The Application
THE APPLICATION
ROMANS 12:1-2
How are we to respond to all that Paul has written before?
Paul is always determined that behavior should not be lost in doctrine. He would have agreed with one of the commentators, F.B. Meyer, who said: “Some weave a veil of doctrine which screens the Saviour from their eyes. It is emblazoned with creeds, definitions and orthodox statements of truth. It is not Christ, but doctrines about Christ which inspire them. The death of Christ rather than the Christ who died; the resurrection rather than the risen One; the priesthood rather than the Priest. The correctness of our notions about the Saviour may even cause us to miss the Saviour himself.”
12:1. Paul has already touched on this obligation (6:12f.). A faith which does not penetrate and enliven the activities of the body in all its actions and common tasks was not in Paul’s view a faith at all. “Holy” has the basic meaning “set apart for divine use.” The Christian is consecrated to God, and this, the verse concludes, is the purpose for which we were created and redeemed.
12:2, literal translated: “Stop trying to adapt yourself to the age we live in, but continue the transformation which began with your mind’s renewal, so that you may test out for yourselves the will of God, that, namely, what is good, well-pleasing to him, and perfect.”
This is a crowded sentence of the sort Paul often wrote. He is eager to drive home the truth that surrender to Christ involves rebirth, the passage from death to life. The Christian life is not a sudden and miraculous transformation, but a process aided and advanced by the active and dedicated will: note “be transformed” and “transform yourselves.” There is no need to choose one and exclude the other. They blend, and in the blending a truth is underlined, the fact that God promotes our transformation, but in active partnership with the Christian. In this way, we “work out our own salvation” (Philippians 2:12).
“The age we live in …”Paul was writing to Christians in Rome, which shared Corinth’s reputation for evil. There is a strong urge in everyone to “do at Rome as Rome does,” but as Christians we must guard our lifestyle, never conforming to the godless society in which we live.