"Liberty in Christ"

Paul continues with Christian morals, with emphasis on love as the guiding principle as mentioned in Romans.13:10. In chapter 14:1-9, Paul is trying to show us how far we are to go in love for our brethren, the believers, even curtailing our liberty in Christ.

We are to accept a Christian whose faith is weak as he is. One’s faith in Christ could be weak, especially if that person is a beginner or a recent convert. Such people will be assailed with doubts as to whether what they are doing is right or wrong, and whether they are exposing themselves to hell fire by doing something or not.

In such a situation anything a mature Christian, whose foundation in Christ is strong, does or says will influence them tremendously, either for good or for bad. It could lead the beginners to backslide or get hurt extremely. So, we need to be careful.

Paul takes up eating. In Christ we have the liberty to eat anything, as long as we like it and it is not injurious to our health. Different types of meat, egg, dairy and dairy products, cereals, pulses, beans and peas, vegetables, greens, fruits, everything is good to eat. There is no taboo.

Imagine a new believer, a babe in Christ, who has recently come to know and accept Christ as the Lord, either from a Hindu Brahmanical background or Jain background. Such people are used to eat only vegetables and not meat. For them, eating meat is indulging in killing animals, which is a cruel thing to do.

It will be a shock for such a person to be in the company of a Christian, who is gorging himself on, let’s say red meat or a chicken leg. In his weak faith, that new Christian, may feel revolting and very upset, that he could say, ‘if this is Christianity, I don’t want to be in it’ and backslide to his former religious faith.

So, what do we do? A mature Christian would avoid shocking the sentiments of his new brother in Christ, and go vegetarian to keep company with that person, even though he knows that In Christ, he has full liberty to eat what he wants. That would be acting in love.

Again, we are not to judge anyone by what he eats or what he does not eat. Instead of calling a vegetarian as ‘grass-eater,’ as we normally do, we are to respect their dietary preferences and be considerate. Similarly, a vegetarian need not look down on a meat-eater, and try to butcher the butcher, as it is happening in India these days. That is heights of intolerance and love nowhere being seen.

It is love that should motivate our dealings with one another, whether vegetarians or non-vegetarian. We have no rights to criticize or condemn the other.

For it is God who has accepted the person, whether he eats one thing or the other. In Christ there is liberty, but that has to be tempered with love. A servant is answerable to his master alone. Here that master is Christ, and all of us being the servants of Christ, we have no right to judge another person. Let that person stand or fall as he is judged by his Master. That right belongs to God alone.

Even if someone is falling, as we understand it, God is able to make that person stand. What we can do is to be understanding and loving towards such persons. We need to show a tolerance based on respect for the other person’s convictions, as long as the main conviction that Christ is the only Master and Lord is given and accepted.  

Taking another example, Paul deals with significance given to days by different persons. In Paul’s days the Jews adhered to the special significance given to Sabbath day and all the observances surrounding that established by tradition. May be a recent convert from Judaism, still followed such traditions. A mature Christian knows that all days are created and made by God and as such every day is an important day as much as any other day. But there is no need to clash on this.

We in India are familiar with Hindu neighbors and colleagues observing ‘ragu kala,’ and ‘shanithosha’ and even ‘vastu.’ While we know that these are all unwarranted and totally illogical, for our own Scripture teaches no such thing, we need to be tolerant to such behavior in a ‘babe in Christ’ and at the most, with lots of love and compassion explain to them the unreasonableness of such observations.

Paul says the one who is observing a special day and the other one who is not, are all doing it to honor the Lord whom they are worshiping. It is the same Lord and Savior Christ, whom they are all worshiping. So also, is the case with eating, whether one eats meat or not. We eat to glorify the Lord and eat after giving thanks to the Lord and the Provider of all.

In each such behavior we need to be fully convinced in our minds that we are doing the right thing for the Lord. Everyone is responsible to God for his convictions. The convictions approved by the Lord are to be adopted, but finally It is the Lord who will judge it all.

The important principle is none of us live for ourselves alone or die for ourselves alone. We live or die to the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to the Lord. We do not lead an isolated life. It is all interconnected to one another and to Christ. In life or death, we belong to Christ. In life, we live in His presence and in death we enter His presence even more.

Christ died and was resurrected to life, so that he can be the Lord of the living and the dead.  We can never escape His presence either in this world or the other, where He will be the judge. The point that Paul is making here is that each one of us is accountable to God and Christ the Judge, so we are not to judge the other person.

We can be only true to our own convictions, and be sure that these convictions are based on biblical truth and not on mere traditions and superstitions, for we are answerable to Christ in whatever we do.

The Lord enable us to be strong in our convictions based on the truth of the Scripture.

Amen.