The Pulpit Commentary — Romans — Section 377

~cars witnes~ to the power of Divine grace. It is a protest against worldliness, ungod- liness, and Bin, If the perRonal character of every professing Christian was what it ought to be, what a power for good the Church of Christ would exercise! By dning good also. Ignorance and error are to be overcome by the activity of Christians in educational and evangelistic effort. Unkindness and uncharitableness are to be over- come by the active manifestation of kindness, charity, and love. " He that overcometh ehnll inherit all thiags."-C. H. I. Vers. 1, 2.-The living sacrifice. The great argument of the Epistle to the Romans ie to the effect that God's favour ie not to be earned, but accepted, and this is justifi- cation by faith. The earlier chapters dealt with this; and the apostle now proceeds to a development of the doctrine which completely reverses the old ideas. Judaism sought mercy by sacrifice and service; St. Paul teaches that God seeks man's true sacrifice and service by showing mercy. We are to come to him, not that he may love ue in the end, but because he loves us from the beginning. Our obedience to God is to be, therefore, no task-work, but love-work; not servitude, but sonship. God's love ~s the great motive-power of the new life. We consider here the results which such love should produce: the sacrifice and service of the body ; the renewing of the mind. ' I. THE BACBIFIOE AND SERVICE OF THE BODY. There was a total change from Judaism to Christianity in the point of sacrifice. The old dispensation was one of blood and death. Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, on various ever-recurring occa- 11ions, the altars of the temple ran with blood from the dead bodies of slain beasts and birds. The temple was one vast slaughter-house. But Christianity said," Tlru! no more I" For there has been offered one sacrifice for sins for ever; and what is wanted now, says the apostle, is your bodies, not the bodies of beasts and birds, and the:;e bodies living, not dead. There was a vast change in the point of service (>.aTpeia) also. What an elaborate ritual of service had gathered round the sacrifice ! part ordained by God, part added by man. '!'here were feasting and fasting; times and seasons, days and years ; meats and drinks; purifyings, prayers. Christianity swept tlru! away too, in all its ceremonial character. And what is wanted now, says the apostle, is not an elaborate ritual and minute observance, but the life ; a service, not mechanical and befitting children, but rational and befitting men. All this the apostle points to by his words. Your own living bodies are to be the sacrifice; the holy, consecrated life of your bodies is to be the service. But let ns gather the significance of his words more fully. The body is an integral part of man: consider in tlru! connection the creation, death, and the resurrection. The body is sacred: consider old dualistic heresy, leading to severe repression or gross sin; also the modern error of despising the body now, and hoping to be freed from it ns from a burden by-and-by. The body? it is the instrument of our active life in God's creation-deed, speech, thought. The spirit in itself may live towards God; but only by the medium of the body C..'\n it live for God amongst men. And to present the body a living sacrifice is thus to offer the whole life to Goo. Think, then, of the meaning of this. Think of your life: busy work, with manifold industries of limb, or speech, or brain, and intervals of rest which continually re-cre:1te you for new work; social relntionships, with all the continuous interchllilge of affection and thought which they involve; of the life of your own mind, your re:LSOnings, your beliefs, your fancies, your memories, your hopes : think of all these things, and. a thousand others; and then remember that all this is to be offered up to Goo, a living 111Lcrifice. This demands thnt the life be pure. Jewish sacrifices without spot. So conduct, words, imaginings, must be undefiled. Demands also that the lifo be conse- crnted. Just ns sacrifice, when pronounced pure, was offered on altar, so our activities, being undefiled, are to be all given to God, that they may be employed for him. Nothing neutml: activities of brain, of tongue, of hand, having many subordin2.te ends, must be governed by the grant controllin" purpose to please God 11.lld do his will. Is it so? Is the undefiled life God's life? Do you make everything inexorably beud t-0 this? Is your grent "sncrifice" the sacrifice of the life? your great "service " the service of the lifo? All also is ns nothing compared with this. II. TnE RENEWING OF THE MIND. But how? 'l'he "age" is ngninst us. Whether or not conspicuously nn ago of impurity, certainly nn nge of greed and self-worship. Oonsidor tho plastio nnd binding influences exerted by tho worhl: it imperceptibly  THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. toit. xtI. 1-21.