Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

Romans 14

• Romans 14:³⁷ “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

The Law of Liberty

Romans 14:¹ Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes (arguments) over doubtful things.

Romans 14:² For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.

Romans 14:³ 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.

Romans 14:⁴ 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.

Romans 14:⁵ One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.

• Colossians 2:16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,
  • Sabbaths
  • festival
  • food
  • drink

Romans 14:⁶ 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.

• Worship the Lord…not the Law.

Romans 14:⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.

Romans 14:⁸ 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.

• Colossians 2:⁹ For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; ¹⁰ and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
  • Therefore “I” am complete in Him, already sitting with Him in the heavens.

Romans 14:⁹ For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

• Jesus is the Lord of both the dead and the living. To Jesus as God, even the dead are living.
  
  • Matthew 22:32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
    • Therefore; the dead are living…

Romans 14:¹⁰ 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 (God).

Romans 14:¹¹ For it is written:

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

• Every knee – both the living and the dead.

Romans 14:¹² So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.

Romans 14:¹³ 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.

• When we judge another, we put a stumbling block in their way.
  (A hurdle, barrier, impediment, block, bar)

The Law of Love

Romans 14:¹⁴ I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

• Titus 1:15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.
  
• Mark 7:15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.

Romans 14:¹⁵ Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died.

Romans 14:¹⁶ Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil;

Romans 14:¹⁷ for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Romans 14:¹⁸ For he who serves Christ in (this thing) these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.

Romans 14:¹⁹ Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify (build up) another.

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 (A feeling of giving offense).

Romans 14:²¹ It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.

Romans 14:²² Do you have faith (The faith which you have—have)? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.

Romans 14:²³ But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.

Adam and Eve, pure in heart and innocent, were given the fruit from all the trees in the garden of Eden, except one: the tree of good and evil.

Upon eating from the tree of good and evil, they were no longer pure in heart or innocent and (men) were given the Law.

However,
The Tree of Life (Jesus) overcame the Tree of Good and Evil (the Law).

In Jesus, to the pure in heart, all things are pure.

See Topic: Law and Grace