Romans 12:1 says, "I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service." We can see from this verse that the apostle exhorts the believers to present their bodies. He could command, but he would rather exhort, because if the presenting of our bodies is not willingly done, it will never work. Even if it works, it will be useless. In this verse, the apostle did not ask the believers to present their spirits or their souls, but their bodies. What is the reason for this? Here we see the importance of the body. The presenting of the body is "well pleasing to God." Although God does not deal with man directly through his body, He takes up man's spirit as His dwelling place. He never despises man's body. Although the spirit is the most important part, the body also has its place. Although believers should allow the Spirit to take precedence over everything, this does not mean that we should ignore our bodies. After we have seen how much God cares for the intuition, fellowship, and conscience of the spirit, we may easily have a wrong concept that God does not care for the body, and that the body only does us harm. We may also think that as long as the life in our spirit is strengthened and filled with power, we can ignore the outward body. However, God does not view it this way. Although He cares very much for the life in our spirit, He realizes that the salvation of His Son must also reach the outermost part of our being, our body. The effect of salvation is incomplete if it does not reach our body.
Furthermore, the presenting of our bodies is the presenting of our entire being, because the body mentioned in this verse represents the totality of our being. The believer's spirit belongs to God. There is no need to present this part anymore. But the believer's soul and body are still estranged from God's life. Therefore, they must be presented. Although here it mentions the body only, without mentioning the soul, in reality the soul is included as well, because our body now is closely interwoven with the soul. This is why the Bible calls the body "a soulish body" (1 Cor. 15:44). To present the body is to present everything that a person has in himself. God's purpose involves not only our inward man, but also our outward man. In fellowshipping with God, only the inward man is needed; the outward man is useless in this respect. But in other things, the importance of the outward man cannot be neglected. Otherwise, the Holy Spirit would not have made such a call here.
What is the real meaning of presenting our body? It is to work for the Lord and to live for Him. We must pay attention to the word body before we can understand the meaning in this verse. There is a great difference between the body and the spirit. The body is a matter of time and space, while the spirit is a not a matter of time and space. The body is outward and, therefore, is particularly related to the outward matters. The presenting of the body is naturally the presenting of time and space because the body is of time and space. It is the presenting of everything that is in contact with the natural realm. The presenting of the body means nothing less than working for the Lord and living for the Lord. Of the two, living for the Lord is more important. Many people think that living for the Lord is working for Him. But there is a great difference between the two. A man can work for the Lord without living for the Lord. But all those who live for the Lord are working for the Lord. The meaning of living for the Lord is to give no time to any seeking for oneself, but to give all of one's time to the Lord. This is the meaning of living for the Lord, not working for the Lord. The Holy Spirit is now calling the believers to present their bodies to live for the Lord.
Now we can consider the meaning of Romans 12:1. "Brothers" refers to the believers. "I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies." The presenting of the body is based on God's compassions. Because God has graced and loved us, we should present our bodies. This matches 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, which says, "For the love of Christ constrains us...that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised." What is the purpose of presenting the body? It is to be "a living sacrifice." All sacrifices are dead. But God wants our bodies to be a living sacrifice. All the bodies of the sacrifices in the Old Testament were presented to the altar dead. But God wants our bodies to be presented as a living sacrifice to Him. This means that we live in death. We are to be presented as a dead sacrifice for as long as we live. This kind of sacrifice is "holy, well pleasing to God." Through the compassions of God, this becomes a "reasonable service." Brothers, since God has gained the ground within us, He requires that we also present to Him everything outward. Since He lives in our spirit, He is waiting also for us to present our bodies to Him. Since we have life by Him, let us also live for Him. Since our spirit has been renewed, He desires that our bodies would also be fully committed to His hands so that our renewed spirit will have the cooperation of a body in full agreement.
