Ah, sweet freedom.
Christian liberty gives us the right to opinion, to do whatever we see fit in our lives, right?
Well, don’t be so quick to adopt that thought “freely” 
I’ve given this quite a lot of prayerful thought and study, and I feel urged to share with others what I’ve learned about the concept of Christian liberty. I come with a loving, growing, and maturing spirit in all boldness with patience, gentleness, and respect as charged in passages such as 2 Timothy 4:2 and 1 Peter 3:15. Grace and peace to you all.
The Scripture used for Christian liberty is found in Romans 14. I most recently saw a reference to Romans 14 and Christian liberty in regard to celebrating Halloween, but this goes so far beyond.
In fact, I’ve seen many people over the years use Romans 14 to justify a plethora of actions, traditions, and practices (with the line of “if you’re convicted it’s sinful for you, it’s sinful; if it’s not, it’s not.” Sounds a lot like relativism to me). I’ve seen people with the mindset, “If I throw a little Jesus into it, that makes it righteous” (ex. cross or Scripture tattoos, celebrating Halloween with trunk or treat at the church building, etc..). But, friends, this is wrongful, dangerous thinking.
By now some may read this and think, “Well, that’s what Romans 14 is all about: Liberty in Christ. You’re being legalistic!” They’ll bring up verses such as, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (verse 5b) or “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean” (verse 14) in order to say, “As long as I do not feel convicted that it’s sinful or unclean and feel at peace about it, I am living faithfully and righteous. Everything is permissible in regard to opinion and things not pertaining to doctrine” (taking 1 Corinthians 6:12 out of context). This is where that forced justification comes in, and we need to go back to the foundation for clarification.
So, I went to Romans for deeper study.
Before we even tackle the passage itself, we need to have an understanding of the proper context of Romans—its background.
Romans is a letter written from Paul to the Christian church in Rome. Like his other letters, he uses moral exhortations (paraenesis). I will refer to several quotes from my ESV Study Bible about this, the first being that Romans “reads as much like a theological treatise as it does a letter.”
*treatise – “a systematic exposition or argument in writing including a methodical discussion of the facts and principles involved and conclusions reached” (Merriam Webster).
Romans’ focus “on Jew-Gentile issues suggests that tension existed between Jews and Gentiles in the church in Rome. The Roman church probably began as a Jewish church…it is not difficult to imagine that tensions would develop between law-observing Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians who lived free of the restrictions in the Mosaic law” (ESV Study). THIS IS CRUCIAL TO CONSIDER when using proper exegesis. I’ve mentioned it before, but— for review—exegesis “is the careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning” (Fee and Stuart 23).
With this in mind, we also need to take into consideration that this is a letter. Letters are communication either in reply to a previously-received letter or an initiation of a correspondence, and Paul used letters to correct, rebuke, exhort, instruct, and encourage, since he wasn’t physically in his recipients’ presence to guide them. After the opening of his letter (the greeting), he goes into his thesis statement (the main point or basis of the letter).
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
“Righteous” here is dikaios in Greek, meaning “approved of God, acceptable to God” (Blue Letter Bible), and “faith” here is pistis in Greek, meaning “conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it” (Blue Letter Bible).
So, if we look at the thesis statement broken down, understanding the “why” behind the letter, we can see that there is “righteousness that God both demands in obedience and offers as a free gift in Christ” (ESV Study). Trusting God. Living by faith. Living out one’s faith (the actions we display and the words we utter [i.e. the fruit we bear] reflect those of the Father, Son, and Spirit, as we walk by His Spirit, not the flesh).
Once we have a proper understanding of the reason for Romans, its context, we can get a better idea of how to properly interpret the passage of chapter 14.
Back to the topic of Jew-Gentile issues. This is what spawns Romans 14.
The ESV Study offers a great note on this:
“Paul addresses a specific dispute, probably over whether Christians need to abide by Jewish food laws. Paul clearly sides theologically with the ‘strong’ (who did not feel compelled to follow those laws), but he encourages them not to despise or scandalize the ‘weak.’”
This summation of Romans 14 coincides with the original context (the Jew-Gentile issues), therefore making it an accurate interpretation. The food laws are those which were deemed unclean vs. clean in the Mosaic covenant. Likewise, the issue of the observance of a special day is approached. The “day that is supremely in view is certainly the Sabbath” (ESV Study). These are the two main subjects: clean and unclean foods and the Sabbath.
*A similar issue can also be seen addressed in Paul’s letter to those in Corinth, of 1 Corinthians 8—where he offers guidance over food sacrificed to idols.
Now let’s breakdown the weak and the strong. Those strong in the faith are maturing and have more theologically-sound understanding. Strength and maturity in the faith have nothing to do with age, but with obedience, as genuine Christians continuously transform and grow in sanctification and wisdom.
Paul touches on spiritual maturity in other letters as well:
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
“Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.”
As do other authors:
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.”
The mature learn what, exactly, freedom in Christ looks like.
To further explain:
I attended a conference with my youth group last year. The speaker, Jeff Walling, explained that in Christ we have “freedom from” and “freedom for.” There are “many kinds of freedom that come with salvation in Christ and with the presence of the Holy Spirit (the mark of the true convert): that is, freedom from condemnation, guilt, sin, death, the old covenant (makes you think of those quarrels about food and the Sabbath we are discussing!), and blindness to the gospel” (ESV Study). We have freedom from a list of dos and don’ts—Mosaic law. We have freedom from being a servant of sin; it is no longer our master. Back up a few chapters in Romans, and you’ll see Paul addresses this in regard to righteousness as well in Romans 6. Here, on the other hand, we also see what we have freedom for—to no longer be slaves of sin (freedom from) but to become slaves of righteousness (freedom for). “The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life,” says Paul in 6:22. We have freedom for Christ, for a new life sanctified and living consecrated to Him. As I’ve mentioned before, consecration “is the flip side of repentance. In repentance one turns away to God from what is wrong; in consecration one gives oneself to God for what is right. Both terms express the same ‘no’ to the siren-songs of sin and the same ‘yes’ to the saving call of Christ” (Packer 129). We have freedom for serving Christ, making Him the Master, Owner, Lord of our lives. We have freedom for obedience. We have freedom for being holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). We have freedom for being set apart from the world, the profane, the wicked. And we know the limits of our freedom. We do not use our freedom to justify sin—to keep sinning. If that’s the mindset, one needs to recheck where they stand with Christ.
“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom (liberty) as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery…For you were called to freedom (liberty), brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. “
So, taking everything discussed into deliberation, Romans 14 was never meant to justify worldly actions, traditions, and practices today (modern, redefined Christian liberty). Romans 14 speaks specifically to Jewish, Old covenant laws, not Halloween or tattooing or whatever one wishes to excuse by misusing Christian liberty. Romans 14 is offering freedom from observing Jewish law (doing/performance); it is not freedom for allowing (condoning) one to live how they please.
What’s more is that participating in worldly, fleshly traditions and practices hinders our witness to unbelievers, causes weaker believers to stumble (also addressed in Romans 14 and other passages of Scripture, such as 1 Corinthians 8 and Luke 17), and waters-down or destroys our representation of Christ as His ambassadors. We are called to be set apart. Holy. Sanctified. This means having NOTHING to do with fruitless deeds of darkness (Ephesians 5:11) and living not by the flesh, but living by the Spirit—our minds set on things above, on Heaven, homeward bound. Walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5). Think of whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable (Philippians 4:8).
Those in Jesus’ time did a lot of paganistic, worldly things (to their bodies, rituals, traditions, etc.), just like many do today, but Jesus didn’t participate in or condone those things to build rapport with them. He was their friend, yes, but as a true friend, He was quick to tell them to repent and leave their lives of sin (John 8:11/ Luke 5:32/ Mark 8:34) and follow Him as The Way (John 14:6). He spoke truth, sometimes pretty harshly to the “religious” (Luke 11:37-54/ Matthew 23). We as the church today are called to be set apart from the fleshly, worldly ways. So please keep all this in mind when broaching the subject of Christian liberty. True love gives people The Truth they need, not the lies they think they want.
I want to leave this final quote:
“ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” – Jesus (Matthew 11:19 TNIV)
References
“Treatise.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treatise. Accessed 24 Nov. 2021.
Fee, Gordon, and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth. Zondervan,2003.
Packer, J.I. Great Grace. Servant Publications. 1997
Today’s New International Version Bible. (2006). Zondervan
All Scripture (unless otherwise noted): English Standard Version Bible. 2021. BibleHub.com and
English Standard Version Bible. 2016. Crossway
Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1342/esv/mgnt/0-1/ and https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4102/esv/mgnt/0-1/