Dos and Don'ts
Romans 14:13-15:6
We are in
Romans 14 and we are studying the issue of what's usually or often referred to
as "doubtful things" as it is translated in Romans 14:1. Actually the
Greek there is really talking there about things that relate to individual
opinions. This means you're talking about issues in life that are not
specifically defined or addressed by the Word of God. There are many different
things, as I pointed out last time, many different areas of life, usually
cultural applications that have been deemed sinful by different people,
different religious groups, different pastors, or different seminaries.
Usually we
think of things related to the use of alcohol, the use of tobacco and we also
see people who say you can't play cards and be a Christian, you can't go to
movies and be a Christian, you can't watch TV and be a Christian and in some
circles you can't do anything including watch sports on a Sunday afternoon.
They say that's violating what they think is the Sabbath. There are all kinds
of different taboos that have been developed over the years in terms of
Christianity. Christians don't do these things, they say.
I ran into this
in one of the most extreme ways in my experience in the very first church I
ever candidated at after I was out of seminary. It
was a Bible church in Opelousas, Louisiana. If you know anything about
Louisiana you know that Opelousas is right in the heart of Cajun country. It
was quite an interesting experience.
The parsonage
looked like it had been cobbled together from leftover parts from different
building projects. The master bedroom had four different patterns of wallpaper,
all of which clashed with the floral, flocked mirrored type wallpaper that was
in the master bathroom that you could see through the door. Carpet differed
from room to room. It looked like all the cabinetry was made from leftovers
from building mobile homes, high quality construction material. So that was
very interesting but that wasn't the most interesting part.
I went in to
interview with the pulpit committee. There were five men. If you remember
"Amos Moses" sung by Jerry Reed, there was a character in the song who had his left arm gone clean up to the elbow. He sat
right in front of me. His son was also a deacon and had to translate every
question into Cajun French and every answer into Cajun French, which kind of
slowed the process down. But that was very interesting.
The first
question was for me to explain my philosophy of ministry. The second question
was whether or not I would preach against smoking, drinking, and dancing. We
never got to the third question. There was an hour of debate over why in the
world they would want me to preach against smoking, drinking, and dancing. The
bottom line was, and you often find this among some Christians, that they
viewed their congregation as almost exclusively converts from the Roman
Catholic Church. Their experience with the Roman Catholic Church is that going
to church was just something you did on Sunday. The rest of the week it was
just pure antinomianism. All you had to do was go in and say a few "Hail
Mary's" and "Our Fathers" and you were good to go. That meant
there was no sense of any kind of accountability or moral absolutes within the
functional operation of Catholic Christianity in southern Louisiana so they had
reached a conclusion that if you were going to have a testimony as Biblical
Christians you couldn't do anything that the Catholics did. That meant the
pastor had to preach against smoking, dancing, and drinking continuously.
I didn't quite
come from that background. We didn't quite agree on those things, that smoking,
dancing, and drinking were inherently sinful, so therein we discovered a
conflict. It was a most unusual thing. I preached the next morning on Sunday
morning and walked back as is typical in traditional churches that the pastor
goes to the back door and shakes hands with everyone as they leave. Everybody
left. I've preached in a lot of churches in a lot of places and have never
except that one church, not been invited somewhere for lunch. When I turned
around I saw I was the only one left. I had no idea where to go to eat. It was
a very clannish place and there are places like that, still today.
There are
Christian groups like that who have set up a rigorous code of conduct. It may
be that the things they have in their code of conduct are not necessarily
wrong. The problem is it's not a Biblical code of conduct. They have come to
convictions that are not necessarily revealed or mandated in Scripture. Then,
this is where it's wrong. It's not wrong to come to convictions in the area of
these doubtful things. What's wrong is to come to convictions in your life in
the area of doubtful things and then want to impose that on everyone else
because God has not spoken with regard to these areas. We have to understand
that there's room for disagreement among believers about these things because
God has not specifically addressed them in His Word. They are neither moral nor
immoral. They are not spiritual absolutes.
Paul brings us
here to a discussion. He focuses on two categories of Christians. The weaker brother or immature believer and the stronger or mature
believer. As I pointed out last week, there's actually a third category,
not present in this particular passage but we clearly see evidence of this
third category in the gospels. This category is the legalist or the Pharisee.
The issue here is how are to live or how are we to deal with these doubtful
things when it affects a weaker brother, not a legalist. See we run into people
like I did in that church in Opelousas, Louisiana and their problem wasn't that
they were weaker but that they were legalists. They wanted to impose their do's and don'ts on everyone else.
The Bible
clearly has certain do's and don'ts and as we come to
the second half of chapter 14 there are a number of do's and don'ts that the apostle
Paul lists. Just by way of review let's talk about the three categories of
believers: the weaker brother, the mature brother, and the legalist. The weaker
brother and the mature brother are both characterized by humility. They seek to
put themselves under the authority of God's Word. That's the essence of
authority but the legalist is arrogant. He is imposing his moral standard as a
grid upon the Word of God.
The immature
believer is uncertain about what he should participate in. He asks, "Is
this good or bad?" He's heard some people say one thing and another say
something else but he hasn't had time to think it through for himself and some
of these areas may involve a violation of his own conscience. He may have been
brought up a certain way. The context here indicates that the division between
these two groups in the church in Rome was between those who were of a Jewish
background who had norms and standards of the Mosaic Laws and the dietary laws
and the observance of Shabbat and other feast days taught them and inculcated
in them as they grew up. Now they're surrounded by a Gentile culture. They've
become believers in Jesus as Messiah. When they go to a Gentile home suddenly
they're confronted with food that they would not have eaten before. Someone is wanting to serve them a BLT, or maybe some fried shrimp
or fried oysters. That doesn't fit their Levitical
diet so this is a problem for them.
If their
conscience says it's wrong, how are they to handle this? Often they might be
swayed into going ahead and eating. In one sense that wouldn't be wrong but
it's a violation of their conscience so it causes them to stumble in their
Christian life. So the weaker brother's uncertain because he hasn't had time to
study things through. The mature believer has studied the Word. He has
thoughtful convictions but he holds them with humility whereas the legalist has
thoughtfully come to his conclusions but he's holding them in arrogance and
seeking to impose them on others.
The weaker
brother is uninformed. He hasn't come to his position based on knowledge of the
Word. The mature believer has studied the Word of God. He's oriented to divine
viewpoint and he's open to correction, if he's wrong. That's because of his
humility. But the legalist is not open to correction. One of the men that I was
deeply influenced by early in my Christian life when I was a teenage who really
got me focused on the road to understanding the issue of creation and evolution
was a graduate of Bob Jones. We have at least one member of the congregation
who's a graduate of Bob Jones who's not legalistic but Bob Jones is sort of the
paradigm of the legalistic Christian university. They have all manners of rules
and regulations and he had brought this with him. He wouldn't let his kids
watch TV or go to movies and finally, as he spent about 15 years in a
grace-oriented environment, he actually broke down and allowed his wife to take
him to see "The Sound of Music". He thought that maybe not all movies
are bad. His humility finally began to develop.
Weaker brothers
are grace oriented as are mature believer but a legalist is not. He's
works-oriented. He's more concerned about a rigid code of conduct than truly understanding
the Word of God and not comfortable with the fact that there may be some things
you can do under certain circumstances but not under other circumstances. They
want everything spelled out. The weaker brother is easily influenced and this
may cause some problems for him. The mature believer and the legalist are not
easily influenced. The difference is that the legalist is one to easily take
offense. It's not that someone has intended to offend him but that he has
chosen to be offended by something that was done in innocence. We'll come back
and talk about that before we're done tonight.
There are five
principles that basically summarize the teaching in the first twelve verses of
chapter 14. First of all we have to distinguish between absolute commands in
Scripture and areas where there is no specific command. We have to distinguish
between these areas of absolutes and areas of freedom. The Scripture is very
clear. Galatians 6:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free." The apostle Paul clearly understood his freedom but he also
understood that under certain circumstances he was not to exercise his freedom.
So it's a self-limitation. Someone has once said that at times we have to say
others can do something but I can't because of my position as a leader or of
because of someone else that may be in the area, someone that I may wrongly
influence that are not ready to handle areas of freedom. This was the problem
that Paul deals with in both Romans 14 and the first part of Romans 15 and in 1
Corinthians 8.
Second, each
believer must investigate and think through his own convictions in areas of
freedom. If the Bible doesn't specifically address something then it's between
each believer and the Lord as to whether or not they are going to enjoy freedom
or participate in certain activities or not. Some of these are culturally
determined. They are cultural taboos. They are things that may be accepted in
some groups and not accepted in another. Part of this is just good manners and
being considerate of other people's beliefs even though they may be wrong or
you may think they're wrong. Each one of us must think through and investigate
these areas.
In Romans 14:5
Paul says, "One person esteems one day above another. Another esteems
every day alike." The issue there emphasizes that this is probably a
distinction between Jews and Gentiles in the Roman congregation. There were
Jews who were still observing the traditional, historical feast days. They
thought that was important. As we studied in Acts, we saw that Paul still held
a vow. We saw other things they did that Jewish believers did, not because they
felt it had a spiritual significance but because this was part of their
historical and cultural background. It was part of their upbringing as Jews.
They observed Shabbat. They observed Passover. They observed Pentecost. They
observed the feast days because that was part of their historical background
and it honored the Old Testament, not because it had spiritual value. Some
believed that they would continue to follow the dietary laws because that's
what they were comfortable with, not because it's going to make them more
spiritual.
On the other
hand, I've talked to at least two or three Jews who were raised Orthodox and
always ate Kosher and as soon as they became believers, the first thing they
did was go have a ham and cheese sandwich. They wanted to exercise that
freedom. We have to think through those convictions and come to our own
convictions.
Where it gets
into a problem is when we start imposing that on others. We do have liberty. 1
Corinthians 8:9 says, "But take care lest this
liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak." Paul isn't
saying you don't have the liberty to do "x, y or z". He's saying
there needs to be maturity involved as to where and when it is exercised so
that it doesn't become a problem for a weak, immature believer. We have rights.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:4 and following, "Do we not have a right to
eat and drink, do we have no right to take along a believing wife…" That
was causing a problem. Paul was single and when he would go to these churches
and teach he would try to support himself through his tent making endeavor and
start a local business to support himself. But the other apostles would bring
along their wives and their families and expect the local church to support
them. Paul was saying that neither is right or wrong. This is a gray area. This
is a doubtful thing. This is a matter of opinion.
Just as today
you have some pastors and some ministries who charge for tapes. There's nothing
in the Bible that says you can't charge for the teaching of the Word of God in
order to have the financial resources to support the ministry. There have been
many pastors and many ministries that choose that path. There's nothing in the
Bible that prohibits it. You also have others who say they're not going to
charge for anything but trust the Lord to provide and individual believers to
support the ministry. These are individual decisions.
Paul made the same
kind of decision. He chose to remain single and not to become a financial
burden to the congregation but he doesn't say the other apostles are wrong
because they brought their families along and expect the church to support
them. Both, he said, are legitimate. It's just a matter of personal choice. So
that's what 1 Corinthians 9:4-6 is teaching. In 1 Corinthians 10:23 and 29,
Paul says, "All things are lawful for me but not all things are
helpful." So just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it
and even if we should do something it doesn't mean we should always exercise
that freedom. Point number 3 is that in areas of freedom we must allow others
the freedom to hold different convictions as firmly as you hold to your
convictions and be comfortable with that and not impose your views on them or
their conclusion because this is an area of personal opinion, not an area of
direct revelation.
Fourth, we must
exercise our freedom in love for other believers, being willing at times to
restrict legitimate behavior when it might cause a spiritual problem for an
immature believer. I want you to notice that it's not because it might cause a
spiritual problem for a legalistic believer. Jesus never modified his behavior
because the Pharisees would take offense at it. What we see is that Paul is
saying to modify your behavior if it will cause an immature believer to have a
problem, not a legalistic believer. A legalistic believer is not an immature
believer. There's clearly a distinction in Scripture. This is definitely the
part of the nature of what it means to love one another and to serve one
another through our own decisions. We capitalize on our freedom when we can,
and we limit it when necessary. That term "when necessary" is very
important.
Fifth, our
pattern is Christ. On the one hand, Christ demonstrates perfect love but on the
other hand, He doesn't restrict behavior based on the legalistic and wrong
standards of others. What we saw last time is that there are four things that
characterize the weak believer. He's weak in faith, he doesn't understand the
Word, but here it has to do not only with its content but he's not sure what to
believe. He may think for a minute that it's okay to eat non-kosher or treif food but then his conscience bothers him. So he's
weak in faith. He's weak in knowledge because he hasn't been under the teaching
of the Word long enough to truly understand what the new principles are for the
believer in this new age.
This is what
Paul pointed out in 1 Corinthians 8:4 and 7, "Therefore concerning the
eating of things offered to idol, we know that an idol is nothing in the
world." But someone who's brought up in idolatry may still have the norms
and standards in their conscience informed by thinking there's really something
there. The superstition and the religion and the mysticism is so bred into him
by his training that when he would go to the situations in 1 Corinthians which
is going to the temple and eat at the restaurant there which was basically
serving meat that had been sacrificed to idols, it would bother him. For him,
he can't separate the two in his thinking so by going and participating in the
restaurant there and eating that, it pulls him back into thinking as he did in
his former life as an idolater. So that causes him to stumble. He needs to come
to a firm conviction but he doesn't have that knowledge yet so he falters he
stumbles in his spiritual growth.
A weaker
brother is also weak in conscience. This seems to be a difficult thing for us
to understand. The conscience is the location of the norms and standards in the
soul. So you have an area of your soul that tells you what is right and what is
wrong. When you do something that is wrong your conscience sends up a flare to
warn you that you are on the verge of being out of bounds. The conscience
functions like a traffic cop. Now if the traffic cop is wrong, it's wrong
because the norms and standards are wrong. Even if the traffic cop is wrong and
you disobey the traffic cop you've still broken the law because you've violated
the respect for the cop.
What happens is
that if you set up in your soul a pattern of violating the authority of your
conscience, even if you or I might not think it's a Biblical standard, you're
setting a precedent of rationalization and disrespect for your conscience.
That, in turn, will cause problems down the road in your spiritual life because
you start training yourself that it's okay to tell it to go away and not to
bother you. Whether that standard is right or wrong what Paul is saying is that
it's wrong to violate your conscience. This is a foundation for what he is
saying here. 1 Corinthians 8:12, "When you thus sin against the brethren
and wound their weak conscience you sin against Christ."
It's really
easy for people to get impatient with weaker brethren who haven't quite figured
it out yet but that's the nature of being a child and an immature believer. You
haven't figured it out yet and sometimes it takes time. So in terms of defining
weakness we would say the weaker brother is a believer in Christ who because of
his weakness in faith, knowledge, conscience, and will can be easily influenced
to violate his conscience by the example of a differing mature believer. He's
going to go along with something, eating meat that's been sacrificed to idols
or not observing the holy days, the Shabbat or whatever, and he doesn't have a
conviction for that in his own soul so he's violating his own conscience which
puts the mature believer in the position of causing spiritual failure and promoting
spiritual failure in the life of the weaker brother.
In contrast,
the stronger brother is a believer who understands his freedom in Christ. He
understands the principles of grace. He understands the doctrines related to the
Christian life in the area of essentials and non-essentials so he exercises his
liberty with a peaceful conscience without attempting to impose his views on
others and is willing to limit his freedom, when necessary, for the benefit of
the weaker believer. That term "when necessary" is so important
because you can be with one group one day and you know that if you're with that
group and even though you'd like to have a glass of wine, you're not going to
have a glass of wine. If they don't think Christians should play cards or they
haven't figured things out yet about any number of areas, you're not going to
make an issue out of that because it would just be a distraction. Instead,
you're going to willingly limit your freedom in that particular area.
I had a
situation occur some years ago when I was involved with a ministry with some
black pastors out in southern California. I was invited out to dinner with two
or three pastors and Wayne House was with me. We both ordered a glass of wine
and one of those pastors, a black Baptist pastor, really got his panties in a
wad over that. Not there, but later on the rumors came back to me how offended
he was. See, that's the legalist. This guy wasn't stumbling. We weren't going
to cause him to drink a glass of wine or to do something that violated his
conscience but he was imposing his views upon us. If we had been aware of his
beliefs then we would not have done something to create that problem. That's
how the stronger or mature believer acts. He's willing to limit his freedom for
the benefit of others.
When we talk
about the conscience it's the place where the norms and standards are located
in the soul. As unbelievers we fill up our conscience with a lot of standards
which may not be Biblical. Those standards don't change just because you trust
in Christ. You have to have your conscience educated on the basis of Scripture.
Many norms and standards which are ingrained in the
conscience of an unbeliever are Biblically false, but that conscience is
still his traffic cop.
The fact that
an unbeliever has these absolutes in his soul is used by Paul to indicate the
existence of God in Romans 2. An unbeliever knows there are absolutes, even
though his absolutes are wrong the fact that he knows there are absolute rights
and absolute wrongs is evidence of a creator who has made him in God's image.
Part of His imageness is that he has these standards
of right and wrong.
Now a weak
conscience is one that has norms and standards that aren't derived from the
Bible but the person who has a weak conscience hasn't quite figured out how to
redirect his conscience and how to re-educate his norms and standards.
Therefore when someone with a weak conscience finds a rationalization
which goes against his conscience without Biblical support, he then sets
a precedent for violating correct norms later on. If you're violating your
conscience even if it's wrong you set a precedent for violating it later on.
In Romans 14:12
it says, "So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God."
The bottom line is that we're accountable to God, not to each other in these
areas so we're not to be spiritual policemen running around imposing our
convictions in these areas of doubtful things or these areas of personal
opinion on each other. We have to learn what is clearly stated from Scripture
and what is not.
In the next
section, Romans 14:14-15:4, Paul lists various dos and don'ts. I thought that
the way I would address this rather than going to technically address it verse
by verse I would just summarize this by going through the various things we're
supposed to do and the things we're not supposed to do. Actually I'm going to
go through the things we're not supposed to do first. First of all he says
we're not to put a stumbling block in the path of a growing but weaker
believer. We're not to do something that would cause him to violate his
conscience because of a lack of understanding or a lack of knowledge on his
part. We need to develop a sensitivity there.
In Romans 14:13
we read, "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." The problem here was that out of arrogance the stronger believers
were judging the weaker believers and saying, "They just won't grow
up." They were not understanding the fact that
maturity isn't a rapid process. It takes time to learn and to study so they
were judging one another. The weaker brothers were sometimes judging the mature
believers.
When I finish this
I want to talk about what it means to put a stumbling block in another's way.
It is to create a trap they fall into that causes them to injure themselves as
it were spiritually. I always liked Dr. Ryrie's comment that when you talk
about something like this that in order to cause someone to stumble they have
to be moving. There are a lot of Christians who aren't moving. They just want
to be critical and tell other believers what they can and can't do. So this is
clearly dealing with a young immature believer who is trying to go forward.
Second, we're
not to destroy them with food. Romans 14:15 says,
"Yet if your brother is grieved [upset] because of your food, you are no
longer walking in love." If you are eating what he thinks you shouldn't be
eating then you're creating a problem. You go out to eat and you know this is
someone who is weak and doesn't understand the issues and they don't believe
you should eat pork and you order a BLT then you're just creating a problem. You're not being
sensitive to the situation. Romans 14:15 continues: "Do not destroy with
your food the one for whom Christ died." This is a brother in Christ.
You're to help them, not hinder them.
Third, don't
let your good thing become evil. See, enjoying your liberty isn't a bad thing.
It's a good thing, Paul says, but if you're doing it in a certain context where
it hurts another believer it's not a good thing. It's not someone who goes out
to eat and they have a glass of wine and then there's someone who watches them
around the corner and says, "Oh, I saw so-and-so having a glass of wine.
I'm going to go have some." Then they go out and they get drunk. This is
not that kind of situation. It's talking about the fact that you're both
sitting down together and you are personally engaged with the weaker brother
where you are. You might even go so far as to order a glass of wine for them
knowing that would be a problem or they have certain restrictions on their diet
for what they believe are spiritual reasons and you want to go ahead and force
the issue and so you order them a ham sandwich. That's how you create that
stumbling block. It's not that someone just passes by and observes you enjoying
your freedom. You can go too far with some of these examples. Paul says in
Romans 14:16, "Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil but be
willing to limit it."
Fourth, don't
tear down God's work. God is at work building and maturing the immature
believer and you shouldn't create a problem in the process. Romans 14:20,
"Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. " No matter how
wonderful you may think it is to eat lobster and shrimp and oysters and to eat
pork and pork sausage and ham sandwiches and bacon, it's not worth it to cause
a problem in someone else's spiritual life. As Paul said in verse 17 that
eating and drinking are not relevant to the kingdom of God. We'll have to come
back and look at that before we're done.
Fifth, he says
not to give offense. Romans 14:20, "Do not destroy the work of God for the
sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats
with offense." So if it offends him and he violates his conscience you
have aided and abetted him in his sin.
Sixth, don't
cause a brother to stumble. Romans 14:21, "It's good neither to eat meat
nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or
is made weak." We have to maintain that distinction.
Seventh, don't
do things just to please yourself without regard for
others. Romans 15:1, "We then who are strong ought to bear with the
scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves." That word
"bear" means to carry something. I think it comes across a little
better if we were to say, "We who are strong ought to put up with the
scruples of the weak and not just to please ourselves." Too often mature
believers might just get impatient with the immature believer.
In terms of the
dos, what are we supposed to do? First of all we're to walk according to love.
Romans 14:15, "Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you
are no longer walking in love." We're to make sure that what we're doing
is best for the person we are with at the time. Second, we are to serve Christ.
Romans 14:18 "For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to
God and approved by men." So we are to serve Christ and that means loving
one another and being sensitive to their spiritual condition.
Third, we're to
pursue peace. Romans 14:19, "Therefore let us pursue the things which make
for peace and the things by which one may edify another." This is clearly
stated in several other passages in the Scriptures that we are to pursue peace
with others. So the question we should ask is, "Does this action of mine
edify and is it going to maintain peace or harmony in our relationship?"
Fourth, we're
to build up one another. Again this concept is that we're to focus on edifying
one and building one another up. Fifth, Paul says we're to put up with the
weaknesses of the weak. We're to bear those weaknesses. That's a limitation for
now but as they grow and mature, it won't be in the future. Sixth, we're to
please our neighbor for his good. Paul says in Romans 15:2, "Let each of
us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification." So that
becomes the standards. We are to help them along the road to maturity and not
create roadblocks or speed bumps.
Seventh, we are
to edify the weaker brother. We can do this through conversation. We can do
this through encouraging them to read through certain material or to listen to
certain lessons so they can come to convictions on their own and grow to
maturity.
So having said
all that, let's go back and look at a couple of passages that seem to be
problems for some people. Romans 14:17 is one of those
passages that comes along in the New Testament every now and then and someone
says, "Oh, you teach that the kingdom of God is future. That
it's not today. Well, it seems like this verse is saying that the
kingdom of God is present because it's a present tense verb." Paul is
writing here that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
There are a
couple of things we need to understand anytime we're talking about the kingdom
of God. First of all we need to understand that a kingdom is
characterized by three things. A kingdom requires a king. The king needs
to be present. A kingdom requires a domain and a kingdom requires a people. Now
what kingdom are we talking about when we're talking about the kingdom of God?
When we go back
to the Old Testament we realize there was the prophecy from the prophets that
God would bring a kingdom upon the earth in the future that would be centered around Israel. The king of that kingdom was to be the
Messiah who was a human descendant of David and that this Messiah would rule
over a domain in the land that God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never
changes those terms. The king will rule from the throne of David in Jerusalem
over the descendants of Jews, specifically Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All
through the Old Testament until you get to the end in Malachi this is the
understanding of the kingdom.
When the New
Testament begins in the Gospels, John the Baptist shows up on the scene and
says: "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand." He never redefines
the term kingdom. It is what they were taught to expect in the Old Testament,
and this is what is announced by John the Baptist.
When Jesus begins His ministry He says the same thing, "Repent for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand." When he sent his disciples out, he sent
them not to the Gentiles but to the house of Israel and the house of Judah with
the message that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. All of these are assuming
the same thing for the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God; those terms are
used interchangeably. It was expected to be what the Old Testament predicted, a
literal geophysical kingdom on the earth.
That kingdom
does not exist until Jesus returns from heaven to the earth to establish His rule
on the earth. This is a fundamental concept so when we come to a verse like
this that may be a little difficult to understand for some. We have to
understand that under the laws of interpretation and hermeneutics, the
terminology must be defined in an obscure passage by the clear passages that
are governed by all the other passages in the New Testament. So the kingdom of
God must be a reference to this same geo-political kingdom promised and
prophesied in the Old Testament that is going to be established.
It won't be
established until Jesus returns at the end of the Tribulational
period to establish His kingdom on the earth. This will only take place at the
end of the Tribulation. In amillennialism Jesus is
now serving as king over a spiritual kingdom. Covenant theology redefines the
literal kingdom promised to the Jews in the New Testament as a spiritual
kingdom because the Jews rejected Jesus, God rejected them. This is part of
replacement theology. They believe that God rejects Israel and replaces them
with the so
that the literal promises of a literal land and a literal king and a literal
throne in the Old Testament are no longer literal. They are now spiritual and
Jesus is now sitting on the spiritual throne of David in the heavens and He is
now ruling over a spiritual kingdom, which they say is the ,
the body of Christ today.
In amillennialism, which means no millennium, no literal
thousand-year rule on the earth, they say there's no future kingdom. We're in
it right now. It is a spiritual kingdom now because the Jews rejected Jesus but
to get to their beliefs you have to quit interpreting the Bible on a literal,
historical, grammatical basis. You have to interpret the Bible according to a
spiritual allegorical sense of the Scripture.
The second
point we have to recognize is that Jesus is not now reigning as king. He is not
referred to as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords until He receives the
kingdom. He is not that now. He hasn't been given the kingdom yet. Let's see
how that is shown from Scripture. In Revelation 17:14 that's the first time
he's called King of kings and Lord of lords. This is right before the battle of
Armageddon as He is coming to establish His kingdom. Revelation 19:16 is in the context of His coming at the time of the battle of
Armageddon when He comes to establish His kingship.
We understand
when He receives His kingdom based on Daniel 7:13-14. Jesus as the Son of Man
who is being described in this passage, one of two figures described here in
Daniel, the Ancient of Days, which is God the Father, and the Son of Man. The
Ancient of Days gives the kingdom to the Son of Man. Daniel is looking at these
visions in Daniel 7 where he sees the vision of the future kingdoms of man, the
kingdom of Babylon, the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, the Greek
kingdom, and the Roman kingdom. Then all of the kingdoms of
man are destroyed by the Son of Man, who comes to establish His kingdom on the
earth.
As Daniel
concludes what he saw in his vision he says in Daniel 7:13, "I was
watching in the night visions and behold, one like the Son of Man [emphasizing
the humanity of the Messiah] coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the
Ancient of Days and they brought Him near before Him." This is the Son of
Man being brought before the throne of the Ancient of Days. Key word at the
beginning of Daniel 7:14, "Then, at that time, to Him [the Son of Man] was
given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting kingdom that shall not pass
away and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed."
Jesus right now
is not receiving the kingdom. He is sitting at the right hand of God the
Father. In Revelation 3:21 John writes what Jesus says, "To Him who overcomes,
[that is the believer who perseveres in the Christian life to maturity], I will
grant to sit with me on my throne [that's in the future] as I also overcame [in
the 1st Advent] and sat down with My Father on His throne". The
only person sitting on a throne in Revelation until you get to Revelation 20 is
the Father. All through this period, up until the Father gives the Son the
kingdom, the Son is sitting on the Father's throne, which is that last line in
the verse.
What Jesus is
saying is that in the future when He comes in His kingdom He will grant church
age believers the right to sit with Him on His throne which is in the future
just as in the past when He ascended to Heaven He sat on the Father's throne on
His right hand. So this is talking about a future event saying that Jesus is
not now sitting on a throne that is His. He's sitting on the Father's throne.
This is all
future so when Paul writes this he's telling us as believers not to get all
caught up in debates over what you need to eat and what you drink and what days
of the week you should observe, if any. He's saying that's not an issue in
relation to the kingdom of God. What is an issue in relation to our future
destiny in the kingdom of God is our development of experiential righteousness
in terms of spiritual maturity, which is also related to peace in terms of
peace within the body of Christ. As he states in this context we are to pursue
the things which make for peace, which edify one
another and joy in the Holy Spirit. When we are walking in fellowship we
experience the joy and the happiness of God, the Holy Spirit.
Therefore,
verse 17 doesn't have anything to do with a present form of the kingdom or with
a spiritual part of the kingdom. I really emphasize this because there are some
folks in this congregation and some folks related to you who have been going to
one or two formerly doctrinally sound churches who have been hearing this kind
of preterism and "already not yet" view of
the kingdom and these distortions that come out ultimately of a replacement
form of theology. There have been wolves in sheep's clothing who
have taken over the pulpits in some of these churches and caused problems. Now
they're not directly affecting us as a congregation, except for the fact that
we have family members who are very concerned about their parents or children
who have been involved in those congregations and haven't had the doctrinal
discernment to realize what has happened to them, and they haven't left those
congregations.
In Romans 14:21
Paul says, "It's good neither to eat meat or drink wine nor do anything by
which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak." The idea here
is that stumble is the word proskopto, which means to strike something or to hit someone
with something in order to cause them to fall down.
Then the word offended is the word skandalizo, the noun
meaning to set a trap for someone. It's sometimes translated to become
offended. It's used both actively and passively but we see it in the passive
sense in relation to the Pharisees who were offended when they heard Jesus.
Jesus didn't
offend them. Jesus taught the truth. But they didn't like it and reacted to it
and took offense. That's what I was pointing out last week. We live in a
culture today in which all kinds of subgroups are taking offense when no
offense is intended. Now I totally recognize that there are people in this
culture who are racists and have all kind of problems and are offensive. But in
many cases what you have is minority groups who take offense when no offense is
intended. We've lost our sense of humor. We've lost our sense of lightness and
being able to joke with each other.
When I used to
work with a lot of black pastors and black groups they used to joke but I
couldn't joke back with them. They would call me various names I won't say, but
it was all meant to be done in fun. But if I had said
those same things to them they would have taken offense. It was clearly a
one-way road. It was quite interesting but I'm not going to say some of the
things they used to call me. We had a lot of fun with it but I was always
careful to realize it had to be a one-way road. If I reversed on that they
would take offense. That's a problem we have today culturally. We take offense
instead of just treating one another with grace and love.
In Romans
14:22, Paul says, "Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God.
Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves." So you need
to just go along with your conscience. If you violate your conscience it's still
going to cause you problems when you ignore the traffic cop as it were. You're
still going to get ticketed in your soul, as it were. "But the one who
doubts is condemned if he eats." He's not condemned because he's doing
something wrong by eating. He's condemned because by eating he's violating a
norm or standard, even though it's not wrong, in his soul.
This is where
Paul says, "For whatever is not from faith is sin." He goes on to say
in Romans 15:1, "We, then, who are strong or mature ought to put up with
the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves." Don't be
self-absorbed in the process. The word there for "bearing with" is
the word baptazo and I think the best idea there is that you put up with
it because they're immature. Just like you put up with the silliness of the
children because you know they'll grow up and learn better. You know the weak
are powerless. This is the word adunatos. They're unable to do something. They're powerless
because they're immature.
Then in Romans
15:2 Paul says, "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good leading
to his edification." We're not to focus on us. It's not self-absorption.
We're to focus on the maturity and spiritual growth of others. Why? Because our model is Christ. Christ did not come to this
earth to do what gave Him pleasure. Did He have joy? Did He have pleasure?
Sure, but that wasn't His focal point. Then there's a quote from Psalm 69:9
which says, "The reproaches of those who reproach you fell on Me." This is taken from a psalm and is applied to
Jesus who is taking the reproaches of God upon Himself. He was reviled. He was
hated. He was abused but He didn't seek His own personal pleasure over his
service to God. In the same way we're not supposed to seek our personal
pleasure over serving one another and serving Christ.
We have the
conclusion of this section in Romans 15:4-6, "For whatever things were
written before were written for our learning that we through the patience and
comfort of the Scripture might have hope." So when Paul wrote this he was
talking about the Old Testament. So when we finish Romans in the next month
we're going to go back to the Old Testament. We're going to go back to 1 Samuel
and 2 Samuel, a wonderful period in the Old Testament which
has a lot to teach us.
The first part
of 1 Samuel deals with the judges and their moral relativism, which is very
applicable to our period today. They had a false solution to that. They wanted
a monarchy on their terms and this also has application for us. They sought a
political solution without a spiritual reality. Then of course 1 Samuel ends
with God providing the true solution through the type of the Messiah who was
David. According to Paul, there's a lot for us as church age believers to learn
from a study of the Old Testament. Paul concludes in Romans 15:5-6, "Now
may the God of patience and comfort…" Notice how he emphasizes these two
qualities of God. Patience. As mature believers we have to be patient with some
of the wrongheaded notions of immature believers. He emphasizes the patience of
God. Just as God has been patient with us we need to be patient with others.
"Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be likeminded toward
one another according to Christ Jesus." The emphasis here is on unity
based on the truth of Scripture. Christ is the standard. Not us. Not our
opinions no matter how well grounded they might be. This is so there would be
unity in the body of Christ and there would no division over non-essentials.
Paul clearly
teaches elsewhere that there should be divisions over essentials but where
they're non-essentials, we need to set those aside as not being relevant and
focus on serving the Lord and glorifying the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Next time we'll come back and go into the remaining part of Romans 15.
We're very close to the end because most of Romans 16 is Paul giving various
greetings to people in Rome. We are very close to finishing a study of Romans
after almost four years. Probably by October we will be in 1 Samuel.