PRESENTING YOUR BODIES

Romans 12:1; 5:10,11; 8:38,39; 11:32-36; 12:1

The epistle to the Romans is the great exposition of the glad tidings in the Scriptures. The apostle Paul is writing to these Roman believers, and he goes over, and goes over again, what is the foundation of our faith. These matters are important and we can be thankful that week after week we hear the gospel. Many here, if not all, have long ago trusted in the Lord Jesus as Saviour. But the gospel comes out again, addressed to believers as it is here in this epistle to those in Rome. Not that I am assuming that as to anyone here: your responsibility is to answer to the gospel, but the word goes out and it goes out to believers and unbelievers alike. It sets out the foundations of what God has in mind.

I began with this reference in chapter 12, which is not exactly a gospel text, but I would suggest to you that it is something that is an objective in the gospel. As the fulness and the blessing of the gospel reaches your soul, you would come to a distinct point in your life, a point that you will remember, when you commit yourself to the Lord Jesus in this way and you present your body “a living sacrifice”. If you have not done that, this is the time to do it. I would trust that, as we consider the gospel and all that is in it, it would have that effect in your soul, so that there will be a definite decision in your life, something that you can point to in your life, when not only did you trust the Saviour but you committed your body, you committed your whole life to Him. I am among many in this company here who can look back at a time when they did that, but then can look back at what has happened since and say, ‘Well, there have been many failures and many wobbles since then’. That does not take away from it. The point came, or maybe the point is still to come in your life, when you say, ‘This is my decision for Christ’, not only to know Him as Saviour but that there should be a full commitment to Him, presenting your body a living sacrifice. It is no longer your own to deal with and use as you please: it is His.

The gospel of Romans begins with the apostle setting out an introduction in the first seventeen verses of chapter 1. There is one phrase that he repeats there, which is his view of the glory of the “glad tidings”. He speaks of it as “God’s glad tidings” (Rom.1:1), and says, “I am not ashamed of the glad tidings” (v.16). Paul speaks about how he desires to see these saints in Rome that he had never seen before (v.11) and says that he was “ready to announce the glad tidings to you” (v.15). How wonderful that God has that in mind, and He had a great servant in the apostle to set out what the glad tidings are: how precious they are. Paul could say that “as far as depends on me, am I ready to announce the glad tidings” (v.15). He took that responsibility on himself. Perhaps you may consider that in your life at some time. I remember a brother speaking about that, “as far as depends on me”; there is a responsibility to be taken up. So the gospel is presented in this epistle with three lines or streams of thought, which culminate in the three verses which I have read.

The initial stream of thought is heading towards what we read in chapter 5 verse 11; persons are reconciled and are living in the power of Christ’s life. That is the life of an ascended Man. They have also received a reconciliation through Jesus Christ. Where there was distance between them and God, God has removed that and they are now in liberty before Him. But to reach that, you have to go through Paul’s line of teaching which he presents to convict you. At the end of chapter 1 and in chapter 2, he sets out three kinds of person. You may have to look at yourself and find which category you are in. The first category is of persons who have totally given themselves up to sin, away from God, a fact that is shown in that they have no interest in God and are totally self-willed. And you would say, ‘Well, at least I am not in that category’. You might think the next category is one that is better; that is, of people who have right moral ideas and thoughts and have a right judgment of matters. You might think you are like that, that you have got right moral principles, right moral ideas and although you maybe fall from them, you know it and you can judge what is right. The third category initially refers to the Jews. They had a great advantage because they had the law, they had God’s speaking. You might be a bit like that because you have the Scriptures, and you have the teaching, and having these things you might rest upon them. The challenge to each one of us is to consider what category you see yourself in. You might say ‘Oh, I am not one of these who are worldlings; I have moral standards’. Or you might say, ‘I have the Holy Scriptures’. But the conclusion which Paul has to reach, and the conclusion you have to reach, is that when he looks at every category of man he finds that “there is no difference; for all have sinned”, Rom.3:22. The gospel comes in because that great fact has to be presented, that all have sinned. You need a Saviour.

In chapter 3, Paul goes through a rather horrible list of the iniquities of mankind, and very notably, a lot of them refer to what men say. He speaks about men, “with their tongues they have used deceit; asps’ poison is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”, Rom.3:13,14. See how man is affected, and affected especially in his speech. That is a very interesting thing. Our speech is something that would test each one of us. Of course our speech unveils what is in the heart; and that would be something that would test us all.

Well, the preaching is not the glad tidings if it only goes that far. It has to go forward, and assuredly and blessedly it does, because it goes on in chapter 3 to speak about the One that God has presented as an object of faith, and it speaks also of the righteousness of God. So, in contrast to you and to me, put out of court as not having any righteousness at all and being seen and convicted as sinners, God has an answer. His answer is in ‘The perfect righteousness of God’; we were able to sing about the righteousness of God (Hymn 357). It is a wonderful fact that the gospel means that you can sing about the righteousness of God. If it was not for the way in which God has operated in that righteousness, all you would feel is condemnation. All I could say is that I am a condemned person, that God is righteous and I am a sinner. But how thankful we are that God’s righteousness has been satisfied, and where has it been satisfied? It has been satisfied in the Lord Jesus Christ: “the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth a mercy-seat”, Rom.3:24,25. In the old dispensation, the mercy-seat was there upon the ark, and the blood was upon the mercy-seat. The cherubim over the ark would represent the rights of God, the righteousness of God in His glory. They looked down upon the mercy-seat and the mercy-seat had the blood upon it, the blood of the sin-offering which was offered to deal with the whole matter of sin (Lev.16:14,15). So the first thing we have to say about the righteousness of God is that it is satisfied in the work of Jesus in its completeness, and that satisfaction is seen in the fact that His blood has been shed. Everything is settled for God, and He is glorified, whether anyone takes up the offer of the gospel or not. God is glorified in respect of sin by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How blessed that is. We are not speaking of doctrines, we are speaking about a blessed Person, and there He is in His glory now at God’s right hand. Once He was on the cross accomplishing all for God’s glory, but how blessed that now we have Him before us as the One in whom this redemption is and “whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”, Rom.3:25. How wonderful it is that there is, for you and for me, the opportunity to be in accord with the righteousness of God. We could sing,

‘The perfect righteousness of God

Is witnessed in the Saviour’s blood;’

but we could also sing:-

‘The sinner who believes is free,

Can say, The Saviour died for me;

Can point to the atoning blood’, (Hymn 357).

God values the blood. The believer values the blood of Jesus, as it is an object of faith. How wonderful that we have such a result, such a glorious position.

So the writer of the epistle moves on as we come to chapter 4. There is not only God’s righteousness there, but there is a person who is righteous in the sight of God, according to what could be called “the righteousness of faith” (v.11). How wonderful that God has the righteousness of faith in persons. The example of it is Abraham, one who received God’s word, a very unlikely word, a naturally impossible word. It was something that must have tested him to the core, and that is what God would do. In reality, Abraham believed God. So God speaks to you in the gospel, and you are tested: do you believe God? Have you accepted His word? How wonderful it is if you have, and then He would look upon you according to the righteousness of faith.

Paul goes on therefore to speak of a full range of blessings that come upon the person who is in the line of the righteousness of faith. He finishes chapter 4 with the fact that we are justified, then goes on to chapter 5 verse 1, “Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith”. It is a wonderful thing that the believer knows not only forgiveness of sins, for example as referred to earlier in chapter 4, “blessed the man to whom the Lord shall not at all reckon sin” (Rom.4:8), but he is justified. He is not simply forgiven, but set up before God so that God looks upon him in the righteousness, and according to the righteousness, of the Lord Jesus. That is a wonderful matter. God is not looking upon you and saying, ‘I will let you off your sins’, and He is not looking at you and saying, ‘Well, if you do better in the future, everything will be all right’. He is looking at a believer as perfectly in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus who is at His right hand, having accomplished everything for God, and that accomplishment being celebrated by God in the Man at His right hand. Do you know what it is to be justified? What I like about chapter 5 is that Paul speaks about the fact that we are justified, then he goes on to say, “And not only that, but we also boast in tribulations” (v.3) and he goes on again, and adds another blessing, and adds another blessing, until he comes to “And not only that, but we are making our boast” (v.11). The gospel comes out in this full range of blessings towards you which flow out of the heart of God. You are given a hope, you are given the Holy Spirit in your heart; you are given an answer in yourself through the Holy Spirit to the fact that there is a Man at the right hand of God. It is normal for the believer to receive the Holy Spirit, although perhaps not to realise it has happened at the time. If you are a believer, and you are not sure if you have the Holy Spirit, you can ask the Father, but it would be normal to have the Holy Spirit. It may be more of a question of whether you give Him space and room in your life. And what would He do? He would shed the love of God abroad in your heart (Rom.5:5).

Then God would present to you the glory of His love. We had that brought before us at the Supper this morning. There is a Man who has showed out divine love. What is the measure of divine love? You see the measure of divine love when you look at that loaf and that cup before you; divine love has been displayed in that Man, and in His giving. The scripture says, “perhaps for the good man some one might also dare to die”, Rom.5:7. People speak about ‘the supreme sacrifice’, but then the most precious life that has ever been in this scene, the life of the most precious Person that has ever been on this earth, was given up. The most precious life that there could possibly have been was given up, and that is the measure and the demonstration to you of the fulness and the grandeur of the love of God that is towards you. That would set you up in a full liberty before Him.

So Paul goes on from there to where we read, “we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son”. One of the effects of sin was to put you at a distance from God. How terrible that there should be a distance between man and God. That was not in God’s heart or mind. But now He has in mind that the distance should be entirely removed, and He has done all the work that is necessary that the distance should be removed. And if the distance has been removed, that means that you as a believer are brought near to Him. It is not a matter of Him coming half way. It is not a matter of something being bridged. As has often been said, God has not bridged the distance – He has removed the distance and brought you into His presence. How blessed it is; that is your position, that is your portion as a believer in the Lord Jesus. “For if, being enemies,” – which was our previous position – “we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in the power of his life”. That is, you are saved in the power of the life of a Man who is at the right hand of God in glory. You are saved from destruction, you are saved from judgment, you are saved from what there is that would have brought you to hell, because it would have brought you to hell. As you have trusted the Saviour, you are not only saved from that but you are saved to Him, you are saved to live a life in His power and according to the guidance and grace that He gives. “And not only that” – you see how God pours on the blessing – “but we are making our boast in God”. In chapter 3, you come short of the glory of God, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (v.23), but then in chapter 5 you are found boasting “in hope of the glory of God” (v.2). What a difference, what a change there can be in your life, as you are no longer coming short, but you are boasting in hope of the glory of God. So you are making your boast in God, you are glorying in God, through whom you have now received the reconciliation by which you are brought in nearness and blessedness to Him.

I would suggest to you that what we have gone through is one great stream of teaching that should have an effect upon your heart. The normal effect upon your heart is that you would say, ‘I see what He has done for me, I see the fulness and the blessedness. I have trusted in Him and in all that He is, and in deciding for Him, I am going to present my body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is my intelligent service’.

Now, I would like to go over more briefly the two other lines of teaching that there are in this epistle, which seem to me to head up in the same result. Because not only has God had to deal with the fact that you are a sinner because you have sinned, He also has to deal with your sinful nature, and that is an important feature in the gospel. Your sins are forgiven, which is fine, but what about your sinful nature? That is not forgiven, it is condemned. You gained that sinful nature because you are a child of Adam; you belong to the family and race of Adam. The second half of Romans 5 brings to you the fact that there is now a new order. It is not only that Christ is there Himself but there is what is established in Him as a new order, and that you can see yourself no longer belonging to the race of Adam, but that you belong to what is new in an ascended Man. You come into it through what He has accomplished. “For as indeed by the disobedience of the one man” – that is Adam – “the many” – you and me – “have been constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the one the many will be constituted righteous”, Rom.5:19. So that there is this company, the many. Do you belong to that company? If you have trusted the Saviour, you do. But you have to come into the experience of it; you have to come into the knowledge that you do not belong any longer to Adam’s family; you belong to a family of which Christ is the great Head.

But chapter 6 brings in another problem, and that is that sin has had dominion over you. Why did you sin? Well, sin had dominion over you as a sinner. Sin had command over you. The world exercised these rights over you; you were brought up in Adam’s race, and you are like one of the children of Israel in Egypt, where you had a dominant power over you. Sin is the dominant power over men in the world, and that is why they sin. Yes, they sin because of the actions they take, but they also sin because they are under the dominant power of sin, and what is the answer to that? The answer to everything is in Christ, and the work of Christ, so that Paul can say to you, “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man” – that old sinful nature – “has been crucified with him”, Rom.6:5,6. So that you can look to the cross and say, ‘That was finished there’, and what always dominated is no longer going to dominate because it is finished; “that we should no longer serve sin”, Rom.6:6. You need no longer be subject to it, you have no more need to pay allegiance to sin, that dominant power. So that the children of Israel were not only saved from the judgment, that is by the blood of the lamb on the lintel and the doorpost, but they were also saved from Egypt. They were taken out across the Red Sea, and set up so that they could sing on the far side of the Red Sea, away from Egypt. Egypt had no more demand, no more control over them. Believers can see themselves set up in that way, because they have died with Christ and their life is new. They can live and they can walk in newness of life.

But then, you will remember that when the children of Israel found themselves on the other side of the Red Sea, just about the first thing they did was to murmur, to grumble, and that is what you find. You do not have sin as a master, as a dominant power, but you find you have sin, that power, still in you. You need to discover that as part of your spiritual experience, that sin is there, and that is Romans chapter 7. It is not sin as a master but sin, as has been said before, as a tenant. You discover what that is in you, and you find that the activity of sin in you means that you commit sin. You have every best intention to follow, to go on and to do what is right according to God. You have been there, have you? You want to do everything perfectly according to God’s will, and you discover that there is something in you that causes you to sin still. You have a struggle there, a very important struggle, and what is the answer? What is always the answer? The answer, of course, is seen when the believer comes to the end of Romans 7, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v.25). But the answer also is to discover that there is a work of God in you. Have you discovered that there is a work of God in you? Why is there that struggle? Why is it that you want to do right in the first place? It is because of the work of God there in you. If the power of sin is there, there is what is true in you and what is real, so that the man in Romans 7 verse 22 says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man”. There is another power that stops you, but how wonderful it is to identify that there is what is in you that is the work of God, and that work of God is entirely right, entirely according to God. You discover and learn what we said as to that sinful nature being a tenant, that really it is a squatter; it does not belong in you. The reality of it is that you are “I myself”: the real person is what the work of God is, and that will go through, never to be overthrown. God will have that before Him eternally; how wonderful that is.

But then, you have to work things out in practice, and the practice of it is that, through the blessedness of God, you have the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s power is there, so that you look forward to chapter 8, and it brings in two things. Firstly the work of Christ again; you have to remember that nothing will be secured without the work of Christ. Paul says, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh” (v.3). So that the sin which is in you is condemned and condemned utterly, and therefore, because it has been condemned at the cross of Christ, you can go forward, walking in newness of life. That is because you are walking in the Spirit; the Holy Spirit is there to help you. So you have Christ as Deliverer and you have the Spirit as power so that you can walk another way; “in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit” (v.4). How wonderful that you have the full range of divine resource for you in the fact that you have the Deliverer, and you know Him where He is as an ascended Man, and you have the power of the Spirit to help you to move forward and to do what is for the pleasure of God.

All this brings you into these last verses of Romans chapter 8, where there are experiences that you get through in that chapter especially, and they culminate in the knowledge of your place, your settled place in the affection of God which cannot be disturbed, where nothing can separate us from the love of God. “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. That is a fine objective and end that He has in view. How wonderful it is that He would now have you with the power of sin as master and the influence of sin within you broken, and the Spirit operating there. He brings you into this area where you are settled in the affection of God, and proving that the love of God is toward you. Everything is to be enjoyed in fulness and blessedness. And of course, as you have reached that point, yet again the question for you is, What is there for me to do? What else could there be for you to do, but to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”? So that the end of these two great streams of ministry that the apostle brings before you, in relation to sins and in relation to sin, come to a place that would lead you to present your body a living sacrifice.

The chapters from 9 to 11 are very interesting, because they work out and look at the sovereignty of God, God’s sovereign operations. They look at the question of Jew and Gentile, and how God has operated in His own sovereign way and His own sovereign wisdom and has come to an end in view. That end in view is that everyone is shut up to the one place where it shows that mercy is needed: “For God hath shut up together all in unbelief, in order that he might shew mercy to all”. The Jews claimed a special place, the Gentiles could claim nothing, but whatever we are, everyone needs mercy. Paul speaks earlier in the chapter of God’s compassions. How wonderful to think that God has acted in His mercy, in His compassions. Everything has been the emanation of His own heart towards you in blessing, and that of course brings out from the apostle these outbursts of praise to God, “O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!”. That would cover everything that we have been saying tonight. We could not have thought it up; we could not have devised it. It is all from His own heart and all of His own thought, that there should be what is secured in you and me, which is for His glory and for His pleasure. Then the apostle breaks out in the final verse, “For of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen”. Again that would lead you forward. You look at the sovereign operations of God, you look at everything as shut up to God for mercy, and you see that this leads you to this conclusion: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God” – these compassions that Paul has mentioned, particularly in these three chapters – “to present your bodies …”. So I would urge it, I would lay it upon you; you must come to a point, and let it be now, a day that you can remember, a day that you can recall, when you said, ‘My body is not my own any more’. It is not in any case, since it is bought with a price (1 Cor.6:19,20). That is a fact as presented in 1 Corinthians, but the apostle is presenting it here in a different way. He is regarding it as something that you can offer to God, that you can make available to Him. As reached by the gospel, you can present your body a living sacrifice.

Chapter 12 opens matters up, showing how it would work out practically. The following chapters bring in matters of government, and how you deal with your brethren. All these things are dealt with by persons who have presented their bodies a living sacrifice. So you come to the end in view that God has in mind. The end in view, in one sense in this epistle, is not chapter 12, which is on the way, but the end of all these practical streams of ministry that have flowed forward from presenting your body is in chapter 15. “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that ye should abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (v.13). That would set you up with a hope, something that is before you. The gospel would have that in mind as a completion. Then Paul goes on, after some practical matters that he brings in to conclude the epistle, till he reaches the final conclusion in chapter 16. There he begins to bring before you “the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, as to which silence has been kept in the times of the ages” (v.25). If you are to know and enjoy what Paul has in mind in the mystery, you have to look in his other epistles, but you must do it as persons who have presented their bodies a living sacrifice.

I would simply commend that to you. You look at Jesus, the One who has dealt with your sins. Is He not worthy for you to present your body a living sacrifice? The One who has dealt with sin, and provided the answer to that sinful condition of yours, is He not worthy that you should present your body a living sacrifice? The One who has set everything up in His sovereign mercy and sovereign compassions so that they reached toward you, is He not worthy that you should present your body a living sacrifice, and as doing so, enter into this further stream of praise and blessing that is going to be for Him? I would commend this to you, for the Lord’s name’s sake.

Preaching of the gospel, Edinburgh

10 January 2016

D.C. Brown