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 thefoundation 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; oneserves 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 don’t 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? Don’t 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 mountain’s 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 offerer’s 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 Christ’s 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 apostle’s 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 apostle’s 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 apostle’s 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 I’ll 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
Thelife 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 God’s 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. God’s “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. Christ’s 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 attentionto the nursing.
II. The duty enjoined. “Present your bodies.” The body, as well as the soul, is redeemed, and both must go together into God’s 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 Christian’s 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 asa 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
Theforce 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 atliberty, 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 people’s. The spirit of the age in which Moses lived was the spirit of gross, sensuousidolatry. 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 other’s 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-increasingapproximation 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 apostle’s 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 God’s 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 toHim 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 father’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 earth’s 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. “I’ve 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 someyears 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 haven’t 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 steward’s 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 God’s 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 mustn’t 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 God’s will until we are given up to it. Once as I meditated on these words I heard the children pass my study door. “I sha’n’t,” rang out a little voice. “This won’t 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 father’s will, and I must submit to it,’ should I not answer, ‘Nay, it is dead against your father’s will? Your father’s will is that you should be in the garden playing with the others, but you have gone against your father’s will, and now your father’s will has gone against you.’” And as I turned it over, I thought I saw where all the crosses come from. When God’s will goes one way and our will goes another, there is the cross. When God’s 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 man’s 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 secretof 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 theChurch 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 thecase 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 there’s 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 notto 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 seeto 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 man’s life, are the forms in which the body comes in theway 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 Baptist’s garment of camel’s 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 theother 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 one’s 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 Lord’s Supper. The same authority that said of the one,”This do in remembrance of Me,”said by His apostle of the other, “Whetherye eat or drink, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” “Towork is to pray,” if done from a right motive. The bells on the horses may bear the same inscription as blazed on the high priest’s mitre, “Holinessto 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
