Nielsen’s Nook

When Paul pens Romans 12:1-2, he has in mind the unspeakable, immeasurable wonder of what is ours in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the man that has already experienced resurrection and brings that life giving purpose from the future into this world here and now.

We who are in Christ, who is himself the image of God in whom the likeness of God dwells with perfect fellowship, are being remade in our whole person to fulfill the purpose of God in all that we are, in both mind and body. We, who have demonstrated ourselves worthy of death, are finding that Christ has transcended death, swallowed it whole and now lives in us to root out the sticky residue that the realm of death has left behind in us.

It is out of this great flood of divine compassion that Paul writes:

¹ Therefore, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, through the compassions of God to present your bodies as sacrifices living, holy and acceptable to God as your spiritual service. ² Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind in order that you might prove what the will of God is, the good and acceptable and telic. (Rom 12:1-2, author’s translation)

God’s will is good, acceptable and telic. There is really not a great English word to translate what is usually rendered “perfect” from the Greek. Perfection in the biblical sense, has to do with doing everything according to design, according to the purpose for which a thing was created.

These verses are the answering echo, the antithesis of what he wrote in the first chapter of this Epistle. There he gave us a warning and condemnation, that though we were created as the image of God to demonstrate the likeness of God while walking in fellowship with Him, all of humanity without distinction (viz. between Jew and Gentile) has proven itself otherwise.

We have proven ourselves otherwise. Like a Gecko’s tail that has been discharged, humanity - mind and body - writhes twitching, dislocated from our true identity. Knowing God apart from Christ, we too had exchanged the glory of God for images fashioned after our own corrupted imaginations. In lieu of this, Paul writes these very sobering words:

God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts for the purpose of dishonoring their bodies among themselves … since they did not see fit to have a true knowledge of God, he gave them over to a failed mind. (Rom 1:24,28, author’s translation)

So I hope you can see that in both the beginning of the Epistle and here in the beginning of the end of it Paul is concerned with the purpose of humanity as whole persons, body and mind, before God on this earth.

The offering of our bodies to God as spiritual acts of worship stands over against the dishonoring of our bodies.

The renewal of our minds in Christ demonstrates minds that no longer operate in contradiction to the purpose for which they were created, but now in Christ strive to do those things that prove God’s purpose for human beings.

Jesus has redeemed us. He renews us, mind and body, that we as the image of God, grow up in his likeness, demonstrating our fellowship with him, his goodness, pleasure and perfection (telos).