The message of Romans is that sin’s mastery over humankind has been broken in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The opening verses of Romans 6 are a helpful summary of the new state of things. Former slaves of sin have been buried with Christ in baptism. While it is a drastic form of escape, it is an effective one: a dead slave is a free slave. Paul says simply, “whoever has died is freed from sin”.

Paul goes on, “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.

Just as being enslaved to sin was an embodied existence, so is being alive to God. We bring our bodies to the new life, and so Paul writes in Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”.

In the epistle to the Romans, the sacrifice of Christ as the means of reconciliation has been clearly described, and Paul specifies that in response the believer is to offer his body to the Lord out of appreciation and celebration. The body may be seen as the “whole person” or perhaps as the means whereby the whole person is expressed symbolically in a physical setting, in much the same way that the defeated general in a military situation would hand over his sword, thereby demonstrating the surrender of his whole being. The sacrifice is to be unique in that it will be “living” as opposed to the normal dying experience of the victim. This points to the fact that believers, when committed to the Lord, show in the lives they live in the body the genuineness of that commitment.

Paul uses God’s mercies as the basis for his appeal to the believers in Rome. The core of Christian commitment to Christ-the believer’s motivation for giving himself or herself wholly to God-is the mercy He has demonstrated toward His people. What God has already done for the Christian is the basis of everything the Christian does for God.

The word “beseech” is the Greek verb parakaleo. It consists of “para”, which means “beside”, and “kaleo”, which means “to call.” The word literally means “to call to, exhort, or urge.” The world “parakaleo” is used 54 times in Paul’s epistles, demonstrating his heart as a counselor and encourager to the infant church rather than a demanding authority over them. A related word is parakletos, or “the Paraclete,” the descriptive name given to the Holy Spirit, who comes alongside the faithful to encourage them in their walk with Christ.

God does not want us to try hard to sin less, but to depend upon His Spirit to be transformed into people who love to please God through willing obedience. That transformation begins with the mind. Because human beings are inveterate conformists, the temptation to simply fit into the picture and fade into the scenery can be practically overwhelming. The committed life, however, is shown by the degree in which the believer stays in the secular world without being trapped by it and without failing to be a witness to it. The tension is aptly described by the Master’s words explaining that we are “in the world but not of it.”

What is a living sacrifice? Negatively, we are not to be passively conformed to this world. Instead, positively, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. With his “renewing minds” phrase, Paul is coming to closure on a minor theme that he has been voicing from the first chapter of the letter until now. This theme is that following the gospel authentically involves thinking in authentic ways about God and one’s own place in God’s world.

In complete contrast to the conforming tendency, the believer experiences a transforming dynamic in his life. To be “transformed” is to be literally “metamorphosed” or changed into another form. We may draw an analogy with the way caterpillars shed their crinkly skins to become transparent butterflies, or we may relate the experience to that of Christ, Himself, being “metamorphosed” on the Mount of Transfiguration when the pent-up glory of heaven suddenly burst through the confines of His physical body. The inward power of this transforming experience is the renewed mind.

The word “conformed” was sometimes used for a masquerade or an act. If people conform to the world’s standards of behaviour, they mask who they are in Christ. The Christian’s life should be marked by transformation, seeing through the renewing of the mind, ever seeking to grow in understanding to discern (or prove) God’s will. The word metamorphosis comes from the Greek word for transformed and indicated change “from the inside out.” The term is used twice in reference to Christ’s Transfiguration. Jesus’ brightness was His inner person shining through, visible on the outside. His brightness should likewise shine through His followers.

There is only one body of Christ, but there is a diversity of gifts within that body, a diversity that ensures the health of the unified whole. If God by His grace gives everyone a unique task in the church, then there is no reason for people to think more highly, or lowly, of themselves than they ought to. The grace of God which brings salvation through faith also brings gifts to the saved believer which he must utilize in the context of the body of believers.

Most believers do not question the truth of the “will of God,” but many regard it as such an obscure mystical reality that they despair of knowing it with any certainty or of doing it with any deep sense of assurance. For many the will of God is as confusing as an Agatha Christie mystery story—an idea that finds unfortunate confirmation in the use of the word “mystery” in many versions of the New Testament. Paul would strongly resist this concept. He rightly insists that the will of God is to be discovered and done with such relish that it will be proved to be good, acceptable, and perfect.

The church is not an organization but an organism, a living and unified entity with many parts. If part of a person’s body just disappeared, they would desperately seek it out. Do believers do the same when a member of their church disappears?

Paul appears to suggest that other believers may abuse their gifts by simply not using them. There is little doubt that, because of the unfortunate tendency of churches to underemphasize the truth of the giftedness of all believers, there are many who have no concept of their gifts while others who know their gifts are given little or no encouragement to exercise them.

Paul means that God equips each believer for a particular task and expects him to discover and fulfill his special role in the context of the believing community. Once this is understood, the believer is delivered from a number of potential miscalculations. He will not aspire to be more than God intends him to be, but he will not settle for being less than he was created and redeemed to be. Accordingly, he will be delivered from an arrogance which is destructive of harmony in the body of believers and will be content to make a “sober” evaluation of his own gifts and calling.

The apostle has spent much time in this epistle explaining how individuals can be reconciled to God and become recipients of the life of Christ in order that they might live in a new relationship to Him. Another important dimension in spiritual experience is related to the fact that if many people become related to Christ, they must develop their relationship with each other. When believers become heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, they also become fellow heirs with each other. The environment in which these relationships operate is the assembly of believers—the local church. Paul, whose ministry to the Gentiles was characterized by the formation of churches, loved to use the human body as a striking analogy of the functions of the church as mentioned in Romans 12:4-5: “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. “

Our natural tendency to selfishness and individualism militates against the concept of the body of Christ, but the renewed mind produces a different attitude. Those who are instructed from the Word of God by the Spirit of God recognize the uniqueness of the believer’s position in the church and also are committed to being a part of the body of Christ. When Christ was on earth, He inhabited a body similar to our physical bodies and, accordingly, knew something of our physical limitations. But after His Resurrection, He was free to come again in the Person of the Spirit and inhabit numerous individuals who, together, would become the means of His continued activity on earth. So varied were the abilities and ministries of the Lord that it would be ludicrous to expect any one individual to begin to emulate His ministry. But when many people come together as His body, they can collectively begin to demonstrate the multiplicity of ministries which He longs to perform through their united efforts.

What does it mean to be the body of Christ in the world today?

First, you are the flesh of Christ, in the world. You personally are Christ’s body in the world. You are the eyes of Christ and you see the work of God all around you. You are the ears of Christ and you hear the sounds of Christ all around you. You are the mouth of Christ and you speak the words of Christ’s compassion to those around you. You are the heart of Christ, and you share the emotions of Christ with all that you meet. You personally are the hand of Christ, and you stretch out your hand which is Christ’s hand to help others. You are the legs of Christ and those legs carry you to those in need. You are the feet of Christ, and you help others to walk in Christ’s ways. Yes, you are literally and symbolically the body of Christ, the flesh of Christ in your world.

God enables that body to create its own body of work—prophecy, ministry, teaching, challenging and encouraging, giving, leading, and being compassionate. We can do those things alone, but we do them with more discernment and impact as part of a larger body. None of us can do it all. No single community can do it all, either. But God empowers each community to do all it is called to do in its context. It makes a difference to see church not as a noun but a verb, not as a place to go but as a living offering to God. In verses 6-8, Paul mentions seven of the 19 spiritual gifts that are listed in the New Testament. Since none of the spiritual gifts are identical, many believe there is no set, finite number of gifts. The word gift is a rendering of the Greek word charisma, which has as its root the word charis, or grace. Therefore, a spiritual gift is really a grace-gift, bestowed by the God of grace.

The church is the body of Christ in the world today. We are the flesh of God’s love in human form; we are a living organism and a complex organism. And we work harmoniously together, all these different parts working together. Yes, we have our differences and are unique and distinct; and we are to work together harmoniously and in the spirit of Christ’s peace.

Prophecy is a gift used to speak God’s truth. Like Old Testament prophets, some New Testament prophets had the ministry of foretelling-addressing the future. But most probably had the gift of “forth telling”-speaking God’s truth into present situations. Regardless, the prophets’ purpose was to speak words of “edification and exhortation and comfort” to the church. Prophets today do not have the gift of foretelling the future but function as teachers and proclaimers of God’s truth.

The word ministry, or service, is from the Greek word diakonia, from which comes deacon. While every Christian is called to serve one another, deacons do so with a special grace. Teaching if for explaining God’s truth. Teachers study the Bible diligently and search out what the church needs to learn for its edification.

The word exhort could also be translated as “encourage.” People with this gift are moved to come alongside those who are hurting, weak, or discouraged. People with the gift to give do so joyfully and sacrificially.

The church always needs leaders who lead with a sense of what the church should do. The sons of Issachar had a reputation for leadership in the Old Testament. People naturally follow others with this gift. The gift of mercy is the Spirit-given ability to extend love and compassion toward suffering members of the body of Christ. It is reaching out to the outcasts, those whom others ignore.

(An audio version of this post can be found by clicking this link: Romans 12 verses 1-8 Our Transformation)

Bibliography

1. Jermiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; pp. 1561-1562)
2. Briscoe, D.S., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomaas Nelson Inc.; 1982; pp. 212-221)
3. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
4. Frank L. Couch, “Commentary on Romans 12:1-8.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
5. Mark Hinkle Shore, “Commentary on Romans 12:1-8.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
6. Mark Reasoner, “Commentary on Romans 12:1-8.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org