What Does “Offer Your Body as a Living Sacrifice” Mean?

In Romans 12:1, Paul tells us that all believer-priests are commanded to offer up their body as a living sacrifice every day.

A part of the role of Christ-given fivefold ministry is to call for all believers to come daily to the altar to present themselves as living sacrifices. Any minister who is remiss to do this has failed at a basic level. Paul himself wrote, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

Especially notice the word “beseech” in Romans 12:1. It is a translation of the Greek word parakaleo, a compound of the words para and kaleo. The word para means alongside, and the word kaleo means to call or to beckon. When these two words are compounded, the new word depicts a person who comes alongside someone else, as close as he can get, and then begins to passionately call out, plead, beckon, or beg the other person or group of people to do something. In fact, the sense of pleading is so strong that one expositor suggested this verse figuratively shows the apostle Paul on his knees, pleading with his readers to hear what he is saying and to do what he is requesting. For sure, this is not merely asking — Paul is prayerfully pleading for his readers to hear his petition and obey it.

But the word parakaleo holds another layer of meaning. By early New Testament times, this word was used to describe military commanders who passionately addressed troops before sending them into battle. In this way, parakaleo means to exhort, and it depicts a leader urging his soldiers to take action, prepare themselves for a fight, and to brave the imminent battle with courage and a commitment to win, regardless of the difficulties that might lie ahead. This is no suggestion — it is an earnest command! Paul’s use of parakaleo in Romans 12:1 means that in addition to earnestly pleading with his readers, he also conveyed that what he was about to ask them to do would require commitment to obey it regardless of the battle or struggle they faced in order to do it.

But what was this difficult challenge Paul was urging each of them to intentionally engage in? Paul continued, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.”

The word “bodies” is the Greek word soma, which refers to the physical body. Paul called on believers everywhere to offer up their physical bodies as a living sacrifice to God — that is, to put their bodies on the altar, as it were, and to dedicate them as “a living sacrifice” to God.

Paul knew this endeavor would be a battle to overcome because the body by its fleshly nature does not want to be laid on the altar. Flesh desperately desires to be in full control and actively resists God’s pleading for surrender. Hence, like a military commander, Paul exhorted God’s believing troops to surrender their bodies to the Lord regardless of how their flesh tried to circumvent this decision.

Paul’s language in this verse is peculiar because, according to history and traditions, there had been no such thing as a living sacrifice. When a sacrificial animal was killed on an altar, the act was final, and the animal couldn’t protest or scream out after the fact that it didn’t want to be sacrificed. All sacrifices were dead, and by the time they were laid on the altar, they had no more voice to resist.

But in Romans 12:1, God calls on us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. He seeks for those who belong wholly to Him to lay themselves on the altar, to stay on the altar of their own free will, and to stay there as a “living sacrifice.”

We are to be completely surrendered to Him, dedicated to His purpose, living entirely for Him — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just as priests in physical temples had to be focused to carry out their priestly duties, staying on that altar and remaining surrendered will require your focused attention.

Paul also importantly said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.”

The word “present” is a translation of the Greek word paristemi, which means to place at one’s disposal, to surrender, to offer a sacrifice to God, to present as a special offering to God, or to dedicate once and for all. It is the exact word used in Luke 2:22 to depict when Mary and Joseph “presented” Jesus to God in the Temple. The use of the Greek word paristemi explicitly tells us that when Mary and Joseph “presented” Jesus that day, they surrendered and placed Him at God’s disposal. They offered Jesus as a sacrifice to God and dedicated Him once and for all. On that day, Jesus was the offering they presented, and they never backtracked on their promise.

Likewise, by using the word paristemi in Romans 12:1, Paul is telling each of us to officially dedicate ourselves — once and for all, forever — to the plans and purposes of God. It is a sacrifice never to be retracted, and one that all believer-priests are called to offer to God each day.

When Paul says we are to present our “bodies” as a living sacrifice, the context of this verse involves our physical body as well as all the faculties of our soul — our mind, will, and emotions. So I must ask, are you presenting your physical body and your mind, will, and emotions as a living sacrifice to the Lord every day? This is the beginning place for fulfilling your priestly functions and responsibilities.

Recall that in First Peter 2:5, Peter said we are to “offer up” spiritual sacrifices. Again, the words “offer up” are a translation of the Greek word anaphero, which pictures an individual who puts forth effort to dig deep to find what is precious to bring it out of hiding and to the surface. This means you’ll have to put effort into bringing the sacrifice of your body to the altar. Furthermore, the prefix ana at the first of the word indicates it is an act to be done repeatedly, so presenting our bodies to the Lord is a decision to be repeated over and over. There are vast numbers of believers who have never officially said, “Lord, I’m giving You my body — it’s Yours and it’s no longer mine. My physical person is at Your disposal once and for all.” But Romans 12:1 clearly tells us this is one of our foremost priestly responsibilities.

The mind is another area many Christians have never officially surrendered to God. They have given Him their heart, but often their thinking remains in their own control. Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, [consisting of the mind] and with all thy might.” So according to this verse, dedicating our mind to the Lord is not a suggestion; it is a command.

God wants you to “present” your mind to Him once and for all because the mind is the control center of your life. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as a man “...thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Whoever controls your mind ultimately controls everything about you — what you do, what you say, and what you believe.

Have you ever said, “Lord, I officially present to You my mind as my sacrifice to You. It’s Yours and no longer mine. My memory banks and thinking capacity are at Your disposal once and for all.” If you have not surrendered your mind to the Lord as a believer-priest, you need to do it so your mind will be under the full lordship of Jesus. Romans 12:1 clearly means this is your priestly function and your priestly responsibility every day.

There are multitudes of believers who have given Jesus their hearts, but they have never fully yielded the control of their emotions to Him. Emotions are powerful and can be very unpredictable. When your emotions are not under the lordship of Jesus, they can become a weapon that quickly leads you in the wrong direction, making you say and do things you later regret. Proverbs 25:28 (NKJV) confirms this saying, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.”

Romans 12:1 calls on you to “present” your emotions once and for all to God as a part of your becoming a living sacrifice. Once again, the word “present” is the Greek word paristemi, which means to present once and for all. This means God calls on every believer-priest to once and for all present his body, mind, emotions, and all that he or she is to the Lord as a special offering to Him.

That means you are to surrender yourself and all your faculties, placing yourself at His disposal. And although you’re to do it once and for all, Paul’s words in Romans 12:1 emphatically include presenting your emotions to God as another of your priestly functions and priestly responsibilities that you are to repeat, or affirm, every day.

The word “sacrifice” in Romans 12:1 is the Greek word thusia, which we earlier saw means to sacrifice or give up something precious and dear as a sacrifice. It includes the celebration, pageantry, and prayers that accompanied that moment when a worshiper came to an altar to offer a sacrificial offering or burnt sacrifice. The word thusia also came to depict one’s surrender or one who gave up something that was precious and dear.

A sacrifice was expensive because it cost a giver something to offer it. Likewise, to become a living sacrifice will require a death to self. Such a living sacrifice occurs when you bow your will, dethrone self, enthrone Jesus by choosing to submit to His lordship, and choose to obediently live to fulfill His commandments. This is a renewed daily sacrifice of saying no to self and yes to God.

As noted earlier, there was no such thing as a living sacrifice in the ancient world because sacrifices that weren’t dead were not considered a sacrifice; the shedding of blood was required for a sacrifice. In other words, if a person walked off with a living animal, all he did was make a spectacle.

Likewise, we can put on a show and say a lot of impressive words about how we want to surrender our lives to God — but until we do it, it is nothing more than a spectacle. For us to be a living sacrifice, we must be willing to crawl onto the altar, surrender ourselves, yield what is precious and dear, if needed, and be willing to renounce all claims to ourselves, fully surrendering to the purposes of God.

Dying to self is an act of surrender we must perform daily. If there is no death to self, there is no sacrifice. And when we once and for all make this act of surrender, we must realize we are no longer our own, which is why Paul wrote, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). From the moment we present ourselves to Him, we become holy — that is, we are set apart, consecrated, and dedicated to God and to His purposes. This is what it means to be a living sacrifice.

So when Paul wrote in Romans 12:1 that we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, he was beseeching us to climb onto the altar daily to present ourselves to God. As believer-priests, every one of us, each day, are to place ourselves on the altar and say, “God, I am presenting myself to you. I surrender to You my body and soul — including my mind, my will, and my emotions. I choose to die to what I want, what I think, and how I feel about things, and I humbly place myself at Your disposal.”

When a believer in the new naos Temple of God presents himself or herself as a living sacrifice, it is a “holy” event. Paul uses the word “holy” in Romans 12:1 — the word hagios in Greek, which means separated, consecrated, made holy, or made sacred. Thus, when a believer-priest presents his life as a living sacrifice to God, that act elevates him into a sacred category. Although all believers are called by God to do it, many never have. But when a believer surrenders himself as an offering — a “living sacrifice” — to the plans and purposes of God, it truly moves that believer into a category that is very special in the eyes of God.