Offer Your Bodies as Living Sacrifices

I. The Body and Sin (Rom. 1:18-32)

Romans 1:21 ESV

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:24 ESV

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,

There is a clear cause and effect in this passage. If the effect is “God gave them over to their desires”, what is the cause?

II. The Body and Grace (Rom. 6:1-14)

Romans 6:5 ESV

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Romans 6:12–13 ESV

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

There is also a clear cause and effect in this passage. If the cause is “we have been united in Jesus’ death and resurrection”, what is the effect?

III. The Body and Law (Rom. 7)

Romans 7:5 ESV

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

Romans 7:6 ESV

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Read chapter 7 and explain in your own words how the Law can be good but not helpful at the same time.

IV. The Body and the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-17)

Romans 8:10–11 ESV

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Romans 8:13 ESV

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

According to Paul, what role did the Holy Spirit play in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection?

What role does he play in our lives as we live in these bodies?

V. The Body and the Resurrection (Rom. 8:17-30)

Romans 8:23 ESV

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 12:2 ESV

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.

The ultimate end for us is total redemption including the resurrection of our bodies and glorification with Jesus. Even so, for Paul, the transforming/resurrecting power of the Spirit is already at work in us to make us new from the inside out.