16. READ: ROMANS 12:1-8
a. To whom should we sacrifice our bodies?
Answer: We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, (verse 1).
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."