Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 2 Study # 8
June 27, 2021
Humble, Texas
(128)
1769 KJV Translation:
17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
18 For he that in these things serveth Christ [
is] acceptable to God, and approved of men.
19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.
20 For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed [
are] pure; but [
it is] evil for that man who eateth with offence.
21 [
It is] good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor [
any thing] whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
22 Hast thou faith? have [
it] to thyself before God. Happy [
is] he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.
23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because [
he eateth] not of faith: for whatsoever [
is] not of faith is sin.
1901 ASV Translation:
17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
18 For he that herein serveth Christ is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men.
19 So then let us follow after things which make for peace, and things whereby we may edify one another.
20 Overthrow not for meat's sake the work of God. All things indeed are clean; howbeit it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.
21 It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor [to do anything] whereby thy brother stumbleth.
22 The faith which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth.
23 But he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because [he eateth] not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
- I. Paul's Major Thesis.
- A. The pattern of his words.
- 14:14 -- Nothing is unclean except to him who thinks it unclean.
- 14:15 -- Do not continue to 'destroy' that one for whom Christ died.
- 14:16 -- Do not continue to allow your good to be blasphemed.
- 14:17 -- The Kingdom of The God is righteousness, peace, and joy.
- 14:18 -- The one who serves pleases God and is approved by men.
- 14:19 -- Pursue peace and the building up of one another.
- 14:20a -- Do not keep on tearing down the work of The God.
- 14:20b -- All things are indeed clean except to the one who eats with offense.
- B. Kingdom people are to live like "Kingdom People" ("...we are to be walking according to Love...").
- II. The Details.
- A. The opening issue: the people of God are not to regard "common" issues as worthy of pursuit or commitment. To do so hinders the working of The Spirit of God by setting up false values and deceptive lies.
- B. The next issue: thinking there is "Life" in the use of God's creation without regard for the reality that "Life" only involves the harmony of "Life" between God and His servant. Walking in a way that is contrary to "Love" means exalting "food" over the spiritual health of your brother and contradicting the several significances of the death of Christ. This also hinders the working of The Spirit of God by perverting "Love" and "Faith".
- C. The third issue: Do not continue to allow your good to be blasphemed. The root, here, is the inability to conceal the hatefulness of a perverse "love" and a false "faith" from observers who, then, "blaspheme" the "good" that God has extended to us because they can easily see the falseness that is involved in hypocrisy. This also hinders The Spirit of God by making those who "see" turn from "Love" and "Truth" because of the false example.
- D. The fourth issue: The essential nature of The Kingdom of The God.
- 1. It is NOT "eating" and "drinking", or, better, "food" and "drink" (both words are nouns, not participles in the form of gerunds), though "food" can be taken as a metaphor for "eating" and "drink" can likewise be taken as a metaphor for "drinking".
- 2. BUT [it is] righteousness, peace, and joy by the Holy Spirit.
- a. "Righteousness".
- 1) There are 86 texts which contain this word in the New Testament. Paul puts 29 of those texts in this letter to the Romans. Matthew and 2 Corinthians each contain 7 such references (by way of comparison). Paul uses "righteousness" 7 times just in chapter four of Romans (by way of comparison). This word in Romans 14:17 is Paul's last reference to "righteousness" in this letter.
- 2) That the first "essential characterization of the Kingdom of The God" in Paul's words in 14:17 is "righteousness" is instructive. It is "righteousness" that qualifies a person to participate in "salvation" according to Paul's first use: Romans 1:16-17. It is God's absolute commitments to "Justice" and the "justification" of the sinner that brought on the shedding of the blood of Christ on Calvary: "righteousness" is of such a crucial concept that it cannot be minimized in any sense (3:25-26).
- 3) The very core of "righteousness" is the legitimate action of one person in regard to another with "legitimacy" established by "Love". Hebrews 1:8-9 says the "scepter" of His Kingdom is "the upright scepter" because the Son Who sits upon the throne "loved righteousness" and "hated lawlessness". This makes "righteousness" the chief methodological characteristic of The Kingdom: it is how we treat one another that matters; all else is applied to getting this behavior established in the heirs of that Kingdom.
- b. "Peace".
- 1) There are 85 texts which contain this word in the New Testament. Paul puts 10 of those texts in this letter to the Romans. The nearest "use" competitor is Luke with 13 (majority user that is 24 chapters long with 80 verses just in chapter one, compared to Romans that only has 433 verses total).
- 2) This second characterization of the Kingdom of The God in Paul's words in 14:17 is an almost automatic outcome of the first. When "righteousness" dominates, "peace" ensues simply because there are no causes of strife.
- 3) The core of "peace" is two-fold: on one side is the absence of conflict and on the other is the dominating harmony of those who are unified around the "core" of the Kingdom.
- c. "Joy".
- 1) There are only 57 verses in the entire New Testament which contain this noun, "joy". Paul only refers to "joy" in Romans by this term in 3 places, and this text (14:17) is the first of them. This is remarkable in that the New Testament puts "joy" at the very heart of the promise of "Life".
- 2) The strong implication of the paucity of the presence of this word in Romans is that it is such an "automatic" result of "righteousness" and "peace" that, though it is at the very center of the promise of "Life", it goes without mention most of the time. We do not need to be told that the essence of the experience of the Kingdom of The God is "joy"; what we need to be told is what produces such a result. Thus, Paul goes after the essential mechanisms of "joy": "righteousness" and "peace".
- a) "Righteousness" is a mechanism. It does not stand apart from "behavior unto result". However, it does stand at both the beginning and the ending of "behavior": it stands at the beginning as a "gift" of God to men by faith; and it stands at the ending as "legitimate actions taken" for the purpose of accomplishing the "joy" of the result.
- b) "Peace" is also a mechanism. It is the automatic result of the practice of legitimate behavior, but it rules over those who experience it so that it "causes" (mechanism) the experience of "joy" to flood the soul.
- c) "Joy" is simply the end experience of right behavior as determined by legitimate "Love" and "Faith" as Peter said in 1 Peter 1:8 (because you "love" and "believe", you "greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible").
- d. By The Holy Spirit.
- a) This is the critical truth: all true righteousness is produced by the Holy Spirit; all true peace is produced by the Holy Spirit; and all true joy is produced by the Holy Spirit.
- b) This is why the "beginning" of this reality is rooted in a clear conscience before God, even when that conscience is not properly instructed. Peaceful relationships with others require the absence of a violated conscience before God in one's own heart/mind, because such relationships begin with the primary relationship: the one which we can have with the Primary Person to whom we are related.