Homilies on Romans, Homily 25

“Welcome anyone who is weak in the faith, but not for disputes over doubts. For one believes that he may eat everything; another, who is weak, eats vegetables.” I know that most people find what is said here difficult. So I must first explain the subject of this whole passage and what Paul wants to correct by writing it. What, then, does he want to correct? Many of the Jews who had come to believe still felt bound in conscience to the Law. Even after believing, they continued to observe its food restrictions, since they did not yet have the courage to give up serving the Law altogether. Then, to keep people from noticing that they were avoiding only pork, they abstained from all flesh and ate only vegetables, so that their practice would look more like fasting than observing the Law. Others were further advanced, (τελειότεροι) and kept up none of these practices. They distressed and offended those who did, reproaching them, accusing them, and driving them to despair. The blessed Paul feared that, in their desire to get a minor point right, they would overturn everything; that, in trying to make these people indifferent to what they ate, they would set them on the path to abandoning the faith; and that, in their eagerness to correct everything at once, before the proper time had come, they would do harm on essential matters. By constantly rebuking them, they would drive them away from their confession of (ὁμολογίας εἰς) Christ, and so leave them uncorrected in either respect. Notice, then, the sound judgment he uses and how, with his usual wisdom, he attends to both concerns. He does not venture to tell those who rebuke them, “You are doing wrong,” so that he may not seem to confirm the others in their observances. Nor does he say, “You are doing right,” for fear of making them still fiercer accusers. Instead, he shapes his rebuke to address both. He appears to rebuke the stronger, but in addressing them he directs everything he has to say against the others. Correction is likely to be less irritating when someone addresses one person while striking at another: this keeps the person being rebuked from flying into a rage and introduces the medicine of correction unnoticed. Now see how wisely he does this, and how well he chooses the moment. After saying, “Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts,” he goes on to discuss these matters, so that he may not seem to be defending those who were rebuking the others and favored eating anything. The weaker side always needs more careful consideration. So he directs his blow against the strong, immediately saying, “Anyone who is weak in the faith.” You see that he immediately strikes a blow at the weak person. By calling him weak (ἀσθενοὕντα), he points out that he is not healthy (ἄρρωστον). Then he adds, “Welcome,” again showing that this person needs a great deal of attention. This is a sign of extreme weakness. “Not for disputes over doubts.” See, he has struck a third blow. Here he makes it appear that the man's error is such that even those who do not transgress in the same way, yet welcome him with affection and are eager to cure him, are in doubt. You see how he appears to be speaking to these people while secretly rebuking the others without giving offense. Then he places them side by side, praising one and accusing the other. He goes on to say, “One believes that he may eat everything,” praising him for his faith. “Another, who is weak, eats vegetables,” again criticizing this one for his weakness. Then, since the blow he has struck is deadly (καιρίαν, used hyperbolically), he comforts him again with these words: Ver. 3. “The one who eats must not despise the one who does not eat.” He does not say, “Leave him alone,” or, “Do not blame him,” or even, “Do not correct him.” He says, “Do not reproach him; do not ‘despise’ him,” to show that what they were doing was completely ridiculous. But he speaks differently about the other side: “The one who does not eat must not judge the one who eats.” Just as the more advanced looked down on these people as having little faith, being falsely healed and counterfeit, and still Judaizing, so these in turn judged the others as lawbreakers or as devoted to gluttony. Many of the latter were probably Gentiles as well. So he continues, “For God has welcomed him.” But he does not say this in the other person's case. And yet one would expect the eater to be despised as a glutton, and the person who did not eat to be judged as having little faith. But Paul has switched their places to show that the eater not only does not deserve to be despised, but can even despise the other. “But am I condemning him?” he means. Certainly not. That is why he continues, “For God has welcomed him.” Why, then, do you speak to him about the Law as though he were a transgressor? “For God has welcomed him”: that is, He has shown him His indescribable grace and freed him from every charge against him. Then Paul turns again to the strong. Ver. 4. “Who are you to judge another man's servant?” This shows that they too were judging, not merely despising. “He stands or falls before his own Master.” See, here is another blow. His indignation seems to be directed against the strong person, whom he attacks. When he says, “Yes, he will be upheld,” he shows that the weak person is still wavering and needs so much attention that God must be called in as a physician for this. “For God,” he says, “is able to make him stand.” We say this about things we have quite despaired of. Then, to keep him from despairing, he also calls him a servant when he says, “Who are you to judge another man's servant?” Here again he secretly attacks him. “I tell you not to judge him,” he means, “not because his conduct deserves exemption from judgment, but because he is Another's servant—that is, God's, not yours.” Then, to comfort him again, he does not simply say, “Falls.” What does he say? “Stands or falls.” But whether it is the latter or the former, either is the Master's concern, since the loss is His if the servant falls, just as the gain is His if the servant stands. Again, unless we keep in mind Paul's aim of preventing them from being rebuked before the proper time, this is quite unworthy of the mutual care Christians should show. But (as I keep saying) we must examine the intention behind the words, the subject being discussed, and the goal he wants to achieve by saying them. And what he says gives them a powerful reason to show respect. He means: “If God, Who suffers the loss, has done nothing so far, how can you be anything but premature and excessively demanding when you seize (ἄγκων, throttle) the man and harass him?” Ver. 5. “One person values one day above another; another values every day alike.” Here he seems to me to be making a gentle allusion to fasting. Some who fasted may well have been constantly judging those who did not. Or perhaps some of those who kept these observances abstained on certain days and did not abstain on others. That is why he also says, “Let everyone be fully convinced in his own mind.” In this way he freed those who kept the observances from fear by saying that the matter was indifferent. He also put an end to the quarrelsomeness of those who attacked them by showing that constantly making trouble over these things was not a very desirable (or urgent, περισπούδαστον) task. Yet the task was undesirable because of the timing and because they were new to the faith, rather than because of its own nature. For when he writes to the Colossians, he forbids it with great earnestness, saying, “Be careful that no one carries you off through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human traditions, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Col. ii. 8, see p. 4.) And again, “Let no one judge you about food or drink” (ib. 16), and, “Let no one cheat you out of your reward.” (ib. 18.) And when he writes to the Galatians, he very strictly requires a Christian spirit and maturity in this matter. Here, however, he does not speak with such force, because the faith had only recently been planted in them. So let us not apply the phrase, “Let everyone be convinced in his own mind,” to every subject. When he speaks about doctrines, listen to what he says: “If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one you received, let him be accursed” (Gal. i. 9), “even” if it is “an angel.” And again, “I fear that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve through his cunning, your minds may be corrupted.” (2 Cor. xi. 3.) And in writing to the Philippians, he says, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation.” (Phil. iii. 2.) But with the Romans, since the proper time had not yet come to correct things of this kind, he says, “Let everyone be fully convinced in his own mind.” For he had been speaking about fasting. To clear away the vanity of the others and free these people from fear, he said the following: Ver. 6. “The one who observes the day observes it for the Lord; and the one who does not observe the day does not observe it for the Lord.” And, “The one who eats eats for the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and the one who does not eat abstains for the Lord and gives God thanks.” He continues with the same subject. His meaning is roughly this: the matter does not concern fundamentals. What is required, if this person and the other are acting for God's sake—what is required is (these words are repeated 3 mss.) that both end in thanksgiving. For both this man and that man give thanks to God. If, then, both give thanks to God, the difference is not great. But let me draw your attention to the way he again strikes an unnoticed blow at the Judaizers. If what is required is “giving thanks,” it is quite clear that the one who eats is the one who “gives thanks,” rather than “the one who does not eat.” For how could he, while still holding to the Law? Just as Paul told the Galatians, “All of you who are justified by the Law have fallen from grace” (Gal. v. 4), so here he only hints at it, without explaining it as fully. The time had not yet come to do that. For the present he bears with it (see p. 337), but what follows opens the matter up further. For when he says, Ver. 7, 8. “For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord,” he makes the same point clearer by this too. For how can someone who lives for the Law be living for Christ? But this is not all he accomplishes here. He also restrains the person who was in such a hurry to have them corrected and persuades him to be patient, showing that God cannot possibly despise them and will correct them in due time. What, then, does “None of us lives for himself” mean? It means that we are not free; we have a Master Who also wants us to live and does not want us to die, and Who has a greater interest in both than we do. By saying this, Paul shows that He cares more for us than we care for ourselves, and regards our life as wealth and our death as a loss even more than we do. For if we die, we do not die to ourselves alone, but to our Master as well. By death here he means death through abandoning the faith. Yet the fact that we live for Him and die for Him would be enough to convince us that He cares for us. Still, Paul is not content to say this, but goes further. After saying, “So whether we live or die, we are the Lord's,” he passes from that death to physical death, so that his language may not seem harsh, and gives another very great sign of His care for us. What kind of sign is this? Ver. 9. “For this purpose Christ died, rose, and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” Let us at least convince you by this that He cares about our salvation. For if He had not cared so greatly for us, what need would there have been for the Dispensation (or Incarnation, οἰκονομίας)? He showed such concern to make us His own that He took the form of a servant and died. Will He despise us after we have become His? That cannot be—certainly it cannot! Nor would He choose to let so much effort go to waste. “For this purpose,” Paul says, “He also died.” It is as though someone said, “That man will not have the heart to despise his servant, because he cared about the money he spent.” (Cf. Ex. xxi. 21.) For we do not love money as much as He loves our salvation. So it was His own Blood, rather than money, that He gave as security for us. That is why He would not have the heart to abandon those for whom He paid so great a price. See too how Paul shows that His power is indescribable. He says, “For this purpose He died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” And above he said, “For whether we live or die, we are His.” See how far His mastery extends! See His unconquerable might! See how carefully He watches over us! “Do not speak to me only of the living,” Paul means. He cares even for the departed. And if He cares for the departed, it is quite clear that He cares for the living too. He has left nothing undone to establish this mastery, securing more claims for Himself than people do, and above all doing so in order to care for us. A man pays money and for that reason holds tightly to his own slave. But He paid with His own death. He is hardly likely to consider worthless the salvation of someone purchased at so great a price, over whom He gained mastery with so much concern and trouble. Paul says this to put the Judaizer to shame and persuade him to remember the greatness of the benefit: how he had been dead and came to life, how he had gained nothing from the Law, and how utterly heartless it would be to leave Him Who had shown him so much care and run back to the Law. After attacking him sufficiently, Paul softens his tone again and says, Ver. 10. “But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you treat your brother as worthless?” He seems to be placing them on an equal footing, but what he has already said shows that the difference between them is great. First, by calling the other person a “brother,” he puts an end to their contentiousness, and then he reminds them of that terrifying day. For after saying, “Why do you treat your brother as worthless?” he continues, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” In saying this, he again seems to be rebuking the more advanced, but he is unsettling the Judaizer's mind, both by calling him to honor the benefit he has received and by making him afraid of the punishment to come. “For we will all,” he says, “stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” Ver. 11, 12. “For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” See how he again unsettles one person's mind while seeming to rebuke the other. He suggests something like this: “How does it affect you? Are you going to be punished for him?” But he does not say this outright. He hints at it more gently by saying, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,” and, “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” He brings in the prophet as a witness that everyone is subject to Him—a subjection extending even to those in the Old Testament, and to absolutely everyone. For he does not merely say that everyone will worship, but that everyone “will confess,” that is, will give an account of what he has done. Be anxious, then, as you see the Master of all sitting on His judgment seat, and do not create schisms and divisions in the Church by breaking away from grace and running over to the Law. For the Law too is His. And why do I say this about the Law? Even those under the Law and those before the Law are His. And it is Christ, rather than the Law, Who will demand an account from you and from the whole human race. See how Paul has freed us from fear of the Law. Then, so that he may not seem to be saying this merely to frighten them at the moment, but to have arrived at it in the course of the argument he intended, he returns to the same subject and says, Ver. 13. “So let us no longer judge one another, but decide this instead: that no one put a stumbling block or a cause of falling in his brother's way.” This applies to one no less than the other, so it can fit both: the advanced person who took offense at the food observances, and the less advanced person who stumbled over the harsh rebuke he received. But consider, I ask you, how great a punishment we will suffer if we cause anyone to stumble at all. Even in a case where the practice was contrary to the law, Paul forbade them to rebuke it at the wrong time, so that a brother would not be led into sin and made to stumble. What treatment, then, will we deserve when we cause someone to stumble without even having anything to correct? For if failing to save others is a crime (and the man who buried the talent proves that it is), what will come of causing another person to stumble as well? “But what if he causes himself to stumble,” you may say, “by being weak?” That is precisely why you ought to be patient. If he were strong, he would not need so much attention. But as it is, his very weakness means that he needs considerable care. Let us give him that care, then, and bear his burdens in every way, since we will have to give an account not only of our own sins, but also of those we cause others to commit. If even the account of our own sins would be hard to get through, how will we be saved when these are added too? And let us not suppose that finding accomplices in our sins will give us an excuse. It will increase our punishment. The serpent was punished more than the woman, and the woman more than the man (1 Tim. ii. 14). Jezebel too was punished more severely than Ahab, who had seized the vineyard, because she devised the whole affair and caused the king to sin. (1 Kings xxi. 23, 25, 29.) So when you cause the ruin of others, you will suffer more severely than those you have led astray. For sinning is not as ruinous as leading others into the same sin as well. That is why Paul speaks of those who “not only do the same things, but take pleasure in those who do them.” (Rom. i. 32.) So when we see anyone sinning, let us pull them back from the pit of wickedness instead of pushing them on, so that we will not have to be punished for the ruin of others as well as our own. Let us constantly remember the terrifying judgment seat, the river of fire, the chains that will never be loosened, the darkness without light, the gnashing of teeth, and the venomous worm. “Ah, but God is merciful!” Are these things, then, mere words? Wasn't that rich man punished for despising Lazarus? Aren't the foolish virgins thrown out of the bridal chamber? Don't those who failed to feed Him go away into “the fire prepared for the devil”? (Matt. xxv. 41.) Won't the man with soiled clothes be “bound hand and foot” (ib. xxii. 13) and come to ruin? Won't the man who demanded repayment of the hundred silver coins be handed over to the torturers? Isn't what is said about adulterers true, that “their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched”? (Mark ix. 43.) Are these merely threats, then? “Yes,” comes the answer. And where, I ask, do you find the grounds to venture such a claim, especially when you are deciding on the basis of your own opinion? I will be able to prove the opposite, both from what He said and from what He did. (See John v. 22.) If the punishments to come will not convince you, at least be convinced by those that have already happened. For things that have happened and become reality are certainly not threats and words. Who was it, then, who flooded the whole world and brought about that disastrous wreck and the utter destruction of our entire race? Who was it who afterward hurled that thunder and lightning upon the land of Sodom? Who drowned all Egypt in the sea? Who destroyed the six hundred thousand men in the wilderness? Who burned up the congregation of Abiram? Who ordered the earth to open her mouth for the company of Korah and Dathan and swallow them? Who swept away the seventy thousand in David's time all at once? Shall I also mention those punished individually? Cain, who was handed over to continual vengeance? (the son of) Carmi, who was stoned with his whole family? Or the man who suffered the same thing for gathering sticks on the Sabbath? The forty children who were killed by those beasts and received no pardon even because of their age? And if you want to see these same things even after the time of grace, just consider how terribly the Jews suffered: how the women ate their children, some roasting them and others consuming them in other ways; how, after being handed over to famine with no remedy and to many kinds of severe warfare, the sheer greatness of their calamities overshadowed every earlier catastrophe. To know that it was Christ Who did these things to them, hear Him declare it, both in parables and clearly and explicitly. He does so in parables when He says, “But those who did not want Me to reign over them, bring them here and kill them” (Luke xix. 27), and in the parables of the vineyard and of the marriage. He does so clearly and explicitly when He threatens that they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into the nations, and that on the earth there will be “distress among nations, bewildered at the roaring of the sea and waves; people's hearts failing them from fear.” (ib. xxi. 24, 25, 26.) “And there will be tribulation such as there has never been, nor ever will be.” (Matt. xxiv. 21.) And you all know what a punishment Ananias and Sapphira suffered for stealing a few pieces of money. Don't you also see the daily calamities? Or have these not happened either? Don't you now see people wasting away from famine, people suffering from elephantiasis or bodily mutilation, people living in constant poverty, people suffering countless evils that cannot be remedied? Would it be reasonable, then, for some to be punished and others not? For if God is not unjust (and He is not unjust), you too will certainly suffer punishment if you sin. But if He does not punish because He is merciful, then these people should not have been punished either. As it is, because of these claims of yours, God punishes many even here, so that when you do not believe the words of His threats, you may at least believe His acts of vengeance. And since events of long ago do not frighten you so much, He uses things that happen in every generation to correct those who are becoming careless in every generation. “Why, then,” someone may ask, “does He not punish everyone here?” So that He may give the others time to repent. “Why, then, does He not reserve vengeance against everyone for the next world?” So that many will not disbelieve in His providence. How many robbers have been caught, and how many have left this life unpunished? Where, then, is God's mercy? Now it is my turn to ask you. If no one at all had been punished, you might have taken refuge in that argument. But as it is, some are punished and others are not, even though they are worse sinners. How can it be reasonable for the same sins not to receive the same punishments? How could those who are punished appear to be anything but wronged? Why, then, are all not punished here? Hear His own defense of these things. When some people died because a tower fell on them, He said to those who asked about it, “Do you suppose they were greater sinners than everyone else? I tell you, no; but unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way” (Luke xiii. 4, 5). In this way He urges us not to feel secure when others suffer punishment while we ourselves do not, even though we have committed many transgressions. Unless we change our conduct, we will certainly suffer. “And how,” someone may ask, “can we be punished without end for sinning here for a short time?” How, I ask, is it that in this world people who commit a single murder in a brief moment are condemned to lifelong punishment in the mines? “But God does not do that,” someone may say. How, then, did He come to keep the paralyzed man under such severe punishment for thirty-eight years? To know that He punished him for sins, hear what He says: “See, you have been made well; sin no more.” (John v. 14.) “Still,” someone says, “he was released.” But it is not so in the other life. Hear from His own mouth that there will never be any release there: “Their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched.” (Mark ix. 44.) And, “These will go into everlasting life, but these into everlasting punishment.” (Matt. xxv. 46.) Now if the life is eternal, the punishment is eternal. Don't you see how severely He threatened the Jews? Have the things He threatened happened, then, or were the things they were told mere talk? “One stone will not remain on another.” (Luke xxi. 6.) And has it remained? And what about His saying, “There will be tribulation such as there has never been”? (Matt. xxiv. 21.) Has it not come? Read the history of Josephus, and merely hearing what they suffered for their deeds will leave you unable to catch your breath. I say this to make you safe, rather than to cause you pain, so that by indulging you too much I do not merely prepare the way for you to suffer harsher punishments. For why, I ask, do you think it wrong for you to be punished for sinning? Hasn't He told you everything beforehand? Hasn't He threatened you? Hasn't He come to your aid? Hasn't He done countless things for your salvation? Didn't He give you the washing of Regeneration and forgive all your former sins? After that forgiveness and washing, hasn't He also given you the help of repentance if you sin? Even after all this, hasn't He made the way to forgiveness of sins easy for you? Hear what He has commanded: “If you forgive your neighbor, I too will forgive you” (ib. vi. 14), He says. What hardship is there in this? “If you judge the orphan's case and see that the widow receives justice, come and let us talk together,” He says, “and if your sins are like purple, I will make them white as snow.” (Is. i. 17, 18.) What labor is there here? “Tell your sins, so that you may be justified.” (Is. xliii. 26. LXX.) What hardship is there in this? “Redeem your sins with charitable giving.” (Dan. iv. 24.) What toil is there in this? The tax collector said, “Be merciful to me, a sinner,” and “went home justified.” (Luke xviii. 13, 14.) What labor does it take to imitate the tax collector? And even after this, will you still not be convinced that there is punishment and vengeance? At that rate you will deny that even the devil is punished. For He says, “Depart into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt. xxv. 41.) Now if there is no hell, then he is not punished either. But if he is punished, it is clear that we will be too. For we too have disobeyed, even if not in the same way. And how can you say such reckless things without being afraid? For when you say that God is merciful and does not punish, if He does punish, then by your account He will turn out to be merciful no longer. See what language the devil leads you into! And what about the monks who have gone to live in the mountains and give examples of so many kinds of self-denial? Are they to go away without their crown? For if the wicked are not to be punished and no one receives any recompense, someone else may say that the good are not crowned either. “No,” someone will say, “for it is fitting for God that there should be only a kingdom, and no hell.” Well then, will the sexually immoral man, the adulterer, and the man who has committed countless evils enjoy the same benefits as the man who has shown self-control and holiness? Is Paul to stand with Nero—or rather, even the devil with Paul? For if there is no hell, yet everyone will rise in the Resurrection, then the wicked will attain the same good things! Who would say this? Who, even among people who are completely mad? Or rather, which of the devils would even say this? For even they confess that there is a hell. That is why they cried out and said, “Have You come here to torment us before the time?” (ib. viii. 29.) How, then, can you fail to fear and tremble when even the devils confess what you yourself deny? Or how can you fail to see who teaches these evil doctrines? The one who deceived the first man and, under the pretense of greater hopes, drove them out even from the blessings they already possessed is the same one who now suggests saying and imagining these things. That is why he persuades some to suspect that there is no hell: so that he may thrust them into hell. God, on the other hand, threatens hell and has prepared hell so that, by learning about it, you may live in such a way as to avoid falling into hell. And yet, if the devil persuades you of these things when there is a hell, how could the devils have confessed it if it did not exist? Their aim and desire is that we should suspect nothing of the kind, so that our lack of fear may make us more careless and we may fall with them into that fire. “How, then,” someone will say, “did they come to confess it?” Because they could not withstand the compulsion imposed on them. Considering all these things, then, let those who speak this way stop deceiving both themselves and others. They will be punished even for these words of theirs, because they disparage (διασύροντες) those terrifying things and weaken the resolve of many who intend to be earnest. They do not even do as much as those barbarians. Although those people knew nothing, when they heard that their city was going to be destroyed, far from disbelieving, they groaned, dressed themselves in sackcloth, and were dismayed. They did not stop using every means until they had calmed the anger. (Jonah iii. 5.) But you, who have had so much experience of facts and teaching, make light of what you are told? Then the opposite fate will be yours. Just as their fear of the words kept them from suffering vengeance in reality, so you, who despise the spoken threat, will have to suffer the actual punishment. And if what you are told now seems like a fable to you, it will not seem so on that Day, when the events themselves convince you. Have you never noticed what He did even in this world? When He encountered two thieves, He did not consider them worthy of the same condition: He led one into the Kingdom and sent the other away into Hell. And why speak of a robber and murderer? He did not spare even the Apostle when he became a traitor. Even when He saw him rushing to the noose, hanging, and bursting open in the middle (for he did “burst open, and all his bowels gushed out”) (Acts i. 18), even though He foresaw all these things, He still allowed him to suffer them, giving you proof in the present of everything in the other world as well. So do not deceive yourselves by believing the devil. These schemes are his. For if judges, masters, teachers, and savages all honor the good and punish the evil, what reason is there for the opposite to happen with God, with the good man and the man who is not good considered worthy of the same condition? And when will they stop their wickedness? Even now they expect punishment and are surrounded by so many terrors from judges and laws, yet they still do not abandon wickedness. When they leave this life, if they are to put aside even this fear, and are not only to escape being cast into hell but even to obtain a kingdom, when will they stop doing evil? Is this mercy, I ask you—to increase wickedness, to establish rewards for wickedness, to consider the self-controlled and the undisciplined, the faithful and the irreligious, Paul and the devil, deserving of the same things? But how long am I to spend on this foolishness? So I urge you to free yourselves from this madness, regain control of yourselves, and persuade your souls to fear and tremble, so that they may at once be saved from the hell to come and, after living with self-control in this world, attain the good things to come by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, forever and ever. Amen.