"I beseech you therefore, brethren."
9. Paul does not say, "I command you." He is preaching to those
already godly Christians through faith in the new man; to hearers who
are not to be constrained by commandments, but to be admonished. For
the object is to secure voluntary renunciation of their old, sinful,
Adam-like nature. He who will not cheerfully respond to friendly
admonition is no Christian. And he who attempts by the restraints of
law to compel the unwilling to renunciation, is no Christian preacher
or ruler; he is but a worldly jailer.
"By the mercies of God."
10. A teacher of the Law enforces his restraints through threats and
punishments. A preacher of grace persuades and incites by calling
attention to the goodness and mercy of God. The latter does not desire
works prompted by an unwilling spirit, or service that is not the
expression of a cheerful heart. He desires that a joyous, willing
spirit shall incite to the service of God. He who cannot, by the
gracious and lovely message of God's mercy so lavishly bestowed upon
us in Christ, be persuaded in a spirit of love and delight to
contribute to the honor of God and the benefit of his neighbor, is
worthless to Christianity, and all effort is lost on him. How can one
whom the fire of heavenly love and grace cannot melt, be rendered
cheerfully obedient by laws and threats? Not human mercy is offered
us, but divine mercy, and Paul would have us perceive it and be moved
thereby.
"To present your bodies."
11. Many and various were the sacrifices of the Old Testament. But all
were typical of this one sacrifice of the body, offered by Christ and
his Christians. And there is not, nor can be, any other sacrifice in
the New Testament. What more would one, or could one, offer than
himself, all he is and all he has? When the body is yielded a
sacrifice, all belonging to the body is yielded also. Therefore, the
Old Testament sacrifices, with the priests and all the splendor, have
terminated. How does the offering of a penny compare with that of the
body? Indeed, such fragmentary patchwork scarcely deserves recognition
as a sacrifice when the bodies of Christ and of his followers are
offered.
Consequently, Isaiah may truly say that in the New Testament such
beggarly works are loathsome compared to real and great sacrifices:
"He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man; he that
sacrificeth a lamb, as he that breaketh a dog's neck; he that offereth
an oblation, as he that offereth swine's blood; he that burneth
frankincense, as he that blesseth an idol." Is 66, 3. Similarly, also:
"What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I
have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed
beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he-goats." Is 1, 11. Thus, in plain words, Isaiah rejects all other
sacrifices in view of this true one.
12. Our blind leaders, therefore, have most wretchedly deceived the
world by their mass-offerings, for they have forgotten this one real
sacrifice. The mass may be celebrated and at the same time the soul be
not benefited, but rather injured. But the body cannot be offered
without benefiting the soul. Under the New Testament dispensation,
then, the mass cannot be a sacrifice, even were it ever one. For all
the works, all the sacrifices of the New Testament, must be true and
soul-benefiting. Otherwise they are not New Testament sacrifices. It
is said (Ps 25, 10), "All the paths of Jehovah are lovingkindness and
truth."
"A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God."
13. Paul here makes use of the three words "living," "holy" and
"acceptable," doubtless to teach that the sacrifices of the Old
Testament are repealed and the entire priesthood abolished. The Old
Testament sacrifices consisted of bullocks, sheep and goats. To these
life was not spared. For the sacrifice they were slain, burned,
consumed by the priests. But the New Testament sacrifice is a
wonderful offering. Though slain, it still lives. Indeed, in
proportion as it is slain and sacrificed, does it live in vigor. "If
by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
Rom 8, 13. "For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Col
3, 3. "And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with
the passions and the lusts thereof." Gal 5, 24.
14. The word "living," then, is to be spiritually understood--as
having reference to the life before God and not to the temporal life.
He who keeps his body under and mortifies its lusts does not live to
the world; he does not lead the life of the world. The world lives in
its lusts, and according to the flesh; it is powerless to live
otherwise. True, the Christian is bodily in the world, yet he does not
live after the flesh. As Paul says (2 Cor 10, 3), "Though we walk in
the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh"; and again (Rom 8,
1), "Who walk not after the flesh." Such a life is, before God,
eternal, and a true, living sacrifice. Such mortification of the body
and of its lusts, whether effected by voluntary discipline or by
persecution, is simply an exercise in and for the life eternal.
15. None of the Old Testament sacrifices were holy--except in an
external and temporal sense--until they were consumed. For the life of
the animal was but temporal and external previous to the sacrifice.
But the "living sacrifice" Paul mentions is righteous before God, and
also externally holy. "Holy" implies simply, being designed for the
service and the honor of God, and employed of God. Hence we must here
understand the word "holy" as conveying the thought that we let God
alone work in us and we be simply his holy instruments. As said in
First Corinthians 6, 19-20, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
... and ye are not your own ... therefore glorify God in your body,
and in your spirit, which are God's." Again (Gal 6, 17), "I bear
branded on my body the marks of Jesus." Now, he who performs a work
merely for his own pleasure and to his own honor, profanes his
sacrifice. So also do they who by their works seek to merit reward
from God, whether temporal or eternal. The point of error is, they are
not yet a slain sacrifice. The sacrifice cannot be holy unless it
first lives; that is, unless it is slain before God, and slain in its
own consciousness, and thus does not seek its own honor and glory.
16. The Old Testament sacrifices were not in themselves acceptable to
God. Nor did they render man acceptable. But in the estimation of the
world--before men--they were pleasing, even regarded highly worthy.
Men thought thereby to render themselves well-pleasing in God's sight.
But the spiritual sacrifice is, in man's estimation, the most
repugnant and unacceptable of all things. It condemns, mortifies and
opposes whatever, in man's judgment, is good and well-pleasing. For,
as before stated, nature cannot do otherwise than to live according to
the flesh, particularly to follow its own works and inventions. It
cannot admit that all its efforts and designs are vain and worthy of
mortification and of death. The spiritual sacrifice is acceptable to
God, Paul teaches, however unacceptable it may be to the world. They
who render this living, holy sacrifice are happy and assured of their
acceptance with God; they know God requires the death of the lusts and
inventions of the flesh, and he alone desires to live and work in us.
17. Consequently, Paul's use of the word "body" includes more than
outward, sensual vices and crimes, as gluttony, fornication, murder;
it includes everything not of the new spiritual birth but belonging to
the old Adam nature, even its best and noblest faculties, outer and
inner; the deep depravity of self-will, for instance, and arrogance,
human wisdom and reason, reliance on our own good works, on our own
spiritual life and on the gifts wherewith God has endowed our nature.
To illustrate: Take the most spiritual and the wisest individuals on
earth, and while it is true that a fraction of them are outwardly and
physically chaste, their hearts, it will be found, are filled with
haughtiness, presumption and self-will, while they delight in their
own wisdom and peculiar conduct. No saint is wholly free from the deep
depravity of the inner nature. Hence he must constantly offer himself
up, mortifying his old deceitful self. Paul calls it sacrificing the
body, because the individual, on becoming a Christian, lives more than
half spiritually, and the evil propensities remaining to be mortified
Paul attributes to the body as to the inferior, the less important,
part of man; the part not as yet wholly under the Spirit's influence.
"Which is your spiritual (reasonable) service."
18. A clear distinction is here made between the services rendered God
by Christians and those which the Jews rendered. The thought is: The
Jews' service to God consisted in sacrifices of irrational beasts, but
the service of Christians, in spiritual sacrifices--the sacrifice of
their bodies, their very selves. The Jews offered gold and silver;
they built an inanimate temple of wood and stone. Christians are a
different people. Their sacrifices are not silver and gold. Their
temple is not wood and stone; it is themselves. "Ye are a temple of
God." 1 Cor 3, 16. Thus you observe the unfair treatment accorded
Christians in ignoring their peculiar services and inducing the world
to build churches, to erect altars and monasteries, and to manufacture
bells, chalices and images by way of Christian service--works that
would have been too burdensome for even the Jews.
19. In brief, this our reasonable service is rightly called a
spiritual service of the heart, performed in the faith and the
knowledge of God. Here Paul rejects all service not performed in faith
as entirely unreasonable, even if rendered by the body and in outward
act, and having the appearance of great holiness and spiritual life.
Such have been the works, offerings, monkery and stringent life of the
Papists, performed without the knowledge of God--having no command of
God--and without spirit and heart. They have thought that so long as
the works were performed they must be pleasing to God, independent of
their faith. Such was also the service of the Jews in their works and
offerings, and of all who knew not Christ and were without faith.
Hence they were no better than the service and works of idolatrous and
ignorant heathen.
"And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and
acceptable and perfect will of God."
20. As before said, the world cannot endure the sight or hearing of
this living sacrifice; therefore it opposes it on every side. With its
provocations and threats, its enticements and persecutions, it has
every advantage, aided by the fact that our minds and spirits are not
occupied with that spiritual sacrifice, but we give place to the
dispositions and inclinations of the world. We must be careful, then,
to follow neither the customs of the world nor our own reason or
plausible theories. We must constantly subdue our dispositions and
control our wills, not obeying the dictates of reason and desire.
Always we are to conduct ourselves in a manner unlike the way of the
world. So shall we be daily changed--renewed in our minds. That is, we
come each day to place greater value on the things condemned by human
reason--by the world. Daily we prefer to be poor, sick and despised,
to be fools and sinners, until ultimately we regard death as better
than life, foolishness as more precious than wisdom, shame nobler than
honor, labor more blessed than wealth, and sin more glorious than
human righteousness. Such a mind the world does not possess. The mind
of the world is altogether unlike the Christian's. It not only
continues unchanged and unrenewed in its old disposition, but is
obdurate and very old.
21. God's will is ever good and perfect, ever gracious; but it is not
at all times so regarded of men. Indeed, human reason imagines it to
be the evil, unfriendly, abominable will of the devil, because what
reason esteems highest, best and holiest, God's will regards as
nothing and worthy of death. Therefore, Christian experience must come
to the rescue and decide. It must feel and prove, must test and
ascertain, whether one is prompted by a sincere and gracious will. He
who perseveres and learns in this way will go forward in his
experience, finding God's will so gracious and pleasing he would not
exchange it for all the world's wealth. He will discover that
acceptance of God's will affords him more happiness, even in poverty,
disgrace and adversity, than is the lot of any worldling in the midst
of earthly honors and pleasures. He will finally arrive at a degree of
perfection making him inclined to exchange life for death, and, with
Paul, to desire to depart that sin may no more live in him, and that
the will of God may be done perfectly in himself in every relation. In
this respect he is wholly unlike the world; he conducts himself very
differently from it. For the world never has enough of this life,
while the experienced Christian is ready to be removed. What the world
seeks, he avoids; what it avoids, he seeks.
22. Paul, you will observe, does not consider the Christian absolutely
free from sin, since he beseeches us to be "transformed by the
renewing of the mind." Where transformation and renewal are necessary,
something of the old and sinful nature must yet remain. This sin is
not imputed to Christians, because they daily endeavor to effect
transformation and renovation. Sin exists in them against their will.
Flesh and spirit are contrary to each other (Gal 5, 17), therefore we
do not what we would. Rom 7, 15.
Paul makes particular mention of "the mind" here, by contrast making
plainer what is intended by the "body" which he beseeches them to
sacrifice. The scriptural sense of the word "mind" has already been
sufficiently defined as "belief," which is the source of either vice
or virtue. For what I value, I believe to be right. I observe what I
value, as do others. But when belief is wrong, conscience and faith
have not control. Where unity of mind among men is lacking, love and
peace cannot be present; and where love and faith are not present,
only the world and the devil reign. Hence transformation by renewal of
the mind is of vital importance. Now follows: