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Romans 14 has been a clinic from Paul on how to live in peace with diverse people by not passing judgment upon one another. Of course, our modern world is about as far from this as it could be. Even religious institutions, who should know better, find this instruction nearly impossible. Today, Paul completes this thought by going a few layers deeper and revealing how it all relates back to his doctrine of hamartiology or sin.

Paul’s train of thought through this letter began by comparing the sin of unrighteous living to the life of faith (1:17-32). Like bookends, Paul is going to end this chapter with this absolute mic drop: “…for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (14:23). What this means, is that the broader teaching goes beyond that of the immediate context of not judging one another. The sub-text (14:1-23) of not judging, quarreling, or causing each other to stumble is vital teaching, and it too follows Paul’s christological architecture that we’ve seen so far, namely, that as Christ has done for us, we must do for others. I’ll only make a few comments about this subject before focusing on the broader message and it’s application.

“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.“ (Romans 14:1-14)

We are to accommodate those weaker in faith. The stronger a person’s faith, the greater their freedom in Christ. Just as in driving, the skilled and experienced drivers must accommodate the unskilled, and inexperienced. In the same way we wouldn’t train a 16 year old student advanced driving skills, so those with greater freedom must not live out such freedom in front of those who would struggle to understand it. I remember as part of Acts 29 network of pastors, we shared a liberty at our meetings to drink beer and wine, but when we included churches from the Baptist denomination, we elected to refrain from having alcohol due to their association that drinking was a sin. I remember Mark Driscoll saying that the only sin of alcohol is light beer. Accommodating the weak moves one’s freedom into smaller circles even unto our self; “The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.” (v.22).

The bigger teaching is that Paul’s gospel is the deconstruction of religion and its law by showing that Christ has fulfilled the law perfectly (13:10) and gives to all who have sinned this righteousness (4:24), and all of our unrighteousness which fully deserved the wrath of God (1:17) was given to Christ who bore the complete weight of that wrath (5:18). Furthermore, the locus of the law, the temple, the dwelling place of God, is now within each of us (8:10). If we go back to 1 Samuel 8:5-7, the Israelites told Samuel to give them a king to rule over them. This was a rejection of God and His design to have God rule the heart of humanity. The Gospel then for Paul, is the restoration of the rule of God (Kingdom) upon the heart of each person, not through institutional powers which belong to Satan (Luke 4:6), and to which we are all tempted like Jesus to “bow or idolize.”

We can know we have understood the Gospel, when we become free of institutional overreach, and follow the law of love upon the heart. Thomas Merton says: “To the extent that you are free to choose evil, are not free. An evil choice destroys freedom. We can never choose evil as evil, only as an apparent good.”

As the gospel takes root in our lives, and we become a witness to Christ living in and through us, we become increasingly freer with regard to the usual trappings of life. A “weak faith” signifies a person who doesn’t have a full apprehension of their identity “in Christ.” This means a person derives their “ontology” from the world and its institutions (family, friends, education, vocation, religion, government, hobbies, etc…). When we are over-identified with these “authorities, principalities, and powers” we clutch too tightly by depending on them to give us a name or life. When faith is strong, it means a person has found themselves, their true identity as the “beloved of God” in Christ, who is living in and as their life, and thus their freedom allows them to possess all that the world offers (which belongs to God), but to not be possesses or enslaved to any of it.

Strong faith allows each individual to set the appropriate distance to all things. Apart from God, there can be no freedom…only the captivity of all things. Only when we become free enough to “not have” something, are we free enough to have it. Our self-awareness in faith, reveals how much we can have of it.

This principle goes further than our faith systems can apprehend. All the so-called vices of life are not in and of themselves sin. There is nothing in drink, smoke, sexuality, food, leisure or wealth that is actually sin. Sin is the antecedent to behaviors via weak faith. A person falls into bondage to behaviors as the law of love on the heart is forsaken or unknown. If this is shocking to you, then you have been taught religion instead of faith. My PhD dissertation is on this subject, and I used the example of sexual immorality in the church to prove that the behavior of sexual immorality is not the sin but the result of the sin, which is non-faith, or idolatry. The sin is trusting (placing faith) that sexual expression satisfies more than God. Weak faith causes us to make provisions for the flesh (13:14). Sin is not doing a bad thing, it’s going after good things in bad ways (with weak faith).

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (8:7-8)

Certainly Keven, you can’t be saying what I think you are? Isn’t that just giving people license to do whatever they please? When Paul says: “Everything is indeed clean…” (14:20) he means it. It’s not just food offered to idols. In fact Jesus tells us that “porneia” (sexual immorality) comes from within the human heart and “nothing from outside a person can come into us and make us unclean” (Mark 7:15).

This helps us see Paul’s reframing of sin to be “…whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (23) If religion truly understood this and applied it, I believe the church would not be so culturally impotent. By making rules that are governed by the outside behavior instead of the rule of God in the heart, religion creates a compliance, obedience, culture of appearances. Meanwhile, the heart festers with non-faith or sin and all the worst of the human heart finds fertile soil for idolatry in religion and all of human institutions. It’s not that Catholic priests rape boys, and Christian cults abuse women and girls, it’s that every institution hides horrible sins by not having the heart ruled by the Spirit of Christ. Literally everything outside of faith is sin, and will grow into a horrible destructive force.

My last comment is that the converse is must also true, and therein remains our hope. Whatever is of faith…whatever upholds the law of love…whatever is modeled after the self-emptying sacrifice of Christ Jesus for the sake of another… is not sin…it is permissible…to be enjoyed…celebrated in proportionate measure…in its context in life. This opens up the world…which belongs to God… (and us as co-heirs (8:17)) to be more fully enjoyed than we have ever thought possible.

And that principle also goes further than most of us realize. True freedom is how “in Christ’ we will possess the world and not be possessed by it.