In Romans 12:1 the Apostle Paul says: “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.” There is a curious use here of the physical body as a spiritual sacrifice. This use would not be so curious in the Old Covenant as there are many physical sacrifices to be found in the law. But in the teachings on the New Covenant we need to stop and think about what exactly he means; it’s not quite as obvious as the symbolism of slaying an innocent lamb for sins.

When we come together as the body of Christ in a worship service we sing and listen to the Word taught and fellowship. This is called worship. The word used in the verse quoted above for ‘spiritual’ is ‘logikhn’;Sometimes this word can mean ‘reasonable’ or ‘rational’. In any case it is dealing with the nonphysical reality of a concept, that is, the idea of it, the perfect idea of it in it’s essence. So in this case we speak of worship, or service; words used in the context of the priest’s service in the temple, and in Paul’s writings, of the service that believers render to God as a living priesthood. So the perfect idea of worship in its essence is spiritual. One may also argue that ‘divine’ is a good word to use. And indeed, many Christian traditions have called the liturgy the “divine service”.

What Paul is speaking of then, is a worship that is a service, like that of a priest who is a ‘slave’ of sorts to God, and it is a service that is very real in its spiritual significance. It is of the essence of what worship is all about; that is the meaning of ‘logikhn’: it is of the essence.

But how does one go about doing this? “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.” So this is not a mindless sacrifice, as if we are causing ourselves to suffer just for the sake of being a sacrifice. Rather, we are to make this sacrifice of ourselves, a true spiritual and divine sacrifice, by a radical change in the way that we think. The sacrifice is not a destruction, but a transformation.

Our paradigm for this is of course the cross, where Jesus both died and rose again as a complete, perfect and acceptable sacrifice to God on our behalf. He was not destroyed