“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” -Romans 14:17–19
Whoever thus serves Christ means whoever apprehends what the kingdom of God is and what it is not, and then approximates his life and actions to that knowledge is acceptable to God and approved by men. In other words, those who have a real consciousness of having been justified by faith in Christ and therefore is at peace with God and filled with a joy that could have only been imparted by God’s Holy Spirit (Cf. Philippians 4:7) is acceptable, yea, pleasing to God. He will also, because of his disposition of peace and joy, naturally appeal to his fellow man’s expectations and receive his approval.
Calvin’s comments on this passage are most instructive:
Wherever then there is righteousness and peace and spiritual joy, there the kingdom of God is complete in all its parts: it does not then consist of material things. But he says, that man is acceptable to God, because he obeys his will; he testifies that he is approved by men, because they cannot do otherwise than bear testimony to that excellency which they see with their eyes: not that the ungodly always favour the children of God; nay, when there is no cause, they often pour forth against them many reproaches, and with forged calumnies defame the innocent, and in a word, turn into vices things rightly done, by putting on them a malignant construction. But Paul speaks here of honest judgment, blended with no moroseness, no hatred, no superstition.
So then, says Paul, armed with this knowledge, let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual edification rather than pursuing our differences of opinions regarding days and diets.
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