Romans 14:22 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Hast thou faith?— There is no necessity for reading the first clause interrogatively; and it seems more agreeable to the structure of the Greek;—Thou hast faith: as if he had said, "I own you have a right persuasion." Farther, there is an anadiplosis in the words εχεις and εχε: the first signifies simply have, the latter hold fast. "You have a right persuasion concerning your Christian liberty, and I advise you to hold your profession steadfastly,with respect to yourself in the sight of God." Εχω, have, has frequently this emphatical signification. See Matthew 25:29. Instead of to thyself, the Greek would be more properly rendered with respect to,—as pertaining to; that is, "so far as it concerns yourself, hold it in the sight of God." It is anexhortation,—nottokeepitprivateto himself, not to suppress his sentiments,—but to retain them steadily, and never do or say any thing inconsistent with them: as it follows, "Happy is the man who condemns not himself, by doing or professing any thinginconsistent with what he is assured in his own conscience is right." The Apostle puts this in, that the Christian Gentile might not mistake his meaning, or imagine that he was persuading him to be indifferent to the truth, to dissemble it, to give it up, or act contrary to it upon some occasions: this was far from the Apostle's intention, who only exhorts him to think charitably of a weak brother, and to abstain from any indifferent actions which might disgust him, or prove a snare or temptation to him. Without this caution, hisdiscourse would have been imperfect, and not well guarded.