04.40. LESSON 40

LESSON 40 The hortatory section of Romans (Romans 12:1-21, Romans 13:1-14, Romans 14:1-23, Romans 15:1-33, Romans 16:1-27) deals with various human relationships. Romans 12:1-21 pertains to love among Christians, and to love as manifested by them toward non-Christians. Romans 13:1-14 teaches that the citizenship of Christians is in heaven, whence they expect Christ to come and complete their deliverance "Out of this present evil world" (Galatians 1:1-24, Galatians 2:1-21, Galatians 3:1-29, Galatians 4:1-31), in which they are but passive, submissive "sojourners and pilgrims." And now Romans 14:1-23 shows that the relationship among Christians who differ in spiritual knowledge, maturity, and insight is mutual love and toleration. These chapters require the church to be in submission to the state without, and to exercise reciprocal sympathetic understanding with respect to its differences within. Elemental Christian truth separates the church from the world, and elemental Christian love unites the church.

"Strong" and "Weak" Christians
(Read 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, 1 Corinthians 9:1-27, 1 Corinthians 10:1-33)

Because of disparity in natural capacity, age, mental development, social and religious background, and other constitutional and circumstantial inequalities, differences in any congregation of Christians are inevitable. It is not only impossible to have a congregation without these differences, but it is also undesirable, for therein, "Through that which every joint supplieth," lies the opportunity for mutual edification, and for "Building up of itself in love." The home and the local church taken together constitute God’s training school to educate his children in interrelated forbearance, patience and unselfish love.(take and give) —all requisite qualities for entrance into the eternal "Sabbath rest for the people of God." Christians who do not grow in grace and knowledge under the chastening, tempering, mellowing discipline of these two divine institutions miss much that purifies, sweetens, and sublimates life for time and eternity.

Paul devotes Romans 14:1-23 and part of Romans 15:1-33 to the relationship between "strong" and "weak" brethren, and, if we get his timeless lesson, we must needs know the sense in which he uses these terms. "But him that is weak in faith receive ye, yet not for decision of scruples." This "faith" cannot be the absolute justifying faith in Christ as Savior, for that faith can never be weak. Some Christians in Paul’s day, though accepting Christ as the only Savior, had religious regard for the Sabbath, circumcision, and other Mosaic legalism and ritualism. "Some, being used until now to the idol," were morbidly fearful of honoring an idol by unwittingly eating meat that had been sacrificed to it. Yet a graver weakness, indeed the critical weakness involved in the matter, some lacked moral courage and integrity to be true to their conscientious "scruples"—a weakness in obedience to known duty. These weaknesses were not necessarily exclusive of each other.

"We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves... For Christ also pleased not himself" (Romans 15:1-3). Paul’s "strong" man knows the difference between primary and secondary things—that is, between things eternal, essential, and inflexible about which God speaks precisely and finally, and things that according to their very nature are flexible and adaptable (like our backbones for instance), and imply human study, experience, and change. He knows that "No idol is anything," that the character of meat is not changed by being offered to an idol, that Christ makes all meats clean, and that Christians dedicate all their days to God. And his knowing that men may differ from him without being inferior to him helps him to be fair and honest with them, and to see things in perspective and in relative importance. This "strong" man sees that the differences between him and his "weak" brother do not involve the everlastingly fixed, primary things of Christianity, but that, because they are neither right nor wrong within themselves, they lie in the realm of religiously indifferent things, about which brethren may, if they differ aright, safely and profitably differ. He is not "strong" because he has a "superior mind," but because he has the mind of Christ.

Presumptuous Meddling

Such diversity in the church at Rome, Corinth, or elsewhere, any time, however, may be fertile soil for friction, tension, mutual incrimination, and bitter feelings. The "strong" man may scornfully consider his "weak" brother an ignorant, narrow-minded man who needs a guardian. The "weak" man on the other hand may captiously consider his "strong" brother a self-indulgent man, no better than a worldling. Fertile soil indeed for "earthly, sensual, devilish" pride, prejudice, and envy! "Where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed." Christians, mistaking fleshly feelings and interests for spiritual loyalty to truth and principle ("conscience bribed by inclination"), are easily drawn into mere quibbling. Only at the foot of the cross can such matters be settled.

Romans 14:1-23 calls Christians of all time from vain wanderings in the fringes of Christianity to its center by simply reminding them that "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking," that, since "God hath received" them all, despite their diversities, into his own family, they are all sons of God; by simply reminding them that Christ died and arose to demonstrate the truth that he is their sole Owner and Judge, as well after, as before, they die. Does not this throw light upon the meaning of mysterious death and the intriguing intermediate state? In effect he asks: "Do you not see that your judging other Christians is but idle, presumptuous meddling, for to their own Master, only, they stand or fall? How dare you! Who do you think you are anyway?" He concludes his earnest, solemn plea: "So then each one shall give account of himself to God." And what is more arresting, sobering, and better cooling for the hot tempers of overwrought men than the realization of their accountability to God for every feeling, word, and deed! Is it amiss to remember that Moses provided no offering for presumptuous sinning?

Possibly Paul gets his cue for this divine counsel to Christians from the unforgettable, post-resurrection manifestation of Christ at Tiberius, in which he "manifested himself" as Lord of the life and the death of his servants (John 21:1-25). As Peter on that occasion, after receiving the sketch of his own life-work and death, asked Christ about John only to be admonished, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to you? follow thou me," so Peter here makes following Jesus in supreme loyalty and extreme devotion the fixed pivot round which the life and death of all Christians revolve. No matter what "devices" Satan employs, he must gain no advantage over them at this vital center (2 Corinthians 2:11).

Questions