrifice; so that He may use them now for His own glory in testimony to His beloved Son.

We are the subjects of divine mercy. We deserved nothing, but we are enriched with practically everything. If the sense of divine mercy takes possession of our hearts, then we shall see that our bodies, which were the vehicles in which sin wrought and dominated us — that were used by us to express all our sinful wilfulness — we must now present as a living sacrifice, something wholly and livingly devoted to God — to be absolutely at His disposal, set apart for Him and His service and acceptable to God, seeing it is our reasonable and intelligent service. In the sixth chapter, where we get very similar truth, I believe we get the verb yield used in a twofold way — first, the Kingdom as an accomplished fact, absolutely yielded, then secondly in a more present sense, going on yielding. Has a moment ever been reached in our histories when we have been brought to the point of presenting our bodies a living sacrifice — something now devoted to God — set apart for His use, never to be recalled? It is our only reasonable service. That is the body — the next verse speaks about our mind. Be not conformed to this world — be not fashioned according to this age. You say, He is going to talk now about our dress. Well, Suppose I do! I know we are very largely the victims of the fashions, yet we should be careful to dress as becomes godliness. But after all it is not primarily a matter of dress, it is a matter of the mind. "Be not fashioned according to this age: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We get down beneath that question to a more fundamental matter. Be not fashioned in your mind according to this age. There are terrible fashions in the mind regions — the scientific world is full of fashions. Scientists seem to be the greatest devotees of the goddess fashion that you can find anywhere. No Parisian fashions exert their sway over minds in the way that the scientific fashions do. We are not to be fashioned according to this age, but rather transformed; we are to be non-conformists in this sense, not reformists — but transformed by the renewing of our minds. God begins at the citadel, in the very centre of our beings. Some may say, Be practical and tell us how to get our minds renewed. Soak them in the Word of God prayerfully, in dependence upon the Spirit of God. As we progress and prayerfully study the Holy Book it is wonderful how our minds get shaped according to God. We unlearn our own thoughts, we begin to imbibe divine thoughts. Thus our minds are renewed and we prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, we say, it is such a perplexing thing to decide, what is this will of God? The point here is not that you may discover, but that you may prove the will of God. How do you prove a thing? You put it to the test. A person tells you that if you put certain chemicals together they act in a certain way — you prove and test it and it works. It is not mere theory, it is proven in every day life — it is a practical proposition. In the same way you and I are to prove what is the will of God, and as we prove what it is we shall discover it is good, acceptable and perfect. We shall of course learn incidentally that our own wills are bad, and imperfect and very disastrous. Naturally we love our own wills — you and I are to have our wills removed that we may prove and carry out in practice what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. How much is our Christianity purely a theoretical thing? How much have we proved, experimentally proved, the blessedness of the will of God? We shall experience it if we present our bodies a living sacrifice to Him, and if our minds are not dominated by what the world thinks.

A Living Sacrifice. — Now what should be the response? "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Salvation for those who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ is a settled matter. If we speak, then, of soul salvation it is effected already, and nothing can alter it. We have received it (1 Peter 1:9). If we speak of final salvation for our persons, it is assured us. It is ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:5). Not then to get salvation are we to present our bodies a living sacrifice, but because we are subjects of saving grace already. A living sacrifice! Our bodies to be thus presented to God as acceptable or well-pleasing, for the death of that sacrifice, on the ground of which we are accepted, has taken place. Now no one better than Paul could thus exhort the saints, for he could say, "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). Antinomianism finds no place in the Gospel which he preached. He who shares in the benefits of the atoning sacrifice of Christ should own that he is not his own, having been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20), to live to Him who died for him and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15). The creature, as a saint, is thus by the Gospel turned to his proper object of service. In living to Christ he will live to God. But we live in a world, an age where things are out of course, things in heaven and things on earth being not yet reconciled to God (Col. 1:20). Hence the need of the accompanying admonition, "Be not conformed to this world (or, age), but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that (or, the) good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (2). For by having the mind renewed, of which we also read in Eph. 4:23, transformation can take place, so that the saint, instead of being conformed to this age, may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Thus intelligent service might be rendered, and willing service too, by those who had as Gentiles formerly walked in the vanity of their mind (Eph. 4:17). For this, as regards the Colossian saints, Epaphras, we learn, laboured fervently in prayers (Col. 4:12).

"Presenting our bodies a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1), is an act of the mind and done once and cannot be repeated. When a soul once realizes the mercy of God in freeing it from sin and death, the body is placed on the altar as a living sacrifice. It, is quite voluntary and is in the nature of the burnt-offering — holy and acceptable to God. It may not be always maintained for the lack of spiritual energy, but it is done once and for all.

Next might be placed the passage in Romans 12:1 "I beseech you … to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." The tense implies, not a continuous or often repeated sacrifice, but a once-for-all decision, motivated by the mercies of God, previously explained. The meaning here is not stated to be the work of a priestly family, offering in worship, but uses the concept of sacrifice to portray the irrevocable way in which it is the believer's privilege to yield his body for God's use. This sacrifice will accompany sincere worship, but it could hardly be the spiritual worship itself.

In the Epistles we get something more definite. "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 (or intelligent) service." There it does not mean you are constantly to be doing it, but what you have given to the Lord you would not take back again. If you have laid it on the altar it would be singular to take it away again!

Coming then to Romans 12, we learn the character of the presentation of our bodies to God. They are to be presented "a living sacrifice;" not as a slain animal, a dead sacrifice, laid on the altar, but because our bodies are not dead, and sin is in us, they are always to be kept under the power of death ("always bearing about in the body the 'putting to death' of Jesus"), and thug, presented to God as a living sacrifice. They are presented to Him for His service, that, instead of their being governed as they had always been, by our own wills for our own ends, He in His wondrous grace might henceforward use them as organs for the expression of Christ. Such a yielding up of our bodies to God, let it be again stated, involves the constant application of the power of death, and consequently it becomes a living sacrifice. Christ being in us, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And such a sacrifice, as it is, on the one hand, holy and acceptable to God, so it is, on the other, our intelligent service — a service suitable to the claims which God has upon us on account of redemption, and one, it may be added, which should be joyfully as well as intelligently rendered.

Coming then to Romans 12, we learn the character of the presentation of our bodies to God. They are to be presented "a living sacrifice;" not as a slain animal, a dead sacrifice, laid on the altar, but because our bodies are not dead, and sin is in us, they are always to be kept under the power of death ("always bearing about in the body the 'putting to death' of Jesus"), and thug, presented to God as a living sacrifice. They are presented to Him for His service, that, instead of their being governed as they had always been, by our own wills for our own ends, He in His wondrous grace might henceforward use them as organs for the expression of Christ. Such a yielding up of our bodies to God, let it be again stated, involves the constant application of the power of death, and consequently it becomes a living sacrifice. Christ being in us, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And such a sacrifice, as it is, on the one hand, holy and acceptable to God, so it is, on the other, our intelligent service — a service suitable to the claims which God has upon us on account of redemption, and one, it may be added, which should be joyfully as well as intelligently rendered.

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."