Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Romans 12:2

"And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, and ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." — Romans 12:2 (ASV)

The dedicated life is also the transformed life. Whereas v.1 called for a decisive commitment, v.2 deals with the maintenance of that commitment. We must be continually vigilant lest our original decision to serve God is vitiated or weakened. The threat comes from “this world” (GK 172), whose ways and thoughts can so easily impinge on the child of God. Believers have been delivered from this present evil age (Galatians 1:4), which has Satan for its god (2 Corinthians 4:4), and they live by the powers of the age to come (Hebrews 6:5). But their heavenly calling includes residence in this world, among sinful people, where they must show forth the praises of him who called them out of darkness into God’s marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). They are in the world for witness, not for conformity to that which is a passing phenomenon (1 Corinthians 7:31).

Complementary to the refusal to be conformed to the pattern of this world is the command to be “transformed” (GK 5565). These two processes of renunciation and renewal are going on all the time. Our pattern is Christ, who refused Satan’s solicitations in his temptation and was transfigured in his acceptance of the path that led to Calvary (Mark 9:2–3). As his mission could be summarized in the affirmation that he had come to do the Father’s will , so the Christian’s service can be reduced to this simple description. But we must “test and approve,” refusing the norms of conduct employed by the sinful world and reaffirming for ourselves spiritual norms befitting the redeemed. Aiding this process is “the renewing of your mind”; i.e., believers must keep going back in their thoughts to their original commitment and reaffirm its necessity and legitimacy in the light of God’s grace extended to them. In this activity the working of the Holy Spirit is important (cf. Titus 3:5). Believers are not viewed as ignorant of God’s will, but as needing to avoid blurring its outline by failure to renew the mind continually (cf. Ephesians 5:8–10). Dedication leads to discernment and discernment to delight in God’s will. An intimate connection between certifying the will of God and making oneself a living sacrifice is demonstrated by the use of “pleasing” in each case (cf. Php 4:18; Hebrews 13:16).