Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Spiritual Substance of the Savior’s Reign: Righteousness, Peace, and Joy (Romans 14:17)

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The Spiritual Substance of the Savior’s Reign: Righteousness, Peace, and Joy (Romans 14:17) · Reformed Thinking

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A Picture this You are sitting in your congregation on a Sunday
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morning. The worship service is over, but
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you know the tension in the room is just thick.
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You can feel it in the air. Yeah, and people are not arguing
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over the gospel. No one is debating the bodily
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resurrection of Christ or the authority of Scripture.
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Right. Instead, the friction is over
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secondary preferences. Like maybe it is a sharp
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disagreement over the specific style of music the worship team
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played. Or perhaps it is a heated side
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conversation about how families should educate their children or
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what kind of political instincts a faithful Christian should
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possess. Welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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Today we are taking a deep dive into our source material to look
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at how a 2000 year old letter diagnosis why we so often tear
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each other apart over these secondary matters.
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We are looking specifically at Romans 14.1 team.
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Our mission today is to pull apart this text and separate the
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external visible shell of religion from the actual living
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spiritual substance. And that distinction is just so
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vital for us to grasp today. Human nature constantly attempts
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to reduce the majestic sovereign reign of God down to physical
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observances or dietary laws or external customs.
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Yeah, we are naturally drawn to what we can see with our own
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eyes. Right.
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Absolutely. We want to measure things.
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We want what we can display before others.
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We want a visible badge of seriousness.
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I mean, we want a clean line separating who is performing
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well and who is falling behind. Spot on.
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But the apostle Paul is going to show us that the Kingdom of God
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operates on an entirely different plane.
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It requires us to lay down those physical measuring sticks.
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Right. And to really understand what
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Paul is saying, we cannot just pull this single verse out of
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thin air. We have to look at the massive
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crisis that forced him to write this down in the first place.
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Oh for sure, you do not get a letter like Romans without a
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specific historical powder keg waiting to explode.
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So let's set the scene Rome around AD 57.
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Yeah, it was absolutely a powder keg for the Christian Church.
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We have to transport ourselves back to the capital of the Roman
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Empire to understand the geopolitical and social crisis
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that forms the backdrop of Romans 14.
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Because it wasn't just a monolith, right?
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It was a really mixed group. Right.
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The church in Rome was a complicated assembly.
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There's a mixed congregation of both Jewish and Gentile
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believers meeting in various house churches across the city.
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But they had recently experienced a massive citywide
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disruption that threw their entire community into chaos.
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So let's talk about the Edict of Claudius in 1849, because this
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is where the timeline gets fascinating.
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It really does. Emperor Claudius becomes so
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frustrated with riots in the Jewish quarter of Rome.
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And these are riots that the Roman historian Suetonius tells
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us were instigated over figure named Crestus, which is almost
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certainly a reference to Christ, right?
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Yes, that is the general consensus.
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So Claudius issues an edict expelling all Jews from the
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city. Overnight.
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Every single Jewish Christian is forced to pack up and leave
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Rome. Wow, so the Roman Church is
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suddenly left entirely under Gentile leadership?
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Yeah, and that created a unique cultural vacuum.
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The Gentile believers did not share the same covenantal
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history as the Jewish believers. They had no generational ties to
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the ceremonial patterns of the Mosaic Law.
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They didn't grow up observing Passover, or the Day of
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Atonement, or the strict dietary codes of Leviticus.
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Right. So for about 5 years, these
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house churches in Rome operate without any of those Jewish
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customs. They are likely eating meat
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bought in the regular Roman meat markets.
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They are not observing Jewish feast days.
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They are just developing their own rhythms of worship based
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entirely on their new liberty in Christ.
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Absolutely. OK, I have to stop you there and
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put myself in the shoes of a 1st century Gentile believer if I
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have been running the church for five years, enjoying my freedom,
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and then Emperor Claudius dies and Nero takes over in 1854,
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right? Yes, Nero lifts the edict.
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Right. So the edict is lifted.
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All the Jewish believers come back to Rome, they walk back
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into the house churches they helped found, and they see me
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eating pork or meat that might have been associated with a
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Pagan temple. It would be a massive shock for
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them. I am probably thinking these
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returning Jewish believers are just dragging in obsolete rules
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and being ridiculous. Like am I wrong to think that?
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Well. From a purely theological
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standpoint regarding the New Covenant, the Gentiles were
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correct that the ceremonial shadows had passed away.
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OK. So they were right on the
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theology. Yes, but your reaction
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highlights the specific relational failure Paul is
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addressing. It is crucial to validate how
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difficult this transition was for the returning Jewish
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believers. Paul calls them the weak in
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conscience, but we. Have to be careful with that
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word weak, right? Very careful.
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They were not weak in the sense of being spineless or easily
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frightened. They were weak in the sense that
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their consciences were still heavily bound by ancient
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covenantal markers. Because these were not just
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quirky personal habits. I mean, these were laws
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instituted by God himself at Mount Sinai.
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Spot on. For centuries, abstaining from
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certain meats and observing specific Sabbath days were the
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very markers of their faithfulness to Yahweh in a
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Pagan world. You can't just erase that
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overnight. No, you really can't.
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Even after coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ, their
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consciences remain tender to those categories.
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You cannot expect someone to flip a switch and instantly
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erase 1000 years of national and spiritual identity.
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Yeah, to eat meat sold in a Roman market which might have
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been dedicated to a Pagan idol that probably felt like a direct
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betrayal of the God who saved them.
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It felt like a massive compromise.
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And on the flip side, you have the Gentile believers, whom Paul
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calls the strong. Right.
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The ones who understood their new covenant liberty.
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Yes, they grasped that the ceremonial shadows were
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fulfilled in Christ, but they often exercise that liberty with
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sheer arrogance. They look down on the returning
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Jewish believers. They did.
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They saw them as narrow minded, uninformed or just trapped in
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the past. So the friction here was not
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over the core gospel. Both groups agreed that singers
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are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ
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alone. Correct.
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The clash was over how to live together in a local church when
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consciences operated at entirely different levels of freedom.
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So the strong were tempted toward contempt, viewing the
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Jewish traditions with a worldly arrogance.
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And the weak We're tempted toward judgment, assuming the
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Gentiles were spiritually careless or ethically
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compromised. I think this historical tension
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completely reorients how we read the entire book of Romans.
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It explains why Paul had to structure his letter the way he
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did. I mean, he does not just write a
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quick memo telling everyone to be nice to each other.
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No, he builds a massive theological case.
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The Logical flow of the Epistles of the Romans is a masterpiece
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of systematic theology applied to a pastoral crisis.
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So how does he set that up? To grasp the divine weight of
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Romans 14.17, we have to look at the literary architecture of the
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whole letter. Paul spends chapters one through
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11 laying down the bedrock doctrines of the Christian
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faith. Right, He establishes the total
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depravity of all mankind. Yes, demonstrating that both Jew
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and Gentile are totally condemned under the law.
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Then he lays out unconditional election, the sovereign grace of
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God, and the central doctrine of forensic justification by faith
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alone. He proves that no one is saved
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by their diet or their heritage. Exactly.
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Well, yes, they are saved solely by the imputed righteousness of
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Christ. I want to pause on that
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structure. Why does Paul spend 11 dense
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chapters on the mechanics of justification before he even
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brings up the practical issue of how they are treating each other
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over dinner? Why not just start with the
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practical issue? Because if you do not understand
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that you're standing before God is based entirely on the
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finished work of Christ, you will inevitably try to justify
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yourself by your behavior. Or your diet.
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Or your external habits. Right.
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If Paul simply told them to stop, stop arguing without
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grounding it and justification, he would just be creating a new
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law. He has to level the playing
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field first. So he proves that the Gentile
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who eats pork and the Jew who eats only vegetables are both
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equally bankrupt sinners, saved only by grace.
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Yes, and by doing that he destroys the foundation of their
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pride. Only after establishing that
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massive theological reality does he pivot in Chapter 12.
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Oh, that makes sense. He hits them with the great.
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Therefore, because of all these mercies of God, present your
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bodies as a living sacrifice. Yet Chapter 12 shifts to
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practical application, and by the time we reach chapter 14,
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Paul specifically targets this mutual reception of believers
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who hold different views on matters of indifference.
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And the theological term for this is a diaphora, right?
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That is correct, a diaphora, things neither commanded nor
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forbidden by the moral law of God.
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So what does Paul demand of them?
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He demands the renunciation of contempt by the strong and the
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renunciation of judgment by the weak.
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This brings us to the specific verse we are analyzing today.
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Romans 14.1 sing scene acts as the theological hinge of his
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entire argument. He really does.
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Paul writes for the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
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righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
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He is giving them the definitive reason why they're infighting is
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so destructive. Yeah, and in the verses
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immediately leading up to verse 17, Paul give some severe
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warnings. He tells the strong believers
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not to put a stumbling block in a brother's way.
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He says in verse 15, do not destroy someone with your food,
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right? Then verse 17 enters as the
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ultimate rationale. The Kingdom of God, the
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sovereign realm where Christ rules over His people, operates
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on entirely different principles than dietary consumption or
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external rules. Let's look closely at the
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specific Greek syntax Paul uses in that verse, because it
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reveals how he dismantles their argument.
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The syntax is brilliant. Paul uses a sharp adversative
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contrast. The phrase in Greek is Ugar
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Allah, which translates to for not but.
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So he is pitting the carnal and temporary directly against the
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spiritual and eternal. Yes.
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He uses the words brosis for the act of eating and poses for the
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act of drinking. He selects these terms with
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surgical precision. They represent all external,
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disputable, non essential matters.
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Exactly. Paul's asserting that the
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sovereign rule and authority of God does not consist in the
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activity of consumption. You know, I like to think of
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this as confusing the scaffolding for the building.
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Oh, that is a good way to look at it.
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Let's unpack that. So if you are constructing a
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massive cathedral, you need scaffolding.
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The scaffolding is necessary for a time to help build the
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structure, but once the building is finished, if you keep adding
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more scaffolding, you actually obscure the architecture.
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Right, it gets in the way of what was actually built.
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Yeah, the dietary laws and the ceremonial markers were the
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scaffolding pointing to the coming of Christ.
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But now that Christ has arrived, the Jewish believers were trying
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to keep the scaffolding up, and the Gentile believers were so
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busy making fun of the scaffolding that they were
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ignoring the building entirely. That scaffolding analogy
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captures the dynamic perfectly. When a church fixates on the
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scaffolding, whether by demanding it stay up or by
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arrogantly tearing it down without care for those standing
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on it, the community becomes characterized by one of two
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things. What are those two things?
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You either get legalistic heaviness where a community
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binds the conscience, where God has left it free, turning
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personal preferences into universal laws, or you get
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modern seeker sensitive pragmatism.
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Right, which turns the church into a pursuit of carnal
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comforts, coffee shops and entertainment.
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Yes, it becomes entirely focused on the external experience.
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Let's expand on that second point.
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How does the modern seeker sensitive approach relate to
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this concept of meat and drink? Well, seeker sensitive
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pragmatism often operates on the assumption that the Kingdom of
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God is built on consumption. Like we are just consumers of a
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religious product. Precisely.
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It assumes that if we offer the right aesthetic, the most
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comfortable seating, the most engaging secular programming, or
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the best coffee, we will build the church.
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So it prioritizes the external environment over the spiritual
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substance. Yeah, it is a different form of
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the exact same error Paul is diagnosing in Rome.
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Both the legalist who obsesses over rules and the pragmatist
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who obsesses over aesthetics are totally losing the spiritual
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realities of God's sovereign rule.
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So if the Kingdom is not external consumption, what is
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it? Paul provides a triad of
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Kingdom, life, righteousness, peace, and joy.
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Let's break these down because we need to know how these
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actually function in a local church.
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What does Paul mean by righteousness here?
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The first virtue is the Chiosine, which is righteousness
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in the grand scope of Romans. As we discussed, this word often
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refers to the forensic imputed righteousness of Christ.
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Right. It refers to our legal standing
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before God. But in the specific context of
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chapter 14, Paul is shifting the focus to practical uprightness
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of life and ethical conduct toward others.
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So it means dealing fairly, charitably and lovingly with
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your fellow believers. Yes, it is the opposite of a
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self pleasing liberty that injuries a brother.
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OK I have to push back here though because reading verse 17
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it sounds dangerously close to works righteousness.
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I mean well if Paul says the Kingdom of God is righteousness,
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someone could easily read that and think I need to manufacture
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good behavior and be polite to get into this Kingdom.
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Ah. Yes, and that is a huge trap
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people fall into when they isolate chapter 14 from the rest
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of the book. But look at the mechanism Paul
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has already built. In the earlier chapters, right?
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Right in chapters one through 11, He establishes that you
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contribute absolutely nothing to your justification.
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Christ's perfect record is imputed or legally credited to
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you. That is the root of your
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salvation. So the practical righteousness
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Paul mentions in verse 17, that is the fruit, it is the
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byproduct, yes. Because Christ declared you
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legally righteous, the Holy Spirit now actually changes your
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nature. You are not building the Kingdom
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by being polite about someone's dietary choices.
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You are finally free to be charitable because you are no
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longer trying to earn your salvation through a strict diet
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or through proving how free you are.
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That is it. You have been freed from the
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burden of self justification. That makes total sense.
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The second virtue is Irene, work, Peace.
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This indicates relational harmony and mutual forbearance
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in the congregation. It is the deliberate avoidance
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of unnecessary conflict. So it is the opposite of a
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quarrelsome insistence on your own rights.
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Exactly. It means you value the unity of
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the body above winning a theological debate over a
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secondary issue. And the third is Chara Joy.
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Joy refers to holy gladness arising from a shared sense of
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God's favor. It is not a superficial pasted
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on cheerfulness. Right, it is not just putting on
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a fake smile at church. No, it is a deep spiritual
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gladness that stands in stark contrast to the heaviness,
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suspicion and misery that result when a church is consumed by
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contentious scruples. And the mechanism that makes all
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three of these possible is found at the end of the verse in the
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Holy Ghost. That prepositional phrase
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anchors the entire sentence in the original Greek syntax in the
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Holy Spirit modifies all three preceding nouns.
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So these virtues are not natural temperaments.
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Not at all. They are not the result of
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social tacks or good upbringing or psychological therapies.
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They are supernatural products. Let's talk about how the spirit
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actually produces this, because if I'm sitting next to someone
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who intensely annoys me over a minor preference, maybe they are
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hyper critical of the song choices or they constantly judge
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how I spend my Sundays. How do I summon joy in the holy
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dose? It is not easy.
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No. How does the Spirit rewire my
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affections in that moment? Well, the spirit does not work
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by magic. He works through the
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mortification of our flesh and the vivification of our new
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nature. When you are annoyed by that
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person, your flesh is demanding vindication.
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Your flesh wants to prove them wrong and assert your
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superiority. Yes, the Holy Spirit produces
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peace and joy by turning your gaze away from your own bruised
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ego and fixing it upon the realities of the Gospel.
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The Spirit calls to mind the massive debt you owe to God,
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which was cancelled at the cross.
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Right when the Spirit floods your mind with the reality of
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your own unmerited pardon, it becomes increasingly difficult
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to harbor bitterness against a fellow pardon Sinner over a song
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choice. We have to connect this
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explicitly to the work of Christ.
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As Reformed believers, we know we cannot talk about the Kingdom
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without talking about the King. The theology of Romans 14.17 is
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inextricably linked to the offices of Christ as our
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prophet, priest, and king. He is the great High Priest who
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provided the imputed righteousness we lack.
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We do not find our standing before God and what we put into
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our bodies, but in the body of Christ broken for us.
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Beautifully said. He is the Prince of Peace,
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making propitiation for our sins to reconcile us to the Father,
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which is the baseline for any peace we can have with each
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other. And He is the exalted King,
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seated at the right hand of the Father, pouring out the joy of
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the Spirit upon His Church. Yes, that is the foundation.
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I want to highlight something Paul says 2 verses earlier in
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Romans 14 .15. Destroy not him with thy meat
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for whom Christ died. We need to pause and feel the
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weight of that statement. Paul gives extraordinary gravity
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to this dispute. He is forcing the believers to
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measure the value of their opponent by the blood of the
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Savior. Think about the disproportion.
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There you have a believer who is entirely willing to damage a
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soul to crush the conscience of someone that Jesus Christ
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actively bled and died for, just to win an argument about a ham
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sandwich. It is absurd when you put it
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like that. It is a devastating perspective.
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It forces a complete recalibration of our priorities.
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If Christ gave himself unto death for that brother or sister
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sitting next to you, how can you justify injuring them over
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secondary preference? We need to look at the active
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and passive obedience of Christ here.
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Yes, let's break down those two realities.
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How do the active and passive obedience of Christ specifically
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dismantle this food fight? Christo's passive obedience
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refers to his suffering and death on the cross, where he
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paid the penalty for our breaking of the law.
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And his active obedience. That refers to His perfect
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sinless life wherein He perfectly fulfilled every demand
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of the law, including all the ceremonial shadows and dietary
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codes on our behalf. So because Christ actively
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fulfilled the law, the weak Jewish believer no longer needs
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to cling to the dietary laws to establish a righteous record.
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Christ already did it. Yes, and because Christ
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passively died to purchase the Church, the strong Gentile
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believer has no right to despise the very people Christ bought
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with his own blood. Fighting bitterly to assert your
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new liberties fundamentally misrepresents the Lordship of
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Christ. As Paul says in Romans 14.9,
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Christ died and rose that he might be Lord of both the dead
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and the living. This perspective on Christ's
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Lordship brings us directly into the realm of systematic theology
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and confessional application. We are talking about the
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historical doctrine of Christian liberty.
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Let's look at this through the lens of our confessional
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heritage. The Westminster Confession of
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Faith has a brilliant chapter on Christian liberty and liberty of
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conscience. What does it lay out for us?
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It states that God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has
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left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which
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are in any way contrary to his Word or beside it in matters of
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faith or worship. But practically speaking,
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doesn't unhindered Christian liberty just lead to absolute
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chaos in a church? If everyone's conscience is
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free, how do we avoid everyone just doing whatever is right in
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their own eyes? That is the crucial tension, and
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it is why the text guards against two massive errors that
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constantly plagued the church, legalism and antinomianism.
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OK, let's take those one at a time.
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Let's look at legalism first. Legalism binds consciences where
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God has left them free. It elevates human preferences,
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traditions, or extra biblical rules to the level of divine
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law. The weak in Rome were falling
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into a form of this by insisting on obsolete dietary
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restrictions. Right.
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Legalism creates a culture of fear and performance.
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And the opposite side of that coin is antinomianism.
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Yes, antinomianism is the idea that because we are free in
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Christ, the moral law has no bearing on our conduct, and we
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can use our liberty as an excuse to sin, to please ourselves, or
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to run roughshod over the consciences of others.
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The strong in Rome were bordering on this by weaponizing
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their freedom. They were saying I have liberty
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in Christ, therefore I can eat whatever I want regardless of
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how it affects you. Exactly.
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They were completely ignoring the law of love.
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So how does reformed theology balance that?
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How do we exercise liberty without falling into
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antinomianism? By understanding the third use
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of the law. Let's unpack the third use of
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the law for our listeners. Well, while the moral law of God
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no longer condemns the justified believer, it remains as a
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perfect guide for how we are to live in grateful obedience.
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We do not keep the moral law to earn salvation.
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We keep it because we have been saved.
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Right. And the moral law clearly
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commands us to love our neighbor.
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Therefore, your Christian liberty is always bounded by the
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moral obligation to love the brother or sister sitting next
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to you. That is a phenomenal synthesis.
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It takes this ancient Roman food fight and gives us a theological
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grid to handle the specific battles happening in
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congregations today. Yes, it is incredibly relevant.
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Because let's be honest, we do not generally fight, never meet,
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sacrifice to Pagan idols anymore, but the spiritual
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danger remains identical. The forms change, but the human
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heart remains exactly the same. Christians are still prone to
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mistake secondary matters for primary ones.
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Today. The modern equivalents of meat
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and drink look different. We argue over dress codes,
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right? Should you wear a suit and tie
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to show reverence to God or are jeans and AT shirt acceptable?
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We argue over political instincts and how closely the
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church should align with specific cultural movements.
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We argue over alcohol consumption, Sabbath observance,
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and entertainment choices. Let's look closely at the
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schooling debate because that is a massive 1 in our circles right
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now. You have parents who feel deeply
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convicted, well, really convicted, that homeschooling is
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the only faithful way to raise a child in the Lord.
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And you have other parents who believe utilizing the public
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school system or sending their kids to a classical Christian
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School is appropriate for their family.
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Both sides can easily weaponize their stance, and people think
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their schooling choice is the only biblical choice.
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That is a perfect modern parallel to the Roman crisis.
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You have believers who view themselves as mature or strong
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in their educational liberties. Perhaps they utilize the public
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system and feel totally free to do so, but they act entirely
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without charity, looking down on homeschooling families as
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fearful, narrow minded, or sheltering.
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And then you have the reverse. Yes.
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Conversely, you have those who elevate their personal scruples
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about homeschooling into universal laws for the whole
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congregation. They judge anyone who sends
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their kids to a traditional school, quietly assuming those
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parents are spiritually compromised or failing to
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protect their children. Both groups are missing the
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Kingdom proportion. They are making a secondary
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issue, the litmus test for spiritual fidelity.
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So if I'm sitting in church and I have a strong conviction about
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how I educate my kids, how do I apply Romans 14 point big system
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to that situation? How is my liberty bounded by
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love in this specific scenario? It requires mutual forbearance.
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Liberty bounded by love means you hold your conviction firmly
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for your own family, but you refuse to make it a condition of
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fellowship for others. It means you recognize that God
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alone is Lord of their conscience, not you.
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Yes. The strength of a church is not
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measured by its uniformity on secondary issues.
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A church where everyone dresses identical, educates their kids
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identical, and votes identical might look unified on the
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surface, but it could simply be a cultural echo chamber built
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entirely on legalism. That is a piercing thought.
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Uniformity does not equal unity. Not at all.
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True spiritual maturity is measured by mutual forbearance
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and holy love in the midst of diversity.
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It is the ability to sit across the table from a brother or
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sister who holds a radically different conviction on a matter
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of a diaphora, whether that is schooling, politics, or diet,
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and to genuinely rejoice with them in the Holy Spirit because
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you share the exact same imputed righteousness of Christ.
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As we look at the whole picture, the Kingdom of God clearly
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transcends external consumption and secondary disputes.
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It requires believers to submit their personal liberties to the
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Lordship of Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to produce practical
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righteousness, relational peace, and holy joy in the covenant
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community. And if we lose sight of that
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theological bedrock, we become just like the Roman church
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before Paul corrected. Them we become fractured,
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arrogant, and prone to judging one another over the scaffolding
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while entirely ignoring the glorious building Christ is
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constructing. We have to keep our gaze fixed
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on the reality that our standing before God is anchored in
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Christ's finished work, not in our own flawless adherence to a
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preferred set of cultural rules. For the believer whose
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conscience is heavy, burdened by the constant demands of legalism
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and the fear of not measuring up to the congregation's unwritten
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rules, this text provides a massive comfort.
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You are legally free. Your standing is secure in
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Christ. But for the careless believer
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who uses their liberty as a license to divide the church,
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mocking those with tender consciences, this text is a
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sharp, necessary warning. We must prioritize the work of
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the Spirit over our own preferences.
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We must value the eternal over the passing.
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As we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you with a final
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lingering question to ponder on your own.
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It takes everything we just analyzed regarding Romans 14.117
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and applies it directly to your private prayer life.
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That is a great area to reflect on.
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Think about how you pray for your local congregation when you
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intercede for your church. Are your individual petitions
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treating God as a distributor of external comforts?
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Are you quietly asking him to fix the meat and drink to your
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liking? Yeah, praying that He would
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change the music style to suit your taste, or fix the dress
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code, or make everyone agree with your schooling choices.
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Or are you pleading with the Sovereign Lord to generate a
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supernatural peace that requires you to lay down your own rights?
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Are you asking the Holy Spirit to produce a joy in your heart
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that overrides your desire to win an argument?
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The way we pray for our church reveals exactly what we believe
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about the nature of the Kingdom. It brings us right back to our
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opening thought. We want the easy, visible
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markers of who is right and who is wrong.
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But the Kingdom of God is not found in an external audit of
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our habits. It is found in a heart that has
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been justified by the blood of Christ and is now bursting with
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righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
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Thank you for joining us today. Keep your eyes fixed on the King
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and we will see you next time.