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The great argument of the Epistle to the Romans is to the effect that God's favour is not to be earned, but accepted, and this is justification by faith. The earlier chapters dealt with this; and the apostle now proceeds to a development of the doctrine which completely reverses the old ideas. Judaism sought mercy by sacrifice and service; St. Paul teaches that God seeks man's true sacrifice and service by showing mercy. We are to come to him, not that he may love us in the end, but because he loves us from the beginning. Our obedience to God is to be, therefore, no task-work, but love-work; not servitude, but sonship. God's love is the great motive-power of the new life. We consider here the results which such love should produce: the sacrifice and service of the body; the renewing of the mind.

II. THE SACRIFICE AND SERVICE OF THE BODY. There was a total change from Judaism to Christianity in the point of sacrifice. The old dispensation was one of blood and death. Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, on various ever-recurring occasions, the altars of the temple ran with blood from the dead bodies of slain beasts and birds. The temple was one vast slaughter-house. But Christianity said, "This no more!" For there has been offered one sacrifice for sins for ever; and what is wanted now, says the apostle, is your bodies, not the bodies of beasts and birds, and these bodies living, not dead. There was a vast change in the point of service (λατρεία) also. What an elaborate ritual of service had gathered round the sacrifice! part ordained by God, part added by man. There were feasting and fasting; times and seasons, days and years; meats and drinks; purifyings; prayers. Christianity swept this away too, in all its ceremonial character. And what is wanted now, says the apostle, is not an elaborate ritual and minute observance, but the life; a service, not mechanical and befitting children, but rational and befitting men. All this the apostle points to by his words. Your own living bodies are to be the sacrifice; the holy, consecrated life of your bodies is to be the service. But let us gather the significance of his words more fully. The body is an integral part of man: consider in this connection the creation, death, and the resurrection. The body is sacred: consider old dualistic heresy, leading to severe repression or gross sin; also the modern error of despising the body now, and hoping to be freed from it as from a burden by-and-by. The body? it is the instrument of our active life in God's creation - deed, speech, thought. The spirit in itself may live towards God; but only by the medium of the body can it live for God amongst men. And to present the body a living sacrifice is thus to offer the whole life to God. Think, then, of the meaning of this. Think of your life: busy work, with manifold industries of limb, or speech, or brain, and intervals of rest which continually re-create you for new work; social relationships, with all the continuous interchange of affection and thought which they involve; of the life of your own mind, your reasonings, your beliefs, your fancies, your memories, your hopes: think of all these things, and a thousand others; and then remember that all this is to be offered up to God, a living sacrifice. This demands that the life be pure. Jewish sacrifices without spot. So conduct, words, imaginings, must be undefiled. Demands also that the life be consecrated. Just as sacrifice, when pronounced pure, was offered on altar, so our activities, being undefiled, are to be all given to God, that they may be employed for him. Nothing neutral: activities of brain, of tongue, of hand, having many subordinate ends, must be governed by the great controlling purpose to please God and do his will. Is it so? Is the undefiled life God's life? Do you make everything inexorably bend to this? Is your great "sacrifice" the sacrifice of the life? your great "service" the service of the life? All else is as nothing compared with this.

II. THE RENEWING OF THE MIND. But how? The "age" is against us. Whether or not conspicuously an age of impurity, certainly an age of greed and self-worship. Consider the plastic and binding influences exerted by the world: it imperceptibly educates us to itself if we yield; it restrains us as with iron bands if we attempt to break away. And the current of our own nature sets with the stream (Ephesians 2:2, 3). Self-seeking; self-pleasing. Not only are the lusts (ἐπιθυμίαι) of the flesh worldwards, themselves controllable if the inner life were right; but the desire (θέλημα) of the mind is worldwards too. The interior springs of life are bad; the "willing" nature (νοῦς) is diseased. And the secret of all this is that the inward life is wrong with God; there is death, not life (Ephesians 2:1). For this reason, God's governance and succour being lost, the will is sunk in the lusts that it should control, and it is thus that the desires of the flesh (ἐπιθυμίαι) have become actually volitions (θελήματα) of the flesh (see Ephesians 2:3 again). Hence "be not conformed" is immediately followed by "be transformed." This is the great doctrine of the new birth: a re-attachment to the life of God, which shall make all things new. Has been fully elaborated in ch. 6.-8. in which the apostle sets forth regeneration as the natural and necessary accompaniment of true justification. It is here insisted upon once more, as the only guarantee of a life of consecration such as he is about to set before his readers in the following chapters, which are an unfolding of the principle of the first verse of this chapter. The Spirit of God is the regenerating power: what is the regenerating principle? Love - love evoked, fed, perfected by the mighty, changeless love of God. An enthusiasm for the highest good, which wings its way through all that obstructs a lower energy of life, and triumphs evermore. So now the νοῦς is renewed, the θελήματα set with the current of the new life, and the ἐπιθυ,ίαι of the flesh fall into their proper place. Thus a power of nonconformity to the "course of this world" is ours; the bonds are broken, and the plastic influences break like spray upon a rocky shore. And so, with the altar set in order, the sacrifice is offered up; with the worshipful heart restored, a living service is rendered. We "prove" what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God; it is -known, loved, obeyed. In conclusion, let us remember that we are besought to this renewal and consecration by the yearning pity (οἰκτιρμῶν) of our God. His tears! Oh, let us be persuaded to accept our healing at his hands! - eyesight for blindness, love for our dead, cold, barren selfishness. And being alive unto God within, let us live to God without. Away with fictitious sacrifices and fictitious service! The sacrifice is to be the living sacrifice of ourselves; the service the rational service of a pure and consecrated deed and speech and thought. - T.F.L.

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KJV: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

WEB: 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.