1. What St. Paul says to us here is no single or partial lesson dropped by the way. Standing where it does in his writings, it carries an exceptional weight of authority and breadth of meaning. It forms a kind of midpoint in the greatest and most comprehen- sive of his early Epistles. The two divisions of the Epistle are joined together by this text, itself St. Paul's own text and founda- tion for the moral teaching which follows it, as it is at the same time the immediate conclusion from the doctrinal teaching which has gone before. The doctrine of the Epistle to the Eomans is justification by faith ; the practical lesson of the Epistle to the Eomans is self-consecration to God.
2. "I beseech you therefore" — take the words separately in order to understand the mind of the Apostle.
(1) Notice, to begin with, the word " therefore " ; it connects this great appeal with what had gone before. St. Paul had been laying before his Eoman readers the marvellous provision of grace, the sovereign love of God in adopting us into sonship ; he had been picturing the wondrous wealth and resource of the Father's love: "Of him, and through him, and to him are all things : I beseech you therefore." That is always St. Paul's way : first the doctrine, then the duty; first the creed, then the character : because of what God has done, live in accordance with His will; first the principle of redemption, then the individual life that follows. It is so in the Epistle to the Ephesians; for the first three chapters he shows the marvellous light and life and heavenly possibility in Christ, then he adds in striking
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204 THE BODY FOR GOD
suddenness, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy." ^
(2) " / beseech you." This is the entreaty of a man who was himself living the life of bodily consecration to God. St. Paul had given himself up altogether to God, body, soul, and spirit. And now he was filled with the conscious strength and triumph of this sublime unity. His life was full-orbed and rounded perfectly. Every thought, every aim, every desire had in it the might of God; of God, and through God, and to God was the beat of every pulse, the throb of every thought, the life of every desire, and the strength of every work. There was of necessity in this man a constant sense of triumph. He moved about with a calm untroubled confidence, quite sure that all things were working together for the glory of the Lord, and for his good. There sang ever in his soul the music of those who serve God day and night in His holy temple. And then, in all the consciousness of this blessed life, he thinks of the half-hearted, of those who come far enough out of the far country to lose the husks of the swine, but not far enough to get the bread of the Father's house. These are the miserable people of the world, who admit the claims of God, and yet do not give themselves up to them; who pull for heaven, and yet do not cast off the rope that holds them to the shore. The Apostle's soul is stirred within him, and at once with a demand and an entreaty he cries : " I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye give yourselves right up and wholly to God ! " If this religion is worth anything it is worth all the mind and heart and strength that we can put into it.
(3) " I beseech you." Note the tenderness and winsomeness of St. Paul's language. "I beseech you." He struck the key- note there. It was his favourite word — he loved to play on the gentler notes in presenting Christ to men. His preaching was predominantly persuasive, pleading, and tender. Predomi- nantly— it did not leave out the severities. Sometimes there was the voice of God's wrath in it, there were visions of the terrors of the Lord and of a judgment throne. But he was always most at home when he assumed the gentleness of a mother. "I beseech you." There is the sweet ring of that
* A, K, Joscelyios.
ROMANS XII. I 205
appeal in all hi3 Epistles: "I beseech you by the gentleness of Christ"; "I beseech you by the compassions of Christ"; "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God " ; "I might be bold to enjoin thee, yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee." We are told that in preaching he lifted up his hand. We can almost see that raised hand. It is never a clenched fist; it is never shaken in the face of a congregation; it is stretched out as if it would lay hold of people and sweetly constrain them. It quivers with emotion, and there is the sound of tears in his voice. "By the space of three years," he says, " I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears."
(4) " I beseech you." Paul is speaking to Jews and Gentiles alike, united in the one Church, all taught by their own several histories that a Christless world is a world on the way down- wards into darkness and death, all now raised to a new and endless and fruitful life in the crucified and risen Lord, all receivers of this gift by no claim of wages earned but by the mercy of the God who loved them. It is the sons of purity that he calls to suffer pain. It is to the souls captivated by love that he appeals for an exercise of self-denial. "Ye," he says, "who have yourselves been made white, ye who have received the mercy of your God, ye who by Divine grace have already reached the inner shrine of the sanctuary, I appeal to you to bear the burdens of humanity. I ask not those in the outer court. I ask not those who are one with the degraded multitude. I ask not those who are partners in the same sin as that of their guilty brother, and who, therefore, might be expected to bear his infirmities. I ask the white-robed. I appeal to the spotless. I call upon the pure in heart who see God. I cry, " If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual, restore ! " "I beseech you by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice."