My assignment this afternoon is to speak on
the subject of “The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother.” And before I look at the Scripture, let me
ask you, how many of you have never, ever either preached or heard a message on the
tyranny of the weaker brother? Let me see. Okay, most of you. That’s good. So I hope you don’t say the same thing at
the end of this day. I’d like you to look with me to Paul’s
letter to the Romans, chapter 14, beginning at verse 1, and again, I’ll ask you to stand
for the reading of the Word of God. Receive one who is weak in the faith, but
not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but
he who is weak eats only vegetables. You know, that has to be true. That’s a verse… That’s a verse that proves inerrancy if
there is any verse here. Let not him who eats despise him who does
not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him whom eats; for God has received
him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God
is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another;
another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the
Lord; he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives
thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one
dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if
we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are
the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived
again, that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment
seat of Christ. For it is written: “As I live, says the
LORD, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us shall give account of himself
to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore,
but resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus
that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean,
to him it is unclean. Yet if your brother is grieved because of
your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for
whom Christ died. Therefore do not let your good be spoken of
as evil; for the kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking, but righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is
acceptable to God and approved by men. And finally… Therefore let us pursue the things which make
for peace and the things by which one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake
of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil
for a man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine
nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in
what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats,
because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin. This, of course, is the passage where Paul
speaks about the consideration that we are to have for one another’s particular scruples
and sensitivities, not unlike at all the treatment that Paul gives in his letter to the Corinthians
when he dealt with the particular issue of the question of eating meat that had been
offered to idols. This is written to us for our edification,
carries with it the solemn weight and authority of God Himself. Let’s be seated. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, again we ask You to
send help to minister to the weakness of our understanding that we may prove correct in
our understanding of Your Word, and that by Your Spirit You would convict us of sin where
we need it. Encourage us to faith where we need that. And in all things, illumine to us Your Word. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. The progress of the Christian life following
our justification is that progress in sanctification by which we are called to grow to maturity
and into conformity to the image of Christ. In the defense of the gospel of justification
by faith alone, Martin Luther said that justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that
is alone. A true faith that is saving faith immediately,
necessarily, and inevitably begins to show forth the fruit of that faith in this progress
of sanctification. I don’t think it’s by accident that the
Holy Spirit directed the apostle to teach us to work out our salvation with fear and
trembling. For God is at work within us both to will
and to do. That means that we are not to be at ease in
Zion. We are not to be quietists who merely let
go and let God, but the whole Christian pilgrimage, the whole Christian life is one that involves
serious labor. It is a labor that is performed with a sense
of fear and of trembling, that godly fear of reverence and adoration in the hearts of
those who tremble in the presence of the living God. And so the progress of sanctification is not
one that is undertaken in a casual manner. Now when we look at this matter of sanctification,
we see various pitfalls that undermine that progress along the way. And perhaps the two most frequent and dangerous
pitfalls to our progress are the distortions that we call antinomianism and legalism. And just for a brief refresher before we go
to this text this afternoon, let me remind you of the basic content or spirit or motivation
behind these two distortions. Antinomianism means, of course, anti-lawism. And it carries the idea that once I am saved
by grace, I no longer have to be concerned about living a life of obedience or give any
particular significance to the law of God. The favorite hymn of the antinomian is the
hymn that sings, “Free from the law, oh, blessed condition. I can sin all I want and still have remission.” One of the critical concerns and fears that
16th century Rome had with the advent of the Reformation is that this doctrine of justification
by faith alone would lead to a spirit of antinomianism because once the law had fulfilled its elliptical
purpose of driving us to Christ and driving us to the gospel, it would have no more impact
or influence among us. And there were those at the time of the Reformation
who literally moved in that direction. The Reformed wing, of course, of the Reformation
was convinced that though the ceremonial law of the Old Testament, the dietary laws and
that sort of thing, had been fulfilled in Christ and therefore abrogated, nevertheless,
those laws that are rooted and grounded in the very character of God and are revealed
in His moral law, still have relevance to the Christian, not as a means by which we
achieve salvation, but rather as a means by which we proceed in sanctification to do that
which is pleasing to God. But we live in a time within the evangelical
church where antinomianism is epidemic, particularly in one brand of evangelicalism that I won’t
mention that teach in their doctrine that the Old Testament law has no further import
to the life of the Christian. And in that antinomian spirit, we have seen,
I think, one of the most destructive doctrines that has been embraced widely in the evangelical
community, which is the concept of the carnal Christian, which from one perspective is an
oxymoron. It’s a contradiction in terms. On the other sense, it does have some application. On the one sense, all of us who are in Christ
remain carnal to a certain degree because the impact of the sarx or of the flesh is
not completely eradicated until we enter into heaven and into glory. But that’s not usually what is in view when
we hear that concept of the carnal Christian. This is the idea that a person can be saved,
come to true saving faith in Jesus Christ, receive Christ as Savior, but not as Lord,
and may never produce any fruit of a sanctified life, but may remain utterly and totally carnal
until death. In this case, Christ is in the person’s
life but not reigning on the throne of his life, but rather self remains established
in the governing center and core of the person. And I don’t know where this comes from,
other than from bad theology and perhaps from a motivation to explain the problem I was
speaking of earlier this morning about those who have been zealously pursued in evangelism,
who make a profession of faith, and then show absolutely no fruit and no change. In order to account for that theologically,
we say, well, they’re Christians. They’ve received Jesus as Savior, but they
haven’t recognized Him as Lord yet, and you don’t have to have the fruit of any
kind of obedience as evidence of saving faith, and you are still a Christian despite that. I had a young man in the church on one occasion
who was living with his girl friend, and the two of them were indulging in and practicing
in the sale of drugs, and being confronted since he was a church member, he said, “Don’t
worry about me.” He said, “I’m a carnal Christian. I’ll be alright.” This is antinomianism with a vengeance, and
it undermines the true development of a Christian. But on the other side of the equation is the
threat that’s always there of legalism. And if I would say to you, “What is legalism?” how do you think you would frame an answer
to that question? I don’t think it’s an easy question to
answer because there’s not one single monolithic form of legalism. There are varieties, different types of legalism. The worst meaning of legalism has reference
to the idea that by your works you can satisfy the demands of God’s law and can gain salvation
through your own works of the law. That is the view that is so widely held by
people who have never heard the Bible say, “that by the works of the law shall no flesh
be justified.” Because… In fact, the vast majority of people out there
really believe in a legalistic manner and means of being redeemed, which is false not
only with respect to the way of salvation set forth in Scripture, but it is a way of
salvation that if it were indeed the Biblical way of salvation, would cause these people
who believed it nothing but everlasting doom because none of us do the works of the law
that are required to satisfy the legal demands of God. Other forms of legalism, which were those
that were perfected by the Pharisees, that drew the rebuke and at times the wrath of
our Lord Himself, for example, the Pharisees were fond of majoring in minors. That’s a form of legalism, where you give
great zeal and great attention to minor matters of the law at the expense of and at the same
time ignoring the weightier matters of the law. Incidentally, Jesus spoke of the Pharisees
who tithed their mint and so on and omitted the weightier matters of the law, justice
and mercy. And He said with respect to the tithe, this
you should have done, but even the tithe, which is something they should do, is a minor
matter compared to the more important matters that are found in Scriptures. And you know people like that. They are scrupulous in their church attendance. They wouldn’t think of shorting God in the
collection plate. They are regular tithers, but as far as the
rest of the fruit of the Spirit is concerned, they could care less. They have majored in minors. The other thing, that the Pharisees were experts
at, were a kind of ethical loopholism. If they could obey the letter of the law,
never mind the spirit of the law if they could find a way around it. If they wanted to go on a trip that was more
than a Sabbath day’s journey, they would simply during the week have merchants along
the way leave one of their toothbrushes under a rock at various intervals because legally
the presence of one’s toothbrush established legal residence. And so even though they made the trip of 15
miles, they only went so far between these rocks containing their toothbrushes, so never
went more than a Sabbath day’s journey. These were Philadelphia lawyers before there
was a Philadelphia in America. But one of the most destructive forms of legalism
then and now, the one that was most seriously practiced by the Pharisees was to add to the
law of God, to bind men’s consciences where God had left them free, substituting the human
traditions for the law of God. And we wag our fingers at the Pharisees for
doing that, but that problem has plagued the church in every generation. So do you see the problem we have between
Scylla and Charybdis, between antinomianism on the one hand and legalism on the other? You might ask yourself where you tend to fall
off which side of the horse and what kind of an atmosphere you have in your church. Now, connection… connected closely to these
poles of legalism and antinomianism are the questions of matters adiaphorous and Christian
liberty. Now what are we talking about here, the relationship
between Christian liberty and that which is adiaphorous or the so-called adiaphora? The adiaphora are those things which the apostle
calls things that are indifferent. That is in matters that are indifferent refers
to those areas where God has not commanded to do or to abstain from. One has Christian liberty in that particular
zone. Christian liberty never gives anybody the
liberty to disobey God. And that’s another form of antinomianism
where Christian liberty becomes the disguise or the license for licentiousness, where people
saying, “I’m free. I’ve been liberated by the Spirit, and so
I can disobey God.” I can remember with horrific memories doing
a teaching mission in a wealthy community outside of New York City where I was invited
to speak on the holiness of God, and I was housed in a splendid mansion that was decorated
by all kinds of original art. It was almost looking like a subdivision of
the Metropolitan Museum. I’d never been in a home where there was
so much wealth obviously displayed. And the host of this conference where they
asked me to speak on the holiness of God, after I gave my messages, invited me back
to this house with the members of the steering committee for this mission, some 15 people
to have a time of prayer, and invited me to do that. And I said, “Well, of course, I’ll be
happy to do that.” So we retired after the church meetings, came
back to this marvelous mansion, and we gathered for prayer, and all of a sudden the people
turned the lights out, and stop me if I’m lying, they started praying to their deceased
relatives. I was in the middle of a séance. And I said, “Whoa,” I said, “Wait a
minute, time out.” And they said, “What’s the matter?” I said, “Do you realize that you’re not
allowed to do this sort of thing? That we’re not allowed to pray to the dead.” And I said, and I started giving them passages
from the Old Testament, how that this was a capital offence in Israel, and that God
considered it an abomination, and that He would punish the whole country if they tolerated
this sort of behavior. And you know what their response was quite
glibly? That was the Old Testament. I said, “Well, tell me what has happened
in the course of redemptive history that has made a practice that at one time was utterly
repugnant to God, now something that would be pleasing to Him.” And they, of course, tried to play the trump
card of Christian liberty to justify this sort of thing. “We’re not under the law. Don’t lay a guilt trip on us, Dr. Sproul,
and impose some kind of foreign standards here.” These are the problems that we have. And the matters of consulting sorcerers and
necromancers and wizards and that sort of thing, those are not considered in the Bible
to be adiaphorous, matters that are indifferent. They are matters that profoundly… are profoundly
important. And so then we have connected to that, as
I said, to the matters that are indifferent, the real concept of Christian liberty, and
how we as Christians can co-exist when we don’t always have the same understanding
of what it is that fits into the category of adiaphora and where our Christian liberty
begins and where it ends. That was a problem in the Corinthian church. It was a problem now among the Roman Christians,
and it has been a problem in the church ever since. So it’s that question that Paul is addressing
here in chapter 14 of Romans, and let’s spend a few minutes there. “Receive one who is weak in the faith but
not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but
he who is weak eats only vegetables.” Now, remember that you have that passage to
use as a club the next time your vegetarian friend tries to impose vegetarianism on you,
and you can remind them that they are the weaker brothers and sisters because they see
something wrong with meat. Paul is saying, in the body of Christ, you
have people that eat meat, and you have people that are vegetarians, and you don’t agree
on what is the best way to live your life. Now, Paul does identify here that the weaker
Christian is the one who has this particular sensitivity and scruple about a matter of
which God has not legislated. And so how are you to respond to the weaker
brother who has such a scruple. Well, Paul using this example here of eating
food and vegetables, “Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let him
who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.” Look, the person who is a vegetarian and a
Christian belongs to Christ. The person who is not a vegetarian and is
a Christian belongs to Christ. We both belong to Christ. How dare we judge one who is Christ’s servant? If we are to judge, we are to judge according
to the explicit standards set forth in sacred Scripture, not by scruples invented by human
traditions. Now, I don’t think it’s as bad today as
it was 50 years ago. But 50 years ago, evangelicalism was plagued
by a kind of spirit of legalism that said that if you’re a Christian, you don’t
drink, you don’t smoke, you don’t dance, you don’t play cards, you don’t go to
movies. Now, I’m sure those virtues still prevail
in certain places, but this became such a matter that one’s entire spirituality and
even Christian profession was to be judged by conformity to these specific no-no’s
or taboos within the Christian community. And you could go through your Bible, and you
can’t find anywhere in the Bible where it says you’re not allowed to wear lipstick,
or you’re not allowed to dance, or you’re not allowed to go to movies. There’s nothing explicit about that in Scripture. But these became so important that they became
the tests of one’s Christianity. You know, I’ll never forget the first time
I had the existential experience of that. I didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. I grew up in an extremely liberal church,
and when I became a Christian and went to seminary and graduate school and began my
teaching career, I was always the arch-conservative of any Christian gathering. But one of the things my wife and I liked
to do for relaxation during those days was to play bridge. In fact, we played in bridge tournaments. And nobody ever raised any spiritual questions
about that until I had an appointment to teach at a Christian college, and my first day on
the campus, I saw some students gathered there playing cards. And the cards looked different, and I said,
“What are you playing?” And they said, “Rook.” I said, “Oh, I remember that. We did that when we were eight years old. We used to play Rook.” And I said, “Well, what really is Rook?” And they said, “It’s the Christian card
game.” And then I discovered that it was a sin to
play bridge because the deck of cards had the Joker, and the Joker was a portrait of
the devil and all of that. And I listened, and I said, “What’s going
to happen to me. I’m the Bible teacher here, and my wife
and I play bridge. You know, where am I, Lord?” I had never encountered that. I had freshly come from the university campus
during the period of the SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society, where they provoked
the revolution of the decade of the 60s, beginning out there at Sproul Hall – my relatives
at the University of California didn’t know how to pronounce their own name – with the
free speech movement that began there. And then every college campus in the nation
was besieged by sit-ins and protests in the dean’s office and that sort of thing. And I had been on one college campus where
the students did a sit-in, and they declared that they had the right to determine what
courses they had to take to fulfill the requirements for their major. I was teaching philosophy, and these students
came in – they were freshmen – telling me that… what the curriculum should be to
major in that field. And I said, “What do you know about this
field?” And they knew nothing, but they demanded the
right to prescribe the curriculum. When I went to this other Christian college,
while I was there, they had a sit-in. They had a big student protest demanding the
right to have a jukebox in the student center. I said I’ve seen this. They weren’t allowed to go to movies. They weren’t allowed to do this and do that,
and I said these people are judging what Christianity is on the basis of this. I remember once a church meeting, we went
out to the… this lady had a Bible study, and she took us out for dinner to treat about
20 people, and the poor waitress in the restaurant came up with her pad and pencil, and she said,
“May I take your drink order?” And the lady said, “Oh no, nobody here drinks. We’re Christians.” I came so close, so close. I didn’t, but I wanted to order something
like a double scotch on the rocks, and I wouldn’t even know what that tasted like to tell you
the truth. But I… I was so embarrassed for this waitress, and
I was offended because she had just been rebuked by a well-meaning Christian, and her idea
now of what a Christian was, was somebody who would never have anything to drink with
their dinner. Is that what the gospel is? Is the gospel in eating and drinking? It’s not what the Apostle Paul is saying
here in this text, and yet there are many Christians who have been born and raised in
the churches and in their homes to believe it’s a sin to go to a movie, it’s a sin
to wear lipstick, it’s a sin to drink, it’s a sin to do this, it’s a sin to do that. They’ve been taught that it is a sin to
do things that God does not declare to be sinful. They are taught that the indulgence of certain
things that the Scripture describes as adiaphora are in fact a violation of the law of God. Now, here’s the dilemma. If I’m born and raised in an environment
that tells me that it is a sin for a Christian to go to a movie or to have a glass of wine
or whatever, and I believe it’s a sin to do that, and then I do it, is it a sin? Yes, not because the thing itself is sinful,
but what is sinful is doing something you believe to be sinful. That takes sin to do it. And that’s why as we’re all struggling
together with our backgrounds and our traditions and our love lines and all of this, that we
have to be exceedingly sensitive and careful for…. Going back to the Corinthian problem of meat
offered to idols, what happened in the pagan worship services, meat were… meat was used
to satisfy the demands of the gods and the goddesses, and after the religious ceremony
was over, that meat was then taken into the marketplace and was sold as meat. And Christians being sensitive to not wanting
any hint of scandal, no association with pagan religion, said, “I’m not going to buy
that stuff. That stuff’s been used and tainted by its
involvement in a pagan worship service.” What’s Paul’s view of it? Hey, it’s meat. There’s nothing wrong with the meat. It’s a difference between what we call primary
and secondary separation. Primary separation is where you separate yourself
from doing something sinful. You separate yourself from offering meat to
idols. That’s a sin. But if I decide I have to separate myself
from anybody else who has ever offered meat to idols or from the meat itself, that’s
what we call secondary separation. And to be consistent in the application of
the principle of secondary separation, you’re going to have to leave the planet because
no matter where you are and what you do and from whom you buy, you’re going to be dealing
at some level with people who are involved in sin. But again, the question that the apostle is
addressing is, how does the stronger brother, who knows that this is a matter that’s adiaphorous,
and is not something that is prescribed by God, deal with the brother or sister that
has this scruple? You can make fun of them. You can laugh at them. You can be all over them with criticism. Or you can respect their conscience, and you
can say, “Okay, I know that you have this scruple, and I don’t want to make you stumble
by trying to entice you to indulge in something that you are convinced is a violation of the
law of God.” Paul says, and I don’t think he’s just
being… using hyperbole, “I will give up meat altogether for the sake of my weaker
brother.” That is his attitude. If a person has a scruple that I don’t share,
and they have that scruple unto the Lord, and because their conscience is held captive
by their understanding of the things of God, I am to bend over backwards to be caring,
loving, sensitive to that person and not flaunt my liberty in their face. Paul says that person has their scruple and
they have it to the Lord. And if you have your freedom and you enjoy
your freedom, you do it unto the Lord. But you sometimes do it in private, so as
not to scandalize the weaker brother. So do you see that our liberty, the freedom
that has been given to us by God in the way in which we carry out our lives, is not a…
in an autonomy, whereby we’re allowed to do anything we feel like doing? But it is a freedom that must always be accompanied
by a charitable sensitivity to those who have scruples that are different from ours. That’s simple. But here’s where it gets complicated, and
that’s what the major subject I’ve been given to discuss, and that is, what happens
when the weaker brother wants to elevate the scruple that he or she has to the level of
a moral standard for Christianity or a standard that must be obeyed to be a member in good
standing, or a standard that becomes necessary to be obeyed in order to be an officer in
the church? Now what? Now the weaker brother becomes the legislating
brother and now begins to take the scruple that he or she has and uses it to bind the
consciences of the people and destroy Christian liberty. What do you do now? That’s one question. Another question that is close on its heels
is the question, who really is the weaker brother? How do you discern it? We have to be very sure that the standards
we impose upon people in the church are Biblical standards and not our own traditional scruples. I’ve known ministers who have required of
their elders that they must sign a pledge not to have any kind of alcoholic beverage,
including wine, ever, in order to be qualified to be an officer in the church, making a standard
in the church that would preclude the membership of the Apostle Paul and yes, of Jesus Himself. And of course, that same pastor will turn
around and tell you that this is a certain important matter because clearly the wine
that was used in the Bible was not fermented. It was non-fermented wine. Well, it’s not so clear. Jesus was not called a winebibber because
He drank Welch’s grape juice. Nobody worried about exploding old wine skins
by putting grape juice in them. It’s not grape juice that maketh the wine…
or that maketh the heart glad. It’s not grape juice that you take for your
stomach’s sake, and so on. The attempts to interpret the Biblical meaning
of the term oinos as grape juice are attempts at despair, where they have an example of
a cultural thing like we have in America forced upon the Scripture. You go to Palestine, and you say to those
people over there, that the grape, the vineyards and so on that were used in antiquity were
used simply to make raisins and grape juice, and they will laugh you to scorn and rightly
so. No doubt, a strong, vehement prohibition against
drunkenness, but we add to the standards of God. Now, here’s my problem. When the pastor imposes that standard that
I’ve just used as an example or any other such extra-Biblical standard on the church
or on the elders, can that minister claim to be a weaker brother? Ministers should not be weaker brothers. Ministers should be able to handle the Scriptures
in a way as to not be caught up in issues of whether you eat meat or are vegetarians. You should know better than that. Nevertheless, we do have weaker brothers who
are in positions of leadership and authority within the church, and we are not the first
generation to experience it. Let me take you for a moment back
to the Galatians, which we’ve heard so much about today. Let’s look at Galatians, chapter 2, verse
11, “Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face,” why?, “because
he was to be blamed.” Here we have a controversy between the two
titans of the apostolic community, between Peter and Paul, and not only that, but they
have this confrontation, and it’s not like Paul says to Peter, “Hey, Pete, pssst, can
I have a word with you privately about something?” He withstood Peter to his face, and not only
that, under the impetus of the Holy Spirit incorporates it in sacred Scripture for the
whole world to know that these two apostles had this confrontation. Now what was it about? “I withstood him to the face because he
was to be blamed.” Peter was blameworthy. “For before certain men came from James,”
– that is from Jerusalem – “he would eat with the Gentiles.” You remember the whole thing at Cornelius’
household and the vision and the making of the unclean foods, clean. And Peter was the one who receives this revelation. But not all the rest of the Jewish community
had been in on that abrogation of the dietary laws. And so Peter now when he’s with the Gentiles,
he’s eating freely, not suffering the Jewish dilemma of free ham. Boy, it is too close to lunchtime. “But when they came, that is the ones from
Jerusalem, he withdrew, separated himself fearing those who were of the circumcision,
and the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried
away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward
about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, ‘If you’re a Jew,
and live in the manner of Gentiles and not of the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to
live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature and not sinners
of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith
in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by
faith in Christ, not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law, shall no flesh
be justified.’” See now this question was not a simple matter
of scruples between believers over eating vegetables or eating meat or drinking wine
or not drinking wine. This whole matter had escalated into the Judaizer
heresy by which the Judaizers claiming to be Christians were reinstituting the requirements
of the dietary laws and that sort of thing, the ceremonial laws of Old Testament Israel
upon Christian believers. Now that Judaizing heresy was an error that
we could call a serious error of the weaker brethren. These Judaizers couldn’t live with the liberty
that Christ had given them from these Old Testament practices. And Jesus gave that liberty not simply out
of kindness and saying, I don’t want you to be bound by difficult things to obey, but
there were profound theological concerns there, the way of salvation itself. Paul is saying, don’t you see that if you
enforce circumcision again once the significance of circumcision has been fulfilled once and
for all in the death of Jesus Christ, who was circumcised in our place, being cursed
by God, that you are now placing yourself symbolically under all of the terms of the
old covenant that have already been fulfilled by Jesus, and you’re crucifying Christ afresh. So now it’s not just a matter of little
scruples. It’s the matter of the gospel. Later on, in Galatians, he writes in chapter
5, verse 7, “You ran well.” – past tense. “Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion did not come from Him who
called you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that
you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is. And if I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision,
why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. And I could wish that those who trouble you
would even cut themselves off.” Listen, do you hear how harsh the apostle
is being here? Those of you who are troubling you with the
doctrine of circumcision, I wish they would be circumcised literally, cut off from the
presence of God. “But you, brethren, have been called to
liberty. Only do not use your liberty as an opportunity
for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word,
even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you bite and devour one another, beware
lest you be consumed by one another,” – back again to sensitivity to the weaker brother
and the prohibition against biting and devouring one another over these insignificant matters. But do you see what happened? The Judaizers were coming to Paul and insisting
that he circumcise Titus, and what did Paul do? Well, if you fellows there in Jerusalem have
a scruple about this, I’ll accommodate you, and I’ll circumcise Titus in a religious
manner. No, as soon as the weaker brother tried to
enforce his weakness as the law of the church, the gospel was threatened. And now rather than deny his own Christian
liberty, the Apostle Paul fought tooth and nail against the tyranny of the weaker brother. As soon as somebody has that scruple by which
their conscience bound to themselves tries to go beyond themselves and make it the rule
of the church, they must be resisted. They must not allow… not be allowed to establish
laws where God has left us free. You know, the understanding of these principles
I don’t think are difficult intellectually. The application of them in real life situations
takes the wisdom of Solomon and then some. We apply the Word of God and the love of Christ
that is shed abroad in our hearts, not simply to tenaciously hold on to our own liberty,
but to protect the gospel while being patient and gentle with those who are young in the
faith, young in their understanding, but at the same time not allow people to tell waitresses
in the things, “Oh, we’re Christians. Christians don’t do that.” That’s not true. I didn’t say anything, and I was embarrassed
that I didn’t say anything. But you understand what I’m saying? And ask yourself, do you impose rules and
regulations in your church where God has left people free? We need to be very careful about that for
the sake of Christ and for the sake of His little ones. Let’s pray. Father, thank You for the grace by which we’ve
been saved, and for the liberty that has been given to us by the Holy Spirit. Oh, God, give us hearts that seek not so much
to be free of Your law but to love Your law and to serve You in obedience. For we understand that if we love You, we
are to obey Your commandments. But give us the wisdom to discern between
Your commandments and the commandments of men. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
