Living by Faith - Romans

Jots and Tittles

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 55-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 055

Dictation Name: RR311ZC55

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the almighty; rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we come to Thee mindful of our sin, our impatience, our unwillingness so often to trust in Thee. Give us grace day by day to wait on Thee who art our strength and our refuge. Deliver us from our impatience, take from us all vain desires; make us strong by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, that in Christ Jesus we may know power and victory, that we might know that Thou art on the throne, and that in Thee there is victory. Bless us this day and always in Thy service, in Jesus name, amen.

Our subject this morning is Jots and Tittles and our text, Romans 14:1-5. Jots and Tittles, Romans 14:1-5.

“14 Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.

2 For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.

3 Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.

4 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

Paul after affirming God’s sovereignty in predestination, begins in Romans 12:1 by summoning us to present ourselves as living sacrifices unto God. According to scripture, there is no approach to God without the sacrifice of atonement, then of thanksgiving.

But life in Christ means submission and subjection, obedience to God and to all authorities under God. So then, Paul continues in Romans 13:1 by saying: “Let every soul be subject under the higher powers.”

But ever since Adam, men have wanted to be their own God and their own law. So we want God and man to hear and to obey our word; we feel that the world will decay if we withhold our judgments, so we have got to make our comments about things, or the world would fall apart. It is this attitude that now concerns Paul. He requires theology in action. Faith is not simply a series of articles to profess, but it is also the way of life required by that profession. We are not called to be judges of the world; Jesus Christ is the judge, we are the judged.

Now in verse 1 Paul says: “He that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputation.” Paul speaks of a brother weak in the faith; not a sinful brother. This is an important difference. And we dare not confuse the difference between weakness and sin. Paul cites two areas of conflict between the weak and the strong; the first of these is diet.

Now, had this question been one of: “Are we going to follow the Biblical requirements of diet or not?” Paul would have gone into the issue. But this is a much more minor thing than anything people have tried to imagine here. It could be meat offered to pagans, to pagan God’s in pagan temples. Because meat markets in those days, or shambles as they were called, were attached to pagan temples; when the meat was butchered and prepared to be sold, it was done so at the altar of pagan Gods, and many Christians were troubled in conscience, because eating such meat was regarded by the pagans as a form of communion with their Gods. Paul deals with this subject elsewhere, he does not touch on it in this context, it could have been that.

Then the converts from Judaism came from all groups. Pharisees, non-Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes; and the Essenes were vegetarians. So if some of these converts were Essenes, they were troubled about eating meat, because they had their doubts as to whether any meat they could get was kosher. Also there were many who believed in long periods of fasting, religious fasting; and as part of that fasting a very limited diet part of the time, a vegetarian diet. It could have been any of these things, Paul does not specify, but it is not the Bible and its dietary laws or Paul would have dealt with it.

Similarly, the observance of days; this is the other matter of which Paul speaks in these verses. Had it been the Biblical festivals, Paul would have said so. Had it had to do, with let us say the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of the Passover, or anything that the Bible deals with, Paul would have taken time to go into the typology, the meaning of those festivals, and their importance. He does, often enough; but he doesn’t here. So it obviously is not one of those very central and important facts.

Later on we will come back to what this matter of diet and observance of days had to do with.

We must remember that then and now customs are very often important. I know that when I was young, or younger than I am now; customs were very important. For example: if a boy and girl. Young man, young woman, were beginning to show interest in one another, if the boy brought a gift that was anything other than flowers or candy, and they were not engaged, it was considered very improper. And the boy who was foolish enough to bring such a gift was asked to take it back. There was no understanding as yet, no engagement. Moreover, there were very strict rules, customs, about funerals and the family of the bereaved, and the black arm band which was worn for quite some time, and the way the bereaved were to behave. I can recall when one of the most important churches in California had a tremendous conflict, was split down the middle, because the pastor had married six months after his wife had passed away, and that was considered unspeakable. He should have waited a full year. Well, what had happened was that the pastors wife had been seriously ill for some time with a lingering cancer; there were two, I believe three small girls. His sister in law, his wife’s sister, gave up her work, came, took an apartment near them, and came in every morning and worked all day caring for her sister and the children. She continued to do that after her sister died. With the expense of the surgery and of the prolonged illness, and maintaining a separate apartment after 6 months; this pastor who had come to appreciate his sister in law greatly and begin to love her, proposed to her for two reasons: first, he had come to love her, and second, he couldn’t go on supporting her for another six months. So they married, and the church blew apart over that. Why, it was unthinkable, how immoral, to remarry after only 6 months.

Of course, in the early days of the Puritans no one could last very long alone, so a widow very often had proposals while the coffin was being shoveled under; it was just routine, and she was expected to marry in a few days so that there would be a man in the house to take care of the children, and she was glad to do so. That was the custom then; and people are governed by customs. They can become very indignant over customs, and here there are similar issues at stake.

This is not to say there isn’t a moral issue, but what Paul is saying is that these are not things to condemn one another over. As a result, he calls these things doubtful disputations. He is not saying they are morally wrong disputations, very often a husband and wife can have a very serious argument over a trifle; now that is what Paul would call a doubtful disputation. He would say it is not worth the disagreement; not that there isn’t perhaps a right and wrong in the situation, but it isn’t something to fight over. Now this is basic to what Paul is saying.

Paul is not saying, therefore, that the Bible has nothing to say about eating or drinking or the observance of days. Rather, he makes clear that these are not issues on which Christians can legitimately divide. They have no right to be censorious one towards another, or to divide over these issues.

There are a number of passages where Paul has some comments on the subject, one of these is Colossians 2:16-17, where Paul says: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of any holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.”

Now again this statement by Paul has been much abused, as though Paul has said the faith is irrelevant to eating meat, or drinking, or the Sabbath, or Holy Days. What Paul says is not that they are nothing, but that they are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Now his language there is very interesting. The word shadow is ‘skia’ SKIA in the Greek. It means, not something unreal or non existent, but it means a ghost; and he says “All these little matters are like ghosts compared to Christ who is the body, the living person.” He is not saying a ghost isn’t real, he is using the analogy of the difference between a ghost and a living person.

So, he says, “These things, of eating and drinking, of holy days, of Sabbaths and New Moons, are a part of our faith. I am not saying they are irrelevant. But don’t judge one another on these things, they are like a ghost is to the body. The reality is there in Christ.”

Thus, Paul does not say that an observance of days or diet are irrelevant, he says we cannot make them matters of judgement.

Then in the second verse Paul goes on: “For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.” Or vegetables.

Paul says: One person feels he can eat all lawful meats. He is not talking about breaking dietary laws, eating cats or dogs, he is saying some people feel they can eat the lawful meats, others feel they must be vegetarian, given some of these problems. Both groups are censorious, Paul says. Paul adopts their terms, they call one another weak and strong, so he goes along with it.

Now if vegetarianism was the issue, Paul would have condemned it on religious grounds, if it had been the religious practice of vegetarianism; because he tells us on another occasion that those who forbid us to eat meats on religious grounds are wrong, morally wrong. So what he is dealing with is a practice in terms of a particular situation, not an overall saying: ‘you can never touch meats.’

In verse three Paul continues: “Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.”

Both sides, Paul says, have been received by the Lord. Censoriousness therefore, is forbidden. And both sides go astray, they sin. The strong tend to become elitist, they feel: “Well, only we who are strong enough to look at the world and do these things without being troubled are really strong Christians.” And the weak often say that: “True faith is our practice, and none other.” We had that problem, a generation ago, with prohibition, and you still have echoes of it.

Some people are alcoholic, they cannot touch it; they have a chemical element in their body which makes them incapable of handling liquor. Well, they cannot be censorious of those who can handle it, and to whom it can even be healthy. And those who can drink cannot say to those who cannot that: “You are weak, and there is something wrong with you.” It is the same premise, and Paul’s point is both groups sin by equating their way with God’s way. We are not permitted to do that.

Then in verse four he comes to the theological premise: “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.”

We are all God’s property, Paul makes clear. He is the Lord, we are not Lords over one another. All of us are God’s servants, and it is the Lord who is able to make the weak and the strong to stand, not they themselves. So that we cannot look at one another and say: “Well, of course, I am a strong Christian; they are such a weak one. Look at all the trouble they get themselves into, they made their lives a mess.” No, Paul says. We stand by the grace of God, and when we make such a judgement we have fallen ourselves into sin, the sin of censoriousness; and what all of us need is the grace of God. And we need to rely on that grace if any of us are going to stand. We depart from that grace when we become censorious one over the other, over such things.

Both the weak and the strong are weak before God, of both, Paul says, God is able to make him stand. None stand of themselves. And in the early church, we see that the strong were ready to go into heresies, because they felt so strong, they could handle anything. And the weak, they could fall into the heresy of feeling that their conscience was more tender, and therefore they were more holy.

Paul is not outlawing judgement, but he says in some things you leave judgement to the rightful authorities. Our Lord said: “Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgement. Judgement over minor matters is forbidden.

James 4:12 tells us: “There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that thou judgest another?

Then in verse Paul says: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

Now, what Paul is saying is that growth is not furthered by Phariseeism. Do you help someone to grow in the faith by clobbering them every time they do something? Far from it; censoriousness, hostility does not help us. Rather, he says, ‘let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind.’ growth is a personal fact, you don’t grow because somebody… let us say physically. You don’t grow physically because somebody takes you on one end, and another person on the other end, and pulls at you, and says: “Grow! You have got a duty to grow!” far from it. It is the same with spiritual growth. You don’t grow because somebody nags you on either side, and says: “Now grow up and be a Christian the way I am.” Far from it, growth is a personal fact, it depends on our reliance upon the grace of God and the word of God, and our readiness to be governed by Him rather than by one another.

There are churches in which men dare not have a personal opinion, because they provide no place for growth. Paul’s concern is reconciliation and growth, not the rule of one over the other. He does not dismiss their concerns as ridiculous or irrelevant. Paul nowhere says: “You are troubling yourself over nothing.” So we cannot say their arguments, their differences, are over nothing. They are over important things. But they are not that important, to divide over. Each side is saying: “My way is the right way.”

In marriage disputes, as I said earlier; a great many of the most serious problems are over trifles. Not unimportant totally, not irrelevant, but irrelevant if they want to live together. So over little things where there is a right and a wrong, but not important enough to create a division. People, because they believe their way is the only right way, they will fight.

There is a saying, a humorous one, I am not sure of the exact wording, but in effect it is this: “Do it the right way, mine.” And that is the way most of us feel, and that is what Paul is talking about. So he does not dismiss their concerns as ridiculous or indifferent, rather he says: “What we need is harmony in the Lord.”

Now in Matthew 5:17-20 we begin to see the meaning of this. Christ says that He is come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, to put it into force, to establish it; and he says: “Not one jot or one tittle of the law shall pass away.” So he says everything in God’s book is important, but does he say: ‘start fighting over everything?’ No, far from it. So we have to recognize the importance of these little things, but also that we are not called to be censorious over these little things, nor to judge one another, nor create divisions, whether in the family or in the church, or anywhere else, over these matters.

The jot and tittle of God’s law is there, it sets forth a right and a wrong; but we are not given permission to scrap and fight over the details of God’s word, nor to scrap the details. Paul is for no concessions on essentials, and at the same time forbearance and grace he requires, over peripheral issues.

Kasemann has summed up the matter very nicely when he said and I quote: “On the other hand, there is an immovable limit. If our conduct no longer manifests belonging to Christ as an ultimate bond, our existence becomes godless. Personal freedom ends solely, but radically, with the Lord. Breadth and restriction, freedom and commitment, coincide.”

Now, these days and these dietary matters, what were they? All kinds of guesses have been made, but I think (Leenhardt?) strikes the right note when he says: “They refer not to the Sabbath, but to the practices of abstinence and fasting on regular, fixed days.” The practices of abstinence and fasting on regular, fixed days. Why?

Well, in some of the earliest of the church literature, we find that this is precisely what became very important, and there were all kinds of rules and regulations in many church circles, over precisely this. Days of fasting, days when only bread, salt, herbs or vegetables, and water were allowed. Well, we can see how this sort of practice began. Consider how many members the church was losing through death, martyrdom, execution; and you can understand how the church would say: “Having lost our pastor who was beheaded” or: “having lost ten or fifteen members who were thrown to the lions, we are going to be in a period, a week, of fasting and prayer in which we will beseech Gods mercy and deliverance from this persecution which has begun, and we are asking everyone to give themselves to prayer and to fast for a week; and on certain days they can have just these things, bread, salt, vegetables and water.”

We can understand why they felt the need for fasting and prayer, but they made them into rules; and they became censorious one over another. We can understand how some with zealous faith kept the fast faithfully, but others who had hard work to do to support their family couldn’t do it, and didn’t; and how censoriousness developed, and troubles ensued.

This is what Paul was talking about. To entertain differences of opinion is not a bad thing, but what is bad is to fight and divide the congregation over such things, for then we arrogate to ourselves the right to judge our brethren, and to take God’s place as the judge.

The sad fact is that the church has often divided over trifles, and swallowed camels. There is a reason for this. The major items of the law are hard to set aside, after all you can’t very well say that murder is nothing, or that adultery is nothing. But the smaller items give man’s sinful desire to be free from God all kinds of opportunities. And so people can claim merit in trifles: “Well, I obeyed the ruled the church laid down for fasting and praying, for our slain brethren.” “Well, I prayed as much as anybody else, but I didn’t need to fast, I could be just as spiritual without it, and besides, I had to eat to keep my strength together.”

In other words, people can claim merit before God over trifles, and so they divide over trifles, they get Pharisaic over trifles. Paul is rebuking both sides. Power in Christ is not produced by man-made trifles or recipes, or disciplines. And one of the weaknesses of the church has been that so often men have felt that all their disciplines that they think up, their spiritual programs and their requirements that if you do this and that, and follow a schedule, you are going to be more holy. Well, those things are good if they help you spiritually, but they are not a necessity. Power in Christ is not a product of manmade recipes and disciplines, and it perhaps not an accident that the most disciplined group in the history of the church has also been the most distrusted. Sometimes rightly, at other times wrongly. This group has been the Jesuit order, and both Catholics and Protestants have often been very critical of them. There is a reason. Man’s discipline cannot command or call down God’s grace; although once God’s grace is bestowed, our self discipline can make us better instruments of God’s grace and Spirit. The danger is, when we feel that our disciplines can command God’s grace. Man’s formulas can neither invoke nor bind God, nor capture His Holy Spirit. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. Thy word is the necessary word in our lives, the binding word. Give us grace to hear and to obey, and to delight in what Thou dost say. Make us every mindful our Father that it is not people we need, but Thee, Thy word, Thy grace, that we need. And we need Thee Lord, every hour. Take from us the trust in man, in our ways, in our hopes, and make us ever mindful that Thy purpose for us is better than our hopes and purposes for ourselves. Take from our hearts the spirit of censoriousness and judgement, and give us grace to hear, to obey, and to rejoice in Thy word. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience Member] What you said about the Jesuits, I mean, I didn’t quite get the implication of that? Have both the Protestants and Catholics condemned them?

[Rushdoony] Yes… Have often been distrustful of the Jesuits, both Catholics and Protestants, yes. The reason I used them to illustrate my point was this; the Jesuits are the most disciplined order, the most disciplined group in all of Christendom. It has made them very strong and powerful, but the weakness of stressing a discipline, military discipline in origin, is that sometimes when groups do that they begin to think that their man-made discipline can command God, and invoke God’s grace, God’s power. Now, when we are disciplined we are more usable by God, but our discipline cannot bring down God’s grace, or bind it. So, while disciplines are valuable, it is very dangerous to trust in them, and feel that somehow they give a status before God.

[Audience Member] When you said we are more usable, however, if we go to the extremes we are less usable because of pride and all these things get into being too.

[Rushdoony] Only if that enters in, but to illustrate; the Jesus movement of a decade or so ago brought into the faith a great, great many very brilliant and talented people. But it didn’t make up, their conversion, for the lack of discipline in their home and school background. They were a highly undisciplined group of converts, and they seemed to feel that their conversion was enough in too many cases.

As a result, while they represented some of the greatest talent that the church has seen in this century, in large numbers they were useless because very quickly they ceased to work; they would start a job and abandon it. And of late, many of them as they are beginning to hit their late thirties and early forties, are drifting into all kinds of sins. I am hearing continually from pastors and church leaders that some of these Jesus movement people today are involved in every kind of sin. The lack of discipline is telling. So, discipline is good, but we dare not feel that it can command the grace of God.

Similarly, neither can we say that, when a person has the grace of God it is going to take the place of hard work on our side. And so some of these people, very able, have been exceptionally good when they tackle a job, as long as their enthusiasm is there. When it wanes, they don’t have the work habits to maintain a working pattern. So, they start something and it is marvelous; then when the work sets in they abandon it. Some who have become pastors will go into an area and begin work, and it will go phenomenally well for about six months, because their zest and their enthusiasm is capturing people. Then when the patient, slow work of development ensues, they get bored and help kill the very work they began.

[Audience Member] Isn’t that pertaining also to the wheat and the tares type of deal, remember all these followed and enthusiastic with Jesus, and then when the chips were down they left Him. So because they were so-called converted, I think this is the conflict we have of free will and predestination, that a lot of them go into it with the flurry, like big evangelistic meetings and so forth, and yet there is no substance to it because it is not of the Spirit.

[Rushdoony] That is very true, I think with some of these, not all, it is very clearly a case of them being tares.

Well, our time is up now, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, and to whom all glory and honor belongeth, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast called us. Give us grace to commit all our ways unto Thee, and know that Thy grace is able to make us strong; that Thy grace has a better purpose for our lives than we have for ourselves, and grant that we may walk in the light of Thy countenance.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect, this day and always, amen.