chalmers

Thomas Chalmers

Lectures on Romans

LECTURE XCV.
ROMANS, 14:1-14.
"Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest auother man’s servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and Living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, As 1 live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and ewry tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother’s way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, thou walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of."

THE church at Rome was made up partly of Jews and partly of Gentiles; and one great and obvious design of this epistle, as might be seen in various pasages from the beginning to the end of it, was to reconcile them so far as that they should be brought to one mind - if not in all matters of opinion, at least in mutual affection, which, when there happen to be diversities of sentiment or practice, cannot possibly be sustained without mutual forbearance. Their common faith, while implying a full agreement in certain great and essential principles, did not supersede the diversities here spoken off; and the object of Paul was not that in these they should cease to differ, but that in these they should agree to differ. He did not vainly attempt by a stern decree of uniformity to harmonise their understandings, so as that they should think alike; but he did attempt, by the mild persuasives of gospel charity, the far likelier fulfilment of harmonising their spirits, so as that they should feel alike in their love and benignant toleration of each other. Paul was pre-eminently and characteristically a peace-rnaker - up to the limit within which peace was at all practicable, or in as far as the high demands of principle and purity would allow -for beyond that limit none more unyielding, and none more uncompromising than he. It was only as far as lay in him, or as far as it was possible, that he lived peaceably himself or would recommend others to live peaceably with all men. He was first pure; and it was after he had provided for this high interest - it was then that he was peaceable.

This beautiful combination, this blending together of truth and charity, is more fully and intimately seen by us, as we pass in detail over the successive verses of this truly catholic and enlightened chapter.

Ver. 1, 2
. ‘Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.’
Who is meant by him that is weak in the faith we learn from the second verse, where we are told that the weak man was he who ate herbs - leaving us to infer, of course, that the strong man was he who believed that he might eat all things. He who was strong in the faith that Christ had fulfilled for him all righteousness, and left him nothing but the law of love, would in very proportion to the force of this conviction, feel exempted from the scrupulosities of a mere formal or external observation; and not only assert, without compunction or fear, but also live in the liberty wherewith Christ had made him free. It was easier, however, for the Gentile to do this than for the Jew, who had to overcome the prejudices of his early education, and make a conquest over his yet lingering sensibilities on the side of what he had been taught to look upon as right and religious in other days. For the genuine exhibition then of a strong and enlightened conscience, we should look not so much to the Gentile converts as to those Jewish disciples who did not judaise. And to them too should we look for greater tenderness towards those more sensitive of their brethren, who felt themselves not able to surmount the native partialities wherewjth the recollections of their birth and of their hereditary worship had inspired them. They would all the more readily sympathise with feelings in which they themselves shared - though with a struggle they had got the better of them. They could make greater allowance for these their brethren in the flesh than could others; and this is not the only example of first-rate men, the highest in strength and intellect, being at the same time the most generous in their indulgence to the infirmities of others. Paul, himself a converted Jew, and who now regarded as superstitious that which he formerly held as most bindingly and inviolably sacred - he nobly interposes to throw the shield of his protection over those kinsmen and countrymen of his who had embraced the gospel, yet could not altogether and conclusively quit the dear associations which had begun with their infancy, and were strengthened along the successive stages of youth and manhood, till they had become babes in Christ, and continued babes or were still in the childhood of their Christianity, at the time when his epistle, to the Romans was penned. We conceive that they would be chiefly the Gentiles -who despised such. Paul, and those of the Jews who like him had had experience of the trial, would we imagire, with a fellow-feeling for the doubts and difficulties which themselves had mastered, view their weaker, but still their conscientiçus brethren, with respect and tenderness.

Accordingly in arbitrating between the weak and the strong, it is on the side of the weak that his first apostolic deliverance is given. He bids them be received, but not to doubtful disputations - to be recognised on the footing of their common brotherhood in all the great and essential principles of Christianity; but not to be harassed with contentious argumentation about those matters of indifferency, which, with their yet abiding prejudipes, were not of indifferency to them.

If they had not the understanding to be convinced of the nullity, because now the expiration, of the Mosaic ceremonial - or at least if they could not attain such a strength of conviction as to displace their feelings on the side of certain Hebrew observances to which they still so fondly and tenaciously clung, it was not the part of their brethren to overbear these feelings, or even to annoy them with vexatious controversies, at once endless and unfruitful. These are what the apostle in his other writings characterises as vain janglings, and foolish questions, and contentions, and strivings about the law, which were unprofitable and vain. What he inculcates, instead of these, is a discreet silence, and meanwhile a respectful toleration - in the confidence, we have no doubt, that, with mild and patient forbearance, all would come right at the last. He felt as if the important gospel truths which they laid hold of, would, by their own direct influence, dispossess the mind of all its Jewish absurdities and trifles. Seeing that at least the foundation on which they rested was sound, he trusted that the wood and hay and stubble would at length be consumed.

This is in perfect keeping with his treatment of the disciples in other instances. They agreed in all that was essential, else they could be no diciples of his; but they did not therefore agree in all things. He knew however that they were in the faith, and so under the teaching of the Spirit; and he trusted more to this than to the efficacy of any disputatious argument. And accordingly, instead of attempting to force them all prematurely into one way of thinking - he, on certain matters of inferior moment, left them very much to themselves, as he did those Philippians who were not yet perfect in all their views - Telling them, that "if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." Meanwhile he was satisfied if, with all their differences and shortcomings in things of lesser consideration, his own paramount charity took but full possession of them. "Nevetheless whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." This was admirable and exquisitely good management - the same indeed with that of our Saviour, who refrained from putting new wine into old bottles; and, instead of dogmatising His apostles either into truths ‘observances which they were not yet prepared’ spake to them only as they were able to bear it. It was in this spirit that Paul treated his Jewish converts; and he wanted all who were alike enlightened with himself to treat them in the same way.

There are other general lessons enveloped in this passage; but, before expatiating any further on these, let me prosecute a little longer our examination of particular verses.

Ver. 3, 4
. ‘Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant! to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stand.’
The apostle, in his even-handed manner, deals alike with both parties. After having told the strong that they should not despise the weak, he tells the weak that they should not condemn the strong. Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth. In the state of his conscience, it were a profane thing in him to eat - for this would be to eat what he still thought was forbidden. But let him not judge others who do not think in the same way. Let him not look upon them as profane persons, though they should eat what he would religiously recoil from. God has received, or taken them into acceptance. It is likely that they had some palpable evidence of this acceptance in the visible and extraordinary gifts of that period - conferred on some of those, who, in the full use of their Christian liberty, looked on all men as alike And so they might make out the same conclusion for themselves that Peter did respecting the Gentiles of the household of Cornelius, after that they had received the Holy Ghost. Have a care then, lest, in refusing fellowship with these, you withstand or contravene the judgment of God. It is not improbable that these extraordinary gifts were shared alike by both parties - a lesson therefore to both of mutual respect and toleration. At all events; they had the express authority of the apostle, who, in the first verse, bade the strong receive the weak; and, in the third verse, tells the weak that God had received the strong. And it is thus that he would guard the one party against contempt of their fellows, and the other against eensoriousness.

Ver. 5, 6.
‘One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.’
The same lesson is extended to days, respecting the observance of which there obtained a like diversity of sentiment. The apostle brings the same enlarged and enlightened casuistry to bear on both. He wanted each man to act in conformity with his own persuasion, whatever that persuasion might be - only he wanted each man to be fully persuaded in his own mind. He did not care so much about what the persuasion specially was in such matters, as that the conduct should be agreeable hereto. He therefore forebear himself; and would have his disciples to forbear also, from all argumentation between the right and the wrong persuasion in these matters; but held it imperative that as the persuasion, which he wanted to be as thorough and decided as possible, so ought in all consistency the performance to be. The persuasion might be wrong, but this were only an obliquity of intellect. But if the performance were not as the persuasion, this were far more grievous - a moral obliquity - sin against the light of a man’s own conscience - the dereliction of what he thought to be his duty towards God. To think in one way of God’s will and act in another, were to renounce the authority of His will - an abjuration of the principle of living unto God - Whereas men might think diversely of that will, and yet the will of God be alike respected; or the principle of living unto Him be alike retained and alike proceeded on by all. Paul generously grants the benefit of this fair and liberal allowance to both parties in this controversy, whether of meats or of days. The Lord may be alike the object of regard with him who observes the day and with him who observes it not - or with him who eateth and him who eateth not. In the hearts of both these His supreracy may be alike felt and recognised; and there may be a like devotedness to His service in the lives of both.

Ver. 7, 8.
‘ For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
Paul, as his manner is, stops at the passing suggestion which had occurred in the course of his argument - to render homage, by the way as it were, to the principle which it embodied. That principle is the entire surrender of the creature, in all his desires and doings, to the Creator who gave him birth. It is our part to make ourselves wholly over unto God. All true Christians, whether the observer or not of meats and days are alike in this; and cannot possibly be otherwise without the forfeiture of their discipleship. Each real convert liveth unto God, and not unto himself; and each man dieth unto God, and not unto himself. We think that there is a difference between these two clauses, which, however minute in expression, is worthy, in respect of substance and meaning, to have perhaps a greater stress laid upon it than is usually done. It is ‘none of us,’ who liveth to himself; but it is ‘no man’ who dieth to himself. None of us, none of the household of faith, no real Christian, but who liveth unto God and not unto himself - for at the commencement of his new life he made a voluntary dedication of himself unto God; and the constant, while throughout the voluntary habit of this life, is to yield himself up in all things unto the will of God and not unto his own will. Whereas universally no man dieth unto himself. When he dies it is not by a voluntary act of his own; but at the decree of God, to whose absolute disposal of him, at death or after it, he must helplessly and passively give himself over. When it comes to this, then is it true of every man without exception, that he can have no choice, but is wholly in the hands of God - if not a Christian, to be judged and consigned by Him as a vessel of wrath to the place of everlasting condemnation; and if a Christian, to be judged by Him, but that in order to his preferment as a vessel of mercy in the realms of everlasting blessedness and glory. It is only, however, the dying of the Christian that is of a piece with his living. If with him tq live is Christ, with him also to die is gain, or Christ still, whom to win he counts all things but loss. It is he and he only who both lives unto the Lord and dies unto the Lord - so that whether he live or die, he is the Lord’s - it being his great aim, and that of all genuine disciples, so to labour, that, whether present or absent, whether living or dead, they may be accepted of Him.

Ver. 9
. ‘For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.’
One naturally enquires here how it is, that the death and resurrection of Christ stand connected with His right of dominion or lordship over both the dead and the living. That His death, in particular, gave Him a rightful sovereignty ovor the living, is otherwise expressed by the apostle in the following passage - " If one died for all, then were all dead; and he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again." It is indeed a most rightful thing, that as He poured out His soul unto the death for us, we should give up our souls in absolute and entire dedication to Him. By His death He purchased us, and made us His own. We are His property, as bought with the price of His blood and therefore it is our part to glorify the Lord with our soul and spirit and body, which are the Lord’s.

And again, as to the effect of His resurrection, we are told that Christ is the first-fruits of them who slept - that because He liveth we shall live also - through death He destroyed him who had the power of death; and so, in virtue of the power wherewith He is now invested over heaven and earth, He can, in behalf of His captives in the grave, open for them the door of their prison-house, and make them sit together with Himself in heavenly places, even around that throne of exaltation to which He has Himself been raised - and this "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." In this and many other Scriptures, there is enough of harmony with the verse before us - to explain the dependence here stated between, on the one hand, the lordship of Christ over both dead and living, and His own death and own revival, upon the other.

Ver. 10-13
. ‘But why dost thou judge thy brother! or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord , every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock, or an occasion to fall, in his brother’s way.’

The consideration stated in these verses is so very obvious, and put so clearly and conclusively, that it requires no lengthened illustration on our part. It had indeed been already put - in the fourth verse - ‘Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own mater he standeth or falleth.’ It really does not belong to us - it is not ours - thus to be judging and censuring one another. Speak not evil then one of another, and judge not thy brother - for thou thyself art but a doer of the law, and not a judge. Your business with the law is to obey it, not- to judge out of it. Who art thou then that judgest another?’ The reason given by the apostle last quoted for not reckoning with, and not grudging against one another, is, that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and that the Judge is at the door. The habit of sitting in judgment on each other, so prevalent not only in the world at large, but in the professingly religious world, is a peculiarly dangerous one - because it peculiarly exposes us, and that in the way of reaction or recompence, to the judgment of God. And accordingly we are told to judge not "that we be not judged ;" and that with "whatt judgment we judge we shall be judged ;" and that if we will judge others, we must not think that ourselves shall "escape the judgment of God ; and finally, that we should abstain from this practice, lest ourselves "be condemned."’ But the consideration urged here is not properly the danger of it, but rather, if I may so speak, the impertinence or the presumption of it. It is intruding on the office of another - an office wherewith He and He alone has been invested ; and which it is competent for Him only to discharge. In the language of the Psalmist - when we thus venture on a function so sacred and so lofty, we really are meddling with a matter too high for us. It is really not for us, who ourselves are to be sifted at the bar of judgment, thus to usurp the place of its tribunal, and take the judgment upon ourselves. This is the exclusive office of Him, before whom every knee is to bow and every tongue to confess; and our right place is that of them who do this homage, not of Him who receives it. This sort of judgment therefore, the judgment of others, is not within our province - although there be another judgment which Paul does allow us to exercise, and which indeed he himself exemplifies - the judgment not of another’s character, but of our own duty - the duty, not of pronouncing on what others are, but of performing what we owe to them, and owe them too in this very matter. No doubt he tells us authoritatively what this duty is; but he leaves us at liberty to form our own judgment in regard to the real truth and principle of the question, and to act accordingly We are free to judge, whether we should eat or not; but he lays it down, clear and imperative obligation not to eat, if thereby we are to put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in our brother’s way. None more tolerant than Paul in things doubtful or insignificant - yet none more peremptory or uncompromislng than he, when once the light of a clear and great principle breaks in upon him. Himself the strongest of the strong, he was yet the most indulgent of all men to the infirmities of the weak; nor can we imagine a more rare and beauteous combination than was realised by our apostle, who, without disturbance either to his enlightened conscience or manly understanding, could eat freely of all sorts of food - yet would eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest it should make his brother to offend.’

Ver. 14 - 16.
‘I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy him not with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of.’

Paul here asserts his own right of judgment on the absolute merits of the question, and tells us the result of it- even the persuasion, nay more positive than this, the knowledge that no meat was unclean in itself. He further tells us, that he was so persuaded by the Lord Jesus - yet so unessential was this persuasion, so unimportant the point in question, that the same Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, did not interdict him from allowing to others the liberty of thinking differently. And accordingly at the very time of giving forth the sentence, and on the highest of all authority, that there is nothing unclean of itself, he leaves others at liberty to esteem any thing unclean. We are not sure, if anywhere else in Scripture, the divine authority of toleration is so clearly manifested; or so distinct a sanction given to a certain amount of liberty in opinion - even though it should be branded as latitudinariism by those strainers at a rigid uniformity, who, as appears from this whole chapter, might carry their intolerance too far. Even at the expence of absolute, though not, it would appear, of indispensable truth, were men allowed to think of meats that they were unclean - and this in the face of the apostolic deliverance that they were not unclean.

But while Paul suffered them to think so, he made it imperative, that, if they thus thought, so also should they act. They were at liberty to think any particular meat unclean; but, so thinking, they were not at liberty to use it. This would have been to sin against the light of their own minds - to trample on the high prerogatives of conscience, which, even though mistaken, does not therefore forfeit the supreme authority which belongs to it.

‘But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably’ - or better and more impressive to the English reader - now walkest thou not in love. We are aware of nothing more attractive or amiable than the way in which Paul lets himself down to the weak; or than the flexibility of his accommodation to the harmless peculiarities even of the perverse and erring - all the more engaging in that when the slightest inroad was offered upon essential principle, none more resolute or inflexible in withstanding it than he. The explanation of these two different, though by no means opposite or inconsistent aspects, in the mind of our great apostle, seems to be this. He, on the one hand, a strong man himself, could be all respect and indulgence to the weak; and he pressed upon others strong as he was, the duty of being alike respectful and alike indulgent. But should these weak, on the other hand, not satisfied with this full allowance to themselves of their own peculiarities, impose these peculiarities on others as essential to salvation, and thus derogate from the sufficiency and the power of what Paul had all along and most zealously contended for as the alone ground of our acceptance with God, even the righteousness of Christ made ours by faith - then what he most freely and generously conceded to the infirmities of others, he would not, even by the minutest fraction, yield to their intolerance. The one he could do, for this were but an exercise of pity. The other he could not do, for this were a surrender of principle. And thus it is that acts of seeming contrariety in the life and ministry of Paul admit of being fully harmonised. When be circumcised Timothy for example, and purified himself along with the four men who had a vow upon them for the accomplishment of certain rites prescribed by the law - these things he did under the influence of the first consideration, "because of the Jews which were in these quarters," as we read in one place; and in the spirit of charitable accommodation to "the many thousands of the Jews which believe," as we read in another. Paul was quite satisfied that on all such questions, the Gentiles should let alone the Jews; and that the Jews, on the other hand, should let alone the Gentiles.

But when the Jews, not content with a toleration for themselves, turned upon the Gentiles, and would compel them "to live as do the Jews" - then it was that the influence of the second consideration came into play. And so the same Paul who circumcised Timothy, and purified himself according to the ritual of Moses, and that because of true brethren, who advised, this deference to the Jews that he might not grieve or disturb their consciences - would not suffer Titus to be circumcised, ‘ and that because of false brethren, who would have made this deference to the Jews an occasion for bringing the Gentiles into bondage. To them he gave place by subjection, no not for an hour, and this for sake of "the truth of the gospel." Nay, when Peter gave way in so far to this scheme of compulsion. Paul withstood him to the face - and this again for "the truth of the gospel." A generous and voluntary compliance with Jewish scrupulosity is one thing; a forced compliance with Jewish intolerance is quite another. Paul would have yielded the former, because he felt for those which were of the circumcision, and is therefore to be applauded. Peter would have yielded the latter, because he "feared them which were of the circumcision," and is therefore "to be blamed." We can never sufficiently admire the honourable and consistent way which our great apostle found out for himself, when pressed with difficulties on the right hand and on the left. When holding question with those of his countrymen who were burdened with their own weak and wounded consciences, Paul knew how to be meek and harmless as a dove. When holding question with those of his countrymen, who, intent on judaising the whole Christian world, would have laid the burden of their ritual upon others, and thus infringed on the great doctrine of justification by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law - then Paul knew how both to be wise a a serpent, and bold as a lion. As the exhibition of a well-balanced mind, there are few things more admirable than this: Nor, after Him who is the great Pattern of all righteousness, is there any scriptural character in which the best qualities of our nature are more gracefully and harmoniously blended; or where the noble conjunction of truth with mercy, of firmness with gentleness, is more conspicuously realised.

It is on the side of tenderness that he appears at present; and in behalf of a distress wherewith he of all others could most readily and delicately sympathise - the distress of an afflicted conscience. Let not thy brother be grieved with thy meat. The mere spectacle of what he deems to be a profane violation is fitted to give him pain. Or if brought into a state of ambiguity on this question of meats, between the influence of his own Jewish education, that would lead him to abstain, and the influence of Christian example, that would lead him to indulge the very conflict is painful. But worse than painful it might come to be destructive, should the authority of this example overbear him into a premature compliance against the light of his own conscience, not yet satisfied. In the one you grieve, in the other you would destroy him - destroy him whom Christ died to save. Surely a little self-denial on our part is not too much to maintain the safety of the object for which Christ gave Himself up unto the death.

‘Let not then your good be evil spoken of,’ He is addressing himself to the strong; and the good he here means, their especial good, was the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free. This liberty was liable to be perverted and abused in various ways. For example, they had to be warned not to use this "liberty for an occasion to the flesh." And it is added, "but by love serve one another." Now they were violating this love, if to please themselves they were either grieving or hurting the consciences of their brethren. And so there was a limit or a discretion to be observed in the exercise of this liberty - a liberty which ought never to be indulged, either for the gratification of their own licentiousness, or in opposition to that love which they owed to others.
And the reason given in our text supplies another limitation. They should not unnecessarily expose this good to be evil spoken of - even though the evil should be spoken of it falsely, or undeservedly. We learn from 1 Corinthians, x, 30 - that the eating of certain things, such as what had been offered unto idols, was liable to be thus spoken of; and so along with the liberty of the gospel, the gospel itself was slandered, and Christianity made to suffer at the hands of its own friends. It should be felt enough surely, if this liberty minister peace to our own consciences; and it is a most unthankful return on our part, if we so parade it before the eye of others - as to excite prejudice and calumny thereby against the truth that is in Jesus. We might well surely deny ourselves somewhat for the good of the church and the advancement of godliness among men. "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved."
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