CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 14:1. Him that is weak in the faith.—Defective in the faith, in the general doctrine, and thus an observer of externals. Alford and De Wette refer to the weak in faith as one who wants broad and independent principles, and is in consequent bondage to prejudices. διαλογισμοί, opinions, views, thoughts. Often much disputing among the Rabbins on receiving proselytes on account of some supposed disqualification. The subject of the former chapter was submission; the subject of this is toleration.
Romans 14:2.—The weak thought that he would be more tolerated by abstaining, not only from swine’s flesh, but all flesh (Theoph.).
Romans 14:3.—Applies to both parties; evident from their being enlightened with the knowledge of God (Calvin, Stuart).
Romans 14:4. For God is able to make him stand.—Here we have both power and will, and the passage indicates God’s merciful disposition.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 14:1-4
The weak and the strong.—St. Paul’s knowledge of human nature comes out from time to time in his writings. The preacher should be a man conversant with both men and things. He should have eyes behind and before, and be able to search into the hidden mysteries of human nature. Thus St. Paul is an example to the preacher. By graphic strokes of the pen Paul touches the weakness of the strong as well as the weakness of the weak. Both require words of direction; none must be neglected by the faithful minister. St. Paul looks all round, and strives to produce a well-ordered Christian community.
I. The weak and the strong have their faults.—Sometimes the strong are found weaker than the weak; their very strength is an occasion of stumbling. Strength may beget an overweening self-confidence, which leads to destruction; weakness may induce carefulness, which tends to safety. The creaking gate hangs long. The weak ones linger; the strong are cut down suddenly when sickness attacks. The strong may err on the side of liberty, the weak on the side of restraint. The strong may have a contemptuous spirit and mien; he may become impatient of the weak, and treat him with disdain. The weak may have a censorious spirit, and charge the strong with being guilty of gluttony and drunkenness. The weak said of the strong Christ, “Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” The strong may be too tolerant except of weakness, while the weak may be intolerant. Our danger in these days is that of the ambition of being men of strength, which means men of broad views—men with no crotchets, which means too often men of no principles. Men with crotchets are strong; the strongest part of the plank is that where the knot is found.
II. The weak and the strong are levelled.—They are levelled, or ought to be, by the consciousness of common weaknesses. Strong men are but men at the best. A Samson may be bound captive and led blind to the scene of merriment; a Solomon may be overthrown by lust; a Peter may be frightened by a maid’s thoughtless speech. How short the distance between the strong and the weak! There is but a step between us and death. That step taken, and the strong man falls. A little vessel bursts, and the strong intellect loses its power; a wrong word is spoken, and the voice of the orator is not allowed to charm; a false step is taken, and the warrior is banished; the brother of high degree is overtaken in a fault, and is brought low. How wholesome the exhortation, “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye”! In your strength consider your weakness, and let your hearts and your arms be always open to welcome and to receive the weak. Strong and weak are levelled when brought within the sweep of Omnipotence. Can there be any appreciable difference between the weak who lifts a few ounces and the strong who lifts many pounds to Him who weighs the mountains in scales and holds the immense waters in the hollow of His hands? If the strong God receive the weak children of men, those who dwell in houses made of clay, shall not weak men, who call themselves strong, and who are strong by comparison, receive the children of weakness? If the strong God receive us to divine consolations, to sublime communion, shall we not receive our brethren in the same spirit, and lay aside all doubtful disputations, all harsh thoughts, all deprecating views? How strong was He who came travelling in His greatness of His strength, mighty to save! By common consent of Christians and of unbelievers Jesus Christ has been assigned the foremost place amongst the strong ones of earth’s stalwart sons. And yet with tender tones of welcome, with gentle caresses of love, He received the weak. He took the children in His arms; He was the friend of publicans and sinners. We are ambitious to be Christ’s for strength; let us be ambitious to be Christ’s for gentleness to the weak and erring. Let us not break, but seek to mend, the bruised reeds of our maimed humanity; let us not quench, but seek to fan into a spiritual flame, the smoking flax of the expiring heaven fires in human nature.
III. The weak and the strong are mutually needful.—A place for every man, and every man in his place. A law both for the world and the Church; but selfishness prevents its right working. A place for every man! And yet how many men out of places! Selfishness says, The weakest must go to the wall; Christian benevolence says, The weakest must be received and nurtured into greater strength by the strongest. Christian benevolence has wiser methods than cynical selfishness. The weak as well as the strong are needful; the weak gather strength by contact with the strong, and the strong get more strength by helping the weak. We are all needful to one another. Let, then, the strong receive the weak; and let the weak gladly accept the help of the strong.
IV. The weak and the strong are servants of the divine Master.—God has had patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, amongst His servants. Giant-like men have done His bidding; eagle-eyed heroes have watched His purposes; stalwart men with strong and swift pinions have done His bidding. Wisdom and eloquence have been at the divine command; but weak ones have been of service. She who could only show her love by tears, and she who could only tell the wealth of her devotion by giving two mites, stood high in the estimation of the divine Master. The strong may be ready to smile at the weakness of the brother who is almost afraid to eat lest he should offend God. But surely there is a fine spirit in that over-sensitive nature, and God appreciates the exquisite tenderness. In this tolerant age, when the Church sets the lead in fashion, in creed rejects but in practice accepts the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eye, and mostly the pride of life, we require the weak to teach us the need of a little more sensitiveness of conscience, of a greater tenderness of moral nature.
V. The weak and the strong must be alike holden up by immortal strength.—God is able to make the weak stand. His ability has been proved from time to time in the records of the human race. Weak women have been made to stand, and have shamed mighty men by their exhibition of unwonted courage. Those who have been so fastidious in non-essentials as to provoke the contempt of the strong by divine power have been made to stand gloriously in the day of battle. The strongest likewise must be made to stand by God’s imparted strength. The encircling strength of God embraces and empowers the weak and the strong. In ourselves we are all weak; in God’s grace, by the Spirit’s might, we are infinitely strong.
Romans 14:1. The strong helping the weak.—The words very remarkable, considering that they fell from the lips of a Jew. By birth, education, and interest he was as exclusive as could be. He would naturally have the national fault of “self-exalting opinion”—the false notion that God’s highest blessings were only for Jews. He had to conquer his Jewish prejudices, and fight his way through that narrow spirit of isolation that encircled him. The story of Paul’s life and his teachings shows how thoroughly he did this. We have suggested here:—
I. The remarkable effect of Christianity on men.—It almost amounts to miracle. Examples in history numerous. Note the contrasts between pagans and Christians in the matter of the strong dealing with the weak. Paganism, e.g., said that modesty in a woman was a presumption of ugliness. It is one of the strong points of Christianity. Slavery never put down except where Christianity was in force. Before Christianity makes itself felt anywhere there is an awful waste of human life—e.g., in Dahomey three thousand victims when the mother of the king of Ashantee died! Christianity always insisted that human life was sacred. Each soul for whom Christ died could say, My life is precious in the sight of God. Such a fact has led to modern charities; and all due to the work of the great burden-bearer, Christ Jesus. And Christians are to imitate Him.
II. The text indicates that Christianity is catholic.—Broad in its sympathies and influence. Christianity is not national and exclusive, not the heritage of English-speaking people. Christianity cares nothing about nationality, but for the salvation of all men everywhere. This is unwelcome news to some. They want to be within the select circle. Paul is ruthless in dealing with such narrowness. You who are strong, he seems to say, go and help your weaker brethren; show them your light; tell them it is for them also, because for them also Christ died.
III. The text suggests the neighbourliness of Christianity.—This neighbourliness exactly fits in with our natural feelings. May we not look upon a recluse as a freak of nature? Men, take them in the mass, cannot separate themselves from the outward world without a pang. The old monks “mortified” themselves by going into the gloomy monastery. Loneliness is a source of misery to the average individual. Possibly in the earliest days men tried isolation, but could not stand it. Therefore they formed themselves into communities; built villages, towns, cities, that they might come into touch with each other. Where Christianity exerts its influence men will not be satisfied with mere community. The theories that hold people together have practical expression. They must help one another—the strong help the weak.
IV. Imitation of Christ leaves no alternative but to be helpful.—To be hard-hearted is to be unlike Christ; and he who is unlike Christ cannot be Christ’s disciple. Christ was emphatically a burden-bearer. Where He saw men strong and stalwart He passed on. “They that be whole,” He said, “need not,” etc. To help one who is capable of helping himself is a waste of energy, and likely to encourage idleness; but to help the needy is to exercise the soul in a noble calling. “We ought to bear the weak, and carry them along with us as we go.” There is a kind of unconscious Christianity—namely, the little helps as we pass on life’s way.
V. The world is poorer than it might have been for want of the spirit of helpfulness.—Some of us who are strong have much to answer for—to answer for the pang of dismay in the weak one when a cheery word would have been so helpful. It would almost be a blessing if we had a bit of smart suffering to remind us of the value of a little help. Then we should be less critical, more considerate, less self-absorbed, especially any of us who are spiritually strong.
VI. Helpfulness is a duty.—“We that are strong ought,” etc. Think of the multitude of calls for such help: the sick, the poor, the ignorant, etc. We need of course to be discriminating in our helpfulness. There is a poverty, e.g., the result of vice, a laziness that leads to rags and tatters. But what of deserving poverty? There you dare not be indifferent We can all be Christians in the world. Do not pass any by, for Christ never did that to any poor soul. He bare our sorrows. If you would be Christlike, so must you be a sorrow-bearer. Do you say, Yes; but the cost! Think, then, of the cost to Jesus. “He came in flesh, in poverty, in homelessness, in tears, with shudderings of nameless agony, that He might drink up our sorrow in the vastness of His own, and that He might open springs of everlasting consolation to all the children of trouble.” Should any one find that Christians forget their duty, let him go to Christ. You have but to take your trouble to Him, and He, so strong in sympathy, will give you help. It is He who says, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour,” etc.—Albert Lee.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 14:1-4
Christian casuistry.—There is a kind of minuter casuistry which it is extremely difficult to handle from the mere want of something very distinct or tangible to hold by, and about which there is the greatest degree of indecision, and that just from the loss at which we feel to get any decisive principle of unquestioned evidence and authority to bear upon it. And so it is that even the Christian mind fluetuates thereanent, and exhibits itself upon this subject in a state both of vacillation and variety. For while one class of the professors is heard to declaim and to dogmatise and most strenuously to asseverate with all the readiness of minds that are thoroughly made up on the matters alluded to, there is another class of them who cannot assume this certainty without cause being shown, who must have something more to allege for the vindication of their peculiarities than the mere conventional shibboleth of a party, and who wait till a clear reason approve itself to their judgments ere they can utter with their mouths a clear and confident deliverance. Some may have already guessed what the questions are to which we are now adverting. They relate to the degree of our conformity with the world, and to the share which it were lawful to take in its companies and amusements. You must be aware on this topic of a certain unsettledness of opinion; while we know of none that wakens a more anxious degree of interest and speculation among those who are honestly aspiring after the right, and are most fearfully sensitive of the wrong in all their conversation. And if to tenderness of conscience they add a certain force of intelligence, they will not be satisfied with a mere oracular response from those who seem to be somewhat, and who speak as if from the vantage ground of their long initiation into higher mysteries. They are prepared for every surrender, and are in readiness to follow fully wherever the light of Scripture or of argument may carry them; but this light is the very thing they want and are in quest of. It is their demand for the rationale of this matter, with the difficulty they feel in reaching it, that has thrown them into a kind of harassment about the whole affair from which they long to be extricated. And neither in the magisterial but improved dictation of one set of Christians, nor in the yet unstable practice of another set of Christians, who are hovering about the margin that separates the Church from the world, and ever tremulously veering between the sides of accommodation and nonconformity therewith. From neither of these parties in the great professing public of our day can they find repose to their spirits, because from neither they have found effectual relief to the painful ambiguity under which they are labouring. What has now drawn our attention more especially to this subject is its strong identity in regard to principle with that question of Sabbath observation which we have recently attempted to elucidate. The elements of Christian liberty and expediency and charity appear to be similarly involved in both, so as that we may avail ourselves of the same guidance as before from the manner in which the apostle hath cleared and discriminated his way through the controversy that arose in his time about meats and days and ceremonies. It is, indeed, a very possible thing that Christianity may be made to wear another aspect than that in which she smiles so benignantly upon us from the New Testament—that, instead of a religion of freedom, because her only control is that of heavenly and high-born principle wherewith she rules, and by moral ascendency alone, over her willing and delighted votaries, she may be transformed into a narrow system of bigotry, whose oppressive mandates of “touch not and taste not and handle not” bear no relation whatever to the spiritual department of our nature—only galling and subordinating the outer man, while they leave the inner man as remote, both in principle and affection, from the likeness of God or the character of godliness as before. Better surely to impregnate the man’s heart, first with the taste and spirit of our religion, and then, if this should supersede the taste and affection he before had for the frivolities of life, it impresses a far nobler character of freeness and greatness on the change of habit that has taken place, when thus made to emanate from a change of heart, than when it appears in the light of a reluctant compliance with a rigid exaction of intolerance, the rationality and rightness of which are at the same time not very distinctly apprehended. Let the reformation in question, if reformation it be, come forth upon the habit of the man in this way—as the final upshot of a process by which the heart has been reformed, as the fruit of an internal change that has taken place on the taste and on the affections, through the power of the truth that is in Jesus, and whereby all old things have passed away and all things have become new. Better thus than by a mandate on the subject issued from the chair of authority. But it is now time to have done with this long excursion among the details and the difficulties of a casuistry by which the Christian mind has oft been exercised. For let it never be forgotten that a heart with rightly set affections and desires is, after all, the best of casuists. If the heart in its various regards be as it ought, this is our securest guarantee that the history in its various manifestations will be as it ought. The best way of restoring to light and to liberty the conscience of man is to enthrone love in his bosom.—Dr. Chalmers.
The effects of Christianity.—Raphael Aben-Ezra, an Alexandrian cynic, was won over to Christianity by the example of a Christian Roman centurion and his children. “I have watched you,” he said, “for many a day, and not in vain. When I saw you, an experienced officer, encumber your flight with wounded men, I was only surprised. But since I have seen you and your daughter, and, strangest of all, your gay Alcibiades of a son, starving yourselves to feed these poor ruffians, performing for them day and night the offices of menial slaves, comforting them as no man ever comforted me, blaming no one but yourselves, caring for every one but yourselves, sacrificing nothing but yourselves, and all this without hope of fame or reward, or dream of appeasing the wrath of any god or goddess, but simply because you thought it right,—when I saw that, sir, and more which I have seen; and when, reading in this book here, I found most unexpectedly those very grand moral rules which you were practising, seeming to spring unconsciously, as natural results, from the great thoughts, true or false, which had preceded them; then, sir, I began to suspect that the creed which could produce such deeds as I have watched within the last few days might have on its side, not merely a slight preponderance of probabilities, but what we Jews used once to call, when we believed in it—or in anything—the mighty power of God.”—Kingsley’s “Hypatia.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 14
Romans 14:1-4. Weak faith encouraged.—How many “stretch lame hands of faith, and grope and gather dust and chaff”! To be weak is to be miserable; and how often it means to be despised! The revivalist says, “Hope will not do; we must be certain of our salvation. I am as sure of heaven as if I were there.” But St. Paul says, “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye.” The revivalist rejects weak faith. Christ will neither break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. The former He repairs until it sings sweetly of mercy; the latter He fans until it becomes a shining flame. A weak Christian is better than a boasting Pharisee.
“I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world’s altar stairs
That slope through darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.”
Tennyson.
Romans 14:4-5. No one to be despised.—An Englishman, a native of Yorkshire, going to reside at Kingston, in Jamaica, was reduced from a state of affluence to very great distress; so much so, that in the time of sickness he was destitute of home, money, medicine, food, and friends. Just in this time of need an old Christian negro offered his assistance, which being gladly accepted, this “neighbour to him” bought medicine, and administered it himself, furnished nourishment, sat up three nights, and, in short, acted the part of doctor, nurse, and host. Through the blessing of God the old negro’s efforts were rendered successful in the recovery of the sick man, who then inquired what expenses he had been at, and promised remuneration as soon as possible. The generous old Christian replied, “Massa, you owe me nothing; me owe you much still.” “How do you make that out?” said the restored man. “Why, massa, me never able to pay you, because you taught me to read de word of God!” This reply so affected the man that he resolved from that time to seek the Lord.