A royal liberty is given to those who believe, but not all believers have the same understanding of how that liberty is applied. Dr. Sproul explains how believers should respond to our weaker brother and at the same time not allow that weaker brother to tyrannize the church.

Today, as we continue our study of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, we are going to begin a new chapter—chapter 14. We will read Romans 14:1–13. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written:

“As I live, says the Lord,
Every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.

This is the Word of the Lord, which comes from the mind of the Lord and is for the people of the Lord. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Father, again we turn to Your Word, that we might find the mind of Christ, that our natural minds of flesh may be transformed and conformed to His mind, and that we might love what He loves and hate what He hates. Give us now this mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Obedience in Small Matters

About forty years ago, I was visiting the home of the Old Testament scholar Meredith Kline, north of Boston, Massachusetts. After dinner, it was time for me to go home. Dr. Kline was going to drive me to my home, which was less than a mile away and in the same general development. It did not require that we go onto any major highways.

There was a torrential downpour, and the car was about one hundred yards from the house. I did not have an umbrella, and neither did he, so we dashed to the car and were drenched by the pouring rain. Meredith sat in the driver’s seat, turned on the ignition, then looked at me and said: “Oh, R.C., just a moment. I’ll be right back.”

Meredith let the car idle in neutral. He opened the door and dashed the hundred yards through the downpour. A moment later, he appeared at the front door of his home. He came back again, and by this time he was like a drowned rat. He sat back at the steering wheel, and I said, “What was that?” He said, “I forgot my driver’s license.”

I said: “What? You ran through the rain just to get your driver’s license? We’re only going down the street.” He said: “Well, it’s a small thing. But the Lord said if we can’t be faithful in little things, how can He trust us with the big things?”

As a matter of conscience, Meredith made an effort to be scrupulous, to submit himself to the civil magistrates. The law of the land was that he was required to have his driver’s license on his person when he drove a vehicle. So, without any fanfare or demonstration of piety, he ran for his driver’s license and did not reveal to me why until I interrogated him.

You may look at that and say: “Here’s a man that was caught in the bonds of legalism. Here’s a man that was majoring in minors, committing himself to the minutia of righteousness.” I do not think that was the case. Obedience to God in small matters is never a matter of legalism.

Distortions of Sanctification

Legalism is one of the most destructive distortions of Christianity that exists. In fact, there are two major distortions that block our sanctification. On the one hand, there is the spirit of antinomianism, which says that we are so free in Christ that we do not have to be concerned about obeying the law of God. Grace has delivered me from God’s law so that I can do as I please with impunity.

The other side of that heretical coin is legalism, which seeks to bind us where God has left us free and to impose minor matters as the test of true spirituality. You have likely encountered Christian groups who say that the essence of spirituality and righteousness is refraining from dancing, makeup, watching movies, and so on. The creed becomes “Touch not, taste not, handle not,” making these minor matters the test of righteousness instead of the fruit of the Spirit that God enjoins upon us in the Bible.

Both of these distortions can be destructive to the Christian life. Indeed, there is a royal liberty that Christ gives to His people. He has set them free from the curse of the law, and there is a freedom, as there was in the garden of Eden, to eat freely from all the trees in the garden except those that God has clearly determined we ought not to touch.

Then we encounter the problem, in the church and in the Christian life, that we do not all have the same scruples. There are some people who believe that dancing is a sin; there are others who do not believe it is a sin.

When I taught on the faculty of a particular college, I had a friend who came to be convinced that playing ping-pong was a sin because he became so addicted to it that he began to neglect his work and his family to look for a ping-pong game virtually every hour of the day. For him, ping-pong became a sin, but that did not mean we were to elevate to the whole campus a prohibition against playing ping-pong because ping-pong is somehow inherently evil.

Morally Neutral

There are things in the Word of God where God says, “No,” or “Yes.” But between those matters of law, there are a host of things that the New Testament describes as being matters adiaphorous. That may be a strange word to you. The word adiaphorous means “that which has no inherent ethical bearing.” It refers to things that are morally neutral, like ping-pong or eating meat. Yet, in the early Christian church, some people began to have scruples about matters that in and of themselves were adiaphorous.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we read that a scandal emerged among the Christians there over the issue of eating meat offered to idols. In the pagan idolatry of Corinth, people offered pieces of meat to their idols. Then, after the religious observation was over, that meat was sold in the marketplace for human consumption.

There were those among the Corinthians who wanted to distance themselves in every conceivable way from any conceivable act of idolatry. They said that, as a matter of conscience, they would never purchase meat that had been used in a pagan environment. They would never consume meat that had been so used.

Those who had scruples of conscience began to look down on their brothers who purchased the meat and consumed it freely, those who said: “This meat is meat. The idols don’t exist. That’s false religion. Now that they’re done and the meat is in the marketplace, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this meat. Let’s eat it.” They bought the meat that was for sale, and they consumed it without any pangs of conscience.

Suddenly, a rift in the church developed between those who refused to eat meat offered to idols and those who freely ate meat offered to idols. Paul had to mediate that internal dispute, which was similar to what was going on in the Roman community. Paul had to teach the people a lesson regarding their use of Christian liberty. Even though he taught it to both the Romans and to the Corinthians, it seems that there is not a generation that goes by in Christian history where that same lesson does not need to be learned afresh.

The Weaker Brother

Let us look at the beginning of chapter 14, which addresses this issue of Christian liberty with respect to the weaker brother. Notice that chapter 14 cannot be read in isolation from what came before it. The general context of the instructions Paul sets forth in chapter 14 is a continuation of his exposition of what it means to love your neighbor, what it means to have fellowship that is marked by agape, spiritual love.

Chapter 14 begins with this command: “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.”

Here is a biblical evaluation of vegetarianism. Notice that it is the philosophy of the weaker brother. Yet those in the early church who were vegetarians became convinced that was the only route to follow. In their eyes, the spiritual measure of a person was about refraining not only from meat offered to idols but from meat altogether. They thought that by that restraint they were moving to a higher level of spirituality. They believed they had a faith that was deeper and more devout than their brothers who ate meat.

The first thing we have to understand is that Paul describes the people who had this particular scruple as the “weaker brother” because they did not understand the fullness of the biblical concept of Christian liberty. They were still held captive to the elementary principles of taste not, touch not, handle not. They thought they were being devout when, in fact, they were being infantile and immature in their reasoning.

Receive Each Other

Paul said: “What do you do with the weaker brethren? Some people might say that we should ridicule and mock the weaker brethren. We should have nothing to do with the weaker brethren, who get caught up in these unusual scruples. No.” Paul says to the church, “Receive one who is weak in the faith . . . For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.”

The point Paul makes is that we are to receive each other when we differ on these matters of adiaphora. Paul is not saying that we should be cavalier about our brothers and sisters who have fallen into gross and heinous sin. The Apostle is not saying to receive with open arms those who live in defiance to the commandments of Christ. He is talking about issues that are indifferent, where people have come to a conviction that something is wrong when, inherently, it is not wrong. They have a misinformed understanding of what God allows and what God forbids.

The spirit here is that we are to accept and receive each other with this principle. Your weaker brother is still your brother, and your weaker brother has been received by God. He has been welcomed into the family of God. These disputes have become family matters. Just as God receives you by grace, you ought to receive your brother.

Remember that there is a love that covers a multitude of sins, and not only a multitude of sins but a multitude of weaknesses. It covers a multitude of misunderstandings, weak theology, and weak understandings. The one who is weak ought not to despise the one who manifests liberty. The one who manifests liberty ought not to despise the one who has unusual scruples of conscience.

Paul asks this question rhetorically: “Who are you to judge another’s servant?” Do you see the analogy from the marketplace? If you have a servant working in your house, you give certain responsibilities to your servant that you want to make sure are taken care of. On the other hand, your neighbor has a different agenda and different concerns for his servant, and does not care about some of the things that you care about. Who are you to stand in judgment over your neighbor’s servant? Your neighbor’s servant is to serve your neighbor, and your servant is to serve you. The point is that we are all servants of Christ. Who am I to despise one of Christ’s servants? If that servant is acceptable to Jesus, how can he not be acceptable to me? The analogy is simple.

Loving Sensitivity

Paul continues:

To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.

The weak brother has his scruple unto the Lord. The strong brother has his freedom unto the Lord.

“One person esteems one day over another.” Paul is not talking here about the Sabbath, but about certain holy days that were observed among the Jews. When Jewish people were converted to the Christian faith, some of them still hung on to the old traditions and observations. Even though the traditions were no longer enjoined upon the Christian community, some of them, as a matter of conscience, continued those practices. Paul said: “If they observe that day to the Lord, fine, let them observe the day to the Lord. If another person observes it to the Lord, let another person do that.”

This is simple—until something else happens. Recently, I was in a meeting. This man, who was on the board of trustees of a Christian institution, explained to me that as a member of that board he was not allowed to participate in the drinking of wine. I thought, “If he comes to Saint Andrew’s Chapel on Sunday morning during the Lord’s Supper, he would be happy that we have grape juice for someone bound by this particular scruple.”

This man said to me, “What do you think about that?” I said, “I think it’s ghastly.” He said, “Why?” I said: “Because that Christian institution has elevated a preference that they have and made it a law. They’ve legislated where God has left men free.” He replied, “Yes, but they’re concerned that we differ from the culture and that we not be involved in drunkenness,” and so on.

I said: “Do you realize that Jesus could not serve on the board of this institution? That not one of the Apostles would qualify for this institution? I appreciate their concern. They want to keep that institution unspotted from the world. But their position is one of weakness, and now they’ve made it law.”

Here is the principle, and I will expound this, God willing, next time and in the days to come. The classical understanding of Christian liberty is this: I am not to use my liberty to coerce my weaker brother. I am not to try to force someone who has a scruple against something—as uninformed as that scruple may be—into violating his or her own conscience.

The basic principle that unfolds here is one of loving sensitivity. If my brother believes that drinking wine is sin, I ought not to try to coax him into drinking a glass of wine. I would be enticing him to violate his own conscience. The violation of one’s conscience, even if it is a misinformed conscience, is a serious matter which, God willing, we will look at next time.

Oppose the Spirit of Arrogance

What does all of this mean? If the weaker brother has a scruple, should we stand back and allow the weaker brother to make it the law of the church? No, that is not what Paul is teaching in this text. Paul makes it clear in his teaching that although we are to be sensitive, loving, and kind to the weaker brother, we ought never allow him to exercise tyranny over the church. We see this in the Judaizing conflict that Paul had to deal with every day of his ministry.

We can talk about the question of circumcision. Paul tried to be “all things to all men” at the beginning of his ministry and, as a matter of indifference, Paul circumcised Timothy. But when the Judaizers became powerful and said that circumcision is not only optional for the Christian, but necessary, and everyone who is truly a Christian must be circumcised, Paul resisted them with the full force of his Apostleship and refused to circumcise even those who demanded it.

Do you see the difference? It was a matter of indifference. But when the weaker brothers—in this case the Judaizers—tried to make their weakness the law of the church, Paul said, “Don’t you dare,” and put an end to Christian tolerance on that point. It is a very thin line that we walk.

The weaker brother is not to destroy the freedom of those who are in the church. Even in the midst of freedom, if someone is still stumbling, we can forego our freedom for a time out of consideration for them and sensitivity to their weakness.

The spirit Paul was opposing here is the spirit of arrogance, which says, “I’m free and I’m going to exercise my freedom no matter what.” No. The stronger brother has to be willing to forego his freedom for the sake of the weaker. Yet the church must never allow the weaker brother to establish the laws for the whole Christian community.

We Are the Lord’s

This is the basic essence of what the Apostle sets forth in chapter 14 of Romans and chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians: We are to do what we do to the Lord. No one lives to himself. No one dies to himself. “If we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” They are the Lord’s. Paul continues:

For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written:

“As I live, says the Lord,
Every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.

Simple human kindness and consideration has to go both ways. Again, this concerns things that have no inherent goodness or evil associated with them. Paul is not saying, “If you want to be the weaker brother and be involved in adultery, you do your adultery unto the Lord, and I’ll do my piety and chastity unto the Lord.” No. There is no occasion where it is okay for the weaker brother to be involved in adultery or any violation of the law of God.

I remind you that these precepts have to do with that which is adiaphorous, those things such as the eating of meat, the drinking of wine, and the observing of days, that in and of themselves have nothing to do with the kingdom of God. The great danger is allowing these adiaphorous matters to become requirements for Christian spirituality, and even worse, the test for what is spiritual and righteous. That is what has happened again and again.

Judge Not

I will close with this illustration. Many years ago, I went out with a group of people for a dinner. The hostess was very gracious, and she was picking up the check. The waitress came into the room where we all were and said: “May I take your drink orders? Would anyone like a cocktail?” The woman who was hosting us interrupted her and said: “No, no, no. We’re Christians.”

I wanted to stand up and say, “I’ll have a cocktail, thank you.” I think that may be what Paul would have done in that situation, because what that woman did in her smug self-righteousness embarrassed the poor waitress, who was simply doing her job. Not only this, but if that waitress were not a Christian, she got a false message of what Christianity is. Christianity is not about eating and drinking.

We are not allowed to be drunk. We are not allowed to be gluttons. But in danger of gluttony we do not say, “Don’t eat,” and in danger of drunkenness we do not say, “Don’t drink.” This has become such an issue that people have fallen all over themselves to argue that Jesus never drank wine, saying things like: “When the Pharisees called Him a winebibber, they were just distorting. When the Bible said that He made the best wine, it really was not wine. It was unfermented.” That is a hopeless, torturous treatment of the biblical text. They come to the text with a cultural bias, convinced that total abstinence is the only spiritual, Christian way. We do not learn that from the Scriptures, from the Old Testament, or from the celebration of the Passover.

Anyone can do half an hour of word studies on the word wine in the Bible. You will see that it was the real thing that God sanctified and warned the people not to drink too much of, because drinking too much wine would get them drunk, and getting drunk was a sin. He did not give that warning against drunkenness to people drinking grape juice.

That is a discussion for another time. Even what I have just said to you, I know, is offensive to many people. But I only ask you to search the Scriptures. If you remain convinced that Jesus did not make real wine and that you can never drink real wine, then for heaven’s sake, do not ever let wine touch your lips, because for you it is a sin. But for your brother, it is not. Your brother ought not to judge you, and you ought not to judge your brother. This is one area where we can all get along. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, it is so hard for us not to exalt our own scruples as the touchstone of true righteousness. Where we are weak, teach us to be mature; where we are strong, teach us to be forbearing and gracious, that we might not judge another man’s servant. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.