_CHRISTIAN DUTY: MUTUAL TENDERNESS AND TOLERANCE: THE SACREDNESS
OF EXAMPLE_
ROMANS xiv. 1-23
[Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =But him who is weak=--we might almost render,
=him who suffers from weakness (τὸν ἀσθενοῦντα), in his (τῇ)
faith= (in the sense here not of creed, a meaning of πίστις rare in
St Paul, but of reliance on his Lord; reliance not only for
justification but, in this case, for holy liberty), =welcome into
fellowship--not for criticisms of his scruples,= of his διαλογισμοί,
the anxious internal debates of conscience. [Sidenote: Ver. 2.] =One
man believes,= has faith, issuing in a conviction of liberty, in such
a mode and degree as =to eat all kinds of food; but the man in
weakness eats vegetables= only; an extreme case, but doubtless not
uncommon, where a convert, tired out by his own scruples between food
and food, cut the knot by rejecting flesh-meat altogether.
[Sidenote: Ver. 3.] =The eater--let him not despise the non-eater[231];
while the non-eater--let him not judge the eater; for our (ὁ) God
welcomed him to fellowship,= when he came to the feet of His Son for
acceptance. [Sidenote: Ver. 4.] =You--who are you, thus judging
Another's domestic (οἰκέτην)? To his own Lord,= his own Master, =he
stands,= in approval,--=or, if that must be, falls,= under
displeasure; =but he shall be upheld= in approval; =for able is that
(ὁ) Lord[232] to set him= so, to bid him "_stand_," under His
sanctioning smile. [Sidenote: Ver. 5.] =One man distinguishes (κρίνει)
day above day; while another distinguishes every day;= a phrase
paradoxical but intelligible; it describes the thought of the man who,
less anxious than his neighbour about stated "holy-days," still aims
not to "level down" but to "level up" his use of time; to count every
day "holy," equally dedicated to the will and work of God. =Let each
be quite assured in his own mind;= using the thinking-power (νοῦς)
given him by his Master, let him reverently work the question out, and
then live up to his ascertained convictions, while (this is intimated
by the emphatic "_his own_ mind") he respects the convictions of his
neighbour. [Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =The man who 'minds' (ὁ φρονῶν) the
day,= the "holy-day" in question, in any given instance, =to the Lord
he 'minds' it; [and the man who 'minds' not the day, to the Lord he
does not 'mind' it][233];= both parties, as Christians, in their
convictions and their practice, stand related and responsible,
directly and primarily, to the Lord; that fact must always govern and
qualify their mutual judgments. =And[234] the eater,= the man who
takes food indifferently without scruple, =to the Lord he eats, for he
gives thanks= at his meal =to God; and the non-eater, to the Lord he
does not eat= the scrupled food, =and gives thanks to God= for that of
which his conscience allows him to partake.
* * * * *
The connexion of the paragraph just traversed with what went before it
is suggestive and instructive. There _is_ a close connexion between
the two; it is marked expressly by the "_but_" (δέ) of ver. 1, a
link strangely missed in the Authorized Version. The "but" indicates a
difference of thought, however slight, between the two passages. And
the difference, as we read it, is this. The close of the thirteenth
chapter has gone all in the direction of Christian wakefulness,
decision, and the battle-field of conquering faith. The Roman convert,
roused by its trumpet-strain, will be eager to be up and doing,
against the enemy and for his Lord, armed from head to foot with
Christ. He will bend his whole purpose upon a life of open and active
holiness. He will be filled with a new sense at once of the
seriousness and of the liberty of the Gospel. But then--some "weak
brother" will cross his path. It will be some recent convert, perhaps
from Judaism itself, perhaps an ex-pagan, but influenced by the Jewish
ideas so prevalent at the time in many Roman circles. This Christian,
not untrustful, at least in theory, of the Lord alone for pardon and
acceptance, is however quite full of scruples which, to the man fully
"armed with Christ," may seem, and do seem, lamentably morbid, really
serious mistakes and hindrances. The "weak brother" spends much time
in studying the traditional rules of fast and feast, and the code of
permitted food. He is sure that the God who has accepted him will hide
His face from him if he lets the new moon pass like a common day; or
if the Sabbath is not kept by the rule, not of Scripture, but of the
Rabbis. Every social meal gives him painful and frequent occasion for
troubling himself, and others; he takes refuge perhaps in an anxious
vegetarianism, in despair of otherwise keeping undefiled. And
inevitably such scruples do not terminate in themselves. They infect
the man's whole tone of thinking and action. He questions and
discusses everything, with himself, if not with others. He is on the
way to let his view of acceptance in Christ grow fainter and more
confused. He walks, he lives; but he moves like a man chained, and in
a prison.
Such a case as this would be a sore temptation to the "strong"
Christian. He would be greatly inclined, of himself, first to make a
vigorous protest, and then, if the difficulty proved obstinate, to
think hard thoughts of his narrow-minded friend; to doubt his right to
the Christian name at all; to reproach him, or (worst of all) to
satirize him. Meanwhile the "weak" Christian would have his harsh
thoughts too. He would not, by any means for certain, shew as much
meekness as "weakness." He would let his neighbour see, in one way or
other, that he thought him little better than a worldling, who made
Christ an excuse for personal self-indulgence.
How does the Apostle meet the trying case, which must have crossed his
own path so often, and sometimes in the form of a bitter opposition
from those who were "suffering from weakness in their faith"? It is
quite plain that his own convictions lay with "the strong," so far as
_principle_ was concerned. He "knew that nothing was unclean" (ver.
14). He knew that the Lord was not grieved, but pleased, by the
temperate and thankful use, untroubled by morbid fears, of His natural
bounties. He knew that the Jewish festival-system had found its goal
and end in the perpetual "_let us keep the feast_" (1 Cor. v. 3) of
the true believer's happy and hallowed life.[235] And accordingly he
does, in passing, rebuke "the weak" for their harsh criticisms
(κρίνειν) of "the strong." But then, he throws all the more weight,
the main weight, on his rebukes and warnings to "the strong." Their
principle might be right on this great detail. But this left untouched
the yet more stringent overruling principle, to "_walk in love_"; to
take part against themselves; to live in this matter, as in everything
else, for others. They were not to be at all ashamed of their special
principles. But they were to be deeply ashamed of one hour's unloving
conduct. They were to be quietly convinced, in respect of private
judgment. They were to be more than tolerant--they were to be
loving--in respect of common life in the Lord.
Their "strength" in Christ was never to be ungentle; never to be "used
like a giant." It was to be shewn, first and most, by patience. It was
to take the form of the calm, strong readiness to understand another's
point of view. It was to appear as reverence for another's conscience,
even when the conscience went astray for want of better light.
Let us take this apostolic principle out into modern religious life.
There are times when we shall be specially bound to put it carefully
in relation to other principles, of course. When St Paul, some months
earlier, wrote to Galatia, and had to deal with an error which
darkened the whole truth of the sinner's way to God as it lies
straight through Christ, he did not say, "Let every man be quite
assured in his own mind." He said (i. 8), "If an angel from heaven
preach any other Gospel, which is not another, let him be anathema."
The question _there_ was, Is Christ all, or is He not? Is faith all,
or is it not, for our laying hold of Him? Even in Galatia, he warned
the converts of the miserable and fatal mistake of "biting and
devouring one another" (v. 15). But he adjured them not to wreck their
peace with God upon a fundamental error. _Here_, at Rome, the question
was different; it was secondary. It concerned certain details of
Christian practice. Was an outworn and exaggerated ceremonialism a
part of the will of God, in the justified believer's life? It was not
so, as a fact. Yet it was a matter on which the Lord, by His Apostle,
rather counselled than commanded. It was not of the foundation. And
the always overruling law for the discussion was--the tolerance born
of love. Let us in our day remember this, whether our inmost
sympathies are with "the strong" or with "the weak." In Jesus Christ,
it is possible to realize the ideal of this paragraph even in our
divided Christendom. It is possible to be convinced, yet sympathetic.
It is possible to see the Lord for ourselves with glorious clearness,
yet to understand the practical difficulties felt by others, and to
love, and to respect, where there are even great divergences. No man
works more for a final spiritual _consensus_ than he who, in Christ,
so lives.
Incidentally meantime, the Apostle, in this passage which so curbs
"the strong," lets fall maxims which for ever protect all that is good
and true in that well-worn and often misused phrase, "the right of
private judgment." No spiritual despot, no claimant to be the
autocratic director of a conscience, could have written those words,
"_Let every man be quite certain in his own mind_"; "_Who art thou
that judgest Another's domestic?_" Such sentences assert not the right
so much as _the duty_, for the individual Christian, of a reverent
"_thinking for himself_." They maintain a true and noble individualism.
And there is a special need just now in the Church to remember, _in
its place_, the value of Christian individualism. The idea of the
community, the society, is just now so vastly prevalent (doubtless not
without the providence of God) in human life, and also in the Church,
that an assertion of the individual, which was once disproportionate,
is now often necessary, lest the social idea in its turn should be
exaggerated into a dangerous mistake. Coherence, mutuality, the truth
of the Body and the Members; all this, _in its place_, is not only
important but divine. The individual must inevitably lose where
individualism is his whole idea. But it is ill for the community,
above all for the Church, where in the total the individual tends
really to be merged and lost. Alas for the Church where the Church
tries to take the individual's place in the knowledge of God, in the
love of Christ, in the power of the Spirit. The religious Community
must indeed inevitably lose where religious communism is its whole
idea. It can be perfectly strong only where individual consciences are
tender, and enlightened; where individual souls personally know God in
Christ; where individual wills are ready, if the Lord call, to stand
alone for known truth even against the religious Society;--if there
also the individualism is not self-will, but Christian personal
responsibility; if the man "thinks for himself" _on his knees_; if he
reverences the individualism of others, and the relations of each to
all.
The individualism of Rom. xiv., asserted in an argument full of the
deepest secrets of cohesion, is the holy and healthful thing it is
because it is _Christian_. It is developed not by the assertion of
self, but by individual communion with Christ.
Now he goes on to further and still fuller statements in the same
direction:
[Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =For none of us to himself lives, and none of us
to himself dies.= How, and wherefore? Is it merely that "_we_" live
lives always, necessarily, related _to one another_? He has this in
his heart indeed. But he reaches it through the greater, deeper,
antecedent truth of our relation _to the Lord_. The Christian is
related to his brother-Christian through Christ, not to Christ through
his brother, or through the common Organism in which the brethren are
"each other's limbs." "_To the Lord_," with absolute directness, with
a perfect and wonderful immediateness, each individual Christian is
first related. His life and his death are "to others," but through
Him. THE MASTER'S claim is eternally first; for it is based direct
upon the redeeming work in which He bought us for Himself.
[Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =For whether we live, to the Lord we live; and
whether we be dead (ἀποθνήσκωμεν), to the Lord we are dead;= in the
state of the departed, as before, "relation stands." =Alike therefore
whether (ἐαν τε οὖν) we be dead, or whether we live, the Lord's we
are;= His property, bound first and in everything to His possession.
[Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =For to this end Christ both died and lived
again,[236] that He might become Lord= (κυριεύσῃ, not κυριεύῃ)
=of= us =both dead and living.=
Here is the profound truth seen already in earlier passages in the
Epistle. We have had it reasoned out, above all in the sixth chapter,
in its revelation of the way of Holiness, that our only possible right
relations with the Lord are clasped and governed by the fact that to
Him we rightly and everlastingly _belong_. There, however, the thought
was more of our surrender under His rights. Here it is of the mighty
antecedent fact, under which our most absolute surrender is nothing
more than the recognition of His indefeasible claim. What the Apostle
says here, in this wonderful passage of mingled doctrine and duty, is
that, whether or no _we are owning_ our vassalage to Christ, we are
nothing if not _de jure_ His vassals. He has not only rescued us, but
so rescued us as to buy us for His own. We may be true to the fact in
our internal attitude; we may be oblivious of it; but we cannot get
away from it. It looks us every hour in the face, whether we respond
or not. It will still look us in the face through the endless life to
come.
For manifestly it is this objective aspect of our "belonging" which is
here in point. St Paul is not reasoning with the "weak" and the
"strong" from their experience, from their conscious loyalty to the
Lord. Rather, he is calling them to a new realization of what such
loyalty should be. It is in order to this that he reminds them of the
eternal claim of the Lord, made good in His Death and Resurrection;
His claim to be so their Master, individually and altogether, that
every thought about one other was to be governed by that claim of His
on them all. "The Lord" must always interpose, with a right
inalienable. Each Christian is annexed, by all the laws of Heaven, to
Him. So each must--not make but _realize_ that annexation, in every
thought about neighbour and about brother.
The passage invites us meantime to further remark, in another
direction. It is one of those utterances which, luminous with light
given by their context, shine also with a light of their own, giving
us revelations independent of the surrounding matter. Here one such
revelation appears; it affects our knowledge of the Intermediate
State.
The Apostle,[237] four times over in this short paragraph, makes
mention of death, and of the dead. "_No one of us dieth to himself_";
"_Whether we die, we die unto the Lord_"; "_Whether we die, we are the
Lord's_"; "_That He might be Lord of the dead_." And this last
sentence, with its mention not of the dying but of the dead, reminds
us that the reference in them all is to the Christian's relation to
his Lord, not only in the hour of death, but in the state after death.
It is not only that Jesus Christ, as the slain One risen, is absolute
Disposer of the time and manner of our dying. It is not only that when
our death comes we are to accept it as an opportunity for the
"glorifying of God" (John xxi. 19; Phil. i. 20) in the sight and in
the memory of those who know of it. It is that when we have "passed
through death," and come out upon the other side,
"When we enter yonder regions,
When we touch the sacred shore,"
our relation to the slain One risen, to Him who, as such, "hath the
keys of Hades and of death" (Rev. i. 18), is perfectly continuous and
the same. He is our absolute Master, _there_ as well as here. And we,
by consequence and correlation, are vassals, servants, bondservants to
Him, there as well as here.
Here is a truth which, we cannot but think, richly repays the
Christian's repeated remembrance and reflection; and that not only in
the way of asserting the eternal rights of our blessed Redeemer over
us, but in the way of shedding light, and peace, and the sense of
reality and expectation, on both the prospect of our own passage into
eternity and the thoughts we entertain of the present life of our holy
beloved ones who have entered into it before us.
Everything is precious which really assists the soul in such thoughts,
and at the same time keeps it fully and practically alive to the
realities of faith, patience, and obedience here below, here in the
present hour. While the indulgence of unauthorized imagination in that
direction is almost always enervating and disturbing to the present
action of Scriptural faith, the least help to a solid realization and
anticipation, supplied by the Word that cannot lie, is in its nature
both hallowing and strengthening. Such a help we have assuredly here.
He who died and rose again is at this hour, in holy might and right,
"the Lord" of the blessed dead. Then, the blessed dead are vassals and
_servants_ of Him who died and rose again. And all our thought of
them, as they are now, at this hour, "in those heavenly habitations,
where the souls of them that sleep in the Lord Jesus enjoy perpetual
rest and felicity,"[238] gains indefinitely in life, in reality, in
strength and glory, as we see them, through this narrow but bright
"door in heaven" (Rev. v. 1), not resting only but serving also before
their Lord, who has bought them for His use, and who holds them in His
use quite as truly now as when we had the joy of their presence with
us, and He was seen by us living and working in them and through them
here.
True it is that the leading and essential character of their present
state is rest, as that of their resurrection state will be action. But
the two states overflow into each other. In one glorious passage the
Apostle describes the resurrection bliss as also "rest" (2 Thess.
i. 7). And here we have it indicated that the heavenly intermediate
rest is also service. What the precise nature of that service is we
cannot tell. "Our knowledge of that life is small." Most certainly,
"in vain our _fancy_ strives to paint" its blessedness, both of repose
and of occupation. This is part of our normal and God-chosen lot here,
which is to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. v. 7), οὐ διὰ
εἴδους, "not by Object seen," not by objects seen. But blessed is the
spiritual assistance in such a walk as we recollect, step by step, as
we draw nearer to that happy assembly above, that, whatever be the
manner and exercise of their holy life, it is life indeed; power, not
weakness; service, not inaction. He who died and revived is Lord, not
of us only, but of them.
But from this excursion into the sacred Unseen we must return. St Paul
is intent now upon the believer's walk of loving large-heartedness in
this life, not the next. [Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =But you--why do you
judge your brother?= (he takes up the verb, κρίνειν, used in his
former appeal to the "weak," ver. 3). =Or you too= (he turns to the
"strong"; see again ver. 3)--=why do you despise your brother? For we
shall stand, all= of us, on one level, whatever were our mutual
sentiments on earth, whatever claim we made here to sit as judges on
our brethren, =before the tribunal (βῆμα) of our (τοῦ) God.[239]=
[Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =For it stands written= (Isai. xlv. 23), ="As I
live, saith the Lord,= sure it is as My eternal Being, =that to Me,=
not to another, =shall bend every knee; and every tongue shall
confess,= shall ascribe all sovereignty, =to God,"= not to the
creature. [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =So then each of us, about himself,=
not about the faults or errors of his brother, =shall give account to
God.=
We have here, as in 2 Cor. v. 10, and again, under other imagery,
in 1 Cor. iii. 11-15, a glimpse of that heart-searching prospect for
the Christian, his summons hereafter, _as a Christian_, to the
tribunal of his Lord. In all the three passages, and now particularly
in this, the language, though it lends itself freely to the universal
Assize, is limited by context, as to its direct purport, to the
Master's _scrutiny of His own servants as such_. The question to be
tried and decided (speaking after the manner of men) at His
"tribunal," in this reference, is not that of glory or perdition; the
persons of the examined are accepted; the enquiry is in the _domestic_
court of the Palace, so to speak; it regards the award of the King as
to the issues and value of His accepted servants' labour and conduct,
as His representatives, in their mortal life. "The _Lord of the
servants_ cometh, and reckoneth _with them_" (Matt. xxv. 19). They
have been justified by faith. They have been united to their glorious
Head. They "shall be saved" (1 Cor. iii. 15), whatever be the fate of
their "work." But what will their Lord say of their work? What have
they done for Him, in labour, in witness, and above all _in
character_? He will tell them what He thinks. He will be infinitely
kind; but He will not flatter. And somehow, surely,--"it doth not yet
appear" how, but somehow--eternity, even the eternity of salvation,
will bear the impress of that award, the impress of _the past of
service_, estimated by the King. "What shall the harvest be?"
And all this shall take place (this is the special emphasis of the
prospect here) with a solemn individuality of enquiry. "_Every one of
us--for himself_--shall give account." We reflected, a little above,
on the true place of"individualism" in the life of grace. We see here
that there will indeed be a place for it in the experiences of
eternity. The scrutiny of "the tribunal" will concern not the
Society, the Organism, the total, but the member, the man. Each will
stand in a solemn solitude there, before his divine Examiner. What
_he_ was, as the Lord's member, that will be the question. What _he_
shall be, as such, in the functions of the endless state, that will be
the result.
Let us not be troubled over that prospect with the trouble of the
worldling, as if we did not know Him who will scrutinize us, and did
not love Him. Around the thought of His "tribunal," in that aspect,
there are cast no exterminating terrors. But it is a prospect fit to
make grave and full of purpose the life which yet "is hid with Christ
in God," and which is life indeed through grace. It is a deep reminder
that the beloved Saviour is also, and in no figure of speech, but in
an eternal earnest, THE MASTER too. We would not have Him not to be
this. He would not be all He is to us as Saviour, were He not this
also, and for ever.
St Paul hastens to further appeals, after this solemn forecast. And
now all his stress is laid on the duty of the "strong" to use their
"strength" not for self-assertion, not for even spiritual selfishness,
but all for Christ, all for others, all in love.
[Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =No more therefore let us judge one another; but
judge,= decide, =this rather--not to set stumblingblock for our (τῷ)
brother, or trap.= [Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =I know=--he instances his own
experience and principle--=and am sure, in the Lord Jesus,= as one who
is in union and communion with Him, seeing truth and life from that
view-point, =that nothing,= nothing of the sort in question, no food,
no time, =is "unclean" of itself;= literally, "_by means of itself_,"
by any _inherent_ mischief; =only, to the man who counts anything
"unclean," to him it is unclean.= And therefore you, because you are
not his conscience, must not tamper with his conscience. It is, in
this case, mistaken; mistaken to his own loss, and to the loss of the
Church. Yes, but what it wants is not your compulsion, but the Lord's
light. If you can do so, bring that light to bear, in a testimony made
impressive by holy love and unselfish considerateness. But dare not,
for Christ's sake, compel a conscience. For conscience means the man's
best actual sight of the law of right and wrong. It may be a dim and
distorted sight; but it is his best at this moment. He cannot violate
it without sin, nor can you bid him do so without yourself sinning.
Conscience may not always see aright. But to transgress conscience is
always wrong.
[Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =For[240]=--the word takes up the argument at
large, rather than the last detail of it--=if for food's sake your
brother suffers pain,= the pain of a moral struggle between his
present convictions and your commanding example, =you have given up
walking (οὐκέτι περιπατεῖς) love-wise. Do not, with your food,=
(there is a searching point in the "_your_," touching to the quick the
deep selfishness of the action,) =work his ruin for whom Christ died.=
Such sentences are too intensely and tenderly in earnest to be called
sarcastic; otherwise, how fine and keen an edge they carry! "_For
food's sake!_" "_With your food!_" The man is shaken out of the sleep
of what seemed an assertion of liberty, but was after all much rather
a dull indulgence of--that is, a mere slavery to--himself. "I like
this meat; I like this drink; I don't like the worry of these
scruples; they interrupt me, they annoy me." Unhappy man! It is better
to be the slave of scruples, than of self. In order to allow yourself
another dish--you would slight an anxious friend's conscience, and, so
far as your conduct is concerned, push him to a violation of it. But
that means, a push on the slope which leans towards spiritual ruin.
The way to perdition is paved with violated consciences. The Lord may
counteract your action, and save your injured brother from
himself--and you. But your action is, none the less, calculated for
his perdition. And all the while this soul, for which, in comparison
with your dull and narrow "liberty," you care so little, was so much
cared for by the Lord that He--died for it.
Oh consecrating thought, attached now, for ever, for the Christian, to
every human soul which he can influence: "_For whom Christ died!_"
[Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =Do not therefore let your good,= your glorious
creed of holy liberty in Christ, =be railed at,= as only a thinly
veiled self-indulgence after all; [Sidenote: Ver. 17.] =for the
kingdom of our (τοῦ) God is not feeding (βρῶσις) and drinking;= He
does not claim a throne in your soul, and in your Society, merely to
enlarge your bill of fare, to make it your sacred privilege, as an end
in itself, to take what you please at table; =but righteousness,=
surely here, in the Roman Epistle, the "righteousness" of our divine
acceptance, =and peace,= the peace of perfect relations with Him in
Christ, =and joy in the Holy Spirit,= the pure strong gladness of the
justified, as in their sanctuary of salvation they drink the "living
water," and "rejoice always in the Lord." [Sidenote: Ver. 18.] =For he
who in this= way[241] =lives as bondservant to Christ,= spending his
spiritual talents not for himself but for his Master, =is pleasing to
his (τῷ) God, and is genuine to his fellow-men (τοῖς ἀνθρώποις).=
Yes, he _stands the test_ (δόκιμος) of their keen scrutiny. They can
soon detect the counterfeit under spiritual assertions which really
assert self. But their conscience affirms the genuineness of a life of
_unselfish_ and happy holiness; that life "reverbs no hollowness."
[Sidenote: Ver. 19.] =Accordingly therefore let us pursue= the
interests of =peace, and= the interests of =an edification which is
mutual;= the "building up" (οἰκοδομὴ) which looks beyond the man to
his brother, to his brethren, and tempers by that look even his plans
for his own spiritual life.
Again he returns to the sorrowful _grotesque_ of preferring personal
comforts, and even the assertion of the principle of personal liberty,
to the good of others. [Sidenote: Ver. 20.] =Do not for food's sake be
undoing (κατάλυε) the work of our God. "All things are pure";= he
doubtless quotes a watchword often heard; and it was truth itself in
the abstract, but capable of becoming a fatal fallacy in practice;
=but= anything =is bad to the man who is brought by a stumblingblock
to eat it.[242]= Yes, this is bad (κακόν). What is good (καλὸν) in
contrast?
[Sidenote: Ver. 21.] =Good it is not to eat flesh, and not to drink
wine= (a word for our time and its conditions), =and not to do
anything in which your brother is stumbled, or entrapped, or
weakened.= Yes, this is Christian liberty; a liberation from the
strong and subtle law of self; a freedom to live for others,
independent of their evil, but the servant of their souls.
[Sidenote: Ver. 22.] =You--the faith you have,[243] have it by
yourself, in the presence of your God.= You have believed; you are
therefore in Christ; in Christ you are therefore free, by faith, from
the preparatory restrictions of the past. Yes; but all this is not
given you for personal display, but for divine communion. Its right
issue is in a holy intimacy with your God, as in the confidence of
your acceptance you know Him as your Father, "nothing between." But as
regards human intercourse, you are emancipated not that you may
disturb the neighbours with shouts of freedom and acts of licence, but
that you may be at leisure to serve them in love. =Happy the man who
does not judge himself,= who does not, in effect, decide against his
own soul, =in that which he approves, δοκιμάζει,= pronounces
satisfactory to conscience. Unhappy he who says to himself, "This is
lawful," when the verdict is all the while purchased by self-love, or
otherwise by the fear of man, and the soul knows in its depths that
the thing is not as it should be. [Sidenote: Ver. 23.] =And the man
who is doubtful,= whose conscience is not really satisfied between the
right and wrong of the matter, =if he does eat, stands condemned,= in
the court of his own heart, and of his aggrieved Lord's opinion,
=because= it was =not the result of faith;= the action had not, for
its basis, the holy conviction of the liberty of the justified. =Now
anything which is not the result of faith, is sin;= that is to say,
manifestly, "anything" _in such a case as this_; any indulgence, any
obedience to example, which the man, in a state of inward ambiguity,
decides for on a principle other than that of his union with Christ by
faith.
Thus the Apostle of Justification, and of the Holy Spirit, is the
Apostle of Conscience too. He is as urgent upon the awful sacredness
of our sense of right and wrong, as upon the offer and the security,
in Christ, of peace with God, and the holy Indwelling, and the hope of
glory. Let our steps reverently follow his, as we walk with God, and
with men. Let us "rejoice in Christ Jesus," with a "joy" which is "in
the Holy Ghost." Let us reverence duty, let us reverence conscience,
in our own life, and also in the lives around us.
[231] Τὸν μὴ (not οὐκ) ἐσθίοντα: the μὴ gives "non-eating" as
not merely a fact, but a _condition_, about the man.
[232] Read δυνατεῖ ηὰρ ὁ Κύρος.
[233] Probably the negative limb of ver. 6. is only an explanatory
gloss, not the words of the Apostle.
[234] Read καὶ.
[235] There seems to be a broad and intelligible difference between
the Sabbath-keeping _of the Jewish law_ and the Sabbath-keeping _of
man_; the enjoyment and holy use of the primeval Rest for man and
beast. We take it that _that_ duty and privilege is not in question
here at all. The "weak" Christian was the anxious scholar of the
Rabbis, not the man simply loyal to the Decalogue.
[236] Read ἀπέθανε καὶ ἀνέζησε.
[237] We transcribe here a few paragraphs from the closing pages of
our book _Life in Christ and for Christ_.
[238] Visitation of the Sick (Prayer for a Sick Child).
[239] So read, not τοῦ Χριστοῦ. It is significant meantime, as a
testimony to the Apostle's view of his Master's Nature, that in 2 Cor.
v. 10, a perfectly parallel passage, he writes, "we must all appear
before the tribunal _of Christ_."
[240] Probably read γὰρ not δὲ.
[241] Read τούτῳ not τούτοις. Possibly the pronoun refers to "the
Holy Spirit" (Πνεῦμα) just mentioned.
[242] Lit., "_who eats by means of a stumblingblock_"; the example,
with its weight of "public opinion," being _the means of_ overriding
his conscience.
[243] Probably read πίστιν ἣν ἔχεις, κατὰ κτλ.