The Christian walks into every station of her life, not seeking opportunities to prove herself, but, rather, opportunities to embody the mercy that first claimed her.
Doxology, living sacrifices, and spiritual gifts pepper the pericope this week. As with every text to be preached, so with this one too: Identify the Christ at the center of the text and aim at delivering Him. Distinguish the occlusions which keep your hearer from seeing that Christ and figure out how best to remove them. The Gospel will do that. Here, the Christ is the mercies of God, bookending the pericope (12:1, as the “in view of God’s mercies” bit and echoed at 12:8; it turns out works of mercy are gifts of God translating into Christian living too). Paul hands you the occlusion of puff-uppery at Romans 12:3, which happens when incurvatus in se substitutes for faith. And the Gospel surely is the God who gives in Christ, gives richly (11:33), and keeps on giving of Himself to edify His Church, His body.
The center of this text is not us, not our sacrifice, our gifts, our humility, or even our service. What is front and center is the mercy of God: “In view of God’s mercies;” “By the mercies of God” (12:1). We are in that part of the letter where Paul shifts to a whole bunch of imperatives, laying out teachings, guidance, instructions, and, indeed, commands for the Christian life. However, here Paul does not begin with an imperative, rather just the origin, the stage from which our Christian life takes its shape: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God” (12:1). Everything which follows flows from those mercies. Losing sight of that will render Romans 12 a Christian self-improvement program (which is a sort of thing that cannot help but tempt folks into thinking of themselves more highly than they ought; no wonder this is in the back of Paul’s mind already at 12:3!).
Paul has already spent eleven chapters making sure that will not happen, by preaching and teaching Christ and His mercy: The mercy of God has a face. God’s mercy has hands stretched and pinned. It has feet nailed to a cross. God’s mercy pours out blood for the ungodly. “In view of God’s mercy,” means in view of Jesus Christ, who did not merely feel compassion but embodied it. If “mercy” is “not getting what you deserve,” then God in Christ took up the opposite and necessary task of suffering precisely what He did not deserve to make it happen. The eternal Son took on flesh capable of bruising, bleeding, thirsting, and dying. He carried the weight of human rebellion into His own body. He was numbered with sinners though He had committed none of their sins. The sacrifice He offered was not symbolic but corporeal. His back was scourged. His brow pierced. His side opened. His lifeless body was taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed tomb. Then, on the third day, that same body stood alive again. Jesus who was sacrificed now lives forever.
Therefore, when Paul calls Christians to present their bodies as “a living sacrifice,” he is not inventing some novel religious ideal or just delighting in paradox (though there is some of that too!). He is describing resurrection life, flowing from Christ’s own death and resurrection. What was impossible before Christ, has become possible because of Christ. Dead sinners become living worshipers. Those who deserve judgment become recipients of mercy. Those who were enemies become members of His body. Every exhortation in Romans 12 grows and flows from the wounds and resurrection of Jesus.
The mercy of God has a face. God’s mercy has hands stretched and pinned. It has feet nailed to a cross. God’s mercy pours out blood for the ungodly.
This Christ-centered beginning also exposes the great obstacle to living the Christian life that Paul will spend the next couple of chapters exhorting. The greatest hindrance is not a lack of gifts but a distorted vision. Pride clouds the eyes when your own head gets too big to see the cross clearly. Paul immediately warns against “thinking more highly of oneself than one ought to think” (12:3). Personally, I love teaching humility as a unique Christian virtue. Whenever I get to teach Philippians 2 or other passages like this one when I am teaching New Testament survey or working through the transcendental, cardinal, and spiritual virtues with my students of history and civilization, it is wonderful to point up how humility is such an odd duck within the context of the ancient Greco-Roman classical world that birthed Christianity. Humility is majorly counter-cultural. It is the stuff one suffers in tragedy, avoids in epic, and certainly does not cultivate in statecraft. But it is a key Christian virtue, embodied by Christ Himself (see Philippians 2:3-11).
So, also here in Romans 12:3. Pride is fundamentally a problem of sight. The proud person cannot properly see Christ because she cannot stop looking at herself. Even spiritual gifts become mirrors for self-admiration instead of instruments for serving the neighbor (as Paul will outline in 1 Corinthians 12-13). That is why Paul immediately redirects attention from the isolated individual to the one body of Christ. The eye cannot congratulate itself for seeing, nor does the hand boast that it grasps better than the foot walks. Every member exists because of the head and for the good of the body (12:4-5).
Jesus Himself illustrates this blindness in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21 and following; the Gospel lesson just a few weeks from now), another spotlight on the “mercy” at the center of our Romans 12 pericope. The servant owed a debt beyond calculation. His lord freely forgave him, canceling what he could never repay. Yet, no sooner had mercy been placed into his empty hands than he wrapped those same hands around the throat of a fellow servant over a trivial debt. The tragedy of the parable is not simply cruelty. It is amnesia. The servant could no longer see the mercy that had defined his own existence. Pride eclipses grace in a man who forgets he is forgiven and, instead, imagines himself merely a creditor.
That same blindness threatens the Church when we forget that every gift, every office, every ability, every opportunity for service begins with mercy received. The preacher who prizes his eloquence, the teacher who prizes her knowledge, the leader who is so confident in what she imagines is her own competence; not to mention the giver who gives a second thought to his own generosity or the servant who prides herself for her own diligence. When Christ disappears from the center, because of amnesia, because of blissful thoughtlessness (the chief sin of the Church), it might as well be because of erasure. Instead, gifts cease building up the Church and become platforms for self-exaltation. Pride does not always sound arrogant. Sometimes it simply sounds self-absorbed. Either way, Christ becomes obscured.
The Gospel alone can mop up a mess like this, wipe down our smudgy lenses, and eliminate the occlusion, because the Gospel is nothing but God giving. Romans 12 is filled with gifts because it rests on the giver-God. Faith itself has been given, delivered, and apportioned by God. Grace has been given, gifts distributed. The body has been formed. Mercy has been shown. Everything begins with divine generosity.
Grace has been given, gifts distributed. The body has been formed. Mercy has been shown. Everything begins with divine generosity.
That is why Paul’s catalog of gifts is so beautifully integrated. We might be tempted to separate speaking gifts from serving gifts, as if proclamation belongs in one compartment and acts of mercy in another, but Paul mixes them up. Prophecy, teaching, and exhortation stand shoulder to shoulder with service, generosity, leadership, and mercy, because Christ Himself never separates word from deed (and we will get into trouble as well if we pull them apart!). Jesus’ preaching forgave sinners, and His promises culminate in the gift of His own body and blood. The Church reflects her Lord when proclamation and service remain inseparable. Words announce Christ’s mercy and deeds embody that mercy. Let us not pull them apart! The Church’s life is healthiest when speaking and serving continually nourish one another for the edification of the whole body. God provides for every need of the body, and now, the body speaks AND the body serves. The body loves because Christ first loved it.
Notice also where Paul ends this opening catalog: “The one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” Observe how Paul has carried us from God’s mercies (12:1) to merciful Christians (12:8). Mercy received becomes mercy reflected. Yet, the direction always remains one-way. We never generate mercy from within ourselves. We never become reservoirs of compassion independent of Christ. Christians are channels, conduits, vehicles... dare I say means? The same mercy which flowed from Christ’s pierced side now flows through His people into a hurting world. Christians forgive because they have been forgiven. They bear burdens because Christ bore theirs. They do not eschew humility like the powerbrokers of Paul’s day would (I wonder about those of our day?). Rather, they stoop toward the weak because the Son of God stooped into death for them. Even cheerful mercy is itself a gift of grace. After all, the Church is not an association of naturally generous people! It is a fellowship of forgiven sinners whose lives have been reordered by the crucified and risen Lord.
This is what renders Romans 12 programmatic for the remainder of the epistle. Everything Paul will say about loving one another, blessing persecutors, submitting to governing authorities, welcoming the weak, and bearing with one another all through the next two chapters (and, therefore, the next couple of weeks of epistle preaching) all grows and flows from this opening vision. If there is one thing that makes “Christian ethics” distinct from anything else we might say about ethics and philosophy in general, it would be just this: Christian ethics is a resurrection ethics. It deals with forgiveness as a believed and received reality. It deals with new life. It is the life of those who have already died and risen with Christ. That is why our worship is now no longer confined to an altar, because Christ has fulfilled the sacrifice once for all. Now, Christians’ own bodies become living sacrifices, not dying to earn God’s favor, but living because they already possess God’s favor! The Christian walks into every station of her life, not seeking opportunities to prove herself, but, rather, opportunities to embody the mercy that first claimed her.
And that is why you as a preacher need not choose between justification and sanctification, between Christ’s saving work and the Christian’s new life. Paul does not pull these apart, and neither should you. The call to present our bodies begins only after Christ has first presented His own. The call to mercy begins only after mercy has descended from Heaven in the flesh of Jesus Christ. The call to humility begins after we have seen the Son of God humble Himself to death, even death on a cross. And because He lives, His people become something the world has never seen before. They are living sacrifices whose worship is expressed in speaking the Gospel, serving the neighbor, and rejoicing that every good gift comes from the merciful Lord who first gave Himself for us.
Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Romans 11:33-12:8.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Romans 11:33-12:8.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
