Romans 12 - Printer Friendly

What does Romans 12 mean?

Chapter Commentary:

This begins a new section in Paul's letter. As in many of his other epistles, Paul begins Romans with teaching on doctrine and ends with teaching on how we should live because of what is true. This pattern of theory, followed by application, is a hallmark of his writing. Romans 1—11 focused intently on the doctrine of salvation by God's grace and through our faith in Jesus. Knowing those ideas, how then should those saved by God's grace live today? How should we respond to the incredible mercy God has shown to us? Romans 12 begins to answer that question.

Since we can never repay God for forgiving our sins and including us in His family, there is only one rational response: worship. By this, Paul does not mean singing a few songs on Sunday morning. He describes our reasonable worship as presenting our bodies, our entire lives, to God as if we are holy and acceptable sacrifices. The difference between this and the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant is that we are to be living, breathing sacrifices, using up our lives in service to God (Romans 12:1).

This will require transformation, Paul writes. We must break free from, rather than conforming to, the me-first way the human world prefers. We must have our minds renewed, to look at the world through God's eyes, to begin to understand what He wants instead of focusing on what we want (Romans 12:2).

The first investment of this sacrificed life that God asks from us is to serve each other in the church. He has equipped us to do this by giving each believer specific spiritual gifts through His Holy Spirit who comes to live with us. In other words, God has supernaturally enabled us to be able to give to each other exactly what is needed. But we must do it. All together, the church is Christ's body, with each person serving a specific function that keeps the body going. Our first job is to find our function and to do it, through God's power, for the good of everyone else (Romans 12:3–8).

Next, Paul paints a picture of a living-sacrifice lifestyle. This comes with a long list of commands; a modern letter or office memo would put each of these in a separate bullet point. Paul begins by saying our love for God and each other must not be faked. It's not a performance. He writes that everything we do must be motivated by genuine love. As God does, we must learn to hate what is evil and to hold on tight to what is good. We should love each other with the loyalty of affectionate siblings. Our sibling rivalry should take the form of trying to outdo each other in giving honor to one another. We must keep our head in this game—though this is no mere game—loving and giving and serving the Lord with great enthusiasm in the burning power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 12:9–13).

This life of sacrifice will involve our mind, will, and emotions. We must continually acknowledge that our hope, our future in eternity with God, is worth celebrating. The suffering in this life is real, but we know it is temporary. We will be patient as we wait. We will also pray continually to the Father who hears and responds to us through the Holy Spirit.

We may be persecuted. We may have enemies in this life, people who wish to harm us for one reason or another. Christ calls us to follow His example and to refuse to curse them, to repay their evil, or to take revenge. We will let God handle that. Instead, as Jesus said, we will give food and water to our enemies in acts of kindness in order to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:14–21).

Romans 12:1–2 answers the question, ''How should we respond to God's great mercy to us?'' The answer is to become living, breathing sacrifices, using our lives up in service to God as an ongoing act of worship. That's what makes sense. This is not a means to earn salvation, but the natural response we should have to being saved. To do this, we will need to break free from the me-first pattern of the world and have our minds changed in order to be able understand what God wants. Then we will know how to live.

Romans 12:3–8 describes the first responsibility of every living-sacrifice Christian who worships the Lord. The church is like a body: Christ's body. Each Christian has a part to play using the specific spiritual gifts God has given to us. These gifts of grace provide all the power and ability we need to serve each other, but we must still do it, whether our gift is service, teaching, exhortation, mercy, or something else.

Romans 12:9–21 is a list of numerous brief, bullet-pointed commands. Taken together, they paint a picture of what the living-sacrifice Christian life should look like. The unifying theme of the list is setting ourselves aside, to effectively love and serve the Lord, each other, and even our enemies. We must serve with enthusiasm and focus, mastering our emotions to rejoice in our future and be patient in our present. We must refuse to sink to evil's level in taking revenge and instead overcome evil by doing good to those who harm us.

Chapter Summary:

In Romans 12, Paul describes the worship of our God as becoming living sacrifices to our God, giving up seeking what we want from life and learning to know and serve what God wants. That begins with using our spiritual gifts to serve each other in the church. Paul's list of commands describes a lifestyle of setting ourselves aside. Our goal as Christians is to love and lift each other up. We must focus our expectation on eternity and wait with patience and prayer for our Father to provide. We must refuse to sink to evil's level, giving good to those who harm us instead of revenge.

Chapter Context:

Romans 11 ended with a hymn describing God's vast ownership of the universe. Romans 12 begins by asking the question, ''Since He owed us nothing and has given us great mercy, how should we respond?'' The answer is a life of self-sacrificing worship spent in serving the Lord and other believers, refusing revenge and overcoming evil with good. Romans 13 will continue to describe God's intended lifestyle for those in Christ.

The book of Romans is the New Testament's longest, most structured, and most detailed description of Christian theology. Paul lays out the core of the gospel message: salvation by grace alone through faith alone. His intent is to explain the good news of Jesus Christ in accurate and clear terms. As part of this effort, Paul addresses the conflicts between law and grace, between Jews and Gentiles, and between sin and righteousness. As is common in his writing, Paul closes out his letter with a series of practical applications.

Accessed 5/3/2024 3:24:45 AM