Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brethren,
by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice,
acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service of worship.
From other translations:
I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship. [AMP]
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. [ESV]
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. [MSB]
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. [KJV]
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. [NIV]
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice–the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? [NLT]
I 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. [NKJV]
Now let us see what this verse is telling us.
I beseech you, brethren, and beg of you in view of all the mercies of God, that you make a decisive dedication of your bodies, as a living sacrifice, holy, devoted, consecrated and acceptable, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable, rational, and intelligent service and spiritual worship.
I beseech you therefore, brethren,
I appeal to you, I urge you
Therefore
This therefore is pointing to all that has been advanced in the foregoing part of this Epistle to the Romans. Now Paul turns to exhortation.
By the mercies of God
“By means of the mercies of God” as shown in his argument and in our lives. See 2 Corinthians 1:3 for “the Father of mercies.”
These are those mercies, whose free and unmerited nature, glorious Channel, and saving fruits have been opened up us. It also points to the fact that we can only be holy and acceptable to God, with God’s help.
With these words Paul also shows us that Gods glory should be the utmost goal of everything we do.
That ye present your bodies
This means presenting all your members and faculties, including your everyday ordinary life: your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around.
Present
See Romans 16:13 , where we have the same exhortation and the same word. There it is rendered “yield” (as also in Romans 12:16 and 19 ).
To present is a technical term for offering a sacrifice (Josephus, Ant. IV. 6, 4), though not in the O.T.
It is used
▪︎ of presenting the child Jesus in the temple ( Luke 2:22 ),
▪︎ of the Christian presenting himself ( Romans 6:13 ),
▪︎ of God presenting the saved ( Ephesians 5:27 ),
▪︎ of Christ presenting the church (Col 1:28).
Your bodies
The word Bodies can be taken literally as in Ephesians 6:13,19 and 2 Corinthians 5:10 and in contrast with the mind in Romans 12:2 .
In times past other bodies besides our own (animals) were offered, but now our own life (time etc.) should be offered, should be given to the glory of God.
My opinion is that “your body” here should be understood as: yourselves inside the body, your heart, and your whole being, considered as the organ of the inner life.
Like in the same way as we should love the Lord.
Deuteronomy 6:5
You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul
and with all your might.
As it is through the body, that all the evil that is in the unrenewed heart comes to manifestation and action, so it is through the body that all the gracious principles and affections of believers reveal themselves in the outward life.
Sanctification extends to the whole man ( 1 Thessalonians 5:23,24 ).
A living sacrifice
In contrast with the Levitical sacrifices of slain animals. Cf. Romans 6:8, 11, 13 . Not a propitiatory sacrifice, but one of praise.
Place your life before God as an offering
▪︎ In times past, dead sacrifices were offered, but now we must offer ourselves (our time, our actions), who have the spirit of life in us.
▪︎ In times past, the sacrifices were presented before the altar: but now the altar is everywhere.
This living sacrifice is in glorious contrast to the legal sacrifices, which only covered the sins of the people.
Now the death of the one “Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world,” has swept all dead victims from off the altar, to make room for the redeemed, to give themselves as “living sacrifices” to Him.
Every thing that comes out of the grateful hearts of those who are truly born again, in praises, and every act prompted by the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ, is in itself a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor ( Hebrews 13:15-16 ).
Holy
As the Levitical victims, when offered without blemish to God, were regarded as holy, so believers, “yielding themselves to God as those that are alive from the dead, and their members as instruments of righteousness unto God,” are, in His estimation, not ritually but really “holy,” and so acceptable.
Acceptable
well-pleasing unto God
2 Corinthians 5:9
Therefore we also have as our ambition,
whether at home or absent,
to be pleasing to Him.
Unto God
Not as the Levitical offerings, merely as appointed symbols of spiritual ideas, but objects, intrinsically, of divine complacency, in their renewed character, and endeared relationship to Him through His Son Jesus Christ.
Reasonable
The word reasonable is translated from the Greek word λογικός logikos (pronounced as log–ik–os’)
This word appears twice in the Amplified Version, and is translated once with “reasonable” (here), and once with “spiritual” (1 Peter 2:2). “to logikon gala” in 1 Peter 2:2 does not mean “logical milk” or “reasonable milk”, but “spiritual milk”, the milk nourishing the soul.
The word is pertaining to speech or speaking, or pertaining to the reason or logic. In which case it means spiritual, pertaining to the soul, or agreeable to reason, following reason, reasonable, logical
So, “Which is your reasonable service” could also be translated with “Which is your spiritual service”, or Which is your rational (logical) service.
Service
This is in contrast, not to the senselessness of idol-worship, but to the offering of irrational victims under the law.
In this view the presentation of ourselves, as living monuments of redeeming mercy, is here called “our rational service”; and surely it is the most rational and exalted occupation of God’s reasonable creatures.
1 Peter 2:5 (NASB)
You also, as living stones,
are being built up as a spiritual house
for a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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