Romans 14:20

The asyndeton between Romans 14:19-20 proves how acutely the apostle is alive to the responsibility of the strong: destroy the work of God! In Romans 14:14, where it was personal pain, wounding, which was referred to, the apostle spoke of making the brother himself perish. Here, where the occasioning of a scandal is the matter in question, he does not speak any more of the person, but of the work of God in the person.

It matters not that food is free from uncleanness in itself; it is no longer so as soon as man uses it against his conscience. Rückert has taken the word κακόν, evil, as the attribute of a verb understood: “ Eating becomes evil for the man who does it against his conscience.” Meyer prefers to take from the preceding proposition the understood subject τὸ καθαρόν, what is clean in itself: “Even the food which is clean of itself becomes evil when it is eaten thus.” But it seems to me simpler to make κακόν the subject: “ There is evil (sin) for him who eateth in such circumstances.” Διὰ προσκόμματος, in a state of scandal. On this use of the διά, comp. Romans 2:27. Is the reference to the strong man, who eats while occasioning scandal, or to the weak brother, who lets himself be drawn into eating by succumbing to the scandal? Evidently the second. Paul is not speaking here of the evil which the strong believer does to himself, but of that which he does to his brother carried away into sin.

We may be astonished to find the apostle regarding the salvation of the weak as compromised by this one trespass. But is not one voluntary sin interposing between Christ and the believer enough to disunite them, and if this sin is not blotted out, and the state is prolonged, to plunge him again in death?