CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 12:2. And be not conformed.—Be not configured to this world, but rather as Christ was transfigured on the mount. Be not like the men of this world whose all is in the present. Live for eternity.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 12:2
Nonconformity to the world.—We must be careful not to fall into the error of disparaging this world. The habit of holding many secular things in abhorrence is nonsense, bigotry. We need to look on all questions apart from prejudice, and be perfectly ready to take them on their merits. We are to repudiate the method of the devil in life, but not necessarily repudiate the world. Jesus is witness to the fact that this is wrong; for His treatment and His reception of this world, His recognition of the great and beautiful world of nature, wherein He spake of ravens, lilies, cornfields—light touches of nature, everywhere recognising beauty, shaped and glorified at the hands of God—all this is enough to answer those who are wilfully blind to what the Lord of earth and heaven was glad to see: a world on which the Creator looked and saw that it was good.
I. “This world”: what is meant by it?—
1. Not the beautiful world of nature, nor the social world merely, nor the world of intellect, nor the world of commerce.
2. “It is fallen human nature, acting itself out in the human family, fashioning the framework of human society in accordance with its own tendencies.” It is the reign of the “carnal mind.”
3. It is also everything that is in antagonism with God. A. difficulty lies in the fact of the changeability of “this world.” What is “world” to me is not “world” to another. A business man’s temptations differ from a professional man’s, and so on. Further, according to a man’s constitution, so is this “world” good or bad, safe or dangerous, to him. Thus text acts as a caution.
II. Christ’s estimate of the world.—
1. No attempt made by Him at depreciation. He recognised political life and social claims. Notice His treatment of commerce. He castigated, not commerce as commerce, but fraudulent commerce. He sought to show that we are not to be absorbed in this world’s engagements to the forgetfulness of nobler thoughts.
2. It differed from Solomon’s estimate. He was a jaded worldling when he said all was “vanity and vexation.” Christ rather taught men to use the world, but not to abuse it. Glory in it, mingle in it, work in it, rejoice and prosper in it, but do not allow it to have such a hold upon you as to master you and fashion your soul according to its will.
III. The influence of our environment.—“A man is known by the company he keeps.” Given the character of a man’s surroundings, and we can gauge the force of his temptations and difficulties. “Physically, man is moulded by climate, by food, by occupation. Mentally, he is moulded by institutions, by government, by inherited beliefs and tendencies.” So, religiously, a man’s environment has the same and even more forcible effect upon him. Recognising this, the key of the text is: whatever tends to wean our soul from God; whatever tends to vitiate our moral environment, to bring us down or keep us low, preventing our uprising, that is an evil world to us, striving to fashion us in anything but Godlike shape of our Lord and Master, whose mind we must have if we would be of God.
IV. A Christian’s attitude towards the world.—
1. He must breathe the spirit of nonconformity: not here speaking of denominational differences, but of the spirit of nonconformity to anything that curtails our reverence or spoils our service Godward, or robs us of Christ’s likeness.
2. There is an inward nonconformity: the soul lives in the world without being absorbed in its evil.
3. There is an outward nonconformity: it will not appear to agree with the world’s evil, but will resolutely stand against it.
4. This attitude is a difficult one. Hard not to be fashioned by the world. But this nonconformity can be attained by the help of God. Any who feel a sense of weakness, let them cast their whole care on the divine Helper. He who conquered death will not let death conquer you.—Albert Lee.
True nonconformity.—“The word translated ‘world’ here is not cosmos, which in the New Testament sometimes means the material world, sometimes the existing generation of men, and sometimes the unrenewed portion of humanity, but aion, which is used to represent the course and current of this world’s affairs, especially in a bad sense (Romans 12:2; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 2:2); all that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims at any time current in the world, and which it is impossible to seize and accurately define, but which constitute a most real and effective power, being the moral or immoral atmosphere which at every moment of our lives we inhale, again inevitably to exhale; all this is included in the aion, which is, as Bengel expressed it, the subtle informing spirit of the cosmos or world of men who are living alienated and apart from God” (Bayley). Now in the text we are exhorted not “to be conformed” to this state of things, not to be shaped and figured by the prevalent immorality of a passing generation. The exhortation includes at least three things:—
I. Be practical theists.—The world, the existing generation of mankind, is mainly “without God.” God is not in all its thoughts. If He appear in the horizon, it is only as a fleeting vision, a passing phantom. He is not the great object filling up the horizon and causing all other objects to dwindle into shadows. Theoretical theism is somewhat prevalent. It talks and prays and sings and preaches throughout Christendom. But practical theism is rare and unworldly. Mere theoretical theism is a hypocrisy, a crime, and a curse. Practical theism alone is honest, virtuous, and beneficent. Practical theism is nonconformity to the world.
II. Be practically spiritual.—The world, the existing generation, is essentially materialistic; the body rules the spirit. “What shall we eat? what shall we drink? wherewithal shall we be clothed?” This is the all-pervading, all-animating aspiration. Men everywhere judge after the flash, walk after the flesh, live after the flesh; they are of the earth earthy. Nonconformity to the world is the opposite to this. Spirit is the dominating power. Intellect governs the body; conscience governs the intellect; moral rectitude governs the conscience. The things of the spirit are everything to them: they walk after the spirit; they live to the spirit. The soul is regal.
III. Be practically unselfish.—The great body of existing generations is selfish. Each man lives to himself and for himself. Self is the centre and circumference of his activities. The commerce, the governments, and even the Churches of the world, are mainly conducted on selfish principles. Each man is in quest of his own interest, his own aggrandisement, his own happiness. Nonconformity to the world means the opposite of this. It means that supreme sympathy with God, that brotherly love for the race, that absorbs the ego, that buries self, that is in truth the spirit of Christ, the spirit of self-sacrificing benevolence. “Let no man,” says Paul, “seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.”
Conclusion: What is true nonconformity?—Not a mere dissent from this Church or that Church, this creed or that creed, but a dissent from that spirit of moral wrong which pervades and animates the generation. This was the nonconformity which Christ exhibited and He implored on behalf of His disciples. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Let us cultivate this nonconformity, knowing that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, and that if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him.—W. Thomas.
Conformity sinful compliance.—As for the conformity to the world that is here forbidden, I believe nobody thinks there is any more intended by this prohibition than only a sinful compliance with the customs of the world, a framing of our lives and manners after the impious practices and examples that we see frequently represented before us, an indulging ourselves in such bad courses as the men of the world do too often give themselves liberty in.
Taking, now, this to be the true notion of being conformed to the world, then the being transformed by the renewing of our minds, which is put in opposition to it, must denote our being actuated with more heavenly and divine principles, and framing our conversation in such a way as is suitable to the profession of Christianity which we have taken upon ourselves. It must denote such a holy disposition and frame of soul as doth effectually produce a conformity of all the outward actions to the law of the gospel, to which the law of sin and the course of the world are opposite.
There are these two inconveniences in multiplying the signs and marks of regeneration: one is, that oftentimes such marks are given of it as that a man may be a very good Christian, and, without doubt, a regenerate person, and not find them in himself. Another inconveniency is this: that such marks are likewise given that even a bad man may experience them in himself, though some good men cannot.
The truest mark is that of our Saviour: the tree is known by its fruits. If a man be baptised, and, heartily believing the Christian religion, doth sincerely endeavour to live up to it; if his faith in Jesus Christ be so strong that, by virtue thereof, he overcomes the world and the evil customs thereof; if, knowing the laws of our Saviour, he so endeavours to conform himself to them that he doth not live in any known wilful transgression of them, but in the general course of his life walks honestly and piously, and endeavours, in holy conversation, to keep a good conscience both towards God and man,—such a man, however he came into this state, and with whatever infirmities it may be attended—of which infirmities yet he is deeply sensible, and fails not both to pray and strive against them—yet he is a good man, and gives a true evidence of his regeneration, though he have not all the marks and qualifications that he may meet with in books. And such a man, if he persevere in the course he is in, will without doubt at last be justified before God and find an admission into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.—Archbishop Sharpe.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12
Romans 12:2. What stopped the saw-mill.—In one of the older States of America resided an infidel, the owner of a saw-mill, situate by the side of a highway, over which a large portion of the community passed every Sabbath to and from the church. This infidel, having no regard for the Sabbath, was as busy, and his mill was as noisy, on that holy day as any other. Before long it was observed, however, that a certain time before service the mill would stop, remain silent and appear to be deserted for a few minutes, when its noise and clatter would recommence, and continue till about the close of the service, when for a short time it again ceased. It was soon noticed that one of the deacons of the church passed the mill to the place of worship during the silent interval; and so punctual was he to the hour that the infidel knew just when to stop the mill, so that it should be silent while the deacon was passing, although he paid no regard to the passing of the others. On being asked why he paid this mark of respect to the deacon, he replied, “The deacon professes just what the rest of you do, but he lives, also, such a life that it makes me feel bad here” (putting his hand upon his heart) “to run my mill while he is passing.” “Let your light so shine before men.”—Ellen Preston.