Romans 14:8

Romans 14:8

I. What is meant by this strange word "unto"? We live "unto the Lord." It seems to impart at once into the phrase an air of unfamiliarity if not of actual unreality. I will try and explain this. The right and full understanding of it indeed would make any one a master of St. Paul's philosophy, but some understanding of it we all may win.

II. We have very close relations with each other. No one saw more clearly than St. Paul that religion was bound to take these relations into account, to illuminate and sanctify them. Christ's religion is above all others the religion of humanity. But St. Paul knew very well that the religion which is based only on men's relations to one another would be a very imperfect one; for there is a third element in religion which must never be absent, and that is God. By the word unto,live untothe Lord, St. Paul embodies the relation between these three great elements. Live, he says, and perform all your duties to society and to one another; and the way to do so is to live unto the Lord. You are to live with men, for men, but with your thoughts reaching out unto God. These real personal relations between your individual soul and God are not to be sacrificed to your duties to one another; nay, more, you cannot live as St. Paul bids you live, until you live unto God, with your eyes and thoughts and prayers turned to Him.

III. Consider how a real living obedience to the command to live unto the Lord would affect our lives here in our present society. (1) To live means with us all to work. Work in one form or other occupies a large part of our lives. Do you not think it would make a great difference to any man if he felt that all his work was done unto the Lord, not unto men? It would make his work trustworthy; discontent would have no place; consciously superficial work would be impossible, for our work is done for the eye of our Master in heaven. (2) Again, think what dignity it adds to labour. We are working under our Master's eye, and no work that He gives us is petty or uninteresting. (3) An honest endeavour to grasp this conception is the greatest possible help against positive downright sins; it gives calmness, hopefulness, and the courage of a soul at rest.

J. M. Wilson, Sermons in Clifton College Chapel,p. 52.

I. Note, first, that St. Paul feels and acknowledges the difference that separates the fundamental question of the faith of Christ from those of merely subordinate importance. That Christ, the commissioned Son of God, and Himself God manifest in the flesh, is the sole hope of the believer, exclusive of all reference to human merit; that if man will be just before the living God, it is only in and through Christ that he can be accepted as such; that His work is a complete work, to which man can add nothing, but from which man receives everything; that this is the cardinal fact of the religion which God brought from heaven to earth, and that in this, as in a germ, is enfolded the whole glorious story of eternity, St. Paul insists, reiterates, enforces. But in minor differences of view the principle of charity, wrought by the belief of the main and fundamental, is the guiding star.

II. The "Lord" here spoken of is at once Christ and God. Unto Him, as Christians, we are called upon to live; He who is the principle of our spiritual life is also made the object of it, as the vapours of the ocean supply the rivers that return unto the ocean itself. Unto Him, as Christians, we are called upon to die; He who died for us is made the object of our death likewise. To live unto God is but to return Him His own right in the human heart, to concentrate on Him those affections which originally were formed for Him alone. What is it but to know that even while this shadowy world encompasses us there is around and above it a scene real, substantial, and eternal a scene adequate, and at this moment adequate, to answer all the ardent longings of our bereaved souls a scene in which every holier affection, widowed and blighted here, is to be met and satisfied? To live in this belief, this hope; to read in the death of Christ death itself lost in immortality; to make the God of the New Testament the friend, the companion, the consoler of all earthly sorrow; to feel the brightest colours of ordinary life fade in the glory that shall be revealed, this is to live the life that heralds the immortality unto God.

W. Archer Butler, Sermons,2nd series, p. 17.

The Christian Idea of Life.

I. "To the Lord we live; to the Lord we die." That idea of life is founded on the great truth expressed in the previous verse "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." In one aspect that is a universal and inevitable law. We are not separate beings, linked only together by outward ties or for selfish purposes. We are not lonely men floating in the stream of time, just now and again in transient companionship with our fellows. Our life is, and must be, part of a larger life, the life of humanity; for by mysterious chains of influence we are bound to each other and to the world. Now, Paul says that what all other men must do unconsciously the Christian does consciously. Unable to live entirely for himself, he chooses not to live for himself at all. He gives the law its highest meaning in voluntarily dedicating his life and death as one perpetual offering to God, and living thus, he lives most nobly as a blessing to society.

II. The motive by which this consecration may be realised. This is given us in the verse which follows our text: "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be the Lord both of the dead and living." It is from Christ's lordship over life, therefore, that the inspiration springs by which we are enabled to dedicate our whole lives. There are two aspects of this lordship. (1) By the power of His love Christ is Lord over our voluntary life. Among our fellow-men we recognise a kinghood of souls. There are those whom we reverence as spiritual leaders, to whom we yield a loving homage. We rejoice to look up to those greater spirits for guidance and help, and in a sense they reign over us. But far more profoundly is this true with regard to Christ. (2) The second aspect is Christ's lordship over the inevitable events of life. All things are given into His hands. He is King over our whole histories. Our disappointments, failures, sorrows, "death's agonies and fears," are known to and sympathised with by Him. Does not this form a glorious inspiration to surrender?

E. L. Hull, Sermons,2nd series, p. 74.

References: Romans 14:8. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 162.Romans 14:9. Parker, Hidden Springs,p. 332; R. S. Candlish, Sermons,p. 266; S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble,p. 204; R. S. Candlish, Sermons,p. 266. Romans 14:10. Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 165; Todd, Lectures to Children,p. 62; F. W. Robertson, The Human Race,p. 134; Parker, City Temple,vol. ii., p. 289. Romans 14:11. Plain Sermons,vol. iv., p. 259. Romans 14:12. E. Garbett, Experiences of the Inner Life,p. 74; H. P. Liddon, Advent Sermons,vol. i., p. 383; R. W. Church, Church of England Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 365; H. W. Beecher, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 131; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. viii., p. 245; Outline Sermons to Children,p. 217; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 347. Romans 14:16. W. Ince, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 344.