Homily 26 — Romans 14, verses 14 to 23

“I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean in itself; but to the one who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” [a]

After first rebuking the one who judges his brother, and moving him to give up this reproaching, Paul now explains himself more fully on the point of teaching. He instructs the weaker sort in a calm, dispassionate tone, and here too he shows a great deal of gentleness. He does not say that the weaker man will be punished, or anything of the kind. He simply relieves him of his fears in the matter, and he does it so that the man will be more easily persuaded by what he tells him. So he says, “I know, and am persuaded.”

Then, to keep any of those who did not trust him from saying, “And what is it to us that you are persuaded? You are no trustworthy witness to be set up against so great a law, and against oracles brought down from above!” he goes on, “in the Lord.” That is: as one who has learned it from him, as one who has his confidence from him. So the judgment is not a matter of human opinion. What is it, then, that you are persuaded of and know? Tell us. “That there is nothing unclean in itself.” By nature, he says, nothing is unclean; it becomes so through the frame of mind in which a man uses it. So it becomes unclean to that man alone, and not to everyone. “For to the one who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”

“What then? Why not correct your brother, so that he will not think it unclean? Why not use your full authority to call him away from this habit of mind and this way of seeing things, so that he never again treats it as common?” My reason, he says, is this: “I am afraid of grieving him.”

That is why he goes on. Verse 15: “But if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love.” [d]

You see how far he goes, for the present, in his affection for the weaker man. He shows that he values him so highly that, rather than grieve him, he does not venture to insist even on things of great urgency. He would rather draw him to himself by giving way, and by love. Even after he has freed him of his fears, he does not drag him along or force him, but leaves him his own master. For keeping a person from certain foods is nothing so serious as overwhelming him with grief.

You see how strongly he insists on love. That is because he knows it can do everything. And on this ground he makes a somewhat larger demand of them. So far, he says, from its being right for them to distress you at all, they ought, if need be, not to hesitate even to stoop to meet you. That is why he goes on to say, “Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died.”

Or do you not value your brother enough to buy his salvation even at the price of going without certain foods? Christ did not refuse to become a slave, or even to die for him; yet you will not even look down on food so that you may save him. And for all that, Christ was not going to win everyone; still he died for all, and so fulfilled his own part. But you know that by food you are overthrowing him in the more important matters — and still you go on arguing? The one who is the object of such care to Christ — do you think him so contemptible? Do you dishonor one whom he loves? He died not only for the weak, but even for an enemy; and will you not give up even foods for the sake of one who is weak? Christ did the very greatest thing; you will not do even the lesser. And he was the Master; you are a brother. These words, then, were enough to silence the man. They show him to be small-souled: after receiving the benefit of great things from God, he will not give even little things in return.

Verses 16 and 17: “So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink.” [f]

By their “good” he means here either their faith, or the hope of rewards hereafter, or the perfection of their religious life. It is not only that you fail to help your brother, he means; you cause the teaching itself, and the grace of God, and his gift, to be spoken of as evil. When you fight, when you quarrel, when you make trouble, when you split the church, when you reproach your brother and keep him at a distance, those outside will speak evil of you. So far from any good coming of this, the very opposite is the result. For your good is love, affection for your brothers, being united, being bound together, living at peace, living with consideration.

Again, to put an end to the one man’s fears and the other’s quarrelsomeness, he says, “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink.” Is it by these things, he means, that we are to be approved? As he says in another passage too, “If we eat, we are none the better; and if we do not eat, we are none the worse.” He needs no proof here, but is content simply to state it. What he is saying is this: If you eat, does that bring you into the kingdom? And that is why, to mock them for being so very pleased with themselves over this, he said not only “food” but “drink” as well. What, then, are the things that do bring us there?

“Righteousness, and peace, and joy”: a virtuous life, and peace with our brothers — which this quarrelsomeness opposes — and the joy that comes from oneness of mind, which this rebuking puts an end to. He said this not to one party only but to both of them, since it was a fitting time to say it to both. Then, since he had mentioned peace and joy, and there is a peace and a joy over bad actions too, he adds, “in the Holy Spirit.” For the man who ruins his brother has at once overturned peace and wronged joy, and more seriously than a man who plunders money. And what is worse, Another saved him, and you are wronging and ruining him. Since, then, eating and this supposed perfection do not bring in these virtues, but do bring in the things that overturn them, how can it be anything but right to make light of little things in order to make great ones firm? [g]

Then, since this rebuking came in some degree from empty glory, he goes on. Verse 18: “For the one who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by people.”

For they will not admire you so much for your perfection as everyone will admire you for peace and friendship. This is a good that everyone will share the benefit of; but from that other, not a single person will. [h]

Verse 19: “So let us pursue the things that make for peace, and the things by which we may build one another up.”

The first applies to the one man, that he may become peaceable; and the second applies to the other as well, that he may not destroy his brother. Yet by saying “one another,” he has again made both apply to each of them, and has shown that without peace it is not easy to build up.

Verse 20: “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.”

He gives this name to the salvation of a brother. He greatly adds to their fear, and shows that the man is doing the opposite of what he wants. You, he says, are so far from building up, as you intend, that you are actually tearing down — and tearing down a building that is not man’s but God’s, and not for any great end either, but for a trivial thing. For it was “for the sake of food,” he says. Then, so that so many concessions would not confirm the weaker brother in his mistaken idea, he turns again to teaching, as follows: “All things indeed are pure, but it is wrong for the man who eats and stumbles over it.”

That is, the one who eats with a bad conscience. So if you were to force him, and he ate, nothing would be gained. For it is not the eating that makes a man unclean, but the intention with which he eats. If you do not set that right, you have done everything for nothing and made things worse; for thinking a thing unclean is not so bad as tasting it while one thinks it unclean. Here, then, you are committing two errors: one by strengthening his false belief through your quarrelsomeness, and another by getting him to taste what is unclean. So as long as you have not persuaded him, do not force him. [j]

Verse 21: “It is good neither to eat meat, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything by which your brother stumbles, or is tripped up, or is made weak.”

Again he asks for the more demanding course: that they should not only not force him, but even stoop to meet him. He often did this himself as well, as when he circumcised (Acts 16, verse 3), when he had his head shaved (Acts 18, verse 18), and when he offered that Jewish sacrifice (Acts 21, verse 26). And he does not say to the man, “Do this,” but puts it in the form of a general saying, so as not to make the other, the weaker man, careless again. And what does he say? “It is good not to eat meat.” And why do I say meat? he means. If it is wine, or anything else of the kind besides, that causes stumbling, refrain from it. For nothing is so important as your brother’s salvation. Christ shows us this, since he came from heaven and suffered all that he went through for our sakes.

And please notice how he presses the point home on the other man too, by the words “stumbles, or is tripped up, or is made weak.” Do not tell me, he means, that the man is like this without reason; the point is that you have the power to set it right. For the other has a sufficient claim to be helped in his weakness, and to you this would be no loss, since it is not a case of hypocrisy (Galatians 2, verse 13), but of building up and of acting to meet the situation. If you force him, he is ruined at once; he will condemn you, and dig himself in all the more in not eating. But if you stoop to meet him, he will love you, and will not be suspicious of you as a teacher, and afterward you will gain the power to sow the right views in him without his noticing. But once he hates you, you have shut the door on your reasoning.

So do not compel him; rather, refrain yourself for his sake — not refraining from it as unclean, but because he stumbles over it — and he will love you all the more. This is Paul’s advice too, when he says, “It is good not to eat meat”: not because it was unclean, but because the brother stumbles and is weak.

Verse 22: “Do you have faith? Keep it to yourself.” [m]

Here he seems to me to be giving the more advanced a gentle warning about empty glory. What he says is this: Do you want to show me that you are perfect and fully equipped? Do not show it to me; let your conscience be enough. By faith he means here not the faith that concerns doctrines, but the faith that concerns the matter in hand. For of the first it is said, “With the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Romans 10, verse 10), and, “Whoever denies me before people, him I will also deny” (Luke 9, verse 26). The first ruins us by not being confessed; this one ruins us by being confessed at the wrong time.

“Happy is the one who does not condemn himself in what he approves.” Again he strikes at the weaker man, and gives the stronger a sufficient crown: that of his own conscience. Even if no one sees, he means, you are able to be happy in yourself. After saying, “Keep it to yourself,” so that the man would not think this a court of little account, he tells him that it is better for him than the whole world. Even if everyone accuses you, if you do not condemn yourself, and your conscience lays no charge against you, you are happy. But this is a statement he did not mean to apply to anyone whatever. For there are many who do not condemn themselves and yet are great transgressors, and these are the most miserable of men. But he is still keeping to the matter in hand.

Verse 23: “And the one who doubts is condemned if he eats.” [n]

Again, he says this to urge the stronger man to spare the weaker. For what good is it if the weaker eats in doubt and condemns himself? “For I approve of the one who both eats and does it without doubting.” See how he leads him on not merely to eat, but to eat with a good conscience as well. Then he also gives the reason why the man is condemned, continuing in these words: “because he does not eat from faith.” Not because the food is unclean, but because it is not from faith. For he did not believe that it was clean, and yet he touched it while thinking it unclean. By this he also shows them how much harm they do by compelling people, instead of persuading them, to touch things that until then had seemed unclean to them — so that for this reason at least they would stop their rebuking. “For whatever is not from faith is sin.” When someone does not feel sure, and does not believe that a thing is clean, how can he do anything but sin? Now all these things Paul has said about the matter in hand, not about everything.

And notice what care he takes not to make anyone stumble. He had said before, “If your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love.” But if we must not even grieve him, much less ought we to make him stumble. And again, “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.” For if it would be a grave wrong to tear down a church, much more is it to tear down the spiritual temple. For a human being is worth more than a church: it was not for walls that Christ died, but for these temples.

So let us watch our own conduct on every side, and never give anyone even the slightest handle. This present life is a racecourse, and we ought to have thousands of eyes on every side, and not even imagine that ignorance will be an adequate excuse. For there is such a thing — there certainly is — as being punished for ignorance, when the ignorance is inexcusable. The Jews too were ignorant, yet not in a way that excused them. And the pagans were ignorant, but they are without excuse (Romans 1, verse 20). When you are ignorant of things that it is impossible to know, you will not be liable to any charge for it; but when you are ignorant of things that are easy and within reach, you will be punished with the utmost severity. [o]

But if we are not utterly lazy, and contribute our own share in full, God will also stretch out his hand to us in the things we do not know. This is what Paul said to the Philippians as well: “If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you” (Philippians 3, verse 15). But when we are unwilling to do even what lies in our own power, we will not have the benefit of his help in the rest either. This was the case with the Jews too. “This is why I speak to them in parables,” he says, “because seeing, they do not see” (Matthew 13, verse 13). In what sense did they see and not see? They saw demons cast out, and they said, “He has a demon” (Matthew 12, verse 24). They saw the dead raised, and they did not worship him, but tried to kill him. Cornelius was not like that. That is why, when he was doing the whole of his duty sincerely, God added to him what was lacking as well.

So do not say, “How did God come to neglect So-and-so, who was a man without pretense and a good man, though a pagan?” In the first place, no one can know for certain whether a person is without pretense, except the one alone who “fashioned their hearts one by one” (Psalm 33, verse 15, which is Psalm 32 in the Greek Old Testament). And then there is this to be said as well: perhaps such a man was neither thoughtful nor in earnest. “And how could he be, when he was so untaught?” Consider, then, I beg you, this simple and single-hearted man, and watch him in the business of life, and you will see him a model of the most careful attention — such that, if he had shown it in spiritual matters, he would not have been overlooked. For the facts of the truth are clearer than the sun. And wherever a man may go, he could easily lay hold of his own salvation, if he were willing, that is, to pay attention, and not to treat this as a side matter. Were these events shut up in Palestine, or in some little corner of the world? Have you not heard the prophet say, “All will know me, from the least to the greatest” (Jeremiah 31, verse 34; Hebrews 8, verse 11)? Do you not see the facts themselves proclaiming the truth? How, then, can these people be excused, when they see the teaching of the truth spread far and wide, and do not trouble themselves or care to learn it?

“Do you demand all this, then, of a rough savage?” Yes — and not of a rough savage only, but of anyone more savage than the people of today. For why is it, tell me, that in the affairs of this world he knows how to answer back when he is wronged, and to resist when violence is done to him, and does and devises everything so that his will is never crossed in the slightest; but in spiritual matters he has not used this same judgment? When a man worships a stone and thinks it a god, he keeps festivals for it, spends money on it, shows it great reverence, and never grows slack because of his simplicity. But when he has to seek the real and true God, do you then talk to me of single-heartedness and simplicity? These things are not so; they certainly are not! These complaints come from nothing but laziness.

Which do you think were the more simple and rough — those in Abraham’s day, or those now (Joshua 24, verse 2)? Clearly the former. And when was it easier to find out religion, now or then? Clearly now. For now the name of God is proclaimed by all people; the prophets have preached, the events have come to pass, and the nations have been convinced (Genesis 32, verse 29; Judges 13, verse 18). But in those days most people were still untaught, and sin was in control. There was no law to instruct them, no prophets, no miracles, no teaching, no crowd of people who knew it, nor anything else of the kind. Everything lay, as it were, in deep darkness, in a moonless and stormy night.

And yet even then that wonderful and noble man, though the obstacles were so great, still knew God and practiced virtue, and led many others to the same zeal — and this though he did not even have the wisdom of those outside. How could he, when writing had not yet even been invented? Still, he brought in his own share, and God joined in to bring in what he lacked. You cannot even say that Abraham received his religion from his fathers, for his father Terah was an idolater (Joshua 24, verse 2). Yet though he came from such forefathers, and was uncultured, and lived among uncultured people, and had no teacher in religion, he came to know God. And compared with all his descendants, who had the advantage of both the Law and the Prophets, he shone more brightly than words can express. Why was that? Because in the things of this world he did not trouble himself greatly, but to the things of the spirit he gave his whole attention.

And what of Melchizedek? Was he not also born about that time, and was he not so bright that he was even called a priest of God? For it is utterly impossible that those who are self-controlled should ever be overlooked.

So let these things not trouble us. Knowing that in every case it is with the mind that the power lies, let us look to our own duties, so that we may grow better. Let us not keep demanding an account from God, or asking why he left this man alone and called that one. We are doing the same as a servant who had given offense and then pried into the running of his master’s household. Wretched and miserable man! When you ought to be anxious about the account you have to give, and about how you will reconcile your master, do you call him to account for things you will not have to answer for, while you pass over the things you must give a reckoning of?

Someone asks, “What am I to say to the pagan?” Why, the same thing I have been saying. And do not look only at what you will say to the pagan; look also at how you may reform yourself. When he stumbles from looking into your life, then consider what you will say. For if he simply stumbles, you will not be called to account for him; but if it is your way of life that harms him, you will face the greatest danger. When he sees you talking like a philosopher about the kingdom, and all aflutter over the things of this life; afraid of hell, and at the same time trembling at the calamities of this life — then take it to heart. When he sees this, and accuses you, and says, “If you are in love with the kingdom, why do you not look down on the things of this life? If you are expecting the awful judgment, why do you not despise the terrors of this world? If you hope for immortality, why do you not scorn death?” — when he says this, be anxious about what defense you will make.

When he sees you, who expect the heavens, trembling at the thought of losing your money, and overjoyed over a single penny, and selling your soul once again for a little money — then take it to heart. For these are the things, these very things, that make the pagans stumble. So if you are concerned for his salvation, make your defense on these points — not with words, but with actions. It was never through that question that anyone blasphemed God; it is through people’s bad lives that there are thousands of blasphemies everywhere. So set him right.

For the pagan will next ask you, “How am I to know that God’s commands can be carried out? You who come of Christian stock, and were brought up in this fine religion, do nothing of the kind.” And what will you tell him? You are sure to say, “I will show you others who do: monks who live in the deserts.” Are you not ashamed to confess that you are a Christian, and yet to send him off to others, as though you cannot show that you yourself have the character of a Christian? For he too will say at once, “What need do I have to go to the mountains and hunt through the deserts? If it is impossible for a person living in the middle of cities to be a disciple, this is a sad charge against this way of life — that we must leave the cities and run off to the deserts. But show me a man who has a wife and children and a household, and still pursues wisdom.”

What are we to say to all this? Must we not hang our heads and be ashamed? For Christ gave us no such command. What did he say? “Let your light shine before people” (Matthew 5, verse 16) — not mountains and deserts and wildernesses and out-of-the-way places. I say this not to find fault with those who have taken to the mountains, but to mourn over those who live in the cities, because they have banished virtue from them. So I beg you, let us bring the discipline they keep there into the cities here as well, so that the cities may become cities indeed. This will reform the pagan. This will free him from countless stumbling blocks.

So if you want to free him from stumbling, and yourself to enjoy rewards beyond number, set your own life in order and make it shine out on every side, “so that people may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” For in this way we too will enjoy that great glory which is beyond words. May God grant that we all attain it, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.