March 29
“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.’” (Romans 12:1)
(We continue where we left off yesterday sharing thoughts from John MacArthur’s sermon on Romans 12:1-2.)
“By the mercies of God.” Paul spent the first 11 chapters of Romans expounding for us the infinite and numerous mercies of God. He mentions forgiveness and salvation and reconciliation to God and freedom from sin. He mentions faith and justification and the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit, the free gift of eternal life, new nature, the escape from judgment and condemnation, the supporting ministry of the Holy Spirit in our prayers, the fact that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. He tells us of the foreknowledge and choice of God in our salvation and the simplicity of confessing with our mouths Jesus as Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead as the necessary requirements for effecting that salvation in our lives. Paul tells us of the wonderful grace given to the Gentiles as a result of the partial hardening of Israel and the opportunity God has given us to be grafted into His body.
All these mercies of God are given to the believer in Christ, and the only thing left for us to do is to give ourselves as a sacrifice. Romans 12:1-2 are the only logical conclusion of all that God has given to us, the giving of ourselves to God completely, as a sacrifice to be consumed by Him. To those who have been given so much is it some great thing that we should give ourselves back to God? Paul could have threatened us by saying, “Because of what God gave us you’d better give yourself as a sacrifice or else you’ll be punished. But he doesn’t, he appeals to the highest reason for obedience and that is gratitude. To withhold anything of ourselves from God is a supreme act of ingratitude. Fortunately, God doesn’t expect us to give back to Him equivalent to what He has given us, but He wants and expects a full commitment of sacrifice of ourselves to Him.
Our bodies also must be given to God, not just our souls. Some believe that it is not possible to bring our sinful natures into subjection to God, but it is possible and it is commanded. It is not easy to bring out bodies into subjection, but we must do this. We are told in Romans 6 that we are to yield our bodies to God and not let sin reign in our mortal bodies. We have been given the resources in Christ to do this. This is part of our holy sacrifice to God, to buffet our bodies and put forth the effort, by His grace, to control our bodily desires, as corrupt as they are, and overcome the bent towards sin. We cannot allow its lusts and passions to run rampant. We must make presentation to God of our bodies. We must know how to possess our bodies in a manner worthy of Christ.
This is not easy. It is frightening how much power the flesh still has to corrupt us, Christians in whom the Holy Spirit is dwelling. We must be on guard and bring our bodies under subjection to the Holy Spirit. Some people think that the behavior of the body doesn’t matter, that only the spirit matters, because the sin that it does is not me but my flesh. But this casual attitude toward sin is not Biblical teaching or at all justifiable with the high calling of Christians to live holy lives unto God. There is no sanctification at all without the subjection of the body to the Spirit of God, to be holy and pure before Him. Any teaching that minimizes the need to offer to God our bodies as a holy temple for Him to dwell in is not teaching from God.