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.
The strictly Doctrinal teaching of this great Epistle being now concluded, the apostle, as a wise master-builder, follows it up in this and the remaining chapters by impressing on believers the holy obligations which their new standing and life in Christ imposed upon them. In doing this he first puts clearly before them, in a couple of verses, the general character of all Christian service, and then goes at some length into a variety of details.
The General Character of All Christian Service-SELF-CONSECRATION, in our Whole Spirit and Soul and Body, to Him who hath called us into the Fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1-2)
I beseech you therefore, brethren - in view of all that has been advanced in the foregoing part of this Epistle,
By the mercies of God, х dia (G1223) = pros (G4314) toon (G3588) oiktirmoon (G3628) = raachªmiym (H7356)] - those mercies whose free and unmerited nature, glorious channel, and saving fruits have been opened up at such length,
That ye present, х parasteesai (G3936)] - see the note at Romans 6:13, where (as also in Romans 12:16; Romans 12:19) the same word is used, and there rendered "yield:"
Your bodies - that is, 'yourselves in the body,' considered as the organ of the inner life (see the note at Romans 6:12). As it is through the body that all the evil that is in the unrenewed heart comes forth into palpable manifestation and action, so it is through the body that all the gracious principles and affections of believers reveal themselves in the outward life. The Christian must never forget that as corruption extends to the whole man, so does sanctification (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
A living sacrifice - a glorious contrast to the legal sacrifices, which, except as they were slain, were no sacrifices at all. The death of the one, 'Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world,' has swept all dead victims from off the altar of God, to make room for the redeemed themselves, as 'living sacrifices' to Him who made "Him to be sin for us;" while every outgoing of their grateful hearts in praise, and every act prompted by the love of Christ, is itself a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savour (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, [ euareston (G2101 ), 'well pleasing'] unto God - not as the Levitical offerings were pleasing to God, merely as appointed symbols of spiritual ideas, but which, when offered by those who were void of the character which they represented, were hateful to God, (Isaiah 1:13-15; Isaiah 66:3; etc.): believers in their renewed character and endeared relationship to God through His Son Jesus Christ are objects of divine complacency intrinsically, when presenting to Him their bodies a living and holy sacrifice.
[Which is] your reasonable service, х teen (G3588) logikeen (G3050) latreian (G2999) humoon (G5216)] - rather, 'your rational worship;' not as opposed to a superstitious worship (as Calvin), or to the senselessness of idol-worship (as others), but in contrast with the ceremonial character of the Levitical worship (as most interpreters agree): cf. 1 Peter 2:2, the only other place where the same word х logikos (G3050)] is used to express "the milk of the word," or 'the rational milk,' in contrast with the material substance on which babes are nourished. This presentation of ourselves as living monuments of redeeming mercy, and as divine property in the highest sense, is here called 'worship' х latreia (G2999)]. "Service," indeed, it is, as our version renders it; yet not that of a 'servant' х diakonia (G1248)], but of a 'priest.' For as all believers are "priests unto God" (Revelation 1:6), so their whole Christian life is just a continuous exercise of this exalted priesthood-`their rational worship.' So 1 Peter 2:5, "Ye are ... a royal priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (compare John 4:24).
In the next verse the same great worship of self-consecration is inculcated under another aspect. The apostle had bidden us present our bodies a living sacrifice to God. But since it is by our bodies that we move about, and mix in society, and come in contact with all the various phases of life, how are we to carry out our Christianity in the evil and bewitching world around us? The next verse gives both a negative and positive answer to this question.