Your spiritual service: the body

Romans 12:1-2 says, “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.”

The first consideration of our spiritual service is our body. In the Septuagint, “present” was often used as a technical term for a priest’s placing an offering on the altar. It therefore carried the general idea of surrendering or yielding up. Before a priest in Israel could minister on behalf of others, he had to present himself in a consecrated state and the sacrifices he offered were to be without blemish (Exodus 29:1-46; Malachi 1:8-13).

As members of God’s present “holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5), Christians are here exhorted to perform what is essentially a priestly act of worship. Because the verb is in the imperative, the exhortation carries the weight of a command. The body is dead to sin (Romans 8:11). Our bodies, once dead in sin, are now made alive in the service to God; they are to be presented to God as living, active instruments in His service (Romans 6:11-13).

The term “holy” is first used in the Bible as a verb in Genesis 2:3 and as a noun in Exodus 3:5. Anything taken out of common use and devoted to God is holy (Psalm 24:3-4). Our bodies are therefore important; in fact, no command can be obeyed and no kind of service to God can be rendered without the body (1 Corinthians 6:18-20; Genesis 17:1). There can be no sanctification, no holy living, apart from our bodies (1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 1 Peter 1:14-16).

The living sacrifice we are to offer to the Lord who died for us is the willingness to surrender to Him all our hopes, plans and everything that is precious to us, all that is humanly important to us, all that we find fulfilling (1 Corinthians 15:31; Philippians 1:21; 2:17). This sacrifice is to be everywhere: church, home, work, school and neighborhood (Psalm 139:7-12). The main idea of “spiritual service” is that the sacrifice we render to God is intelligent and deliberate, in contrast to the sacrifices of the Jewish worship in which the animals had no part in determining what was to be done with them.

“Worship” in the newer versions is perhaps too narrow a translation, for in the strict sense worship is adoration of God, which does not fit well with the concept of “bodies.” The term “service” is better since it covers the entire range of a Christian’s life and activity (cf. Deuteronomy 10:12).

Kyle Campbell