Romans 14:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The Apostle said this not to one of the two parties, but to both, since it was timely to say it to each. Then, after the words "peace and joy," he added, "in the Holy Spirit," since peace and joy can also exist in evil deeds. The man who has destroyed his brother has violated peace and joy, and has wronged him more than if he had stolen money from him. What is still worse, another saved him, while you offend and destroy him. And since food and supposed perfection do not bring one into the Kingdom, but lead to what is opposed to that Kingdom, how can one fail to despise the lesser thing in order to establish the greater?

He says it was to show that the man who does not abstain from pork wrongs his brother concerning the salvation that Christ acquired for him by His death. Therefore, on the opposite side, the man who abstains for his brother's sake keeps righteousness, which bestows the eternal Kingdom.

The Lord censures anxious worldly care as hindering the acquisition of the kingdom of God. The holy Apostle Paul sets forth another cause that also hinders it, when someone uses food or drink as a scandal and stumbling block to his neighbor. He threatens such a person with punishment, saying: "It is evil for a man who eats with offense" (Rom 14:20).

To the ancient Christians this Apostle gave such counsel: "It is good neither to eat meat nor to drink wine, nor to do anything by which your brother stumbles or is scandalized or becomes weak" (Rom 14:21). The holy Fathers of the councils, condescending to human weakness, apart from the fasts, forbade the use of meat only on two days of the week, Wednesday and Friday. This was in remembrance of the betrayal and sufferings for us of Christ the Savior.

But in the present time many Orthodox Christians despise and violate even these two days by imitating the non-Orthodox. Yet one can scandalize one's neighbor not only by meat food or wine, but also by the disorderly and untimely use of every other food and drink. In either case one must repent and amend, lest the evil with which the Apostle threatens overtake us.

The word of God speaks both of the kingdom of God and of the kingdom of heaven. What is the difference? The worthy receive the kingdom of heaven after death, in the future life. Those who firmly believe and are diligent acquire the kingdom of God even in the present life within themselves, in their soul and heart, according to what is said in the Gospel: "The kingdom of God is within you" (Lk 17:21).

The humble Niketas Stethatos writes in the Philokalia that those who have inwardly acquired the kingdom of God in this life have a free passage into the kingdom of heaven. But for those who have not acquired it in this life, the passage into the future life is with fear.

Blessed is the one who prepares himself here for a free passage into the kingdom of heaven. May all of us receive this by the ineffable mercy and love for mankind of Christ our Savior, Who for our sake willingly suffered, died on the Cross, and rose on the third day. Amen.

How and by what is the kingdom of God acquired within us? According to the apostolic word, it is acquired first by righteousness. This consists in fulfilling the commandments of God and in a merciful and compassionate disposition toward neighbors.

Second, it is acquired by peace with neighbors, peace from passions, peace with one's conscience, and peace with God through repentance and humility. When a Christian compels himself to order himself in this way, he will receive the help of grace.

With the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, he will rejoice amid afflictions themselves. He will firmly believe the apostolic word, that "affliction works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope does not put to shame." He will believe that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us" in the future life. He will believe that "through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of heaven."

The humble Niketas Stethatos writes in the Philokalia that those who have inwardly acquired the kingdom of God in this life have a free passage into the kingdom of heaven. But for those who have not acquired it in this life, the passage into the future life is with fear.

Blessed is the one who prepares himself here for a free passage into the kingdom of heaven. May all of us receive this by the ineffable mercy and love for mankind of Christ our Savior, Who for our sake willingly suffered, died on the Cross, and rose on the third day. Amen.

Then, when the hour of your departure from this life comes, you will already have in your heart a sure pledge and, as it were, the beginning of future blessedness. This comes in mysterious communion with the Lord, in His grace-filled drawing near to your heart. True, "the Kingdom of God does not come with observation" (Lk 17:20). One should not seek grace-filled consolations insistently, for we must never consider ourselves worthy of them. Yet the Lord promises His followers, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest" (Mt 11:28). Do you wish to feel with the feeling of the heart this inward rest with the Lord? Remember that only the pure in heart shall see God. Therefore labor to cleanse your heart of everything that can defile it. Keep the commandments of Christ. Bear with joy whatever cross God sends. Above all, strive to acquire childlike humility, childlike simplicity and guilelessness, and childlike devotion to the will of God, according to Christ's word: "Unless you become as little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Mt 18:3). Be a faithful son of your mother, the Church. Then even on earth you will know in your heart what the Kingdom of God is. You will feel its power and enter through its gates. "Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

"Do you suppose," says Chrysostom, "that this will be reckoned to you as merit? Elsewhere he says the same: 'Neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse' (cf. 1 Cor 8:8). Here there is no need to prove anything, but only to state it. The meaning of the apostolic words is this: if you eat, will this bring you into the kingdom?"

What, then, brings one into the kingdom? What are its blessings? What serves as a sign that someone belongs to its heirs? "Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." "A virtuous life, peace with one's brother, and joy arising from concord" (Chrysostom). "True righteousness in peace and love, concord and zeal, by which gladness according to God is begotten, acquire the kingdom for us" (Blessed Theodoret).

Righteousness is not only justification and remission of sins. It is inward righteousness, which has cast every unrighteous thing out of the heart and implanted in it right feeling and right thought. From these come right speech and right action. In a word, it is holiness, ready for every good work and strong to accomplish it.

Peace is a peaceful ordering within oneself, in thoughts and feelings, as a result of deliverance from the troubling passions of self-pleasing. It is peace descending from above and overshadowing the soul with the sense of God's good pleasure.

This is guarded by the consciousness that nothing unrighteous has been voluntarily allowed. It gives boldness to look joyfully toward the all-bountiful God. It is also the peace of love with all the brethren, making one soul of all. It enriches each with the sense of the power of such a life, composed of all lives joined in a peaceful union of hearts.

Joy is not something sensory. It is detached from all sensory things and detaches us from them. It does not carry one outside oneself, as usual joy does, but deepens one within oneself. There the heart is given to taste the gladdening blessings "which eye has not seen" (1 Cor 2:9).

From this unceasing tasting joy flows forth, which cannot be purchased by anything else. Joy is inseparable from life, but true joy exists only in spiritual life. Psychic and sensory life have only fleeting joys, always troubled and unpeaceful.

True joy belongs inseparably to spiritual life because this life is established only through union with the all-blessed God by His grace. The all-blessed God pours unceasing joy into the heart that is livingly united with Him by faith, love, and hope.

All this is in the Holy Spirit. Although in the Apostle the phrase "in the Holy Spirit" stands in connection only with joy, in the nature of the matter not joy alone, but also peace with righteousness, is only in the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives "all things that pertain to life and piety," and therefore makes a man righteous. The Holy Spirit tears our spirit out of the mouths of psychic and bodily passions. By establishing peace within, He keeps it in peace with God and the brethren.

The Holy Spirit also gives joy. Immediately after turning to God, He gives it only as a foretaste and enticement. After purification from the passions, He gives it as a constant, or more or less constant, tasting.

Then the perceptible action of the grace of the Holy Spirit begins in the heart. Spiritual sweetness is inseparable from it, and joy is inseparable from this sweetness. From this it follows that righteousness, peace, and joy, in their true meaning, exist only in Christians. Among Christians, they exist in those in whom the gift of grace has been kindled.