In order
for us truly understand this passage from
Romans 12, we must have some idea of all
that has preceded it in the first eleven
chapters. The outline of Paul’s Letter to
the Romans is essentially a basic
outline of the Christian faith, and
essentially a basic outline of true, real
Christian experience. One way to examine our
own hearts and minds and souls, to see
whether we are people of true Christian
faith and experience — to test ourselves to
see whether we in reality have a saving
knowledge of Jesus Christ — is to take a
look at our lives in light of the basic
outline of Christian faith and experience as
set forth in Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
The basic
outline of Romans is built upon three
major points, and these three major points
are also the basic outline of Christian
faith and experience. These three major
points, or headings, are sometimes called
the “three G’s of the Christian faith” ---
Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude — and
sometimes they are called the “three S’s” of
Christian faith — Sin, Salvation, and
Service. “Guilt-Grace-Gratitude” or
“Sin-Salvation-Service” — these headings
express the basic outline of the Letter
to the Romans and the basic outline, or
flow, of real Christian faith and
experience.
First,
the reality our sin and guilt. In Romans 1,
the Apostle Paul sets forth the divine
diagnosis of the human condition, and it is
not good. Romans 1:18 declares that “the
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
against all the godlessness and wickedness
of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness.” In his opening argument,
so-to-speak, the Apostle Paul, by the power
of the Holy Spirit, takes on the role of the
prosecuting attorney and presents the case
that fallen humanity — as a corporate body
and as particular individuals — is guilty
without excuse before God, hopeless and
helpless, corrupt, and self-deceived, and
under the righteous condemnation of God the
holy Creator. This condemnation has fallen
upon all, both Jew and Gentile, the whole
human race, for, as the Scripture says,
There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands, no one who
seeks God.
All have turned away, they have together
become worthless;
there is no one who does good, not even one
(Romans 3:10-12).
The human condition common to
all is stated succinctly in Romans 3:23, which
declares that “all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God.”
So, what do
you think of the first main point, and the first
major section, of the Letter to the Romans?
Is it true that you, because of your sins, by
yourself are helpless and hopeless and without
excuse before God your Creator? Do you accept
the divine diagnosis that you share in the human
condition with its terminal disease of sin for
which there is no man-made or self-administered
cure? Is that true, is that really the case, and
is that the case with you as well as with
others? What do you really think about that
first question which is asked when new members
are received into the congregation? “Do you
acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight
of God, justly deserving God’s displeasure, and
without hope ...except in God’s sovereign
mercy?” Do you believe that? For in order
for us to be saved by the mercy of God, in order
for us to respond to the mercy of God, we must
first of all become convinced that we are
helpless, hopeless sinners in need of the mercy
of God.
But that
leads us directly into the second main point or
heading of both the Letter to the Romans
and the Christian faith --- the glorious grace
of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The second
“G” is grace; the second “S” is salvation — and
so the central point of Christian faith and
experience is “salvation by grace” through faith
in Jesus Christ. Romans 3:23 says, “There is no
difference (between Jew and Gentile) for all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God
presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,
through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:23-25).
And, “Therefore, since we have been justified
through faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
Here is the
glorious gospel of Jesus Christ: that though we
were sinners, helpless, hopeless, and without
excuse before God, though we were His sworn
enemies (Romans 5:10), though we had brought
upon ourselves God’s righteous wrath and
condemnation by our own rebellion and wickedness
— God did for us what we could not do for
ourselves, God did for us what we did not
deserve — God proved His own love for us in
this: that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us! (Romans 5:8). That is salvation by
grace — God saving us by His own power and
goodness, when we had neither power nor goodness
to save ourselves.
The wonderful
glory of the gospel is that God Himself has paid
the debt of our sins through the death of His
Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. The wonderful
glory of the gospel is that Jesus Christ, the
eternal, beloved, all-glorious, sinless,
righteous Son of God, came into the world to
take your place before God. He came in human
flesh and blood as your representative, to do
for you what you can not, will not, would not
and could not ever do for yourself. First of
all, for you, He lived a life of perfect
obedience to the Father in your stead. He lived
for you the sinless life which you were called
and commanded to live. He lived a human life as
your substitute and representative before the
Father. This is the gift of His free grace. And
secondly, for you, and for your salvation, He
offered up His sinless life as the atoning
sacrifice for all your sins. On the cross, in
your place, Jesus suffered that righteous wrath
of God which you and I deserve. And salvation,
redemption, the forgiveness our sins, the
renewal of our lives, the restoration of peace
with God, the assurance of our acceptance by
Him, the cleansing of our souls, and the healing
of our hearts, and the hope of heaven — all of
this comes to us freely as a gift from God
through Jesus Christ. This is the fullness of
salvation by grace through faith in Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ is himself God’s gift of
Himself to us. And in Him is life and light and
liberty in the joy of salvation. And we receive
this gift by receiving Jesus Christ through
faith — worshiping Him as our God, honoring Him
as our King, obeying Him as our Lord, serving
Him as our Master, and rejoicing in Him as our
Savior — in short, turning our lives over to Him
for His glory, as Second Corinthians 5:15 says,
“... that those who live should no longer live
for themselves but for him who died for them and
was raised again.” True faith in Christ is not
merely a matter of saying with our lips that we
believe, or acknowledging with our heads that
Christ is the Son of God, but of committing our
lives to Him and entrusting our souls to Him and
investing all our energies in the cause of His
glory.
And this
brings us, of course, to the third major point
or heading of the Letter to the Romans and of
Christian faith and experience — which is
expressed in Romans 12 — the third “G”,
for Gratitude, or the third “S”, for
“Service.” Simply put, this is our response
to the gospel, our response to the mercies of
God. In chapters 1-11, Paul has set forth the
helpless, hopeless state of fallen humanity
under the wrath of God and the glorious grace
and mercy of the gospel through Jesus Christ.
Now, in chapter twelve, the Word of God
addresses us — those who know that without
Christ they would be under the curse of sin and
death, but who also know by experience the
wonderful, saving grace and mercy of God through
Jesus Christ. And so the Scripture says, “I urge
you, in view of God’s mercy” — in view of
God’s mercy — that is, in response to God’s
mercy upon you, “offer your bodies as a
living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,
which is your spiritual worship” (Romans
12:1). Here, the Word is calling us to a
response of gratitude and service, a response of
whole-souled, total-life, life-long,
uncompromising, joyful, faithful commitment. The
turn of phrase “living sacrifice” is one of the
most powerful images in all of Scripture to show
us what it means to receive the gospel and to
respond in faith. Of course, if we had lived in
the first-century, it would have struck us
immediately. Both the Jews and the pagans were
accustomed to offering sacrifices — sacrifices
of animals, or of grain and wine. But God
doesn’t want a burnt offering or a bloody
sacrifice offered by you. God Himself has
already offered the sacrifice of death, in the
death of His Son Jesus Christ. What God calls
for now is a “living sacrifice” — that is to
say, the offering of your life, in all its
fullness, with all its strength and energy. God
does not want your things, or the things that
you can offer Him. He wants you! And when you
offer yourself to God, the totality of your
being, the fullness of your life, with joy and
faith in response to His mercy, then everything
else will follow.
Now, the
language here is very specific, very concrete —
“offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.”
That’s a very good, literal translation, and I
think we have much to learn from what the
Scripture says at face value. “Offer your bodies
as a living sacrifice.” Think about it. We often
speak of offering our “hearts” to God, or of
offering our “souls” our “inmost being” to God —
and surely, there’s nothing wrong with that,
because the idea is the offering of our lives,
the offering of our selves, to God. But Romans
12:1 is particularly powerful because it is very
specific and concrete when it says, “offer your
bodies as a living sacrifice.” I think we ought
to take it very literally. My hands are to be
hands that have been offered as a sacrifice —
put to death as far as sinful deeds are
concerned, and alive to do that which is
pleasing to God. My lips and my tongue are to be
instruments of praise to God and edification to
others — as a living sacrifice of worship to
God. My brain is a part of my body, and so the
way I use my intellect, and the way in which I
nurture it in terms of the things I feed into
it, in terms of the thoughts on which I dwell,
in terms of the plans I make, in terms of the
mental energy and power I exert at work or in my
personal pleasures — all of this is to be a
living sacrifice to the praise and glory of God.
Well, we could go on and on, with eyes and ears
and feet — but you see that the Word of God
calls us to a response to God’s mercy in Christ,
a response which engages the totality of our
lives, a response of gratitude and service
filled with joy, faith, and love, a response
which is nothing less than a “living sacrifice.”
Paul gives expression to this also in Galatians
2:20, which says, “I have been crucified with
Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in
me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith
in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me.”
Dear friends, if we are true Christians, we
know, first of all, that without Christ we would
be hopeless and helpless sinners under the wrath
of God. But secondly, we know that Christ died
for us, rose for us, and reigns for us
eternally. And if we know that we have been
truly saved by grace through Jesus Christ, then
we know that a response to the rich mercy of God
cannot be a half-hearted response, cannot be a
half-lived response, cannot be a partial
response of a part of our lives. No, in view of
God’s mercy, what can we do other than to offer
all to Him, to offer our bodies, literally, as
well as our hearts and souls, as living
sacrifices of praise to His glory?
