gregoryfl
05-14-2009, 11:47 AM
Taken from www.ronsrestingplace.blogspot.com
Rom 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
Here is the common understanding of this verse, taken from the Believers Bible Commentary:
"Serious and devout consideration of the mercies of God, as they have been set forth in Chapters 1-11, leads to only one conclusion - we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Our bodies stand for all our members and, by extension, our entire lives.
Total commitment is our reasonable service. It is our reasonable service in this sense: if the Son of God has died for me, then the least I can do is live for Him. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me," said the great British athlete C. T. Studd, "then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him." Isaac Watts' great hymn says the same thing: "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all."
Reasonable service may also be translated "spiritual worship." As believer-priests, we do not come to God with the bodies of slain animals but with the spiritual sacrifice of yielded lives. We also offer to Him our service (Rom 15:16), our praise (Heb 13:15), and our possessions (Heb 13:16)." - pg. 1728
Do you see a problem with this? It all sounds so right, so spiritual, on the surface. However, it fails to understand the meaning of the verb here, to "present." Look at the portions I underlined. Think about them. I will bet that one of the first things you did was to begin to analyze yourself to see how you measure up, or, more honestly, how you don't.
I don't blame the writer for writing as he did, for he only was writing from the perspective that he was taught. Most believers you talk to have been taught the same way as well. For most of my life as a believer I held to this view as well. I would like to "present" to you, (no pun intended) another way of understanding this verse, one which takes it out of the works mentality leading to introspection and doubt which exists here, into the reality that is already theirs, which leads to presentation and confidence.
PRESENT
Let's get right to the action of the passage, the heart from which the rest of the passage beats. If this word present makes you think of all the things you need to do or not do in order to make yourself presentable to God, then let me suggest that it is none of that, but rather, how you see yourself. In other words, how we see ourselves is how we will present ourselves at any given moment.
How do you see yourself? Most of us are so afraid of sounding self-righteous or haughty, that we end up saying such things as, "I am a dirty rotten sinner. I deserve hell. I am but a worm. Oh, but thank God who has decided to show me mercy."
Those who know their scriptures are probably thinking of the tax collector who prayed 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ (Lk 18:13)
I know my mind just went there, so let me just say this. Jesus spoke this parable BEFORE his death. It would take another post to explain why that is important to understand, but let me just state that Jesus, on the cross, accomplished for man all that he told man to accomplish before he died. In other words, before the cross we would be right to present ourselves to God as an unworthy sinner, but after the cross, NO MORE!
Ok, back to this idea of presenting. Think about the situation that existed with regard to the animal sacrifices that took place. The sacrifice victim had to be spotless, without blemish. Did the animal have to do anything to make itself spotless, without blemish? No.
So this animal, ALREADY spotless and without blemish, was sacrificed, killed. At this point, it has NOT been presented yet. You cannot present a sacrifice until it is sacrificed. So it was after the animal was killed that it was presented to God. Presented how? As holy, spotless, without blemish. Because of anything it did to make itself that way? No. Because it was made that way already.
Notice that Paul does not say "offer yourselves to God." He instead says to present yourselves to him. To offer yourself would imply the act of sacrificing yourself, just as to offer up the animal meant to kill it. The only thing we are ever asked to offer is praise.
Heb 13:15 Through him, then, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.
1Pe 2:5 You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Jesus was offered once to bear the sins of many. (He 9:28) In him, we too have been offered up once in that same offering. We can stop trying to sacrifice ourselves again and again and again. It is finished!
Now, I said that how your see yourself is how you will present yourself. Paul never says here to see yourself as a living sacrifice. In fact, to my knowledge, he never says to see ourselves in any way. Instead, he uses such terms as "present", "consider," "be," etc.
There is a big difference between seeing yourself in a certain way, so as to make yourself into the way you see yourself, and seeing yourself the way you truly are, and so presenting yourself in that way. See the difference? The first seeing is based on an illusion that isn't true, while the second is based on reality. In other words, when Paul encourages the believers to "present themselves," he is not telling them something that isn't true about them that he wants them to work on so that they can then present themselves before God in that way. No, he is telling them to present themselves as they truly are, to see themselves for who God has ALREADY created them to be.
YOUR BODIES
This to me is a wow statement. Paul is speaking about our physical bodies, bodies which will not inherit the kingdom as flesh and blood cannot; (1Co 15:50) bodies in which Paul said sin dwells. (Rom 7:20) How can sinful bodies be presented as holy, acceptable living sacrifices?
We will look into what it means to be holy momentarily, but first, lets go back to that sacrifice we spoke about earlier. Here is an animal, an innocent one, which has had sin placed on it by the laying on of hands by the priest. After it is killed, the flesh of the animal is taken outside of the camp to burn. This represents the fact that it is in the flesh that sin dwells. And sin cannot be in the presence of God, so has to be removed outside of it.
The bull’s skin, all its flesh, with its head, and with its legs, its innards, and its dung, even the whole bull shall he carry forth outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire. Where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned. (Lev 4:11,12)
However, the entire animal, even the flesh in which sinned dwelt, was considered holy to God.
Num 18:9 This shall be yours of the most holy things from the fire: every offering of theirs, even every meal offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render to me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons.
All of who we are is considered holy to God, including the sinful flesh we dwell in. What are some of the realities that exist for our body? They have been "washed with pure water;" (Heb 10:22) they are "preserved blameless;" (1Th 5:23) they are a "temple of the Holy Spirit;" (1Co 6:19).
These realities make it possible for a body that is "dead because of sin," to be able to be used by God, for he has, through Christ, made it so our "spirit is alive because of righteousness." (Rom 8:10) So our spirit, joined to the spirit of Christ, is one life, his life. That life is lived out in and through our bodies, and despite how at times the body appears to be contradictory to God, we are still preserved blameless by the One who keeps us, who has set us apart for his use.
LIVING SACRIFICE
How is it possible for a sacrifice, something that ends up dead and burned up, to be considered living? It sounds like a contradiction doesn't it? True to form, those who would look at all of this from a works mentality will see in this an continuous battle to keep ourselves on the altar of God, continually trying to keep ourselves sacrificed before him. Some also use this verse to teach the idea of dying to self daily. Perhaps you have heard of a popular saying, "The only problem with a living sacrifice is my tendency to crawl off the altar," or something to that effect.
Thankfully, this is not what Paul was thinking about when he wrote this. He was thinking about the Day of Atonement sacrifice, and it's fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Think about the question I asked earlier. How can a sacrifice be both a true sacrifice, which means a slaughter, and at the same time, living? Once you kill the animal it is dead. How could God picture then, the sacrifice of Jesus, whereby he died, yet is now living apart from the sin for which he died? This is the reason for the Day of Atonement.
It is found in Leviticus 16. On this day 2 goats were presented as one offering. One was chosen to die, while the other was chosen to be the scapegoat that was sent away. Both are presented to the Lord, but in different ways.
Lev 16:9 Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh, and offer him for a sin offering.
This goat was presented for sin, and so died as a sacrifice.
Lev 16:10 But the goat, on which the lot fell for the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before Yahweh, to make atonement for him, to send him away for the scapegoat into the wilderness.
This goat however, was presented alive, and then sent away.
Notice that in both cases the goats do not make themselves presentable, they are presented as they are already, one as sin, and one as alive.
This was how God pictured both a sacrifice that would truly be a sacrifice, where death was involved, and yet it would also be considered living. For Christ did this very thing. He was truly sacrificed on the Cross, paying the penalty of sin, yet he also came to life and carried our sins away, and we are therefore not in that realm of sin and its power anymore. This living sacrifice is what we have been made to be! It is not something we need to struggle with trying to make happen. As Paul wrote, "consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 6:11)
HOLY
What is holiness? Is it certain things we do, or don't do? Well, so far hopefully you are seeing that everything in this verse is based on things that are reality, realities born out of the new creation of God in Christ. This is also true with regard to this word holy. The word simply means to be set apart from normal use. In and of itself, it is not a religious word, even though that is what it has come to be considered as. In Deuteronomy 23:17, the word for sodomite, also called a temple prostitute, is the same word. (Keep in mind that the vowel points that make people read the word holy and sodomite differently were not originally there)
Anything considered holy to God, was the same as a temple prostitute, for both are something or someone set apart to be used by the one who set them apart. We are holy, not because of anything good we have done, or any virtue in and of ourselves, but simply because God has set us apart in Christ as different from the world around us. We belong to him. This is of God's doing, not ours. How did he do it? Paul tells us in Colossians:
Col 1:22 yet now he [Christ] has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and blameless before him,
Once again, we see that Christ is the one, the only one who could, and did, all that he did, by the mercies of God. If you are still struggling, trying to make yourself holy to God, please stop. You are ALREADY holy to him, and Christ is the one who ensured it.
ACCEPTABLE
I think by now you will look at this, not as trying to make yourself acceptable to God, but presenting yourself to him as one who is acceptable. And what makes us acceptable? Not anything in your flesh that's for sure.
Eph 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
In Christ, we are not given the opportunity to make ourselves acceptable, but we are made acceptable, or, in other words, he has "graced us."
SPIRITUAL SERVICE
What kind of service is it? Spiritual, which means that it is of another realm, one which cannot be measured by fleshly means. In other words, I cannot look at my circumstances around me with my senses and judge whether I am spiritually serving God or not. Here is an example:
When Paul found himself trying to do what was right, which was living by law, what he found was that he ended up doing the very opposite. So outwardly, what he found was that he was serving sin in his flesh. He, or others, might mistakenly conclude that he was not serving God spiritually. But that would be an incorrect assumption, for he came to understand that, despite appearances, he, in fact delighted in and served the law of God with his mind, his inner man. (Rom 7:22,25) The law is spiritual, (Rom 7:14) and can therefore only be served in spirit, spiritually. The reality is that who we truly are does in fact do this, despite how things may appear.
Paul is not describing any fleshly way to serve God spiritually that can be judged by appearance. He is describing the only way we can serve God spiritually; the only acceptable way. It is by presenting ourselves to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him.
Again, let me ask you, how do you see yourself? Take a look at everything scripture says is true about you because of being in Christ, and because of what Christ has done, and believe it, and let it work its confidence in you so that you, so that we all, always present ourselves according to what is real about us already, and not according to the way things appear. He will not accept any other way of presenting ourselves to him. And for that I am eternally grateful and in awe of him who loves us that much.
Ron
Rom 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
Here is the common understanding of this verse, taken from the Believers Bible Commentary:
"Serious and devout consideration of the mercies of God, as they have been set forth in Chapters 1-11, leads to only one conclusion - we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Our bodies stand for all our members and, by extension, our entire lives.
Total commitment is our reasonable service. It is our reasonable service in this sense: if the Son of God has died for me, then the least I can do is live for Him. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me," said the great British athlete C. T. Studd, "then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him." Isaac Watts' great hymn says the same thing: "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all."
Reasonable service may also be translated "spiritual worship." As believer-priests, we do not come to God with the bodies of slain animals but with the spiritual sacrifice of yielded lives. We also offer to Him our service (Rom 15:16), our praise (Heb 13:15), and our possessions (Heb 13:16)." - pg. 1728
Do you see a problem with this? It all sounds so right, so spiritual, on the surface. However, it fails to understand the meaning of the verb here, to "present." Look at the portions I underlined. Think about them. I will bet that one of the first things you did was to begin to analyze yourself to see how you measure up, or, more honestly, how you don't.
I don't blame the writer for writing as he did, for he only was writing from the perspective that he was taught. Most believers you talk to have been taught the same way as well. For most of my life as a believer I held to this view as well. I would like to "present" to you, (no pun intended) another way of understanding this verse, one which takes it out of the works mentality leading to introspection and doubt which exists here, into the reality that is already theirs, which leads to presentation and confidence.
PRESENT
Let's get right to the action of the passage, the heart from which the rest of the passage beats. If this word present makes you think of all the things you need to do or not do in order to make yourself presentable to God, then let me suggest that it is none of that, but rather, how you see yourself. In other words, how we see ourselves is how we will present ourselves at any given moment.
How do you see yourself? Most of us are so afraid of sounding self-righteous or haughty, that we end up saying such things as, "I am a dirty rotten sinner. I deserve hell. I am but a worm. Oh, but thank God who has decided to show me mercy."
Those who know their scriptures are probably thinking of the tax collector who prayed 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ (Lk 18:13)
I know my mind just went there, so let me just say this. Jesus spoke this parable BEFORE his death. It would take another post to explain why that is important to understand, but let me just state that Jesus, on the cross, accomplished for man all that he told man to accomplish before he died. In other words, before the cross we would be right to present ourselves to God as an unworthy sinner, but after the cross, NO MORE!
Ok, back to this idea of presenting. Think about the situation that existed with regard to the animal sacrifices that took place. The sacrifice victim had to be spotless, without blemish. Did the animal have to do anything to make itself spotless, without blemish? No.
So this animal, ALREADY spotless and without blemish, was sacrificed, killed. At this point, it has NOT been presented yet. You cannot present a sacrifice until it is sacrificed. So it was after the animal was killed that it was presented to God. Presented how? As holy, spotless, without blemish. Because of anything it did to make itself that way? No. Because it was made that way already.
Notice that Paul does not say "offer yourselves to God." He instead says to present yourselves to him. To offer yourself would imply the act of sacrificing yourself, just as to offer up the animal meant to kill it. The only thing we are ever asked to offer is praise.
Heb 13:15 Through him, then, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.
1Pe 2:5 You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Jesus was offered once to bear the sins of many. (He 9:28) In him, we too have been offered up once in that same offering. We can stop trying to sacrifice ourselves again and again and again. It is finished!
Now, I said that how your see yourself is how you will present yourself. Paul never says here to see yourself as a living sacrifice. In fact, to my knowledge, he never says to see ourselves in any way. Instead, he uses such terms as "present", "consider," "be," etc.
There is a big difference between seeing yourself in a certain way, so as to make yourself into the way you see yourself, and seeing yourself the way you truly are, and so presenting yourself in that way. See the difference? The first seeing is based on an illusion that isn't true, while the second is based on reality. In other words, when Paul encourages the believers to "present themselves," he is not telling them something that isn't true about them that he wants them to work on so that they can then present themselves before God in that way. No, he is telling them to present themselves as they truly are, to see themselves for who God has ALREADY created them to be.
YOUR BODIES
This to me is a wow statement. Paul is speaking about our physical bodies, bodies which will not inherit the kingdom as flesh and blood cannot; (1Co 15:50) bodies in which Paul said sin dwells. (Rom 7:20) How can sinful bodies be presented as holy, acceptable living sacrifices?
We will look into what it means to be holy momentarily, but first, lets go back to that sacrifice we spoke about earlier. Here is an animal, an innocent one, which has had sin placed on it by the laying on of hands by the priest. After it is killed, the flesh of the animal is taken outside of the camp to burn. This represents the fact that it is in the flesh that sin dwells. And sin cannot be in the presence of God, so has to be removed outside of it.
The bull’s skin, all its flesh, with its head, and with its legs, its innards, and its dung, even the whole bull shall he carry forth outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire. Where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned. (Lev 4:11,12)
However, the entire animal, even the flesh in which sinned dwelt, was considered holy to God.
Num 18:9 This shall be yours of the most holy things from the fire: every offering of theirs, even every meal offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render to me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons.
All of who we are is considered holy to God, including the sinful flesh we dwell in. What are some of the realities that exist for our body? They have been "washed with pure water;" (Heb 10:22) they are "preserved blameless;" (1Th 5:23) they are a "temple of the Holy Spirit;" (1Co 6:19).
These realities make it possible for a body that is "dead because of sin," to be able to be used by God, for he has, through Christ, made it so our "spirit is alive because of righteousness." (Rom 8:10) So our spirit, joined to the spirit of Christ, is one life, his life. That life is lived out in and through our bodies, and despite how at times the body appears to be contradictory to God, we are still preserved blameless by the One who keeps us, who has set us apart for his use.
LIVING SACRIFICE
How is it possible for a sacrifice, something that ends up dead and burned up, to be considered living? It sounds like a contradiction doesn't it? True to form, those who would look at all of this from a works mentality will see in this an continuous battle to keep ourselves on the altar of God, continually trying to keep ourselves sacrificed before him. Some also use this verse to teach the idea of dying to self daily. Perhaps you have heard of a popular saying, "The only problem with a living sacrifice is my tendency to crawl off the altar," or something to that effect.
Thankfully, this is not what Paul was thinking about when he wrote this. He was thinking about the Day of Atonement sacrifice, and it's fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Think about the question I asked earlier. How can a sacrifice be both a true sacrifice, which means a slaughter, and at the same time, living? Once you kill the animal it is dead. How could God picture then, the sacrifice of Jesus, whereby he died, yet is now living apart from the sin for which he died? This is the reason for the Day of Atonement.
It is found in Leviticus 16. On this day 2 goats were presented as one offering. One was chosen to die, while the other was chosen to be the scapegoat that was sent away. Both are presented to the Lord, but in different ways.
Lev 16:9 Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh, and offer him for a sin offering.
This goat was presented for sin, and so died as a sacrifice.
Lev 16:10 But the goat, on which the lot fell for the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before Yahweh, to make atonement for him, to send him away for the scapegoat into the wilderness.
This goat however, was presented alive, and then sent away.
Notice that in both cases the goats do not make themselves presentable, they are presented as they are already, one as sin, and one as alive.
This was how God pictured both a sacrifice that would truly be a sacrifice, where death was involved, and yet it would also be considered living. For Christ did this very thing. He was truly sacrificed on the Cross, paying the penalty of sin, yet he also came to life and carried our sins away, and we are therefore not in that realm of sin and its power anymore. This living sacrifice is what we have been made to be! It is not something we need to struggle with trying to make happen. As Paul wrote, "consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 6:11)
HOLY
What is holiness? Is it certain things we do, or don't do? Well, so far hopefully you are seeing that everything in this verse is based on things that are reality, realities born out of the new creation of God in Christ. This is also true with regard to this word holy. The word simply means to be set apart from normal use. In and of itself, it is not a religious word, even though that is what it has come to be considered as. In Deuteronomy 23:17, the word for sodomite, also called a temple prostitute, is the same word. (Keep in mind that the vowel points that make people read the word holy and sodomite differently were not originally there)
Anything considered holy to God, was the same as a temple prostitute, for both are something or someone set apart to be used by the one who set them apart. We are holy, not because of anything good we have done, or any virtue in and of ourselves, but simply because God has set us apart in Christ as different from the world around us. We belong to him. This is of God's doing, not ours. How did he do it? Paul tells us in Colossians:
Col 1:22 yet now he [Christ] has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and blameless before him,
Once again, we see that Christ is the one, the only one who could, and did, all that he did, by the mercies of God. If you are still struggling, trying to make yourself holy to God, please stop. You are ALREADY holy to him, and Christ is the one who ensured it.
ACCEPTABLE
I think by now you will look at this, not as trying to make yourself acceptable to God, but presenting yourself to him as one who is acceptable. And what makes us acceptable? Not anything in your flesh that's for sure.
Eph 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
In Christ, we are not given the opportunity to make ourselves acceptable, but we are made acceptable, or, in other words, he has "graced us."
SPIRITUAL SERVICE
What kind of service is it? Spiritual, which means that it is of another realm, one which cannot be measured by fleshly means. In other words, I cannot look at my circumstances around me with my senses and judge whether I am spiritually serving God or not. Here is an example:
When Paul found himself trying to do what was right, which was living by law, what he found was that he ended up doing the very opposite. So outwardly, what he found was that he was serving sin in his flesh. He, or others, might mistakenly conclude that he was not serving God spiritually. But that would be an incorrect assumption, for he came to understand that, despite appearances, he, in fact delighted in and served the law of God with his mind, his inner man. (Rom 7:22,25) The law is spiritual, (Rom 7:14) and can therefore only be served in spirit, spiritually. The reality is that who we truly are does in fact do this, despite how things may appear.
Paul is not describing any fleshly way to serve God spiritually that can be judged by appearance. He is describing the only way we can serve God spiritually; the only acceptable way. It is by presenting ourselves to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him.
Again, let me ask you, how do you see yourself? Take a look at everything scripture says is true about you because of being in Christ, and because of what Christ has done, and believe it, and let it work its confidence in you so that you, so that we all, always present ourselves according to what is real about us already, and not according to the way things appear. He will not accept any other way of presenting ourselves to him. And for that I am eternally grateful and in awe of him who loves us that much.
Ron