Letter to the Romans -- Chapter 14

After having fully urged us to live in the love of Christ towards our fellow man, Paul continues on by expressing a particular and difficult application of this. The question is: how can we carefully proclaim the gospel and our freedom in Christ in a way that does not offend or destroy our brethren who are weak in faith or who even do not even yet know the truth? Paul begins by being as blatantly clear as we would expect: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters” (Romans 14:1). It is of an absolute necessity that we bear with our fellow man whose faith is weak by not forcing upon them issues that are of a “disputable” nature; it is our duty to accept those who are weak in faith and require our special care and attention. But what on earth does Paul mean by “disputable matters”? What he means is “adiaphora”, which is a big theological term that can be defined as such: “Adiaphora refers to matters not regarded as essential to faith which might therefore be allowed in the church. In particular the Lutheran confessions of the sixteenth century speak of adiaphora as ‘church rites which are neither commanded nor forbidden in the Word of God.’” Therefore Paul is referring to matters that are “non-essential” to our faith, matters outside of the doctrine and proclamation of God’s Word. Therefore it is absolutely essential that we see that Paul is most certainly not referring to doctrine of which he strongly says: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16). Consequently Paul is not referring to doctrine when he says “disputable matters,” for what God’s Word has proclaimed once and for all is not disputable and must not be compromised one iota. So what are some examples of adiaphora and “disputable matters”?

Paul continues on and fills us in: “One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:2-4). Paul’s first example of adiaphora is our diet. In the new covenant of Jesus Christ, God has not given restrictions to our diet but has given us freedom to partake of all foods: “‘Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.’ (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods ‘clean.’)” (Mark 7:18-19). Paul gives another example of adiaphora: “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike” (Romans 14:5). This time Paul’s example is that of the Sabbath and the day in which we choose to publicly worship. In the new covenant Christ declared Himself the Lord of the Sabbath, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5), and therefore taught us that no one day is any more intrinsically special than another. We are free therefore to publicly worship the Lord on any day, as we daily worship Him with our very lives. Paul goes on: “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God” (Romans 14:5-6). When we live our lives of freedom under the cross we need to live them for Christ. “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:7-8). Whatever we do, we should be fully convinced that because of Jesus Christ that our entire lives are acts of worship and sacrifice to the glory of God. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Having established the areas and principles of freedom and adiaphora, Paul continues on by stressing the importance of not judging our fellow man in these areas outside of Scriptural doctrine: “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:9-12). Because we ourselves are not judge or jury, we must be careful not to be critical of our fellow man in these areas of freedom. Each of us is individually accountable before God, so we must leave all determinations in these “disputable” areas to God. “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way” (Romans 14:13). Instead of passing judgment we need to make sure that our zealousness and lives of freedom do not cause those who are confused and weak in faith to stumble. Paul explains a little further: “As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men” (Romans 14:14-18). Even though all foods are clean and all days are the same in Jesus Christ, we must not destroy our brother by flaunting our freedom in an unloving way. Some men will not be able to handle or appreciate all the freedoms that we have as Christians and so we must be considerate in our dealings with them. “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall” (Romans 14:19-21).

After imploring us to avoid all things that will cause our brethren to stumble Paul wraps up his discourse by teaching us an important truth about the nature of faith: “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:22-23). We must not doubt our freedom in Christ and begin to question whether we ourselves are free to eat what we will, drink what we will, worship when we will, dress in what we will, or anything outside of the doctrine of the Scriptures. When we do these things of freedom we need to take into account our fellow man and make sure we will not cause him to stumble, but after that we need to be bold in trusting the grace of Christ. We must not be timid in our new found freedom in Christ, but we need to firmly rest assured in the grace of the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb. As Paul says, apart from faith in Jesus Christ everything that we as human beings put our hands or minds to is sin. Realizing this let us pray that we do not fall into the deceiving and doubting of human traditions and man-made legalisms, but that we fall and stand upon Christ alone and the work and grace that He has given to us in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ…Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:8, 16-17).