Scripture Notes: A Living Sacrifice (Romans 12)

“I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). A living sacrifice…  Jewish worship at the time of Jesus was centered on sacrifice. Thousands of animals were offered to God in the Temple daily, weekly, and annually to mark various cycles in the people’s relationship with God. Every sacrifice symbolized the offerer’s own person, own self, lifted up to God in adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and repentance.  

Jesus fulfilled every one of those sacrifices when He died on the cross, offering Himself for us. He is the one sacrifice, the one of which every other sacrifice was only a shadow. His sacrifice now stands outside of time, in eternity, before the Father, still for us, still to reconcile us with God.

We participate in that sacrifice every time we receive the Eucharist. We enter into it as Jesus enters into us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, along with our minds and hearts and souls and spirits, everything we have and everything we are. We join ourselves to Jesus’ sacrifice, and this is our spiritual worship, the worship the comes from the deepest parts of ourselves and connects us with God, Who makes us holy and acceptable by His grace, the grace merited for us through the living sacrifice of Jesus Christ.