Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Romans 14:5

The Apostle passes from the question of food to one of essentially the same kind the religious observance of days. This is generally regarded as quite independent of the other; but Weiss argues from Romans 14:6, where the text which he adopts in common with most editors seems to contrast “him who observes the day ” with “him who eats,” that what we have here is really a subdivision of the same general subject. In other words, among those who abstained from flesh and wine, some did so always, others only on certain days. “To observe the day” might in itself mean to observe it by fasting this would be the case if one's ordinary custom were to use flesh and wine; or it might mean to observe it by feasting this would be the case if one ordinarily abstained. Practically, it makes no difference whether this reading of the passage is correct or not: Paul argues the question of the distinction of days as if it were an independent question, much as he does in Colossians 2. It is not probable that there is any reference either to the Jewish Sabbath or to the Lord's Day, though the principle on which the Apostle argues defines the Christian attitude to both. Nothing whatever in the Christian religion is legal or statutory, not even the religious observance of the first day of the week; that observance originated in faith, and is not what it should be except as it is freely maintained by faith. For ὃς μὲν see Romans 14:2. κρίνει ἡμ. παρʼ ἡμέραν means judges one day “in comparison with,” or “to the passing by of” another: cf. Romans 1:25, Winer, 503 f. Side by side with this, κρίνει πᾶσαν ἡμέραν can only mean, makes no distinction between days, counts all alike. In such questions the important thing is not that the decision should be this or that, but that each man should have an intelligent assurance as to his own conduct: it is, indeed, by having to take the responsibility of deciding for oneself, without the constraint of law, that an intelligent Christian conscience is developed. For πληροφορείσθω cf. Romans 4:21, and Lightfoot's note on Colossians 4:12. νοῦς (Romans 7:23) is the moral intelligence, or practical reason; by means of this, enlightened by the Spirit, the Christian becomes a law to himself.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Romans 14:5

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