Whatever Does Not Proceed From Faith

Paul ends his word to the strong and the weak with a sentence that reaches further than food: "But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it isn't of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:23).

Nothing is unclean in itself (Rom 14:14). The meat does not damn the man. Therefore the condemnation is not in the thing. The condemnation is in the man: he ate doubting, and his own conscience testified against him as he ate.

Hear the order of the chapter. "Let each man be fully assured in his own mind" (Rom 14:5). "He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks. He who doesn't eat, to the Lord he doesn't eat, and gives God thanks" (Rom 14:6). Faith is the ground of both. Remove the faith, and the same act that was worship becomes sin.

Because conscience is God's witness inside the man. They "show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them" (Rom 2:15). A man may silence teachers and dismiss preachers. He cannot dismiss the witness God placed within him. When he acts against it, he condemns himself before any man speaks: "Happy is he who doesn't judge himself in that which he approves" (Rom 14:22).

Therefore conviction is not a burden on the Christian life. It is a compass for it.

Yet the compass is not the map. Conscience can be weak (1 Cor 8:7), and some are "branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron" (1 Tim 4:2). Conscience must be taught, and the Word teaches it: "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2). The compass answers to Scripture. Where conscience accuses beyond the Word, the Word corrects it. Where the Word is silent and conscience binds, the man is bound — to himself, until the Word frees him.

Paul kept this aim in himself: "I also practice always having a conscience void of offense toward God and men" (Acts 24:16). He named the pairing: "holding faith and a good conscience." Some, having thrust conscience away, "made a shipwreck concerning the faith" (1 Tim 1:19). The two sink together or swim together.

And the aim of the whole charge is this: "the goal of this command is love, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith" (1 Tim 1:5).

But who gives a good conscience? Not the man. The blood of Christ will "cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Heb 9:14). God draws His people near, "having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb 10:22). The compass itself is a gift. Christ washes what He commands us to keep.

So do not argue a man out of his conviction to win a point. Do not act against your own to win approval. Whatever is not of faith is sin (Rom 14:23) — and whatever is of faith, however small the act, is received by God, for it is done to the Lord (Rom 14:6).