What a Living, Creative, Active Powerful Thing is Faith!
Read: Romans 12:1–2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Paul is clearly taking a turn in Romans 12. He addresses the church in Rome directly and calls them to obedience in light of what he has said before. Theologians sometimes say he is moving from the indicative to the imperative. But it can be a struggle to understand how exactly grace relates to change and how the gospel relates to good works. It is important for us to remember that in Romans 12 Paul is not taking a turn from the gospel of justification by grace through faith. Martin Luther famously warned against such an understanding in his introduction to Romans:
Faith is not that human illusion and dream that some people think it is. When they hear and talk a lot about faith and yet see that no moral improvement and no good works result from it, they fall into error and say, ‘Faith is not enough. You must do works if you want to be virtuous and get to heaven.’
This is not what Paul is doing here. When Paul calls us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice” and “to be transformed by the renewal of our minds,” he is proclaiming the good news that the gospel has the power to change our whole lives. Listen again to what Luther says:
Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God. It kills the old Adam, makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active powerful thing faith is! It is impossible that faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn’t ask whether good works are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them.
Brothers and sisters, the life of Romans 12—a life of obedience, good works and submission to God’s will—is the life of faith. The only one who can truly change us is Jesus. This is why every Sunday we fix our minds and hearts on Jesus, who presented his body “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” When we come together to hear his words and share his table, we experience him as “good and acceptable and perfect.” In this way, we ourselves are “transformed by the renewal of our minds.” As we worship him in faith, our whole lives become “spiritual worship.” Luther captures it beautifully
Faith is a living, unshakeable confidence in God’s grace; it is so certain, that someone would die a thousand times for it. This kind of trust in and knowledge of God’s grace makes a person joyful, confident, and happy with regard to God and all creatures. This is what the Holy Spirit does by faith. Through faith, a person will do good to everyone without coercion, willingly and happily; he will serve everyone, suffer everything for the love and praise of God, who has shown him such grace. It is as impossible to separate works from faith as burning and shining from fire.
May our lives be transformed as we gather in faith to rejoice in God’s grace.
