Romans 12:2
Romans 12:22Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Watchtower commentary takes as central to the doctrine of separation from "Satan's system of things" — the present world order under satanic rule. Christians must not be moulded by this system but transformed through obedience to Jehovah's standards as revealed through the organisation. The "renewing of the mind" is read as conformity to Watchtower instruction, gradually replacing worldly thinking with theocratic thinking.
The transformation is real, but it happens NOW — present passive participle, "be being transformed." Paul does not defer renewal to a future millennium; he describes ongoing Spirit-powered transformation in the believer's present life. This corresponds to ("we all… are being transformed into his image"), ("put off the old self… be made new… put on the new self"), and ("the new self, which is being renewed"). The Watchtower defers transformation to the millennium and reduces the present-tense renewal to organisational compliance. Paul promises something richer: ongoing, Spirit-powered conformity to Christ — available now to every believer.
The NWT renders tou aiōnos toutou ("this age") as "this system of things" — a Watchtower-signature phrase that appears throughout the NWT. Consensus translations read "this world" (ESV/NASB/KJV) or "the pattern of this world" (NIV). "System of things" imports an institutional and structural meaning that the simpler "this age" lacks — turning Paul's eschatological age-distinction into a JW-vocabulary frame ("Satan's system of things").