Romans 12:1 (NKJV) – 1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Paul’s plea to believers

Paul is calling for an attitude adjustment as he writes to the believers in Rome. This is pointing to the level of expectation believing Christians should show and hold themselves to during all that they face as life is happening around them. Rome in the first century mind was the centre of the world. Roman thought and culture would have been the backdrop of all contemporary thought and philosophy and in the midst of that, the Christian faith was trying to gain credibility so that it would be established. Most of the believers are being admonished by Paul therefore to look past their own backgrounds and where they have been. Most of them were still underground as persecution was rife for those who believed. So, the call to action here is to be all in for the mission and the faith.

Even though at this point has never met the ecclesia in Rome, Paul invokes a familial term adelphos or brother which intentionally creates a commonness of purpose between him and those who are in that assembly. By calling them brother, he seemingly binds them together by suggesting that they are one, a theme he carries through the rest of the chapter to show the importance of togetherness in Christ. Paul is challenging believers to also be open to what he is stirring up in their spirit because what he was proposing was quite a difficult concept. As alien and as different to their current experience as it may be, he is appealing to them to pause and take a perspective which submits their lives to the God they are now confessing to trust. This submission according to Paul would be done through constant course correction and self-reflection (Romans 12:3), by walking in faith and in step with the master (Rom 4:13), through obedience (Rom 6:16) while being changed by Him daily (Romans 12:2). 

Sacrifice is a very big word when you really micro examine it in the context of Greco-Roman culture. The Romans and Greeks lived in a land which worshipped at the time a pantheon of Gods, which meant idol worship and pagan sacrifice rituals were a prevalent occurrence (Romans 1:23). They were not strangers to wooden carvings and bronze figures of Athen, Aphrodite and Aries and the followers of those gods would proudly show their faith in these ‘deities’. The believers in Rome themselves might have previously worshipped such things and know therefore what it meant to sacrifice to the gods. Some would even have witnessed human sacrifice to the gods so when Paul speaks of this new living sacrifice, it might have needed them to gain further understanding. The message from Paul was certainly not to go and burn themselves at an altar, in fact he was speaking of exactly the opposite. For where the pagan gods demanded a fleshly death according to their priest and oracles, Christ was demanding a spiritual offering, where figuratively your flesh was sacrificed so your spirit would be conformed to His will. Christ would however insist that you die to the world and live for Him, which was a reasonable service representative of a master who sacrificed Himself for you so that you could live in Him. This sacrifice represents a willingness to isolate ourselves and cut off the thing we love the most to be closer to Him, yet at the same time live trusting that He will replenish us with something greater that He has prepared for us if we have faith in His plan for us (Jeremiah 29:11). It asks us to die of ourselves, think Abraham’s conundrum (Gen 22:9-10). Presenting your body is hard if you do it by your own strength and understanding, hence why Paul calls us to do it by the mercies of God. 

Nehemiah tells us that in His great mercy He did not forsake them in the wilderness, yet He led them when it was darkest for them, when they would have felt alone and vulnerable in the night, He lit the way (Nehemiah 9:19). God took whatever form He had to provide and protect those who He chose to save. In our case Paul is saying He will do the same for those who would put their trust in Him by His same mercies. Daniel did the same as He faced a circumstance of destruction and forsook everything else to seek the same mercies of God with his companions Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be saved from the sentence of death and God again showed up (Daniel 2:17-18). So, in essence Paul is asking us to submit ourselves to God’s will and judgment and rely on Him to direct us in our service to Him. He is directing truly believing Christians to forgo what they may feel they need in that moment, die of themselves and do what their master would command them. If Paul is therefore saying this he is also expected as a professing bondservant to follow this same pattern for himself. If he indeed is saying he lives to serve the house of his master forever, then he is declaring that he is a tool to be utilized in whichever way the master deploys him (Philippians 2:13).

Present your body

Romans 6:13 – Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

The word Paristemi which means present, also can mean commit, stand by, set, or prove. There is an underlying element of relinquishing control over to someone else, or ceding space to by submission. The word commit means a state of personal dedication to something or someone, which results in actively promoting and working for their good or well-being. In a practical sense to commit to Christ requires you to die of yourself daily (Luke 14:27). The commitment to ‘carry your cross’ is the same as the one which is being required to ‘present yourself’ because of the repetitive and constant nature of the requirement. Everything else seems to become secondary to that endeavour and all else is then geared to work together to achieve the successful outcome of that mission. So, this ‘presenting’ can be interpreted as devotion, faithfulness or loyalty.

A living sacrifice

1 Peter 2:5 – you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Presenting your bodies is therefore devotional, and a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God hammers home the point. Only something of real value was an acceptable sacrifice to God as an act of worship. There were laws and rules set as too how offerings were to be made to the Lord, it was not meant to be a haphazard activity, so care was taken to do everything the right way lest the offering or sacrifice became unacceptable. There were essentially two categories of offering that were laid out in Leviticus 1:1-7. The first, which was later fulfilled on the cross by Christ is the expiatory offering, also called the sin offering. Jesus paid that for believers and so it is no longer a sacrifice we must pay. The second was a peace offering where you would sacrifice to God from whatever you had brought of your work. If your offering was acceptable, it would produce a sweet-smelling odour and would be accepted by God, some of the sacrifices were not accepted by God and there would be a consequence to that rejection. Those who give unworthy sacrifices get a consequence they did not desire to be deceitful and fraudulent to their master (Malachi 1:14). The process for worship through sacrifice was meticulously laid out and as a result when even priest performed the rites the wrong way there were consequences also (Leviticus 10:1). Even the ultimate sacrifice for sins had detailed specifications (Isaiah 53).

Holy and acceptable

1 Peter 1:14 -As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

All this to show the specificity of worship through sacrifice. This is why Paul goes on and says it has to be holy and acceptable, because otherwise it would be pointless. There a those who give a sacrifice, but in a way which taints the sacrifice because of attitudes or an approach which is not acceptable (Genesis 4:3-5). While the story of Cain and Abel paints the picture of contrasting postures of sacrifice, and Cain gets upset about the rejection, there is a sense that Cain is given grace to allow him to try and get it right the next time (Genesis 4:7). Another example which is more dire, and frightening comes from Jesus’ own words when speaking on those who would make sacrifices in His name which he has neither commanded nor permitted and to the dismay of those ‘worshippers’ he would reject them and their sacrifice (Matthew 7:21).

Worshipping God according to these examples therefore should be in accordance with His will, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:3). Sacrifice and obedience are at the centre of all worship, meaning that a living sacrifice is willing and obedient to achieve for their master and king that which he has prescribed for them. This is why Paul declares he is a bondservant first and foremost to the Romans^[1].

A reasonable service

1 John 2:15 – Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Then Paul concludes by saying this is your reasonable service, because as one who is working for the good of the master, your work cannot be any other way except through committed, sacrificial worship-based offering. The rendering of what Paul is saying in the ESV for ‘your reasonable service’ is ‘your spiritual worship’. Worship is defined as an act of practice of expressing devotion, reverence and adoration towards a deity or God. Jesus teaches about the expectation of true worship and points out the spiritual nature of the experience (John 4:23). Most worship would have been by prescription and mechanical, without any real understanding or intimacy and He declares ‘for the Father is seeking such people to worship him’ (John 4:24). Jesus was trying to move every disciple to a place where they are connected to the will of God, which would inevitably lead to a sacrificial life. Paul is saying that it is reasonable for a believer to expect to lose aspects of their reality in order to effectively serve their master (Philippians 3:8).

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^[1] Read the commentary on Romans 1:1 – Slave to the most high