What it Means to Be Transformed

Paul ends Romans 11 by pointing out how rich, knowledgeable and wise God is. He doesn’t mince any words about it, either. He argues that God is so knowledgeable, so wise, and his mind so powerful that no mere human can understand his judgements, and that no one has the analytical or intellectual ability to fathom or scrutinize his ways (Romans 11:33).  He reinforces that thought with a scripture he borrows from Isaiah, and rhetorically asks, what person has known the mind of God or been able to offer him counsel (Romans 11:34, Isaiah 40:13)?  The answer, obviously, is that no one has. His next reinforcement is both curious and significant. In order to reinforce the infinite and boundless depths of God’s wealth, he borrows from Job and asks, who has given him a gift that he might be repaid (Romans 11:35, Job 41:11)? Interestingly, the second part of that scripture from Job has God declaring that everything under Heaven is already his! So, obviously, no one can gift anything to God worthy of any kind of repayment from him. Remember that idea. We’ll come back to it in a moment. Paul’s final statement in Romans 11 is the well-known scripture (repeated in various forms elsewhere in the New Testament) that due to God’s wealth and power, all things are  made from him, and through him, and to him. To God, Paul says, be all glory forever (Romans 11:36). 

When he begins the famous first verses of Romans 12, he refers back to that last section of Romans 11. He appeals to his faith family – especially his faith family of Jewish descent – and tells us that because of all of God’s goodness, mercy, wealth, and power, that we should make our bodies into living sacrifices. He argues that doing so is spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).  Please, don’t miss that point! Your body is entwined with your spirit – so much so that what you do with your body is a reflection of your spiritual attitude! You are a triune being -- three separate beings all of whom are you, and all of whom are unified into one being. That is one sense in which you serve as an image of God. However, you are only an imperfect image because sin only allows you to be roughly unified. Your beings are at war with one another and at war with God, but you are nonetheless an imperfect image. So, Paul tells you to sacrifice your body with physical actions that promote an upward attitude in your spirit. Deny your body of worldly things, engage it in Heavenly duties. Discipline your body and make it a slave to godliness (1 Corinthians 9:27). Steer your body sacrificially and missionally toward behaviors that manifest the image you are intended to be. How do you do that? Well, you change the way you think. Where your mind goes, your body will follow, and so will your spirit. Paul says that when your mind is renewed and oriented toward God, then your whole being transforms (Romans 12:2). 

So what does this have to do with God owning everything (Job 14:11)? God owns your body. And because he owns it, he can do anything he chooses with it. He could destroy it completely because of the destructive sin you so easily and willfully commit on any given day. Instead, he offers you grace.  He purchased it in the sense that he bled and died to meet the demands of the law for those who have broken that law. Your body is "purchased" back at a very high price from the consequences established by that law (1 Corinthians 6:20). The price is the death of the only good human who ever lived. That man died at the hands of the evil people he came to save. Think about how God’s grace and love for you was demonstrated in the sacrifice of his body. This was a body so unified with the Spirit and Mind of God that it gave itself to agony to meet the demands of the love afforded by that Spirit and that mind. Allow that to renew your own mind, then with that renewed outlook, command your body to be a daily living sacrifice through its behaviors. Once you are transformed by the renewal of your mind into a unity with God, and into a triune, internal, holy unity, then transform the world around you.