Five-minute study · Day 66 · Romans 12
Romans 12:2
A word worth stopping on: transformed μεταμορφόω metamorphoo
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The Greek word is metamorphoo, the root of 'metamorphosis.' It appears only four times in the New Testament. Two of those describe the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain, when his face shone like the sun and his clothes became blinding white. Paul takes the same word and applies it to you. The transformation he envisions belongs to the same category of change that turned a Galilean carpenter's appearance into radiant light on a mountaintop.
Word study: transformed
- Greek
- μεταμορφόω
- Pronounced
- metamorphoo
- Strong's
- G3339
- Definition
- To change in form, to transform, to undergo a fundamental change in nature or appearance.
Metamorphoo combines meta (change, after) and morphe (form, essential nature). BDAG defines it as 'to change in a manner visible to others.' The word describes a change so deep it alters outward appearance because it has altered inward reality.
The four New Testament uses are revealing. Matthew 17:2 and Mark 9:2 describe the transfiguration: Jesus was metamorphoo before the disciples, his face and garments radiating divine glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says believers 'are changed (metamorphoo) into the same image from glory to glory.' Romans 12:2 commands it as an imperative: be transformed.
Schreiner, in his commentary on Romans, highlights the grammar. The verb is present passive imperative. Present tense: the process is ongoing, continuous. Passive voice: you are not the one doing the transforming. Something is being done to you. Imperative mood: you are commanded to submit to it. The combination is striking. You are ordered to let yourself be changed by an outside force, and the change never stops.
The instrument of transformation is 'the renewing of your mind' (anakainosis tou noos). The mind, the way you perceive and evaluate reality, gets rebuilt. Paul contrasts this with 'being conformed to this age' (syschematizo), which uses schema, the outward, shifting form. The world presses you into its temporary mold. God reshapes your permanent morphe. Two forces, pulling in opposite directions. Paul says yield to the one that goes deeper.
Historical context · First century AD
Metamorphosis in Two Worlds
Ovid published his 'Metamorphoses' around 8 AD, a sprawling poem of 250 transformation myths: humans turned into animals, trees, stones, rivers, stars. The work was enormously popular in the Roman world. When Paul uses metamorphoo in a letter to Rome (written around 57 AD), his audience carried Ovid's imagery in their cultural memory. Metamorphosis was a familiar concept, but in Roman myth it was imposed by capricious gods, often as punishment. Arachne becomes a spider for challenging Athena. Actaeon becomes a stag for seeing Diana bathing. Transformation was something done to you against your will by a deity you offended.
Paul's metamorphoo reverses every element. The transformation is initiated by a God who loves you. It is oriented toward glory, moving from one degree of splendor to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). And it involves your willing participation. The imperative mood means you cooperate. The passive voice means God does the work. The combination requires trust.
Greco-Roman philosophy also pursued transformation. The Stoics sought change through rational self-discipline, training the mind to align with cosmic reason (logos). The Epicureans sought change through detachment from anxiety. Both schools located the source of transformation inside the individual.
Paul locates it outside. The renewing comes from the Spirit (implied by the passive voice and the broader context of Romans 8). You bring the mind. God brings the renovation. The metamorphosis is real, visible, and ongoing, and its source is not your willpower. Your willpower is the material being reshaped.
For reflection
Metamorphoo is present tense and passive voice. Ongoing, and done to you. Think about one area of your thinking that has shifted over the past year, one place where you see things differently than you used to. You may not have noticed the change happening. That is how metamorphoo works. It is visible to others before it is visible to you. Ask someone close to you where they have seen you change.
The passive voice means you are the clay. The present tense means the potter is still working.
Sources: BDAG Lexicon; Schreiner, 'Romans' (Baker Exegetical); Cranfield, 'Romans' (ICC)