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Total Consecration (Part 2) |
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By Ralph I. Tilley
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Consecration is a Gift of Our Total Selves to God When the convicted sinner responds to the Spirit's call to repent of his sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for his own salvation, he is by virtue of his own sins and sinfulness, overwhelmed and fundamentally preoccupied with his own personal guilt and condemnation. Thus, while his volitional and emotional response to the gospel call may vary, depending on the measure of his spiritual knowledge, his cry is universally expressed in the words of the convicted Philippian jailer: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”[30] The convicted sinner is concerned about how he might become rightly related to God. While he may not be acquainted with doctrinal terms such as justification and reconciliation, this is his need—to be justified by God and to be reconciled to God. His cry is for mercy, for forgiveness. The merciful God grants such a request to all who sincerely repent and trust in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. To such a contrite sinner, the words of the apostle ring true: "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”[31] For the justified believer, there remains no longer a record of indictment of his sins before God: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”[32] A legal pardon has been issued on the basis of Christ's atoning death, forgiveness has been granted, a new status—"in Christ"—has been conferred, and the believer has been set apart ("sanctified") in Christ Jesus. These are objective as well as existential realties for the new Christian, plus so much more. While, as we have previously stated, there is a measure of experiential consecration involved for the believer when he first comes to Christ, it appears that for many believers there is an event of consecration that often follows one's personal conversion to Christ. While I am not interested in quibbling over what to call such an event—theories abound on this subject—to be true to the Scriptures as well as to the testimonies of many reputable Christians, one cannot dismiss such a deep experience in a cavalier manner, as some are wont to do. While this teaching of the total consecration of the believer is both implicit and explicit throughout the New Testament in particular, I want to examine Romans 12:1 in exploring this subject more fully. In the first eight chapters of Romans, Paul has addressed the following subjects: all people are under the universal wrath and condemnation of God—Jew and Gentiles alike; no one can achieve a right standing with God on the basis of his own righteousness; God took the initiative in bringing sinful man into a right relationship with himself by offering his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a propitiation for sin. Those who repent of their sins and believe on Jesus Christ are declared to be right with God, that is, justified. As justified persons, they have been released from the Law’s bondage so that they may live in the power of the Spirit. Following his explication of the role of Israel in God's economy in chapters 9-11, Paul urges his readers in 12:1 to offer themselves in full consecration to God. Romans 12:1 Paul's exhortation: "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.”[33] Who are these readers with respect to the gospel? To whom is the apostle making such an appeal? There are several reasons for believing these readers are authentic disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ: • Paul's greeting to the recipients of his Roman letter, makes it clear that his appeal in Romans 12:1 is directed to those who have already come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: those "who are called to belong to Jesus Christ" and to "all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.”[34] • Throughout this letter there are ten specific instances where Paul addresses his readers with the fraternal designation of "brothers.”[35] The term "brothers," as noted by Joseph Fitzmyer, "has nothing to do with . . . blood relationship or kinship; it designates the closeness experienced by those who were followers of the risen Christ and a sense of the intimate relations that Paul has with those he so addresses.”[36] This Christian communal relationship transcends all gender, ethnic, and racial groupings. • Chapters 6-8 are clearly an appeal to those who are justified and are not in the "flesh" but in the "Spirit." • The Christian ethical exhortations Paul gives in chapters 12-16 clearly have Christians in view. It is unthinkable that non-Christians could possibly respond to such imperatives. God desires our all. If one is to live a life of cultivating and expressing a passionate love for the Lord Jesus Christ, he can only do so if he has given himself entirely to Christ. Such a dedication to God is intensely personal and real. The 18th century spiritual master Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a French Jesuit priest understood this like few others. He came to understand the importance of making a total surrender of oneself to God if the Christian is to live a life of love to the glory of God. Inviting his fellow believers to make such a surrender, he wrote,
While we may not want to go as far as Caussade went in seemingly discounting God's work in others, both past and present, what Caussade is emphasizing is the need for the believer to deal personally with God. The specifics of such a consecration are uniquely personal to the individual believer. Paul urges these believers in Romans 12:1 "by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Having reviewed God's sovereign purposes for Israel in God's economy in chapters 9-11, and noting the failure of these people to accept God's covenant purposes for them through the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul makes a strong appeal to his readers not to follow in the footsteps of these unbelievers, nor to be presumptuous. This is the purpose of the "therefore." In other words, on the basis of what he has previously addressed, "therefore," these believers must learn from their Jewish brothers and not make a similar mistake. It is the mercy of God that the Gentiles have been made partakers of the gospel. These readers should not presume upon God's mercies; after all, Paul says, "Just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”[38] Because of the unfathomable mercies that God has shown these believers in Jesus Christ, the apostle urges them to make a full consecration. Paul "knows—not least from his own experience—," says John Stott, "that there is no greater incentive to holy living than a contemplation of the mercies of God.”[39] The form of the word "present"(parastēsai) is an aorist infinitive, and is significant. Of this tense, Moule says, "the chief function of the aorist tense is to indicate an action viewed as instantaneous . . . , no matter whether present, future, or past.”[40] In other words, Paul is appealing to his readers to make a definitive total consecration of themselves to God. He is urging them to do something that only they can do by an act of the will, assisted of course, by the strength of the Spirit. This is the human side of the work of sanctification. God can only sanctify what man consecrates. This held true under the Old Covenant regarding material things—e.g., the Temple furnishings; and it is true under the New Covenant as well. On one occasion, Jesus spoke of the altar sanctifying those gifts presented in the Temple.[41] Fritz Rienecker suggests this word "present" is a "technical term for presenting a sacrifice, literally meaning 'to place beside.' “[42] Joseph Fitzmyer makes the same observation. He says the verb "not only means to place something at the disposition of another but also has the nuance of 'offering, presenting' something as a sacrifice." Then he notes, "Whereas the Jewish sacrifice implied the slaughter of what was offered, Paul uses the verb figuratively of Christian life and activity.”[43] What Paul says is to be consecrated—presented—by these Christians to God is their "bodies." The New Testament (Paul in particular) has much to say about the corporeality of man. While much of Gnosticism considered the body inherently evil and incapable of redemption, the Christian ethic held that the body was to be regarded as the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that Christians were to glorify God by what their bodies were actively engaged in. Thus, Paul argued against the Christian engaging in any kind of sexual immorality because the body "is meant for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”[44] Furthermore, Paul says there will come a time when all believers will appear before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of "what [they] done in the body, whether good or evil.”[45] Moreover, the Christian's response to the promise of God's desire to dwell among his people, and his consequent command that they should not defile themselves with any "unclean thing,"—is to "cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”[46] Paul said it was his desire that Christ would always be "honored in my body.”[47] To show how highly God values the body, Paul says that at the Parousia, "the Lord Jesus Christ . . . will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”[48] It is because of this view of the body in first century Christianity that Thomas Oden can state, the "body is greatly honored in Christianity, not only in the incarnation, which is the coming of God in the flesh, but the resurrection as well, which is the reuniting of the human body-soul.”[49] It is from this divine perspective of the importance of man's body that the apostle exhorts these Christians to make a complete consecration of their "bodies" to God. In saying "bodies," Paul is not placing the body in opposition to the soul/heart of man—his will, affections, and so forth. He is simply stating that this part of man is included in one's consecration to God, or, as it may be, represents man's total consecration to God. Matthew Henry believes when Paul uses "bodies" here, he means "your whole selves.”[50] On the other hand, Moule believes when Paul used "bodies" he meant specifically "bodies," not "your spirit, intelligence, feelings or aspirations, but 'your bodies' to your Lord.”[51] While the consecration/sanctification of man includes the total person, it would seem that Paul specifically has in mind the consecration of man's body per se, which of course, does not exclude man's soul and spirit.[52] The "bodies" are to be presented/consecrated to God as living sacrifices in contrast to the former Covenant's dead sacrifices. The "bodies," furthermore, are to be presented to God as "holy, and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." The use of the word "holy"(hagian) in one's presentation/consecration of the body to God is a further argument that Paul is addressing authentic Christian believers and not unbelievers. A non-Christian cannot make a presentation of a "holy" body to God. We must ask then, How is it that a Christian can make an offering of a "holy" body to God? In this way: because the Christian has already been "set apart" (sanctified in Christ Jesus) to live a holy life.”[53] Since the believer has been definitively sanctified in Christ when he was justified and regenerated, he is to make that sanctification actual by a giving himself in total consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ. John Murray says,
This appeal by the apostle to the Roman disciples of Christ of his day left every believer with a sobering choice: to be Christ's total person, or to shrink into a lesser kind of spiritual existence and apathy. For the one who truly desires to cultivate and express a passionate love for Christ, the answer to such a choice is apparent. This is the reason why a total consecration to Christ is such a critical foundational element in the cultivation and expression of a passionate love for our Lord. The making of such a consecration has been beautifully expressed in the words of Mary James (1810-1883):
All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
Let my hands perform His bidding,
Be assured, dear reader, what we wholeheartedly offer to God, God graciously accepts. If you haven't already done so, will you offer yourself today totally to God? If you have previously done so, will you join with me just now in affirming the consecration of your total self to our holy and loving heavenly Father? ?
- Soli Deo Gloria -
30 Acts 16:31. Unless otherwise noted, the Bible version used in this article is the English Standard Version.
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