'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.'--ROMANS xii. 2.
I had occasion to point out, in a sermon on the preceding verse, that
the Apostle is, in this context, making the transition from the
doctrinal to the practical part of his letter, and that he lays down
broad principles, of which all his subsequent injunctions and
exhortations are simply the filling up of the details. One master
word, for the whole Christian life, as we then saw, is sacrifice,
self-surrender, and that to God. In like manner, Paul here brackets,
with that great conception of the Christian life, another equally
dominant and equally comprehensive. In one aspect, it is
self-surrender; in another, it is growing transformation. And, just
as in the former verse we found that an inward surrender preceded the
outward sacrifice, and that the inner man, having been consecrated as
a priest, by this yielding of himself to God, was then called upon to
manifest inward consecration by outward sacrifice, so in this further
exhortation, an inward 'renewing of the mind' is regarded as the
necessary antecedent of transformation of outward life.
So we have here another comprehensive view of what the Christian life
ought to be, and that not only grasped, as it were, in its very
centre and essence, but traced out in two directions--as to that
which must precede it within, and as to that which follows it as
consequence. An outline of the possibilities, and therefore the
duties, of the Christian, is set forth here, in these three thoughts
of my text, the renewed mind issuing in a transfigured life, crowned
and rewarded by a clearer and ever clearer insight into what we ought
to be and do.
I. Note, then, that the foundation of all transformation of character
and conduct is laid deep in a renewed mind.
Now it is a matter of world-wide experience, verified by each of us
in our own case, if we have ever been honest in the attempt, that the
power of self-improvement is limited by very narrow bounds. Any man
that has ever tried to cure himself of the most trivial habit which
he desires to get rid of, or to alter in the slightest degree the set
of some strong taste or current of his being, knows how little he can
do, even by the most determined effort. Something may be effected,
but, alas! as the proverbs of all nations and all lands have taught
us, it is very little indeed. 'You cannot expel nature with a fork,'
said the Roman. 'What's bred in the bone won't come out of the
flesh,' says the Englishman. 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin or
the leopard his spots?' says the Hebrew. And we all know what the
answer to that question is. The problem that is set before a man when
you tell him to effect self-improvement is something like that
which confronted that poor paralytic lying in the porch at the pool:
'If you can walk you will be able to get to the pool that will make
you able to walk. But you have got to be cured before you can do what
you need to do in order to be cured.' Only one knife can cut the
knot. The Gospel of Jesus Christ presents itself, not as a mere
republication of morality, not as merely a new stimulus and motive to
do what is right, but as an actual communication to men of a new
power to work in them, a strong hand laid upon our poor, feeble hand
with which we try to put on the brake or to apply the stimulus. It is
a new gift of a life which will unfold itself after its own nature,
as the bud into flower, and the flower into fruit; giving new
desires, tastes, directions, and renewing the whole nature. And so,
says Paul, the beginning of transformation of character is the
renovation in the very centre of the being, and the communication of
a new impulse and power to the inward self.
Now, I suppose that in my text the word 'mind' is not so much
employed in the widest sense, including all the affections and will,
and the other faculties of our nature, as in the narrower sense of
the perceptive power, or that faculty in our nature by which we
recognise, and make our own, certain truths. 'The renewing of the
mind,' then, is only, in such an interpretation, a theological way of
putting the simpler English thought, a change of estimates, a new set
of views; or if that word be too shallow, as indeed it is, a new set
of convictions. It is profoundly true that 'As a man thinketh, so
is he.' Our characters are largely made by our estimates of what is
good or bad, desirable or undesirable. And what the Apostle is
thinking about here is, as I take it, principally how the body of
Christian truth, if it effects a lodgment in, not merely the brain of
a man, but his whole nature, will modify and alter it all. Why, we
all know how often a whole life has been revolutionised by the sudden
dawning or rising in its sky, of some starry new truth, formerly
hidden and undreamed of. And if we should translate the somewhat
archaic phraseology of our text into the plainest of modern English,
it just comes to this: If you want to change your characters, and God
knows they all need it, change the deep convictions of your mind; and
get hold, as living realities, of the great truths of Christ's
Gospel. If you and I really believed what we say we believe, that
Jesus Christ has died for us, and lives for us, and is ready to pour
out upon us the gift of His Divine Spirit, and wills that we should
be like Him, and holds out to us the great and wonderful hopes and
prospects of an absolutely eternal life of supreme and serene
blessedness at His right hand, should we be, could we be, the sort of
people that most of us are? It is not the much that you say you
believe that shapes your character; it is the little that you
habitually realise. Truth professed has no transforming power; truth
received and fed upon can revolutionise a man's whole character.
So, dear brethren, remember that my text, though it is an analysis of
the methods of Christian progress, and though it is a wonderful
setting forth of the possibilities open to the poorest, dwarfed,
blinded, corrupted nature, is also all commandment. And if it is true
that the principles of the Gospel exercise transforming power upon
men's lives, and that in order for these principles to effect their
natural results there must be honest dealing with them, on our parts,
take this as the practical outcome of all this first part of my
sermon--let us all see to it that we keep ourselves in touch with the
truths which we say we believe; and that we thorough-goingly apply
these truths in all their searching, revealing, quickening, curbing
power, to every action of our daily lives. If for one day we could
bring everything that we do into touch with the creed that we
profess, we should be different men and women. Make of your every
thought an action; link every action with a thought. Or, to put it
more Christianlike, let there be nothing in your creed which is not
in your commandments; and let nothing be in your life which is not
moulded by these. The beginning of all transformation is the
revolutionised conviction of a mind that has accepted the truths of
the Gospel.