Keys to Worldly Nonconformity; Romans
12:1-2; 2 Kings 23
In Romans 12:1 the apostle Paul
is making a shift in his discourse in Romans. He has spent eleven chapters
dealing with the implications of God’s righteousness, the fact that God is a
righteous God, which has to do with the standards of His character, that He is
the definition of righteousness; and the outworking of that is referred to in
terms of justice. Righteousness is the standard of God; justice is the
application of that standard. In chapter twelve Paul makes a shift to
application.
Romans 12:1 NASB
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies
a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is} your spiritual
service of worship.” There is not a specific imperative verb here but between
the main verb, “I urge you [to do something],” and the infinitive verb to
present there is the idea of expressing a mandate, a standard for every single
believer. He says you “present your bodies,” not because he is thinking in
terms of the fact that it is our physical body for a physical sacrifice but he
is using the term “body” to refer to the entire person. This is typical in
Scripture where there will be an individual referred to, maybe in terms of
their soul or their spirit or their body, where one of the aspects of the
person is used to stand for the whole of the person. The call here is that we
present our bodies to God. The word used here in the Greek is paristemi [paristhmi], a word that has the idea of presenting
yourself to someone, and many times it is a verb used to describe presenting an
offering or a sacrifice to God; in some cases it is used of a servant who is
putting himself at the disposal of his master, that he might be used of his
master in a number of ways. With the use of the words “living sacrifice” here
as also “reasonable service” it is thought that the word has a full sense here
and either implication, either as offering a sacrifice or service, are both
evident within the meaning of the word, but both ideas are made more clear by
the vocabulary used in the next two clauses.
We are to
offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, meaning that we put His will over our
will and this is our reasonable service. We are saved to serve God. That is the
positive command. We are to present ourselves to God recognizing that we have
been bought with a price. This verb paristemi
is used three times in Romans chapter six emphasizing the idea that we are to
present ourselves to be used by God for the sake of expressing His
righteousness through us. The positive is that we are to present ourselves to
Him for service; the negative is stated in the next verse: we are not to be
conformed to the world, or with the world.
Romans 12:2 NASB
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good
and acceptable and perfect.” The Greek word that is used here is suschematizo [susxhmatizw]. schema
is where we get our English word “scheme” indicating a scheme or a plan
or a pattern. The idea of “conform” comes with the combination with the
prepositional prefix there, sun,
indicating that we are not to fit ourselves according to a particular scheme or
plan of action, and that plan of action is expressed as the “world.” The word
used here is not the one that we are usually familiar with for world, which is kosmos [kosmoj], but it is the word aionos [a)iwmoj] that indicates through the ages. That
is, the thinking that dominates all of the ages. As we have studied in the past
there are only really two ways to think about reality: God’s way and the
creature’s way. The creature’s way was manifested first historically in terms
of the arrogant rebellion of the creature Lucifer, who we usually refer to as
Satan, the one who is the accuser and the opposer of God. This set a pattern,
the first time any creature had opposed God in eternity past and Lucifer then
used his influence and ability to deceive to win over approximately a third of
the angels to his side. This set up a conflict, invisible to us, in the
heavenlies among the angelic beings, those whom God created first.
From what we
deduce from Scripture there must have been some sort of trial, for in Matthew
25:41 the Lord Jesus Christ talks about the lake of fire which had already been
prepared “for the devil and his angels.” So we know that the lake of fire has
already been created, it is already awaiting the devil and his angels,
indicating that they have already been judged in terms of the handing down of a
verdict and assigning a penalty. The question then comes up: why is it that
that penalty has not yet been enacted? Why aren’t they in the lake of fire? The
answer that we have is that the penalty was postponed because in some way Satan
challenged the veracity of the verdict, the righteousness of the verdict,
something along the lines of how can a righteous and loving God send His
creatures to such a horrible death, and that for an unending period of time
suffer horrors of the lake of fire? How can a loving God do that?
And so God
in His grace and His wisdom decided to demonstrate why His righteousness would
demand such a horrible penalty. He created the human race as a test case to
demonstrate through the human race the importance of the creature’s complete
and total obedience to God. And when there is disobedience, even in what we may
consider to be the most minor or innocuous way, the ramifications, the
unintended consequences of that rebellion is so horrible and so extensive that
an everlasting punishment in the lake of fire is the only just retribution. We
see this demonstrated in the garden of Eden when God just had one test there
for Adam and the woman, and that was to not eat from the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. In the act of eating, when Eve ate and then
Adam ate, that brought sin in to the human race and into this creation that God
had created in Genesis 1:2ff that was a perfect creation. When sin entered into
that it not only resulted in the spiritual fall and collapse of Adam and Eve,
it not only resulted in the corruption of all of their descendants, but it also
had an impact that reverberated throughout all of physical reality. It affected
geology, it affected meteorology, it affected the universe; it just sent a
shock wave through everything in the universe, so that now man, the creature,
began to emulate the original sin of Satan before God had ever created the
human race, and once again there was the creature acting independently of God
and thinking in terms of his own frame of reference rather than in terms of
what God had revealed to him.
So it is
this way of thinking, the thinking of the creature, that somehow he can
understand creation completely, apart from God, thinking that he can be the
source of his own absolutes as to what is ultimately right and wrong; and it is
the arrogant thinking of the creature that somehow he has become the ultimate
reference point in the universe, rather than God, that is at the core of what
the Bible refers to as worldly thinking. The word kosmos [kosmoj] has
to do with the orderliness, the organization, of that thought. The word aionos [a)iwnoj], translated the same way, has the idea
of how it is extends throughout human history, the thinking of the world in
terms of the various civilizations that have been on the pages of history. So
we are not to be conformed or to fit into the mold of those civilizations.
This brings
in the idea of different cultures. There are different cultures in different
periods of history and each culture manifests the rebellious thinking of the
creature in different ways. So Paul says on the one hand we are to present our
bodies as a living sacrifice to God, but that is done by not being conformed or
pressed into the mold of the thinking of our time period. The Germans have a
word for that: zeitgeist, the
thinking of the age. We are to be transformed, which is the Greek word metamorphoo [metamorfow], indicating a complete change of the
very form or essence of thought. The Greek word morphe
[morfh] translated “form” has to do with the
very essence and core reality of things. So what Paul says here is extremely
profound. It is not just changing the external details of our lives, it is
being transformed at the most rudimentary levels of our thinking. This is what
has to be changed. We are to be transformed and this is done by the renovation
or overhaul of our thinking. It is not just what we think but it is how we
think; it is the structure of our thought, and this is a very difficult concept
for a lot of people to get their mental fingers around.
When we
start thinking about how we think, thinking is something then very difficult to
do. Do we think in terms of pure rationalism? Do we think in terms of pure
empiricism? Do we think in terms of pure mysticism? Most of us think in terms
of a mix of the three. All of the systems of thought simply reflect trends and
ideas that just get new packages and new names but they all go back to the kind
of thinking that Satan manifested in his original fall, which is exerting the
creature’s independence of the creator and that whatever the creator says in
terms of defining reality must be evaluated and judged by the creature. We have
to learn to have different thoughts and to think about that in different ways.
The only way we can do that is to exchange the old for the new, and that only
comes if there is a source of information or data that can come in and instruct
us and teach us into the differences. That is why the teaching of the Word of
God is so fundamental. It is Sunday morning, mid-week Bible classes, whatever
the time may be, the focus is always learning something toward the end of
changing our thinking. That is what church is all about.
Within that
we also are encouraged or strengthened or challenged, exhorted; all of these
different things are sub-categories, but the primary purpose of the ministry of
the local church is to enable the sheep to exchange the old way of thinking for
a new way of thinking. So the focus seems to be on thought. That is why one of
the reasons there is a manifestation today in many churches of a lot of singing
and other things that go on that do not emphasize much thought. People are in a
subjective, emotional rebellion against this because it is much easier to sit
in an emoting church than it is to sit in a thinking church. So those who want
to emphasize the teaching of God’s Word and learning God’s Word are running
more and more against the grain in terms of the trend of our culture. But this
is not anything new, we have seen these things go on throughout our study of
the Old Testament in both I & II Kings and we see it in the episode that we
are going to focus on today.
We have focused on what it was that
provided the core element for the change that took place in
Josiah
became king when he was eight years old. When he was twelve he began to enact
some of the reforms, and we learn from 2 Chronicles 34:1-7 what those reforms
entailed. But those seven verses really talk about what he began to do and it
is a summary of what he does even after the Law is discovered. He didn’t do all
of those things before the Law was discovered but he began to clean things up
before the Law was discovered, and then we’ll see what else he did. After the
Law was discovered and they read it and realized what the divine consequences
were going to be, the divine punishment would be, on the nation because of
their idolatry they wanted to get an additional word from God to confirm when
and how this would take place.
2 Kings
22:13 NASB “Go, inquire of the LORD for me and the people and all Judah concerning the words of this
book that has been found, for great is the wrath of the LORD that burns against us, because our
fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all
that is written concerning us.” This is Josiah speaking. They understood that
the reason for punishment isn’t because there was some whimsical deity who felt
that now was a good time to punish them but that there were standards laid down
in the Torah, and in the Torah God specifically stated what the consequences
would be if they failed to be obedient.
2 Kings
22:14 NASB “So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah
went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son
of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the Second
Quarter); and they spoke to her.” Whenever we read a passage in the Scripture
related to a prophetess the question that always comes up is, why did God use a
prophetess? What is the significance of that, especially in terms of a
contemporary debate that has arisen in mostly liberal churches, but is leaking
into conservative churches over the last decade or so? That has to do with the
ordination of women and women pastors based on 1 Timothy 2:8-12. It is
important to understand what a prophet was, what a priest was, and what a
pastor is. A pastor in the New Testament is not the New Testament version of a prophet.
They were very different roles and very different responsibilities. Same thing
with the priests. Only when we understand those distinctions can we understand
what takes place here.
Within the
Old Testament there are only three prophetesses that are portrayed positively:
Miriam, the sister of Moses; Deborah who was also one of the judges of
Huldah,
then, is going to confirm what God said in the Pentateuch. She is going to
state a message from God that confirms that. She is not making this up on her
own, she’s not interpreting things or applying the law; she is giving new
revelation that God has given her.
2 Kings
2 Kings
22:18 NASB “But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the LORD thus shall you say to him, ‘Thus says the
LORD God of Israel, ‘{Regarding} the words
which you have heard, [19] because your heart was tender and you humbled
yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its
inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn
your clothes and wept before Me [the overt manifestation in their culture of
their response to something horrible that would take place], I truly have heard
you,’ declares the LORD. [20] ‘Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and
you will be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes will not see all the
evil which I will bring on this place.’ So they brought back word to the king.”
The king has
a response. Even though God has pronounced the certainty of judgment Josiah
realizes that even though judgment is coming, even though there is going to be
a time in the not too distant future of unprecedented horror and violence
against the southern kingdom of Judah as the Babylonians would come in and
destroy the southern kingdom, he doesn’t sit back in negativity and just say, O
woe is us, isn’t this terrible. He knows that he needs to prepare his people
spiritually for what is going to come, and the only thing that will do that is
the Word of God.
We can make
application to our own nation. We don’t know though with any certainty that
horrible things are going to happen in the future. If some of the policies that
are set forth by our present administration do continue though, in terms of the
unprecedented and continuous printing of money to fund the debt and the
unprecedented spending of money and running the debt up, then we can look
forward to some pretty terrible things happening as the monetary system could
very well collapse. That is a worst case scenario. There could be a change of
heart in the people of this nation, just as there has been in other nations,
and things could just as well go in the other direction. Nothing is set in
stone, at least it hasn’t been revealed to us if it has. So there is always
hope. But the hope that Josiah offers is even in the context of knowing with
certainty the judgment was coming he doesn’t react in negativity, he remains
humble and understands that he needs to prepare his people for the horrible
things that are coming. And so he is going to have the Word of God read to them
so that they understand why it is going to happen and they can prepare
themselves spiritually to endure the discipline.
2 Kings 23:3
NASB “The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His
testimonies and His statutes with all {his} heart and all {his} soul, to carry
out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the
people entered into the covenant.” Commandments = mandates; testimonies =
related to how to worship Him; statutes = reference to the civil laws. Josiah
makes a covenant, he renews the vow to be obedient to God and to fully and
completely apply the law to the nation of
Note: The
Word of God was taught and understood. The Bible teaches truth. They understood
what had been revealed to Moses and what the consequences were going to be.
They understood that the Bible presents an exclusive look at truth. This is
what causes most people in our culture to vibrate in such hostility today. It
is that they reject the exclusivity of God’s Word; they reject the fact that
God says basically it is My way or the highway; it is My was or eternal
condemnation. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one can
come to the Father except by me.” It is that exclusivity that drives the
rebellious creature nuts because he wants to think that he knows more than he
actually does; he knows better than God. Secondly, people have a choice. The
choice is to obey or disobey. It emphasizes volition on the part of the people
in the culture. It is not just the leadership, it is also the people. That was
abundantly illustrated in the book of Judges. Judges focuses first on the
failure of the leadership, and there was always a failure and it got
increasingly worse in the period of the judges. No failure was mentioned about
the first judge, Othniel, but as we begin to read through the book and see
failure of Barak to assert his masculine role as the leader and won’t go into
battle unless Deborah is with him, and we see the increased feminism that
develops among the men and the masculinity of the women was typical in the
pagan culture. Then Gideon who is cowering on the threshing floor afraid of the
Midianites who were coming. Then when God clearly tells him what to do, and he
knows it is God and offers a sacrifice to God, even then he still wants to play
this game with God about the dew on the fleece. He really doesn’t want to obey
God’s commandment to go and defeat the Midianites. The Jephthah who had become
so paganized in the culture that he thinks he can bargain with God by offering
a sacrifice to God of his daughter. Then we get to Samson of whom nothing good
was said. That is the indictment of the leadership. Then in the next couple of
chapters is the indictment of the priesthood that has become almost totally
corrupt, and the indictment of the people who had become so hardened against
sin and violence. They, too, had come to be living in a way that was no different
from the pagan Canaanite culture that had preceded them.
We see this
same kind of trend taking place within this time period in the southern
Even though
there is not a direct correspondence between Israel and the United
States—Israel was a covenant nation with God; the United States does not have
that kind of covenant with God—there are certain trends or patterns or
similarities that we see with cultures, that those cultures, civilizations,
nations that reject God’s Word and get mired in paganism end up in
self-destruction that follows patterns that are very similar to those that God
outlined to the Israelites. They are not the same thing because Gentile nations
are not in a covenant relationship with God. Nevertheless God has built in
these kinds of consequences to the essence of reality.
So the
people have a choice to obey or disobey and here they choose to obey. But
notice that obedience means action. It can be either a mental action or a
physical action, but in a lot of actions it involves both. When God’s Word
challenges us to change, as Paul talks about in Romans 12:2, to be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, it starts with the mind but it often ends with
changed behavior. That is what God was getting at in the evaluation reports to
the seven churches in Revelation. Those who had a negative evaluation were to
repent, which means to change. An understanding of God’s Word isn’t just an
academic exercise where we learn great things about God but it doesn’t impact
the way we live, that which changes the way we think should change the way we
live. Obedience means action. It involves first mental change and then
secondly, overt change.
We see the
overt change that takes place in the following verses. When they began to
cleanse the nation they started at the temple, and then there are three or four
things that happened with the temple. Then they moved out from the temple to
When the
text goes into all of the details of the Passover and how it is observed (found
in the 2 Chronicles passage) it tells us that this is the greatest observance
of Passover that ever occurred. And that is because the hearts of the people
had been truly turned back to God through the teaching of His Word. That is why
the teaching of God’s Word is so vital and so important, because that is the
only way that we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind. It is the only
way we come to understand the grace of God, the only way we come to understand
all that God has provided for us, and the response of the person who hears the
Word of God is the response of Josiah which is to humble ourselves under the
authority of God. That means learning the Word of God and applying the Word of
God in every area of our life.