Here’s the last of our posts exploring God’s amazing promise that there’s no negative behaviour, at all, that we cannot be liberated from (Rom 6:14). We’ve seen, first, how everything builds on the amazing thing God did in us when we were `born again`. Then last week we saw what Romans 6>8 say about what we do to forward that transformation, and saw the profound `obligation‘ that is Paul’s third vital instruction in these chapters: `not to… live according to the sinful nature, but… by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body` (8:12-13, NIV as usual).
How are we to obey that? Because it’s clearly fundamental to our liberation.
Let’s speed-read forward. Don’t we find Paul’s answer when he returns to his theme in chapter 12? (That’s after his joyous digressions about the colossal glory the Spirit is leading us into (8:15-39; we’ll look at this next week), and the unfailing wisdom of God’s Word and strategy in bringing us all there (chs 9-11; Israel especially, because he needs to speak to the concerns of his Jewish readers, as he did in 7:7ff ).) In 12:1-2 Paul comes back to the issue of how we live, presenting us with a vital choice of lifestyle; and here he seems to expand ch8’s challenge to live by the Spirit, not the `sinful nature`.
First he urges us, `in view of God’s mercy` (Simon Guillebaud has said he finds it helpful to list God’s many mercies to himself: sight; health; things to be thankful for in the country where he lives… Or is Paul referring here to the amazing `mercies` to both Jews and Gentiles, the undeserved glory, described in 8:19-23 and just previously in ch11? Or indeed to all the amazing gospel mercies described in this entire epistle? Any and all of these deserve our grateful reflection, as a starting-point for what follows…) —— `I urge you`, says Paul, `in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices‘ (12:1).
Surely we see here the development of his two instructions from chapter 6? `Offering your bodies’ was the heart of 6:16-19; and this remarkable call to be a `living sacrifice’ matches the `counting ourselves dead’ with Christ in 6:11 – growing a mindset centred on how, through the cross, `the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’ (Gal 6:14). (Strong language there about what our commitment to Christ involves! But I’m reminded of Martina Navratilova’s definition of the commitment that enabled her to become a tennis champion: `Do you know what commitment means? Think of ham and eggs: the chicken is involved; but the pig is committed!`)
Paul then helps us a step further, with the twin commands of 12:2: `Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.’ So being a `living sacrifice’ means, first, breaking free from the fleshly `patterns’ of the `world’ (or `age’) around us. These, 1 John told us bluntly, involve `the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does’, and loving them is totally incompatible with loving God (1 John 2:15-17). So it’s as we consciously repudiate these that we can `please the Spirit’. (Cf the striking remarks of Jesus’ brother James on this same topic of `not conforming to the pattern of this world`: `Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely?'(4:4-5).) This combination, says Paul, is true `worship’ (Rom 12:1); and this is how we can `be transformed’…
Here we have two aspects, then: continually and alertly turning away from the `fleshly` norms surrounding us, and instead seeking the spread of the Spirit’s control to `renew our minds’. (Father, please help me find my way forward practically in each of these…) `Control’ is the issue here (cf Rom 8:6-8): how far do we choose to be moulded, `controlled`, by time influenced by the media reinforcing the norms of `this age’; and how far shall we be shaped, `controlled`, by the Spirit’s `media’ and Word? (The difference between the two, of course, is that the Spirit’s control leads ultimately to true freedom (2 Cor 3:17); whereas domination by the all-encompassing media of this age is ultimately a brainwashing; sometimes consciously so. Neo-Marxists call it `hegemony’.) It’s a never-ending choice; Cranfield translates these verses `Stop allowing yourselves to be conformed to this age, but continue to let yourselves be transformed’.
Paul moves on next to define this `renewing of our minds’ very practically. If we now list the themes of chs12 and 13, we’ll find a series of `Do nots’ liberating us from the `patterns of this world’: from egoism; individualism; insincerity; lovelessness; lack of zeal; unwillingness to share; cursing; pride; conceit; revenge; lawlessness; dishonesty; drunkenness; immorality; dissension; jealousy. (Lord, I do need You to show me which of these, currently, are the issues for my life with You…) `If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live’, Paul has told us (8:12-13); and here are those `misdeeds of the body’, here is God’s agenda for our transformation. Paul gives us no sense of therapeutic tolerance in this passage; we’re called to a deliberate `amputation’ of sin! As Jesus said, `If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out… If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off!’ (Matt 5:29-30). To paraphrase the profound 19th-century evangelical mystic Andrew Jukes (well worth reading by the way, on the gospels especially), Christ’s death for us doesn’t mean our own `flesh’ can safely evade the cross; instead, it makes its being `put to death’ unavoidable. (Christ who died: please teach me to be serious about this `putting to death’ of sin…)
But the crucial thing, as we’ve seen in previous posts, is that we’re not left to handle all this in our own strength; indeed (ch7) we must carefully resist the temptation to try to do so. That’s clear from 13:14, the section’s closing verse. The secret there is to `clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ’, and then we won’t be thinking `how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature’. Paul doesn’t want his instructions to come in legalistic isolation. Perhaps we can say these `instructions’ are God’s agenda showing us where we need, prayerfully, to get to; but only through Christ can we get there! (The same is true of the OT law as a whole: it unpacks what it means to live by love (13:8,10), while showing us that without Christ we cannot do it (Gal 3:24).) Paul is building here on everything he’s said about our `union with Christ’ in new birth, after which Christ lives within us and we are, at root, `controlled by the Spirit’. `Since we live by the Spirit’ (after our new birth and the genuine death it involved), `let us keep in step with the Spirit’ (Gal 5:24-25); those essential right actions will be the `fruit of the Spirit’ inside us, by whom we need to live, and otherwise they won’t happen at all (Gal 3:3, 5:16,22). `Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure!’ (Phil 2:13).
As we grasp these things, we realise how much of the new testament exists to help us with this twofold agenda; to live, not `according to the flesh’, but `according to the Spirit’; not to `conform to this age’, but to grow `transformed’, radical; to `count ourselves dead’ to an entire world-system, committing our energies to the resurrection world. We think of Jesus’ words: `Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth… Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’ (Matt 6:19-21). Or His teachings about identifying with the cross: `If anyone would come after me, he must … take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it’ (Matt 16:24-25). We recall, too, His long series of contrasts between `this-agely’ and `transformed’ behaviour: `You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…’ (Matt 5:21-6:21). (Lord, thankyou; please help me understand what these mean now for me, make each of them into growing realities, by Your Spirit…) We see similarly in 1 Peter the stark choice between being `conformed’ (the same word as here in Romans 12:2) to the `evil desires’ of our surroundings (1:14), or `setting our hope fully’ on the alternative world (1:13). The Word brings us back to these vital choices, over and over again.
And in turn it is this Word that gives us the power for being `transformed’. `We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory`, says Paul talking in context about Bible reading and using the same word as in Romans 12:2, `are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit` (2 Cor 3:14-18). Similarly in Colossians 3: when Paul again guides his readers what to `rid yourselves of’ from `your earthly nature’ and what instead to `clothe yourselves with’, he speaks of our `new self’ being `renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator’, and concludes the section, `Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly’ (3:10,16).
It’s striking too how, as we look here at Rom 12:2, it’s this transformation by the renewed mind (plus successful nonconformity to the world) that are the prerequisites of finding out `what God’s will is` for us – the prerequisites of knowing God’s guidance. Scripture talks more about internal wisdom than about external guidance, because wisdom is the Father’s transformative nature inside us, the accumulated Word, the `renewed mind`; something mature, as distinct from our being dependent on external signposts. This is what adulthood means, isn’t it; the ability to walk aright (because of the parental nature inside us), unlike a young child who needs support all the time. Clearly our absorption of the Spirit’s Word is vital to our being `renewed in knowledge’, in learning and living God’s will, and in increasing transformation into His image. As we grow soaked in it, we feed the relationship that gives us the power to choose holiness and God’s `good, pleasing and perfect will`; power for transformation, power at last for freedom…
So here it is then: our way forward, uniting many of the themes we’ve explored. `By the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body’, says Paul’s third imperative in Rom 6>8; we break free into changed lifestyle as our minds are `transformed’ by the Spirit’s power within, and salvation spreads out through all that we are; setting us free, choice by choice, to live like Jesus! It all comes back to those twin principles, repentance and faith, that were central to our conversion. We’re called to grow in repentance: counting ourselves dead to the old world and risen with Christ; living by that death, turning from sin, and keeping our minds now `set on what the Spirit desires’. We’re called to grow, by the Spirit’s strength, in faith; knowing Christ’s death for us has removed every barrier; rejoicing therefore in the certainty of His Spirit who has replaced our dead old self at the very heart of our being (6:6-8, 8:15-16); and trusting that `He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion’ (Phil 1:6)! And on the basis of these we continually `offer ourselves to God’, feeding, focusing on, deepening this union with Christ and the Spirit; `so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life’ (Rom 6:4).
And so there comes on God’s side a threefold cure. First, we’ve been set free from the law’s penalty for our past sins; liberated once and for all, by the death of Christ, which we joined in by `dying with him’ in new birth. Therefore, secondly, `Christ is in you’; His Spirit now controls the citadel of our innermost being, and He promises that salvation will spread outward throughout our personalities, as we `offer ourselves to God’ rather than to sin. And, longterm, we are guaranteed total triumph, either when we die or when Christ returns: the `redemption of our bodies’ (8:23), when we are finally swept free of all evil and decay, and our whole being is flooded with the glory of God! It is that confidence that makes Paul conclude, `You did not receive a spirit that make you a slave again to fear’ (Rom 8:15), a spirit of ineffective moralism. Rather, he exults, we’re on the way to unimaginable victory. The Spirit within us is the `firstfruits’ of dazzling glory (8:23); He is the guarantee that we are passed far beyond all condemnation (8:1-2, 33-34), locked now by divine predestination into an infinitely loving masterplan, one from which nothing can ever separate us (8:29,39)…..
Hallelujah! We need a new post for all that, next week…
