Romans 14

Romans 14:1-15

Subdivision 3. (Romans 14:1-23; Romans 15:1-7).The conscience to be in each one before the Lord. We have now the settlement of questions which are not merely, as we may say, questions, but the settlement of which announces a principle which is of the utmost importance for us and for all with whom we walk. In our relationship to the Church, (for that is all that is spoken of here,) the question of conscience is one that has to be carefully considered. Conscience is individual to each one of us, but then that means that there are other consciences outside of ours, and which we have to regard. How important that we should know, both for ourselves how to keep a good conscience, and how to help to maintain at the same time that in others which we realize for ourselves to be of first necessity!

1. What the apostle puts first, therefore, here, is that conscience must be before the Lord. He is the Governor of the conscience and He alone, but this means then, of course, that we are to permit other consciences to be before the Lord. We must leave each one, therefore, to his liberty in this. Nay, we must fear to be a conscience to any one, and thus, with whatever good intent, to take one away from being before God. What is here sought to be established first, therefore, is just that the only authority for the Christian is that of the Lord. A serious question for us all is how far this is real with us. How much human relationships come in and hinder!

There is the relationship of children with parents; they are to obey their parents in all things. The wife with her husband, also. What is she to do when there is a conflict of judgment with regard to anything? Alas, the snare which may beset us here is a very real one. “Subject in all things” it is urged sometimes is put as without limit, but the moment we bring in God, there are conditions necessarily implied by the very fact that He is God; and so necessarily implied that they need not even be named. We need scarcely to be reminded of them. If a parent taught his child to steal, is the child to be “subject in all things”? There is a limit somewhere, as is clear. Where is the limit?

It can be found nowhere except here, that the plain will of the Lord governs, whatever human will may clash with it. We are not to drift from that for the sake of company with others, or under any plea whatever of relationship to others. That which makes real all relationships, which gives its value to them all, is above them all. Relationship to God is the first relationship of all, and to be indifferent to this is to make all else valueless. In fact, it is really to undo all the bonds of society; all human relationship is violated if that to God be violated. Thus it is that if we have sinned against our neighbor, it is sin against God, and if we sin against God, it is necessarily against our neighbor. Necessarily, the things in which one has to yield here, therefore, are things indifferent. That is what the apostle is speaking of, of meats and drinks and days. It is supposed that on both sides the authority of the Lord is owned. One cannot be really liberal in things that are not one’s own. One can give up one’s own liberty where it is simply a question of that, and not only we can, but we ought. The supposition here is of religious scruple entirely, not of people without conscience, but of conscience in fact rigidly governed by that which to them, whatever be the truth of it, is the will of the Lord.

If a man eats, he eats to the Lord, or if he eats not, it is still to the Lord; if he observes the day, he observes it to the Lord, or to the Lord he does not observe it. Here a question may be raised with regard to the Lord’s Day.

How does the principle here affect that? It would seem that it does not come into the question; just because the Lord’s Day is given us not in the way of legal command, but as a privilege which must be accepted as privilege in order for the observance to be anything really acceptable to God, -not that it is supposed that a Christian could have a scruple religiously about observing the day in this case or on this ground. Religious scruples are the whole matter here and who could scruple to avail himself of the privilege of giving up a day to the Lord, a day free for him to be occupied with his own things, and in such a manner as we find Scripture before us? Question here, therefore, could scarcely be made. What the apostle has before him is, of course, as the meats and drinks show, the Jewish distinction of meats and days, which has passed away, but which, nevertheless, may have a real power over the minds of some who realize that these things were once given of God, and who do not see how He has brought us out of them. Here the principle applies which the apostle has stated elsewhere, that to those who were under the law he became as under the law, “not being myself under the law,” as he carefully adds; “that I might gain those that are under the law.” These are the questions, but the principle as we have said, the first principle here, is that the conscience is to be before the Lord alone; and that we are to leave every Christian free to act before God.

We must not judge. The Lord will do that. “Every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue confess to God.” It is of the first importance that in every question of conscience this should be maintained. 2. But there is another motive beside, that of duty to our brother. Our love to our brother is to be a motive. We are to consider what it means to put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in a brother’s way. Let it be the lightest thing imaginable, the use of only meat to him unclean, yet our use of it may lead him into that which he has not faith for, and how could love possibly do this? A terrible thing it is to lead a person to act without conscience; that is, therefore, to sin against God.

It is a thing which will necessarily have influence, if self-judgment do not come in, upon the whole character of his life and ways. We may be for ourselves doing that which is perfectly lawful to us, (in itself lawful,) and yet the question of a brother’s conscience with regard to it cannot be ignored.

We are not forced to eat or drink, because it is our privilege to do so. The Kingdom of God does not in its character consist of eating and drinking and such like things, but in “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Here the one who is, while free in his inmost soul, a bond-servant to Christ, -(the apostle puts the strongest term) -will not allow the freedom that he really has to prevent him forgetting that he is bound in every way to use his freedom to glorify Christ with it; this man is “well pleasing to God and approved of men.” We are to pursue, therefore, the things that are for peace, and the things that are for edification with regard to others. Think of destroying God’s work in another for the sake of a piece of meat; for while the things themselves may be clean, it still is evil to the man who eats while he stumbles over it. “It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended or is weak.” You may say, you have faith. Well, he says, but faith is after all the lowliest of things. Faith is realized dependence, is it not? Act in it in lowliness, “Have it to thyself before God;” and remember that, “Happy is he who does not bring judgment upon himself in that which be approveth;” but this is the very thing that the doubter does.

He is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” How important is this principle, and in how wide a sphere! How important it is that we should so act in every case as not to induce the weakest or those nearest to us, -where our conduct is apt to have the strongest weight, -to walk without God!

It will be no excuse for them before Him, to say that they have followed us. God’s will is not so far to seek and not so hard to be understood as to allow of excuse here on the part of any, but the point is clearly especially for the strong, that they are not, by their strength, really to force others into paths, which, because doubtful to them, are necessarily wrong, even though the path looked at in itself may be a right one. 3. There is another principle which comes in here, though it be understood, as we may say, all the way through. We are here for the glory of God. “We that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for that which is good to edification;” not, therefore, as seeking to please him merely, but with a careful estimate of what will be blessing for him. As for pleasing ourselves in such things, “Christ pleased not Himself.” He who was for God in the world always, who gave Himself no margin, desired none, because His law was in His heart, -“Christ pleased not Himself,” but “the reproaches of them that reproached Thee,” He says, “fell on Me.” These things are, it is plain, then, principles of the highest importance for the Christian, and the Scriptures lead us in paths which are not merely right, but which have in them the blessing and the joy which go with the right, for in this way God is the God of endurance and of comfort. The comfort is to enable to endure, and it is abundant for this.

It is thus He would make us “like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus,” in order that we may, “with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here, then, is that which finally governs all. We are to “receive one another (it is plain from the beginning in what sense he means this) even as Christ received us, to the glory of God.” The principle, of course, we may use as widely as it will carry us, but we most remember what the apostle is about when he is speaking so. He is simply enjoining the reception of one another without regard to these things which are indifferent in themselves. Here he can urge the glory of God as to be maintained by that which, in such cases ignores this difference.