Romans 12:1-2 1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:1-2 is one of the passages of the word of God that many Christians are somewhat familiar with. Sadly, understanding the depth of what it communicates, is often lost, in pithy statements, which betray God’s intended meaning.
With the word “beseech” Paul is calling the Romans to follow Him as He follows Christ. He is pleading with them to live as a living sacrifice, which is the reasonable expectation of their lives, given that Christ is our Living Sacrifice.
The phrase “living sacrifice” relates to the OT sacrifices, which were completely used in God’s service; it was completely consumed
In this we understand that as a living sacrifice, we are “holy” and “acceptable” to God. In understanding the us being “holy”, like the OT sacrifice, this is without blemish, and set apart for only one purpose, the purpose of God.
This is true of us, being a “living sacrifice”. We are to be growing in morally and practice righteousness and set apart for God’s purpose alone.
This is clearly stated throughout the New Testament, for as followers of Christ we are His purchased possessions (Ephesians 1:13-14), whose lives are not their own (I Corinthians 6:19).
Romans 12:1 reveals that being a holy living sacrifice to be our “reasonable service”. The word “reasonable” comes from the Greek word logikos, from which we also get the English word “logic”.
What this means in the context of our passage is that our being living sacrifices, completely consumed in service of God, is our continual act of worship and logical outcome to be expected. This is all because of what GOD did for us in Jesus Christ.
To put it simply, being a living sacrifice is what God expects from those who follow Jesus Christ. This means to live, dying to self-daily, for the purpose of God’s glory.
This is more than possible through the “mercies of God”, yet can only be accomplished through the directive given in Romans 12:2.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”.
CONFORMED IS DEATH TO THE CHRISTIAN
To be a “living sacrifice”, we must avoid something and completely embrace another. What needs to be avoided is “being conformed to this world”.
To avoid this, we must first understand what is mean by the “world”. In the Greek the word used is “aiōn” which means “this age” or “time period of the last age”. It can be related to our understanding of the spirit of this age, in our time or what is called “zeitgeist”.
The word “zeitgeist” is a German world which means the spirit of this time period. This includes the general cultural, intellectual, recreational, religious and political climate of a specific era. Quite honestly, the “world”, biblically speaking, is all those things from the time of Christ’s ascension until now.
Although the Greek word “aiōn” is not the normal Greek word for “world”, it is related to it.
(1 John 2:15-16) 15Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
In this passage “world” is the Greek word “kosmos” and means the orderly arraignment and decorating of nations, religion, politics, recreation, culture and human endeavor, into a system apart from God and in conflict with God’s will and purpose for humanity. This system is related to the “god of this age” (aiōn), the “god of this world” (aiōn), which is in II Corinthians 2:4.
Our passage declares we are not to be “conformed to this world”, meaning do not be conformed to the world’s national, religious, political, recreational, and cultural practice, thinking and endeavors; for they are ordered and exist empowered by Satan. We might add that no matter how good or benevolent it may appear, it is Antichrist.
The word “conformed” in the Greek is the word “syschēmatizō” means to be fashioned into another person’s pattern. This being “conformed” is an outward pounding into the pattern of the enemy.
I would like you to imagine a statue which appears to be fashioned out of gold. This statue is four feet tall, so the reality of it being solid gold is slim. Usually, it is a wooden, or stone shaped statue, where gold sheets are pounded and fashioned according to what is underneath. The gold is pounded and pounded, until it is conformed to that image.
This is what it means to be conformed to this world, where the spirit of the age pounds the Christian in many ways, such as religion, politics, entertainment, and culture, into the shape of Satan’s design.
This pounding occurs through the seemingly omnipresent nature of electronic media, of T.V., wireless phones, and computers.
We must avoid being pounded and shaped by the world as individuals and the church, because scripture reveals this will bring the death of apostacy upon the church.
Consider chapters two and three in Revelation, where five of seven churches were being conformed to this world, in different manners, whereby the Lord Jesus had to called them to repentance.
- Ephesus was conformed to a worldly religious self-righteousness and had left Christ, as their First Love.
- Pergamos was conformed to the religious/economic pattern of the city they were in.
- Thyatira was conformed to a false gnostic religious pattern, involving the corruption of sexual immorality
- Sardis was conformed to the worldly system of believing having the name of Christian, made them something before God, even though they were dead, having little life lived for Christ.
- Laodicea was conformed to a pattern of prosperity and materialism, as well as believing the church is a democratic entity.
In our day, let’s consider the scourge of gambling, which the church had always spoken against as a sin. Over the last 70 years through low level bets and office and workplace pools and state lotteries, our nation’s mind has been conformed to believe gambling is not bad.
With in the last two years multiple states have institutionalized internet gambling, where now anything can be bet on. Ohio Governor Mike Dewine has stated that signing the 2021 bill to legalize sports betting was his “biggest mistake”, due to the flood of advertising and gambling scandals and “pain and suffering” it has brought upon Ohio citizens and families.
One would declare, but that is the world, how is the church being conformed?
Consider that opposed to the past, almost 55 % of white mainline protestants Christians, in America believe abortion at any stage is an option. For American Catholics that number jumps to 57% –in black Christians that number jumps to 70%. CONFORMED.
Let’s consider marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ in America. Premier Christian News reports that “church weddings have reached record lows across major denominations, mirroring declines in wider society”, and “Even within more devout groups like evangelicals, marriage rates among young adults have seen notable declines as cohabitation and delayed marriage become more common”.
These trends conform the Church to follow the national cultural trend, from 1970 until present, where marriage rates fall of the cliff, after the rise of the feminist movement and scourge of the free love era. Let us specifically see the world conforming us, in the cleaned-up phrase “cohabitation”.
What does the Bible call “cohabitation”? Well, it is called “fornication” and “sexual immorality” (both words are translated from the Greek word (pornos). Consider how God’s word instructs us to deal with those who are “sexually immoral”.
(1 Corinthians 5:9-13)9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”
It is very clear that if a person, who is a professing believer, is active in any of the listed practices of sin, other Christians are not supposed to fellowship with them (which includes fornication), even to refrain from eating with them. Why?
Because if they do not repent, they will not be in God’s eternal kingdom.
Because their sin will affect our relationship to the Holy Spirit, if not dealt with.
Because unrepentant sin, is rebellion and rebellion is super infectious.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 9Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
How is it the case that in every church I have pastored, I have had to deal with families and whole churches, who accept “cohabitation” (fornication), as allowable before God? Because we have become “conformed” to this world, to the age in which we live.
This conforming has brought confusion and rebellion into the church, concerning the roles of husbands and wives, and the demeaning of male leadership in the church, which is a result of our being conformed to the feministic ideals of the age in which we live.
Worldly conforming of the church has resulted in liberalism destroying the black church’s identity in Christ and a rising Christian nationalism that is destroying large portions of the rest of the church in America.
The world conforming the church has changed the church into a place of marketing, as we attempt to reach people by carnal means.
Worldly conforming has warped the gospel into a message of love, defined by feeling, rather than the sacrifice of Christ (Romans 5:8), where repentance, as an act of love and faith towards Christ, has been expunged from our conscience.
Worldly conforming from politics makes pastors politicians, rather than prophetic and elders and other ministries of leadership, into political boards, rather than disciple makers. This worldly conforming has made the faith about individuals, where doing what is right in our own sight and expecting leaders to back the “right” is the norm.
The time has come to recover the only antidote to this spiritual death… “be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. In my next article we will discuss the truth
