Present Your Bodies, Romans 12:1-21

INTRODUCTION
As we’ve seen in previous sermons in this seriees, “spiritual” worship is not disembodied worship. Throughout Scripture, worship involves various uses of the body. These gestures, postures, and movements are an important part of our worship. As we worship with our bodies on the Lord’s day, we are being trained to use our bodies for the sake of righteousness every other day of the week.

THE TEXT
“I beseech you thereefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And bee not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you might prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God . . . .” (Romans 1:1-21).

REDEMPTION OF THE BODY
Paul’s letter to the Romans is one of the great expositions of the meaning of the gospel in the NT. Paul states his theme at the beginning of the letter, namely, the them of the “righteousness of God” that is reveealed in the gospel (1:17). Because the righteousness of God has been revealed, the gospel is the “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (1:16). This letter unpacks the meaning of the good news of salvation, and is about the vindication and establishment of God’s justice through Jesus Christ.

One of the threads running through the letter has to do with the use of the body. Human depravity as Paul describes it in 1:18-32 is manifested in wicked uses of the body. This corruption of the body begins with false worship (1:24), as men “worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator (1:25). As men persist in idolatrous prostrations and services of worship, God gives them over to depraved sexual passions, exchanging natural bodily functions for indecent and unnatural ones (1:26-27). Depravity takes root in the body and leads to misuses of the body, and these misuses increase and deepen depravity.

On the other hand, Paul teaches that union with the body of Jesus liberates us to use our bodies correctly. This is one of the great themes of Romans 6. Through baptismal union with Christ’s death and resurrection, we are set free from slavery to sin and death, just as Israel was liberated from slavery to Pharaoh through the exodus through the Red Sea (6:1-7). What diees in baptism is the “body of sin” (6:6) or the “body of death” (7:24), a body devoted to sinful lusts and idolatry that result in death and promote the reign of death. Because we have been freed through our death in baptism, we are to “consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11). Paul immediately applies this to the use of the body: Those who are in the flesh offer their bodies as weapons or instruments of unrighteousness, but those who are in Christ yield the members of their bodies as instruments of righteousness (6:12-13). Having been liberated now in baptism, we look ahead to the final liberation at the resurrection, an event Paul describes as th “redemption of our body” (8:23).

The next time Paul talks about the body, he uses specifically liturgical language (Romans 12:1-2). We are to “present” our bodies, as Israelites of old “presented” their animals. Our bodies are to be “living and holy sacrifices,” as Israel sacrificed animals. This is our spiritual “liturgy” or “service of worship.” The rest of Romans 12 fills out what “living sacrifice” involves; it is not limiteed to what we do in worship. But if Paul’s gospel is about the liberation and deliverance of our bodies, surely that will be manifested in bodily actions in worship.

What does it mean to be saved? From on perspective, it simply means that you start using your body differently. Instead of using your body to war against righteousness, you use your body to war for righteousness. Instead of using your body for sexual perversions, you use your body in marital chastity. Instead of using your body to bow to idols, you use your body to worship God.

WORSHIP AND BOW DOWN
What Paul teaches in Romans is consistent with the emphasis of the rest of Scripture. Everywhere, Scripture emphasizes that worship involves bodily actions and a variety of postures.

With regard to posture: In both Greek and Hebrew, some of the basic words for worship mean “to prostrate oneself” (e.g., Deuteronomy 4:19; 8:19; 11:16; Matthew 2:2, 8, 11; Acts 8:27). And other postures and actions are also part of biblical worship:

-Kneeling, Psalm 95:6; Acts 9:40; 21:5.
-Standing, Deuteronomy 18:7.
-Bowing, 2 Chronicles 7:1-3.
-Clapping, Psalm 47:1.
-Dancing, Psalm 149:3; 150:4.
-Kiss of peace as greeting, Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14.

Scripture forbids certain bodily postures, particularly bowing to any image of anything (Exodus 20:4-6). But bowing to other humans and to God is consistently part of Scriptural worship. It is also important that postures be appropriate to the action of the liturgy. Kneeling is a posture of humility; we put ourselves down, trusting God to raise us up. It is appropriate for confession of sin and other forms of prayer. It is not appropriate for the Lord’s Supper, since at the table we have already been exalted to thrones. Sitting is the appropriate posture for the Supper.

CONCLUSION
Worship can be seen as a sequence of postures: We bow and kneel in confession; at the absolution, the Lord raises us up and calls us to “stand and serve” in praise and thanksgiving; we stand at attention to hear the word of our Lord, and sit to be instructed at His feet; finally, we are admitted to the table, where we sit as princes and princesses at the King’s table. Through all this, we are being discipled in proper uses of our bodies, and being trained to use our bodies as weapons of righteousness.