Answer: We are to offer our bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, (verse 1).
MORE INFORMATION AND/OR OTHER SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:
We are to OFFER our bodies as LIVING SACRIFICES to God, and
that living sacrifice is to be holy and pleasing to God. Paul
continues this urging, this beseeching, this "call" to
God's children, by saying that our offering to God is our
spiritual act of worship, or our reasonable service.
The word
"offer" is also translated "present," as in
"present your bodies." The meaning in the
original Greek is to make a decisive dedication to God. It
means that you have made an informed decision, and you have
dedicated yourself "once for all" to God. One
translator (Wuest) has translated it this way: "by a
once-for-all presentation to place your bodies at the disposal of
God." The Greek language is inferring that the offering
we give to God is, by our decision, a consecrated offering that is
given/made, and will never be taken back, changed, sullied,
etc.
The word
"bodies" is literally referring to the human body, but
we must keep in mind that the body is the instrument by which ALL
human service is rendered to God. The offering of our bodies
to God includes the offering of the flesh-and-blood body as a tool
to carry out works of service and worship to Him, and that includes
ALL of our faculties, our whole being. This is in contrast to
the dead animal sacrifices offered to God under the Old Law.
Those propitiatory sacrifices appeased God for a while, but now He
requires His children to be living sacrifices offered by ourselves
to Him for the purpose of bringing Him glory and honor.
We might look at this way: We--being priests
before God--by informed decision offer ourselves to Him, thus
becoming living sacrifices. The aroma of our sacrifice goes
up to Him, and we please Him. 2 Corinthians
2:14-16 says that through us, His children, God spreads
everywhere the knowledge of Christ. This is our living
sacrificial service. And we are, then, to God the aroma of
Christ among people here on earth who are being saved and those who
are perishing. The fragrance of our sacrifice is the smell of
death to those who are perishing and the fragrance of life to those
who are being saved. Follow the process: The sinner presents
a repentant heart/mind/soul before God, but must also physically
obey the commands to obtain forgiveness of sins. The total
being, all of the faculties, must be involved. The new child
of God then becomes the serving priest, who is also the living
sacrifice offered by that serving priest for the purpose of
glorifying God. The "aroma" of that living
sacrifice goes up before God and pleases Him, because His Son is
the "aroma" that He inhales, appreciates and
enjoys. We become fragrant offerings (sacrifices) for our
God, and the fragrance is Christ, not ourselves. ALL of our
being must be offered and committed to God. We CANNOT give
only a part and expect to please God. For example, we cannot
offer lip service to God, and then neglect to do His Will
(Matthew 7:21); we cannot claim to have faith and
then fail to do the deeds of faith by which we are to glorify the
Father (James 2:14-26); we cannot say that we love
Jesus and then fail to obey ALL that He has commanded, ALL that He
has brought from the Father to teach to us (John 14:15,
23-24); we cannot be God's living sacrifice, and
"toy with" the world (2 Peter
2:20-22).
The offering of our bodies to God as living sacrifices is so
closely connected with the mind/soul that in verse 2,
Paul immediately speaks of the mind's/soul's ability to
either conform "to the pattern of this world" or
"be transformed by the renewing of your mind,"
indicating that there must be a willing radical change in the inner
man, which shows in the actions of the outer man. Someone
once said it this way, "Are you a light to the world, or are
you kindling without the flame?"
This
"living sacrifice" has a clear definition: It
must be holy and pleasing to God because this is our spiritual act
of worship to Him (also translated "which is your reasonable
service"). The literal translation of "spiritual
act of worship" or "reasonable service" is
"Your rational (spiritual, logical) service
(worship)." The phrase means here "worship
rendered by the reason (or soul)." Here are some other
translations for "spiritual act of worship" or
"reasonable service:" Sanday and Headlam:
"A service to God such as befits the reason (logos),
i.e. a spiritual sacrifice and not the offering of an irrational
animal." Godet: "The service which
rationally corresponds to the moral premises contained in the faith
which you profess." Denney translates the phrase
"spiritual worship." Phillips has:
"intelligent worship." Weymouth has:
"a spiritual mode of worship." The Berkeley
Version reads: "your worship with
understanding."
Consider
these Scriptures:
Romans 6:11-19: "Now if we died
with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For
we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die
again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He
died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He
lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to
sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin
reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have
been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body
to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be
your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under
grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer
yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the
one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads
to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But
thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you
wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were
entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become
slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because
you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the
parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing
wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading
to holiness."
1 Corinthians 6:18-20: "Flee from
sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his
body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is
in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you
were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your
body."
1 Peter 2:4-5: "As you come to Him,
the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and
precious to Him--you also, like living stones, are being built
into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
