There’s an obvious switch of topic and emphasis as we turn from Romans chapter 11 to Romans chapter 12. Broadly speaking one could say that Paul moves from the theoretical to the practical, from the doctrinal to the ethical. He’s been talking about what Christians believe. Now he starts addressing how Christians behave. But it’s not quite that simple.
First of all, we need to see that Paul understands what he’s been saying all along about the unity of Jews and Gentiles in Christ, in the new Israel by faith in Christ, to have ethical, behavioral implications. Moreover, all the discussion of law and sin made it clear that Christians are “dead” to sin and are expected to live in a new way. And, in chapter 12 and following it’s clear that Paul feels free to continue to draw on theology and doctrine to support the practical direction he offers.
In our text for this week, Romans 12:1-8, Paul sets the stage for all the rest of his ethical injunctions, etc. He puts “therefore” right at the beginning in verse 1. He sees his ethical pronouncements as the direct outgrowth of the theological picture he’s been painting. Specifically, he is convinced that God has ushered in a new order of things for those who are “in Christ” through faith. They are part of a new people, a new Israel, and that newness will appear in the way they behave and relate to each other.
After calling Christians to regard themselves as sacrifices to God and to have a new mind, Paul introduces in verse 3 his favorite image for the Church, a body with individuals as members. Because the word member is so familiar to us as a person who belongs to an organization, we miss the jarring note felt by Paul’s original readers. All the word could mean in his time was “body part.” By using this language Paul coined a new usage of the word and meant to convey a radical sense of belonging in the church. We belong to the Body of Christ in the sense that body parts belong to the body. They are owned by and subservient to the whole.
Maybe that last thought about radical belonging enough to reflect on for now as we think about this text. It’s a deep and profound challenge to our modern sense of individuality and our feeling that “membership” is something we possess individually rather than the idea that the Body possesses us. It’s was a new way of looking at things in Paul’s time and still comes across as new in the face of an “old” established modern individualism.