That is the true comfort which we have before God. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. To the same purport (Romans 14:21; Romans 14:21) he recommends it to our care not to give offence to any one by the use of lawful things: It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine; these are things lawful indeed and comfortable, but not necessary to the support of human life, and therefore we may, and must, deny ourselves in them, rather than give offence. Release from this chain of being was found through absolute purity and discipline; and this discipline included silence, study, self-examination and abstention from all flesh. This is levelled directly against the fault of each party. It is observable that the apostle directs his reproof most against those who gave the offence; not as if those were not to be blamed who causelessly and weakly took the offence from their ignorance of Christian liberty, and the want of that charity which is not easily provoked and which thinketh no evil (he several times tacitly reflects upon them), but he directs his speech to the strong, because they were better able to bear the reproof, and to begin the reformation. When we are confronted with someone who holds the narrower view there are three attitudes we must avoid. Time was when none of the English, nor French, nor of any other nation believed in the Saviour. I am encouraging him into something that he has conviction against and he takes that potato and says, "Oh, that is good. 14 I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.. Verse 14 gives a specific example of how the mature believer might cause an immature Christian to stumble.. 14 I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus . Verse Romans 14:14. 21). More, there are pleasures which are quite harmless to one man, which can, in fact, be the ruin of another. It is here that you will find a great failure of Christendom as to this. Without Christ a man is a slave to his habits, his pleasures, his indulgences. There is a disposition continually to imagine that what is frequently spoken of must be understood; but experience will soon show that this is not the case. By the cross God has a deeper moral glory than ever a glory that He thus acquired, if I may so say. If he cannot say, 'Well done! Christian joy is not individualistic; it is interdependent. That is what Paul is getting at here. Paul makes his strongest statement so far about whether it's okay for a Christian to eat certain meatsor drink wine as mentioned in verse 21. A man may come to the conclusion that his Christian freedom gives him a perfect right to make a reasonable use of alcohol; and, as far as he is concerned, it may be a perfectly safe pleasure, from which he runs no danger. - FSB. Romans 14:14 I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus As for the apostle's own sense and judgment about the distinction of meats, it was this, that there is nothing unclean of itself; While Paul realized all food may be eaten with Gods approval, he also understood that not every Christian was comfortable with doing this. 1. As to ourselves, it is joy in the Holy Ghost--that spiritual joy which is wrought by the blessed Spirit in the hearts of believers, which respects God as their reconciled Father and heaven as their expected home. It is not here a question of how a man is to be saved, but of God's indispensable moral judgment, which the gospel, instead of weakening asserts according to the holiness and truth of God. God is well pleased with such a one, though he be not in every thing just of our length. Now it was manifested, and not promised or predicted merely. But thus the way is now clear for bringing the Jew into the discussion. He understands the liberty that God has granted him, and uses it to the glory of God, with an eye to his wisdom and goodness in enlarging our allowance now under the gospel, and taking off the yoke of legal restraints; and he giveth God thanks for the variety of food he has, and the liberty he has to eat it, and that in those things his conscience is not fettered. He is an amalgam of all that his ancestors made him. Here is the essence of the matter. He is the one that we must answer to. It was not so much the difference itself that did the mischief as the mismanagement of the difference, making it a bone of contention. "Shall we sin," says he, proceeding yet farther (ver. He writes to the Colossians: "Let no man pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. Pythagoras taught that the soul of man was a fallen deity confined to the body as to a tomb. Paul unerringly pinpoints the danger that was likely to arise. It is dangerous to trifle with conscience, even when erroneous; it should be borne with and instructed; it must be won over, not taken by storm. If a man believes a thing to be wrong, then, if he does it, for him it is sin. Let us therefore In consistency with these certain and momentous truths; follow after the things which make for peace Which tend to procure, preserve, and promote peace among the faithful; and things wherewith one may edify another, may build him up in faith and holiness. It is a generous piece of self-denial, for which we have Paul's example (1 Corinthians 8:13), If meat make my brother to offend; he does not say, I will eat no meat, that is to destroy himself; but I will eat no flesh, that is to deny himself, while the world stands. The righteousness of God flows from His mercy, of course; but its character and basis is righteousness. Not for spiritual reasons.Now many of the young people who were my contemporary's who went to church with me, and as they were growing up, as boys do, they began to experiment and pick up cigarette butts and light 'em and smoke them. We may take a very simple example. All his life he had been compassed about by a multiplicity of rules and regulations. Augustine used to say that the whole Christian ethic could be summed up in a saying: "Love God, and do what you like." It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak ( Romans 14:21 ). to deal with the whole posterity of Adam as involved in death because of one, their common father, who could deny the consistency of one man's saving? How far? Because both the one and the other must shortly give an account, Romans 14:10-12; Romans 14:10-12. In vain will you preach Romans 3:1-31, or even 4 alone, for souls to know themselves consciously and holily set free. To illustrate this (Romans 14:11; Romans 14:11), he quotes a passage out of the Old Testament, which speaks of Christ's universal sovereignty and dominion, and that established with an oath: As I live (saith the Lord), every knee shall bow to me. 2. We cannot speak of the state of things before the flood as a dispensation. Hence it is essentially founded on the gift not only of a Saviour who would interpose, in the mercy of God, to bear our sins, but of One who is already revealed, and the work done and accepted, and this known in the fact that God Himself has interposed to raise Him from among the dead a bright and momentous thing to press on souls, as indeed we find the apostles insisting on it throughout the Acts. There is no simple mind that can evade the plain force of this last expression. The believer, whosoever he might be, should not be ashamed. Do you have faith? This new law says all foods are acceptable (Mark 7:19). In almost any Christian congregation there would be those who observed special food laws and tabus. nothing is unclean of itself -- In this context, Paul is referring to food, such as the meat of animals designated by the law as ritually unclean (see note on v. 1; compare Lev 11; Deut 14). Accordingly we do not hear of salvation as such in Romans 3:1-31. The expression means that righteousness which God can afford to display because of Christ's atonement. It is for God's sake, because he is afraid of offending God by eating that which he is sure was once prohibited; and he giveth God thanks too that there is enough besides. It is Paul's conviction that in regard to such things we have no right to give offence to the more scrupulous brother by doing them ourselves, or by persuading him to do them. 4 Who are you to judge another's servant? 2 For instance, one person believes it's all right to eat anything. Gingrich and Danker (p. 716) define it as putting an obstacle in the brothers way. An occasion of falling (skandalon) was a means of falling (an offense). We must banish both censoriousness and contempt from the fellowship of the Church. Paul bids the stronger brethren to welcome such a person and not to besiege him with continual criticisms. What does Romans 14:14 mean? It was after he had died and risen that he said, All power is given unto me (Matthew 28:18), and presently he exerts that power in issuing out commissions, Romans 14:19; Romans 14:20. In Romans 14, Paul is trying to teach Christians to stop judging each other regarding secondary matters of religious practice about food and holy days. Chapter 14. Then there is another and crowning part of the blessing: "And not only so, but also boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." But why do you judge your brother? For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Hence therefore, the apostle, with divine wisdom, opens this to us before the blessed relief and deliverance which the gospel reveals to us. We would do well to remember that, in a great many matters, it is a duty to have our own convictions, but it is an equal duty to allow others to have theirs without regarding them as sinners and outcasts. What were the principles of it? I won't try and talk you out of your convictions. Nothing less, I am persuaded, than this full blessing is the line that God has given to those who have followed Christ without the camp, and who, having been set free from the contracted ways of men, desire to enter into the largeness and at the same time the profound wisdom of every word of God. Presented here is a verse by verse exposition of the New Testament. He shall come, says one Testament, out of Zion. The Danger of Criticism. So, I worship the Lord every morning. The past prepared the way, as it is said here, "which God had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, [here we have the great central object of God's gospel, even the person of Christ, God's Son,] which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (ver. I do not mean by this its truth merely, but its exquisite suitability; so that the opening address commences the theme in hand, and insinuates that particular line of truth which the Holy Spirit sees fit to pursue throughout.
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