EXTRACT – THE BELIEVER’S BODY
EXTRACT – THE BELIEVER’S BODY
Each believer has that which can be presented to God as a living sacrifice. Each believer, as having a body, has that in which the will of God can be done, and that is of great moral value in a world where men do their own will. We read of the Lord Jesus saying, as coming into the world, “Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; ears hast thou prepared me. Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not demanded; Then said I, Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me – To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart” (Ps.40:6-8), and with that in mind a body was furnished to Him. You can understand what pleasure God would have as He took account of the movements down here of the Lord Jesus, movements in His body, as He contrasted them with movements of men all around, who were doing their own will and seeking their own glory.
Now God has in mind that what He had in perfection here in Christ should be continued in His saints. And each one of us, therefore, is to learn to regard his or her body as something of priceless value, which can be, and is to be, used for the pleasure of God. It greatly dignifies our bodies to regard them in that light, and our lives become sanctified and valuable to God as they are filled out in the light of the possibilities there are of ministering to the pleasure of God in our bodies. If we think of that, it makes things practical. We are exhorted in the sixth chapter of this epistle to the Romans to yield ourselves to God as those who are alive from among the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God.
So that it is not to be a theory with us. It is not to be an abstract idea which does not work out in what is practical. Our members are to be held as instruments of righteousness to God, that is to say; our hands, what we do; our feet, where we go; our minds, what we think of, our eyes, what we look at. All these things are practical and our members are all intended to be held at the disposal of our God.
This exhortation that we have in the twelfth chapter of Romans is the result of the teaching that has gone before in the epistle. The epistle to the Romans is a most important epistle, a most fundamental epistle. We are not to regard it as elementary, as something we can dispense with as having got past it; we are to regard it as essentially fundamental and therefore most important, because you know that if you are going to build, the higher you want to go in your building, the deeper you must go in your foundations, and therefore the more we want to progress in the things of God, the more we must look to see that we are established in the truth of Romans. That is a very important matter. Take on by all means the truth of the epistle to the Ephesians – God enable us to do it more and more – but the more we do so, let us also see that we are paying attention to the epistle to the Romans, because that is fundamental and, as I have said, the higher you would build, the deeper you must go in your foundations. …
And so when we read on in the epistle to the Romans we are introduced to the thought of God’s purpose, because what underlies the glad tidings which is so blessedly opened up to us in the epistle to the Romans, is the purpose of God. It speaks of whom He did foreknow. I ask the young brethren here whether each of them has taken it to heart, that you were known by God personally before the foundation of the world? You were in God’s heart and mind before the foundation of the world. What for? Well, read on, and you will see what for. It says: “Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”. That is what God has in mind for you and me, “to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren, Rom.8:29. ….what God had in mind when He reached you by the gospel was this purpose of His that you should be conformed to the image of God’s Son that he might be firstborn among many brethren. …
And now [Paul] says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”. What an appeal it is! We may say, How can I serve God. Well, you have a body. All sorts of things are available to you, there is much that can be done in the way of visiting. A young brother or sister might well visit, because there are plenty that could do with being visited now and then. You might say, I do not know that I can bring much. Never mind, maybe you could read the Scriptures to them, or a little bit of ministry, or tell them a little of what you had in the meeting when they have not been able to be there. Why not be practical in these things? We have bodies for that very purpose. …You can ask the Lord what he would have you to do.
Winnipeg, Canada
14 February 1959
From pages 217-224 of ‘Collected Articles of Ministry by
A J Gardiner Vol.2’, containing ministry from 1951 - 1960,
compiled and published by Andrew Burr
and available from
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