The Romance of Romans-Part 78

Romans Chapter 12 cont'd

Don't let the value system of fallen humanity mold or dictate your life or lifestyle. Rather, cooperate with God's agenda to transform you through the spiritual renewal of your thinking, so that you may be able to discern the will of God which is truly good, always acceptable and entirely perfect.

Comments:

Or as the NIV says: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." As followers of Jesus, we all yearn to become perfected people...to become like him. This longing for "metamorphosis" (the Greek root word for transformed) is a powerful motivation in our lives. (Sometimes it is exploited by religious teachers and movements that promise us powerful personal change and this is something for which we must be on guard.)

Paul here is emphasizing that the "renewal of our mind" is an important key to our personal transformation into the image of Christ. A good place to begin the discussion about this vital subject is with a parallel passage in Ephesians 4 that contrasts the old nature (self) and the condition of the mind with the new:

¹⁷Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. ¹⁸They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. ¹⁹They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. ²⁰But that is not the way you learned Christ!— ²¹assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, ²²to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

We can see in this passage how Paul viewed the place of the "mind" in the context of the broader fabric of our lives that includes the heart, the self, the manner of life and the desires. There is a seamless connection between the component "parts" of the human life...we are integrated beings. Additionally, in the approach to his challenge for us to put on the new self...that is already created (or "re-created") within the believer by regeneration...he refers to Christ himself and implies his real presence in the process of our spiritual development. We have "learned"...and must "learn"...Christ himself. We aren't merely taught "about" Christ, we are taught "in" Christ...we are taught by Christ, who indwells us.

There is a wonderful "assumption" that lies beneath an effective transformation in our lives, lifestyles and relationships. Christ is in us...really and truly! And explicitly, because he is, we are empowered within to respond to the challenge to put off the old and put on the new. This reality...and our awareness of it...sets the stage for us to allow and cooperate with the renewing of the spirit of our minds--the essence of our thinking.