The Bible Project has been doing a great job of showing us how to read the Hebrew Scriptures by exposing the methods and means of their style and composition. The Original Testament often sets up a conflict in the story that it answers later. This is how Romans 12 is to some extent. We can read Romans 12:1 about presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice and think it is something we are doing or being by our religious adherence. However, the answer comes later in Romans 12:5. If we would just take that verse to heart, then we would not have this self-centric – I mean Christian-centric view at all.
CJB so there are many of us, and in union with the Messiah we comprise one body, with each of us belonging to the others.
AMP so we, who are many, are [nevertheless just] one body in Christ, and individually [we are] parts one of another [mutually dependent on each other].
ERV In the same way, we are many people, but in Christ we are all one body. We are the parts of that body, and each part belongs to all the others.
The ERV does a great job of translating the first word of 12:5, so that we realize it is referring to “present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Living Sacrifice is singular and it is Jesus, especially Who He is. I often refer to this as His heart trajectory. I think Paul would call it the mind of Christ. I know the prophet Isaiah referred to it as the Higher Way and Higher Thought of God in Isaiah 55:8-11.
Jesus – Who He is – makes us a living sacrifice, because He is the Slain Lamb standing in Revelation 5:6. He is the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His heart trajectory in us, is the Living Sacrifice we all experience together when we lose our soul-lives to know Him (Matthew 10:39). As Romans says just before 12:1, all things are out from Him, through Him, and unto Him. Let’s not waste any time conforming to the world as 12:2 says, but rather be in it, but not of it… be of His heart trajectory that ended our oppressively special identities and self-care importance.
Only His dying process, “nekrosis,” active in us means life manifest in our body to others (2 Corinthians 4:10). Him being Who He is, is how He forgave us and saved us on the cross. Him being Who He is, is also How He sanctifies us, makes us holy and set apart. As 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, he is our sanctification-holiness. It is not a thing we get, but Him being it.
As He is-being, so also are we in this world! 1 John 4:17 Only Jesus’ Heart Trajectory, His Way of Being… only Him this way is Life and Reality.
Seeing Jesus as The Life of The Bible Stories 