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The Christian's Life a Reasonable Service to God. 12:1-21
The fundamental exhortation:
v. 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
v. 2. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Paul has finished the first part of his letter to the Romans, the doctrinal section. He has described the manifold and varied manifestations of divine compassion and mercy to men, of God's searching love in the midst of disobedience and ungratefulness. On the basis of this manifestation of God's love the apostle now adds the practical part of his epistle. Now, or, therefore, I beseech you. His entire exhortation is based upon the facts contained in the exposition of his thesis, chap. 1:16-17, upon the facts of man's justification, sanctification, salvation. He does not write: I command you, but: I beseech, call upon, ask, admonish, beg you. His is evangelical exhortation, not the demanding of the Law. The matters which he discusses are such as bring the Christian's life into conformity with the holy will of God, but not in the sense that the works, in themselves, merit salvation. He calls the Christians at Rome brethren, as children with him of the same heavenly Father and therefore under willing obligation to Him at all times and in all things. Through the mercies of God the apostle admonishes and beseeches. What he had written till now had been a proclamation, a praise of the many evidences and manifestations of the mercy of God, of His grace in Christ Jesus. This unmerited grace of God, His unsearchable riches of mercy which the readers have experienced in their own hearts and lives, that is the proper motive and incentive for a Christian mode of living. "He does not say: I command you; for he preaches to them that are already Christians and pious through faith in the new man, that are not to be forced with commandments, but to be admonished willingly to do what is to be done with the sinful old man. For whosoever does not do it willingly, on the basis of kind admonition only, is no Christian: and he that forces it with laws out of those that are unwilling is even then no longer a Christian preacher or ruler, but a worldly jailer. Who, therefore, does not permit himself to be incited and coaxed with such sweet and lovely words of the mercy of God, given to us in Christ in such an immeasurable quantity, that he also do thus with desire and love, to the honor of God and for the good of his neighbor, is nothing, and everything is lost in his case... It is not the mercy of men, but God's mercy that is given us, and which St. Paul wants to have us regard, to incite and to move us."
The apostle admonishes the Christians, first of all, to set forth, to present their bodies as a living sacrifice. See Rom_6:12; Rom_13:14. Their bodies, their physical organism with all its members, are to be devoted to the service of God. The Christians offer their bodies as a sacrifice to God if they do not look upon them as their own property to use or abuse as they see fit, but always consider them as the instruments of God's holy will. In this way the bodies of the Christians are living sacrifices, their whole life is spent in the service of the Lord, and all the acts of all their members are to be good works. And therefore these sacrifices are also holy, separated unto God, devoted to God, having the hallowing of His name as their object, and acceptable, well-pleasing to God, who takes a great delight in them. And incidentally the entire offering of this sacrifice, throughout the life of a Christian, is a reasonable service, a cult, or worship, of God, seeking His honor only, made with the spirit or mind, as controlled by the Spirit of God. Thus the service which a Christian offers to God in yielding all his members to do the holy will of God is not a dead and formal ritualism, but is a cult, a worship of the spirit, the mind being ceaselessly active in planning and thinking how the body with all its members may live for the honor of God.
The same thought is now offered from another side: And be not conformed to this world, but assume a different form through the renewing of your mind, that ye seek to find out what is the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect. The Christian's habit, behavior, his entire way of comporting himself, must not agree with the present world, with the behavior of people that live for this world only, Gal_1:4; Eph_2:1; 2Co_4:4. Believers will under no circumstances accommodate themselves to the evil customs, habits, practices that are in use in the world. Because they have been, so far as their inner man, their heart and soul, is concerned, removed from the world, because they are no longer of the world, though still living in the world, therefore they will assume a different character and appearance in the world. This they will do through the renewal of their mind, through the change in their hearts, which begins in conversion and continues through their whole life, since the battle between flesh and spirit must be carried on without intermission. The change in the external character and habit of a man is the result of the inner change. And so the Christian's unceasing concern is to examine carefully, to try to find out always what the will of God is, that is, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect in His eyes. Natural man has only one idea and concern, namely, to do that which pleases his sinful flesh. But a Christian, in spite of the fact that his ability and his performance do not measure up to his willingness, yet is active, indefatigable in making a study of the will of God from the revelation in Scriptures, and then in practicing the knowledge thus gained in all conditions of life, under all, circumstances, toward every person in the world. Such conduct and behavior is the real character of the Christians, helping them to attain the real end and purpose of their being in the world.