It Isn't About Judgement, but a Specific Kind of Liberty

When you first read through Romans 14, you get the impression that Paul is giving us all a lesson not to judge others. This is a fair assumption which does capture a very small portion of Paul’s meaning. But it misses something far more fundamental to the overall point he is making. Yes, he does tell us that the person who has stronger faith and is able to eat a broader range of foods without violating that faith should not judge the person with weaker faith who believes they can only eat vegetables (Romans 14:1-3).  Further, he also asks the rhetorical question, “who are you to pass judgement on the servant of another (Romans 14:4)?”  The obvious answer to that question is that you don’t have any authority to pass judgement on the servant of another, so don’t do it. Then, he bolsters that point with another rhetorical question that’s a bit closer to home, “Why do you pass judgement on a brother in your own faith family (Romans 14:10)? His answer to that rhetorical question contains the kernel of his argument, and it isn’t about judging or not judging your brother, or anyone else for that matter. His answer to that question is that we all will stand before the judgement seat of God and give an account to him for our actions – not the actions of others (Romans 14:10-12). It is a holy, righteous, and loving God who will do the actual judging. Since we are going to give an account to God for how we live our lives, and the choices we make, Paul tells us we must not violate our conscience. We must be fully convinced about the morality of our choices and patterns (Romans 14:5). In fact, Paul argues that violating our conscience is a sin (Romans 14:23 NLT). If you feel that eating meat is wrong, and that following a Jewish dietary ritual is right, and then in your anxiety you eat a steak and pork dinner against the scolding voice of your conscience, you are sinning – even if your inner voice turns out to be wrong and eating meat turns out to be morally acceptable. The sin isn’t that you violated a dietary religious law. It is that you did something that you believed to be wrong. One of those two things is fundamentally worse than the other.

So Paul is making two distinct but interrelated points. First, he is telling us not to cause fellow believers to sin by injuring their conscience with an arrogant display or a berating insistence on your freedom in Christ when regarding their stricter moral patterns. Second, he is indirectly telling us that we should not live an unexamined life. We should be convinced about the truth of our morality – which means that we should search out the scriptures, explore them with those wiser than us, and develop a theology that allows us to strengthen the voice of our conscience while also honing the accuracy and sensitivity of that conscience to Godly truths. In this way, we maximize our freedom, while also staying true to the God we love. More importantly, it allows us to build up our faith family – which exists at varying levels of maturity – into a true spirit of peace, righteousness, and joy (Romans 14:15-19).

Paul’s teachings here belong to an ancient, important, and well developed Christian doctrine called “The Liberty of Conscience.” You see an echo of it in his letter to Timothy, when he tells him that ignoring his conscience will shipwreck his faith (1 Timothy 1:18-20). According to this doctrine, you have a duty and a freedom to follow your conscience, which is a gift of God to humanity (Romans 2:15). But if you ignore that gift, then it can become seared so that you don’t hear its voice any longer. Whenever that happens, you fall into all kinds of horrible sins and alliances (1 Timothy 4:1-3). In contrast, to obey your conscience shames the enemies of God’s people, and your suffering for such a choice is a very high good (1 Peter 3:16-17).