Chapter 14
The strong
believer
The strong believer is defined as that member of the royal family of God who has attained maturity adjustment to the justice of God through maximum doctrine in his soul and spirit. The strong believer is a mature believer who not only has maximum doctrine resident in his soul but has constructed most of his norms and standards in his conscience on that doctrine. The strong believer is not functioning on a false system of modus operandi, he is functioning under the royal family honour code. From his ambassadorship he produces maximum production.
The weak believer
The weak believer must never be confused with the new believer. A new believer is not a weak believer, he is simply a baby spiritually. The new believer is ignorant of doctrine because he was recently saved, but being positive he learns. The weak believer, on the other hand, is weak because he has rejected doctrine, because he is indifferent to doctrine, because he is apathetic to doctrine, and he fails to distinguish between the functions of the royal priesthood and the royal ambassador. The weak believer is working for divine blessing, therefore he is either legalistic or antinomian. He is weak because he has not moral courage and no doctrinal standards. The weak believer has abused grace and distorted the plan of God into licence on the one hand or self-righteousness on the other hand, both of which are wrong.
Verse 1 – “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye” begins with the postpositive conjunctive particle de, used here as a transitional particle. It indicates that the last verse in the last chapter is merely a transition to this particular subject. It is translated “now.” Next is the articular present active participle from a)sqenew which means to be weak or to be deficient or to be powerless. Actually, it means here to be weak because one is deficient: deficient in accurate information, i.e. Bible doctrine. The definite article is used as a demonstrative pronoun and is translated “that one”—“Now that one who.” Then the present tense of the participle, retroactive progressive present, denoting something that is begun in the past [lack of doctrine] and continues into the present [negative volition toward doctrine], resulting in arrogance and being opinionated about the non-essentials. The active voice: the weak believer of the reversionist produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. “Now that one who is weak.” Then the locative of sphere singular from the noun pistij. There are three categories of connotation: a) Pistij means non-meritorious perception, and as such in the active sense it means faith, trust, confidence; b) An attribute. Pistij often means as an attribute faithfulness and reliability; c) The one that is the most neglected but here is a case where it applies—and in many other places, like Hebrews 11—to doctrine, i.e. that which is believed, the body of belief. So we translate it “doctrine.” The locative of sphere helps us to understand who and what is the weak believer. Generally speaking the weak believer is negative toward doctrine, therefore minus doctrine, and he must not be confused with a growing believer. There is a definite article, generic use, also in the locative—“in the doctrine,” it regards Bible doctrine as representing a category distinct from all other categories.
1. The weak believer is an ignorant reversionist. He has rejected Bible doctrine and has accepted some background substitute. His norms and standards are not based on doctrine but on his background: environment, academic training, his system of static admiration. Whomever he admires, he has accepted their norms and standards.
2. In Rome there were two background substitutes. Some of the Roman believers had the background of Judaism and were therefore very legalistic. Others had come out of the heathenism of the Roman empire and they reacted to heathenism without being stabilised by doctrine resident in the soul. The weak Gentiles were therefore generally hypersensitive and had a tendency to set up taboos against anything related to heathenism. Their application was too far ahead of their doctrine so that they were inflexible in their taboos but very flexible about their doctrine, in fact indifferent.
3. Hence, many forms of controversy existed with regard to food, wine, and the observation of holy days.
4. Some emphasised taboos about eating and drinking and some had not scruples with regard to these taboos, so that there was a great deal of controversy in Rome over what in reality were the non-essentials.
5. Some emphasised strict observance of holy days. Others who had more doctrine made a different application, e.g. regarding every day alike.
6. These differences of opinion were not serious, except for lack of doctrine and pack of application of the royal family honour code.
7. Without doctrine differences of opinion produce strife and schism.
8. Weak believers were arrogantly sponsoring their opinions without regard for doctrine or the privacy of others who differ with them.
9. So great was the controversy in Rome that Paul must apply the royal family honour code to the solution. In solving their problem with the royal family honour code he solved problems among Christians in our own time.
“receive ye” – present middle imperative from proslambanw which means to take to one’s self, to take as a companion and therefore to associate, to receive or
accept into your society. The customary present denotes what is reasonably expected to occur when the royal family honour code is applied and in function. The middle voice is an indirect middle emphasising the agent as producing the action rather than participating in the result. The imperative is imperative of command. Since the definite article is in the accusative case it is the direct object, and it is translated “now accept that one who is weak [or, feeble] in the doctrine.”
Principle
1. The weak believer must not be confused with the new believer. A weak believer is both negative and ignorant of doctrine, though saved for years. His emphasis is on production or on some system of self-righteousness. He has no emphasis on doctrine and no toleration of people who are interested in doctrine.
2. The weak believer is a reversionist whose criterion is emotion. He lives by prejudice and ethics rather than doctrine, is strong in scruples but feeble in doctrine.
3. The weak believer is a consistent violator of the royal family honour code. His violations are simple: a) He rejects the privacy of the royal priesthood and sticks his nose in everyone else’s business; b) He tries to receive blessing from God and gain blessing from God through production, legitimate or legalistic; c) He does not know the difference between personal and impersonal love, therefore is totally ignorant of the whole concept of “love thy neighbour as thyself” or “love the brethren.”
4. The weak believer is both legalistic and critical of all who do not share his legalism. He is emotional, often mentally unstable, which makes it easier for him to become opinionated and dogmatic about the non-essentials.
5. Furthermore, the weak believer is ego-sensitive. He demands attention, is easily moved to self-pity, and is frustrated by lack of attention. He very easily moves into inordinate competition and inordinate ambition.
6. The weak believer is not interested in the teaching of doctrine but is arrogantly forceful about his personal opinions, experiences and prejudices; and through legalistic bullying he seeks to superimpose his false standards on other believers. This means he becomes prying, meddlesome, a troublemaker, having no respect for authority in the local church, for doctrine, and obviously no respect for the freedom of the believer which is associated with privacy and property.
Next is the negative mh, but no conjunction; there is no “but” here. There are two basic
negative adverbs, mh and o)u. The latter is used with the indicative, the former is used with the subjunctive, the imperative, the infinitive, and sometimes with the participle. The negative o)u denies the fact, the negative mh denies the idea—“not.” Then a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative plural of diakrisij, meaning differentiation or quarrel—“but not for the purpose of getting into quarrels.” Then a genitive of reference plural from a noun, dialogismoj, “opinions.” As a genitive of reference plural it is translated “about opinions.” In other words, the non-essentials.
Translation: “Now receive that one who is weak [in the doctrine], but not for the purpose of getting into quarrels about opinions.”
1. All believers enter into the Christian way of life with preconceived opinions which are not compatible with the standards set for them in Bible doctrine.
2. The strong believer is the mature believer. He is commanded to accept the weak believer who has opinions without doctrine, who emphasises the non-essentials instead of the essentials and is very flexible about the essentials. So it is the strong believer who is commanded to accept the weak believer into the society of the royal family without making an issue out of his false opinions.
3. The weak believer is entitled to the same privacy as the strong believer.
4. Therefore do not make an issue of his erroneous opinions which will be corrected in due time by doctrine, if he is positive. If he is not the Lord will discipline him, not you.
5. While the weak believer must be accepted no issue should be made of his false doctrine, his legalism, under the royal family honour code principle of the privacy of the royal priesthood.
6. Privacy of the priesthood gives each believer with his own brand of sins, his false doctrines, his erroneous and inaccurate opinions, the same opportunity to learn doctrine and to be corrected from the Word as you have.
7. This means that there is no place for dialogue in teaching doctrine. It also means that quarrels and debates is excluded from Christian fellowship by the royal family honour code.
8. The weak believer is legalistic, self-righteous, opinionated, ignorant of doctrine. He must learn doctrine to have the standards which are compatible with the Word of God and the plan of God. The strong believer has maximum knowledge of doctrine and is often tempted to correct or to bicker with the weak believer instead of permitting the normal course of Bible teaching to correct the weak believer.
9. The weak believer will take doctrine taught from the pulpit and accept it in correcting his false opinions.
10. But for a strong believer to try to correct those opinions is an intrusion into the privacy of the weak believer and a violation of the honour code.
11. Strong believers are tempted to intrude on the privacy of the weak and quarrel with him about his silly views. This verse says in effect, Leave the driving to us.” Doctrine must be taught from the pulpit for the benefit of all under the principle of the privacy of the priesthood. In this way the approach to doctrine is objective rather than subjective.
12. To debate your opinion against the opinion of another creates an atmosphere of subjectivity without authority, without discipline, and therefore no doctrine is learned. Instead, strife replaces spiritual growth in the body of Christ. The weak believer reacts to argumentation, even though the strong believer may be right. His reaction is two-fold. He becomes antagonistic toward the strong believer and since he can’t meet his arguments with doctrine he tries to put him down by judging, maligning, by creating false issues, e.g. “You seem to know a lot of doctrine but your life stinks.”
Principle
1. The weak are to be received, not for the purpose of judging their opinions but for the purpose of learning Bible doctrine.
2. The strong do not receive the weak for the purpose of bullying them or intruding on their privacy, nor do the weak reciprocate by judging the strong.
3. In the congregation of the local church both strong and weak believers live side by side in the congregation for the purpose of reception of doctrine which is the only way to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. Objectivity and academic discipline are destroyed by strife between the weak and the strong.
5. The weak and strong are at different stages of growth but all require doctrine. Somewhat different from the Corinthians and the Galatians the weak believers here are not so much reversionistic as ignorant of doctrine.
6. The weak do not seem to be negative toward doctrine, except as they are distracted or led astray by their background norms. Therefore they are ignorant and doctrine must be the issue.
7. Therefore the pastor must control the control the congregation rather than weak or strong believers dominating the congregation.
8. Not only must the pastor teach doctrine but he must enforce that part of the honour code dealing with the privacy of the royal priesthood.
9. All believers have strong opinions from background inculcation and under the privacy of the priesthood these opinions must not be forced on others.
10. The privacy of the priesthood demands the principle of live and let live.
Verse 2 – “For one believeth that he may eat all things.” In the Attic Greek structure we have affirmative correlative particles, men and de. Men = on the one hand; de = on the other hand. The affirmative particle men introduces the strong believer, in contrast to the affirmative particle de introducing the weak believer. A contrast is set up. There is no word for “for” – gar. Instead there is the nominative singular from the relative pronoun o(j, used as a demonstrative pronoun referring to a special category of believer. Believers have to be categorised because no two believers are equal in their advance and in their growth. Mature believers with doctrine, believers who have enough doctrine resident in the soul to have advanced to maturity, are in view here. So we translate, “On the one hand one.” The mature believer is inflexible in the essentials and he has maximum doctrine. But on the non-essentials he is flexible, and his flexibility is manifest by generalities. He believes that he may eat all things. Then the present active indicative of the verb pisteuw which means to believe and also to be convinced of something. This is a customary present tense, it denotes what habitually occurs in application of doctrine in the life of the mature believer, or believers who positive volition toward doctrine has given them enough pertinent information for application to the food taboo problem. The active voice: either the mature believer or the positive and advancing believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of making a correct application. Plus the aorist active infinitive of the verb e)sqiw which means to eat and includes the connotation of drinking, even though there is a separate word when only drinking is in view. The separate verb is pinw, but it is not used here because we are talking about food and beverage together. The constative aorist is used for a fact or an action which extends over a period of time, i.e. spiritual advance to maturity through perception of doctrine. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety—from the time that you reach maturity or learn this doctrine and for the rest of your life in the varying stages of maturity you believe that you may eat all things. The active voice: the mature believer/positive believer produces the action. This is the infinitive of conceived result, that which follows the nature of the case or is assumed as a consequence. Then the accusative neuter direct object from the adjective paj referring to food and beverage.
This conviction is based on application learned in Bible class in a local church. It is the application of the believer who has become strong through consistent perception of doctrine. Hence, this is the view of the strong believer with regard to food and beverage taboos.
“another, who is weak, eateth herbs” – a classification of the weak believer, de is translated this time “on the other hand,” with the definite article and the articular present active participle from a)sqenew. The definite article is used as a demonstrative pronoun designating the second category which is the weak believer. The weak believer is strong in his opinions, strong in his application—inflexible, in fact, but he is minus doctrine and full of his own self-importance. To him it is black or white in everything in life, and you do it his way or he puts all the pressure he can on you: “on the other hand, that one because of weakness.” The retroactive progressive present in the participle denotes what is begun in the past and continues into the present time. This believer has no doctrine in the past, resulting in weakness, and he lives by his background, the inculcation of his environment. Doctrine is not the basis for his application. The active voice: the weak believer produces the action of the verb, being weak through legalism. The participle is a causal participle, it denotes that which is the ground for the action of the main verb. Weakness is a lack of doctrine and resultant reversionism. The weak or reversionistic believer has strong opinions which run the gamut from totally erroneous to innocuous. Weak people always have strong opinions which not only violate the honour code but are totally incompatible with the plan of God. Then the present active indicative of e)sqiw. The descriptive present indicates what is now going on, or it might be described as a pictorial present, bringing to the mind a picture of events in the process of occurrence. What is being eaten is from the accusative plural direct object of laxnon, which is mistranslated “herbs.” It means vegetables. It is derived from the verb laxainw which means to dig in a garden. The active voice: the reversionistic believer with a trend toward legalism produces the action of the verb. He is weak because of insufficient doctrine, and the insufficiency of doctrine in his soul results from negative volition toward doctrine, apathy toward doctrine, indifference, hostility, whatever it may be. The declarative indicative is used for an accurate description of this weak believer and his legalism.
Translation: “On the one hand the one category [mature believer] believers holds the opinion that he may eat all things: on the other hand, the weak believer [because of weakness] eats only vegetables.”
1. Both ascetic and legalistic reversionism is characterised by self-righteousness. One derives a certain righteous stimulation from not eating meat offered to idols, or not eating those things forbidden by the Levitical code of the Mosaic law.
2. Without doctrine perceived and resident in the soul the weak believer is victimised by legalism and various food and beverage taboos.
3. Lack of doctrine in the soul means malfunction of the honour code and the superimposition of false standards on self and on others.
4. Superimposition is both bullying and a violation of the royal priesthood which is a basic tenet of the honour code.
5. In anticipation of the next verse, the weak believer or the reversionistic believer judges, maligns and critcises the believer who does not share his standards and his taboos.
6. The privacy of the royal priesthood is one of the basic tenets of the honour code.
7. But only the believer who is positive toward doctrine, advancing to maturity, or has attained maturity, actually fulfils the doctrine of the privacy of the priesthood and the accompanying imperative of the honour code which is love of the brethren. This verse establishes the fact that there is a great difference between the modus vivendi of the strong and weak believer based on adherence to or violation of the royal family honour code.
Verse 3 – how both opinions can become violations of the royal family honour code.
8. The weak believer in refusing to eat meat has become a vegetarian on the basis of religious legalism and not dietary scruples. It is all right if he wants to be a vegetarian, but he wants to make all Christians vegetarians, and if they do not comply then he wants to persecute them.
9. To be a vegetarian for dietary reasons is not only permissible but there’s nothing wrong, immoral or evil about it. But to be a vegetarian for the purpose of gaining divine approbation is ridiculous. If you try to impose that on other believers you are not only wrong but are morally weak.
10. The subjective, self-righteous, hypersensitive and arrogant conscience of the weak believer possesses legalistic and reversionistic standards which are not the issue in either relationship with the Lord or fellowship with another believer.
11. While Christian fellowship allows for both the privacy of the priesthood and differences of opinion, the weak believer becomes a bully seeking to impose his legalistic opinions on others.
12. Ascetic taboos and legalistic observation of diet and holy days is not necessary for Christian fellowship.
13. Agreement on life style or diet, or the observation of days, is not necessary for Christian fellowship and therefore the royal family honour code becomes essential in our association with other believers, as well as living one’s life as unto the Lord.
14. Because is engendered by both strong and weak believer in their clash of opinions it becomes necessary to point out the mental attitude failure of the strong believer and the verbal failure of the weak believer who is critical and wrong in judging the strong believer.
15. Disagreement in non-essentials should never destroy Christian fellowship.
16. Non-essentials originate from either legalism of antinomianism. The strong believer has no right to react to either as he moves right down the right path.
“Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not” – this begins with thew articular
present active participle from the verb e)sqiw. The customary present tense denotes what habitually occurs with the strong/mature believer. The active voice: the strong/mature believer produces the action of the verb. He operates under the law of liberty, under the freedom which belongs to the privacy of the priesthood. Therefore he eats anything or everything, he is not hung up or hamstrung by the various taboos of the self-righteous legalist. Nor is he drawn out into antinomianism which is equally wrong. The participle is circumstantial. The third person singular present active imperative follows, the verb is e)couqenew which means to despise, treat with contempt, reject with contempt. Plus the negative mh which with the present imperative means to stop doing something that you are doing. Because of his maximum understanding of doctrine he has a tendency to treat with contempt the weak believer who is ignorant of doctrine, who is operating on the false norms and standards from his background, and therefore does not understand or appreciate the situation as it really exists. He is not oriented to true spiritual reality. “He who eats, let him stop treating with contempt.” The present tense denotes continuous action or linear aktionsart. The prohibition in the present imperative demands that the action which is in progress be discontinued. The active voice: the strong/mature believer is commanded to stop the action. The strong believer generally can distinguish between essential and non-essential. He understands that doctrine is the essential and that application of doctrine demands a certain amount of flexibility. He is inflexible about doctrine but he is flexible about the non-essential. The imperative mood is the imperative of prohibition, with the negative mh meaning cease and desist. Then, “him that eateth not” is the accusative direct object, present active participle from e)sqiw plus the negative. It means the one who is weak has made erroneous application but it is not important. This is a person who is inflexible in application, and flexible in the essential—doctrine. The strong believer looks at this person and departs from his own norms and standards and lowers himself to be contemptuous and intolerant of the weak believer who has false norms and standards from his background.
Principle
17. The occupational hazard of the mature believer is arrogance related to his superior knowledge of doctrine.
18. He regards with contempt the weak believer who is saturated with legalistic taboos or antinomian hang-ups.
19. While the weak believer is the spiritual bully the strong believer in his arrogance regards with contempt his antagonist who is the weak believer.
20. The problem with both the strong and the weak believer in this verse is pride, but each has an arrogance in a different sphere.
21. The arrogance of the strong believer is his superior knowledge of doctrine which impels him to regard with contempt the reversionistic legalist. However, the arrogance of the weak believer is his legalism, pride of accomplishment in the field of taboos.
22. Therefore his arrogance motivates him to judge the strong believer.
23. The result is there is strife in the royal family of God.
“and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth” – there is no conjunction kai here. There is the postpositive conjunctive particle de which is used to mark the superaddition of a clause and is translated “furthermore.” Then the articular present active participle from e)sqiw. The definite article is used as a personal pronoun. The present tense of the participle is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs with the legalistic weak believer. The active voice: the believer who is legalistic/reversionistic produces the action of the verb. Generally he is a reversionist, occasionally he is positive but has not advanced beyond the baby stage of his spiritual growth. The participle is circumstantial. Translation: “furthermore he who does not eat,” a reference to the weak believer involved in this food taboo in Rome at the time of writing. Then the negative mh with the present active participle of krinw means “stop judging.” The present tense denotes linear aktionsart, continuous action which must cease and desist. The active voice: the weak or legalistic believer produces the action, he judges the mature believer. Plus the accusative singular direct object from the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun and translated “that one”—emphasising the category that is being judged: the mature believer. Then again, the present active participle of e)sqiw, “who keeps on eating.”
Principle
1. The occupational hazard and besetting sin of the weak believer is judging and bullying the mature believer.
2. The weak or legalistic believer is the worst bully in the world. He is self-righteous, arrogant, petty, implacable and inflexible.
3. The weak believer judges, maligns and vindictively criticises the mature believer who must not lower himself to the legalistic standards of the weak believer by his retaliation.
4. Arrogance and jealousy is the source of his implacability toward the mature believer.
5. The problem with both the strong and the weak believer is arrogance in this matter of contempt on the part of the strong and judging on the part of the weak. Each portrays and displays a certain type of arrogance.
6. Arrogance motivates thee weak believer to judge and bully the strong believer, while arrogance motivates the strong believer to regard with contempt and snobbishness his antagonist.
“for God hath received him” – the explanatory use of the postpositive conjunctive particle gar, plus the nominative singular subject qeoj with the generic use of the definite article—“for the God.” The generic use of the article comprehends a category as a single whole and sets it off in distinction to all other categories. This is followed by the aorist middle indicative from the verb proslambanw—“for the God had admitted into friendship.” Notice the past tense: “had admitted.” Actually it is “him,” the accusative singular direct object from the intensive pronoun a)utoj. There is no third person personal pronoun in the Koine Greek, so the intensive pronoun is used for a personal pronoun. So the corrected translation: “for the God hath admitted him into friendship.” The aorist tense of proslambanw is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety the action of the verb, and it refers to the fact that the mature believer is a friend of God. The weak believer in judging the strong believer is judging God’s friend. The weak believer is not a friend of God. The word “friend” is used for the mature believer and no one else. Abraham was the friend of God but that is because Abraham was a mature believer. He was designated the friend of God, says the Scripture. The middle voice: the indirect middle in which the agent, the God, produces the action rather than participating in the results of the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine, i.e. the strong believer/mature believer is the friend of God. A.T. Robertson: “God took both sides into His fellowship without requiring that they be vegetarians or meat-eaters.”
Translation: “He who eats [mature or strong believer], let him stop regarding with contempt that one who does not eat [the weak believer who regards the taboos]; furthermore he who does not eat [weak believer], let him stop judging that one who keeps on eating everything: for the God has admitted him into friendship.”
1. The weak believer from arrogance, through judging and maligning, becomes a spiritual bully destroying the privacy of the royal priesthood and thereby violating the royal family honour code.
2. The false standards of legalism are in total opposition to the privacy of the royal priesthood which is a major part of the royal family honour code.
3. God has not only received the strong believer but He has received him into friendship, a technical term for maturity.
4. The last phrase in this sentence, “for the God has admitted him into friendship,” is technical all the way, and it does not imply that Jesus is a friend of every believer. The reversionistic believer is said to be the enemy of the cross and the enemy of God. He is saved and in permanent relationship with God but he is still His enemy. Relationship is based on life. You have to be looking at life from the viewpoint of God, and if you are you are God’s friend.
5. Because the mature believer is the friend of God he looks with contempt on the weak believer who is usually legalistic or antinomian. The weak believer is not the friend of God; the weak believer is the enemy of God—Philippians 3:18; James 4:4.
6. However, the strong believer is the friend of God—2 Chronicles 20:7; James 2:23; Exodus 33:11.
7. The weak believer is out of order, he is a violator of the royal family honour code, he intrudes upon the privacy of the priesthood by judging, maligning, criticising the friends of God, the mature believers.
Principle
1. The mature believer from his superior knowledge of doctrine often reacts to the legalistic bullying of the reversionist by regarding him with utter
contempt.
2. The attitude of contempt is unnecessary in resisting the bullying of legalism. You can resist the bullying of the weak believer without the attitude of contempt.
3. The stupid legalist reacts against doctrine which is his only hope of advancing to spiritual maturity and glorifying the Lord in phase two.
4. The weak believer has no discernment in his blind arrogance and he fails to understand that even the mature believer is not perfect in this life.
5. His ignorance of the doctrine of hamartiology cause him to react against doctrine as if doctrine were responsible for our sins. If he had any sense he would know that the old sin nature is the source of sin, not doctrine.
6. Since doctrine is from God and God cannot sin, neither can God solicit to sin nor be the author of sin. Therefore doctrine is not the motivation for sinning.
7. So the failure of both categories in this passage (the weak and the strong believer) is not only arrogance but failure to live by the royal family honour code, which on the one hand demands the privacy of the priesthood and on the other hand demands impersonal love.
Verse 4 – the weak believer’s honour code violation: judging in the brethren. “Who are thou that judgest another man’s servant?” The verse begins with the vocative singular of the personal pronoun su which is in the proleptic position. The proleptic personal pronoun should be translated “You there,” it is addressing the weak believer. Then the nominative singular interrogative pronoun tij, “You there, who are you.” Plus the articular present active participle from the verb krinw which means to judge. The definite article is used as a relative pronoun. This is a descriptive present tense which denotes both linear aktionsart and indicates what is not occurring. The active voice: the weak or reversionistic believer produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. Then a word which is incorrectly translated “another man’s servant.” This is the accusative singular direct object from the adjective a)llotrioj which means belonging to another. But the word “servant” is a very bad translation, it is the accusative singular direct object from the noun o)ikethj. The word for slave is douloj, but here we do not have this word, we have o)ikethj which means “a house slave.” It is feminine, so it indicates primarily a female house slave and also has the implication that the female of the species just loves to judge the female of the species! Although, of course, it applies to the male as well. Why does Paul use this word for the house slave? Because one of the worst breech of manners in the ancient world was for an outsider to be critical of someone else’s house slave. A complaint about a slave was taken directly to the master, but never to the slave himself. It was considered to be ill-mannered to be critical of the house slave belonging to another person. In the Roman empire house slaves were Greeks who were equivalent of today’s college professors. They taught the children in the household. There were several categories of house slaves.
Principle
1. It was considered ill-mannered to criticise house slaves belonging to another person.
2. No one punished another man’s slaves. This was a breech of etiquette also and unprecedented poor manners.
3. This custom of the ancient world is used by the apostle Paul under the ministry of the holy Spirit to illustrate the principle of this phrase. Every believer in this context is a house slave. This means that we do not have the right to malign, to gossip, to judge, to be vindictively critical of another believer. Two exceptions: Parents have the right to judge and discipline their children and to superimpose their own standards on their children. And the pastor of the local church has the right to judge and to be critical of those who violate this principle, and to excommunicate them from the congregation so that privacy of the priesthood might be restored and objectivity toward Bible teaching might continue.
4. The legalistic reversionist is a spiritual bully seeking to impose his inferior and evil standards on the grace-oriented mature believer.
5. But the mature believer refuses to be bullied into legalism and tabooism, therefore the frustrated weak believer resorts to retaliation and revenge tactics which violate the royal family honour code.
6. The specific violation is rejection of the privacy of the royal priesthood under the principle of life: live and let live, which is both an establishment principle and a spiritual principle.
7. Every believer is the Lord’s domestic slave. We are slaves in the household of the Lord forever.
8. As household slaves all believers are under the authority of the justice of God, and God has not delegated that authority to the weak or the legalistic believer.
9. Therefore the weak believer is presumptuous and blasphemous in his modus operandi of judging, maligning, and criticising another believer, for that believer is not under his jurisdiction but the Lord’s.
10. The weak believer can only gain strength by discrediting the strong or mature believer, or bringing the strong believer under his direct control through legalistic bullying. The mature believer must not succumb to the bullying of the weak believer, but at the same time he must not distract the weak believer from doctrine.
11. Through judging the weak believer the weak believer weakens himself, and subjects himself to great discipline and punitive action from the justice of God.
12. In conclusion, the honour code demands that we lay off house slaves who belong to another. All believers are house slaves who belong to another.
Principle
1. Under the tyranny of the weak everyone is weak. Under the rulership of the justice of God everyone is strong.
2. The difference between the strong and weak is not only Bible doctrine resident in the soul and adherence to the royal family honour code through the filling of the Spirit, but recognising that we can only be strong by means of each believer living his own life as unto the Lord and not to another. Strength comes from doctrine but you can only be strong by applying the doctrine that you know. You are never strong when you apply the doctrine someone else knows.
3. We have not been left behind after salvation to please men, we have been left behind to please the Lord.
5. Freedom is based on living under the freedom of the proper authority, i.e. the justice of God.
6. Essentially, love of the brethren is the recognition of the privacy of the priesthood whereby every believer is free to live his life as unto the Lord by the Lord’s standards.
7. Love of the brethren, then, is a total freedom from mental attitude sins which motivates to judge other believers, seeking to place them under the tyranny of legalism, false standards and non-essential mores.
8. It is arrogance to presume divine authority and judge another believer in the family of God, a house slaves responsible to the justice of God and not to the whims of legalism.
9. Therefore, loving the brethren is not only freedom from mental attitude sins toward others but the resistance of temptation to judge, to malign, to criticise, to gossip about other believers.
10. Loving the brethren is the positive side of the honour code which in grace allows the privacy of the priesthood, adheres to the principle of live and let live, respects God’s righteousness in another believer.
1. It is noted from the previous verse that the nomenclature ‘strong’ is not unconditional praise and approbation. The word ‘strong’ in this context is not unconditional praise in approbation, nor is the word ‘weak’ unconditional reproach and condemnation.
2. Both strong and weak believers possess old sin natures and one way of another they will use them as long as they live.
3. Therefore the difference between strong and weak is time logged in the filling of the Spirit plus the amount of doctrine resident in the soul.
4. The difference between strong and weak is the difference between maturity and reversionism, or between maturity and ignorance of pertinent doctrine.
5. However, the strong and weak believer have different occupational hazards.
6. The one in question in this verse belongs to the weak believer, he seeks to superimpose his weakness on strong believers making them weak.
7. The weak believer tries to make his weak standards the rule for all believers. If the weak believer had his way all strong believers would be as weak as he is, and then you would have equality!
8. When the weak believer encounters opposition from the strong he assumes the role of judge and jury from his arrogant attitude that his taboos and his legalism are what God intends for all believers.
9. Rather than use doctrine to judge other believers we should use doctrine to tolerate other believers under the privacy of the royal priesthood and the principle of love under the royal family honour code. In other words, leave the judging to God.
10. The weak believer weakens his weakness by judging the strong believer. If the strong believer succumbs to his bullying he also weakens thje strength of the strong believer.
11. If you have to judge, judge yourself under the rebound technique.[1]
“to his own master he standeth or falleth” – present active indicative from sthkw which is an Hellenic construction, in contrast to Attic, and it is a construction taken from a Classical Greek verb i(sthmi. Sthkw is taken from the perfect tense of i(sthmi, which is sthka or e(sthka. Typical of the use of the verb is found in 1 Corinthians 16:13, “Be on the alert, stand fast in the doctrine, act like men, be strong.” The verb is used here for stability; it means to be stabilised. A similar use of sthkw is found in Philippians 4:1 – “stand form” or “stand fast.” It is used in two military connotations: 1 Corinthians where it means to stand fast, and Philippians 4:1 where it means to stand firm in advancing—defence and offence. A third use is found in Galatians 5:1, “ . . . stand fast, therefore.” The word is a favourite of Paul, it emphasises in context the relationship with the Lord based on perception of doctrine. Doctrine is the means of standing firm, i.e. doctrine resident in the soul. So we translate, “to his own Lord [Jesus Christ] he stands firm.” The customary present tense is for what habitually occurs when the believer takes in doctrine on a daily basis. The difference between the weak and the strong believer is determined by attitude toward doctrine. The strong believer is inculcated with doctrine whereas the negative or weak believer has rejected doctrine, has become apathetic toward it, places it low in his priorities or misses it altogether. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action of the verb through the daily function of GAP and resultant advance in the plan of God. “Or falleth” is the present active indicative of piptw, used here in its military connotation where it means to become a casualty. It means to fall down or to become a casualty. Homer used this word to be slain in battle. This is a pictorial present tense which presents to the mind a picture of the believer becoming a casualty, falling in battle because of rejection of or indifference to Bible doctrine. It depicts reversionism in the process of occurrence. The active voice: the believer producing the action of the verb through reversionism or neglect of doctrine is the one who becomes the casualty. Because of the privacy of the priesthood the Lord determines who has become the casualty, not the weak believer. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality.[2]
“for God is able to make him stand” – the explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar, plus kurioj and the generic use of the definite article, “for the Lord.” Plus the present active indicative of dunatew, meaning to be powerful—derived from the adjective dunatoj meaning to have ability or power: “for the Lord has the power.” The perfect present denotes the continuation of existing results. The omnipotence of the Lord in the past is emphasised as a present result when it is translated into the honour code function of the strong believer. The active voice: Jesus Christ as kurioj produces the action through the communication of Bible doctrine. This is a declarative indicative viewing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Then, once again, the military word: the aorist active infinitive of the verb sthkw which means to stand fast or to advance in rank at a steady continuous pace, not being deterred by anything the enemy does. Here it means to hold the ground in preparation for the advance. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It gathers up into one entirety a succession of events relating to the advance of the believer. It views the believer as holding his ground as he advances or is advancing in rank. The infinitive of intended result combines both purpose and result in one connotation. Plus the accusative singular direct object from the intensive pronoun autoj: “for the Lord has the power to make him stand fast.”
1. In other words, the strong believer does not stand on the basis of criticism or legalism imposed by the weak believer.
2. No believer has the ability to cause another believer to hold his ground or to stand fast. You do not stand fast on the basis of other believers. If your Christian life depends on what other Christians think, then you are a weak sister. You go to other Christians for counsel instead of building up your own norms and standards and drawing from your own resources, which in this case would be doctrine translated into norms and standards in your own conscience.
3. This emphasises the function of the royal family honour code as living one’s life as unto the Lord and not living to please mankind.
4. The taboo believer is weak. He seeks to superimpose his own weaknesses on all believers, making them weak. The weak believer is an evangelist for weakness.
5. The strong believer understands his freedom in grace and uses it to learn doctrine and to advance to maturity.
6. Live and let live gives each believer the opportunity of living his life as unto the Lord who has the power to make him hold his ground or stand fast.
7. The weak believer does not have this power. Therefore the weak believer violates the honour code by seeking to superimpose his weaknesses on the strong believer. This verse utterly denies the right of the weak believer to judge or to criticise any believer who does not conform to his pattern, whether the pattern is legalism or antinomianism.
Translation: “You there, who are you, the one who keeps judging a house slave
belonging to another? To his own Lord [the Lord Jesus Christ] he stands firm or becomes a casualty. In fact, he will hold his ground for the Lord has the power to make him stand.”
1. The weak believer violates the royal family honour code for interfering with or intruding on the privacy of the strong believer. The weak believer does not observe the privacy of the priesthood, but through bullying (judging, gossiping, maligning, adverse criticism seeks to coerce the strong believer into a system of legalism.
2. Instead of Christian fellowship the weak believer simply desires social fellowship, compatibility of weakness. If he is arrogant he wants everyone to be like he is.
3. He superimposes his standards whether they are legalistic or antinomian. He superimposes his standards over the standards of doctrine and seeks to gain ascendancy for his taboos or his antinomianism in the Christian community. He only uses doctrine to ‘prove’ his point; therefore he selects doctrine.
4. In arrogance the weak believer wants his own way. He is not only maladjusted to life but he is maladjusted to the plan of God and the justice of God.
5. The observation of food taboos and asceticism in diet becomes substitute for Bible doctrine for the weak believer.
6. This means that the weak believer is arrogant and subjective. As an arrogant and weak person he assumes and alleges that his standards are God’s standards. Therefore he seeks to superimpose his legalism on both God and the strong believer, but not in that order. He attacks the strong believer, and in attacking the strong believer seeks to superimpose also on God.
7. The weak believer always sets himself up as a judge, as the final authority.
8. Through spiritual bullying he seeks to establish himself as the leader, the judge, the evaluator of every Christian life.
9. The violation of privacy, the destruction of grace freedom, creates a monster out of the weak believer. He becomes the enemy of the cross while being saved through the cross.
10. It is the policy of the justice of God and Bible doctrine which sustains the strong believer (not judging and maligning, or bullying), and if these are not pushed and enforced by the authority of the pastor the result is disaster in the congregation.
11. Therefore the weak believer does not determine the status of the strong believer; the Lord determines his status.
12. The royal family honour code demands both the privacy of the priesthood and the freedom to live one’s life as unto the Lord.
13. The weak believer is the worst of all bullies, seeking to lower every believer to his own erroneous standards of either legalism of antinomianism. Many of his applications may be correct but they are correct for his particular stage of growth and not correct for a higher stage of growth, and not even for a lower stage of growth. All of us as believers are assembled in different stages of growth. There must be something for everyone, but whatever there is for everyone must not confuse the other ones.
Verse 5 – the holy day controversy. The first principle is that the mature believer is regarded in our context as the strong believer, and as such he regards every day alike. Every day is a special gift from God and therefore there is the quite evident tendency on the part of the strong believer to assign each day the same importance the next day or the day before because it is from God. Secondly, only the believer has the grace provision to actually redeem that time or to purchase that time, according to Ephesians 5:15-18. The capital for the purchase of time is called grace—James 4:6, “more grace.” This refers to the fact that God the Holy Spirit, in conjunction with the planning of God the Father, provides a basis to enjoy this particular day and to utilise it as God would have us to use it in the intake of doctrine, in working, in playing, in a variety of things which life has to offer. So a third concept emerges in the mature believer’s attitude toward the day. Every day we live as a believer in phase two is God’s gracious gift. It is just as much a gift as any blessing that may be imputed to the mature believer on a given day. Each day is regarded in the light of God’s logistical support. The only time we actually possess to honour God in time are the number of days which He has graciously provided under logistical grace—Psalm 90:12; James 4:13-15. The fact that the believer lives another day on the earth is a sign of divine faithfulness and a manifestation of God’s grace—Lamentations 3:22,23. Therefore from the standpoint of the mature believer God has provided soul capital in the form of Bible doctrine to make each day count in His plan, and ultimately to His glory—James 1:21, which in the Greek talks about the engrafted word—Bible doctrine resident in the soul through the daily function of GAP. Therefore the importance of acquiring doctrine is revealed in Jeremiah 15:16 and mentioned again in Matthew 4:4. Every day is a special day, and while certain days receive emphasis as far as our civilisation or society is concerned each day is a special day to the mature believer—John 11:9-10. Each day is a part of God’s plan for time, and the believer is each day is required to recognise that the day is a day to avoid mental attitude sins which produce the self-induced misery of Proverbs 27:1. The mental attitude sins which characterise reversionism must be avoided in order to avoid the blackout of the soul—1 John 2:9, 11. There is no suffering in phase three, God can only demonstrate His grace provision for any situation or circumstance of pressure or suffering in the day that He gives today, and the day He provides tomorrow, and the next. But we are to live within the borders of one day. The fact that we never look beyond today in the sense of enjoying God’s faithfulness, God’s provision, and in the sense that the physical food that we eat today is the energy of tomorrow, so the spiritual food that we had yesterday is the basis for meeting any circumstance in life today. God has structurised His plan so that He will provide a situation to use the doctrine we learned yesterday, today . . . and so on and so on. So that God never puts on the positive believer more than he can bear, understand, or cope with. Therefore the doctrine we received today we can count on using tomorrow. This is a part of the plan of God and this is why a mature believer is a special person in His time orientation.
On the other hand the weak believer is ignorant of doctrine. This ignorance may be because he is reversionistic, as in this passage, where he has rejected doctrine. He has been indifferent to doctrine and as each day comes and goes doctrine is not in the picture, doctrine has not priority, and therefore there is no changing of the norms and standards of his conscience of the soul. Because there is no change and because he operates on the norms and standards which he had before salvation—norms and standards based upon his environment, his training, his academic life, those who have influenced him, etc.—he has no basis for appreciating the fact that each day is a special gift from the Lord, and that even though special associations exist in the minds of some, every day is Christmas or Easter, etc. Every day is a special day in itself. In this way we live out our lives a day at a time, neither rushing ahead nor falling behind, and we get the most out of each day—the greatest of blessing, the greatest opportunity for the application of doctrine. So that it is very, very difficult to look at the weak believer and see him making something special out of this day or that, and rising to a peak of emotion because of the day that exists and then falling of into despondency shortly thereafter because that day has gone and for one reason or another emotionally or physically he is hung over, and waiting for the next day to come along so he can climb another peak and have a great emotional experience.
In this verse we get the weak believer’s viewpoint first of all. “One man esteemeth one day above another” – it begins with the explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar which gives the connection of thought. The use of gar is one of the greatest ways in which to relate one system of thought to another throughout the New Testament. We know immediately that this is going to be an explanation in which two sides are presented, and we know this because we go back to Attic or Classical Greek in which we see the two correlating particles men and de—“on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” Then the nominative singular from the relative pronoun o(j used here for a demonstrative pronoun and should be translated “this one”—“For on the one hand this one,” a demonstrative referring to a category: the weak believer. Next is the present active indicative of krinw, meaning to reach a decision or to judge. The weak believer “considers.” The customary present tense is for what habitually occurs with the believer who has a Jewish background where he has trained to observe the Sabbath and such other holy days such as the Passover, etc., plus other patriotic ones. The active voice: the weak believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of what was occurring in Rome and what has subsequently occurred throughout history. Then h(meran par h(meran: the accusative singular direct object of the verb h(mera, and para plus the accusative of h(mera, and it means “one day greater than another day.” Para with the accusative singular here is used in the comparative sense of greater than. So the weak believer in legalistic reversionism distinguishes one day from another and judges it as a holy day, which is his prerogative, but then he judges everyone else in relationship to his own prerogative. Judging by false standards is always the habit of the weak believer.
Now the strong believer: “another esteemeth every day alike” – the postpositive conjunctive particle de used correlatively with men means “on the other hand.” Plus the nominative singular from the relative pronoun o(j used as a demonstrative pronoun for the mature believer with maximum doctrine resident in the soul. Then the present active indicative, again, of krinw. The customary present is for what habitually occurs with the believer who is strong, i.e. he is positive toward doctrine, his norms and standards are based upon Bible doctrine, he has already attained spiritual maturity through the daily function of GAP. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action of this viewpoint. The declarative indicative reveals the fact that this has always been a reality down through history: the strong believer has an antithetical view. Plus the accusative singular direct object from the adjective paj and the noun h(mera—“every day.” This is an idiom meaning every day in the same connotation which we simply translate “every day is alike” as from the Lord. It means every day in the same connotation: the connotation of grace, logistical support from God, a day to be utilised for the Lord whatever you are going to celebrate, or whatever you are going to do or not do. It is to be regarded as a grace gift from God.
1. Obviously to the believer who is inculcated with doctrine every day is a gracious
gift from the Lord—Ephesians 5:16-18.
2. The only opportunity for glorifying God in time is related to the number of days
each one of us is given after salvation.
4. God provides the capital to make each day count through the principle of logistical grace—up to maturity, then after that God provides the capital on the
basis of the 6th imputation of blessing.
4. So that to the mature believer there are no special days in the sense that you must
observe them to be spiritual, to grow up, or to gain blessing from God.
5. While Sunday, the first day of the week, has been set aside as a special assembly
day in the Church age, it is actually no holier than any other day which the
Lord has given to the believer. Therefore a controversy over the observation of
days obviously has existed and will exist all the way to the Rapture, but the
controversy is not who is right and who is wrong but who is weak and who is
strong.
Principle
1. The controversy exists between ignorance and cognisance.
2. Ignorance of doctrine makes the believer weak; knowledge of doctrine integrated
into the norms of the conscience makes the believer strong.
5. The weak believer falls back on his own background, which in this case is the background of legalism.
6. The strong believer, whatever his former background, is fully briefed in the plan of God and regards each day in the context of the plan of God.
5. Consistency of doctrine means consistency of living.
6. Each day is to be lived as unto the Lord.
The weak believer is wrong in the controversy. He is wrong because he is inflexible in his application whereas the strong believer is right because of the flexibility of application related to the royal family honour code, i.e. privacy of the priesthood. Since the believer is wrong the controversy is resolved by congnisance of doctrine.
“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” brings us back to the solution which is the privacy of the priesthood. This begins with the adjective e(kastoj in the nominative singular, used as the subject: “each one.” This emphasises the believer’s privacy, his individuality. It emphasises the fact that you have the right to regard any day as a special day within the framework of your own life. But to try to superimpose that on everyone else is the problem. Then the present passive imperative from the compound verb plhroforew [plhrhj = full; forew = to bear, to wear] means to be completely full, to convince fully. In the passive voice it means to be completely filled with the principle so as to be convinced by the principle which fills your soul—“Let each one be fully convinced.” The perfective present tense is used to denote the continuation of existing results of learning Bible doctrine. The passive voice: the strong believer here receives the action of the verb, even though a weak believer potentially has the same opportunity. The imperative mood is a command. Then the prepositional phrase which introduces again the concept of the privacy of the priesthood, e)n plus the locative of i)dioj and nouj—“in his own thought.” This does not mean a decision based on the little light that you have. This does mean confidence based upon full knowledge of doctrine and resultant common sense application of that doctrine to reality.
Translation: “For on the one hand this one [the weak believer] considers one day greater than another day: on the other hand that one [the strong believer] considers every day alike [for the Lord]. Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind.”
Principle
1. This is a command to learn Bible doctrine, to learn doctrine as a means of resolving all controversial issues in life.
2. This verse commands that the believer become spiritually self-sustaining through knowledge of doctrine.
3. Inevitably where believers gather there are different viewpoints over different things. Controversies over taboos and over legalistic matters cannot be
resolved apart from knowledge of doctrine.
4. No one can change the mind of a legalistic reversionist (In fact, no one
should), doctrine has to do it.
5. Doctrine is the standard of the mature believer.
6. Because of varying stages of growth in the royal family, varying standards of
application are permitted. These varying standards are applications relative to
one’s spiritual growth, one’s cognisance of doctrine or ignorance of doctrine.
7. Growing up spiritually requires a lot of patience and tolerance so that doctrine
remains the issue.
6. The weak believer cannot become strong through false standards, but only as
his false standards are corrected by Bible doctrine which he has learned.
7. The norms and standards of the Christian life are not determined by legalistic
taboos or the observation of holy days, but by the inculcation of doctrine
through the daily function of GAP.
Verse 6 – “He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.” This begins with the present active participle from the verb fronew which means to think, and to be able to form an opinion from that thought. It means to have a thought or an attitude about something because of previous information. The verb fronew is used for practical application. It means to take the norms and standards of the conscience of the soul, put them into the frame of reference and memory centre, and then send them out to the launching pad in application to life. It means application as well as thought. So in this verse fronew is the practical application of the verb krinw which means to judge in the previous verse. As the adult person sets aside his immaturity, so the mature believer sets aside his childish thoughts of legalism. Doctrine formed in the soul resulting in a new conscience also causes him to have moral courage, no hang-ups, no arrogance. The definite article is used as a personal pronoun for the believer in different stages of growth. Different believers are in different stages of spiritual growth and therefore have different convictions based upon knowledge or ignorance of doctrine. In this case the definite article is used for the mature believer. Each believer must be convinced in his own mind and avoid spiritual bullying of others, whether it is legalistic bullying or antinomian bullying. So with spiritual growth from perception of doctrine these opinions will change as divine standards fill the conscience. But they must be changed by doctrine and not by self-righteous and opinionated legalism, or distorting grace—antinomianism. They must be reciprocal recognition of the privacy of the priesthood in various stages of growth. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs or may be reasonably expected to occur with the mature believer regarding every day alike. The active voice: the mature ore strong believer produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. With this is the accusative singular direct object from h(mera. God gives us capital: one day at a time. He expects us to exercise our volition in the use of our priorities. “He who observes the day.” This is the one who observes the day as unto the Lord. Then the present active indicative of the verb fronew again, meaning to think, to apply, to have information and be able to apply it, therefore to observe. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present denoting what has begun in the past at the point of maturity and continuing into the present as the function, the modus vivendi, of the strong believer. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of unqualified assertion. With it is the dative singular indirect object from the noun kurioj, representing the Lord Jesus Christ as the prince ruler of the Church. The indicative mood is declarative giving the concept of the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is called the mood of unqualified assertion. With it must be an object or a direct object and the indirect object is kurioj. This is an anarthrous construction, i.e. there is no definite article in the Greek. We have to add a definite article for smooth English because the lack of a definite article in the Greek is comparable to the use of the definite article in English. It all adds up to the fact that “he who observes the day observes it to the Lord.” The mature believer is the one in view, he observes every day in the perspective of Bible doctrine, i.e. just as the Lord provides food, shelter and clothing, and property as a means of acquiring these things; this is a part of logistical grace or being sustained, but it would be impossible to utilise these things unless you had something else from God in which to do it—and environment provided by God. The environment is temporal. He provides us 24 hours, and then after that He gives us another 24 hours, and then another. That day is just as important as all of the things that we utilise in that day—money, food, clothing, shelter, pleasure, or whatever we use money for. All of these things would be useless unless we had an environment in which to use them, and this is not planet earth as such, it is time in which planet earth is functioning. It is necessary to recognise this as a gift from God.
“and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it” – this phrase, while it occurs next in the KJV, is not found in the original Greek. Therefore we have to omit it at this point. The omission of this phrase indicates that to regard to certain days as holy and others as not holy is not what this passage is saying.
“He that eateth, eateth to the Lord” – this is a continuation of the concept as related to the royal family honour code; “for he gives thanks to the God.”
Then comes the application of the immature believer. This is not the weak believer reversionist, this is the weak believer immature. The weak immature believer is positive toward doctrine, he simply doesn’t have enough yet to form norms and standards that are compatible with God’s plan for his life. The reversionist weak believer is negative toward doctrine. Always remember the attitude toward the weak believer is toleration. The attitude toward the weak believer negative to doctrine is separation. In neither case is straightening him out the order of the day—trying to impose your views on him. Doctrine is always the issue in the spiritual life, therefore toleration toward the weak believer who is positive toward.
Principle
1. At this point we are dealing with an immature believer who is positive toward Bible doctrine and not involved in some form of reversionism. He just simply hasn’t been exposed long enough yet to learn certain things which would change his mental attitude and change his norms and standards.
2. While the immature believer has enough doctrine to be grateful to the Lord to have
thanksgiving, he does not understand that food is not in the issue of the spiritual life. He
suffers from the food taboo problem.
7. This food principle also applies to wine and alcoholic beverage. While the Bible permits the drinking of alcoholic beverage, alcoholic beverage has several great problems. One of them is the person who has no self-discipline, no self-control, and has no authority orientation to life, and inevitably he becomes the town drunk.
8. The mature believer must not regard with contempt the standard of the immature believer who only drinks water and eats vegetables. Nor should the immature believer judge the mature believer who drinks wine and eats meat. There is room for different standards under the privacy of the priesthood which is the central part of the honour code. These things must be observed so that each believer can develop his norms and standards from the perception of Bible doctrine. So every royal priest has the right to privacy and conviction which is compatible with his personal stage of growth. One believer cannot adopt the standards of a more mature believer without doctrine first, but if he is simply copying someone else he is weak and in trouble.
“and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not” – the emphatic use of the conjunction kai is translated “in fact.” Then the articular present active participle from e)sqiw plus the negative mh. The definite article is used as a personal pronoun for the immature believer who is positive toward doctrine but does not have enough doctrine. The present tense is a customary present in this participle, it denotes what habitually occurs with regard to the immature believer and his trends toward asceticism. The active voice: the immature believer is positive toward doctrine but producing the action of the verb because he is still weak in doctrine and doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t need someone to jump all over him, he needs to be respected with regard to his privacy. In him is +R, and given a chance doctrine will straighten everything out. The participle is circumstantial for the modus operandi of the weak believer who is positive toward doctrine—“in fact, he who does not eat.”
1. The immature believer in the privacy of his priesthood, living his life as unto the
Lord and observing certain food taboos which are related to his background
and standards of conscience, is not going to be right many times. But then, when
were any of us ever right all of the time.
9. Here is an ascetic who refrains from drinking wine or eating meat, and he does
this as unto the Lord. In other words, we have to say he is sincere in what
he is doing. In his sincerity he associates it with the Lord. (We know, of course,
that sincerity is not a virtue and that knowledge of doctrine is a virtue) He
is sincere and he does think he is living his life as unto the Lord, and there is no
reason for you to tell him he isn’t. If you refrain from telling him he will hear
doctrine along the way and make the proper applications, and be a stable person
with stable normal growth, instead of being bullied into a course of action
to which later he may react.
10. The problem really lies with the immature believer who is tempted to judge the
freedom of the mature believer in eating meat and drinking wine offered to
idols.
4. Here is where the privacy of the priesthood as a basic tenet of the honour code
must be applied in all cases.
5. Both weak and strong believers have a right to the privacy of their priesthood.
Their standards and modus vivendi are a part of their privacy.
6. Therefore the mature believer must tolerate, while the immature believer must
avoid maligning, judgment, gossip. Live and let live is the standing order for
the function of the royal family of God.
“to the Lord he eateth not” – the dative of reference singular, kurioj, which is also
dative of advantage because it is to our advantage to do whatever we are doing as unto the Lord. It is to our advantage and the Lord’s advantage to have revealed Himself to us in His attributes, His plan, His policies, His functions which are a major part of doctrine. We translate this “with reference to the Lord.” Then the present active indicative of e)sqiw and the negative o)u because of the indicative mood. The retroactive progressive present denotes a standard in the past which is being applied to the present, the standard being asceticism. The active voice: the weak or the immature believer produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. This is what is happening: with reference to the Lord he does not eat.
“and giveth God thanks” – Then the connective kai plus the present active indicative of e)uxaristew. This is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs with the immature believer who is positive toward doctrine in contrast to the reversionistic believer. The active voice: the immature believer produces the action, he gives thanks. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that this immature, weak believer is living his life as unto the Lord with what he has. He just doesn’t have much in the way of doctrine yet. With what he has he is doing the best he can, so why should he be handicapped by a lot of smart mature believers who use him as the butt of their jokes, ridicule him and make fun of him?
Under the principle of the function of the priesthood certain functions demand both toleration and understanding on the part of the mature believer. The more doctrine you have the greater your responsibility to be sensitive to those in your periphery, believers and unbelievers.
Translation: “He who observes the day [mature believer] observes it to the Lord. And he who eats [mature believer], eats to the Lord; for he gives thanks to God; in fact he who does not eat [weak or immature believer], with reference to the Lord he does not eat, and he gives thanks to God.”
1. As long as the weak believer does not assume that his observation of a taboo or
ascetic function is spirituality or a means of blessing from God he is in no danger
of reversionism.
11. For the weak believer to assume that any taboo or the observation of a holy day is
spiritual or an advance to maturity is, of course, apostasy. While it is apostasy
and incompatible with the Word it can be straightened out by doctrine if
he will just continue in doctrine. Therefore while he is wrong he must be
permitted to continue in doctrine without making an issue over this non-essential.
3. The key in this verse is the giving of thanks to God. Both kinds do it. That means
they are living their life as unto the Lord, even though they certainly don’t have
doctrine in one case and lots of it in the other. It indicates positive volition
toward doctrine whether it is a weak or a strong believer.
1. Variance in spiritual growth does not hinder either Christian fellowship or
Christian relationship.
12. The command to love the brethren includes not only respect for divine righteousness imputed and resident in another but tolerance, taking cognisance of
spiritual growth. The first lesson in spiritual sensitivity is to realise that no two
believers have attained the same stage of spiritual growth. No two believers
have exactly the same amount of doctrine resident in the soul.
3. The privacy of the royal priesthood guarantees that immature believers can have
erroneous standards through ignorance of doctrine and not be ostracised or
regarded with contempt by those who are mature believers who have the correct
doctrine and the correct application. It is important to remember that none
of us in this life are perfect and none of us will ever be perfect in this life. Just as
we are at different stages of growth we also have different failures and
weaknesses, and the issue is not what failures or weaknesses that we have but the
importance of taking in Bible doctrine.
4. The privacy of the priesthood allows for variation and application without
hindering objectivity in perception and correction of false standards by
continued
perception of the Word. On other words, we are to be corrected, our standards
are to be corrected, because we must become a by-product of the new
birth rather than a product of our environment. The new birth cancels whatever
handicaps environment presented to us in life. This can only be
accomplished as Bible doctrine enters the soul and replaces the norms and
standards that we have there.
5. The privacy of the priesthood permits the believer to continue to advance to
maturity in spite of false norms and sins which are forgiven through the rebound
technique.
6. While sins are forgiven through rebound and the believer is restored to fellowship
and the filling of the Spirit, only perception of additional doctrine can
correct the false norms and standards which characterise the weak believer. You
can rebound and rebound and rebound, and you will always be forgiven,
always restored to fellowship, always be filled with the Spirit once more; but,
rebound does not change the standards in your soul, and in order to become a
product of regeneration you must have standards based on doctrine.
7. The privacy of the priesthood guarantees that being in error does not preclude or
hinder spiritual advance to maturity and glorification of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
1. The royal family honour code demands that every believer positive toward
doctrine be tolerated within the framework of his maintained privacy so that he
can objectively assimilate doctrine taught in the local church.
13. However, if such a believer is negative toward doctrine and destroys his own privacy by judging, maligning, gossiping about other believers, then this
believer must be removed from the congregation where he can learn doctrine and
grow. If a believer is positive toward doctrine and destroys his own
privacy by judging, maligning and gossiping about other believers, then this
believer must be removed from the congregation where his positive volition
would carry him to maturity but his decisions to intrude upon the privacy of
others forestalls the possibility, at least in that local church. These believers must
learn heir lesson and move to some other local church where they can receive
doctrine and grown in grace.
14. There is a difference between essential doctrine and non-essential application. When a believer rejects essential doctrine then he must be separated from
the congregation of the orthodox believers or he will separate himself. By “he
must be separated” is meant that his reversionism causes him to decide to
separate himself or his reversionism motivates him to gossip, malign, and judge,
and in so doing comes under the policy of being removed for that.
4. By essential doctrine is meant such things as the deity of Christ, the humanity of
Christ, the hypostatic union, salvation through faith in Christ, the doctrine of
eternal security, etc.
5. There can be no variation in the essential, doctrine, but there can exist many
variations in the non-essentials—many applications that are inaccurate when
you are mature but because of lack of doctrine they are accurate to you. Things
that are actually wrong are tolerated simply because they are wrong with
the person who doesn’t know better and who is positive toward doctrine, and
who, given a chance, will grow up and from doctrine replace false norms with
true norms.
6. Non-essential application is related to immaturity and lack of knowledge of
pertinent doctrine.
7. To deny the validity of this distinction between essential and non-essential truths
is to live in the realm of inflexible error or puritanical arrogance. Differences
with regard to diet or holy days must not be the basis for denying a believer
correct and accurate Bible teaching.
1. It is essential that every believer lives his life as unto the Lord and not to please
man—neither to please
man nor to retaliate against man.
2. This is only possible through the constant intake of doctrine as a result of the
constant function of GAP.
3. To observe a days as unto the Lord and to eat as unto the Lord, or to abstain from
certain foods as unto the Lord, is the second key to this verse.
4. Spiritual freedom is the heritage of the royal priesthood.
5. Privacy is a part of that freedom but the decision as unto the Lord is another part
of that freedom. If you do it as unto the Lord you may be incorrect or you may be
correct, but which ever is the case privacy must be emphasised for objectivity in
approaching the Word of God.
6. Each believer has the right and the freedom to determine application on the basis
of the doctrine he possesses, not the doctrine someone else possesses.
7. Where doctrine is constantly and consistently taught and where perception of that
doctrine is on a daily basis there is no problem. The problem occurs when either
the believer is negative toward doctrine, the absolute criterion, or where doctrine
is not available on a daily basis leaving the believer in spiritual limbo or in a state
of spiritual anarchy.
8. Therefore this places the issue where it belongs—in the royal family of God.
Acceptance with God is the true norm for the right to Christian fellowship.
The concept of verse 6
1. The royal family honour code binds the strong and the weak believer together in a
mutual system of advancing to maturity. We are bound together in the body of
Christ, another synonym for royal family. We are bound together in order to
advance to maturity and to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and in the mutual
advance in the plan of God in such a manner as to overshadow the differences of
opinions between us in the area of non-essentials. Non-essentials also includes
the fact that many believers are ignorant of doctrine but they are positive toward
doctrine, and therefore they are absolutely wrong in many of their applications to
the Christian life. It is not our job to point out the fact that they are wrong, to
straighten them up, but to make sure that the way is clear for them to learn
doctrine so that they through their own perception of doctrine can establish the
norms and standards for the Christian life. This means they are not to be
subjected to either hero worship and emulation from it, or to be subjected to
spiritual bullying and resultant legalism.
2. While toleration of application is a function of the royal family honour code,
apathy or indifference to the distinction between doctrine and error is never
tolerated. You can be wrong about doctrine but if you are indifferent to
inaccurate doctrine then this cannot be tolerated. In other words, you aren’t going
to be tolerated if you are in the tongues movement.
3. There may be a difference of application of doctrine because of different stages
of spiritual growth, but there is one body of essential doctrine where variance
becomes error and misinterpretation becomes apostasy. This is the essential.
4. The honour code demands rigid inflexible adherence to the essential, doctrine
taught from the Word of God. Without that rigid adherence to the essential one’s
norms and standards cannot be changed in one’s own soul. Therefore there is no
advance to maturity.
5. Variation in application does not permit or give consent to variation in essential
doctrine.
6. Learn to distinguish between absolute doctrine and the variation of application.
7. Variations of growth and different stages of ignorance do not change the absolute
truth of Bible doctrine.
8. This is illustrated by the two controversies in context: the food taboos and the
observation of holy days. Principle: Two Christians can believe in the deity of
Christ, which is an absolute, and yet differ in their attitude toward diet and holy
days. Two Christians can accept the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit
which unites them in the body of Christ, yet differ in their attitude toward food
taboos and holy days. Two Christians can subscribe to the pre-Tribulational
Rapture of the Church, yet differ in their attitude toward food taboos and holy
days. Two Christians can understand and thoroughly accept the doctrine of the
attributes of God and yet differ in their application with regard to food taboos and
holy days. This is the difference between essential doctrine and non-essential
application.
Verse 7 – gathering together everything that we have learned we understand immediately that in the body of Christ there is relationship, interaction, the opportunity to hear each other to know each other, to explain things in the presence of each other, and yet to maintain the high standards of the royal family honour code. In many ways and in many things we differ, and yet we are bound together not only by such doctrines as the baptism of the Spirit and the imputation of divine righteousness, but we are bound together in our differences of spiritual growth, in the difference of content of doctrine in the soul, by the royal family honour code. This demands that those who have grown up tolerate the weak and demand that the weak not judge the strong.
“For none of us liveth to himself” – the explanatory use of the postpositive conjunctive particle gar, “For.” Then the nominative singular subject, an adjective used as a substantive, o)udeij, meaning no one or not one. Here the corrected translation is “For not one.” Plus the genitive plural from the personal pronoun e)gw, a descriptive genitive for the entire royal family of God—“us,” and the present active indicative of the verb zaw—“lives.” The present tense is a pictorial present, it pictures phase two or the believer in time in the process of living. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb as a part of the plan of God. God has a plan for the life of every believer living and therefore life has meaning and purpose for each one of us. The believer must no longer live his life for his own personal interest or his own personal self-gratification as such, but he lives his life as unto the Lord. However it is impossible to live your life as unto the Lord unless you understand that you are connected with other people who are living their life as unto the Lord. The active voice: the believer no longer lives his life for his own personal interest, he lives his life as unto the Lord. Note from the previous verse that both the weak and the strong believer, the immature and the mature, both give thanks to God. Next is the dative of advantage or disadvantage, depending upon your status quo, from the reflexive pronoun e(autou—“for himself.” We have here “For not one of us lives for himself,” not “to himself.” When the action expressed by the verb is referred back to its own subject the word is called reflexive.
1. Because every believer is a royal ambassador the purpose of his life is changed so that he comes out ahead as if he were living for self. No matter how you think you have failed you are still ahead because you are an ambassador. We are not living for self in a selfish concept but we our now living as unto the Lord.
2. Because every believer is a royal priest he possesses a freedom and privacy to advance to the objectives of phase two: maturity adjustment to the justice of God and resultant blessing in time imputed.
3. In other words, every believer is free to use his freedom to advance to inequality.
4. The pseudo sacrifice ideas of equality is the farce of socialism. Socialism is a system of thinking in terms of evil.
5. There is no equality among believers in either time or eternity.
6. All believers have freedom to advance to maturity but all believers do not use that freedom to follow the plan of God for such an advance. As soon as they do, they create inequality.
7. There is neither equality in heaven nor in time because we have freedom. Freedom guarantees inequality.
8. Freedom does not guarantee or manufacture equality; freedom guarantees and manufactures inequality in the human race.
9. Therefore equality is a myth; freedom is a reality.
10. God starts all believers at the new birth as equals through the 36 things provided at salvation.
11. From that point on inequality must exist through the use of freedom.
12. Freedom does not guarantee equality, it guarantees inequality.
13. Some believers are mature; some believers are immature. This is inequality. Some believers are positive toward doctrine; some are negative. This is the basis for that inequality. But everyone is free to have the same chance.
1. While this phrase emphasises living one’s life as unto the Lord it also applies to the principle of toleration of differences of opinion in the area of non-essential application.
2. There must be agreement on essentials such as Bible doctrine but there must be tolerance in the area of non-essentials—background and environmental applications from religious legalism or heathenism modus vivendi.
3. Only the mature believer can discern between essentials and non-essentials, therefore the mature believer is required to tolerate. The more you grow spiritually the greater your responsibility to the family of God: to be sensitive to the feelings of others, the opinions of others in the sense of toleration. This is impersonal love.
4. The immature believer has a tendency to judge and to persecute the nonessentials, therefore the immature or weak believer is commanded not to judge others.
5. Therefore the principle is epitomised from the previous verse where immature and mature, weak and strong, both give thanks to God.
6. Our purpose in this life is to live our lives as unto the Lord regardless of our stage of growth or our categories in Christianity. None of us lives for self, we live for the Lord.
7. God is the source of both life and blessing.
8. Two categories of life have been imputed at birth: human life to the soul, and at the new birth eternal life to the human spirit.
9. Regeneration is the Holy Spirit providing a human spirit as the home or the target for the imputation of eternal life.
15. This human spirit is the home or the residence for eternal life, just as the soul is
the residence for human life.
16. The blessing is imputed at maturity adjustment to the justice of God as the
means, the mechanics of glorifying God. It is the imputation of blessing in six
categories that glorifies God.
17. Therefore we live our lives not to self but to God.
18. By living for self we never discover the meaning and purpose of life and we never enjoy the fullness of blessing from God as believers. But by living for
God we discover the true meaning of life, we have capacity, we have blessing and reward in life from the justice of God. In having these things we glorify God.
“and no man dieth to himself” – dealing with the final phase of our life on this earth: dying. The connective use of the conjunction kai indicates that there is sequence here—“and.” It means that death follows life. Then the nominative singular subject from the adjective o)udeij—“not one,” refers to believers. All believers are in the plan of God for both living in time and dying in time. The exception will be the Rapture generation. In other words, God has a plan for our living, God has a plan for our dying; God has made provision for our living, God has provision for our dying. This means that those believers in reversionism who die the sin unto death are not in the will of God in their dying. God wants everyone to go out under dying grace which is the transitional glory. We glorify God by reaching maturity and the manifestation of that glorification in the imputation of blessing in time. The present active indicative of the verb a)poqnhskw means to die—“and not one dies.” The futuristic present is one in which the present tense denotes an event which has not yet occurred, but it is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already occurring. Death is future for all of us, but death is so real that we think of it as occurring now in order to understand the passage. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb, with the exception of the Rapture generation. The indicative mood is declarative for an unqualified statement of fact. The verb is followed by the dative of advantage or disadvantage. Under the concept of dative of advantage the life and death of the believer are great blessings due to the fact that the believer has taken in doctrine every day consistently. The believer has been stabilised by transferring (by academic perception doctrine) from the page of the Word to the soul, not directly by reading the Bible but indirectly through the communication of a pastor-teacher. This is the means by which he grows and by which he fulfils the dative of advantage. If you are advancing life only gets better. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have problems or suffering but the blessings are greater and greater so that living is fantastic; dying is only better—the process of dying, not death. The advantage comes always from maximum doctrine resident in your own soul. It results in maturity adjustment to the justice of God and resultant glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only dative of disadvantage for the believer who rejects doctrine, who lives out his life in negative volition. The disadvantage occurs in the case of the reversionistic believer.
Translation: “For not one of us lives for himself, and not one of us dies for himself.”
Verse 8 – “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord.” The explanatory use of the postpositive conjunction gar, plus the enclitic particle te used to connect parts of a sentence. It appears twice and it translated “just as, so also”— “For just as,” is the way it begins. Next in the Greek comes a conjunction, e)an plus the subjunctive for introducing the protasis of a third class condition—“if.” This with the subjunctive denotes what is expected to occur. E)an plus the subjunctive is a third class condition, more probably future condition. But in this context it is a rare idiom. Here we have gar te e)an, and ordinarily it would be translated “For just as if.” But te e)an means o(tan, and o(tan means “when.” So instead of translating it literally it is translated “For just as when.” This is because the particle te not only sets up a correlation—‘just as, so also’—but it changes e)an into o(tan which means “when.” Then the present active subjunctive of zaw, to live: “For just as when we live.” This is the customary present for what habitually occurs after salvation. The active voice: the believer produces the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood is potential, used generally for a third class condition but here in an even more meaningful way for a special Greek idiom. Plus the dative of reference from kurioj plus the generic use of the definite article: “For just as when we live, we live to the Lord.” Then the present active indicative of zaw repeated, “to the Lord we live.” This time it is a historical present viewing the life of the positive believer from the past with the vividness of a present occurrence. The active voice: the positive or mature believer produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.
The next phrase refers to dying grace as the final blessing for the mature believer: “and whether we die, we die unto the Lord.” There is the second te, and it connects a relative clause and is translated “so also.” Next is the conjunction e)an, ordinarily introducing a 3rd class condition but always when use with te it has an Attic idiomatic meaning—“when.” Then the present active subjunctive from a)poqnhskw, referring to dying grace. The perfective present tense denotes the continuation of existing results of living the Christian life all the way through the Z radical. The active voice: the mature believer produces the action. The subjunctive mood is potential; dying is potential, depending upon when the Rapture occurs. Then the present active indicative, repeating the verb a)poqnhskw. It is a futuristic present denoting an event (dying grace) which has not yet occurred but is regarded so certain in thought that it is contemplated as already coming to pass in your thinking. The active voice: the mature believer produces the action. The declarative indicative mood is for reality.
The inferential conjunction o)un denotes an inference from what precedes and is translated “so” because of the next particle, the enclitic particle te, an Attic Greek particle which changes so many words and gives a different connotation to an interpretation. So we have, “so not only.” Then the conditional conjunction e)an introducing the protasis of a 3rd class condition, which is more probable future. Plus the present active subjunctive from the verb zaw which means to live. The descriptive present denotes what is now going on. The active voice: the mature believer produces the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive depending upon the sovereignty of God—“so not only if we live,” means that there is a time in the plan of God when everything will be cancelled out by physical death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first. In the meantime we live, and living has a very important function; it is designed for the believer to be perfectly happy. We are here because as believers after salvation we are unfulfilled. Our fulfilment comes when we have the capacity for blessing. We are minus capacity, and this minus can only be a plus through doctrine in the soul. Therefore the most important thing we do in life is the perception of doctrine so that we can fulfil the concept for which we remain alive. God is glorified when the justice of God can impute blessing to the righteousness of God.
Living to the Lord demands one thing. It doesn’t demand that we be moral or immoral, sweet and loving or unkind; it simply demands that we take in doctrine. God uses raw material. We can’t help God, we can’t improve the basic product. The basic product is called total depravity and it comes from the old sin nature with its trend toward sin, toward good, toward evil. It is doctrine with the use of the filling of the Spirit that changes the product.
“or die” – the present active subjunctive of a)poqnhskw which means to die. This is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs when a believer’s life is completed. The active voice: the mature believer produces action in this context, though leeway is provided for the believer who is positive toward doctrine and advancing to maturity. The potential for the 3rd class condition is there, the potential which makes allowances for the Rapture of the church.
“we are the Lord’s” – present active indicative of e)imi, the verb to be. The static present is used for a condition which perpetually exists. The active voice: the believer produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality, which is eternal security for all and blessing for some. The possessive genitive from kurioj with the generic use of the definite article is what is called a predicate genitive.
Translation: “For just as when we live, we live to the Lord; so also when we die, we die to the Lord: so not only if we live, but also if we die, we are the Lord’s.”
Verse 9 – “For to this end Christ both died, rose, and revived.” The prepositional phrase e)ij plus the accusative neuter singular from the near demonstrative o(utoj is translated “For this reason” or “For this purpose.” Then the postpositive explanatory use of the conjunction gar, translated “you see”—“You see, for this reason.” The subject is the nominative singular kristoj, referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the believer’s Lord because of union with Him. The aorist active indicative of a)poqnhskw—“died.” In the original text there is no “both” or “and revived.” This is a constative aorist tense, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the two deaths and burial of Christ and gathers them up into one entirety. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for an unqualified statement of doctrine. The connective use of kai is followed by the phrase “and lived,” the aorist active indicative from zaw. “You see, for this reason Christ died and lived.” This is a culminative aorist for zaw, which views the resurrection of Christ in its entirety but emphasises the existing results, namely the ascension and session of Jesus Christ; for Jesus Christ was told by the Father to sit down at His right hand until His enemies were made His footstool. Now Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. His title is Lord, expanded into King of kings and Lord of lords. But that title is shortened down to one word: Lord. Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father is the victor of the angelic conflict and He carries the title “Lord.”
“that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living” – the conjunction i(na introduces a purpose clause, a purpose related to the royal family of God in the Church Age. The conjunction kai is translated “both, and”—“in order that he might be Lord over both dead and living.” The aorist active subjunctive of kurieuw which means to be Lord over. The ingressive aorist in which the action signified by the aorist is contemplated at its beginning and therefore connotes entrance into a state or condition. It denotes the fact that Christ became our Lord the moment we believed, retroactive positional truth (identification with Christ in His two deaths and burial), and current positional truth (identification with Christ seated at the right hand of the Father). This is the use of the ingressive aorist. The active voice: Jesus Christ is the subject producing the action. The subjunctive mood is not potential, but it simply goes with i(na to show the purpose of our Lord’s death, burial and resurrection. Then the present active participle from nekrow. Here the participle is used as an adjective turned into a substantive. Then a second present active participle from zaw, correctly translated as a substantive, “dead” and “living.”
Translation: “You see, for this reason Christ died and lived, in order that he might be Lord over both dead and living.”
1. Every believer, living or dead, belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.
19. Because of positional truth, retroactive and current, Christ is Lord of every
believer from salvation to eternity.
3. Therefore the royal family honour code recognises only one Lord, one absolute
authority.
4. Since every believer belongs to the Lord he is not ever to superimpose his norms,
his standards, his background, his environment, his personal prejudice on
the Lord or those who belong to the Lord: other believers.
5. This anticipates the judging which occurs in the next verse. When you judge
other believers by trying to superimpose your standards on them you are, in
effect, judging the Lord.
6. Through Bible doctrine the Lord imposes on each royal priest certain standing
orders which are to be obeyed.
7. The Lord, therefore, has delegated certain believers as pastor-teachers to
communicate this doctrine, and in so delegating this authority He has given
academic discipline to the royal family of God.
20. The Lord has not called upon one believer to judge another believer, which is the invasion of the privacy of the priesthood and the blasphemous presumption against the Lordship of Christ.
21. Since ever believer belongs to the Lord the weak believer does not have the right or thee prerogative to demand observation of certain holy days or to impose the dietary taboos of this passage.
22. Spiritual bullying of the weak believer is an attack upon the Lordship of Christ. Judging or bullying is not a part of the modus operandi of Christianity.
23. Since Christ is the Lord of the living it follows that believers have no right to superimpose their personal standards of legalism, taboos, pseudo spirituality, on other members of the royal family of God.
24. The honour code of the royal family demands the privacy of every believer to live his life as unto the Lord, and not to other believers. God has delegated the content of the Word of God, called doctrine, to the basis for living our lives as to the Lord.
25. No believer has the right to superimpose his own norms and standards as a substitute for doctrine and the application of doctrine.
26. The weak believer judges the strong believer, the strong believer despises the weak believer: both attitudes are wrong, they interfere with the privacy of the priesthood guaranteed by the honour code. Therefore the Lordship of Christ must be applied to the solution where reciprocal antagonism exists.
Verse 10 – in the first part of this verse is the occupational hazard which is pertinent to each category, the strong and the weak. First, the occupational hazard
of the weak believer: “Why dost thou judge thy brother? The postpositive conjunctive particle de sets up a contrast between the Lordship of Christ and the attack upon the Lordship of Christ by the weak believer. Next is the proleptic use of the second person singular pronoun su. In its proleptic form it is often translated in modern English, “You there,” but we simply translate it “But you.” This is addressed to the weak believer. Then the interrogative pronoun tij in the nominative neuter singular, therefore translated “why” instead of “who” (neuter gender). The present active indicative of the verb krinw is the occupational hazard of the weak believer, positive or negative toward doctrine. “But you, why do you judge?” The retroactive progressive present denotes what has happened in the past and continues into the present time—also known as the present tense of duration, and it means that this is an occupational hazard and that given an opportunity, a chance, this is always what the weak believer will do. The active voice: the weak and reversionistic believer produces the action of the verb in violation of the royal family honour code. The indicative mood is interrogative, it assumes that there is an actual fact that may be stated in answer to the question. The fact is apostasy, reversionism, or ignorance of doctrine, legalism, violation of the honour code, and failure to understand some of the simplest of principles about allowing people their privacy. The accusative singular direct object from a)delfoj refers to other members of the royal family. With it is the genitive of relationship from the personal pronoun su—“your brother.” Those in one’s periphery.
1. We are dealing with the occupational hazard of the weak believer who cannot
distinguish between essential doctrine and non-essential opinions.
2. The weak believer in his arrogance sets himself up as an expert on everything.
3. Therefore he seeks to superimpose his own non-essentials on others through
judging, which is tantamount to spiritual bullying.
4. This violate the RFHC: the part of the code that deals with the privacy of the
priesthood; that part of the RFHC which deals with the law of freedom—live
and let live.
5. No believer can live his life as unto the Lord with such interference from the
weak believer.
6. The word “brother” here is a fellow member of the RFG who is supposed to be
living his life as unto the Lord through doctrine and not through bullying and
intrusion into your privacy.
7. Judging another believer is arrogant superimposition of one’s own opinions and
standards over God’s, and over God’s delegated thought which is Bible
doctrine.
8. It is arrogance to presume divine authority and judge another believer in the
family of God, especially since the believer is not responsible to you but to the
justice of God.
9. In other words, the weak believer seeks to gain his strength by judging and
discrediting the strong believer when in reality he should be gaining his strength
by taking in doctrine.
10. The believer advances through perception of doctrine, never through putting
down another believer.
1. The occupational hazard and besetting of the weak believer is judging and
bullying the mature believer.
27. The weak or legalistic believer is the worst bully in the world. He is a 1st class
persecutor of the grace-oriented Christian.
3. He judges, maligns, and vindictively criticises, and sometimes persecutes the
strong believer who does not succumb to the non-essential standards of the weak.
4. Arrogance, jealousy and implacability is the attitude and motivation behind the
weak believer’s occupational hazard.
5. Again note that the weak believer converts environmental influence and non-
essential opinions into rigid orthodoxy. In other words, the weak believer takes
the non-essentials and becomes inflexible about them.
6. The weak believer cannot distinguish between essential doctrine and non-
essential opinions, and therefore his standards, his taboos, are a part of self-
righteous paraphernalia.
7. We for get that God accepted us with a variety of erroneous and inaccurate
opinions, misguided zeal and, above all, stupid sincerity.
8. God is not looking for perfect persons, but doctrinal persons who are grace-
oriented and advancing in the plan of God.
9. Positive volition toward doctrine and resultant function of GAP will replace
erroneous standards with correct Biblical standards, but doctrine must do it.
The occupational hazard of the strong believer: “or why dost thou set at nought thy brother” – the disjunctive particle h) separates opposites. In this case the opposites are the weak and the strong believer. This is correctly translated “or.” The proleptic use of the personal pronoun su is addressed to the strong believer and is translated with the conjunction kai used and an adverb, adjunctive therefore, “or you also.” This emphasises that the strong believer is not excluded from blame, for he also has an occupational hazard, and it is a reminder to all of us that none of us are ever perfect or ever will be in this life. We are not striving for perfection but are moving toward the objective of maturity. There is a vast difference between maturity and perfection. The nominative neuter singular interrogative pronoun tij is correctly translated “why.” With it is the present active indicative of the verb e)couqenew which means to despise, to treat with contempt, or even to regard as contemptible. We translate: “why do you regard with contempt.” The present tense is a customary present, it denotes the habitual attitude of the strong believer toward the weak believer—his occupational hazard. The active voice: the strong or the mature believer produces the action of the verb. This is an interrogative indicative which indicates that an actual fact may be stated in answer to the question. The fact is an attitude of the strong believer toward the weak. It must be remembered that the weak believer cannot distinguish between essential doctrine and non-essential opinion. Because of this he is not oriented to reality. The strong believer is oriented to reality. Next is the accusative singular direct object from a)delfoj, meaning that this is interaction between believers, plus the genitive of relationship from the personal pronoun su referring to any member of the royal family. “For you also, strong believer, why do you regard with contempt your brother [weak believer].”
The crisis personality
1. The crisis personality is the mature believer who is totally oriented to reality.
2. Such orientation is the result of maximum doctrine resident in the soul through the daily function of GAP. Common sense is the ability to reason from the reality of a situation, the ability to think in the pressure of a situation.
3. The crisis personality, therefore, is the mature believer who is inflexible regarding the essentials and flexible regarding the non-essentials.
4. It is this flexibility regarding the non-essentials which provides orientation to life.
5. All high priorities are assigned to the essentials—which is the case of the believer related to Bible doctrine and utilising that doctrine in his norms and standards of the conscience.
6. Therefore the crisis personality combines inflexibility regarding essentials with flexibility regarding non-essentials.
7. The crisis personality can cope with any disaster of life, personal or historical.
8. The crisis personality does not follow any set pattern or mould overtly but is always characterised by maximum doctrine resident in the soul.
9. The crisis personality, then, is a synonym for the strong or mature believer with emphasis on undeserved suffering.
10. The historical or personal crisis gives the strong believer the opportunity to apply
doctrine to the reality of the situation, demonstrating the total adequacy of divine
provision for the believer in life.
11. The imputation of divine blessing to the mature believer includes undeserved suffering which demonstrates the dynamics of Bible doctrine resident in the soul and labels the strong believer as the crisis personality.
Principle
1. Here again is the principle of distinguishing between the essential and the non-essential. Here it is a case of the essential and the non-essential in the function of Christian love, or what should be classified as impersonal love.
2. Remember that Christian love is impersonal in contrast to personal love which exists in three categories.
3. Personal love emphasises the object of love while impersonal love emphasises the norms, standards, integrity sand honour of the one who does the loving.
4. By despising or regarding with contempt the weak believer the strong believer has lowered himself to the standards of the weak believer.
5. In impersonal love you treat believers on the basis of your integrity and standards, not on the basis of their norms and weaknesses.
6. The royal family honour code demands loving all believers, which means respect for their privacy, toleration of their non-essential opinions. This is the relaxed mental attitude love which is commanded to all believers and fulfilled not simply by the filling of the Spirit alone but through Bible doctrine resident in the soul.
7. In summary, respect for the imputed righteousness of God, respect for a relaxed mental attitude, observing the privacy and freedom of the royal priesthood, toleration of the non-essential opinions, treating people on the basis of your own standards and not theirs, is the basis for executing impersonal love for the brethren.
Now comes the third part of the verse: the mutual application. “for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” – the explanatory use of the postpositive conjunction gar, plus the nominative masculine plural subject from the adjective paj which is a substantive meaning all believers—“for all [believers].” Plus the future middle indicative of paristhmi which means to place beside, to place one’s self at God’s disposal, from which the translation “yield” is derived. It means in the military sense (middle voice) to put yourself under orders to an authority. The middle voice is intransitive. It also means to be present or to stand by in a military sense. The future tense is obviously a predictive future, emphasising a future event which occurs after the Rapture of the Church. The direct middle voice is one in which the agent, the believer, acts with a view toward participating in the outcome. The outcome is reward or loss of reward. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the standpoint of dogmatic and unqualified assertion of fact. The future tense here not only refers to the Rapture but specifically to an event which occurs after the Rapture: the judgment seat of Christ. Plus the dative singular indirect object from bhma, which means a seat for the judge, a judge throne or a tribunal. Then the possessive genitive singular from the noun qeoj, and with it the generic use of the definite article emphasising not only the uniqueness of Christ but the fact that God the Father has turned over all judgment to God the Son—John 5:22.
Translation: “But you [weak believer], why do you judge your brother? or you also [strong believer], why do you despise your brother? for all believers will be present at the tribunal of the God.”
Principle
1. Do not trey to evaluate the work or life or function of another believer. This is the prerogative of Jesus Christ both now and after the Rapture.
2. Each believer must live his own life as to the Lord and avoid meddling in the affairs of another believer.
3. The life of every believer will be evaluated by the Lord Jesus Christ for the purpose of destroying human good and rewarding the advance to maturity.
4. The judgment seat of Christ is the time of the seventh imputation for the mature believer and the time of the destruction of human good for the reversionist.
5. The judgment seat of Christ never implies loss of salvation but only evaluation of your life after salvation.[3]
Verse 11 – the application from the big genuflect. “For it is written” – the explanatory use of the conjunction gar, an important word explaining now an
application that belongs to every generation of the royal family of God, plus the perfect passive indicative of the verb grafw. The intensive perfect tense emphasises the existing results as a finished product—the Old Testament canon. This is a quotation from two verses in Isaiah which the prophet used in order to face the disasters which are now historical but which were future to the southern kingdom—Isaiah 45:23; 49:18. These are related to the great genuflect of Philippians 2:10,11. Therefore the permanent existing state of these Scriptures regarding the great genuflect is regarded by Paul, not only for the people of his day who were about to face the pressures of disaster, but for us right now. The passive voice deals with the mechanics of the inspiration of the Scripture. There is on the part of the human writer an inhale of divine information which in his soul is exhaled in writing. While the writers of Scripture had other messages which were given, only those which are recorded are actually a part of the canon of Scripture—2 Sam. 23:2,3; Isaiah 59:21; Jer. 1:9. In the passive voice the subject (the pertinent Scripture quoted here) receives the action of the verb, being quoted by Paul to be recorded in the New Testament documentation. The declarative indicative of this verb is for the reality of the Old Testament canon and the equality of the New Testament as Scripture. The declarative indicative states, then, the plenary verbal inspiration as regards to doctrine.
“As I live, saith the Lord” – the phrase in the Hebrew of Isaiah 45:23 is literally, “By myself, I have sworn.” The Greek indicates that this is very obviously idiomatic: zw e)gw means, “As I live,” something entirely different than the Hebrew, but Paul is saying they are equivalent. “By myself, I have sworn,” says in effect, “I keep on living.” The present active indicative of zaw [zw] is translated “I keep on living.” What is common between the two languages is the essence of God, the integrity of God: the righteousness of God, the principle of divine integrity; the justice of God, the function of divine integrity. The present tense of zaw is a static present for a condition which has always existed, is perpetually existing. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of fact. Then the present active indicative from legw which means to communicate. The retroactive progressive present tense denotes what has begun in the past and continues into the present time. In the past Isaiah mentioned it; now Paul mentions it so that it can be brought down to us in this moment. The active voice: this is a quotation from something the Lord originally said to Isaiah. So the Lord communicates. The indicative mood is declarative fore an absolute statement of fact related to verbal plenary inspiration of the Scripture. Plus the nominative singular subject from kurioj, in which Isaiah refers to God the Son in relationship to the regathering of Israel, but Paul quotes the passage for the Rapture of the Church and the big genuflect. Translation: “For it stands written, I keep on living, the Lord communicates.”
“every knee shall bow to me” – not translated, but a conjunction which is used in the Greek, is o(ti. It is used to introduce in a direct discourse and represented here by quotation marks. The nominative neuter singular from the adjective paj and the nominative singular subject gonu—“every knee.” Then the future active indicative of the verb kamptw, which means to bend. The future tense is a predictive future for an event which has not yet occurred but will occur immediately after the Rapture of the Church. Every believer of the royal family of God will perform the action of the verb in a resurrection body. The indicative mood is declarative which in a sense describes the perfect happiness, the perfect rapport, the perfect circumstances, the beyond comprehension marvellous times we will have in space. The dative singular indirect object from the personal pronoun e)gw refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the One in whose interest the big genuflect is performed—“every knee shall bow to me.” The order of the words follows the Greek order in the context.
“and every tongue shall confess to God” – the connective use of the conjunction kai, plus the nominative feminine singular from paj—there will be no exceptions; all of us will be using our voices, glwssa, “tongues.” It should be, “and every language” (singular). The verb is the future middle indicative of e)comologew, which in the active voice with the e)c it means to promise, to consent. In the middle voice it means to admit or to confess. Here it is confess. Plus the dative singular indirect object from the generic use of the definite article with the noun qeoj which refers to God the Father. This immediately precedes the judgment seat of Christ.
Translation: “For it stands written, I keep on living, and by myself I have sworn, Every knee shall genuflect to me [Christ], and every tongue shall confess to God [the Father].”
Verse 12 – the post-genuflect application. “So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.” The inferential illative particle a)ra is translated
correctly, “So.” The inferential transitional conjunction o)un denotes an inference from what precedes—“So therefore.” Just as salvation has an issue—What think ye of Christ?—, so life after salvation has an issue—What think ye of doctrine? Then come two illative particles followed by a nominative singular adjective used as a substantive, e(kastoj—“each one.” You are on your own, there is no one there to help you. Christianity is personal. Each one of us must answer for himself. What are we doing now? Paul says we are judging others, looking with scorn upon others, ridiculing others, are jealous and vindictive, arrogant in our attitude and hang-ups about many things in life. But this is the moment of truth, the moment for which there is no way to evade, to compensate, to blame someone else. When it says “each one” it means you will have no excuses. Then to make sure we are dealing with the royal family there is a descriptive genitive plural from the personal pronoun e)gw, translated “of us.” Plus the future active indicative from the verb didomi which means to give. The future tense is a predictive future, it refers to the judgment seat of Christ. The active voice: every believer of the royal family of God produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative, representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is followed by the accusative singular direct object from logoj. We face the living Word, the Logoj, Jesus Christ, to give a logoj, a rendering of account, a statement of definite content, a settlement of account; “of himself” – peri plus the genitive singular from the reflexive pronoun e(autou, “concerning himself.” The preposition peri excludes bringing anyone else in for your defense. Then the judge, the dative singular indirect object from qeoj plus the generic use of the definite article.
Principle
1. The conflict and strife over non-essential opinions is ridiculous. There are so many things in life that are not essential, and doctrine is essential. We should be inflexible not only about doctrine but about our intake of doctrine.
2. Paul in his dissertation neither condemns nor approves the food taboos and the observation of holy days, for to do so would create a false issue. To make an issue out of doctrine he does not take sides. A communicator of doctrine must always avoid taking sides.
3. The real issue is the fact that no two believers have achieved the same stage of spiritual growth and that the only way they can advance is through doctrine.
4. The ability to distinguish between essential and non-essential, and to function professionally as a member of the aristocracy of the royal family, is the issue. That requires doctrine.
5. To function professionally as believers requires also the filling of the Spirit. The filling of the Spirit gives the ability, then, to rightly divide the Word of truth, the ability to differentiate between personal and impersonal love.
6. Each stage of spiritual growth has its own occupational hazards. For the immature it may emphasise judging others; for the mature it may emphasise intolerance of others. Whatever it is, to resolve it you cannot take sides.
7. Therefore each believer is responsible for his own life before the Lord. He is not responsible for that of another, as illustrated by the judgment seat of Christ.
8. At the judgment seat of Christ the justice of God deals with each stage separately, based on what happened, the knowable; and what would have happened if you had lived out a full life, i.e. the unknowable.
It is inevitable that in any gathering of believers there will many different personalities, there will be many different types of people who gather together. All as
Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have numerous personalities and many and varied expressions of the individual personality. The Christian way of life does not command a personality change; in fact there is no such thing as the Christian personality. We are not in any way commanded to change our personality. All changes are related to doctrine resident in the soul and its application to the honour code. Therefore it is inevitable that someone in a congregation will be attractive to you, and someone will be very unattractive. The result is that personality conflict exists between people without ever uttering a word; the way they look, their carriage, their poise, their demeanour, their function simply irritates someone else. Irritation is not a part of the function of the royal family honour code. Strife is not acceptable in the body of Christ. Therefore the application of the honour code is very important. We have learned to distinguish between the essential and the non-essential and understand that we are to be inflexible with regard to the essentials but totally flexible with regard to the non-essentials. The non-essentials always outnumber the essentials. The reason for this is that each one of us is at a different stage of growth in our spiritual life. No two of us have reached the same point of spiritual growth and no two of us have attained the same stage of maturity or immaturity. Because of this, background, environment and influence are great factors in the soul which are constantly misapplied in the function of the Christian way of life. Too many times you judge someone by background norms and standards. You came from a background in which you had to fight for your very existence and in so doing you look at everyone in terms of being a fighter or a pushover. Therefore you have a tendency to bully those who you consider weak. Or you came out of some gutter situation where it never occurs to you that a man who is a gentleman might not only be tougher than you are but could mop up the earth with you. It has to do with your background. People who come from a certain background have had certain training, have learned certain deportment and a certain type of demeanour, and dress in a certain way. You come from another background and to you those things are weakness. And so we merge in the royal family of God with varying backgrounds. The farther you advance in your Christian life the less influence your background and your environment will have on your norms and standards of conscience and on your thinking. Eventually you will be able to appreciate people from every walk of life and in every situation in life. And you will begin to be so flexible with regard to personality idiosyncrasies, and so thoughtful and sensitive to others around you that you will fulfil the principle of unity. But this comes with a lot of doctrine, spiritual growth, and from replacing the norms and standards of your soul with the divine viewpoint standards of the royal family honour code.
Verse 13 – the honour code application to the weak and strong believer. “Let us therefore not judge one another any more.” The inferential conjunction o)un denotes that we now have an inference from what precedes. The adverb mhketi means “no longer” or “not from now on.” It implies that at least the original recipients of this passage were guilty of all of the violations of the honour code which have been studied so far in chapters 12, 13, 14. The weak believer is guilty because of ignorance of doctrine. Ignorance of doctrine always causes the individual to be inflexible with regard to the non-essentials, and once you are inflexible with regard to the non-essentials you are totally divorced from reality. Non-essentials become very important and you take a very strong stand on the non-essentials when you have no doctrine to change your scale of values. Next comes the present active subjunctive from the verb krinw: “Therefore let us no longer judge.” The pictorial present tense denotes events in the process of occurrence which must be discontinued. The active voice: the weak believers in the Roman church produce the action of the verb and are now commanded to stop it. The subjunctive mood is hortatory, which with the negative adverb is the equivalent to the imperative mood except that volition is recognised as playing an important part. Paul is saying, I can’t make you do it; you have to do it from your own motivation. You have to be motivated from your own soul, you cannot be motivated by inspiration from someone else. Then comes the accusative plural direct object from a reciprocal pronoun, a)llhlwn, which means “each other.” And this is the name of the game at this point: reciprocity in modus vivendi of the royal family of God. “Therefore let us no longer judge each other.”
Principle
1. Judging is the occupational hazard of the weak believer who measures all believers by his own inadequacies and weaknesses.
2. The weak believer is ignorant of doctrine, therefore his norms and standards are formed from his background, his environment, training, and human influence (hero-worship: an actor is always being someone he isn’t. He is playing the part of the person he portrays. He doesn’t possess those).
3. With false or erroneous norms and standards it is impossible for the weak believer to be accurate or correct in his evaluation of anything.
4. But evaluation of others is not the issue. The real issue is the royal family honour code which demands that all believers be given the privacy of their priesthood and be loved (impersonal love) by you.
5. Judging is a violation of the privacy of the royal priesthood, and therefore judging is classified as arrogant presumption.
6. Judging combines mental attitude sins with sins of the tongue, and often overt sins as well. So that judging becomes a combination of all categories of sinfulness from the old sin nature.
7. Add to this the rationalisation of judging as an act of human good. This is the one that is used as an excuse: “I’m just concerned for them.” Judging is parlayed into a system of evil. The rationalisation of judging becomes hypocrisy.
8. Therefore judging also becomes good and evil which is the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world and the function of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life.
9. Judging is totally incompatible with the plan of God for your life, and judging causes the believer to become the enemy of God.
10. God Himself has a monopoly on judging and has only delegated this option to Bible doctrine, the communicator of Bible doctrine [pastor-teacher who communicates the Word], and to the systems of authority under divine establishment—husband over the wife, parents over the children, teacher over students, coach over the team, the boss over labour, etc. These are systems of delegated authority.
Next is the application to the strong believer. “But judge this rather” – the adversative conjunction a)lla generally sets up a contrast of some sort. Here it is a contrast between the occupational hazard of the weak believer and the occupational hazard of the strong believer. And the conjunction reminds us that none of us are perfect. That is why we have Bible doctrine. Then comes the aorist active imperative of krinw which this time doesn’t mean judge. It goes back to its original meaning which means to separate, to distinguish, to select, to reach a decision, therefore to prefer—“but to prefer [or determine].” The constative aorist is for an action extended over a period of time. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action of the verb. The imperative mood is a direct command to the strong believer who has from doctrine resident in his soul the ability for instant obedience. With this is the comparative adverb “rather”—mallon, and the accusative neuter singular direct object from the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj which sets up a category—“but rather prefer/determine this.” The weak believer is denied his occupational hazard and by the same policy of the justice of God the strong believer is denied his occupational hazard as well.
“that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way” – the negative mh plus the articular present active infinitive of tiqhmi which
means to place or to put, but with the negative it means not to place, not to put. The definite article in the accusative case is in apposition to the accusative from the demonstrative pronoun. The aoristic present tense is for punctiliar action in present time. This has to be instinctive, it will suddenly occur. Instinctively the mature believer should do the right things, he should make the right decisions. The mature believer has a far greater field of fire in the area of flexibility and therefore he can be instantly flexible about a lot of things which are inconsequential, whereas there is a very narrow field of fire for the weak believer who is always limited in his flexibility. Therefore the strong believer has a great responsibility to the weak believer, as to all Christians, a responsibility which is given to him under the honour code. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action of the infinitive, i.e. he is prohibited from doing the action of the infinitive with the negative. This is the imperative infinitive for a command, plus the accusative singular direct object from the noun proskomma, which means an obstacle rather than a stumbling block. This refers to an obstacle to the spiritual growth of the weak believer. The weak believer is limited in doctrine and therefore has that short range of fire; his flexibility is low. The next word is the accusative singular direct object of skandalon, which is a trap or a distraction. So literally, “but rather prefer/determine this, not to place an obstacle or distraction.” Then the next phrase, the locative singular of the definite article used as a personal pronoun, plus the locative of space from a)delfoj. Because the weak believer has his eyes on people it is very easy for a strong believer functioning in the sphere of grace to place an obstacle or distraction to doctrine in front of that weak believer.
Translation: “Therefore let us no longer judge each other: but rather determine this, not to place an obstacle or distraction in front of his brother [weak believer].”
Principle
1. In this verse there are two different commands to two different categories of believers: the weak believer and the strong believer. The strong believer has been positive toward doctrine and has cracked the maturity barrier or is close to it; he has maximum doctrine resident in his soul. The weak believer can be either a new believer who is still ignorant of doctrine but positive or a person who is negative toward doctrine and reversionistic. The weak and the strong believer must both have the same opportunity in the sense of freedom to take in doctrine without distraction.
2. There is a second command to the strong believer in this verse: to be sensitive and thoughtful where others are concerned, to be aware that other people have feelings; to be sensitive to the situation and to the circumstances of the weak believer whose ignorance of doctrine results in numerous non-essential opinions and judgments. As you begin to grow spiritually you become aware of the feelings of other people and you make their feelings much more important than your own. If you are growing you can swallow your pride almost on any occasion.
3. A weak believer must recognise the privacy of a strong believer, while the strong believer must demonstrate impersonal love and tolerance to the weak believer.
4. In this way both the weak and the strong believer conform to the royal family honour code.
5. The honour code application for the weak believer is respect for the privacy of the strong believer.
6. The honour code application for the strong believer is modus vivendi—impersonal love directed toward the weak believer, flexibility.
7. The honour code demands modus operandi and policy for all categories of believers in all stages of spiritual growth. The honour code has policy for all stages of growth so that in any stage we are not distracted from doctrine and we are given freedom and privacy, and therefore opportunity, to utilise doctrine in our own spiritual advance.
8. The honour code emphasises the importance of occupation with Christ and highest priority is assigned to Bible doctrine.
9. The honour code demands that each believer avoid the subjectivities of life—such as eyes on self. It might be arrogance at one moment and self-pity the next. That is vacillation, not flexibility.
10. The honour code is designed for the living, and that means all living believers. The honour code in effect is the Christian way of life in every stage of spiritual growth.
Principle
1. To stop judging the weak believer must understand and apply an honour code principle: every believer has a right to his privacy. Every believer is a royal priest with the imputation of divine righteousness, and therefore you have no right to stick your nose into someone else’s business.
2. To avoid placing an obstacle or distraction before the weak believer the strong believer must apply a different honour code principle: impersonal love.
3. The more you advance spiritually the greater becomes your responsibility under the honour code. Advance means increased responsibility. There will be times when the law of love supersedes the law of liberty.
4. While sincerity is not a Christian virtue but an emotional aberration, thoughtfulness of others and sensitivity to the feelings of others is not only a Christian virtue but a necessity. It is taking responsibility as you mature. Being responsible for those who have not reached maturity and not distracting them.
5. The more we advance in the Christian life the more inflexible we are about doctrine but the more flexible we are in its application.
6. Wisdom from doctrine and common sense from establishment provides inflexible standards of conscience, but at the same time pliable and tractable functions of application.
7. Life on this earth is composed of variable circumstances and fickle, unstable people. Therefore the challenge is to diversity of application.
8. Therefore inflexibility of doctrine but flexibility of application of that doctrine is the function of the honour code.
9. Therefore good manners and thoughtfulness of others overflow from establishment in life to virtue in the royal family honour code. Therefore a new issue is raised: arrogance and self-centredness versus sensitivity toward others and the true function of impersonal love.
Verse 14 – “I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus.” The perfect active indicative of o)ida is used as a present tense always for confidence in
application of doctrine based on maximum perception of doctrine, confidence in one’s flexibility. Here is the strength of the strong believer in his flexibility with regard to non-essentials. Then the perfect passive indicative of the verb peiqw which refers to having confidence. However it is true confidence based on doctrine rather than false confidence based on human viewpoint. “I know and have received confidence.” This is the mature believer speaking. The intensive perfect tense refers to the existing state of doctrine in the soul as an application in flexibility. Doctrine has been received in the past; doctrine now resides in the conscience. From the application comes the flexibility with regard to the non-essentials. The passive voice: the mature believer receives the action of the verb—confidence from the absolutes of doctrinal norms, confidence in his flexibility of application. The indicative mood is declarative for an unqualified assertion of fact. Then the prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of kurioj and I)hsouj. The prepositional phrase describes the sphere of the plan of God. The plan of God for each one of us is in the Lord Jesus. This is a reference to the formation of the royal family of God through the baptism of the Spirit, resultant positional truth which is the status quo of each one of us.
“that there is nothing unclean of itself” – the conjunction o(ti after verbs of cognisance to show the application of that cognisance. Inserted is the present active indicative of e)imi is legitimate here—“that there is.” Plus the predicate nominative neuter from the adjective o)udeij which means “nothing.” Then dia plus the genitive from the reflexive pronoun e(autou which is the ablative of means. The instrumental is the regular case for expressing means but the ablative case is used when the means expressed also indicates origin—“by means of itself.” The word “unclean” is the predicate nominative neuter from the adjective koinoj. “I know and have received confidence in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean by itself.” This is a statement of total flexibility in the non-essentials. Paul is a mature believer and he takes the position of a mature believer. Under the Mosaic law certain foods were taboo, therefore to eat them was to be ceremonially unclean. However, in the dispensation of the Church the norms and standards of the royal family from environment and background are replaced by doctrinal standards when one reaches maturity. The application of doctrinal standards make all foods clean. This applies to food, to holy days, to a lot of non-essentials; but in context we have two basic non-essentials: food and holy days. The application of doctrinal standards makes all food clean; any day is a holy day. So applying this phrase to the context the mature believer has no hang-ups about eating foods or drinking wine, because he knows that there is nothing unclean by means of itself. This means that the taboos of the Mosaic law have been superseded and the taboos of asceticism are not valid with regard to food and beverage.
1. Food is not unclean by means of itself. It can become unclean while it is being
prepared, it can become contaminated by improper storage. Food always have to
have something added to it to
contaminate it.
2. The strong believer with norms and
standards based on Bible doctrine can therefore
approach food and beverage apart from either the Levitical or the ascetical
taboos.
3. Therefore the mature believer can eat beef because his norms and standards of conscience can make correct application from doctrine resident in his soul and
functioning as norms of his conscience.
4. But the Hindu, on the other hand, would starve to death if all he had was beef cattle because under his system beef cattle are forbidden through religious taboo.
5. Bible doctrine resident in the soul changes the norms and standards of conscience. Therefore you never even violate your own taboos unless you have a doctrinal basis for doing so. Once you have a doctrinal basis in your conscience this changes the application so that you have more flexibility in the non-essentials. You do not have flexibility in the non-essentials until you have doctrine first.
6. Any kind of food and beverage can be unclean but it is never unclean by means of itself. The uncleanness may occur from contamination but by means of itself the food is not unclean, nor forbidden for any doctrinal reason. Clean and unclean food in this passage has to do with the thinking of the consumer.
7. So whether food has been forbidden by the Mosaic law, or food offered to idols becomes and ascetic taboo of religion, the food itself is not unclean for consumption unless it has been contaminated.
8. The strong or mature believer knows that by means of itself the food is not unclean, therefore the mature believer has a wide range of nourishing foods and beverages from which to choose. The weak believer, on the other hand, is both limited and stymied by a weak conscience and inflexibility about the non-essentials.
“but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean” – the phrase
e)i mh is literally, “if not” but the two words actually form an idiom: “except.” The exception to this principle is the weak believer whose lack of doctrine, whose legalism and self-righteousness, asceticism or religious background includes food and beverage taboos. Then comes the articular present middle participle from the verb logizomai which means to impute, to account, to presume, to infer, to conclude. The generic use of the definite article is used to comprehend the weak believer as a category distinct from the strong believer. The present tense is a retroactive progressive present tense denoting a norm or standard of conscience begun in the past and continuing into the present time. The middle voice is the direct middle in which the subject acts with a view toward participating in the outcome. Hence, the direct middle implies that the weak believer assumes that by observation of a taboo God will bless him: “except to the one who presumes.” We have here a circumstantial participle, circumstantial for the false norms of the weak believer, a participle in the dative case. This is the indirect object. The accusative neuter singular definite object from the indefinite pronoun tij follows. An indefinite pronoun expresses a substantive idea in a general sense as representing a category. Also the subjective of the infinitive, and therefore it is translated regarding the category of weak believers. Weak believers are ignorant of doctrine, and are inflexible, therefore, with regard to non-essentials but very flexible with regard to the essentials of doctrine. Next comes the present active infinitive of e)imi. The present tense is a descriptive present for what is now going on among weak believers. The active voice: the weak believer produces the action of the verb in the sense of assuming that certain foods and beverages are taboo, and that if you observe this taboo God will bless you. He assumes that it is his job before the Lord to make sure that everyone observes these taboos with him. This is the infinitive of conceived result from a false assumption. Remember that the accusative neuter singular from the indefinite pronoun tij is both the direct object of the verb logizomai and the accusative of general reference subject of the infinitive e)imi. It presumes something to be. Then finally, the predicate nominative from koinoj—“presumes something to be unclean.”
“to him it is unclean” – the dative singular indirect object from the remote demonstrative pronoun e)keinoj which here has the usage of referring back to and resuming a word immediately preceding—“to that one [the weak believer].” Then the insertion of e)imi because this is elliptical, plus koinoj again in the predicate nominative singular—“it is unclean.”
Translation: “I know and have received confidence in the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean by means of itself: except the one [weak believer] who presumes something to be unclean, to that one it is unclean.”
Principle
1. The legalistic believer is weak because he has no doctrine in his conscience
because he has either rejected doctrinal teaching or he is picky as to what he
hears.
3. His conscience is weak because there is no doctrine.
4. Without norms and standards based on doctrine the weak believer must depend on the norms and standards of his environment. When you depend on your environment you become weak.
5. Because of erroneous norms and standards the weak believer is flexible about the essentials of doctrine but he is inflexible about the non-essentials.
6. This is the antithesis of the strong or mature believer who is inflexible about the essentials of doctrine and flexible about the non-essentials.
7. The weak conscience has no capacity for life, no capacity for what God has provided to enrich life.
8. Lack of doctrine in the soul has the tendency to destroy all the capacities of life and enslave the believer with the shackles of a weak conscience.
Principle
1. The issue: Every believer must understand the difference between essential
and non-essential, as well as personal and impersonal love. This is necessary
for the function of a doctrinal conscience.
2. About doctrine the believer must be inflexible, but in the application of doctrine there are many variables which demand flexibility.
3. This is especially true with regard to growth status because no two believers have attained the same state of growth. Hopefully, but not really, all of us are growing, but we haven’t attained the same stage of growth.
4. The more you advance in the Christian life the more flexible becomes your application in the non-essentials and the more tolerant you become of the weak believer.
5. Especially since the weak believer is a very confused person. He is confused about being flexible about the essentials because of ignorance of doctrine, and therefore he is inflexible about the non-essentials because all he has is a series of false norms and a bit of arrogance and subjectivity. He has to show everyone how strong he is and so he takes a stand on something stupid.
6. Capacity for personal love includes capacity for impersonal love, so that the believer who is mature becomes quite tolerant of the weak and the immature believer.
7. This results in the superimposition of certain higher laws or standards over the
law of liberty, so that the weak believer is not distracted from doctrine or
disillusioned with regard to the doctrinal objectives of the Christian way of life.
8. Everything must be done both to provide the privacy of the priesthood and
objectivity in perception of doctrine.
9. This requires thoughtfulness and understanding on the part of the strong
believer.
Verses 15 & 16, the necessity for the mature believer applying impersonal love from
the royal family honour code.
Verse 15 – “But if they brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not
charitably.” The postpositive conjunctive particle gar is used to express a cause or a reason. It is followed by a conditional particle e)i used with the indicative to introduce the protasis of a 1st class condition. This is supposition from the viewpoint of reality. Then the prepositional phrase dia plus the accusative from brwma, which refers to food—“For if because of food.” Plus the nominative singular subject a)delfoj, plus the genitive of relationship singular from the personal pronoun su—“your brother,” a reference to the royal family of God with emphasis on the weak believer, the one who does not understand the plan of God. Then the word “grieve” which is not correct. It is the present passive indicative from the verb lupew, and it means to become sad, sorrowful, distressed. In the active voice it means to cause pain, but here in the passive voice it means to receive pain. The present tense is a customary present, it denotes what habitually occurs when the weak believer in arrogant hypersensitivity is frustrated by observing the mature/strong believer rejecting his pet food taboo. The customary present takes the weak believer who says, “God will not bless you unless you eat only vegetables and it’s murder to kill a cow or a steer.” The passive voice: the weak believer receives the action of the verb; he is distressed, and because he is operating on false norms and standards he becomes inflexible about a non-essential. The indicative mood is declarative to indicate a first class condition and to represent the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality.
Principle
1. The weak believer is wrong. The fact that he is wrong gives the strong believer
the same opportunity to be wrong. He is wrong about the food and the strong
believer is wrong if he tries to refute his attitude about food.
2. The weak believer is wrong because he is arrogant.
3. He is wrong because he is hypersensitive. He is offended by your eating meat in huis presence. Or he is wrong because he has his eyes on people rather than on the Lord.
4. He is wrong because he allows the activities of other believers to distract him from learning doctrine. The only issue in life for that weak believer is doctrine.
5. He is wrong because he is critical of the mature believer. He is actually judging the mature believer.
6. He is wrong because he judges and utilises vindictive criticism to bully a strong believer. But just because the weak believer is wrong there is no excuse for the strong believer to also become wrong. The weak believer does not function under the norms of the honour code because he does not have norms and standards based on doctrine. However, this is no excuse for the strong believer to depart from the honour code and from his doctrinally oriented standards and retaliate or retort. Retaliation on the part of the strong believer is a departure from his own norms and standards, but more than that, it is a departure from the royal family honour code. Principle: Two wrongs do not make a right.
“now walkest thou not charitably” – the temporal adverb o)uketi, “no longer.” Then the prepositional phrase kata plus the accusative of a)gaph—“according to the standard of love.” This is a part of the royal family honour code. Plus the present active indicative of the verb peripatew which means to walk. With the negative temporal adverb, “you no longer walk according to love.” The descriptive present tense is for what is now going on. The strong or mature believer in Rome has suddenly lowered himself to the standards of the weak believer through retort and retaliation. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action, he doesn’t walk according to his own standards. His standard here is impersonal love. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that the strong believer in Rome had abandoned the royal family honour code of impersonal love and therefore was entering into conflict.[4]
“Destroy not him with thy meat” – the present active imperative of the verb a)pollumi, plus the negative mh used with the imperative. The verb means to kill, to destroy, to void, to deprive of, to ruin. The pictorial present tense presents to the mind a picture of events in the process of occurrence. A mature believer gets to become careless, he loses his sense of responsibility, and loses track of the principles found in the royal family honour code. The active voice: the strong believer possessing doctrine in the soul and cognisant of the honour code is commanded to comply with the command. In fact, it is a negative command indicating that he has failed. The imperative mood: though often the present imperative of prohibition simply sees events as occurring, demands that they cease and desist. This is translated, “Stop destroying.” The accusative singular direct object from the remote demonstrative e)keinoj, referring to the weak believer. The weak believer is flexible with regard to the essentials of doctrine and inflexible in the application of false norms and standards. Therefore he is vacillating rather than being truly flexible. The remote demonstrative is used as the 3rd person pronoun and refers to the weak believer whose evil conscience is full of legalism, hypocrisy, tyranny and stupidity. The instrumental of cause from the definite article follows, used as a demonstrative pronoun. Plus the instrumental of cause from the noun brwma, which refers to food. The instrumental of cause is a take-off from the instrumental of means. It is an easy transition from the intermediary means by which a result is produced to the original factor producing it. Lack of doctrine is the original cause but food taboos is the intermediary factor, therefore we translate, “Stop destroying him [the weak believer].”
“with thy meat” – the preposition u(per plus the ablative singular from the relative pronoun o(j, “in behalf of whom” or “instead of whom.” Then the nominative singular of the proper noun Xristoj—“Christ,” plus the aorist active indicative of a)poqnhskw, used primarily for our Lord’s spiritual death on the cross.
Translation: “For if because of food your brother [weak believer] is distracted [and he is], you no longer walk according to [impersonal] love. Because of that food, stop destroying him in behalf of whom Christ died.”
Principle
1. The efficacious sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross emphasises not only the principle of grace but the fact that longer before us the Lord Jesus Christ was inconvenienced by these same weak believers.
2. Jesus Christ did not destroy these weak believers, but instead He was judged for their sins as well as your sins and mine when He was hanging on the cross.
3. The servant is not greater than his master. Therefore if Christ was inconvenienced by them on the cross, and before the cross, it is not comparable sacrifice on the part of the strong believer to take the responsibility for removing distractions from the weak believer, so that the issue is Bible doctrine.
4. Not only does this mean withdrawal to one’s privacy but it also means refraining from retaliation, from revenge and retort, or any form of a put-down. It means avoiding trying to win a debate.
5. It also means do not flaunt your liberty or freedom in front of those who are weak. He is one for whom Christ died.
6. Do not create false issues by inflexibility but make an issue out of doctrine by the flexibility of application in the field of non-essentials.
7. In this way you retain your standards and capacity for life, along with occupation with Christ, and make it possible for the weak believer to see doctrine as the issue, rather than your personal life as the issue.
8. By refraining from retaliation, by refraining from bearing a grudge, you have retained your standards of maturity, you have complied with the honour code, and you have avoided at the same time being bullied and tyrannised by the weak believer.
9. Flexibility in application of the non-essentials avoids the tyranny of legalism and strife in the royal family of God.
Verse 16 – “Let not your good be evil spoken of.” The inferential conjunction o)un
denotes that what is introduces is an inference from the previous verse. Then a present passive imperative from the verb blasfhmew plus the negative mh. It is used in relationship to God as blasphemy but here it is used in relationship to men, and it means in relationship to men’s slander. It means to defame, to injure the reputation of someone by talking, implying, the innuendo of maligning. Hence, it connotes libel, slander, to utter falsehood, to accuse falsely, or to take someone else’s sin that you actually know are sins and spread them around. It should be translated, “Let not be slandered.” This is a descriptive present tense for what is now occurring in Rome. The passive voice: the mature believer’s good receives the action of the verb. His good is slandered when he does not use the law of love in lieu of the law of liberty when the occasion arises. The imperative mood of prohibition expresses a negative command. Then the nominative neuter singular from the adjective a)gaqoj used as a substantive for advance to maturity, meaning good of intrinsic value, absolute good. Here it is the advance to maturity under the privacy of the priesthood and the function of the royal family honour code. With this is the generic use of the definite article, and also the ablative of means from the personal pronoun su in the plural—“the good attained by you.” The adjustment to the justice of God through the daily function of GAP and resultant advance to the status of maturity is in view with the word “good.” However, the true meaning of the ablative is a help here, the ablative plural from the personal pronoun su, because means is generally assigned to the instrumental case which is the usual case for expressing means. But the ablative is used when the expression of means is accompanied by origin or source. The origin or source is implied as the strong or mature believer.
Translation: “Let not the good attained by you be slandered/maligned.”
Principle
1. The strong/mature believer is inflexible in his doctrine but is very flexible in his application of doctrine.
2. Normally the strong believer functions under the law of liberty which is his privacy, his freedom, the normal modus vivendi of the mature believer.
3. Under freedom and privacy the mature believer has been liberated from legalistic taboos of the weak believer.
4. Therefore his lifestyle reflects this freedom, for the mature believer does not major in the minor. He doesn’t insert false issues over petty things.
5. For this reason the mature believer is often misunderstood. He is slandered, maligned, is the object of vindictive criticism by implacable, weak believers.
6. Therefore the strong believer must set aside his freedoms in certain cases in order to make an issue out of doctrine rather than personal modus operandi. If the issue is being bullied by the weak believer, then the strong believer must stand fast in his liberty, as per Galatians 5:1.
7. There are times when by giving way to the law of love the believer can make an issue out of doctrine, so that the weak believer can recover from his reversionism by the intake of doctrine and advance to maturity.
8. Since the ablative of means from the pronoun su indicates source we must remember that the source and means of obtaining spiritual maturity is the perception of Bible doctrine, and that we must capture the divine thought through perception of doctrine. The daily perception of doctrine is the only answer.
Verse 17 – the priorities of the honour code. “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink.” The explanatory postpositive conjunctive particle gar means it is time to draw a conclusion. Next is the nominative singular subject from basileia, a word which has been misunderstood. It is correctly translated “kingdom.” The descriptive genitive singular qeoj tells us to what it refers, a spiritual kingdom. Whenever we have the word “God” put in, or whenever the context implies a spiritual connotation, and it refers to believers of the Church Age—as this does in Romans—obviously it is referring to our aristocracy. When we believed in Christ we became instant aristocracy, and the kingdom of God here is a reference to the aristocracy, the royal family of God in this dispensation. The kingdom of God used in Matthew has a different connotation and is a reference to the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to Israel at a future time—the Second Advent, beginning historically in the Millennium and continuing and continuing to the end of the Millennium and then in eternity. The kingdom is said also in Matthew to be in a mystery form which would be the near eschatological anticipation of the Church Age. Again, we have to understand that Jesus Christ is royalty on three counts. In His deity He is royalty because He has all of the attributes of God. He is just as much God as the Father and the Spirit—co-equal and co-eternal. The other members of the Trinity are His royal family. His royal title is Son of God. He is also royalty in Israel because He is directly related to David through the virgin Mary who is the direct descendant of Nathan, the youngest son of David and Bathsheba. He is legally descended from Joseph, who was no His real father, who was descended from Solomon, the eldest son of David and Bathsheba. David and Bathsheba are the royal line. They had four sons, and all of the descendants from the four sons are in the royal family of David. That means that the Lord Jesus Christ is royal family, the son of David, and He will rule over Israel and fulfil the unconditional covenants in the future. The kingdom of God often relates to that and this is a system of royalty. Jesus Christ is the royalty of Israel, the son of David who will rule forever. There is another royalty, the one in which we are involved, which has only come into existence since the resurrection and ascension of Christ—battlefield royalty. This is the resolving of the angelic conflict. This royalty began with His resurrection, ascension, and being seated at the right hand of the Father. He was told to sit down until His enemies were made the footstool of His feet. In other words, until a tactical disposition of His enemies have been made, since the strategic victory was already won by resurrection, ascension and session. His was given a title: Kurioj. But actually that title is simply a reference to a longer title: King of kings and Lord of lords.
Next is a verb, the present active indicative of e)imi plus a negative o)u—“is not.” This is the present tense of duration, sometimes called the retroactive present because it denotes what is begun in the past and continues into the present time. This is almost a static present which is a condition which is perpetually existing. This is always true, there never is a time when it isn’t true. It has been true since we were born again and became spiritual aristocrats. Furthermore, we are in an aristocracy which will last forever. The active voice: the kingdom of God produces the action of the verb, i.e. the royal family of the Church Age. The declarative indicative mood views the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. We must face a negative reality: what the kingdom of God is not. The predicate nominative of brwsij says in effect that the kingdom of God is not eating, not eating food. Then the connective kai and the second predicate nominative, this time posij which refers to drinking alcoholic beverage. If eating and drinking were an evil (and they are not), then the taboo about eating and drinking would be a virtue. Eating and drinking is normal and good, and sustains the body. Therefore to observe a taboo about something that is good simply becomes a form of legalism and arrogance. All legalists are arrogant and have rejected some form of authority, and have substituted their own authority in some non-essential matter. Since eating and drinking do not sustain the soul they are not an issue in the spiritual life. The issue is what sustains the soul, i.e. Bible doctrine.
The positive side: “but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” – the adversative conjunction a)lla sets up a contrast between the low and high priorities of the royal family honour code. The predicate nominative from dikaiosunh, one of the dominant words in Romans—“justification,” the word which takes us right back to who and what God is, right back to the attributes of God. We deal with the integrity of God, therefore the righteousness of God and the justice of God. Justice is the point of reference for all believers since the fall of Adam. The justice of God could not even accept us until we were as good as God is good, and the only way that we could be as good as God is good is to have God’s perfection. Therefore at the point of salvation the justice of God imputed to us the righteousness of God. Each one of us as believers possesses divine righteousness. This becomes the home or the target for blessing in time after salvation. Once the justice of God looks down and sees that we possess the righteousness of God by imputation then the justice of God pronounces us justified. Justification is the first act of the justice of God in our new relationship with God. Dikaiosunh not only means divine righteousness but it also means imputed divine righteousness which is justification. God’s perfect righteousness imputed to the believer at salvation is called judicial imputation #2. It is the basis for the next word, the predicate nominative e)irhnh, which does mean peace, but not in the Bible. It is an exact equivalent to the Latin of the time, pax, and it really means prosperity. So it’s basic connotation is not absence of war but presence of prosperity in your life. How can we have prosperity as a Christian? The answer is given in the first word, “righteousness.” The presence of justice as the point of reference guarantees that God’s attributes will never be compromised in blessing members of the human race. How can the justice of God provide blessing for us? How can it be imputed? Only because we have the righteousness of God. Divine blessing is imputed from the justice of God to the righteousness of God. That sets up the grace pipeline. Grace is the policy of the justice of God in providing blessing for imperfect man. Now we have what the kingdom of God is: imputed righteousness. Corrected translation: “but righteousness and prosperity.” Why righteousness? So that the justice of God can imputed blessing without compromising His attributes. Then the third predicate nominative, xara, the result of receiving imputation of blessing from God, plus the prepositional phrase e)n plus the instrumental of pneuma and a(gioj—“by means of the Holy Spirit.”
Translation: “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking; but righteousness [imputed] and resultant prosperity [imputed at maturity], and happiness by means of the Holy Spirit.”
Verse 18 – “For he that in these things serveth Christ.” The explanatory use of the conjunctive particle gar is followed by the articular present active participle from the verb douleuw. The definite article is used as a personal pronoun. The perfective present denotes the continuation of existing results. In other words, a fact which has come to be in the past but is not emphasised as a present reality. The active voice: the mature believer produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. This is followed by the dative singular indirect object from Xristoj, generally said to mean anointed but is even stronger than that, it is appointed—the one who is appointed saviour of the world, the one around whom the entire human race finds its relationship to life and to God’s plan. Literally, it says “For he who serves the Christ.” The generic use of the definite article emphasises the uniqueness of the second person of the Trinity, as the God-Man, undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever.
“in these things” – the preposition e)n plus the locative singular form the demonstrative pronoun o(utoj, “in this.” This is a reference to the function of the royal family honour code on the part of the mature believer, as indicated in verses 14-17. The mature believer not only applies the honour code to the weak believer but in superseding the law of liberty with the law of love he serves the Lord Jesus Christ. The more you grow the greater becomes your flexibility. The mature believer has the greatest flexibility of all. He serves the Lord Jesus Christ in the non-essentials.
“is acceptable to God” – the function of the royal priesthood. Because of ellipsis we have to insert here the present active indicative of e)imi. This is legitimate ellipsis showing that there is emotion involved, Paul is getting excited. The verb is understood because of the predicate nominative singular from e)uarestoj which means “pleasing.” The dative singular indirect object from qeoj plus the definite article gives the translation, “is pleasing to the God.” Pleasing God is the function of the royal priesthood. This is related to maximum doctrine resident in the soul resulting in attainment of maturity adjustment to the justice of God.
“and approved of men” – the connective use of the conjunction kai, followed by the predicate nominative of dokimoj which means approved after examination and testing. Here it means “respected.” Then the instrumental plural of means from the noun a)nqrwpoj—“by men.” This is a function of the royal ambassadorship of the believer. Being respected by men is ambassadorship. The basic fundamental difference between priesthood and ambassadorship is very simple. In priesthood we represent self to God; in ambassadorship we represent God to men.
Translation: “For he who serves the Christ, in this is pleasing to the God [royal priesthood], and respected by men [royal ambassadorship].”
The believer advances in the sphere of his priesthood but his production and application is in the sphere of his ambassadorship. Divine blessing is imputed on the basis of modus operandi of the priesthood, but not production from the ambassadorship. This is rightly dividing the Word of truth. It demands that we distinguish between the function of our priesthood and the function of our ambassadorship.[5]
Verse 19 – the fulfilment of the objectives of the honour code. “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace.” This verse begins with two inferential particles, a)pa o)un, to show that we are moving now to a very important conclusion. The word a)ra is used for inference; o)un is another conjunction which is also inference but has a transitional connotation here. This can be translated “So then,” but better in English, “Consequently.” The verb is the present active indicative of diwkw, which was used in the ancient world for pursuit and the exploitation of break-through in military life. It also means to run after and is often translated simply to pursue. We use “run after” here because this indicates momentum of pursuit and also the exploitation of a break-through. Therefore in the connotation of momentum the corrected translation is, “Consequently we run after.” We as believers of the Lord Jesus Christ and members of the royal family of God are on the battlefield of this world, and therefore God has provided through logistical grace the necessary support to gain momentum, to pursue, to exploit the break-through. The next phrase is the accusative neuter plural direct object from the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun and translated “those things.” This is followed by the genitive singular of relationship from the noun e)irhnh which means “prosperity,” plus the generic use of the definite article to comprehend spiritual maturity as a single whole and to distinguish it from all other categories of spiritual status quo in this life—“related to prosperity.” This prosperity actually refers to the six categories of blessing which comes to the believer after he cracks the maturity barrier. They do not occur all at the same time but are spread out.
The spiritual blessings which are imputed in time from the justice of God to the righteousness of God which is the home or target. The righteousness of God was given at salvation, the blessings of time are imputed at maturity and thereafter. These blessings in time glorify God in time, for when the justice of God can impute blessing to +R in any mature believer this becomes the means of glorifying God. In the spiritual blessings everyone has occupation with Christ which is category #1 personal love. Sharing the happiness of God or sharing +H also will belong to the mature believer. Capacity for life, love, happiness, blessing, grace orientation, authority orientation, freedom orientation, and common sense are some of the spiritual blessings. The ability to face suffering and pressure in life is another great blessing, as is the ability to correctly interpret contemporary history and to evaluate current events in the light of the Word of God. Freedom from slavery to circumstances, adaptability to the changing circumstances of life, a complete and total sense of security in life, regardless of whether you are in a period of obvious prosperity or obvious disaster. A sense of security in relationship to the plan of God for your life. These things are the spiritual heritage of the mature believer. The more you advance in maturity the more these increase, and these blessings imputed glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
The verb diwkw means to run after or pursue. The customary present denotes what habitually occurs in the modus operandi of the positive believer. He pursues, run’s after, exploits logistical grace, and therefore has momentum which advances him into maturity. The active voice: the positive believer produces the action of the verb through consistent daily function of GAP. The indicative mood is declarative for a statement of fact with regard to the positive believer. This is how the positive believer becomes strong or mature. You have to keep running, and that is why we have the customary present. It means you keep on taking in doctrine no matter what the circumstances. Doctrine is your life.
“and the things wherewith one may edify another” – the connective conjunction kai, “and,” plus the accusative neuter plural direct object of the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun, indicating a categorical concept—“and those things.” “Those things” refers to Bible doctrine which must be transferred from the page of the Scriptures into the soul of the believer for any spiritual advance to maturity. Then a genitive singular of relationship from the noun o)ikodomh, referring to the edification complex of the soul. Plus the ablative singular from a definite article used as a relative pronoun whose antecedent is the mature believer who becomes a blessing to other members of the royal family of God. Further more this definite article is in the ablative of source which implies that the original situation, i.e. maturity, contributes in some way to the status of blessing to other believers. When you have an ECS you become a blessing by association. Corrected translation: “from which comes blessing.” Then the prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative plural from the reciprocal pronoun a)llhlwn—“to each other.”
Translation: “Consequently we pursue those things [doctrines] related to prosperity [imputation of divine blessing], and those things related to the edification complex from which comes blessing to each other.”
Note that there is only one verb in this verse in the original Greek. Note also that the pursuit of doctrine is the basis for the objective of fulfilling God’s plan, which in turn results in fulfilment of the honour code and becomes a means of becoming a blessing to each other. In the statement of the Christian life priorities there are no variations, the answer is always the same: Bible doctrine must be the most important thing in your life. There is no substitute for Bible doctrine.[6]
Verse 20-21, the strong believer’s application of the honour code to the weak believer.
Verse 20 – “For meat destroy not the work of God.” The Attic adverb e(neken is used as an improper preposition with the noun brwma—“Because of/On account of food.” Plus the present active imperative of the verb kataluw with the negative mh—“do not demolish.” The person who has grown and advanced to maturity in his spiritual life has far greater responsibility than the weak believer who has neither a sense of responsibility nor any concept of reciprocal relationship in the royal family of God. “Do not destroy/demolish” is a pictorial present tense which describes events in the process of occurrence. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action of the verb. He has the sense of responsibility, the flexibility, is oriented to reality, has common sense, understands thoroughly the function of the royal family honour code, and he knows when to supersede the law of liberty with the law of love. This is the imperative of prohibition used in a negative command. Since kataluw is used for demolition or destruction of a building it certainly relates to hindering the construction of the believer’s ECS which is a part of the advance to maturity. The verb itself has a preposition which is compounded, kata, which means itself “down, to pull down, to tear down,” and to demolish a building. The building in this case is the ECS in someone else’s soul. Then the accusative singular direct object from e)rgon, and with it the generic use of the definite article to emphasise the work of God in contrast to the distinction made on all of the other plans for mankind. This is a different plan; this is God’s work. The plan of God, therefore, is called the work of God. All of man’s plans have to be called the work of man. So a contrast is set up with the genitive singular of possession from qeoj. God’s plan is God’s work, not your plan.
“All things indeed are pure” – the Attic Greek affirmative particle men used correlatively with de, which means “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” The nominative neuter plural from paj refers to every category of food, plus the predicate nominative neuter plural from the adjective kaqaroj which means pure or clean, ceremonially pure or clean. This is not talking about contamination through bacteria or any of the usual contaminations of life that may occur in food, it is talking about clean from the standpoint of the soul, the thinking.
1. This phrase eliminates food and beverage as a source of taboos and legalism.
2. There is one exception to this phrase, i.e. drunkenness, over-indulgence in alcoholic beverage. There is also a possible sin from over-indulgence in food.
3. Apart from over-indulgence all food and beverage in considered clean.
4. This is obviously the superior knowledge of the mature believer.
5. To the immature believer certain food and beverages are taboo, and the taboo to them is directly related to their spiritual life.
6. Because the weak believer makes a taboo out of certain foods and beverages and
relates it to the Christian way of life the strong believer must not allow his
superior knowledge of doctrine to hinder the advance of the weak positive
believer.
7. The strong believer is absolutely correct in his norms and standards that all foods
and beverages are clean, therefore edible and drinkable. But being right must not
hinder the advance of the weak believer.
8. Three kinds of believers exist in the weak believer category, and each has its own
erroneous norms and standards: a) the unstable weak believer who is positive
toward spiritual things but jumps from one person to another; b) positive toward
doctrine and under his right pastor, but has as yet not advanced very far; c)
negative toward doctrine and will never advance too far in the Christian life.
The adversative conjunction a)lla sets up the contrast in this passage between the non-essential right opinion and the wrong standard of the weak believer. The predicate nominative neuter singular from kakoj—“evil.”
Principle
1. A right thing done in a wrong way is not only wrong but it becomes evil—because it distracts a positive believer from doctrine. A right thing applied in a wrong way can also become evil.
2. The mature believer is to be inflexible with regard to the essentials of doctrine but flexible regarding the non-essentials of application.
3. This is why the law of liberty is often superseded by the law of love, so that doctrine becomes the issue to the weak believer rather than the life style of the strong believer. The life style of the strong believer should never be the issue to the weak believer.
4. Generally, eating and drinking are matters of privacy. But in public places they can become public issues which distract the weak believer from doctrine and therefore would destroy his momentum.
5. A right thing plus a wrong application equals wrong, and sometimes evil.
6. A right thing plus a right application equals good or right.
7. The burden of this function lies with the mature believer. He has a strong sense of responsibility and a strong sense of sensitivity where other believers are concerned.
8. The strong believer must be able to become flexible with the application of a correct principle, either by using the principle or by refraining from using the principle as circumstances dictate.
“for that man who eateth with offence” – the dative singular of disadvantage from the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun referring to the strong believer, and the dative singular of disadvantage from the noun a)nqrwpoj, again referring to the strong believer who does a right thing in a wrong way resulting in wrong and being parlayed into evil—“but it becomes evil to that man [the strong believer].” Plus the articular present active participle of e)sqiw, the verb for eating. The instrumental singular of the definite article is used to indicate an instrumental participle. The present tense of the participle is pictorial which presents to the mind a picture of events in the process of occurrence—the strong believer offending the weak believer by what he eats. The active voice: the strong believer produces the action of the verb by inflexibility in the non-essentials. Thus he violates the honour code which he understands best. This is an instrumental participle indicating the means by which the action of the main verb is accomplished—eating food which offends the weak believer. Then the prepositional phrase, dia plus the genitive from proskomma which means an offence that is stumbling, injury, damage; dia plus the genitive denotes here attendant circumstances—literally, “with offence.” But it is an idiom in the Greek meaning to give offence.
Translation: “Because of food do not destroy the work of the God. To be sure, all foods are clean; but it becomes evil to that one [strong believer] who by eating gives offence.”
Principle
1. The mature or strong believer is responsible under the honour code to avoid distractions of offence which would eliminate doctrine as the real issue in the weak believer’s life.
2. This means that the law of love [impersonal love] in the honour code must prevail in all doubtful circumstances.
3. This means, then, that the law of love must and will supersede the law of liberty in such circumstances where the weak believer is offended so that he is distracted from doctrine.
4. None of us can grow spiritually apart from doctrine, therefore all who have grown spiritually and attained maturity did so because at some time while they were advances the law of liberty was superseded by the law of love. A strong believer tolerated our erroneous standards of the past.
5. Therefore just as the weak believer must learn to distinguish between the essentials and the non-essentials, so the strong believer must do likewise. But each has a different area in which they must learn this. This means inflexibility about the essentials of doctrine and flexibility about the non-essentials. This principle provides growing room for the weak believer who is positive toward doctrine.
Principle
1. Capacity for life demands that all of us establish priorities in life. You cannot have capacity until you have priorities. (Priorities are impossible until you personally learn to think. You do not have priorities if you are an emotional creature who never had a serious thought) Doctrine gives the capacity for thought, which in turn gives the capacity for life.
2. These priorities must be categorised into essentials and non-essentials.
3. This principle applies to various aspects of life—military life, the profession of law, law enforcement, coaching, teaching a subject in school, etc. From your priorities you have to decide what is essential and what is non-essential.
4. Above all, this principle of distinguishing between the essential and the non-essential is a basic principle of the Christian way of life.
5. Doctrinal is the essential; doctrine must have the number one priority in the life.
6. The believer must be totally flexible in the application of doctrine to life, to people, to circumstances.
7. For this reason there are three laws which supersede the law of liberty. In the modus vivendi of the Christian life there are three laws that the strong believer uses: the law of love which is direct toward the weak believer; the law of expediency directed toward the unbeliever; the law of supreme sacrifice which is directed toward God alone. (Amplified in 1 Corinthians 8 & 10:23-33)
Verse 21 – “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine.” The predicate nominative neuter singular from kaloj is translated “honourable.” It is preceded by the verb to be: “It is honourable,” a reference to the function of the royal family honour code. Then the articular aorist active infinitive from e)sqiw plus the negative mh. The articular infinitive is an Attic Greek idiom which changes the verbalisation of the infinitive into a substantive, and not only a substantive but great emphasis on the substantive. The definite article restores the balance between the substantive and verbal aspects of the infinitive. This means that when you have the definite article preceding the infinitive, often it is used simply as a noun. Here in the nominative neuter singular definite article we have a construction in which the subject is the definite article and the predicate nominative is simply kaloj, honourable, and then the articular infinitive functions in exactly the same way that a noun would as the subject of a verb. So for the corrected translation literally, “Not eating is honourable.” This is a reference to the law of liberty being replaced by the law of love. The construction is completed with the accusative plural direct object of the infinitive kreaj—“meat.” The aorist tense in the infinitive is a part of a substantive idea and must be taken very strictly, and it means it is honourable not to eat meat in a specific case, not to refrain from eating meat all the time and abandoning your own freedom. It is honourable on a specific occasion. Next is the aorist active infinitive from pinw, followed by a negative disjunctive conjunction mhde used to continue the concept of a negation. This is, again, a substantised infinitive without a preposition, used as a subject with the aorist tense indicating this is not continuous abstinence, this is an occasional situation. Plus the accusative singular from o)inoj—“wine.” “It is honourable not to eat meat, nor to drink wine in a specific situation.”[7]
“nor anything, whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak” – mhde, again, which is repeated for what is called formula ellipsis, and it has an idiomatic meaning which means “or do anything else.” “Do anything else” is not found in the original, it is a formula ellipsis where mhde is repeated with a negative side: first time to mentions specifics and then the second is a general. The next phrase is the preposition e)n plus the instrumental singular from the relative pronoun o(j—“by which.” Plus the nominative singular of a)delfoj with a genitive of relationship from the personal pronoun su, correctly translated “your brother.” Then the present active indicative of proskopw, meaning to stumble, to be offended. The aoristic present tense is for punctiliar action in present time. On a specific occasion the weak believer will stumble when he is offended in his conscience by the function of a strong believer whom he observes to be eating meat, contrary to his own taboo, or drinking alcoholic beverage, again contrary to his own taboo. The active voice: the weak believer produces the action of the verb through being offended at something the strong believer does. The indicative mood is declarative for the fact that this is an actual occurrence. The false norms of the weak believer produce arrogance, and from that arrogance comes hypersensitivity. He can’t cope with the mature norms of a strong believer. Doctrine is blamed and therefore doctrine is rejected by the weak believer whose legalism is wrong, not doctrine. This means that by the strong believer taking the responsibility on these occasions all believers will have an equal opportunity to advance to maturity and the resultant imputation of divine blessing in time as a manifestation of the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Equality, however, is not the issue. Freedom will create inequalities because some believers will use their freedom to learn doctrine while other believers use their freedom to reject doctrine and go any other way.
Translation: “It is honourable not to eat meat, nor to drink wine in a specific situation, nor do anything else by which your brother stumbles.” The phrase “or is offended, or is made weak” is not found in the original.
Principle: Believers with positive volition use their freedom to advance to maturity, while believers with negative volition use their freedom to reject doctrine. Therefore freedom creates inequality. That is, inequalities exist through the use of one’s freedom. Equality is an impossible myth; freedom is the potentiality for advancing in the plan of God.
Verse 22 – you have to have a means by which you establish norms in your conscience, and doctrine is the only way to do this. This verse records the conscience of the strong believer, the norms and standards of the strong believer. “Hast thou faith?” The proleptic use of the personal pronoun su is addressed to the mature believer. “You there” is the correct translation. The accusative singular of general reference from pistij. The accusative of general reference is the subject of the infinitive. Here we have the simple reference without the infinitive. The word pistij generally is translated “faith” but that isn’t its only meaning. There are three basic connotations of the noun: a) Non-meritorious perception—trust, confidence, or faith. This is the active use of the noun; an attribute—faithfulness, reliability; a recognition of an acceptance of doctrinal teaching, and it comes to mean doctrine: that is the meaning here. Then an accusative feminine singular from the relative pronoun o(j. Ordinarily in the feminine or masculine gender this is translated “who.” But there is a reason for not translating it at all. Next is a present active indicative from the verb e)xw, meaning to have and to hold. “You there, the doctrine which you have,” referring to the mature believer, the one who is advancing, the positive believer. This is a retroactive progressive present tense, it denotes what has begun in the past and continues into the present time through the daily function of GAP. These people have learned Bible doctrine, have persisted in it, have been pluggers, avoiding distractions. They have been stable and have avoided all of the pitfalls of peeling off from doctrine. The active voice: generally the mature believer produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the fact that the believers who are positive to doctrine and who stay with it possess doctrine as the basis for forming norms and standards in the conscience.
“have it to thyself before God” – present active imperative of e)xw. This is a descriptive present for what is now going on. The active voice: the mature believer again produces the action. This is the imperative mood of command—“be having it.” Then the prepositional phrase, kata plus the accusative singular from the reflexive pronoun seautou which denotes a relationship to something. Here it is a relationship to self. “You there, the doctrine you have, be having it in relationship to yourself.” This command means that when you learn doctrine that is where you stand inflexible. Inflexibility with regard to the essentials. Doctrine is the essential; doctrine is what is important. Doctrine in your norms and standards demands that you remain absolutely firm where doctrine is concerned. The adverb e)nwpion is used as an improper preposition. The object of the adverb is qeoj. It means with the genitive, “before the God” or “in the sight of the God.” You have to know when to respect the privacy of someone else who is wrong. You may be right; they may be wrong, but you have to know when to keep quiet. So we have emphasis on the privacy of the priesthood and letting everyone live their life as unto the Lord. Let them establish their norms and standards from doctrine they learn, not doctrine you have learned. The exceptions are parents to children and times when people are seeking something and one can be helpful. But basically, everyone learns doctrine from their own pastor-teacher.
You cannot live your life as unto the Lord without Bible doctrine resident in your soul. The believer must live his life in the basis of doctrinal standards he possesses, not the doctrinal standards someone else possesses. So this phrase emphasises three things: a) You must learn doctrine for your relationship with God, you cannot depend on doctrine others have learned for your relationship. You have to know doctrine to have a personal relationship with God as a believer; b) You must use the doctrine you have learned for your relationship with God, not the doctrine someone else has learned; c) You live your life as unto the Lord on the basis of that doctrine you have learned, you cannot live your life as unto the Lord under the aegis of some other believer, some other believer always telling you what to do. You have to know what to do, you cannot use some other human being as a crutch. The only way you can throw away the crutches is to learn doctrine for yourself.
“You there, the doctrine which you have be having it in relationship to yourself before God.”
Principle
1. Note that in the previous verse the aorist tense does not demand a total abstinence, or even permanent abstinence, from food and wine.
2. The honour code principle takes cognisance of the fact that the weak believer is ignorant of doctrine and full of prejudices, so that he has nothing in his soul to comprehend the divine approbation of your freedom.
3. Therefore the legitimate function of your freedom, using doctrine you have learned, has no frame of reference in the weak believer. So when you throw doctrine at him, even though you are right, he is distracted from learning doctrine for himself.
4. As a temporary function and not as a permanent abstinence you often supersede the law of freedom in your own life with a higher law, the law of love, so as to avoid distracting the weak believer from doctrine. He needs that doctrine to grow spiritually, and in effect, by staying with the law of liberty you are depriving him of the doctrine he needs.
5. Since you have doctrine with reference to yourself you must also encapsulate the application of that doctrine with reference to yourself so as not to distract the weak believer.
6. Therefore you must have a flexibility of application, flexibility from strength.
7. Food and drink are non-essentials.
8. Flexibility of application, therefore, demands superseding the law of liberty by the law of love, not as a permanent abstinence but as a temporary expediency under flexibility of application in the non-essentials.
9. This works no hardship on a strong or mature believer and does provide breathing room for the weak believer to express his positive volition toward doctrine and to continue in the function of GAP.
10. Therefore a public application of the principle of privacy.
Principle
1. Many of the mature believer’s freedoms cannot be publicly flaunted without distracting the weak believer from the primary issue of doctrine.
2. While your life is not an issue to another believer who has the good sense to be occupied with Christ, your lifestyle can easily become a distraction to the weak believer who has neither the doctrine nor the understanding of the privacy of the priesthood to cope with your liberty.
3. Therefore you have to give number one priority to doctrine in your life and this requires flexibility of application in the non-essentials.
4. This flexibility of application demands that certain legitimate functions in life which distract the weak believer (who is positive) have to be set aside temporarily. This is the honour code.
5. Not only is the strong or mature believer responsible for toleration of the non-essentials but flexibility and application of doctrine to the non-essentials.
6. Remember that the mature believer’s strength [doctrine in the soul] is the immature believer’s weakness [lack of doctrine in the soul]. So, again, the mature believer’s strength is the immature believer’s weakness.
7. The mature believer is strong in doctrine while the immature believer is weak in doctrine.
8. The greater the amount of doctrine in the soul the greater the freedom in lifestyle.
9. Therefore the mature believer has an additional responsibility of making sure that his freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak believer who neither understands nor has flexibility from doctrine of his own.
10. Consequently, doctrine resident in the soul must be possessed in relationship to self before God and applied in flexibility to the weak believer so that the weak one’s perception of doctrine remains the true issue in the Christian way of life.
The tragic flaw #1: the non-essential image.[8]
Principle
1. This image is related to their norms and standards of conscience in such a way as to be a goal in life, or a system for emulation. By the time people become physically mature they have erected certain idols, they carry an image in their souls. This image is usually the sum total of their norms and standards: something they admire, something they desire to emulate.
2. For example, the woman may create her image from being stage struck. She seeks to copy some actress, etc. Such an image is a non-essential.
3. A male through his arrogance also creates an image (It takes a lot of arrogance and false norms to create this image) of masculinity from some stupid and strong clod he admires.
4. This he-man image in a non-essential. Being inflexible about such a non-essential image results in distortion in life.
5. For example, take a young man who is brilliant, sensitive, thoughtful, gentlemanly, kind, low profile. Suddenly he takes an ego trip by becoming inflexible with regard to a non-essential. He suddenly creates an image in his soul called manliness and assigns it to someone. He imitates this person and becomes rude, thoughtless, insensitive, belligerent, contentious, pugnacious, in effect chasing the shadows of non-essentials in the name of manliness.
Tragic Flaw #2: the problem of arrogance. It is characterised as the arrogant presumption pattern.
Principle
1. Arrogance in areas where people are successful is the problem. This pattern comes from arrogant presumption on the part of people who by some standard, or any standard, have qualified as successful—someone who has come into public notice, has achieved some kind of public attention. From this comes an arrogance problem—when people are successful or pseudo-successful attention-getters.
2. People who are brilliant or successful in certain fields and dumb. They assume in their arrogance that they are an expert in any field or any subject. Therefore in their arrogance they feel qualified to express and opinion on any subject that may come up. They’ve never been heard to say that they don’t know and the opinion of someone who is qualified should be sought. This is characterised by arrogant presumption and it means that while you might be brilliant in one field and an expert you are not qualified to deal with all fields. The obvious result is inflexibility in the non-essentials, and the non-essentials are areas of ignorance. The momentum for this tragic flaw comes from success in one field of endeavour which linked with arrogance assumes expertise in every field of endeavour.
Tragic Flaw #3: the assumption that a good personality means a great person; that greatness is found in personality.
Principle
1. While it is true that some people do have great personalities, it is not true that
a great personality has greatness.
2. While flair may accompany greatness, flair in itself is not greatness, it is
merely a personality trend.
3. What the average person fails to realise is the fact that personality often
obscures the real person.
4. It is true that personality often reveals the person but it is also true that it can
be a disguise as much as a manifestation. Personality can obfuscate the real
person.
5. Having a great personality does not imply greatness.
6. This does not downgrade personality but merely places personality in its
proper perspective. Personality is merely what people see. No one can see
inside of your soul.
7. Personality, then, can be a manifestation or an obfuscation of the real
person.
8. Furthermore, personality is the area for the function of hypocrisy, so that the
personality in itself is not greatness.
9. A coward may have a pleasing personality but the coward is still a coward.
10. In reality good personality is a non-essential in life, and those who confuse
11. good personality with greatness become inflexible in the non-essentials. Therefore they are divorced from what is real in life, they live in their own private dream world.
12. The essential is the function of the soul; the non-essential is the personality which covers the soul.
13. By analogy, the essential is the function of the human body. The non-essential is the clothes that cover the human body. Being flexible in the essential emphasises the health of the body, while being flexible in the non-essentials is the variety of clothes which cover your healthy body or unhealthy body.
14. So the essential is the norms of the soul, the norms of the conscience of the soul. The non-essential is the personality which fronts for the soul.
15. The believer must be inflexible about Bible doctrine in his soul, but he must be flexible about the non-essentials of personality.
Principle
1. Many of the freedoms of the mature believer cannot be publicly flaunted without distracting some weak believer from the primary issue which is Bible doctrine.
2. While your life as a mature believer is not the issue to any other mature believer who has the good sense to be occupied with Christ and not with you, your life style can easily become a distraction to the weak believer, to the one who does not have the same amount of doctrine in his soul as you possess.
3. To give #1 priority to doctrine in your life requires flexibility of application in the non-essentials. Many things that you do and know are right may be offensive to weak believers, and therefore in the presence of those weak believers you avoid these things in order that such a believer might not be distracted from doctrine.
4. This flexibility of application demands certain legitimate functions the life which distract the immature positive believer be set aside under the royal family honour code.
5. Not only is the strong/mature believer responsible for toleration non-essentials but he must be extremely flexible in the application of doctrine to these non-essentials. Remember that the mature believer’s strength is the immature believer’s weakness.
“Happy is he that condemneth not himself in the thing which he alloweth.” The nominative singular subject from the adjective makarioj. Usually this word is found in the plural, and when it is it is translated “blessed,” though it means literally, “happinesses.” But here it is in the singular, the predicate masculine nominative singular from the definite article with it used as a demonstrative pronoun—“Happy.” Here is a person who is absolutely happy in any circumstance of life. Then the definite article, predicate nominative, translated “that one.” The immediate demonstrative here refers to the mature believer, relatively near in thought and in activity, who is strong. “Happy is that one,” emphasising the fact that all mature believers have happiness, they share the happiness of God. Next comes the present active participle of the verb krinw plus the negative mh. So happiness here means to be not doing something. This is a tendencial present used for an action which generally does not occur, or is inclined not to occur with the negative. The active voice: the mature believer produces the action by not doing something. The circumstantial participle tells us he is happy by not condemning. Then the object of the participle, the accusative singular direct object from the reflexive pronoun e(autou, used here for the third person pronoun but it is reflexive, it brings the action of the verb back to the person in a negative way, so he is happy about what he didn’t do. This is translated “himself.” Next is a prepositional phrase, e)n plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j—“in what.” Plus the present active indicative of the verb dokimazw which means to approve, to test for the purpose of approval, to decide and approve on examination, to accept as approved. Therefore it refers to the fact that doctrine resident in the soul is the means of testing and approving. The mature believer has in the conscience of his soul these norms and standards that are based on Bible doctrine. The present tense is retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has begun in the past [perception of doctrine] and continues into the present time with doctrine forming the norms and standards of the soul. Then the doctrinal conscience approves what he does so that he does not judge or condemn himself in what he does. The active voice: the mature believer with doctrine in his conscience produces the action of the verb. He does not condemn himself because while he was right he did not press it. The indicative mood indicates the fact that the verbal action is from the viewpoint of reality, there were believers in Rome who were doing this right.
Translation: “You there [mature believer], the doctrine which you have, be having it to yourself in the sight of God. Happy is that one [mature believer] who does not condemn himself in what he approves.”
Verse 23 – the conscience of the weak believer, or lack of doctrine weakens the conscience with a guilt complex. “And he that doubteth is damned if he eat.” This is the weak believer. The postpositive conjunctive particle de is used to connect clauses where a contrast exists. We have the strong believer who is happy; we have the weak believer who is not happy. This is translated “But.” Then the present middle participle of diakrinw. Krinw was used in the previous verse for the strong believer. Now, instead of krinw we have diakrinw which means to separate, to differentiate, to make a distinction; but in the mi take issue with self, to doubt, to waver. The definite article is used as a personal pronoun, and we translate “But he who doubts.” The customary present tense denotes what habitually occurs when the weak believer violates his own personal food/beverage taboos and seeks to emulate the strong believer. In other words, he sees the strong believer whom he admires. He doesn’t have the norms and standards yet, and so when the strong believer says, Let’s go out and drink some beer, the weak believer says, Why sure! But all of his life he has heard that it is a taboo. He has even walked out of eating places where they served alcoholic beverage and he has a norm in his conscience that says alcohol will never touch his lips. But out he goes with the strong believer to drink some beer and gets drunk. He should have said no, which would have been the correct answer. The strong believer understands that a little alcohol is all right. But while the weak believer is drinking, the norm he has in his soul is sounding an alarm. This is a miserable person! He is doing something contrary to his own norms. The fact of his norms being wrong or right isn’t even the issue. He hasn’t heard what the Bible teaches about drinking. The customary present denotes what habitually occurs when the weak believer violates his own personal taboos. The middle voice is a direct middle which refers the results of the action directly to the weak believer with reflexive force. He is miserable all the time he is drinking because he is doing something contrary to his own standards. This is a circumstantial participle to set up the principle. Doubting merely expresses the function of a norm or standard in his conscience. The strong believer knows better than to do something like that. So when he is out with the weak believer he orders a non-alcoholic drink because of the weak believer. When the norms and standards of the soul of the weak believer are violated out comes operation guilt complex. The doubt results from lack of doctrine in the soul and resultant human viewpoint norms of conscience can’t handle it, and guilt complex is one of the worst sins. It means you can’t get rid of your problems, they become an obsession to you.
“is damned” is perfect passive indicative of katakrinw, meaning to condemn. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect, the perfect of existing state. When special attention is directed to the results of the action emphasis on the existing state is intensified. The intensive perfect is a stronger way of saying that a thing is. The passive voice: the weak believer receives the action of the verb, condemning himself. His conscience begins to sound alarms. He is devoid of doctrine by which to handle the situation; he has no way of handling it, therefore he carries this monstrous guilt complex. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality; “if he eat” – the conditional conjunction e)an introduces the protasis of a 3rd class condition, indicating the fact that he doesn’t have to eat/drink. It violates his norms and standards, he is free to say no. The 3rd class condition is setting up a possibility. Then the aorist active subjunctive from the verb e)sqiw, which, when alone, stands for both eating and drinking that which is forbidden. This is a constative aorist and it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the weak believer produces the action of the verb by emulating a strong believer in violation of his own personal norms. The subjunctive mood is potential, used with e)an to indicate he may or may not so this, he has a choice.
“because he eateth not of faith” – this is a case of ellipsis in which the idea is not fully expressed grammatically. O(ti should be translated “because.” Next is the negative o)uk demanding the indicative mood which clarifies what is omitted in the Attic ellipsis—“because if he does not eat.” Then e)k plus the ablative of means from pistij—“by means of doctrine.” This is the problem. Doctrine must be the origin or the source of all norms and standards of the conscience.
Principle
1. Doctrine resident in the soul through the function of GAP is the only basis for establishing norms for the Christian life. Previous norms, before salvation, are not acceptable in the modus operandi of Christianity.
2. Instead, the weak believer here possesses norms and standards of conscience based upon his background.
3. To eat meat he must violate the pseudo-norms of his early environment and therefore the normal reaction is a guilt complex, a combination of both sin and evil in his life.
4. Principle: The royal family modus vivendi must be based on Bible doctrine resident in the soul. That means norms and standards in the conscience which form the norms and standards for the function of the law of liberty.
“for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” – the postpositive conjunctive particle de used
here as a transitional particle without any contrast intended, translated “and.” The nominative neuter singular from the adjective paj—“everything.” Then the nominative neuter singular from the relative pronoun o(j, plus the negative o)uk which demands the insertion of the present active indicative of e)sqiw—“and everything which is not eaten.” This is followed by the prepositional phrase, e)k plus pistij—“by means of doctrine.” With this is the explanatory use of the copular e)imi which is a representation of something. Here is means the equivalent of. The customary present tense denotes what habitually occurs when the weak believer violates his own taboos. He has a guilt reaction. The active voice: the meat and the
wine taboos are the ones that produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for reality—“everything which is not eaten by means of doctrine is tantamount/equivalent to.” Then the predicate nominative singular from a(martia, used here for personal sin.
Translation: “But he [weak believer] who doubts is condemned [by his weak conscience] if he eats [contrary to his taboo], because he does not eat by means of doctrine. And everything which is not eaten by means of doctrine is equivalent to sin.”
This does not imply that eating contrary to a taboo is a sin, but the result is a guilt complex, which is a very definite mental attitude sin.
Principle
1. Christian freedom under grace must never precede or get ahead of doctrine in the soul which equates the action of the believer with the conscience of the believer.
2. Never permit your modus operandi to get ahead of your doctrinal norms. Always stay with your own norms and standards until doctrine replaces them.
3. Norms and standards of the conscience which are based on doctrinal inculcation must always be the basis for doing a right thing in a right way, and therefore avoiding mental attitude sins.
4. To a do a right thing in a right way and avoid sinfulness requires that same maximum doctrine resident in the soul. Your norms and standards have to be changed so that you know exactly what you are doing.
5. The believer cannot live on the norms and standards of others. He must live on his own norms and standards, and therefore he must develop an accurate conscience. This requires the daily intake of doctrine.
6. The weak believer suffers from blind arrogance. He is evangelised into weakness by the weak, so that his weakness is intensified as he emulates weakness.
7. To avoid emulation of weakness intensifying weakness requires doctrine resident in the soul so that the believer’s advance to maturity is accompanied by a total and complete overhaul of his conscience, and his norms and standards line of with the Word of God.
8. Therefore, the believer must function by means of doctrine and the royal family honour code so that legalism is not compounded into sinfulness.
[1] See the Doctrine of the Sins of the Tongue.
[2] See the Doctrine of Reversionism.
[3] See the Doctrine of the Judgment Seat of Christ.
[4] See the Doctrine of the Royal Family Honour Code
[5] See the Doctrine of the Royal Ambassadorship
[6] See the Doctrine of the Importance of Doctrine
[7] See the Doctrine of Drinking
[8] See the Doctrine of the Tragic Flaw