Christopher Rush

Romans 12:1-2 is a continuation of the direction of Romans as a unified letter, especially its immediate context of chapter 11.  It is after the doxology of 11:33-36 that Paul refocuses our response to who God is and what He has done through our spiritual act of worship in 12:1 and our spiritual transformation of our minds in 12:2.  Before we can “dive in” to Romans 12:1-2 (as so many previous chapel speakers have done), it is important to get a grounding in the direction of Paul’s thought, especially since it concerns one of the most rudimentary and therefore essential questions: what is reality?

To an extent, the expression “the real world” is a contradiction in terms.  The universe, mankind, and all of the material world — and even the angels and demons — are artificial, in that they have been created; they have an origin external to themselves.  Thus, when you are eating “all natural food,” you are, in a way, eating something artificial.  The distinction, though, is admittedly tenuous here.  What God has directly created is certainly real: simply, it is important to understand metaphysically that God, a spirit Being with no origin, is ultimate reality, and thus what God is, in attribute and subsistence, is the “most real,” if you will allow the expression.  I am not advocating an ascetic dualism — the body and the material universe are both real and important.  An integral part of our identity/nature as people is our physicality and the sensuous ways we interact with and understand the created material world.  We will receive resurrected physical bodies as part of God’s master plan, re-incorporealizing our souls for eternity.  But as people created in the image of a non-material Being, what most connects us to God are our supernatural, non-physical attributes, those that connect us to what is originally (though without origin) “real.”

A moment ago, I mentioned that the expression “the real world” is a bit of an oxymoron, though only in a causal sense of secondary/created origin.  The world is real, yes, but the problem now is that most often it seems when people use the expression “real world,” they are not actually referring to the “real world.”  What do they mean?  “Once you graduate from high school, you are going to go into the ‘real world.’”  What?  If this is not real — if high school is not real -– why are you wasting your time with it?  I suspect that only those who did poorly at high school consider it not real in their later years; perhaps their high school thought education was something it is not – more in a moment on that issue.  The “real world,” they say.  “You gotta go to college so you can get a degree and training for a job so you can succeed in the ‘real world.’”  Total shash.  Again we see the misunderstanding about the nature and purpose of education but also the complete misunderstanding of “the real world.”  To these people, the “real world” consists only of fruitless, monotonous labor, purposeless existence, taxes, a job — not a vocation, but a job — and financial security.  Financial security!  Zeus is less mythological than “financial security”: let’s get that straight.

What else does the “real world” consist of to these people?  A substantial house that can fit all your needs with room enough for all your pseudo-necessary material things, a serviceable fleet of cars that can get you everywhere you need to get.  At least one graduate degree so you can afford more children and things to put in your ever-expanding house.  But mostly, again, to them the real world is taxes and bills and the need to work some job so you can pay your taxes and bills.  This, to them, is the “real world.”  Who are these people?  Maybe they live in your house.  Sorry about that.  Maybe they snuck into your house when you became a junior and replaced what used to be a reasonable, clear-thinking parent.  In my experience, the people who mistakenly and vociferously think taxes, bills, and a job constitute the majority if not the sum total of the “real world” are what the social scientists call “Baby Boomers,” at least the latter half and most likely the early half of Generation X as well.  The generation that still refers to them as the “Chicago Transit Authority.”  Those people.  The generation that grew up in the affluency of post-WW2 America, who, having grown up with no want other than not going to Vietnam, decided that the goal of life was “personal peace and affluence,” as Dr. Schaeffer so succinctly puts it.  And when they became the adults (and possibly your parents), their primary goal became their children’s happiness.  They feel they are “looking out” for the best interests of their kids because they want them to be safe, secure, successful, and happy.  Unfortunately, the standards of safety and security here are not God’s.  The abundant life Jesus came to impart in John 10:10 bespeaks nothing of opulence, affluence, material security, or even, really, happiness as a distinct, achievable, psycho-emotional phenomenon.

Interestingly enough, Jesus’ great comfort about the abundant life comes directly after, as a contrast, the nature of the Devil as the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy (the connection to the thief here in John 10 and the Devil in John 8 is too similar to be ignored).  What a better paraphrase in the 21^st century for work of Satan?  “Steal, kill, and destroy” become “taxes, bills, and a job.”  That sounds funnier than I intended, but the point is the same.  Satan, the Father of Lies, desires to steal, kill, and destroy the abundant life given to us by the Good Shepherd — what better way to do it than by deluding us into believing (if not downright coveting) the idea that reality, and the abundant life, is merely about achieving enough social notoriety and material solubility to conquer taxes, bills, and a job?  If we can do that, our lives are a success, according to the puerile standards of the world and the Devil — even “well-intentioned” people.  You must pay your taxes, as Jesus clearly indicated in Matthew; you should pay your bills and be as debt-free as possible, don’t misunderstand me there.  As for a job — better to follow your God-given vocation than just “get a job.”  A job is something from which you can retire — there is no retiring from the Christian life, so we should focus our energies as soon as possible in following our God-given vocation of the connection between both what we do and who we are.  All these are real and important, but not the sum total of the real, real world.  Not even close.

What, then, is the “real world,” you ask?  An adroit question.  Paul addresses that in Romans 11:33-36, the predicatory basis for Romans 12:1-2.  In order to understand what he means in 12:1-2, though, we obviously have to approach it in its context.  The context of the three distinct parts of Romans 11:33-36 is, clearly, chapters ten and eleven.  The main subject of Romans 10 and 11 is the partial, temporary, spiritual hardening of the nation of Israel: “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in” (11:25).  Paul tells his Roman audience about the unfulfilled destiny of Israel so they won’t be conceited or “wise in their own estimation” as the NASB puts it.  Who needs to hear that more than the inheritors of Seneca, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius?  Israel, says Paul, is now what you, the Christians of Rome, used to be, but God is not done with them.  When he says in verse 26 that all Israel will be saved, we do well to remember earlier in Romans 9 that Paul made clear not all “Israelites” are Israelites in the sense Paul uses here.  The Israelites of the promise, here, in chapter 11, are demonstrating God’s mercy — we now have been grafted in to the root of Jesse.  But God is not done with the original plant source yet.  The real Israel, the “more real Israel,” if you will, will be shown mercy (11:31).  11:32 takes us back even further, to the Garden of Eden: “God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”  God did not desire sin, but He allowed it and justly punished mankind through its ambassadors in part, it seems here, to show mercy.  Our infralapsarian cousins will tell us this mercy became “emergency plan B,” but Paul disagrees.  The intentional, planned mercy of God of 11:31-32 (its intentionality is made clear by the progression of chapters 9-11) leads to the doxological outburst of vv33-36 — it is not just an interpolation but also a logical and emotional reaction to the mercy of God.  It is this doxology that defines the real world and lays the foundation for our proper spiritual responses in 12:1-2.

What makes it more than an interpolation? you wonder.  You are just rife with impressive questions today.  Paul intimates there is a causal chain in v32 — God desired to show mercy!  What an incomprehensible thought!  No wonder Paul follows up that causal chain (God’s creation sinned, God justly punished in order to show mercy) with a declaration of the inscrutable nature of God’s intellect.  Who but God would go through what He did to redeem mankind (man-un-kind, as e.e. cummings calls us) and show mercy even perfunctorily? let alone from a desire to do so!  Some might suspect that God created man free to sin with the hope he would sin so God could show this eagerly anticipated mercy, but Paul has already squashed that notion back in chapter six: should people keep sinning so God’s mercy can happen even more?  May it never be! says Paul.  Certainly the Bible continually reminds us God desires obedience.  In a paltry analogy, we may desire to be kind and generous to our friends, but we wouldn’t desire them to get into painful circumstances in which we can demonstrate that friendship.  Similarly (though more importantly), God punished mankind for his free will sin, not wanting it to happen though knowing it would, and continued “the plan” to begin His mercy, as inaugurated in the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15.  It is this paradox of God, the perfect union of otherwise mutually exclusive ideas, justice and mercy, that sends Paul into an outburst of praise.  Before looking more directly at this doxology that leads into our key passage on mental transformation, a brief look at what another inspired, near-Scriptural author tells us of mercy:

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore …

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy.

Perhaps no better commentary on mercy, and thus God’s mercy, exists.  This inscrutable conjunction of justice and mercy (which did not exist in Shakespeare’s Venice) takes Paul into his outburst of praise.  Now we are ready to examine Romans 11:33-36.  Please turn there now if you haven’t already done.  I will be quoting the NASB, to which you can compare your NIV.

v33 Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

v34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?

v35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again?

v36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever.  Amen.

Verse 33 tells us four things of the nature and source of the planned mercy of God:

Having already discussed the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience in chapter 2, Paul now distinguishes God’s wisdom and knowledge.  Both are deep (so much so they are boundless) and are both described as riches, i.e., worth attaining and having.  Many have defined wisdom and knowledge as discrete mental/spiritual qualities, yet all remind us of their connection and mutual dependency.  Cardinal Newman reminds us that real knowledge is not simply a passing familiarity with the elements of reality as discrete, isolated events.  You don’t really have knowledge about a monkey wrench if you don’t know what distinguishes it from other tools or even how to use it (being skilled at using it is another issue).  Knowledge is a two-fold comprehension of the elements of reality both in their intrinsically valuable sense and in connection and relation to the rest of the created order of reality.  You don’t have knowledge bout biology if you don’t know what the purpose of life is and how life is part of the created cosmological ecosystem of metaphysical reality.  Knowledge is an understanding of relationships and interconnectedness.  This is the fundamental reason why contemporary post-secondary education in the West is a total failure.  And, probably, why most people think high school isn’t the real world — perhaps it isn’t, if their high school didn’t convey real knowledge.  More so than the permeation of Marxism, the emphasis on discrete courses and majors leading to overspecialization has destroyed our understanding of knowledge itself.  (This is also, incidentally, why watching most news programs today is a complete waste of time — read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman for clarification).  Knowledge is understanding how all of reality is connected, in both utility and aesthetics.  Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge: wisdom is knowledge in action.  Paul begins with action and ends with action in v33, reminding us that knowledge by itself is dangerous and ultimately futile, a kind of idolatry.  But while he reminds us that proper action is central to life, he emphasizes the superiority of the unseen — knowledge and judgments — the spiritual aspect of reality, since God is a spiritual Being (and Romans 12:1 tells us to worship spiritually — more we shall say in a moment).

Why does Paul describe God’s wisdom and knowledge as “rich”?  They certainly did not become rich after mankind needed mercy.  God was and is complete and sufficient.  Milton reminds us that God needed and needs no one or no thing.  God did not create man to worship Him because He needed it.  God’s “internal” attributes of wisdom and knowledge were rich before we came along.  They are valuable because they belong to God.  And because we too belong to God and are enjoined to become like Him, we need to value His wisdom and knowledge, undaunted by their bottomless nature.  To a degree, they are attainable, even though they direct and guide what we really can’t search out and fathom: God’s judgments and ways.  It’s possible that Paul distinguishes the wisdom and knowledge of God from His judgments and actions because we are to seek out one pair and worship/revel in the other.  I don’t want to press the point too firmly, since God’s thoughts and actions are connected just as ours are.  It is likely that Paul is setting out a challenge for us to pursue that which we won’t be able to complete but is regardless worth pursuing, since the whole section we are examining today is one long chain of ideas, whose connection will hopefully become more lucid in a moment.

Verses 34 and 35 give three reasons why God’s judgments and ways are inscrutable to us now, highlighting what are not yet in contrast to what His mercy tells us of Himself in v33 and who He is in v36:

We don’t know the mind of God yet — remember Paul is constructing a remarkable logic chain — hold on for a few more moments.  No one is counselor to the Wonderful Counselor — not then, not now, not to come, but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t want to talk to us.  Through Isaiah we are told God does desire rational discourse and intelligent conversation with us.  Part of the reason David was a man after God’s own heart was because he was after God’s own heart — through music, prayer, petition, and rational dialogue.  Simply, it is not our role to tell God what to do.  But this can get admittedly tricky: the Lord’s Prayer has no “please”s in it, no “please give us this day our daily bread” or “please forgive our debts.”  Jesus seems to welcome us to come boldly before the throne of God with requests: though I would urge two words of caution.  First, both the Old and New Testaments are painfully clear that God is eager to grant requests if they align with His will (which we will get to soon, I promise); second, remember that while you are approaching boldly, you are still approaching a throne – and you are not the one sitting on that throne.

I wonder, though, what God’s tone was like in Genesis 18.  You recall that God has told Abraham He is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham, knowing his nephew Lot was there with his family, gets downright uppity with the theophany visiting him on a social-turned-informative tête-à-tête.

v23 And Abraham came near and said, “Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

v24 “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?

v25 “Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike.  Far be it from Thee!  Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”

Pretty bold words indeed!  But God does not get defensive; He does not respond with, “Excuse me?  Who do you think you are?  Didn’t I just tell you what I was going to do and you are telling me ‘no, you’re not’?”  Based on how long the back-and-forth goes, I can almost imagine a sort of gleam in the tone of this pre-incarnate Christ: “Nope, not for 50.  45?  I can do 45.  40?  That would work.  You want 30?  I can do 30.  20 is no problem either.  10?  Sure, let’s go with 10.”  Perhaps Abraham was feeling bold because he had already enjoyed several occasions of walking and talking with the Lord of all the earth and had received direct promises of what God was going to do with and through him.  But even so, in his boldness, Abraham acknowledges his position: “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes,” he admits with no-doubt genuine sincerity in v27.  And the end of the chapter is especially telling: “And as soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham the Lord departed; and Abraham returned to his place” (v33).  God was willing to continue the conversation until He was finished, patiently (if not humorously) listening to Abraham’s bootless cries.  Yet, the last independent clause perhaps speaks to us on more than one level: Abraham went back to his place physically, having said what he wanted to say, but it’s also quite possible (without stepping too far into linguistic eisegesis) that Abraham “returned to his place” rhetorically as well, not just to his home but also his proper inter-relational spot as the doer of God’s deeds, not the advisor to God’s actions.

Later in the Pentateuch, Moses seems to change God’s mind on more than one occasion, essentially by using the same argument Abraham used above: clearly you aren’t going to punish the good with the bad and act contrary to your nature, are you God?  Perhaps Moses does change God’s mind, but I hesitate to acquiesce definitively.  When Paul asks “who has become God’s counselor?” he is quoting Isaiah 40:13, one of the most encouraging chapters in the whole Bible: “Comfort, O comfort My people” says your God.  It would be easy to say Abraham and Moses were able to talk to God like this because they were Abraham and Moses, and you aren’t them.  That’s too easy.  We are to boldly approach the throne of grace as I said before, but remember who we are positionally, as even the great men of faith Abraham and Moses did.  Reason together with God, but remember that no matter how great your ideas are, He is already enacting the best plan for the good of those who love Him.  It may seem messy and unjust to us at times, but Paul’s quotation of Isaiah here in Romans 11:34 leads to the commands of Romans 12:1-2, as we shall see soon.

Just as we are never in a position to truly counsel God, we are never in a position to be so generous to God that He becomes indebted to us.  Paul recalls a variation of Job 35:7 in this verse; Malachi 3:10 reminds us perhaps even more forcefully how incapable we are at overwhelming God with generosity.  No matter how generous we are to God (the only time we are encouraged to test God’s faithfulness is here in this issue), He is eagerly awaiting to overwhelm us with real generosity.  The basis for His ability to be generous is found in Romans 11:36, as Paul’s causal chain of logic grows ever stronger.  This verse tells us three central things about God in terms of the metaphysical ultimate reality where we began this investigation: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever.  Amen.”  In addition to the source and nature of God’s mercy, in contrast to who we are now, in relation to reality God is three things:

With the implicit self-existing, uncreated ontology of God, v36 affirms for us ultimate reality.  All things had their origin in God, all created things come from God, and all of created reality is purposed to return back to Christ-who-is-God.  Clearly, we can’t be too generous in such a situation.  What do you give the God who has everything, who created the base materials from which all the so-called inventions have ever come?  Paul has anticipated that question in v36: not only do the entire created material and immaterial worlds return to God (though in diverse ways, for even the punishment of the fallen, unredeemed angelic world will accomplish this), but all the glory of the universe returns to Him, not once, not on major holidays, but for ever.  Reality has an intrinsic meaning in its position as the work of God, and it emanates glory back to its source.  Hopkins tells us “the world is charged with the grandeur of God”!  Clearly that is being accomplished in limited fashions as Paul has earlier told us in Romans 8 that the world is groaning in its sinfully damaged state now, waiting the restoration that will come in one sense in the millennial kingdom and more fully in the New Heaven and New Earth.  This, finally, is the real real world: that which has its origin, direction, and completion in Christ-who-is-God.   How much more significant and awesome than the bastardized version advertised incessantly on too many channels, stations, and sites!  Clearly life is not just about getting a job so you can pay taxes and bills and overflow a house with lots of stuff.  (A personal library is another matter, of course.)

Now we are ready to see how this causal chain grounded in ultimate reality culminates in Romans 12:1-2.  Paul reminds his audience of the central, incomplete work being done in Israel and how marvelous God’s grace is through the in-grafting of the Gentile world into that cosmically organic work.  But not just the importance of the deed itself; Paul contextualized the temporary hiatus of Israel as justice in contrast to the mercy of Gentile incorporation, and through the paradoxical intertwining of these apposite opposites, Paul grounds the work of Christ in the flow of His eternal nature and plan: through the disobedience of man-un-kind, God lavishly poured out His generosity in the incarnation of His Son (in part as an invitation to engage in a contest of generosity with His creation) — the embodiment of the logos to continue and redeem the much-missed dialogue between Him and His creation further valuing the physical demi-nature of mankind.  Through this hypostatic union of God and Man comes the hypostatic union of justice and mercy, a gift of unsearchable judgment and a sacrifice of an unfathomable action, grounded in bottomless depths of the valuably priceless wisdom and knowledge of God, who knows without counsel and gives without receipt as the Originator, Conduit, and Receptacle of all reality and all glory for all time.  That is reality and that leads Paul to the conclusion of his logic chain: what then should we do?  If we can’t counsel God, if we can’t give what He doesn’t need, what do we do?  What do we give the God who has everything?  Paul’s answer: the one thing He doesn’t yet have — yourself.

The NIV translation is, as you most likely have in front of you, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.”  Though Paul’s “therefore” may most directly refer to the juxtaposition of justice and mercy from 11:32, it is also a continuation of the thought we’ve just explored in the doxology of v33-36.  Because of God’s eager demonstration of mercy, our response to the Creator of all should be as follows.  Paul continues the heightened tone of excitement initiated by the awareness of God’s eager display of mercy, continued by his epideictic doxology, which he transforms into a hortatory response: now he urges us to respond appropriately and in kind.  Not just an “if you can get around to it that would be swell,” as we so often consider New Testament imperatives of conduct to be.  Not “please pencil this into your Franklin-Covey™ Day-planner when you get the chance”; no.  Paul urges us to do this, and we should obey immediately.

The next phrase is translated in a variety of ways, which is unfortunate, since it is an integral part of Paul’s exhortation.  Mostly it is an issue of preposition.  Many, if not most, of the hermeneutical uprisings in the history of exegetical warfare have been instigated over prepositions, the most notable being the rapture brouhaha centered in the preposition ek in Revelation 3:10.  Tyndale’s version, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercifulness of God, that ye make your bodies a quick sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable serving of God.  And fashion not yourselves like unto this world: but be ye changed in your shape, by the renewing of your wits that ye my feel what thing that good, that acceptable, and perfect will of God is” … is quite lovely, but not terribly helpful.  The NIV, “in view of God’s mercy,” strikes one as passive at best, a complacent observation virtually synonymous with the just-mentioned “therefore.”  The NASB here says “by the mercies of God.”  It’s doubtful this connects to his motivation of urgency; he has already used the adverbial conjunction “therefore,” which the NIV repeats unnecessarily.  The “by” most likely does not mean “for the reason of.”  The “by,” instead, indicates a second effect of God’s mercy.  Not only does his demonstrated mercy counterbalance His justice and enable us to receive the abundant life in the first place (called “justification”), but it also here enables us to respond appropriately.  What, finally, is that appropriate response?  A free-will offering.

We are to present, firstly, our bodies to God.  V2 deals with the crucial mental aspects of genuine worship, but Paul must continue to develop the appropriate context and deal with the physical first.  Our bodies are to become gifts of sacrificial worship.  These gifts we present have three qualities: living, holy, and acceptable (“pleasing” in the NIV).  God made His preferences clear throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Minor Prophets, that burnt, dead, oily sacrifices are not terribly intrinsically interesting to Him.  God has always been desirous of living, authentic worshippers.  Living things grow, develop, and mature — worshippers must then be the same.  Static, one-time offerings are not what God wants.  In our new position of gifts of worship, we are to live as an offering, one that improves with age and use.  The second attribute, holy, has certainly developed a lot of mystical detritus around it.  It doesn’t mean “perfect,” it doesn’t mean “awesome” — even when spoken in a hushed and apprehensive timbre — it doesn’t mean nearly any of the kabalistic super-spiritual things people use it to mean.  It’s a much simpler and wonderful concept: distinct, set apart, unlike the rest.  Real “holiness” is very quiet.  Some like to say that God’s holiness is the main attribute that drives Him, but that is nonsense.  No one single attribute of God’s works better or more effectively than the rest.  We are to be distinct offerings, devoted solely to the purpose of living a worshipful, maturing life.  We are set apart from the one-use dead offerings replete throughout the Old Testament, surfeiting so much of the contemporary church.  Our lives should appear, in deed and action, since Paul is telling us to offer our bodies, to be doing things unlike what the rest of humanity is doing.  Our actions have a different purpose and a different goal.  Thirdly, these head-to-toe gifts we present are to be pleasing or acceptable to God.  The very existence of this third attribute should clearly remind us that “holy” is not an all-encompassing adjective.  What does it mean to live a life pleasing and acceptable to God? One simple answer is to read the rest of Romans 12.  Following an exhortation that these lives of worship are actually to be lived on one giant altar holding all Christians as one integrated body that need one another (much more than we like to remember), Paul presents a series of aphoristic commands, all of which are mostly subordinate clarifications of verse 9: Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.  We shall return to this list momentarily, as Paul oscillates between examples of physical acts of worship as inaugurated here by verse 1 and mental acts of worship as continuations of verse 2, to which we now turn.  That the NASB calls this gift a “service” of worship and the NIV an “act” of worship needs little further explication; they are quite similar, though “service” does tinge it with a bit more importance, reminding us of the One positionally worthy to be served.

In verse 2 of Romans 12, Paul arrives at the climax of so many chapters of doctrinal development.  Beginning back in chapter one with the pattern of the world, Paul reminds us it is time not only to do something different as holy offerings but to be and think differently as well.  Again the NIV and NASB have different perspectives: the NIV says “do not conform any longer”; the NASB says “do not be conformed.”  Clearly the NIV is more active and aware of the history of sin than the NASB seems to be, but the simplicity of the NASB gets to the heart of the issue a bit faster.  The remedy for dis-conformity is not external, remember.  Paul has transitioned to a different aspect of the worshipful life.  Just as worship is not a one-time has-been drop off, real transformation and sanctification come from the non-physical, from the invisible attributes that make us human, primarily … the mind.

We don’t need to go over what “the pattern of this world” is, do we?  I have a suspicion that most of you have a pretty good conception of what the “pattern of this world” is.  It comes at you incessantly, in sights and sounds and everything else.  We have already talked about the dangers of thinking the “real world” and its pattern is all about utilitarian education and an acquisitive lifestyle as the means to happiness and fulfillment.  Pursuing genuine education, an understanding of real knowledge as a complex of integrated relationship, not for material ends but as an end in itself, is to pursue the pattern of the real world, the spiritual world God created and originally embodied.

Paul is overt that two patterns exist: clearly not all kinds of living or belief systems are acceptable to Paul.  Some actions and beliefs are of the world, some contribute to a sanctifying transformation.  It’s always a dichotomy, isn’t it?  A juxtaposition of two opposing ideas, as we discussed two years ago.  Sometimes the dichotomy is simple: milk chocolate goodness or dark chocolate depravity? enjoying eating at McDonald’s or being a sad, confused moral wastrel? appreciating the nonpareil brilliance of Shakespeare and Homer or living and dying alone and unloved?  Sometimes the choice is easy.  Sometimes the choice is more important but still easy: to be or not to be — the answer is obviously “to be.”  Sometimes the choice is important but difficult: should I love this person who doesn’t care about me or not? and if so, how do I do that?  Life is always about choices, which Paul implies by his exhortation to choose the path of transformation instead of conformation.

The benefits of renewing our minds are two: freedom from the pattern of the world, which always ends in tears and death, and the ability to reason out and understand what God actually wants.  What could be more important than that?  Did you notice the distinction Paul makes between the two patterns?  I know some of you are going to disagree (even though disagreeing with what the Bible says is rarely a good idea), but Paul intimates that it is not the Christian life that leads to boring, mindless, static conformity.  Yes, I know — you were starting to suspect that Christianity is boring and mundane — not so, says Paul.  It is the world that leads to conformity, the safety and security of “fitting in,” being a part of the popular crowd, subordinating your own talents, desires, and individuality for the sake of some Rousseaean “will of the people.”  Remember: one of the primary reasons the world hated Jesus is because He did not fit in with their standards and values.  Despite the pretense and lauding of the James Dean image, the world does not love “the rebel.”  This is why, essentially, the world hates Christianity.  Christianity rebels against the pattern of the world; Christianity seeks renewal and improvement.  Liberalism, despite its own press releases, seeks homogeneity in every aspect of society.  True, the goal of the Christian life is conformity to Christ-likeness, but conformity to perfection and the source of creativity instead of conformity to the dumbed-down, forced egalitarian mindless pap of secular society is hardly comparable.  What is boring about refashioning oneself into the image of reality itself?  The worshipful life of spiritual service is an exciting commitment to endless renewal.  It truly is transformation, not conformation.

As a brief aside, a further word should be said about boredom.  If you are a Christian, you have no excuse for ever being bored, even if you are in math class.  Stop being so erotically attached to being happy and enjoying life and start seeing reality for what it is: a display of God’s glory.  Dr. Johnson reminds us that if you are afraid to be alone, with only your thoughts, unable to be apart from pleasing external stimuli and unable to find meaning and importance in your own minds and whatever situation within which you find yourself, the fault, dear Brutuses, is not in your stars, but in yourselves.  You have a mind given by God; if you are truly renewing your minds as God expects of you, you will never be bored.  If you are, you, not your circumstances, are to blame.  Back to Paul.

It has fascinated me for quite some time that Paul declares this transformation comes from the renewing, not of our spirit or soul, but of the mind.  Initially we might suspect that it should be “the renewing of our soul” — after all, isn’t that the special invisible eternal aspect of us that is going to go to Heaven when our mortal coil has finished shuffling?  I suspect Paul does not tell us to renew our souls because, frankly, we can’t, at least not directly.  Sure, we may talk poetically about Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” reaching into our souls and wrapping it in peace, or we may feel that some aesthetically pleasing sunset or painting wraps our soul in newfound sublimity heretofore non-existent to human experience, but that is mostly just figurative language.  The real conduit to our souls, the primary means of understanding and discerning reality, and thus the primary means of engaging in authentic worship, is the mind.  Paul uses the imperative “be transformed” because of all the supernatural components to human metaphysicality, the mind is that over which we have the most control.  The Bible wouldn’t tell us to take every thought captive if it wasn’t possible.  Similarly, as regenerate Christians, by the never-ending mercies of God, we have the ability to renew our minds.  We can now think clearly and accurately about reality!  That is not to say we will always get every piece of datum correct: being a Christian doesn’t make you an expert on logarithms, character analysis, or even the age of the earth.  What it means is that we can now start the ultimate adventure: knowing God and His reality.

Moments ago we said that much of the remainder of Romans 12 is an elaboration on both what the life of true worship is from v1 and what the will of God from v2 is.  Perhaps it is a coincidence that both our gifts of life-long worship and God’s will itself are “pleasing” or “acceptable,” but I doubt it.  So often we, as Christians, spend too much time lamenting, “what is God’s will for my life?  Why doesn’t He just write down what He wants me to do?”  I’ve got good news for you, young Christian, if you have ever asked those questions.  If you have a Bible open to Romans 12, God’s will for your life is right in front of you.

God’s will begins with proper mental alignment with reality.  Know your role.  V3 enjoins us not to think of ourselves too highly — I take it Vitruvius and Petrarch didn’t read this passage.  Know how you are connected to everyone else: your actions affect others, your choices affect others, you are on the same altar of worship with every other Christian — live in harmony as you transform your thinking by beginning with proper self-awareness and self-understanding as subordinate to God and subservient to fellow Christians.  Whatever skills and abilities you have, you are to use them for the well-being and betterment of those around you.

The great shift to personal worship in v9, as we mentioned before, never strays far from the interconnected nature of Christians as members of one body.  Notice how the dominant theme of the authentic life of worship, instigated by the renewal of our minds, is love.  Whether it is in action or thought, life is all about love.  Perhaps highlighting the centrality of mental-spiritual worship, Paul begins with a list of mental worship commands in v10-12:

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves.  Never be lacking in zeal or diligence, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Be joyful in hope, patient (“persevere”) in affliction, faithful in prayer.  True, prayer is an action, though genuine prayer (like all genuine actions, as Lennier reminds us) must come from the right mentality and so acts as a good transition to a short list of mostly action-worship commands in v13-20:

Share with God’s people who are in need.  Practice hospitality.  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  (Apparently God doesn’t want us to be happy all the time.  Reality is groaning in pain; if we are happy all the time, we are not paying enough attention to the world and people God loves.)  The NASB’s version of v16 connects the flow of thought better to v2: Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Returning to the NIV,

v17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.

v18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

v19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

v20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

v21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

With this, Paul returns to verses 1 and 2.  The only way we can avoid conformity and the only way we can do anything substantial for the world is to exchange the old, sinful conception of reality for the even older, more accurate, godly conception of reality by doing good.  And we can only do good when we know what it is, when we no longer think inaccurately but engage in a continuous renewing of our minds, motivated always by love.

Love drives these actions and thoughts, love for one’s enemies (the people and their needs, not the worldly pattern they embrace), love for fellow Christians (as evidenced by the commitment to be devoted to one another and of the same mind), and love for the God who created the universe, knowing what His role is and what ours is.  If we do these actions and think about ourselves and reality in these ways, we will be doing the will of God, a will that can be understood and proven through the renewing of our minds, which then guides are actions appropriately.

How do we, finally, renew our minds?  These actions and mental attributes at the end of chapter 12 are effects to the cause, since if we don’t have the proper mindset, we certainly aren’t going to see any point to, let alone actually do, any of the actions we’ve just read.  The entire year has been emphasizing this notion that we have to renew our minds: the theme has been transformation.  Practically, if this is transformation, we must go from some mentality to another.  We know what the world’s pattern is, how the world thinks, what the world values.  We know what God’s pattern is, how God thinks, what God values.  How do we get from A to B?  Death to life?

You can probably guess where I’m going with this.  In order to transform our thinking to God’s, we must enmesh ourselves in his Word.  The blessed man delights in the law of the Lord, upon which he meditates day and night, says Psalm 1.  Once you have committed to studying, memorizing, and meditating on God’s Word, you will be ready to engage in the Great Conversation, the one that takes place in the Realms of Gold — you know, what we spend most of English and Bible class time doing.  The one listed on the summer extra credit pages: begun with Achilles, refashioned by Hamlet, rejected by Julian Sorel and Leopold Bloom, and culminating (essentially) with Londo and G’Kar, the Great Conversation, grounded in the Word of God, is how we think clearly, and how we know who we are, what we want, and why we are here.  I encourage you, as Paul encourages us still through his epistle to the Romans, transform your life by renewing your mind.  Plant yourself by the River of Life in the Realms of Gold: meditate on God’s Word day and night and participate in the Great Conversation.  Read the great works of all time and contribute through your own written responses and creative works.  It is never too late, my friends, to seek a newer world.

But remember: we don’t read to learn about ourselves.  We read the great books not to find “the answers.”  If we did, there wouldn’t be so many of them.  We read, we write, we engage in the Great Conversation because we are to engage in the spiritual and mental conflict of reality.  We are to renew our minds, not our bodies, because, as Paul says in Ephesians, our battle is not against flesh and blood but a continuous battle against the spiritual forces of evil who will try to take you captive through deceptive philosophy.  That doesn’t mean you should avoid it — far from it.  How will you wage a successful defense if you do not know the intellectual terrain upon which the battle is being fought?  We need to read to engage in the ideas of the world — we need to know what they have said, what they consider true.  And the more we read, the more we will understand the nature of the battle, and all the more we will be driven back to the only book that gives real answers to the genuine questions about reality all the other books ask.  A classical education is based on asking questions.  A Christian education is based on the existence of all the right answers to all the right questions.  This education does not end in high school: it is only just beginning.  Explore forever the Realms of Gold, but always return to the Word of God, both incarnate and inspired, the gold standard of what is true, what is beautiful, and what is real.

This essay is adapted from a chapel address given May 21, 2010.