Romans 14

Romans 14:1

He that spared not his own Son. If he gave his Son to die for us, it is impossible that he should refuse us anything that will help or bless us. He has nothing he values more than his Son.

Romans 14:2

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? No one can, since God himself has justified them.

Romans 14:3

Who [is] he that condemneth? There can be no condemnation since “Christ died . . . is risen . . . and maketh intercession for us” (Romans 8:1). There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.

Romans 14:4

What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Can anything? Can the sufferings of the Christian calling in a time of persecution, such as the prophet described and the early Christians suffered?

Romans 14:5

As it is written. In Psalms 44:22. Will such persecution lead us to abandon Christ?

Romans 14:6

Nay. Not all these sufferings can lead us from Christ, for in all these things we are more than conquerors. We overcome by the aid of “him that loved us”.

Romans 14:7

For I am persuaded. No hostile power of the universe can lead us away, is the apostle’s holy confidence. That neither death nor life. These adversaries seem to advance in pairs. Death is named first, because death by martyrdom threatens. The next pair is nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. “The angels” are good angels, while malignant angels are meant by the other terms. Nor things present, nor things to come. The present or the future.

Romans 14:8

Nor height, nor depth. Perhaps, the things which exalt us and the things which cast us down. Things high and things low. Nor any other creature. Any other created thing. Shall be able to separate us. None of these, “I am persuaded” (Romans 8:38), shall have power enough to tear us away from Christ, by causing us to apostatize. The love of God, which is in Christ. God’s great love for us is all shown through Christ. Nowhere has Paul shown more exultation, more overflowing emotion, than in this close of a profound argument, which shows the complete and full salvation of those who believe upon Christ and are found in him.

Romans 14:10

The Rejection of the Jews SUMMARY OF ROMANS 9: Paul’s Deep Sympathy for His Nation. God’s Promise to the Jewish Race Not Void. The Argument That It Is Not. The Promise Is Not to See According to the Flesh, but a. Spiritual Seed. God Has a Right to Choose What Race He Will.

As the Potter Has the Right to Choose What Race He Will. As the Potter Has the Right to Shape His Clay, So God Can Exalt or Reject a Race. The Acceptance of the Gentiles and the Rejection of the Jews. Foretold. A Remnant of Israel Saved. To understand the reasoning of this chapter, the reader must keep in mind the aim of the apostle.

He had in the beginning of this letter shown that the gospel was God’s power of salvation “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16,17). But the Jews as a nation had rejected Christ, and God had rejected them. They were soon to be destroyed as a people and their land taken away. But the Jew fell back on the promises made to Abraham. Has God broken his promises? If Christ was the true Messiah, and the Jewish nation rejected, he held that the promise was made void.

To answer their objection Paul shows (1) that the promise was not to all the fleshly seed of Abraham, but to the seed according to the promise; and (2) that God, in his sovereignty, has the right to choose a race or to pass it by at his will. The subject of individual and personal election is not in the mind of the apostle, but of the election of the Jews to be the chosen people, their rejection afterwards, and the choice of the Gentiles. Isaac, Esau and Jacob are the representatives of races. I say the truth in Christ. This affirmation is made so solemn because the Jews charged Paul with having forsaken his race. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. He speaks as in the presence of Christ, with a conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 14:11

That I have great heaviness, etc. Not so much that his countrymen are estranged from him, as that they were without the blessing of Christ.

Romans 14:12

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ. He could wish this, if that would avail anything, to save his Jewish brethren. In the Revised Version, “accursed” is rendered by the transliterated Greek word “anathema”, i.e., rejected from Christ and lost. My brethren. His Jewish brethren, those of the same Jewish stock as himself.

Romans 14:13

Who are Israelites. He now enumerates some of the glories of the Jewish race. Jacob, their ancestor, had been called Israel by the angel (Genesis 32:28). This means a Prince with God, and this proud title was borne by his descendants. To whom [pertaineth]. Six high privileges of the chosen people are named in Romans 9:4,5. The adoption. They were adopted as the chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6). The glory. The presence of the ark of God and the glory of the Divine Presence (1 Samuel 4:21). The covenants. The covenants made with Abraham (Genesis 17:7) and at Sinai (Exodus 19:5). The giving of the law. The law of Moses given to the children of Israel (Exodus 24:12). The service [of God]. The worship of the tabernacle and temple (Exodus 30:16 Ezra 6:18 Hebrews 9:6). And the promises. Especially the blessed promise of Christ. (Acts 2:38,39).

Romans 14:14

Whose [are] the fathers. The patriarchs and prophets. Of whom . . . Christ [came]. Greatest of all, Christ, in his fleshly nature, was of their race, of the tribe of Judah, and of the seed of David. Who is over all. See Matthew 28:18. He is our King and our Judge. God blessed for ever. More than man; Divine.

Romans 14:15

Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. The Jew might reply, “Why, then, if Israel had such privileges, covenants and promises, is the nation rejected? Has God, if Jesus is really the Christ, made his word of none effect”? The apostle in the rest of the chapter answers this objection. They [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel. The first point is that there is a wider, greater Israel than that of the flesh. There is an Israel according to the promise as well as according to the flesh.

Romans 14:16

Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children. Abraham had other children beside Isaac, notably Ishmael, but none of these belonged to the chosen people, for it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. See Genesis 21:12.

Romans 14:17

That is, They which are the children of the flesh, etc. Since Ishmael, born according to natural laws, was not of the chosen race, but Isaac, the child of promise, born contrary to natural law, because the chosen people, it follows that the children of God are not the children of the flesh, the mere fleshly descendants of Abraham, but the children of the promise; those who are of the seed according to the conditions of the promise. This argument is a reply to those who based all upon their fleshly relation to Abraham: “We have Abraham to our Father” (Matthew 3:9). In order to show this more fully Paul recalls the incidents recorded in Genesis 18:10-14.

Romans 14:18

This [is] the word of promise. This promise was made when Sarah was far beyond the natural age of bearing children, and when Abraham was an old man. So the chosen seed are children of promise.

Romans 14:19

And not only [this]. The first argument is that the true seed are children of the promise, a spiritual seed rather than of the flesh. But when Rebecca also had conceived, etc. The second argument, now begun, is that God has the right to reject what nation he will, including the Jews, and to choose other races if he will. This is shown by facts from history. He did exercise the right of choice when he chose Jacob as the chosen nation, instead of Esau. The facts are recited to show this.

Romans 14:20

For [the children]. The children, yet unborn, were both Isaac’s seed according to the flesh; hence, according to the flesh, of the promised seed, and both equally without works, “neither having done good nor evil”. That the purpose of God according to election might stand. That it might stand forth that he made the choice of his own will, freely. Of his own will he chose Jacob, yet unborn, to become the head of the chosen race, rather than Esau. Note that this election was not to eternal salvation, but to become the head of a people. As Moses, Samuel, and John the Baptist were raised up for a great work of God, so was Jacob.

Romans 14:21

It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. It was said to Rebecca, “Two nations are in thy womb, . . . one people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder (people) shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23). Esau never served Jacob, but the Edomites, descended from Jacob, served the Israelites (2 Samuel 8:14 1 Chronicles 18:13). The election here is that of a race.

Romans 14:22

As it is written. In Malachi 1:2,3. The language of Malachi, in its connection, shows that this is spoken of the two races: “I hated Esau and laid waste his mountains and his heritage”. This was not true of Esau as a person, but was true of his descendants. One race was loved and the other race hated. God has then asserted his right to freely choose or to reject races. There is not the slightest hint of electing some persons to eternal salvation and others to damnation.

Romans 14:23

[Is there] unrighteousness with God? Does not this liberty of God, in his election of races, do violence to his justice? Is it not unjust that God should choose one nation and reject another? The answer to this is now given. Paul shows that the Scriptures recognize this liberty, and these Scriptures, reverenced by the Jewish objector to whom he is writing, would not assign injustice to God. The argument is wholly scriptural.