Romans Commentary

ROMANS 12:1-21

HERE we enter on the second division of this Epistle, where Paul, according to his accustomed method, enforces the duties of believers, by arguments dependent on his previous exhibition of the grand and influential doctrines of the Gospel. These doctrines, as well as all the commandments of God, may be summed up in one word, namely, in\parLOVE. By the view which they present of the goodness, the forbearance, and the long-suffering of God, believers are daily led to repentance, while the contemplation of the Divine compassion and philanthropy is calculated to beget reciprocal confidence and child-like affection. ‘We have known and believed,’ says the Apostle John, ‘the love that God hath to us.’ ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ This love of God does not exclude reverential fear and filial devotion; of which, on the contrary, it is the principle and the foundation — while both together unite in the spirit of adoption to inspire the cry, ‘Abba, Father!’

Ver. 1. — I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Brethren. — The Apostle addresses the believers at Rome as his brethren, as standing on the same level with himself regarding acceptance with God. I beseech you. — We may here remark the difference between the endearing manner of address often used by inspired Apostles, and the haughty, overbearing tone of Popish antichristian tyranny. Those whose authority was avouched by mighty signs and wonders, whose very word was command, strive frequently to express commands as entreaties. Therefore. — This may have reference to what had been said in the foregoing chapter respecting the Gentiles and the Jewish nation in general, to whom, as being part of the elect remnants, some of those addressed belonged; or rather, as he now enters on the second division of the Epistle, Paul here refers to those grand doctrines of the Gospel which, in the preceding part of it, he had been unfolding, denominating the whole of them, as forming together the great plan of salvation, the mercies of God. By the mercies of God. — The word mercies or compassions is here used in the plural number, because it refers to the different instances before enumerated of Divine compassion. In the foregoing chapter, the Apostle had been declaring the mercies of God in the calling and restoration both of the Gentiles and the Jews, verse 31. But the whole of his preceding discourse contained a most striking and encouraging display of the mercies of God to all believers, in their election and predestination to eternal life, their calling, their deliverance from condemnation, their justification, their union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and communion with God, with the enjoyment of all the unspeakable blessings of the new covenant. Christians are here urged to devote themselves to the service of God by the consideration of these mercies because they present the strongest motives to obedience. How different is the mind of the Apostle from the mind of the world on this subject! The wisdom of this world rejects the grace of the Gospel, because it is thought to lead to licentiousness. The interests of morality are supposed to be better secured when salvation is suspended on men’s good works, than when it is represented as flowing from the Divine compassion. But Paul presents the mercies of God to the mind of believers, as the most powerful incitement to devote themselves to His service. In the remainder of the Epistle, we find him as strenuous in pressing the duty of holiness and personal obedience, as in the previous part of it, in insisting on those truths on which obedience is founded. This ought to convince of their error those who, misunderstanding the doctrine which the Apostle teaches, imagine that it is inconsistent with attention to the peculiar duties of Christianity. It will, however, be seen that the persons who seem to fear that his doctrine tends to licentiousness, are equally opposed to the strictness of his precepts, the observance of which they speak of as impracticable. That represent your bodies. — There is no necessity, with Mr. Stuart and the majority of commentators, to understand the term ‘bodies’ as denoting both soul and body. It is of the body that the Apostle here speaks, and it is not proper to extract out of his language more than it contains. The expression evidently makes a distinction between themselves and their bodies. Those addressed are entreated to present their bodies, and the body is here considered as the sacrifice. This, indeed, cannot be done without the soul, yet this is not the thing expressed. This shows the importance of serving God with the body as well as with the soul. Every member of the body is to be employed in the service of God. Many, when they use their members sinfully, attempt to excuse themselves, and found a plea for pardon, by alleging that they have a good heart. But we see from this passage that God requires the service of the body as well as that of the mind. Besides, an exclusive reference to the body comports better with the figure of offering a sacrifice. The apostle seems to summon attention peculiarly to our actions or outward deportment, which are of so great importance to the Christian life. But, in addition to this, if we extend the expression further, and include in it the whole man, we lose the beauty of the connection in the 2nd verse, which relates particularly, and likewise exclusively, to the state and frame of the mind. Sacrifice. — This term is used figuratively. It intimates that there are now no proper sacrifices. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross has put an end to sacrifices. The sacrifice of the mass, then, is an invention of man, and an abomination to God. It is also observable that even figuratively it is not the Lord’s Supper, but the service of the body, that is here called a sacrifice. The phraseology that afterward prevailed, by which the table whereon the bread and wine were placed was called the altar, has no countenance in the word of God, even as a figure of speech. Living sacrifice. — This is called a living sacrifice, in distinction from the sacrifices of the law, in which the animal offered was put to death. The phraseology is quite similar to the phrases living bread and living way. Dr.

Macknight, then, entirely errs when he explains the phrase as signifying ‘an excellent sacrifice,’ from the circumstance that animals were brought alive to the altar. Formerly those believers thus called on to offer their bodies a living sacrifice were dead in trespasses and sins, and had yielded their members as servants to iniquity; but now they were quickened, and risen with Christ, to walk in newness of life. And as the sacrifices were wholly devoted to God, so believers ought to be wholly consecrated to His service, preserving their bodies pure as temples of the Holy Ghost, and remembering that they themselves are living stones, built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Holy. — It was necessary that the sacrifices of the law should be holy, or free from everything that would render them ceremonially unclean. In like manner, the bodies of the saints must be holy as well as their souls. They must not be employed in the service of sin, else they cannot be fit to be presented to the Lord. Acceptable unto God. — The Jewish sacrifices, even if offered according to the law, now ceased to be acceptable to God, since they were abolished by the coming of their antitype, the lamb of God. But the preparation of the bodies of believers is a service that is always well pleasing to God. This and other such things as are obviously appointed are the only sacrifices acceptable to God. The sacrifice of the mass not being appointed by God, and actually subversive of the sacrifice of the cross, instead of being agreeable to God, must be odious in His sight. Your reasonable service. — This evidently refers to the distinction between the service of the Jews by sacrifices and ceremonial worship, and the service of Christians. Sacrificial worship, and, in general, the whole ceremonial ritual of the Jews, were not worship according to reason. It is, indeed, reasonable to worship God in whatever way He prescribes; but had not man fallen, he would not have been required to worship by such ceremonies as the Jewish law enjoined. Sacrificial worship is not in itself rational, and was appointed by God not for its own excellence, but from its adaptation to prefigure the good things to come. Many commentators appear to have mistaken the true meaning of this phrase, from an ill-grounded fear that it is disrespectful to the Divine appointments to suppose that they are not in themselves rational. This, however, is an important and obvious truth. Sacrificial service was appointed only as a shadow, and when abolished, is classed by the Apostle among ‘the weak and beggarly elements.’ But to worship God with our bodies is as rational as to worship Him with our souls. Such worship, then, is called reasonable worship or service, as distinguished from the Jewish ritual. Mr. Locke imagines that it is opposed to the irrational worship of the heathen. But to this the contrast is not exclusively confined; for it is evident that the sacrifices of the pagans were of the same kind as those of the Jews. If the nature of the one kind of sacrifices was irrational, so also must be the other. The difference between the heathen sacrifices and those of the Jews did not consist in the things offered, but in the object of the offerings. The one was appointed of God, and was accepted of God: the other was not only not appointed by God, but was an act of homage to devils. Agreeably to this view, it may be asserted with the utmost confidence, that sacrifices are of Divine appointment, and not an invention of men. They are not in themselves rational, and no abuse of reason would have led to such a practice.

Ver. 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.

And be not conformed to this world. — ’ World’ here denotes the people or inhabitants of the world. But there is no allusion, as Dr. Macknight supposes, to the heathen world. The same exhortation is as applicable to men in every age, even since so large a portion of the world has assumed the name of Christian, as it was to the pagan Roman empire. The wicked are called the world, not, as Dr. Macknight imagines, as the whole is put for a part, but on the principle that the righteous are comparatively so few. As the nation of Israel was so small in number as not to be counted among the nations, so are the people of God among the inhabitants of the earth. They are not counted in the world. ‘We know,’ says the Apostle John, ‘that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.’ By conformity to the world is meant assimilation to the people of the world; or the sentiments, conduct, and customs by which they are distinguished.

It is the character of those who are dead in trespasses and sins, that they walk ‘according to the course of this world,’ acting conformably to those maxims which regard only the present life; and they ‘who mind earthly things’ are described as the enemies of the cross of Christ; but the conversation of believers, as being pilgrims and strangers, is in heaven.

This prohibition, however, respects those things only that are sinful, and does not require singularity in the Christian in anything that is not contrary to the law of Christ. Pride may be indulged in the singularities of austerity, as well as in the imitation of fashionable folly. A sound Christian mind will have no difficulty in making the necessary discrimination on this subject. Transformed. — This word signifies the change of the appearance of one thing into that of another. It is used by the fabulous writers to signify the change or metempsychosis of animals into trees, or of men into the appearance of other animals. This term denotes the entire change that passes on a man when he becomes a Christian. He is as different from what he was before, as one species of animal is from another. Let not men be so far the dupes of self-deception as to reckon themselves Christians, while they are unchanged in heart and life. ‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (or creation); old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.’ If there be not a radical difference between their present state and that in which they were by nature, they have no title to the character of Christians. This shows that, in general, it is not difficult to discriminate Christians from the world. If the change be as great as the word of God here teaches, what difficulty can there be, in most cases, in judging of the character of those who profess Christianity? It is not the heart we are called to judge. If the person be metamorphosed, as the word originally implies, from a state of nature to a conformity with Christ, it will certainly appear, and the state of the heart will be evident from the life. As there are degrees in this transformation, although all Christians are transformed when they are born again, yet they ought to be urged, as here, to a further degree of this transformation. Renewing of your mind . — It is not the conduct merely, but the heart itself, of the Christian that is changed; and it is from the renewal of the mind that the conduct is also renewed. The transformation or change that passes on the man who becomes a believer of the Gospel, is not one produced by enthusiastically imaginations, monkish austerity, or a spirit of legalism, endeavoring to attain salvation by good works. It is produced by the renewing of the mind, and by that only. Many persons become for a time changed in conduct from various motives, who are not changed in heart by the Spirit of God, and the truth believed respecting the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But such changes are generally temporary, and though they should continue for life, they are of no value in the sight of God. That change of life which the Lord will approve, is a change produced by the renovation of the mind, in the understanding, the affections, and the will. That ye may prove. The word in the original signifies both to prove and to approved, but we cannot so properly say approve what is the will of God. The passage seems to assert that to find out and discriminate the will of God with respect to those things that He requires and forbids, it is necessary to be renewed in the mind. Calvin well remarks, ‘If the renewal of our mind is necessary for the purpose of proving what the will of the Most High is, we may hence see how much this mind is opposed to God.’

Indeed, nothing can be more true than that these renewal of the mind is necessary for a successful inquiry into every part of the will of God. The natural man is in everything opposed to the mind of God. Good — The will of God is here distinguished as good; because, however much the mind may be opposed to it, and how much soever we may think that it curtails our pleasures, and mars our enjoyments, obedience to God conduces to our happiness. To follow His law is even in this world calculated to promote happiness. Acceptable. — That which the Lord enjoins is acceptable to Him, and surely this is the strongest motive to practice it. Nothing else is acceptable to Him, however specious it may appear to human wisdom. All injunctions that proceed merely from men in Divine things are unacceptable to God. He approves of nothing but obedience to His own commands. All the injunctions, then, that men submit to, in obedience to the mandates of the Church of Rome, are unacceptable to God. They are abomination in His sight. Perfect will of God. — The will of God as exhibited in His word is perfect. Nothing can be added to it, nothing can be taken from it; yet that monstrous system of Antichristianity which has so long, in the name of Christ, lorded it over the world, has added innumerable commands to those of Christ, and even taken away many of His laws.