Romans 14:4

‘Who are you who judges the servant of another? To his own lord he stands or falls. Yes, he will be made to stand, for the Lord has power to make him stand.'

And, indeed, if God has received someone, what right has man to pass judgment on him? For just as a servant is answerable only to his master (lord), so also the Lord's servants are answerable only to Him. In neither case, therefore, is it justifiable for one servant to judge the other, because both are servants of God, and each stands or falls before Him with regard to his own behaviour. It is to Him that they will give account. Furthermore, Paul assures them, each will stand firm in the truth, regardless of their weaknesses, because ‘the LORD' has the power to make them stand firm. He is watching over them all.

The passage from now on continually refers to ‘the LORD' without making clear whether it is ‘God the Father' or ‘the LORD Jesus Christ' Who is being spoken of. Certainly in Romans 14:9 it is Jesus Christ Who ‘lords it over' the dead and the living, thus confirming that ‘the LORD' in Romans 14:8 must be Jesus Christ. And in Romans 14:14 Paul refers to Jesus as ‘the LORD, Jesus'. This would suggest the probability that it is Jesus Christ Who is being referred to in every case (even in the citation). We have seen previously how easily Paul could refer Scriptures which spoke of ‘the Lord', to the LORD Jesus Christ (e.g. Romans 10:11). And this could be seen as confirmed by the fact that Paul's favourite word in Romans is ‘God'. That being so we might expect him to use it where he could.