“The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.”
Romans 14:6-7 ESV
After the avalanche of truth that comes in Romans 1-13, that barrage of surety that we are the Lord’s through faith alone, not by works, we’re left with some principles to consider. And that’s the thing. Let us not bumble into the new life of Christianity blindly, instantly letting go of the major truths that are ours in salvation. The very principle of the gospel, which is the righteousness of God through faith alone, is the standard of our lives. If you are now a Christian, you are thus because of faith alone, which is a gift. You are saved by works, yes…the perfect works of Christ on your behalf. Righteousness is now yours…totally and unequivocally because of Christ.
This principle is articulated clearly in Romans 1:17, 3:22-26 and 28, 4:14-16, 5:1, 8:1, 10:4. No one is right with God outside of faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the message of the gospel and the heart and soul of Romans. To consider the rest of our lives, our conduct, our enterprises, dreams, goals, jobs, relationships, recreations – and especially our worship – outside of this context is to miss the whole point! We are debtors to God. We are slaves to Him and yet, here’s the great paradox of Christian life, we’re sons and daughters too. We cry out “Abba, Father…” because of this grace in which we now stand. The hostility of judgment against sin is gone, all gone, as far as east is from west. How now shall we live? Oh, we will live in expectant joy and humble happiness, seeking to please Him who has saved and loved us.
In chapter 12 we learned that our entire lives are now, in Christ and because of Him, living sacrifices. The link between Romans 1:17 and Romans 12 is significant and missed at our peril. Those (us) made righteous by faith, against whom our sins are not counted, live by the principles of that faith. That’s the theme of Romans and it’s expressed simply and succinctly in 1:17. After explaining the depth of the issues of sin and redemption, we learn in Romans 12 what are the so-called practical manifestations of the new life in the Spirit. It’s the life of continual submission to the Lord’s will through the heartfelt and intellectual application of faith to our every single action. In short, the Christian is called to live a life of faith wherever they are, in whatever field they go. There is no neutral territory. Christ owns us.
This corrects the false notion of clericalism, which is the fallacy that pastors and priests are “professional” Christians and regular believers are, well…not. A living sacrifice is exactly that. Like a soldier who goes over to the other side now and again is called a traitor, so is a Christian who tries to live halfway. Christ is yours. You are led by the Spirit of God. We are a new people, a holy priesthood separated by Him and for Him. We have pastors and elders and teachers but we’re all in Christ and everything we do must be according to the principle of faith.
Chapter 13 of Romans teaches us doofuses (and we are because we continually look at life with the false lens of neutrality) that even government is from the Lord. Its role is as His avenger. The civil order exists, by God, to punish crime. It may not and cannot, by the logic of faith after all, make men righteous. How much suffering we have in this world because sin convinces us of some utopian scheme or another and this, in the name of progress or love, leads to history’s bloodbaths! No. The gospel of faith in Christ is what makes men’s hearts right with God, not the sword of man, nor his millions of regulations. No observance of the law, or custom, or tradition, will ever bring men to heaven. In fact, the enforcement of these things is exactly what brings men to hell.
The separation of Church and state is God’s doing and it brings glory to Christ. All false schemes of Utopianism bring glory to man and this is the seed of hell, not salvation. All false ideologies are man’s latest Towers of Babel and no Christian should fall for them. If an ideology rightly calls out a consequence of sin but tries to pay iniquity’s toll without the cross it’s a ruse of the Enemy.
Shall we look at Sunday now? What is it that we make of church attendance and means of worship? There are different views, indeed. Chapter 14 takes the principle of faith and applies it to individual governance and personal worship.
The principle of faith is against Christian Sabbatarianism, which is the belief that we must still observe the Old Testament sabbath laws. Tellingly, Paul omits Sabbath keeping from his list at the end of Romans 13. He says that love is a fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10). Given the context of Romans, especially the practical focus of chapters 12-13 upon which it comes, Romans 13:10 explains that faith and love are life’s governors. Observance of rules and tradition are powerless to defeat sin. We remember that God did in Christ what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. Thus, we’re called to fulfill Christ’s mandate that we worship the Father in “spirit and in truth.” That is, from the heart and according to the principle of faith.
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
Colossians 2:16-17 ESV
The popular rendering of the Lord’s Day as opposed to a Christian Sabbath is a tempting alternative. But the thing to note is there’s not a single passage in the New Testament that prescribes an order for the organization of worship. This isn’t an “argument from absence” but a fact of freedom. The Church that loves Christ will worship Him from the heart and in doctrinal clarity because the source of the true Church is the Spirit, not man. Meeting on Sunday makes logical sense since that’s the day of the week in which the Lord was raised. Fine. Dandy. Should there be a whole day of worship? Should there be old style hymns or newer music? Should there be a weekly communion? Should sermons be 20 minutes? Longer? Shorter? Should the Church meet corporately during the week?
What does the Scripture say?
It says, “whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23).”
Do you know what this means? It means that we’re free…not to continue in sin, but to grow in love! We’re free from the bondage of those things which we’re now ashamed, and gloriously alive to the mystery that is amazing life in the Spirit. Would a man hopelessly in love with a woman have to be told to go see her twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday? Before my wife and I were married there were many late night phone calls. We were bursting with excitement. We yearned to be near each other and to fall into each other’s arms at night instead of having to say goodnight over the phone. Neither of us had to be reminded of love because love, when true and biblical, is its own regulator.
That’s the point of Romans 14 and worship. I personally esteem every day alike and don’t think Sunday is any different than Monday insofar as salvation and fellowship are concerned. Nevertheless, God’s love, poured into our hearts, draws us to Him on Mondays as well as Sundays. We worship because we’re loved and because we can’t wait to see Him and His Kingdom! And we grow in love for all His saints too, wanting to see them and talk with them about oh so much, for we are all His and our hearts ache like mine did when my wife was near but so far. No rules or regulations will make a man right with God. Only faith will do that and, likewise, only love will draw that saved man or woman to Him in worship.
The principle of faith leads to the reality of Christian love and that leads to the reality of worship. That love, because of faith, will bring us to seek Him because we’ll want to know more about the God that saved us. We’ll want real preaching just like a ravenous man emerging from the wilderness wants a meal. Sabbath keeping is subsumed by us being living sacrifices. Faith and love are our rules and our rules are love and faith.
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