From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now I am going to read again the words found in Paul's Epistle to the Romans in chapter 14 from the 13th verse to the 16th verse. I say again because I read them last Friday evening as most of you will remember. "Let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way."

"I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of."

Now here, as I was indicating last Friday at the beginning, we have this new subsection in the great argument of this chapter. And as I have had occasion to point out several times, it is one of the most fascinating bits of argumentation that you can find anywhere, even in the writings of this great apostle. He is dealing, you remember, with this question which troubled so many in the early church as to whether it was right for a Christian to eat the meats which had been prohibited under the Mosaic law to the Jews, or certain meats which had been offered in the idol temples.

The other great question was the observance of particular days as feasts and festivals and so on. Now, there was great trouble in the church over this. Why? Well, for this reason: that all Christians, while they are all Christians in the same way, which is as the result of regeneration, are not identical in every other respect. The New Testament divides up Christians into many different categories and groups. You can be a babe in Christ. You can be an old man in Christ. You can be strong in your faith, in your understanding of the faith. You can be weak in your understanding of the faith.

Now, he has been making that point, as you remember, in this chapter, beginning with the statement, "Him that is weak in the faith." And that means, remember, weak in understanding of the faith, receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. In other words, for the purpose of this argument, the Christians in Rome are divided by the apostle into those who are strong in their understanding of the faith and those who are weak in their understanding of the faith. Now, it was because of that that there was trouble.

The strong could see that there was no reason whatsoever why a Christian should not eat these meats, and they were doing so. But this was an offense to the others, and hence the church was in turmoil. And not only the church at Rome as we have seen, but other churches. Now, that is what the apostle is really dealing with. And here we come to this particular bit of the argument. He has been telling us that it is our spirit that matters, that we must not be guilty of judging one another.

He said, "Who are you to judge one another? You are under judgment yourselves." Every one of us, he says in verse 12, should give an account of himself to God. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (verse 10). We are not the judges, and we must not condemn one another. This is the thing that he keeps on repeating: that it is not so much our opinion on these matters that matters, but the spirit. And if our spirits are wrong, he says it does not matter how right your opinion may be, your spirit puts you out. You are wrong. You are unlike Christ.

So, you see, he takes it up in this 13th verse, "Let us not therefore judge one another anymore." He says, "I take it that you are following what I have been saying and that we all realize that we all live to the Lord. We do not live to ourselves. We live to the Lord. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's, and He is going to judge us. All right, then," he says, "do not judge one another anymore." But he says, "Exercise your judgment in this way. This is the thing," he says, "you really got to be careful about: that you never put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in your brother's way."

Now, that is to be our governing principle in the Christian life. Not only thinking about ourselves, but thinking about others, he says. Think about your brother and put this up as the great motto before you in your Christian life. Whatever I do or say, I must not be a hindrance or a stumbling block to my brother. Now, that is a great principle, he says, which is to govern everything else. Now then, having started with that and remembering you have always got to keep that before you, this is the most important thing of all.

Our relationship to all other Christians, "We are all brethren," he says. We are members of a family, and we are to love one another, not to judge or to ostracize one another, to condemn one another. We are to love one another. This is to govern every thought and every action. Right. Having said that, what then is the argument? Well now, then, he puts it like this. He says, "As a matter of fact, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus," you remember how we interpreted that. He says, "I am certain of this. There is nothing that is unclean of itself." I do not go over this again. I trust we are all clear about this. There is nothing unclean of itself.

Now, I illustrated this last week. There are some Christians in history who have regarded the body as unclean. They have regarded the very physical body in which we all live as something in itself unclean. Now, that is quite wrong. That is not Christian teaching; that is pagan teaching. I took up the question of sex in the same way. There is nothing wrong in sex in and of itself. Now, I trust that nobody misunderstood that as my meaning that therefore sex is always permissible. It is not. There are rules governing it.

All I am saying is this: that the Christian who thinks that sex is inherently sinful is wrong. That is all I am saying. You see, as Paul points out to Timothy, there were people who, misunderstanding the teaching of our Lord, said that it was wrong for a Christian ever to get married. You will find that in 1 Timothy 4. They were forbidding people to get married. And the reason for that was, they said, sex is sinful, and therefore a Christian should never get married. Now, that is what I meant by saying that. There is nothing sinful in sex in and of itself.

But, of course, there is abundant teaching in the scriptures, Old Testament and New, which tells us how a Christian man is to use and to govern and to order how he eats, how he drinks, how he uses the gift of sex, everything. The body, everything included. So I trust that nobody misunderstood that as meaning license. Of course, it does not. All I am saying is there is nothing sinful in sex in and of itself. But as a Christian, you know how all these gifts of God are to be rightly used.

Nothing wrong, as Paul says elsewhere, as long as it is done lawfully. The same we said with regard to drink and so on. That is a universal principle. All right, now then. But having said that, says the apostle, I must add this. Now, you see how the argument goes on, how it develops. Here is my governing principle: I must never do anything that is a stumbling block or a hindrance or an offense to my brother. All right, now then. Let us suppose that I am a strong Christian, strong in faith, strong in my understanding, and I say, "Well, it is quite clear to me that the Mosaic law as regards the ceremonial aspect has come to an end, and that there is no reason now why I should not eat pork or ham or any meat that comes from the pig. Nothing wrong at all. All that is finished. I see that quite clear. And therefore, I feel I have a right to do these things."

Then I look at these various days which were commended to be observed. I say all that is come to an end. That is the old Mosaic dispensation. It is finished. I am free from all this. Because my principle is, and I can see it quite clearly, these were temporary rules and regulations imposed by God on the people to mark them out from every other people. But this has finished. There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, barbarian or Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female. All one in Christ Jesus. So I see that all that has gone. Right. I am strong in my understanding of the Christian teaching.

And therefore, I feel I have a perfect right to eat any meats, even this meat which has been offered to idols in the idol temples. I know that the idol is nonexistent. There is only one God; these others are not gods. There is nothing wrong with this meat. Therefore, I am entitled to it. All right, I see this quite clearly. But now wait a minute, says Paul. Before you therefore go on to say, "Therefore, I am going to eat all these meats," remember your great principle. You see this quite clearly, but does everybody else see this clearly? Does your brother see this clearly?

He says, "Now listen, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. But to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." Now, this is very wonderful, isn't it? What is the meaning of this word "esteemeth"? Well, it is the word which we have translated often as "reckon". You have got it in the eighth chapter of this Epistle in verse 18: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." That is the same word.

It is an opinion at which you arrive as the result of thinking and as the result of reasoning. Now, what the apostle is saying is this: there are some Christians who have really considered this question, and they have thought it out as best they can, and they have come to the conclusion that these meats that have been offered in the idol temples are unclean. That is their decision. They have reasoned; they have reckoned. This is the conclusion at which they have arrived as the result of that process.

Now, says the apostle, all I am saying is this: that though you who are strong in your understanding know that they are quite wrong, you nevertheless have got to recognize that that is their opinion. That is the conclusion at which they have arrived as the result of their reckoning. So you see, the emphasis here is this: to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Now, this is a most vital principle. That is emphatic. To that person, to that individual, the thing is unclean.

Now, let us be clear about this. Still, the apostle is saying that actually, the thing is not unclean in and of itself. But because this man thinks that it is unclean, because that is his opinion concerning this matter, as far as he is concerned, this is unclean. Now, what he is telling us is this: that we have got to recognize this, and we have got to recognize it because this man is a brother. The fact that he is wrong and mistaken is not the thing that is to govern us.

What is to govern us is that he is a brother. A mistaken brother, a defective brother, say what you like about him, but he is still, says the apostle, a brother. And what he is appealing for is this: that though we are so certain that the man is wrong, nevertheless, we have got to be governed at any rate up to a point by his position. We must never coerce him; we must never ride roughshod over him. Of course, we must do all we can to persuade him and to educate him and to enlighten him and to do everything we can to bring him to what we regard as the right and the true understanding in this matter.

But the thing is we have got to recognize that it isn't only my opinion that matters. In other words, as he puts it, you remember in 1 Corinthians 10, "Conscience, not thine own, but of the other also." You see, this is just a continuation and an application of this whole idea of the Christian people, the members of the church as members of a great family together. You must not act, he says, as an isolated individual. A group of you must not act as a group of isolated individuals, the strong who are despising the weak or the weak judging the strong and vice versa. It all gets mixed up. He says you must not do this. You are to advance together.

So, while you see the great principle quite clearly, you have got to take into consideration the attitude and the opinion and the condition of your weaker brother. Very well, now that brings us to the end of that 14th verse. And then, in verse 15, he applies that. You see, there is your principle. Isn't it wonderful how he works it out? He doesn't just tell us what to do. He always tells us first why we have got to do it. And there it is for us quite clearly in that 14th verse. It isn't only what I know; what does the other man know?

And because of this relationship which is put in verse 13, this is how I have got to work it out. And here's the 15th verse: "Now then," he says, "if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." Now, here is a tremendous statement. What does it mean? Well, let us get the terms right first of all. "If thy brother be grieved with thy meat." Now, that is clear, isn't it? What he means is this: if the fact that you are eating those particular meats which they regard as unclean, whether they be Jews in their background or whether they be pagans who become Christians.

You see, as we have seen, the Jews regarded certain meats as unclean and so did the pagans. Very well, he says, you do not, and now you are eating these meats. That is what he means by meat there. "If thy brother be grieved with thy meat," thy eating of these particular meats which to them are unclean. That's the first expression. Then the second one is this word "grieved". "If thy brother be grieved with thy meat." What does this mean?

Well, I think it has got two main meanings here, and I think both of them are important. The first is that your brother is made uneasy by it. He is hurt by it. He is troubled by it, troubled in his mind. He is confused by it. He is distressed by it. What does he mean? Well, he means this. Here is a conscientious Christian, weak in understanding of the faith, but nevertheless a true Christian, as definitely a Christian as anybody else, one who is received by God, as we are told in the third verse, "God hath received him".

Very well, he is a true Christian. But here it is: his understanding is lacking, perhaps because of lack of teaching or various other factors which we considered at the beginning of the chapter. He sees you eating these meats, and immediately he is in trouble. He says, "Now, I do not understand this. How can he do this? This is wrong. This is terrible. I thought this man was a Christian, but look what he is doing. He is eating unclean meats."

And he gets into an utterly distressed condition. He really is in trouble. He feels it not only in his mind, but in his spirit and in his heart. He is confused, he is bewildered, and he is made thoroughly unhappy. That is a part of the meaning of this word "grieved". But I have no doubt in agreeing with those who say that the word takes us beyond that, that it is a strong expression which is not exhausted by what I have already said.

But that furthermore, we must recognize that the grieving includes this: that this weaker brother, seeing us do this thing which he regards as wrong, but because he sees us going on doing it, he himself begins to do it. And yet, though he does it, he feels condemned as he does it because he isn't clear in his understanding of it. Now, why do I suggest this? Well, I think that what the apostle says later on compels us to include this part in the meaning.

Take the 20th verse: "For meat," he says, "destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure." You see, this 20th verse is more or less the 15th verse put the other way around. "For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure. But it is evil for that man who eateth with offense." That is what my first argument is for saying that the grieving here must include that: that the weaker brother, because he sees you go on doing this thing, begins to say, "Well, all right, if it's right for him, it's right for me."

And yet he knows it isn't right for him. He is doubtful, he is unhappy, he is uncertain, he has a sense of condemnation, and yet he does it. That is a part of this grief. But he not only says that in the 20th verse, you have got it again in the 22nd: "Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God." Then here's the statement, "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." He alloweth, we shall see, means this: that he does the thing and yet he is under condemnation as he does it.

And this is a part of this whole business of grieving. Now, in 1 Corinthians 8, you have really got the same statement again, and it is a further reason for giving this interpretation to the meaning of this word "grieve". Go back again to 1 Corinthians 8, listen to verse 7. Once more, you see, he is showing that there is this same division or distinction amongst Christians. He says in verse 6, "To us," that is to say people who understand, "there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. Howbeit there is not in every man," he's only talking about Christians here, remember, "there is not in every man that knowledge."

In other words, there are some Christians, he says, who are truly Christian, but they are not quite clear yet in their minds or fully satisfied that there is no such thing as an idol god. They know that God is above everybody else and beyond all others, but they haven't fully worked it out. They haven't fully comprehended it yet, and they still have a kind of feeling that these others are gods. Now, I take it that none of us is in trouble over this. You find Christians very often in this country and still more, perhaps, in certain foreign countries where they've lacked the educational facilities that we've had, who though they've become Christian, still may be very superstitious.

I've known many Christian people, truly converted, truly Christian, who still took some time to get rid of various old superstitions in which they have been brought up. It took them some time just to see through that. But of course, you must not say of them that they are not Christian. They are. They are truly saved. But their understanding is a little bit lacking. "Howbeit," he says here, "there is not this understanding in all men. All men have not that knowledge. For some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled."

Now there it is, you see. They were eating it, but still they have got this sense of condemnation because they were not clear about it in their minds. Now you know how as Christian people we do things at times mainly or chiefly because other people do them. You have all done that. We are all guilty of this. We do them because other people do them. We conform to the pattern and to the habit. And they were doing this in the early church.

They were not clear about these things in their minds, but seeing others, and especially the greater, the more prominent people doing it, they were doing it. But they were under terrible condemnation. And this is an extraordinary thing, but how important it is we should have this true understanding of the nature of the Christian and the Christian life. Nothing is so wrong as to think that all of us because we are born again are absolutely equal in every respect. It is not true, and the scriptures here are proving that to us.

And that is what makes the position of the stronger person such a responsible one. That is how he can become a stumbling block or a hindrance to the weaker brother, simply because he doesn't consider him but simply acts on what he sees. Very well. But in the 10th verse of that eighth chapter of 1 Corinthians, he says it again: "For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols?"

That is exactly what I have been trying to say to you. So I include in this word "grieve" the actual eating of the meats offered to the idols. But let us be clear about this. The grief doesn't consist in the eating. The grief comes in because they are eating with a bad conscience, because they are eating under condemnation. Very well, let us open this out. That is the first thing then that he tells us. There is the meaning of our terms. Here is a stronger Christian doing something which grieves the weaker Christian in that way.

What is the apostle's verdict on this stronger brother? Well, here's the first thing he says: "If you do that," says the apostle, "now walkest thou not charitably." That's the first thing he says about them. You see, he doesn't say so much that you are wrong. He says what you are doing is this: you are not walking in charity. You are not walking in a charitable manner. You are not being influenced and governed by the great law of love. You are behaving in a selfish manner, he says.

Here you are with your great enlightenment and understanding. You can see that this thing is quite all right. And because to you it's all right, you say, "What's it matter what anybody else? I have a right to do what I want to do. And what I'm doing is perfectly lawful." And you do it. He says, "Now look here. You may be strong, but you're very weak in love." There is a higher principle than being right even, and that is to be charitable, to be loving.

The spirit is always more important than the understanding. The heart, in this sense, is always more important than the understanding. A man who may have perfect understanding, if he behaves in this manner simply because it's clear to him, he is violating the most important law of all, the law of love, the law of charity, the law of consideration for others. So that is his first verdict. He says, "I don't care how strong you are. All I know is that you're selfish and you're self-centered."

He says, "We know we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up, edifieth." That's his own contrast, you remember, in the second verse of 1 Corinthians 8. Oh, may God give us this to see it so clearly that we shall ever remember it and ever be governed by it. Head knowledge puffs up, and we're full of knowledge, but we can be a grievous offense to our brother. Charity, here's the thing. This isn't like air in a balloon, puffed up.

It builds up. Starts with a good foundation, goes along in the same way. So his first statement about this man is, he says, "Look here, you're no longer walking charitably." And oh, whatever else you may know or do or say, never violate the law of charity, consideration for others, love for others. But then he says it is even worse than that. You are not only behaving in an uncharitable manner towards your brother, he says you are endangering the whole position of your brother.

"Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." Now here is a most difficult statement. In many ways, one of the most difficult we have encountered in the whole of this Epistle up to date. What does it mean? Well, start with this word "destroy". It is a very strong word. Everybody is agreed about that. The uses of this word prove that. Let me give you a well-known illustration to show it. John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish."

That is the word, same word exactly. You might translate that like this: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not be destroyed, but have everlasting life." We have had another example of it in the second chapter of this Epistle to the Romans and in verse 12: "For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law." That's it. Be destroyed without the law.

So you see, it is a very important word. We have got it again in 1 Corinthians 8 in the verses we have just been looking at, where you have got it in verse 11: "And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish?" It's exactly the same word in the original. "For whom Christ died." So you can translate it as perish. And the final example I will give you is in 2 Corinthians 4 and in the third verse: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." Perishing, on the way to destruction.

Now, what does this mean? "Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." Well, I want to try to show you that it obviously cannot mean that he is destroyed eternally in a spiritual sense. It doesn't mean his everlasting and final perdition and damnation. What it means is this: that by doing this, you are putting him on the road to ruin, on the road that leads to ruin. You are doing something that tends to ruination and to destruction. That's the effect you are having upon this weaker brother.

Now, how does this work? Well, it works like this. Here is a man. He has reasoned it out as he sees it, and he has come to the conclusion that those meats should not be touched. However, he sees you eating them, and perhaps as the result of that, he starts eating them himself. Now, how are you putting this man on the road to destruction by doing that? Well, you do it like this. The first thing you do is to make him dispute his conscience, which is always a very bad thing to do.

But your conduct makes him do that. He begins to argue like this: "Well, they're stronger than I am. They're longer in the Christian life than I am, and various other things. If it's right for them, well, who am I to say that it isn't? Now, my conscience tells me that it isn't, but..." And that is already a very bad position to be in. So you're putting this Christian on the road to destruction by making him dispute his conscience.

But it doesn't stop at that. The second stage is that he begins to tamper with his conscience. You can query it without doing anything about it. But this man goes a step further. He begins to tamper with it. And you can tamper with your conscience. You can argue with it; you can reason with it. You can put up positions that you think cover it. You're playing with your conscience here, you're tampering with it. Instead of listening to its decrees, you're tampering with it.

But it doesn't stop even at that. The third step is that you actually do something against your conscience. Though your conscience tells you that it is wrong, nevertheless, you do it. Now, this is to the apostle one of the most serious things that you can ever do. Have you noticed the emphasis which this writer, this apostle in particular, puts upon the conscience? Now I read to you from that first Epistle to Timothy at the beginning in chapter 1 in order to bring this out.

You see, he was writing to Timothy and telling him and giving him instruction how to handle certain people who were causing great trouble in the early church because they were going around as lawgivers. They said it isn't enough that you believe the gospel. You have got to listen to what we are saying, and you have got to live in this way. That's exactly what they were doing. He says, "From which some having swerved away, turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm."

And they were causing grievous trouble in the early church. They were imposing a law upon the people. Paul says they don't understand it. He says, "We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully." He says they are imposing a law upon you who are Christians. He says we know this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and the disobedient, etc. But this is the way he puts it, and this is what I am calling attention to.

He says these people have never understood the meaning or the object or the purpose of the law. So in verse 5 of 1 Timothy 1, he puts it like this: "Now the end of the commandment," the whole object of commandment, the whole object of all the teaching is what? Notice what he puts first: "Charity out of a pure heart, love". Here's the thing that comes first. The law properly understood, God's law always properly understood, is never something harsh, legalistic, negative, and prohibited. God's law is essentially positive.

Everything that God calls upon us to do is positive. It's for our benefit. "The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart." Everything that God does to us and has done for us in His Son is to bring us into this condition of love and of sympathy and of understanding. "Charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." But you notice the order. Faith unfeigned means, again, the very thing that we are dealing with here in these verses in Romans 14.

Understanding of the faith, knowledge of the faith, an unadulterated understanding of the faith, a faith that is honest and not pretense. But you see, he doesn't start with that. He doesn't start with knowledge; he ends with it. The first great thing is charity out of a pure heart; second, a good conscience. And then this knowledge, this true, unfeigned, clear knowledge and understanding of the teaching. Now there again, you see, he has shown us the vital place which conscience must always play in these matters.

In other words, with this great principle of charity and of love for one another as brethren, you will always be careful not to offend the conscience of another. The conscience has got to be a good conscience always. You must never produce a bad conscience in your brother. But then at the end of this same first chapter of 1 Timothy, he puts it again in a still more striking manner: "Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck."

What he means is this. He says you must hold the faith. There were people who were denying the faith. Timothy was troubled by them, these people who were teaching false doctrines. So the apostle says, "This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before upon thee, that thou mightest war a good warfare." How you are to war a good warfare? Well, this is the way: "Holding faith". Whatever the heretics may say, hold on to the faith.

But he says that's not enough. Be careful. "Holding faith, and a good conscience." There are some people, he says, "which some having put away" the good conscience concerning faith or in its connection with faith have made shipwreck. You see the illustration. Here he is comparing the Christian to a ship. Here is a man in the Christian life and he compares him to a ship. Oh, there's a wonderful engine there, and there's wonderful furnishing. The ship has been fitted out very wonderfully.

And here is the ship, so perfectly equipped, steaming across the ocean. But there is one very vital instrument, or one very vital part of this ship. What's that? It's the rudder. And if you ignore the rudder, if you don't keep your rudder in order, the very fact that you've got a wonderful engine and a powerful engine and all the rest of it may be a positive danger to you. If the rudder isn't working, you'll make shipwreck.

And that's exactly what these people are doing, says Paul. They're putting all their emphasis upon the faith, the unfeigned faith. They're holding the faith all right, but they've forgotten the conscience. And because they've forgotten the conscience, they've made shipwreck, they're in terrible trouble. Now, you can't imagine anything put more strongly than that, can you? He actually gives the conscience the dignity, he's talking about Christian people, remember, of being comparable to that which is the function which is served by a rudder in a ship.

Well, I want to elaborate this. I'm not going to do so tonight because I want to finish this immediate argument, but I do hope when we meet again on January the 12th to come back to this particular point, the place of conscience in the life of the Christian. But let me just wind up this great argument. So there you've got this great statement that you are not to put your fellow Christian, who's weaker than you are in the faith, on a course that is going to lead to shipwreck.

And if you do something that makes your weaker brother query, question, tamper with, or act against his conscience, the end is likely to be shipwreck. But then we come to the last argument. "Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." That is how we should read that verse. Let me try and read it properly, this 15th verse. "But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died."

You see the argument? He's ridiculing the position of this stronger brother. This is the supreme argument. He says, "Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ thought so much about this brother of yours that He actually sacrificed His life for him." He didn't say, "My life's my own. I'm going to hold on to my life. Why should I give my life for this man?" He didn't argue like that. He counted it not robbery to be equal with God.

If our Lord had thought of Himself only, He would have remained in heaven. He would never have been born as the babe of Bethlehem. The incarnation would never have taken place. There wouldn't be such a thing as Christmas if He had argued, says Paul, as you are arguing. Your argument is, "I see these things quite clearly. Why shouldn't I do what I see clearly? I have a perfect right to eat these meats. Why shouldn't I eat these meats?"

He says, "You know, you can thank God that He isn't as you are, and that the Son of God is not as you are. The Son of God didn't consider Himself and His rights and His prerogatives. No, no. He put them all on one side. He even died. He gave up His life. He sacrificed His life that you and that brother might be saved. Very well then," says the apostle, "is it asking too much of you to forgo the eating of these meats to which you're entitled for the sake of your brother, when your Lord even gave up living in order to save him?"

So you see, he ridicules the thing. It's still this great principle of love. You are caviling and hesitating about making a sacrifice of your rights for the sake of your weaker brother. "You don't know how to think straightly," says Paul. "You're thinking as an intellectual machine. You've got no feeling, you've got no heart, you've got no compassion, you've got no sympathy. You simply lay down the laws as you see it and let the others get on with it."

He says, "Oh, how we should thank God that the Son of God didn't think like this nor behave like this. None of us would be Christians if He gave up His life for this brother. You give up your meats for the brother and give up anything else that you can in order to help your brother." Well, the great apostle is able to rise almost to the heights of his Lord and Master. Not quite, of course, because nobody ever can.

But that is what the Master did. That is what the Son of God did. He considered not Himself. He counted it not robbery to be equal with God. He humbled Himself. He took upon him the form of man. He came in the likeness of men. He humbled Himself still further and took upon him the form of a servant. He went even beyond this. He humbled Himself even unto the death of the cross. For us. He gave His life for us.

He loved us so much that He did that for us. Very well, says Paul, in writing to those Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 8, and what a glorious statement it is: "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." That is it. He is doing his utmost, his best, to behave as his blessed Lord and Master had done for him, who was a persecutor and an injurious person and a blasphemer.

While he was that, Christ died for him. He says if He has done that for me and for all my brethren, if my eating of these meats is going to offend these weaker brethren, I will eat no flesh as long as I am alive, as long as the world stands, rather than to cause offense for one of these who are my brethren, for whom the Lord died as much as He died for me. Very well, we will leave it at that for tonight.

Let us remember this during these coming days as we think of the birth of the Son of God, the incarnation and all that it involved. This is the supreme illustration of love. And that is the love that we are to apply in our daily lives as we live with our fellow Christians, brothers and sisters together in the family of God. Let us pray. O Lord our God, we come before Thee amazed and astonished at this love so amazing, so divine.

Oh, help us to see it. Help us to realize it. Help us to feel it. Help us to understand it in a measure, so that we may reproduce it. Oh Lord, shed Thy love abroad in our hearts by Thy Holy Spirit. Grant that we may be so filled with this love that it will govern all our actions in the same way and manner and that we shall not only consider ourselves, but consider others. Consider one another, consider especially our brethren and sisters in the faith.

Oh God, write these things upon our minds and hearts and consciences and spirits so that in all things we may adorn the doctrine and so bring honor and glory to Thy great and holy name. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night, during these coming days, throughout the remainder of this our short, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.