The good will of God

"... that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2).

The letter to the Romans is, of all of Paul's letters, the most logical and ordinate. It contains a systematic form in which the main christian doctrinal topics are developed. It begins with the sinful man, destitute of the glory of God, and leaves him amid the church, reaching the perfection of Christ.

Now well, up to chapter 8 there is an exposition centered in the individual experience of the believer; and then, in chapter 12 (after the parenthesis on Israel in verses 9 to 11), something different begins, that is to say, a different focus of the christian life. And to prepare for this new focus, Paul begins telling us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, that we be transformed by the renewal of our minds, in order to know the good will of God.

Therefore, before understanding what is going on here, it is necessary that we experience help from the Lord in our way of thinking. What we find here deals with nothing less than the church. In fact, the final chapters of Romans speak to us about the church. Therefore, Paul continues in the chapter 12 saying: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” This means that, in order to enter the terrain of the church, we need to stop focusing on our self-concepts. It is necessary that we stop thinking so highly of ourselves.

The church is a place where we stop being individuals and become simply members of the body of Christ. It is the environment where the ego is crucified; where personal ambitions die, where individualism is broken. Paul continues saying: “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (12:4-5).

Not only are we members, but furthermore, we have only one function. It is to say, the pretentiousness of greatness, protagonist, all come stumbling down. From individuals we become members; we become men/women who acknowledge their limitations and their one function.

The “good will of God” for us is to form part of the church, that we live the church life, because that is where man decreases and Christ increases. In church, the old man is judged and the new man is strengthened. May the Lord allows us all, that desire to please the Lord, to live a wonderful (and painful) experience of only being one member of his body.

(Translation: Betsy Calvo, USA).