ROMANS: RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH FROM START TO FINISH

X. Righteousness Applied To Life And Service, Romans 12:1-15:13

A. Righteousness Applied To Fitting Into The Local Church

(Romans 12:1-5)

I. Introduction

A. The theme of the epistle to the Romans is that God’s righteousness is available to man by faith from start to finish (Romans 1:16-17; Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 441).

B. This belief is often not accepted in Christendom: Some claim that one must have faith plus works to be justified, and others say that though we are justified by faith, we cannot righteously live a godly life by faith.

C. Having explained the theology of God’s righteousness applied to justifying believers in Christ, Paul showed how that righteousness applies to one’s life and service as a Christian in Romans 12:1-15:13.

D. Romans 12:1-5 teaches how God’s righteousness is applied to the important process of fitting the individual believer into the rest of the body of the local church, what we view for our application and edification:

II. God’s Righteousness Applied To Fitting Into The Local Church, Romans 12:1-5.

A. There is an initial act a believer must do to start to experience his “fitting in” to the local body, Rom. 12:1-2:

1. Each believer must realize the great “compassions” (oiktirmos, Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 564) expressed by God toward him and other believers just to justify each of them, Romans 12:1a. This realization produces great humility and thanksgiving to the Lord in the believer.

2. Based on his realizing God’s great compassions toward him just to justify him, the believer acknowledges the fact that it is only “rational” (logikos, Ibid., p. 477) that he present his body to be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, what is his “worship-service” duty (latreia, Ibid., p. 468), Romans 12:1b.

B. Having performed this initial act of presenting his body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God as his only rational worship-service duty to God, a believer must take the second step as explained in Romans 12:2:

1. He must extract himself from being molded from the outside-in by this present age: “Be not conformed” (v. 2a KJV) literally reads “stop [present imperative with the negative particle me; U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 563] being [passive voice] “molded [externally] (suschematizo, Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 803) by this [present] age (aion, Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 26-27), Romans 12:2a.

2. Instead, he must “be being remodeled into another form [inside-out]” (metamorphousthe, present passive imperative of metamorphoo, “to remodel into another form,” Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T.; The Analyt. Grk. Lex. (Zon.), 1972, p. 266; Theol. Dict. of the N. T., vol. IV, p. 755-759), Romans 12:2b.

C. This switch from being conformed by outside-in pressure by this world to being transformed from the inside-out occurs by the “renewal” (anakainosis, Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 55) of a believer’s mind toward testing so as to discern what is God’s good and perfect will for him, Rom. 12:2c ESV. This “renewal” involves one’s not thinking of himself more highly than he ought, but thinking “sensibly” (sophroneo, Ibid., p. 809) in relation to his spiritual gift (Rom. 12:3a,b), and Romans 12:3c-5 in the extended context explains all of this:

1. In the extended context of the epistle, Gentile believers in the church thought they were superior due to their Roman citizenship and Hebrews thought they were superior due to their heritage as God’s historical “Chosen People,” Ibid., B. K. C., N. T., p. 437. This worldly viewpoint threatened their spiritual welfare.

2. Thus, Paul directed both groups to realize that they were justified by God’s compassionate grace, that they should be humble in being remodeled in their viewpoint from within [by the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:1-4] to think of themselves not as being special due to worldly classification but as being objects of God’s grace!

3. This viewpoint would lead Gentiles and Hebrews alike to realize that each fit into the local church through God’s gift to him of a spiritual enabling for service, what God had given to every believer, that the whole body might be unified in realizing the need for every believer’s ministry contribution, Romans 12:3c-5!

4. So, each believer is to “test” himself in ministry efforts to discern his gift, and thus to use it! We can then discern our gift from feedback from other believers and from personal experience, 1 Corinthians 12:29-30.

Lesson: With worldly factions threatening the church’s spiritual health, Paul taught them to realize the vast grace of God that was needed just to save each of them. Thus, they were not to think in a worldly way, but humbly value the spiritual gift of each one to edify the other, giving room for each to test, discern and use his gift in ministry.

Application: Realizing the great grace of God involved just to justify each of us in the church, may we not think in a worldly, competitive way, but humbly test so as to discern and then use our God-given spiritual gift to minister.