ROMANS 14
We come now to matters which must have been of great practical importance when Jews and Gentiles found themselves together as “one body in Christ”. The Jew had been accustomed to the thought of defilement by eating certain things, and there had been days in his year to which he had attached special value as of divine appointment. The Gentile had known no such restrictions, no such days; he was in [p. 217] liberty from it all as knowing grace. The tendency would be for the one in liberty to make little of the one who had scruples, or for the scrupulous man to judge the one in liberty. The wisdom of God adjusts both in this chapter, and the principles laid down are of abiding importance.
The teaching of this chapter is eminently calculated to help the weak brother, leading him to consider his scruples from a new point of view, without entering into any dispute with him as to the right or wrong of his convictions.
One weak in the faith is to be received; we are not to hold him off, or make little of him, because he has scruples about things which we know are of no real importance. His conscience is to be respected; we must be careful about disputes and reasoning; we must go on the line of seeking to strengthen him in the faith rather than on the line of arguing on the differences between us.
But then the one with scruples must not judge the one in liberty; he must remember that God has received his brother, and that he has no title to judge the servant of Another. “To his own master he stands or falls. And he shall be made to stand; for the Lord is able to make him stand”. The one who is in the liberty of grace will be made to stand by the Lord. How serious a matter it is to be judging one whom the Lord is making to stand!
The true standard is brought before us here which is to regulate us in every detail of life. We may not all have reached the same point in spiritual intelligence or conscience; some may be weaker in faith than others; but the principle which is to govern all is that each one is to have the Lord before him. There [p. 218] are many things today in regard to which believers have not all the same exercise or conscience, and people sometimes raise the question, Is there no standard to which we should all conform! The universal standard is that each believer is to live as a person who keeps the Lord before him. If we make this the standard, it will work in the direction of liberty and thanksgiving. We are entitled to insist that each believer must have the Lord before him in what he does. Hence, “Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind”. That is, each one has to make sure that he really has the Lord before him in what he does. It is a searching exercise.
One weak in the faith is not a careless man who wants to walk in a loose or worldly way, but a man who is scrupulous, through defective knowledge of grace, about things which are of no real importance. But he has the Lord before him in what he does, whether as to not eating certain things, or as to regarding certain days. His scruples are to be respected. It would be quite a different thing if he sought to make his scruples a standard for the assembly of God. That would be setting up a principle contrary to Christian liberty, and it would have to be refused as decidedly as Paul refused judaising principles at Antioch and in the assemblies of Galatia. It is one thing to consider for the scruples of a brother who is not yet really in Christian liberty; it is quite another to seek to impose such scruples as a rule for God’s assembly. Paul would circumcise Timothy as an act of personal liberty, but he stoutly resisted the circumcision of Titus when it was sought to be enforced as essential.
It is a remarkable statement that “none of us lives [p. 219] to himself, and none dies to himself, For both if we should live, it is to the Lord we live; and if we should die, it is to the Lord we die: both if we should live then, and if we should die, we are the Lord’s” That is the position in which every believer is set by divine grace. Living or dying we are in relation to the Lord; each one has individually to do with Him; no other principle of living is recognised; “and if we should die, it is to the Lord we die”. At every moment of our lives the Lord is the supreme One, and if we are called to die He is still the supreme One. The believer may have to leave his life here, and to pass into another region by dissolution, but the Lord is still supreme. The saint has lived to the Lord — no other kind of living is contemplated for the believer — and now he has a new experience: he dies to the Lord! He is conscious that he is the Lord’s; the Lord’s personal right and ownership is a reality in life and in death, Our beloved Saviour and Lord passed through the domain of death that He might be supreme even there. “For to this end Christ has died and lived again, that he might rule over both dead and living”. What a blessed rule that implies! He rules in the supremacy which He has acquired by having gone that way! It is no arbitrary rule of mere authority and power, but rule founded on His having died and lived again. Is not “rule” a very beautiful word from that point of view? The rule of Christ is thus established in the affections of each one who knows Him. It is of the utmost importance that we should be under rule; only thus shall we be divinely regulated in all our ways. Paul spoke of himself as “legitimately subject to Christ” (1 Corinthians 9: 21); he was under Christ’s rule. The Lord has [p. 220] rights in respect of me and of my brother. Then I must not judge him if he has more liberty than I have; nor must I make light of him if he is scrupulous and particular about some things which I have light to know are unimportant.
“The judgment-seat of God” is brought in here, not exactly to exercise our own consciences, but to keep us from judging others. The many warnings against this in Scripture would indicate that it is a thing we are very prone to do. But “each of us shall give an account concerning himself to God”. We may be quite sure that everything is going to be investigated and pronounced upon in a divinely perfect way. The matter is really in much better and wiser hands than ours. “Let us no longer therefore judge one another; but judge ye this rather, not to put a stumbling-block or a fall-trap before his brother”. Nothing is more withering to Christian vitality than a censorious or judicial spirit; it is altogether contrary to the spirit of Christ; it indicates that one has got away from the truth and spirit of the dispensation. That spirit would lead us, on the other hand, to be very careful not to stumble our brother.
“Nothing is unclean of itself” — that is Paul’s persuasion in the Lord Jesus, a truly spiritual persuasion. But something may be unclean to my brother, and my course with regard to it may affect him injuriously. I am not walking according to love if I use my liberty in such a way as to damage him. Christ has died for him! Am I not prepared to curtail my liberty a little bit for my brother’s good? It is really a question of being in accord with Christ!
As to such matters as eating and drinking we have [p. 221] full liberty, but we must not forget to walk in love. If I use my liberty without regard to how others are affected by it, I am not walking in love. I may have the privilege sometimes of curtailing my own liberty for the good of another. “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking”; such things are not vital; they are matters in which we may refrain from using our personal liberty if we find that its exercise is not beneficial to our brother.
The important things are “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”; we can afford to surrender personal liberty as to eating and drinking in order to further these things. It is in these things that we serve the Christ, and become “acceptable to God and approved of men”. No one can condemn me for refraining from using my personal liberty in order to secure the good of another!
The things of peace are to be pursued, and the things of edification. We are to be careful of the work of God in others: it is often a tender plant which may soon be checked. “All things indeed are pure”, but a man’s conscience may make something evil to him, and I am to think of this. If I embolden a brother to do a thing which he really has a conscience about, I may bring him into bondage and distress instead of helping him. My liberty may tend to destroy the work of God in him. This puts in a very strong light the tender care which love would take to do everything possible to further the work of God, and nothing to hinder it. Love would consider for the state of a soul which was not really in Christian freedom. We have to see that our liberty, or even our faith, does not damage our weak brother. Nothing can be more delicate or morally beautiful than [p. 222] all this; it educates us as to the divine value to be placed on even a weak brother. The work of God is a moral process in the soul of man, wrought through many exercises, and it is easy to bring in what tends to hinder or destroy it. What fine spiritual discernments and sensibilities grace would form in our hearts! What readiness to surrender, in things spiritually immaterial, our own liberty to do certain things, if that liberty is likely to prove injurious to another, even if it be a sign of weakness and defect in him that it should prove so!
If I have presented my body a living sacrifice to God, surely I am prepared to surrender a little for the brethren! There are things in relation to which we have liberty, but which are unimportant compared with “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” — compared with the work of God. I am not to use my liberty in such things to the hindrance of what is supremely important. Peace and edification are to be pursued, the building up of weak souls in the knowledge of God.
The present day is not particularly characterised by legal scruples, or by great tenderness of conscience. It is rather a day of lawlessness and licence. We are, perhaps, more often called upon to seek to bring the conscience into greater activity than to respect its scruples. But the principles of this chapter, wrought in our souls, are of great importance in relation to the spirit in which we walk together as brethren.
Under plea of liberty one may allow what really judges oneself. How many go on with things which they do not feel happy about — things in regard to which their consciences convict them! There is [p. 223] misery in going on with things that one cannot do as of faith. It should be an exercise in all things to be conscious of God’s approval.