From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We're considering at the moment, as most of you will recall, the first two verses in the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. "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. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Well, here we have suggested a summary of the whole of the Christian teaching with regard to our conduct, practice, and behavior as Christian people. It’s a most important subject, as I suggested last Friday night. It is of exceptional importance because of the popularity of what may be called humanism. This whole theory that people can live the Christian life in their own power, in their own steam, as the result of the exercise of their own will.

Now, this is, I think, in many ways the great challenge to the Christian faith at the present time. It’s happened, of course, many times before in the long history of the church, but it is, in particular, the attack at this present moment. But it’s not only an attack; I feel that it is a very exceptional opportunity for us also because humanism is bound to fail. Humanism is failing, and herein lies our opportunity to show that there is nothing but the power that is given by this gospel that can ever enable men truly to live a decent life, quite apart from a Christian life.

Now, all this, therefore, is not something theoretical or academic, neither is it something purely personal. It is something that has the greatest possible consequences in the life of this nation as a whole to which we belong and, indeed, in the life of all the nations of the world. And so, we are examining this. It is a very vital statement, this. In these two verses, the whole of the Christian teaching on this question of behavior is very perfectly summarized for us.

So, we’ve commented on the way in which the apostle makes his appeal. "Brethren," he says, and he beseeches them. He doesn't command them; he beseeches them. That was the first point, the first division. The second division is this: Why should we live this Christian life? What are the motives for living the Christian life? There are many people in trouble about this. They want the benefits of salvation, but they reject its demands. Many people want to go to heaven, but they don't want to live as Christians in this life and in this world.

Now, here we are shown the utter folly of that position. Then we think of people who have their heads packed with doctrine, but who don't trouble about practice. The trouble with them, as I say, is they've never really understood their doctrine because the apostle tells us that the first great motive for living the Christian life is the knowledge and the understanding of the doctrine and of the truth. "Therefore," this word "therefore," that’s what it means. It sums up the whole of the great doctrine that he’s been unfolding in the first 11 chapters, and particularly in the first eight chapters.

In other words, I ended by saying this: that it is the doctrine alone which shows us why we should live this life and how alone it is possible to live this life. This is our contention as Christian people: that nobody can live this kind of life except the Christian. That’s our answer, as I say, to the humanist. Our contention is that it’s no use telling men what they ought to do; they can't do it. What mankind needs is not knowledge and information; it’s power. There are people who know exactly what they ought to be doing, but they don't do it.

I’ve often put that argument like this in order to leave it for this evening. Any medical man knows all about the evil effects of over-consumption of alcohol, but that does not mean that there has never been a doctor who’s not been guilty of taking too much alcohol. Often quite the reverse. Knowledge is essential, but knowledge isn't enough. The whole problem of the human race is not the problem of knowledge; it’s the problem of power.

And here, you see, is the only answer. Here alone are we shown why we should live this kind of life. Here alone are we shown how we can live this life. Very well then, it all comes to this: we’ve got to start by realizing who we are and what we are. It’s the old business again of the message of Horatio Nelson on the morning of Trafalgar: "England expects that every man this day will do his duty. Remember who you are." It’s something that's applied. The honor of the school, the honor of the family—remember who you are, what you are.

Very well, it’s the same here. As a Christian, you're a child of God. You've been born again. You're not only reconciled to God and forgiven; you've been born again. You are in Christ. You've got a new nature; you've got a new outlook. He’s been telling us all this. And the Spirit of God is in you. Very well, that’s the way to approach the question of conduct and of behavior. You don't just start with individual problems or questions; you start by reminding yourself who you are. And then you work out and deduce your doctrine from that.

That’s the first thing. In other words, the first great motive for Christian living is intellectual. It’s with the mind. The Christian doesn't live merely according to his feelings and impulses. He’s governed by his mind, his understanding of truth. He knows who he is, and he realizes that he must behave accordingly. Now, that’s "therefore." That’s the intellectual argument for living this life.

But now we must hurry on to the second. There’s a second great motive here. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God." Now, here is a second motive, and a second grand motive. Here is a motive which is not intellectual. Here is one which appeals to the heart. In other words, the appeal of the gospel is never only to the intellect. It always includes the feelings and the emotions—the heart.

Now, how essential it is that we should emphasize this. A man who talks about "dry as dust" theology means that he doesn't know his theology. There’s no such thing as a dry as dust theology. A man who gives the impression that theology is as dry as dust either doesn't know it or is a very bad teacher. True theology always moves the heart. It’s always got this second great appeal, this second great motive for calling upon us to live this kind of life.

Now, you see, here again is something that is absolutely unique to the Christian faith. Again, that’s where humanists are shown to be so defective. They’ve got no emotional appeal. Theirs is a purely intellectual attitude. They are the learned people, the people with brains, as they never tire of telling us. And they look down upon life, and they say it’s common sense not to get drunk. It’s common sense not to fight. It’s common sense not to do this and that. And they diagnose it, and they come to that conclusion with a cold intellectual detachment.

And that is the final trouble with your humanist: that they're cold. There’s no warmth about them. And they can't help a poor sinner because they've no sympathy even; they despise him. He’s not using his brains. They are what they are because they use their understandings and their brains. There’s never any sympathy; there’s never any warmth. There’s never anything about them that a poor sinner can warm the hands of his soul at. It’s all so purely intellectual. There’s no heart in it.

And that is where we are eventually going to show them that their whole position is wrong even intellectually. It doesn't merely break down in practice, but it's wrong even in its theory. It doesn't take up the whole man. But this does. And it’s concerned as much about the heart as it is about the head. You see, this is the sort of Christian reaction. You get it in the Old Testament in the Psalms, Psalm 116: "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits?"

That’s not a man speaking from his head; that’s a man speaking from his heart. His head is included. But there he’s speaking primarily from his heart. "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits?" That really is the Old Testament summary of what the apostle is saying here in this phrase, especially "by the mercies of God."

Now, it’s interesting to notice that the apostle puts the word in the plural. Not "by the mercy of God," but "by the mercies of God." Why does he do that? Well, I think his reason is this: ultimately, of course, the mercy of God is one, as it were. But it manifests itself in so many different ways so that as we look at it in terms of the benefits that we receive, we regard it as something plural, and we talk, therefore, about the mercies of God. Not only does it come in different ways; it comes in different times. It comes every day; it comes repeatedly. And so, it is quite natural that he should have used the plural instead of the singular.

But what is mercy? What does he mean by talking about the mercies of God? You’ll find this word in the Bible constantly, and perhaps the best way of looking at it is this. You’ll find in many of the salutations of the epistles, and particularly in the so-called pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, that there is this kind of formula. Paul says, "Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father," and so on. What’s the distinction, the difference, between grace and mercy?

It’s an important distinction, and it more or less means this. Grace is that quality in God that disposes him to be kind to people who don't deserve kindness. Grace is gratuitous kindness. And it is because God is a God of grace, the God of all grace, that there is any possibility at all of a way of salvation. That’s what grace means.

Well, what is mercy? Well, mercy means the pity of God for our condition. Grace is that disposition that enables God to do anything for us who don't deserve anything, but mercy means that God, having looked upon us and our state and condition, is sorry for us and pities us. Now, that hymn that we sang just now, the first one, put it, I think, quite perfectly in one stanza, the eighth: "He hath with a piteous eye," says John Milton, "looked upon our misery."

That’s exactly what is meant by mercy. The whole hymn, the whole paraphrase, is, of course, on this question of mercy. "For his mercies"—the plural again—"aye endure, ever faithful, ever sure." But here it is perfectly defined: "He hath with a piteous eye," with an eye full of pity, he’s looked down upon us, and he has seen our misery. "Looked upon our misery."

The great eternal God has looked down upon his creation and upon men and women in particular. And he’s seen not only our folly and our sinfulness and our rebellion and all the rest of it; he’s seen what we've brought upon ourselves—the miserable condition in which we are. And he’s had pity upon us. Now, that is what is meant by mercy: the Lord recognizing our pitiful condition and doing something about it by his grace.

And the apostle, of course, is here just reminding us that all the benefits of salvation which we enjoy, therefore, are entirely and solely the result of this pity, the result of this mercy. Now, he’s been making a point of that at the end of the 11th chapter, and that is undoubtedly why it’s in his mind at this point. Take, for instance, verses 30 and 31.

The apostle says, "For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy." In other words, his way, as we saw there, of describing the position of the Christian is: the Christian is one who has obtained mercy. The Christian is a man upon whom God has looked, and has looked with a piteous eye, and he’s felt sorry for him, and he has delivered him. Obtained mercy.

So, it is right to say that all the benefits of salvation come to us, everything included in the word "therefore." They've all come to us because of God's mercy, because he has looked upon us in this way. And then he has done these various things. Our justification is the result of God's mercy. Our sanctification is the result of God's mercy. Our future glorification will be entirely the result of God's mercy and all the other benefits and blessings of salvation which are summarized in this one word "therefore." Very well, all the doctrine that we've considered really comes out of this mercy.

The argument, of course, is stated very frequently, as I've already reminded you, in the Old Testament and particularly in the Book of Psalms. Now, take that Psalm which we read at the beginning. We had it there more than once. You see, it’s put like this now: that "as a father pitieth his children, God knoweth our frame. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him."

There it is. Then you’ve got the same thing again in the 130th Psalm, in verses three and four: "If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee." And this, you see, is the result of the mercy: "There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." Now, you notice the two things, and that’s what's so wonderful about it. These two things always go together. "There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared."

"By the mercies of God I beseech you" to live this kind of life. Exactly the same argument. These two things always belong together. A man who truly realizes the mercy of God is a man who’s going to show it. In other words, this is the whole appeal of the apostle here. He says if you want to show your gratitude to God for his many mercies toward you, this is the way to do so. You do it not only with your lips, but still more with your lives. There is nothing that more pleases God than to see his people giving proof of the fact that they are his people, demonstrating to the world the power of God unto salvation. It rejoices the heart of God.

Therefore, there is no way in which we can show our gratitude to God more than by living this life. And so, you see, this is the way that we must look at the demands of the New Testament teaching for conduct and behavior—for holiness. It’s not merely that we should see that sin is irrational and that sin is a contradiction of what we claim to believe; we must increasingly think of sin as base ingratitude. It just means that we're ready to take everything but don't even thank God for it. And the way in which he wants us to thank him is to live this life.

"I beseech you therefore, because of the mercies of God, present your bodies" and live this life. Show your gratitude to God in that particular way. So, you see, there is a double argument here, and it’s very powerful. The will is determined ultimately by the mind and by the heart. There’s no need to make too direct an appeal to the will; it’s the outcome of having understood the truth and having felt it. But here are the motives: the intellectual motives, the emotive motives—the heart motives, the feeling motives. And if we are deficient in the one or the other, it is a very serious matter.

So, you see, the apostle is saying that our minds and our hearts in unison and jointly should be urging us to live this Christian life to the glory of God. We thereby show our understanding, and we thereby show our gratitude to God. This can never be emphasized too much. What a tragedy it is that so often we deal with these problems of conduct in a little piecemeal, almost legalistic manner. Never tired of saying that; I have to say it in private as much as I have to say it from this pulpit.

The great thing with all these problems is to put them into their setting, put them into their context. The way to overcome temptation and sin is primarily to realize who you are, what you are, what you owe to God. Those are the grand motives whereby you can deal with any sin or any temptation, whatsoever it may chance to be. And so, you see, the gospel lifts up the whole problem of conduct to a high spiritual level. Nothing else does that at all. Not your humanists, not your moralists, not your philosophers, not your sociologists, not your educationists. None of them. They know nothing about these two grandest motives.

And that is why all their systems fail, and the world today is an absolute proof of this. This country, America—look at them and their moral condition. It’s becoming increasingly evident. What is the cause of all this? There’s only one explanation: in their cleverness, they turned their backs upon God about the middle of the last century and have done so increasingly ever since. We could do it all now by education; we needn't believe in God. Tell men what to do; man’s got it in him. Believe in man.

And you see the result. The two great motives for true living are entirely ignored. And the world today is proving the truth of what the apostle says in these two verses. Very well, let’s leave it at that. There we deal then with the great question of the motives for Christian living.

But now we come to the next division of the subject as the apostle puts it before us. Having seen our motives, having listened to his appeal to us as brothers, as brethren, his beseeching us, we now come to the next division, which is this: How then are we to live this Christian life? How is it to be lived? That’s the great question that every true Christian invariably asks: what is the manner of this life? How is it to be done in actual practice?

And here the apostle has got a complete answer for us. Here it is: "that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." That’s the answer.

The principle is this: that the first thing we have to realize about this practical outworking of this great argument and this great motive, the principle is that we have to make a complete surrender of ourselves—body, mind, and spirit—to God. Now, here is how he puts it. You present your bodies, then you don't be conformed to this world—there is what I would call the mind, if you like, or the soulish part of man—but you be transformed by the renewing of your mind, which is, in a sense, spirit, as I’m going to show. So, I say it is a totalitarian demand. We have to yield ourselves body, mind, and spirit to God. Complete, complete, and an entire surrender.

Now, the word "service," "reasonable service," suggests exactly the same thing. We must look at this because, again, half the battle is to grasp this great principle. And you notice that the apostle puts it to us by using an Old Testament analogy. "You present," he says, "a sacrifice, and this is your worship, this is your service."

Now, in the Old Testament, there’s a great deal in the Book of Leviticus in particular about how man worships God. And he had to present his offerings and sacrifices. Present them, sacrifices and offerings. That was his religious service, his religious worship. You remember how Paul, preaching to the Thessalonians, reminds them in his first epistle and in the first chapter: "how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God." It’s the same idea, this idea of service and of worship.

So, the apostle takes up this Old Testament analogy of the offerings in order to make his point plain and clear. It’s an illustration that he’s using. Now, he’s rather fond of doing that. Let me give you one other example of how he does exactly the same thing. It’s in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians. He’s been giving them instructions. He says, "Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain."

Then on he goes in verse 17: "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all." Now, in the language he actually used there in the original, what he said was this: "And he said if I am to be sort of poured out, my blood is to be poured out upon the offering you have already prepared, I’m very happy about it all."

In other words, he’s speaking in terms of the Old Testament analogy of what happened at the offerings. Certain offerings, you see, they would prepare the offering, then they’d pour oil upon it and pour blood upon it. And he says he’s ready to be offered in that way upon their sacrifice. Well now, that’s just another illustration of how the apostle takes up terminology and language that would be familiar always to Jews who’d become Christians and perhaps a language which was becoming familiar to Gentile Christians as they went on in their lives in the Christian church.

Well now, what’s it mean? Well, of course, we’ve got to start with this great word "present," that you present yourselves. The apostle has already used this word, but it hasn't been translated as "present" in our previous encounters of it. But go back to chapter six, and there you’ll find him using this same word in verses 13, 16, and 19.

Listen to them. I read from the Authorized Version, and here it is verse 13: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Now, you could read that like this, and it’s even better: "Don't present your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but present yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and present the members of your body as instruments of righteousness unto God."

Take verse 16: "Know ye not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." What he’s saying is this: "Don't you know that to whomsoever you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are his servants. You are the servants of the one whom you are thus obeying, whether it’s sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness." But you present yourself as a servant to a master.

And so, you’ve got it again in verse 19: "I speak," he says, "after the manner of men because of your—because of the infirmity of your flesh." He says because of your difficulty in following what I’m saying, I’m going to use a simple illustration. "For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." Again, it should be "present." For as you have presented your members as servants of uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, so now present these same members as servants to righteousness unto holiness. Present.

It’s a most interesting word. It is the word used in the Old Testament about the burnt offerings and the sacrifice. It is the classical term used to denote the laying of the sacrificial animal upon the altar. It’s the technical term that is used not only in the Old Testament, but it was used in the so-called mystery religions.

As you know, there are many other religions besides the Jews' religion that had burnt offerings and sacrifices, and they presented their sacrifices to their gods. They would take an animal and kill it, and they would lay the body of the animal upon the altar. The technical term for that act is "present." So, you see, it has come to have this meaning of putting oneself at somebody else's disposal. As you put the animal's body on the altar, so you put yourself upon the altar of God. That’s the way in which he’s presenting it.

So, you see what it means is this: it means a complete offering of ourselves to God. It means that we surrender ourselves absolutely to God. It means that we put ourselves unreservedly at the disposal of God. That as this animal's body is taken and put upon the altar, an entire offering to God, so we must offer ourselves and present ourselves entirely to God. If you like, we must make a sacrifice of ourselves to God. Sacrifice in the sense of presenting ourselves to him.

Now, that’s the language the apostle uses, and it’s a very wonderful picture, as I think you’ll see. But, of course, as with every picture, it has got its dangers and its pitfalls, and we must be very careful that we don't abuse the picture and misinterpret it and misunderstand it. It must not be taken in this kind of literal sense: that I can propitiate God by offering myself.

It means the exact opposite of that. The New Testament teaching is that Christ is the one and only sacrifice and offering, and he has offered and presented himself once and forever to God on the cross on Calvary's hill. There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. So, we mustn't, as people have often done—this has been often misunderstood in the long history of the church—there have been people who have said that there we are told quite plainly that if we only make this sacrifice of ourselves, God will be propitiated and be well-pleased. That, of course, is to deny the whole of the New Testament teaching.

There are many people doing that today. That’s justification by works. You see, that’s the kind of thing the apostle is answering in 1 Corinthians 13: "Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, though I give my body to be burned..." No, it’s no good unless I have love. Indeed, your whole motive in doing it is wrong. There has been one sacrifice forever.

The apostle is not literally telling us here that we can save ourselves by offering ourselves to God. No, no, we are saved only by the offering of Jesus Christ and his body and his blood. This is an illustration. The apostle is using figurative language. He says now I can take that idea there and I want to use it. I want you to see that you’ve got to do something comparable with yourselves now because of the mercies of God, because Christ is the one and only offering, because everything has been done. Now then, you present yourselves in this way to God.

Very well then, we remember that it is only a picture. Remembering that, what is the argument? What is he saying? What is the appeal? It’s a very important one. Indeed, I venture to say again that it is one of the most vital of all. And in this whole matter of not only living, but this whole question of ecumenicity and the world church and so on and the fraternizing with Rome in particular, we’ve got to be very careful about this matter all along the line.

So, let’s be clear about the argument. What is it? Well, it’s this: present yourselves, present your bodies. The argument is that we are always slaves. There is never a time in our lives when we are not slaves. Let me put it again in the words of the apostle; we've already considered it in chapter six and in verse 17.

Here it is: "But God be thanked, that you were the servants, the slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." The apostle, you see, has said it all before, but he’s saying it again. That is the essence of teaching. We are so dull that it’s got to be repeated. But there it is in Romans 6:17: "God be thanked, you were once the slaves of sin."

What’s happened to you? Well, now you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. I say, therefore, that we’ve got to realize that we're always slaves. Very difficult for us to realize this, but it’s the truth. By nature, we are all the slaves of sin and the slaves of Satan, every one of us. You were the servants, the slaves of sin. We were under the dominion of Satan.

That is true of the whole of mankind. The chief consequence of the fall was that mankind became the slaves of the devil and of evil and of sin. So, we're born slaves. But the apostle's argument here is this: that we now enter into a new slavery. Now, I needn't stop, need I, to prove that first contention that we were always slaves. Our Lord, of course, taught exactly the same thing: "Ye are of your father the devil." "The strong man armed keepeth his goods at peace." That’s the slavery. And mankind is just in slavery to the devil.

But here the apostle says something has happened. You're in a new position. And what he’s telling us here is this: that as you were once the helpless, hopeless slaves of sin and evil and the devil, you are now to become the voluntary slaves of God and of his Christ. So that you're still slaves, but it’s an entirely different form of slavery. You read the apostle—this apostle's epistles—and you’ll find that he’s very fond of referring to himself like this: Paul, in the Authorized "the servant of Jesus Christ." But the true translation there is this: Paul, the bondslave of Jesus Christ, the bondslave of Jesus Christ. That’s how he likes to describe himself.

And, of course, it is the simple truth concerning us. We are never free. Everybody in the world tonight is either the slave of sin and Satan or else the slave of Jesus Christ. Listen to Paul putting it into the—in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter six: "You are not your own, you are bought with a price." You’ve been bought from one master; you're now the possession of another master. You are bought with a price.

You are the slaves of Jesus Christ. He has redeemed you; he’s purchased you; he’s bought you out of the market; he’s bought you at the price of his own precious blood, and you belong to him. You are not your own. You have no right to go on living that life. You are not your own; you're a slave.

That’s the argument. Of course, we’ve got to put this in the right way: there is one vital difference, and this is why he beseeches them. This is a voluntary slavery. This is a slavery in which one delights. "Not by constraint," says the apostle elsewhere, "but willingly." Not because you're forced to do it, but because you want to do it. That’s his argument. It is a voluntary slavery, or as a famous phrase in the Prayer Book puts it, "whose service is perfect freedom." Slavery to him, if you like, is perfect freedom.

Now, this is the way in which the apostle is presenting this great argument at this point. Present yourselves. Hand yourself over. Well, that’s to put yourself in the position of being a slave. You have no right to yourself; you're renouncing it. The right belongs to somebody else.

Now, let me put this to you in the form of a story. There was once a godly Christian physician here in London, Dr. A.T. Schofield. I think he put this very well in an incident that he wrote about in one of his books about a dog that he once had. And he used to take this dog out for a walk, a young dog, and he had him, of course, on a leash. And there was the dog straining at the leash, wanting to get at liberty. But having trained the dog for some time, Dr. Schofield felt that he could now allow the dog a bit of freedom.

So, one day as he went out for a walk, after they’d gone for a certain distance, he took off the leash. Off went the dog. Newfound freedom. Go wherever he likes, and off he went, right out of sight. But he didn't remain long out of sight. He came back to Dr. Schofield, and then continued to trot by the side of his master. There was no leash attached; the dog was absolutely free.

But somehow or another, in that escapade, in that great thrilling moment of absolute freedom and independence of Dr. Schofield, the dog had made some great discovery. Probably he’d been frightened by other dogs. Perhaps somebody had cursed at him or thrown a stone at him or beaten him with a stick, I don't know. But the dog somehow or another had come to the conclusion that the essence of wisdom, as far as he was concerned, was to trot by the side of his master. He was choosing to do it.

He wasn't separating himself from his master; he was deliberately, voluntarily trotting by the side of his master. That was a voluntary slavery. He wanted to be there under his control and under his guidance. He had come to understand somehow it was the best thing for him and in his own best and highest interest. That’s exactly what the apostle is saying here.

"I beseech you," he says. In a sense, you're free, but then in this other sense, you go into this voluntary submission. You hand yourself over to God because of his great mercy with respect to you and because this is right for you and because this is best for you. Now, all that, you see, is in this word "present." It’s a wonderful word. This is the appeal: you’ve really got to put yourself in that position. And you do it for these two great reasons that we’ve already been considering.

Now, we come to our next word. I can't deal with this tonight; I’m only going to introduce it to you: "that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." What’s he mean by "bodies"? The commentators are disagreed here; they differ from each other. Charles Hodge is quite sure that the word "body" here doesn't mean literal body. He says it means the whole man. And when you talk about the body, well, you're really referring to the whole man. You may say that there were a given number of bodies there, and you mean a given number of people. The body is the whole—the whole personality, as it were, is represented by and in and through the body. So, it doesn't mean literal body, he says; it means the whole personality.

But Robert Haldane disagrees. And Robert Haldane says that it means the literal body. And I myself, without any hesitation, am in entire agreement with Robert Haldane. Why? Well, I feel that what we're told in verse two makes this imperative. You see, in verse two he goes on to say, "Be not conformed to this world." Now, the part of us that is related to the world and its people is the soul. Not the body, but the soul. Our relationships with other people and with animals even is a matter of the soul. So, I suggest he’s talking about the soul there.

And then when you come to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind," I suggest, as I’m going to try to prove to you, that there he is really dealing with the spirit. The same apostle, in writing in Ephesians 4, as I will show you, talks about being renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that is undoubtedly a reference to our spirit. So, I’m arguing that verse two insists upon our interpreting "body" here in verse one as being the literal body.

And furthermore, the analogy of Scripture, I would have thought, insists upon our doing this. Now, we’ve already seen a way back in chapter six that the apostle talks about the body as body, and he’s concerned about it and interested in it. Take, for instance, what you get in verse six in chapter six, verses 12 and 13: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body." It doesn't mean your total personality; he literally means your flesh. "Your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members"—he’s really talking about the members of the body. There it is in Romans 6:12 and 13.

But then you come to Romans 8:12 and 13, and you’ve got exactly the same thing. He says in Romans 8:12 and 13 something like this: "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Now, it’s exactly the same thing, and there he is talking specifically about the body.

He does exactly the same thing in Colossians 3: "Your members that are upon the earth." That’s a direct reference, as the context proves, to the body. The apostle is very interested in the body. And I shall give you next week, God willing, the reasons why he is. But there again, let’s go back once more to 1 Corinthians 6 because here again is a very explicit statement with respect to this. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

Body there means beyond any question the physical body. His whole argument has been about that. "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid." And he goes on to argue about what you—what the sin of fornication really involves. And it’s purely a question of the physical body.

So here, I argue, the apostle is doing exactly the same thing. And then my last quotation is to be found in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, both in chapters four and five. Look at it in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse four. He’s dealing, you see, with conduct here again. "Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God." That’s purely physical; that is a reference to the physical body.

And then you remember how in chapter five of 1 Thessalonians, in verse 23, he has this important distinction: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." There’s the threefold division. Here we’ve got exactly the same one; he’s put them the other way around. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, he puts spirit first, soul second, body third. Here, body first, soul second, spirit third.

Those are my reasons for saying that I’m in entire agreement with Robert Haldane as against Charles Hodge on this occasion. And if you wanted a final proof, it’s this. The apostle is using here, I say, an analogy of the Old Testament sacrificial system. And there you will remember they not only offered the blood, in which the life is—the life is in the blood. They didn't merely offer the blood; they offered the body. The body of the beast was put upon the altar. The whole burnt offering, not only the spiritual element, as it were, but the physical, material body—the whole animal was offered like this as a sacrifice.

And as that is the analogy which is in the apostle's mind, it seems to me that that is the final bit of proof and confirmation of the rightness of the interpretation which says that here he is telling us and exhorting us and beseeching us to present our literal, physical bodies as a living sacrifice upon the altar of God. The God whose mercy toward us has been so great as to make us participators in this glorious salvation. Well, God willing, we'll go on with our consideration of this next Friday night.

Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we again humbly thank thee that thou hast ever awakened in us an interest in these things. We again, O Lord, would express our admiration and our sense of wonder at the glory and the perfection of it all. O God, we see how small and petty has our idea even of this glorious life often been. We have reduced it into some petty legalisms and into some small matters.

Lord, enlarge our hearts, enlarge our understandings. Help us to see these things as thou hast outlined them in thy Word to us. Help us to see them in the context of thine eternal purpose of salvation in and through thy dear Son. Lord, bless us to that end, we humbly pray thee. In order that understanding these things and knowing and feeling the power of thy love in our hearts, we may give ourselves unto thee and determine henceforth to live only always to thy praise and to thy glory.

Lord, hear us in this our prayer and receive our unworthy praise. And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now throughout the remainder of this our short and certain earthly life and pilgrimage and evermore. Amen.