(Verse 9.) For to this end Christ both died, and rose, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. Through Christ the Lord the creation was made; and it was estranged from its Maker through sin, and made captive. That His work might not perish, God the Father, sending His Son from heaven to earth, taught it by doing what it might escape the hands of the pirates. For this reason He also suffered Himself to be killed by His enemies; so that, going down to the underworld, since He had been killed though innocent, He might make sin guilty, so that it should lose those whom it held in the underworld. Since, then, He showed the living the way of salvation, and offered Himself for them, and set the dead free from hell, He is Lord of the living and the dead alike; for out of the lost He has again shaped them for Himself as His servants.

(Verse 10.) But why dost thou judge thy brother in long not eating? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother in eating? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. He teaches that one ought not to judge in this matter: both because it is not contained in the Law, and besides, since we await God as judge.

(Verse 11.) For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God (Isaiah 45:23). This is written in Isaiah: that every tongue shall confess to God in the faith of Christ. For since, having been killed, He rose again to be the judge to come, He rightly says: “As I live, saith the Lord; and not only do I live, but I am also going to judge, and my enemies will be astonished at me and bow the knee, recognising me as God of God.”

(Verse 12.) So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. “Since,” he says, “we are each to give account for ourselves, let us not condemn one another in this matter which has been written of above.”

(Verse 13.) Let us not therefore judge one another any more: that is, knowing this, let us cease from discord. But judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. He warns that we should judge in what profits, in what can be defended even by the authority of the law; but let there be no offence to any of the brethren, whether he eats meat or does not.

(Verse 14.) I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing common through him. It is plain that all things are clean by the benefit of the Saviour, who, rescuing men from under the yoke of the Law and justifying them, gave back to them the state of their former liberty, so that they are worthy to use the whole creation, as the saints of old did too. But for those who are still under the Law it is not lawful to use or to eat what the Law forbids, because they spurn the indulgence that has been given. For these things are unclean not by their nature, but when they are eaten against the decree. Thus in the Law it says: They shall be unclean unto you, and so on (Leviticus 11:4). But to him that esteemeth any thing to be common, to him it is common. Whether one who has become a Christian from the Jews, or a believing Gentile, thinks that anything of this kind is to be avoided, he is the one whom he calls weak above; for he is weak in doubting. To him that is unclean which he thinks is not to be eaten; and since he does this not out of superstition but out of fear, he is to be left to his own judgment.

(Verse 15.) But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. In another epistle he says: Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them (1 Corinthians 6:13). Since no one either pleases or displeases God by food, he therefore warns that charity is to be followed, by which God deigned to set us free; for so he says: But God, for his great love, had mercy on us (Ephesians 2:4). He, then, who is mindful of this benefit cultivates charity and puts nothing before it; but he passes over even the greatest things which he knows do not procure the promise with God. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died. How much a brother’s salvation is worth is known from the death of Christ. So he who knows how much it cost ought to strengthen him, not offend him: making for him, out of a trifling matter, a scruple, so that one who perhaps was eating simply, secure in his conscience, begins to hesitate whether meat is to be eaten or not. But when disputes come in, he will begin, through his perturbation, to sin against God’s creation, and it will turn to an injury of the Creator, which will lead to the perdition of the one who doubts.

(Verse 16.) Let not then our good be evil spoken of. That is, the Lord’s teaching, since it is good and saving, ought not to be blasphemed through a trifling matter; and it is blasphemed when there is doubt about God’s creation. It can also be understood thus, that our good is blasphemed: because if one who has good works is reproved in some other very small matter, he darkens that good of his, and his good will begin to be blasphemed because of his evil; as it is written in Ezekiel: The righteousness of the righteous shall not profit him, if he go astray (Ezekiel 33:12). It is as if someone handsome should perhaps have some blemish on his forehead, or a broken nose, by which his beauty is disfigured. And therefore he warns that those things are to be followed which do not take away favour from the rest of one’s good things.

(Verse 17.) For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It is plain that no one pleases or displeases God through food. But righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. He says that those enter the kingdom of God who follow righteousness, but having the Christian peace which the Lord gave, saying: My peace I give unto you, peace I leave with you (John 14:27); from which arises joy in the Holy Spirit. But dispute has no joy, but anger; therefore the Holy Spirit does not look there, for He rejoices only in the peaceable. For as He is grieved by us, so too He rejoices in us.

(Verse 18.) For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. Since Christ has redeemed us, he therefore says: He that in these things serveth Christ, as Redeemer, is acceptable to God. Why? Because He sent Christ to redeem the human race, as the Lord Himself says: He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him (John 5:23). He, then, who pleases God is approved by men. How? For he has received the gift through which he is seen to be worthy of God.

(Verse 19.) Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and keep towards one another the things wherewith one may edify another. Since dispute breeds discord, he therefore teaches that, so that we may be peaceable, we should pass over the question of eating or not eating. And he exhorts us to follow the way of edification, so that we may confer peaceably on those things by which we may edify one another, turning aside from things that are unfruitful, and rather harmful. For conference can profit, since it rouses the mind — provided the desire to win is despised; for this is what breeds strife.

(Verse 20.) For meat destroy not the work of God. Man is the work of God by creation, and again he is the work of God when he is re-formed by regeneration. And food is the work of God; but man is not for the sake of food, but food for the sake of man: there is a great difference, then. Therefore, he says, do not undo this work of God, which is glorious, for the sake of what is most lowly. This is to be zealous for a brother’s salvation, not to be concerned about food so as to grieve a brother. For he makes void the benefit of God who, by dispute, provokes again to sin a brother set free from sin, undoing in him the works of Christ which He wrought to free man from sin. All things indeed are pure. It is true and plain that all things are clean, since in Genesis it is read that all things which God made are very good (Genesis 1:31). But it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. Though, then, all things are by nature good and clean, yet to those who doubt they become unclean; and it will be a stumbling-block to him who, though he doubts, yet eats with an unclean conscience, since he does what he thinks unprofitable for himself. Therefore no one is to be contradicted in what he follows in this matter.

(Verse 21.) It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine. Though the question concerned meat alone, he added drink as well, to comfort those who abstain from these things, by the fact that it is lawful both to eat meat and to drink wine. Lest they should be grieved by those who use these things, he gave them the comfort of a breathing-space, so that they might both rest in their own will, and the dispute through which discord arises might cease. For when it is not unknown that it is good to eat meat and drink wine, and on the other hand they learn that it is good not to eat meat and not to drink wine, no one quarrels. For the creation has been given for the use of those who wish it; yet no necessity has been laid on either the willing or the unwilling. Nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. He says the same: that no question ought to be raised with a brother who has set himself a weak mind about eating; lest, being troubled, he stumble, not knowing what to hold.

(Verse 22.) Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. That is, you who sit secure, because God’s creation is good, need not judge of another; for it is a greater thing that you have peace with your brother, for this is profitable with God. For in food is the profit of the flesh, but in peace that of both flesh and soul; and for this reason one must cease from disputes of this kind, so that each one may remain in the resolve of his heart. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. He judges that each one is to be condemned by his own judgment who does what he says he ought not to do; and that he is happy who does nothing other than what he approves as profitable for himself.

(Verse 23.) And he that discerneth is damned if he eat. It is true: he who judges that it should not be eaten, and eats, is condemned; for he condemns himself when he does what he declares to be unprofitable for him. Because he eateth not of faith. Certainly he does not eat of faith who says it should not be eaten, and eats. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. He rightly calls sin what is done otherwise than one has approved. Since the Romans had been brought into the law, as I mentioned at the beginning of the epistle, and when there came those who believed more rightly, questions were raised about eating meat and not eating it, and that party of them which said it should be eaten and not disapproved seemed the better, since all things are very clean — he calls weak those who said it should not be eaten, whether from the Jews or from the Gentiles, and says they should be left in the resolve of their heart. For not eating does no harm, nor does eating profit, in respect of God; lest, constrained by some force of argument, they should sin by eating — yet with scruple.