St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. II

The problem of 'lawful meats' had often been before the early Christians. It could not but have been so, seeing that those among them, who had passed under Jewish influences had been brought under a system in which the distinction between clean and unclean meats had been rigorously observed. True, our Lord had 'made all meats clean129,' as He had opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. And the vision which reassured St. Peter on the latter point, and forbade him 'to call any man common or unclean130,' was expressed in a form which implied that the same principle would apply to food. But this fundamental catholic principle, in its sharp opposition to Jewish particularism, was not accepted without a struggle at every point. How hotly, for a time, the struggle raged, we dimly perceive in the narrative of the Acts, and especially in St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians131. But at the Jerusalem conference the fundamental catholic principle was unmistakably reaffirmed. Gentiles were to be admitted to brotherhood without circumcision or the keeping of the law. Henceforth then the reactionaries had no ground to stand on. The law of clean and unclean meats had gone with the rest of the Jewish laws. But while the Gentiles won a complete victory on the main principle, they were required by the apostolic council to make concessions to Jewish habits in eating, such as could not affect the main principle. They were to eat meat killed in the Jewish manner, with the blood thoroughly drained out. This in itself would probably exclude them from the Gentile shambles, where also much of the meat which was for sale would have been offered to idols132. By the observance of such a concession, then, Jew and Gentile were to live and eat together in peace.

The actual enactment of the Jerusalem conference had a limited application to the Gentile Christians of Antioch and Syria and Cilicia133. But the principle was a vital and universal one: to hold firm the catholic or 'indifferentist' principle, but to make concessions for love's sake and to facilitate mutual fellowship. And this same principle St. Paul soon had reason to apply again at Corinth. There the problem was not – How could Jew and Gentile live and eat together? but How far could Gentiles, who had become Christians, associate with Gentiles who were still adherents of the old religion, and eat their meats? St. Paul, in answering this question for the Corinthians, strongly asserts the indifferentist principle – that meat of all kinds is God's gift and good, and that it can have contracted no moral pollution through any idolatrous ceremony to which it has been subjected. No questions, therefore, are to be asked as to its antecedents. In this physical sense meats which had been offered to idols might be freely eaten. But when such eating could do harm, when, for instance, one man points out to another that a particular portion of food has been part of a sacrifice, and it is plain he will be scandalized by the eating of it, then the other must abstain134, restricting his own lawful liberty for charity and Christian brotherhood's sake.

Now St. Paul had heard of a new form of the old difficulty at Rome135. There was a Jewish asceticism – similar to what is found frequently among orientals, and was practised in Europe among the Pythagoreans – which required men to abstain from animal food altogether and from wine. Such was probably the rule of the Essenes in Palestine136, as of the Therapeutae in Egypt, and such was, according to a very early authority, the rule of St. James, the Lord's brother. Such a practice, then, had found favour among a minority of Christians at Rome. And St. Paul in the passage we are now to study, in principle plainly approves of the indifferentist practice of the majority. He knows, and is persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself. It is, he implies, a weak and unduly scrupulous conscience which makes men vegetarians. But, on the other hand, this weaker brother – this man with less clear perception of Christian principle in the matter – must in no way be alienated. He is to be made welcome. There is no obligation upon him to eat meat. God laid no such requirement upon him when he became a Christian. 'God received him.' The Church must continue the like liberality, and not even seek to pronounce judgement in the matter. In life and death each man is Christ's servant, and is responsible to God for what he does or does not do. Therefore let each man simply be faithful to his own conscience before God in this matter, so that whatever he eats he can 'say his grace,' or 'give thanks,' with a good conscience; and let him be respectfully tolerant of his brother's practice – the strong not despising the weak, nor the weak judging and condemning the strong.

So far for liberty. But if, by using our liberty to eat meat, we are found to run a risk of really troubling our brother, or even (what is worse) leading him to act against his conscience and eat what he feels he ought not137, then we must abstain. This becomes matter of character and peaceable fellowship and spiritual joy, and these are the really material things in the kingdom of God. Sooner than do injury to this really divine cause, sooner than be a hindrance to his brother, the Christian had better willingly abstain altogether from flesh and wine too.

In passing St. Paul had noticed another indifferent matter besides the eating of meats. It was the observance of days. St. Paul undoubtedly considered that all distinction of high days and common days, all distinction of the sabbath from other days, had been in principle abolished by Christianity. For Gentile Christians, like the Galatians, to be 'observing (Jewish) days, and months, and seasons, and years138,' is to show a miserable disposition to fall back upon a superannuated legal idea of religion – to fall back from the religion of the Spirit to the religion of the letter; from the substance to the shadow. For the Christian, in fundamental principle, there are no 'sacred days,' for all days are indifferently sacred. As instructed Christian men could eat all meats, so they could regard all days as on the same level in God's sight. But all Christians had not the full perception of principle. Among the Galatians, indeed, the tendency to observe days is viewed more severely as part of a general reactionary tendency. But at Rome it appears to have represented simply the practice of a harmless, if imperfectly enlightened, minority, and St. Paul merely ranks it among things indifferent, which are to be frankly tolerated. It is to be purely left to the individual conscience.

With these preliminary explanations – which in this case will serve our purpose better than an analysis – we can read this section without experiencing any great difficulty.

But him that is weak in faith receive ye, yet not to doubtful disputations139. One man hath faith to eat all things: but he that is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth set at nought him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord: and he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgement-seat of God. For it is written,

As I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall bow,And every tongue shall confess to God140.

So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling. I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself: save that to him who accounteth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of meat thy brother is grieved, thou walkest no longer in love. Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of: for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that herein serveth Christ is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men. So then let us follow after things which make for peace, and things whereby we may edify one another. Overthrow not for meat's sake the work of God. All things indeed are clean; howbeit it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth. The faith which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth. But he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

1. According to St. Paul a catholic church ought to mean a tolerant church, and a 'good catholic' a large-hearted Christian. If men of all races, with all sorts of traditional instincts and habits, were to live together in close social cohesion in the Christian community – and that was essential – this must involve much mutual forbearance, much self-restraint, and deliberate toleration of differences141. St. Paul plainly not merely uses, but loves, the language of toleration. 'One man eateth, another man eateth not,' 'One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind,' 'Receive ye him … not with a view to decisions of disputed questions.' Thoroughly in St. Paul's spirit is the familiar saying 'in necessary things unity: in those less than necessary liberty: in all things charity142.'

In necessary things unity. To St. Paul this principle meant a clear limit to toleration. There is a common teaching which lies at the basis of the Church which must not be interfered with, which is strictly necessary. 'Though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema143.' 'How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain144.' Plainly there is an essential fundamental creed which must not be trifled with. The same is true about the moral law. In respect of that also the Christian body must exercise upon its members the severity of judgement145, that 'he that hath done' the evil deed 'might be taken away from among them,' or excommunicated. Once more, we cannot conceive St. Paul making the necessity of visible unity a secondary consideration146, nor the recognition of the authority of the apostolic ministry which is to be the centre of unity, nor the sacraments, which again are not only means of divine grace to the individual but instruments and bonds of unity. Nor again would St. Paul undervalue the spirit of obedience to the rules of the Church. He hates the spirit of heresy or separatism. 'We have no such custom,' he would say to the recalcitrant, 'neither the churches of God147.' Once again, St. Paul is prepared to let everything turn on even a small and unessential point, if that point has become the symbol of a vital principle for good or evil. Thus, in itself, 'circumcision was nothing,' but when among the Galatians the practice of it came to mean a practical Judaizing – a practical abandonment of the fundamental Christian principle – then 'Behold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing148.'

Here, then, are St. Paul's essentials, as to which he is intolerant – a fundamental tradition of faith and morals: the maintenance of the unity of the body by means of the apostolic stewardship, and through the 'one baptism,' and the 'one loaf': and the spirit of due subordination which is necessary to corporate life. But in a spirit very unlike what has at times become prevalent in the Church, he would clearly minimize the action of authority, and leave large room for the free movement of conscience in Christians. 'Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, even this shall God reveal unto you: only, whereunto we have already attained, by that same rule let us walk149.'

Surely it is not very difficult to apply this spirit of St. Paul to our own time, in view of those subordinate points which excite such deep animosities. Men are by fundamental disposition, in great measure, ritualist or puritan, ecclesiastically or individually minded, disciplinarian or mystical. And the Church should lay on all a certain common law of doctrine and morals and worship, sufficient to keep them all together in one body. But, consistently with the coherence of the body, why should there not be both an ornate and a bare ritual of worship, both societies of strict observance and individual freedom, and a wide field of open questions in which we do not even expect 'decisions of doubts'? Instead of my own reflections on this subject I will ask my readers' attention to the following extracts from a suggestive book150.

'At all times there are those to whom what we may call the minor symbolism of ritual is far from being as helpful as it is to others. There is the greatest diversity here. Modes of worship, which repel one man as bleak and bare, attract another by their very simplicity. The diversity is so natural and so obvious that it calls for neither apology nor explanation; yet it is easily strained into a cause of disruption.'

'St. Paul is speaking of strong brethren and of weak; of those who need earthly guides and of those who do not; of those who attach high value to rules and forms and helps; and of those for whom ordinances have but little significance; of mystics and disciplinarians.'

'Again, do we not still want a scientific theology? I mean a theology which should do what any scientific treatise does. It should lay down clearly and plainly the essential conditions of unity, and as regards the unessential should content itself with saying, "Here men differ; one thinks thus, another thus." … Ask yourself, What is it that will carry me, being what I am, to heaven? What is it will carry my brother here, who is so unlike me, to heaven? What is it that will carry us both to heaven? There you will find the essential.'

St. Paul, we observe, lays great stress upon honesty of conscience. He wishes men, even in small matters, seriously to cultivate a conscience of what is right, as men should do who even in small things expect a divine judgement; and seriously also to cultivate the faculty of not interfering with their brother's conscience. ('Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself.' Do not parade your superior enlightenment.) He is greatly afraid of people leading others, or being led for mere agreement's sake, to do what their own conscience does not justify. And to do even a good thing because another does it whom we want to be like, without ourselves feeling sure it is good, or with a doubtful conscience151, this, St. Paul says, is sin. This warning we really need to lay to heart in our age, when fashion is such a very strong force in religion. This individual follows that individual and 'supposes it must be all right, as every one seems to do it'; this congregation follows that congregation in adopting a popular practice, without its real basis and justification being considered. But fashion and the influence of members is a great danger in religion. 'Let every man be fully assured in his own mind.' 'Whatever is not of faith is sin152.'

2. Plainly, when St. Paul wrote his epistles, there was no observance of a Sabbath obligatory upon Christians153. But was there none of Sunday? 'The first day of the week' was already 'the Lord's day,' so far as that Christians who could not meet to 'break the bread' every day, met on that day specially to commemorate the death of their risen Lord till He should come again154. It was already sufficiently distinctive for St. Paul to name it as the appropriate day for laying by alms for the poor155. But these special observances of it were not obligatory. Christians, when they could meet every day, might make their eucharist every day. No such observance of Sunday was yet enjoined as was incompatible with regarding all days of the week alike. Nothing less than this can satisfy St. Paul's words. In principle, as Bishop Lightfoot said156, 'the kingdom of Christ has no sacred days or seasons, because every time alike is holy.'

Yet the bishop adds, 'appointed days are indispensable to her efficiency.' This was soon found to be the case. Probably before the end of the first century, the Didache mentions not only the observance of Sunday by the eucharistic service, but the observance also of the Wednesday and Friday fasts. Clement, about the same date, strongly emphasizes the principle of order in place and time, as still belonging to Christian worship. 'They, therefore, that make their offering at the appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed.' The Canons of Hippolytus show that by the end of the second century there must have been a great development of ecclesiastical regulations, so far restraining the individual liberty of the earliest days, and that, as far as we know, without protest or sense of alarm. Nor need St. Paul have been in opposition to such church rules. The spirit of regulation is strong in him157. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the Church has not generally, one might say has hardly ever, been conscious, as St. Paul was, of the danger of religious regulations as such. It is so much easier to keep certain rules than to acquire and maintain a certain mind and spirit and principle of action. In the history of the Church St. Paul, we feel, would very often have been saying, 'I am afraid of you: the rules are good in themselves, but there are dangers attaching to all rules of which you seem to be quite unconscious. There is a lower sort of religion of forms and observances, and you may fall back into it as easily as the Galatians.'

But after all, rules for living religiously, private or ecclesiastical, are, we all know, invaluable, and practically necessary. A man or a church that should attempt to dispense with them would come to disaster. It is very difficult to fathom the depth of the mischief that has come about in the corporate social life of the Church of England, through the neglect of the surely moderate amount of regulation which was provided for us by the Prayer Book in the way of festival and fast days and of daily service. To keep a few simple, intelligible, religious rules all together gives almost as much as a common creed the feeling of social coherence. Even the extremest Paulinist need have no fear so long as the ecclesiastical regulations do not reach the point of becoming a burden – so long as no one could be in danger of priding himself on 'acquiring merit' by their mere observance; and so long also as the principle is kept clearly in view that 'the rules were made for man and not man for the rules.' But I do not think there can be any reasonable doubt that St. Paul would repudiate the idea that any rules of worship and observance, other than those which are necessarily involved in the administration of the sacraments, can obtain by prescription a right to permanence. 'They may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners.' They were made for man; and the Church or the churches – with due regard to mutual fellowship – can modify or abolish them.

3. 'Overthrow not for meat's sake the work of God.' 'It is good not to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth.' 'Wherefore, if meat maketh my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I make not my brother to stumble158.' Here is the right principle of 'total abstinence' which does not deny the legitimate use of what it yet permanently abandons for love's sake. St. Paul would have Timothy use a little wine when it was for his health's sake, but when health was not in question, he would have all men ask, not how much liberty in this or that is lawful for them, but how they can avoid causing offence – how they can do most good. This principle admits of application in many directions. For instance, it may be very hard to determine why certain minor forms of gambling are wrong, or whether they are positively wrong. But St. Paul would have the other question asked – Can it be denied that the best way to avoid leading my brother into one of the most common dangers of our time, is to keep altogether free from a habit which in any case can do no good to body or mind?

4. Here, as in x. 7, St. Paul touches upon the descent into Hades, and indicates the purpose of it. 'For this end Christ died, that He might be Lord of the dead.' It might have been imagined that the dim realms of the dead were outside the jurisdiction of Christ – that the dead have no king – that the kingdom of redemption does not include them. To obviate such an idea, to show the universality of His realm, Christ went down among the dead.

5. In many places of the New Testament there is mention of the thanksgiving before food – the Christian's 'saying grace.' Whether he eat flesh or vegetables he 'giveth God thanks159.' And the word used is the word which, in its substantive form, is 'eucharist.' And indeed there is meaning in this. The thankful reception by the Christian of the ordinary bread of his daily life as coming from God, touched his common meals with something of the glory of divine communion; and the eucharist in its turn is the common blessing and breaking of the bread, raised by the Holy Spirit to a higher power and consecrated to become the vehicle of the bread of life160.

DIVISION V. § 7. CHAPTER XV. 1-13.

Unselfish forbearance and inclusiveness

It was essential, as has been said, that men whose prejudices and instincts were different should live in the same church and eat at the same love feast. This would require a large-hearted and unselfish self-control. Formerly, as in Syria and Palestine, it was the Jews who occupied the position of vantage in the Christian communities, and were not disposed to tolerate the ways of the Gentiles. Now the tables are turned, and the Gentiles are in the majority. The danger is now that those whose instincts are Gentile should bear hardly upon the minority whose prejudices are more or less Jewish. Such St. Paul anticipates, or knows from Priscilla and Aquila, will be the danger among the Roman Christians. Formerly Judaic narrowness had been a formidable danger. It had developed a most perilous heresy, and St. Paul had dealt with it as a deadly poison. Now what remained of Jewish feeling was a weakness to be generously borne with. It affords St. Paul an opportunity of falling back on the general principle, that the measure of Christian strength and full-grown manhood is the readiness to bear the weaknesses of others.

To be told he must not use his normal liberty, must not eat his usual meal or drink his usual cup of wine, because it might scandalize some Christian with the ascetic prejudices of an Essene, or even induce him to do the same against his own conscience – to be told this was annoying to a man who held the 'strong' Christian conviction that all kinds of food were indifferently allowable. The weak scruple of his brother Christian had become an annoying burden of self-denial and self-restraint laid on himself. But this, St. Paul says, is how Christian strength – whether it be the moral strength of clear convictions, or any other sort of faculty161 – must show itself, in readiness to suffer on account of other people's deficiencies, in not resenting the restraints they lay on us, in not expecting to do as we please, but being ready to accommodate ourselves to our neighbour's tastes where it is for his good. That is what our great example did. Plainly His whole human life was putting Himself under the restraints which our weaknesses and narrownesses and slownesses laid on Him. The righteous man in the psalm complains that he has to bear all the reproaches of God which impatient and rebellious Israelites might utter; and that is the picture of Christ bearing our infirmities. (The reproaches which fell on Him were for the very largeness of His love; 'because He received sinners,' and because He received them on the Sabbaths as well as on other days. They were reproaches of God, like Jonah's, because He was too forbearing, too generous.)