We are finally getting into aspects of DOING and not just aspects of BELIEVING, and with this comes an interesting twist, which is that no matter what WE do, it should not be US doing it, but the Spirit (of Jesus) that is doing it.
So there are many action words, verbs, associated with DOING ‘things’, and many of them refer to the thoughts that go on in our mind. EG pummel, struggle, resist, present, putting to death, but then, maybe, shedding y/our blood.
In fact, it is almost ALL to do with the thought processes, what is going on in our mind, and very little to do with any actual action, except that we “do good” to coin a phrase from Joyce Meyer. Conversely, and other than thoughts to do with the action of the Spirit in us, are the things that people do (in the flesh) that is to “do bad”, and many and varied are the actions to do with that (listed as “the works of the flesh”).
NOW, to look at one word, PRESENT. “Present your bodies…” This is the very thing it says that Jesus did, and which illuminated the gospel regarding the word “sacrifice”, in the verse “He was PRESENTED as a blood sacrifice…”
To “present” is to put forward, to “offer up”, to MAKE IT LOOK LIKE something. In Jesus case, the sacrifice was real enough, but it was deliberately made to look like a blood sacrifice after the pattern of the old covenant sacrifices using the figure of blood for the emphasis of the finality of death.
In our case, to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”, there is no blood (“you have not yet resisted sin to the point of shedding your blood”). But we enter into the form of HIS sacrifice just the same. In THIS case of “present”, it is more “to put forward, to offer up” than it is to ‘make it look like’ OR ‘to APPEAR to be, to appear as.
His body was indeed offered up both in appearance AND in reality of a sacrifice for sin. But now we are being asked to do the same, not as an individual sacrifice of our own making, so to speak, but as a willing co-sacrifice to HIS SACRIFICE, that we be in Him, in His sacrifice, so that HIS SACRIFICE be in us also. In this way is HE IN US.
This mortal body which was already considered as “dead” is now conversely, reversely, to be offered up as a SACRIFICE TO LIFE, to Him and His purposes, to Him and HIS SPIRIT. Our bodies are to be offered to Him to occupy and for His SPIRIT to DO HIS WORK, the work of the Father. This brings to life His life in us. “…Though our bodies be dead because of sin, yet (y)our spirit is alive because of righteousness”. His Spirit “…will also give life to your mortal bodies THROUGH HIS SPIRIT WHO INDWELLS YOU.
So finally we get to the “doing” rather than just the “believing”. But note that it is the SPIRIT* that is to do all the DOING, it was “only’ our part to do the BELIEVING. (and that by grace).
“I do only what I see my Father doing”. This was Jesus’ “faith”, His “belief”. IN ACTION.
[Sins are things that people DO (because they DON’T believe)][WE do what we see OUR FATHER “doing”. We have to decide who our father is, who we want Him to be][“you are of your father the devil, and the works of your father you DO”][OR, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”].
*[And this is why it is so important to define the Spirit as being HIS (supernatural) SPIRIT in reality, a gift from heaven, the Spirit of Christ, delivered at Pentecost to be our possession, and not just somehow an ingressed or digested, consumption of biblical knowledge, as some would say.]
CROSSROMAN 