Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 14:12

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

12. every one of us ] Because the prediction (finally to be fulfilled when Messiah finally triumphs) emphatically speaks of “ every knee, every tongue.”

give account of himself] “Himself” is, of course, emphatic. The Christian is dissuaded from “judging” by the remembrance that his Judge will ask him hereafter for his own “peculiar book [46] ,” not for his neighbour’s.

[46] The phrase is borrowed from Herbert’s pregnant little poem, “Judgment:”“Almighty Judge! how shall poor wretches brookThy dreadful look,Able a heart of iron to appal,When thou shalt callFor every man’s peculiar book?“But I resolve, when Thou shalt call for mine, That to decline;And thrust a Testament into Thy hand.Let that be scann’d;There Thou shalt find my faults are Thine.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

So then – Wherefore; or according to the doctrine of the Old Testament.

Every one of us – That is, every Christian; for the connection requires us to understand the argument only of Christians. At the same time it is a truth abundantly revealed elsewhere, that all men shall give account of their conduct to God; 2Co 5:10; Matt. 25; Ecc 12:14.

Give account of himself – That is, of his character and conduct; his words and actions; his plans and purposes. In the fearful arraignment of that day every work and purpose shall be brought forth, and tried by the unerring standard of justice. As we shall be called to so fearful an account with God, we should not be engaged in condemning our brethren, but should examine whether we are prepared to give up our account with joy, and not with grief.

To God – The judgment will be conducted by the Lord Jesus; Mat. 25:31-46; Act 17:31. All judgment is committed to the Son; Joh 5:22, Joh 5:27. Still we may be said to give account to God,

1. Because He appointed the Messiah to be the Judge Act 17:31; and,
2. Because the Judge himself is divine.

The Lord Jesus being God as well as man, the account will be rendered directly to the Creator as well as the Redeemer of the world. In this passage there are two incidental proofs of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. First, the fact that the apostle applies to him language which in the prophecy is expressly spoken by Yahweh; and, Secondly, the fact that Jesus is declared to be the Judge of all. No being that is not omniscient can be qualified to judge the secrets of all people. None who has not seen human purposes at all times, and in all places; who has not been a witness of the conduct by day and by night; who has not been present with all the race at all times, and who in the great day cannot discern the true character of the soul, can be qualified to conduct the general judgment. Yet none can possess these qualifications but God. The Lord Jesus, the judge of quick and dead 2Ti 4:1, is therefore divine.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 12. Every one of us shall give account of himself] We shall not, at the bar of God, be obliged to account for the conduct of each other-each shall give account of himself: and let him take heed that he be prepared to give up his accounts with joy.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Here you have the end of our standing before the judgment-seat of Christ, which is to give account: see Mat 12:36; 1Pe 4:5. He saith:

Every one of us shall give account, whether he be great or small, strong or weak; and that he shall give account of himself; i.e. of his own actions, and not anothers. He shall give account of himself in his natural capacity, as a man; and in his capacity, as a rich or great man; and in his religious capacity, as one that hath enjoyed such education, such means of grace, &c.

Objection. Pastors must give account for their flock, Heb 13:17.

Answer. Pastors shall give account of their negligence, and want of care, whereby they suffered their sheep or flock to miscarry; but every particular sheep also shall give account of his own personal wanderings.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. So theninfers theapostle.

every one of us shall giveaccount of himself to GodNow, if it be remembered that allthis is adduced quite incidentally, to show that CHRISTis the absolute Master of all Christians, to rule their judgments andfeelings towards each other while “living,” and to disposeof them “dying,” the testimony which it bears to theabsolute Divinity of Christ will appear remarkable. On any otherview, the quotation to show that we shall all stand before thejudgment-seat of God would be a strange proof that Christiansare all amenable to Christ.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

So then everyone of us,…. this is the conclusion, drawn from the foregoing account of things, that there will be a general judgment, that Christ will be Judge, and all must appear at his bar; from whence it necessarily follows, that every man, and so every Christian, strong or weak, whatever may be his gifts, talents, and abilities,

shall give an account of himself to God; that is, to Christ, who is God; which is another proof of his deity, for he will be the Judge, the Father will judge no man; it is before his judgment seat all shall stand; and therefore the account must be given to him by every one, of himself, and not another; of all his thoughts, words, and deeds, which will be all brought into judgment; and of his time and talents, how they have been spent and used; and of all his gifts of nature, providence, and grace, how they have been exercised for the glory of God, his own good, and the good of others: the formal manner in which this will be done is unknown unto us; however, this is certain, that the saints will have upon this reckoning, in what sort soever it may be, a full and open discharge, through the blood and righteousness of Christ. The Jews q, say, in much such language as the apostle does, that

“when a man removes out of this world, then

, “he gives an account to his Lord”, of all that he has done in the world.”

q Zohar in Gen. fol. 49. 3.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Shall give account ( ). So Aleph A C rather than of Textus Receptus. Common use of for account (bookkeeping, ledger) as in Lu 16:2.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1 ) “So then every one of us,” (are oun hekastos hemon) “So therefore each one of us”; This is the conclusion of the matter, as members of the Lord’s church, as his identified, committed people of worship and service. Tho we be not under the law of Moses, we are not free to do wrong without suffering consequence of wrong, if the wrong be by sin of omission or commission, Jas 4:17.

2) “Shall give account of himself to God,” (peri heautou logon dosei to theo) “Concerning himself, will give an account (a dossier) to God;” a record or ledger of life is before God, on each person’s conduct of life. Each must acknowledge its accuracy one day, Act 17:31; 2Co 5:10.

This “shall give account of himself”, to God, is a future absolute for every man; Blessed is that person who has an Advocate to stand for his defence in that hour, even Jesus Christ, 1Jn 2:1-2; Heb 7:25.

See also Mat 12:36; 1Pe 4:5; Ecc 11:9.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

12. Every one of us, etc. This conclusion invites us to humility and lowliness of mind: and hence he immediately draws this inference, — that we are not to judge one another; for it is not lawful for us to usurp the office of judging, who must ourselves submit to be judged and to give an account.

From the various significations of the word to judge, he has aptly drawn two different meanings. In the first place he forbids us to judge, that is, to condemn; in the second place he bids us to judge, that is, to exercise judgment, so as not to give offense. He indeed indirectly reproves those malignant censors, who employ all their acuteness in finding out something faulty in the life of their brethren: he therefore bids them to exercise wariness themselves; for by their neglect they often precipitate, or drive their brethren against some stumblingblock or another. (425)

(425) The two words, πρόσκομμα and σκάνδαλον, mean nearly the same thing, but with this difference, that the first seems to be an hindrance or an obstacle which occasions stumbling or falling, and the other is an obstacle which stops or impedes progress in the way. See Mat 16:23. The two parties, the strong and the weak, are here evidently addressed; the former was not, by eating, to put a stumblingblock in the way of the weak brother; nor was the weak, by condemning, to be a hindrance or impediment in the way of the strong so as to prevent him to advance in his course. Thus we see that forbearance is enjoined on both parties, though the Apostle afterwards dwells more on what the strong was to do.

The clause might be thus rendered, —

“

But rather judge it right to do this, — not to lay before a brother a stumbling-stone, or an impediment.” — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

12. Every one of us Of every party, whether judging or judged of each other. Each must come under the final scrutiny of God.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘So then each one of us will give account of himself to God.’

And at that awful judgment seat ‘each one of us will give account of himself to God’. The full transcripts of every moment of our lives will be opened, and we will be called to account. But those who are His will have One Who will confess their name before the Father, and Whose righteousness will be their covering. They do not fear condemnation. Their names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev 20:15). They will, however, receive both reward and reprimand for what they have done.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 14:12 . What follows from the preceding (from onward).

The emphasis is neither on (so usually) nor on (Philippi), but on the for that purpose prefixed, which corresponds to the emphatic , , , Rom 14:10-11 ; hence it alone bears the stress, not sharing it with . and (Hofmann). Each of us , none excepted, will respecting himself , etc. How at variance with this, therefore, to judge or to despise, as though one were not included in the subjection to this our universal destiny of having to give a personal account to God!

] purely future in sense, like the preceding futures.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

Individualism

Rom 14:12

Not, we shall give account of ourselves as congregations, councils, committees, boards of direction, organisations; but, as individual souls. We must be very careful, therefore, how we deal lightly or loosely with the doctrine and practice of individualism. Many men would be only too glad to pluralise themselves, and leave the responsibility with the other people. That is the danger of all combinations. A man who is really a man, and who is perfectly honest when trading with you face to face and alone, is not always so honest when he becomes one of a number. His individuality is multiplied, yet divided; it is increased, yet lessened: he is timid, he is not intellectually equal to the occasion he is not a debater, he has no gift of expression or criticism, and therefore he may allow things to be done which he would never think of doing in his own personal and private capacity and business. It is desirable to make this doctrine of individualism very clear, because to-day it has no favour in certain quarters. It is sneered at, it is frowned upon, it is altogether unpopular. One wonders why. Such unpopularity has no vindication that I can find in the Bible; and that which is without vindication in the Bible is to me always suspicious. On the contrary, I find in the Bible the doctrine of individualism taught in the clearest and directest terms “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” That is the consummation of the doctrine; that could not come in at the end if it had not come in at the beginning; this is the ripening or maturing of all that has gone before. This is a revelation of the plan upon which the universe is administered in one sentence, man by man, soul by soul, one by one: thus we die, thus we shall be judged. Therefore there must be in this individualism something that ought to be inquired into, deeply, devoutly, and practically, with a view to its application to our personal daily life.

Notice that there are various individual units. The radical unit is the one man; without that unit you cannot move. Then there is the unit of the family; a family may be spoken of as one a family, the family, this family. Then there is the unit of the nation; each nation has its own repute or character or credit or history. Then there is the unit of the world. All these are individualities, yet they all go back to the one man, the one soul, the personal judgment, the personal will, the personal conscience. If we are wrong there, we are wrong everywhere. Communism is sanctified and ennobled individualism. You cannot by putting a great number of corrupt individualities together make that which is clean, pure and divine. Unless, therefore, we get down to the radical unit and make that right and set it to work on proper principles we shall be wrong in the family, in the nation, and in the world. Let us remember the radical unit. Individualism may be abused. What is there that cannot be degraded? If men are condemning the abuses and corruptions of individualism, we of necessity go with them in all their condemnation: but we are not to condemn the instance at the expense of the principle. The doctrine is the same, and must be retained inviolate and applied fearlessly and impartially, though there may be instances, on the one side or the other, apparently confirming or contradicting that principle. We have nothing in the meantime to do with the mere instance; we are engaged now in fixing our thought intently upon the doctrine that, without personal individuality of character, we cannot have anything that is noble and beneficent in the family, in the nation, or in the world.

There is a debased individuality even in religious circles. That is a fault I have to find with some communions and churches. They are almost always of necessity talking about themselves, their own statistics, their own progress, their own funds, their own figure before the world. That is a debased instance of communal or congregational individualism. Then I have also to find fault with men, individual men, who, as the common phrase is, play for their own hand. They do not consider the case which they deal with broadly, in all its relations and issues. They must of necessity consider each himself how he will stand, how he will be totalled up in the schedule. This is not individualism, this is mere selfism; this is cultivating selfish vanity and aspiration at the expense of all that is holiest in spiritual ambition. There is also a true individuality; in this sense, individualism is the security of co-operation; individualism in this sense is the security of society. Corrupt men can never hold themselves together except for the one chance, the immediate occasion, and transient condition; they will fall foul of one another: individually corrupt, they cannot be socially noble. My contention, therefore, is that individualism, ennobled and sanctified, is the security of society, and that society is impossible without such individualism. Hence we have the grand doctrine and practice of personal responsibility. There is no transfer of obligation from one man to another. This is a trick we may adopt amongst ourselves; but in the sight of God the practice will be put down with infinite judgment and rebuke, and will be condemned to everlasting darkness. We say, It was my brother: it was my fellow-minister: it was my co-director: it was my partner in business. But God will not have it so. He will say to us, You ought not to have had any one in your reckoning that could vitiate the process, that could interfere with the responsibility. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God,” and that miserable and detestable partner of yours, who is always interfering with your great schemes, he must be named. You have never named him, you have referred to him as a figure behind the arras; you must name him, and in his own personality he must be burned in the fire of hell. Thus I contend that individualism may be debased, and thus I further contend that individualism may be ennobled. I am advocating the ennobled individualism; and that individualism must of necessity recognise the individual rights of other men. If you find an individualism that denies rights to other men, that individualism is foul, corrupt, debased; it is not the individualism we are seeking to promote. I repeat that by the very necessity of the case when the individual is right he must recognise the rights of other men. What have we then? This recognition is the very secret of co-operation; this recognition keeps the waters of life sweet and pure. I must give what I claim. Do I claim the right of private judgment? I must concede it. Do I claim to act in the fear and sight of God in all matters concerning myself? I must allow that other men are as honest and high-minded as I claim to be.

What have we, then, in this development and application of individualism? Why, we have the true communism, the real, healthy, permanent brotherhood. Any other combination is a sham, and must end in failure. Whatever is not based upon individual conviction and regulated by individual conscience is a truce, a compromise, an expedient for the time being, a process of giving and taking that may end to the detriment of moral integrity. Thus we set up in the sight and fear of God a real, generous, noble, sanctified individualism. And thus, and thus only, can we come to fraternity. The mischief is that so many persons imagine we cannot have unity unless we have uniformity. That is the vicious fallacy that enfeebles and debases so much of political and ecclesiastical reasoning. Individuality knows nothing about uniformity. Yet individuality claims to grow up into the highest unity. Life is multifold. Life is not a brick-built wall; life is a garden, a forest, a landscape; the landscape may be one, though every field is different in geometric form and every tree is distinct from every other tree on all the green undulation. When will men recognise the difference between unity and uniformity? Some persons cannot be persuaded that we are making any progress until we all walk alike, and until we are all practically of the same stature, and until we are almost indistinguishable the one from the other. I have never known that to be the Divine law. The Scripture gives no sanction to any such interpretation of human nature and human fellowship. Let every man be himself. The Lord has given to one man five talents, to another two, and to another one; and nowhere does he say, Total them up into eight, divide the eight by three, and I will take an account of you for the integer and the fraction. He calls each man to account for his five talents, for his two talents, for his one talent. There is individuality, and yet there might have been unity in co-operation, in the one cheering the other, helping and appreciating the other. Lay down the fundamental doctrine that uniformity is man’s trick: unity is God’s purpose.

This idea of uniformity has ruined some sections of the Church. Some sections of the Church are nothing apart from their distinctiveness. Not where they are like others, but where they are unlike or individual their genius and their power begin. This uniformising has led to a great decadence in the power of the Christian pulpit. Men will have all preachers alike; they will have all sermons cast in one mould; they will have all begin at the same place, pass through the same process, end in the same consummation. That is not the Divine plan. I would have every minister be himself. There is no one man who is all other men. No minister is the ministry. Where then do we find unity? We find it in the fact and in the claim that the ministry of Christ is one. We are not individual preachers only. Each preacher represents what he can represent of what he has known, felt, tasted, and handled of the word of life. We must hear all the ministers before we hear the ministry. We are not all called upon to do the same work. The conception that every individual section in the Christian Church must go and do the same work in the same place is the ruin of co-operation, as well as of individuality. Suppose there are twenty sects in Christendom: are all these twenty sects to go down to one village in order to convert it or evangelise it? Nothing of the kind. I ask, what sect is there already? If it is an honest, true-hearted, hardworking sect, I will keep away. It may be my sect or it may be some other sect, but if the work is being done I am doing it, though I am not there, if I be really in sympathy with all Christian development and all Christian progress. I will go further and say, that nineteen of the sects must keep away from ground that is preoccupied, and they must send down to the men who have preoccupied it all the money they want. Have the Methodists got possession of that village? If so, send them what funds they need from the Congregationalists, from the Presbyterians, from the Baptists. We are nowhere commanded to go down twenty strong and divide a little population by our ecclesiastical contentions and differences. I would go further still: I would look around and examine whether, within my own communion, there are men who can do a certain kind of work. If I can find the men, I ought to support them in the first instance; but if I cannot find the men that are needed, within the boundaries of my own communion, I must look abroad and see who is doing the work that requires to be done, and though he may not fight under my particular ecclesiastical banner, he is fighting under the colours of the Cross, and must be sustained and supported by all Christian communions. Personally, I could not do a certain kind of work. It is something for a man to know the limitation of his faculty and of his responsibility. Other men can do it a thousand times better than I can do it. Have I therefore to go down and say, “I must do this particular work, whoever else is trying to do it or not trying to do it,” when I know I cannot do it? I will never follow so narrow and so base a policy. I believe the Salvation Army, for example, belongs to all the churches. In the fact that it belongs to none in particular, I find the fact that it belongs to all in general. If we are earnest Christian souls, each working where he can, and where he can do so best, we are part of the Salvation Army, and we ought to send our prayers and our gifts after it. We may be able to give money and not to give counsel; let us do what we can do, and leave undone what God never meant us to attempt. On the other hand, I believe that there is a work that the Salvation Army cannot do, that other men can do much better, a work of exposition and teaching and training and consolidating; let these men know their gift and calling of God, and carry out the Divine purpose conscientiously. Here we have individuality, and here we have community and co-operation; here we have unity, and, blessed be God, here we have nothing of uniformity. Understand that human nature is multiplex, many-sided, doubled and re-doubled with innumerable complications; understand that that fact necessitates a multifold ministry; some can do one thing and some can do another: let each do what he can do, or what it as a congregation or organisation can do, and God will bless us all.

When we get rid of this notion of organisation and uniformity, we shall be liberated, and shall go on our way rejoicing. If the Lord has made any two hundred or two thousand men all of the same size and all of the same pattern, and so alike that they do not know themselves and are always mistaking themselves for other people, then by all means let them unite and make what they can of themselves; I have never seen them, and never heard of them. Looking abroad upon society, and studying human nature in practical instances, I find that God seems to have taken a delight (with reverence be it spoken) in differentiating man from man, in giving each man a personality of his own; and he seems to say to us through great instincts and sympathies, Now you are very different, yet you may all be one; I mean you to be united; find the common measure, find the uniting line; and whilst retaining all your individuality enter into one another’s feelings and sympathies and activities, and whilst communising yourselves never forget your individuality. Hear this great voice sounding through all the corridors of history “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

It will be something if I have drawn your minds with any steadiness to the contemplation of the fact, that individualism may be abused, and if I can enforce upon your judgment and conscience the fact that I am not supporting an abused individualism, but an individualism that means personal thinking, personal conscience, personal service, personal obedience: and it will be still something more if I have begun to suggest to opening minds the great fact, that uniformity is a false standard of judgment, and that only by bringing all the individualities together do we get the right conception of the Church. This is my explanation or philosophy of denominationalism. Some men could not be Quakers. That is a melancholy fact, perhaps, but it is a fact in history. And the Quakers are beginning to find that they themselves can no longer be themselves, but must hobnob with the Philistines on the other side of the wall; they are becoming gay and frivolous, and curiously and inexplicably ecclesiastical. All men could not be Congregationalists, nor could all men be Presbyterians, or Episcopalians. I believe in all sects that are honest: grace, mercy, and peace be to them, yea, to all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. I do not deny the unity of the human race because no two men are alike; I do not deny society because every man has a way of thinking peculiar to himself. If any one communion gets up and says, “I can do all that is wanting to be done of a religious nature in this world,” I have no confidence in it; that communion has not recognised the fundamental fact of the difference between man and man, temperament and temperament, education and education, environment and environment. If my own sect should arise and say, I am sent of God to be the one Church of the world, I should leave it. It is a foolish and an impious claim. I want to hear each sect say, I have a work to do, my Lord sent me to do this particular kind of work; let me work side by side with you, if you please, and you will be doing your kind of work, I will be doing my kind of work, and we all belong to the one Master; and because we belong to the one Cross we are really one, though our methods of working and our progress and our policies are different in colour and in words. Some men seem to think that each Church must stand up and say, there is no other Church; as if Congregationalism must be put down because it cannot do all the religious work required by the world; and as if Anglicanism should be put down on the same ground. Nothing of the kind. Each has its sphere, each has its function; let each recognise this fact, and in that recognition there will be the beginning of union and the guarantee of harmony. There is an individualism that seeks its life and loses it; there is also an individualism that loses its life and finds it. In the Church I would make room for everybody. Have you a tongue? have you a prophecy? have you a psalm? There are diversities of administration, but the same spirit; there are manifold gifts, but the same Divine use of them: as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, yet all the members constitute the one body, so we, being many in Christ, constitute the whole Church of Christ. The Papists are in it, and the Quakers are in it, and all honest and godly souls are in it; and even the unclassified portion of men may be in it, without knowing it. “Other sheep,” said the great Shepherd, “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also must I bring.” “Them also” wondrous “also.” He will not rest until all who are even groping after him have felt his hand and seen his face.

Let us have no patched-up compromises one with another The man who has one talent is as much the servant of God as the man who has five; he must give an account of his one talent. The man who can work best in one pulpit and in one church is as much a servant of God as the evangelist who flies from continent to continent, and makes all the world his sphere of usefulness. The Sunday-school teacher who can only speak to two scholars at a time, because three would make too much of a public meeting, is as much a teacher of Christ’s kingdom, i in earnest and if enlightened, as if he could address ten thousand men in thunder-tones. Why will we not recognise these differences, and praise them not as mere differences; not construe them into hostilities, but regard them as individualities which total up into the great unity? The universe is one; etymologically, its very name signifies oneness, yet how wondrous in difference; what light and shade, what contrast of colour, what mingling and intermingling of voices, sounds, tones; what mountains and rivers, what hills and dales, what mystery of coming and going, what eternal processions and revolutions! Shall the universe break itself up into parts and say that some other part does not belong to the universe? Nay, verily: so must not we break ourselves up into a debased individualism: neither must we give up our individuality, and say, Other men shall think for us. If you examine this matter still further in the light of the history of religious organisations, you will find individuality everywhere. Even on a committee there is a man who determines the whole thing for you. He is not necessarily the greatest mind on the committee, but he is a capable man, he has had most opportunity of thinking about the business, forecasting it and arranging it, and if he does not always have his way he thinks himself hardly and cruelly used; and as nobody wants to use any other body cruelly he gets his way, and then denounces the idea of individualism! He will have none of it; not knowing that he is himself the most debased individuality in the organisation which he rules. There may be great show of freedom where there is really no liberty. A man may so nationalise himself as to include everybody, and yet when an individual comes to preach for me he may tap him on the head, and say, “Not to-day, sir!” And this is the man who is so magnificently nationalised that he knows nothing about your little sectarian limitations. Beware! In some breadths there is nothing but vacancy. Beware! sometimes intensity means reality of soul and conviction of purpose. However much we may pine for uniformity even, never forget that every one of us shall give account of himself, and of nobody else, to God. How can I prepare for that judgment? Only by being one with my Lord, who recognised all differences and reconciled all individualities; and who is drawing up unto himself all men that may find the fulness of the meaning of their manhood in his Deity. So we come back to the Cross; we always end on Calvary; to end otherwhere would be to be lost in the desert: to end here is to end in peace and gladness.

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee for the healing Christ. We all need healing; we are wounds and bruises in thy sight: Lord, touch us, heal us, make us strong. Thou art the giver of strength, thou art the fountain of power; we come to thee for renewal of energy; because thy compassions fail not we are made young again every morning. Every good gift and every perfect gift are thine, and thine only; we have nothing that we have not received: how then shall we return thanks unto God, who daily loadeth us with benefits? He healeth all our diseases, he makes us strong by the ministry of his love. We thank thee for all men who so far imitate the Saviour as to seek the healing of others; wherein they know not what they do they give thanks unto God; wherein they deny the very Master they serve, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; open their eyes that they may see, and show them that to heal is to pray, to do good is to love, to seek the higher benefits for men is to act in the spirit of the Saviour. We bless thee for all good institutions, all healing ministries, all hallowed forces and agencies, and we pray that they may be sanctified to the accomplishment of their holy purpose. The Lord cause the spirit of pity to dwell amongst us. If we pity one another we shall come to love God; if we love God we cannot help pitying one another: he who loveth God loveth his neighbour also; if he say he love God and do not love his neighbour, thou hast made him a liar, and thou hast accounted him as an offence in thy sanctuary. Help us therefore to know the right relations of things and to act lovingly and trustfully, knowing that the Lord is accomplishing an immeasurable and beneficent purpose in all the darkness and discipline and chastening of life. Good Lord, hear us for the sick, the troubled, and for those who are appointed to die. Are we not all so appointed? Yet some must die to-day, some tomorrow, and their death so sudden will bring great clouds upon the house. The Lord help such to believe that all is ordered, that there is an appointed time to man upon the earth, that not to know that appointed time is one of the blessings thou dost give unto thy children. Thus let the Lord hear us, and fill all heaven with a cloud that shall break in blessings upon our life. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Ver. 12. So then every one, &c. ] It was excellent counsel that the orator gave his hearers, Ita vivamus ut rationem nobis reddendam arbitremur. (Cic. IV in Ver.) Let us so live as those that must give an account of all at last.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12. ] The stress is on : and the next verse refers back to it, laying the emphasis on . ‘Seeing that our account to God will be of each man’s own self , let us take heed lest by judging one another ( here in the general sense of ‘pass judgment on,’ including both the of the strong and the of the weak) we incur the guilt of one another.’

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 14:12 . ( ): So then conclusion of this aspect of the subject: cf. Rom 5:18 , Rom 7:25 . Every word in this sentence is emphatic: , , , . For in this sense see 1Pe 4:5 , Heb 13:17 , Mat 12:36 , Act 19:40 .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Romans

THE LIMITS OF LIBERTY

Rom 14:12 – Rom 14:23 .

The special case in view, in the section of which this passage is part, is the difference of opinion as to the lawfulness of eating certain meats. It is of little consequence, so far as the principles involved are concerned, whether these were the food which the Mosaic ordinances made unclean, or, as in Corinth, meats offered to idols. The latter is the more probable, and would be the more important in Rome. The two opinions on the point represented two tendencies of mind, which always exist; one more scrupulous, and one more liberal. Paul has been giving the former class the lesson they needed in the former part of this chapter; and he now turns to the ‘stronger’ brethren, and lays down the law for their conduct. We may, perhaps, best simply follow him, verse by verse.

We note then, first, the great thought with which he starts, that of the final judgment, in which each man shall give account of himself. What has that to do with the question in hand? This, that it ought to keep us from premature and censorious judging. We have something more pressing to do than to criticise each other. Ourselves are enough to keep our hands full, without taking a lift of our fellows’ conduct. And this, further, that, in view of the final judgment, we should hold a preliminary investigation on our own principles of action, and ‘decide’ to adopt as the overruling law for ourselves, that we shall do nothing which will make duty harder for our brethren. Paul habitually settled small matters on large principles, and brought the solemnities of the final account to bear on the marketplace and the meal.

In Rom 14:13 he lays down the supreme principle for settling the case in hand. No Christian is blameless if he voluntarily acts so as to lay a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in another’s path. Are these two things the same? Possibly, but a man may stumble, and not fall, and that which makes him stumble may possibly indicate a temptation to a less grave evil than that which makes him fall does. It may be noticed that in the sequel we hear of a brother’s being ‘grieved’ first, and then of his being ‘overthrown.’ In any case, there is no mistake about the principle laid down and repeated in Rom 14:21 . It is a hard saying for some of us. Is my liberty to be restricted by the narrow scruples of ‘strait-laced’ Christians? Yes. Does not that make them masters, and attach too much importance to their narrowness? No. It recognises Christ as Master, and all His servants as brethren. If the scrupulous ones go so far as to say to the more liberal, ‘You cannot be Christians if you do not do as we do’ then the limits of concession have been reached, and we are to do as Paul did, when he flatly refused to yield one hair’s-breadth to the Judaisers. If a man says, You must adopt this, that, or the other limitation in conduct, or else you shall be unchurched, the only answer is, I will not. We are to be flexible as long as possible, and let weak brethren’s scruples restrain our action. But if they insist on things indifferent as essential, a yet higher duty than that of regard to their weak consciences comes in, and faithfulness to Christ limits concession to His servants.

But, short of that extreme case, Paul lays down the law of curbing liberty in deference to ‘narrowness.’ In Rom 14:14 he states with equal breadth the extreme principle of the liberal party, that nothing is unclean of itself. He has learned that ‘in the Lord Jesus.’ Before he was ‘in Him,’ he had been entangled in cobwebs of legal cleanness and uncleanness; but now he is free. But he adds an exception, which must be kept in mind by the liberal-minded section-namely, that a clean thing is unclean to a man who thinks it is. Of course, these principles do not affect the eternal distinctions of right and wrong. Paul is not playing fast and loose with the solemn, divine law which makes sin and righteousness independent of men’s notions. He is speaking of things indifferent-ceremonial observances and the like; and the modern analogies of these are conventional pieces of conduct, in regard to amusements and the like, which, in themselves, a Christian man can do or abstain from without sin.

Rom 14:15 is difficult to understand, if the ‘for’ at the beginning is taken strictly. Some commentators would read instead of it a simple ‘but’ which smooths the flow of thought. But possibly the verse assigns a reason for the law in Rom 14:13 , rather than for the statements in Rom 14:14 . And surely there is no stronger reason for tender consideration for even the narrowest scruples of Christians than the obligation to walk in love. Our common brotherhood binds us to do nothing that would even grieve one of the family. For instance, Christian men have different views of the obligations of Sunday observance. It is conceivable that a very ‘broad’ Christian might see no harm in playing lawn-tennis in his garden on a Sunday; but if his doing so scandalised, or, as Paul says, ‘grieved’ Christian people of less advanced views, he would be sinning against the law of love if he did it.

There are many other applications of the principle readily suggested. The principle is the thing to keep clearly in view. It has a wide field for its exercise in our times, and when the Christian brotherhood includes such diversities of culture and social condition. And that is a solemn deepening of it, ‘Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died.’ Note the almost bitter emphasis on ‘thy,’ which brings out not only the smallness of the gratification for which the mischief is done, but the selfishness of the man who will not yield up so small a thing to shield from evil which may prove fatal, a brother for whom Christ did not shrink from yielding up life. If He is our pattern, any sacrifice of tastes and liberties for our brother’s sake is plain duty, and cannot be neglected without selfish sin. One great reason, then, for the conduct enjoined, is set forth in Rom 14:15 . It is the clear dictate of Christian love.

Another reason is urged in Rom 14:16 – Rom 14:18 . It displays the true character of Christianity, and so reflects honour on the doer. ‘Your good’ is an expression for the whole sum of the blessings obtained by becoming Christians, and is closely connected with what is here meant by the ‘kingdom of God.’ That latter phrase seems here to be substantially equivalent to the inward condition in which they are who have submitted to the dominion of the will of God. It is ‘the kingdom within us’ which is ‘righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’ What have you won by your Christianity? the Apostle in effect says, Do you think that its purpose is mainly to give you greater licence in regard to these matters in question? If the most obvious thing in your conduct is your ‘eating and drinking,’ your whole Christian standing will be misconceived, and men will fancy that your religion permits laxity of life. But if, on the other hand, you show that you are Christ’s servants by righteousness, peace, and joy, you will be pleasing to God, and men will recognise that your religion is from Him, and that you are consistent professors of it.

Modern liberal-minded brethren can easily translate all this for to-day’s use. Take care that you do not give the impression that your Christianity has its main operation in permitting you to do what your weaker brethren have scruples about. If you do not yield to them, but flaunt your liberty in their and the world’s faces, your advanced enlightenment will be taken by rough-and-ready observers as mainly cherished because it procures you these immunities. Show by your life that you have the true spiritual gifts. Think more about them than about your ‘breadth,’ and superiority to ‘narrow prejudices.’ Realise the purpose of the Gospel as concerns your own moral perfecting, and the questions in hand will fall into their right place.

In Rom 14:19 two more reasons are given for restricting liberty in deference to others’ scruples. Such conduct contributes to peace. If truth is imperilled, or Christ’s name in danger of being tarnished, counsels of peace are counsels of treachery; but there are not many things worth buying at the price of Christian concord. Such conduct tends to build up our own and others’ Christian character. Concessions to the ‘weak’ may help them to become strong, but flying in the face of their scruples is sure to hurt them, in one way or another.

In Rom 14:15 , the case was supposed of a brother’s being grieved by what he felt to be laxity. That case corresponded to the stumbling-block of Rom 14:13 . A worse result seems contemplated in Rom 14:20 ,-that of the weak brother, still believing that laxity was wrong, and yet being tempted by the example of the stronger to indulge in it. In that event, the responsibility of overthrowing what God had built lies at the door of the tempter. The metaphor of ‘overthrowing’ is suggested by the previous one of ‘edifying.’ Christian duty is mutual building up of character; inconsiderate exercise of ‘liberty’ may lead to pulling down, by inducing to imitation which conscience condemns.

From this point onwards, the Apostle first reiterates in inverse order his two broad principles, that clean things are unclean to the man who thinks them so, and that Christian obligation requires abstinence from permitted things if our indulgence tends to a brother’s hurt. The application of the latter principle to the duty of total abstinence from intoxicants for the sake of others is perfectly legitimate, but it is an application, not the direct purpose of the Apostle’s injunctions.

In Rom 14:22 – Rom 14:23 , the section is closed by two exhortations, in which both parties, the strong and the weak, are addressed. The former is spoken to in Rom 14:22 , the latter in Rom 14:23 . The strong brother is bid to be content with having his wider views, or ‘faith’-that is, certainty that his liberty is in accordance with Christ’s will. It is enough that he should enjoy that conviction, only let him make sure that he can hold it as in God’s sight, and do not let him flourish it in the faces of brethren whom it would grieve, or might lead to imitating his practice, without having risen to his conviction. And let him be quite sure that his conscience is entirely convinced, and not bribed by inclination; for many a man condemns himself by letting wishes dictate to conscience.

On the other hand, there is a danger that those who have scruples should, by the example of those who have not, be tempted to do what they are not quite sure is right. If you have any doubts, says Paul, the safe course is to abstain from the conduct in question. Perhaps a brother can go to the theatre without harm, if he believes it right to do so; but if you have any hesitation as to the propriety of going, you will be condemned as sinning if you do. You must not measure your corn by another man’s bushel. Your convictions, not his, are to be your guides. ‘Faith’ is used here in a somewhat unusual sense. It means certitude of judgment. The last words of Rom 14:23 have no such meaning as is sometimes extracted from them; namely, that actions, however pure and good, done by unbelievers, are of the nature of sin. They simply mean that whatever a Christian man does without clear warrant of his judgment and conscience is sin to him, whatever it is to others.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

account = an account. App-121.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12.] The stress is on : and the next verse refers back to it, laying the emphasis on . Seeing that our account to God will be of each mans own self, let us take heed lest by judging one another ( here in the general sense of pass judgment on, including both the of the strong and the of the weak) we incur the guilt of one another.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 14:12.[148] , shall give) A gentle exhortation: let no man fly upon [seize] the office of a judge.

[148] , concerning himself) not any other.-V. g.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 14:12

Rom 14:12

So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.-This is the general conclusion from what has just been said. He impresses the thought that every man shall give account of himself. The revealed will of God will be the standard of judgment. They were, therefore, not to interfere with and annoy one another in matters indifferent, or untaught by God.

On matters indifferent God gave no instruction. When God by precept or example has given instruction in reference to a matter, this shows it is not a matter of indifference, but of divine appointment. For example, God has appointed the first day of the week for the observance of the Lords Supper. The observance of the Supper on that day is fixed. On no other day can the Supper be observed. But if one wishes to devote another day to the service of God in other ways-reading the word of God, praying, fasting-he is at liberty to do so; no one has a right to object. God has given no direction as to this. So God has ordained his church as the medium of doing his service and of spreading the gospel. This takes that away from matters indifferent and places it under divine enactment. Eating or not eating meat is placed among things indifferent.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Our Accountability

So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.Rom 14:12

1. When St. Paul says that each one of us shall give account of himself to God, he makes one of the most solemn statements that are to be found even in his Epistles. He is led into making it quite incidentally. He wants to lay down a principle, which would check the rash judgments that were common among Christians at Rome in his day regarding the private religious observances of their Christian neighbours. Some of the Roman Christians, it seems, were vegetarians; others ate anything that came in their way. Some of them observed private anniversaries; to others all days were pretty much alike. As yet the Church had not laid down any rule about these matters for Christians; and no individual Christian might challenge anothers liberty or judge anothers conduct. Why, asks the Apostle, dost thou judge thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Here is a solemn truth, which must have at once lifted the thoughts of the Apostles Roman readers above the controversies in which they were engaged, into a higher and serener atmosphere. Whatever food they ate or did not eat, whatever days they did or did not observe, one thing was certainthey would have to give an account of the act or the omission, as of everything else in their lives. Each one of us shall give account of himself to God.

2. The words are more than an assurance that there will be a Day of Judgment, and that at that Day of Judgment each one of us must be present. The Apostle seems to be suggesting that example, education, surroundings of life, holding the principles and opinions we do, and being what we are, must be taken into consideration before an accurate judgment can be arrived at. He, therefore, warns us to judge ourselves, about whom we may know everything, and to refrain from judging others about whom our knowledge must be imperfect. Why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.

The text tells us four things about our Accountability:

I.It is Universal. Each one of us.

II.It is Inevitable. Each one of us shall give.

III.It is Personal. Account of himself.

IV.It is Supreme. To God.

I

It is Universal

Each one of us shall give account.

There will come a judgment for all classes of persons, there will be a judgment for the strong brother who with his knowledge of Christian liberty went perhaps further than he ought to have gone. He judged himself to be right in the matter, but he must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ about it. There will also be a judgment for the weak brother. He who was so scrupulous and precise ought not to be censuring the other man who felt free in his conscience, for he will himself stand before the judgment-seat of God. No elevation in piety will exclude us from that last solemn test, and no weakness will serve as an excuse. What a motley throng will gather at that assize, of all nations and peoples and tongues! Kings and princes will be there to give in their weighty account, and senators and judges to answer to their Judge; and then the multitude of the poor and needy, and those that live neglecting God, and forgetful of their souls,they must all be there. It is a universal judgment.

1. Peer and peasant must give account. You may argue, It cannot be a great matter to me what is said in the Bible about the day of account; I am but a poor man, and have but few things committed to my care; I have neither houses nor lands, nor riches, nor worldly goods; I have no great talents to misuse; no opportunities of doing good to neglect; why, then, should I be afraid of the final reckoning? Surely the just God will not look for a harvest where He has sown no seed. Surely He will not require at my hands an account like that which may well be asked of the wealthy and the great. The argument is out of place and useless. Poor, humble, obscure as you are, you must give account.

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the chief captains and the mighty men, must see the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne. The Apostle Paul himself is one of us. Of all men the manliest, among philosophers claiming recognition beyond the multitude, of rhetoricians not the least, in grand revelation the peer of every apostle and of all seers, in character most strong, most confiding, pure, and powerfulthe Apostle Paul, standing far above the people in that which constitutes true stature, yet confesses himself to be one of usEach one of us.

Louis xv. had always the kingliest abhorrence of Death. He would not suffer Death to be spoken of; avoided the sight of churchyards, funereal monuments, and whatsoever could bring it to mind. It is the resource of the Ostrich; who, hard hunted, sticks his foolish head in the ground, and would fain forget that his foolish unseeing body is not unseen too. Or sometimes, with a spasmodic antagonism, significant of the same thing, and of more, he would go; or stopping his court carriages, would send into churchyards, and ask how many new graves there were to-day, though it gave his poor Pompadour the disagreeablest qualms. We can figure the thought of Louis that day, when, all royally caparisoned for hunting, he met at some sudden turning in the Wood of Senart, a ragged peasant with a coffin: For whom?It was for a poor brother slave, whom Majesty had sometimes noticed slaving in those quarters. What did he die of?Of hunger:the King gave his steed the spur. But figure his thought, when Death is now clutching at his own heart-strings; unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries or gilt buckram of stiffest ceremonial could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very life-breath, and will extinguish it. Thou whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality; sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity; Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul; the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all unkingd, and await what is appointed thee!

And yet let no meanest man lay nattering unction to his soul. Louis was a Ruler; but art not thou also one? His wide France, look at it from the Fixed Stars (themselves not yet Infinitude), is no wider than thy narrow brickfield, where thou too didst faithfully, or didst unfaithfully.1 [Note: Carlyle, French Revolution, i. 17.]

2. The religious and irreligious alike must give account. As Christians we must give account. The lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them (Mat 25:19). They have been justified by faith. They have been united to their glorious Head. They shall be saved (1Co 3:15), whatever be the fate of their work. But what will their Lord say of their work? What have they done for Him, in labour, in witness, and above all in character? He will tell them what He thinks. He will be infinitely kind; but He will not flatter.

The irreligious, the careless, and inconsiderate, must give accountthose who say to themselves To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. Too many go on always, nearly all do so at times, as if they were not really accountable. They just take the pleasure or the profit of the moment, and think no more of it; it is to them no more than throwing a stone into the water, which comes together again, and all seems as before.

3. Neither our heredity nor our circumstances will excuse us. The physiologist comes and he tells me that I inherit in my very blood, in the very structure of my brain, in the vigorous or feeble fibre of my nervous organization, the results of the vices and the virtues of a long line of ancestors. No doubt; but what do you mean by vices and virtues, the results of which I inherit? Are these names of honour and of dishonour, names of praise and condemnation? If there was vice in my ancestors, there may be vice in me. If there was virtue in them, there may be virtue in me. But where there is necessity there is neither virtue nor vice. This doctrine of heredity is no new discovery. It is true that the whole conditions of my life have been determined for me by my ancestors. My strength of muscle, the soundness of my heart and lungs, the limits of my intellectual capacity, have all been settled for me by my birth. And as the result of the moral character of my ancestors my moral life is one of comparative ease or of severe difficulty. But though the conditions of life have been determined for me, my life itself is my own, and that has not been determined for me. The material with which I should work has been given; the way in which I should treat it has not been given.

You tell me that there are great masses of men who have never had a chance of moral goodness. They have to give account of themselves without their chance, if that be so. God knows how large their chance was, and how small. Do not resent by anticipation the justice of the Eternal. He will deal with them according to their conditions. Virtue is impossible to them, you say. Yes, yours. And there are others who, as they look upon you, say Virtue is impossible to you. Their virtue is. And yet you and I, under the hard conditions of our life, can choose the better path, however feebly we may walk in it; and who but God can tell what glimmerings of light reach those who seem to sit in outer darkness?1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]

I suppose it does not altogether depend upon a man whether he will be a skilful workman or a clumsy workman. Some men are born with a flexibility and a strength of muscle, a keenness of eye, a delicacy of tasteor rather, with the possibility of achieving these thingsof which other men are naturally destitute, and to which they can never attain. But every man can do his best, whatever that best may be. It does not lie in our choice what language we shall speak, but it does lie in our choice whether we will speak the truth or whether we will be indifferent to the claims of truthfulness; whether our language shall be profane or devout, whether it shall be pure or impure. We had no choice into what kind of family we should be born,whether our parents, our brothers, our sisters, should be rough or gentle, just or unjust; but it lies with uswhether they are rough or gentle, whether they are just or unjustto treat them with justice and with kindness. The limits of our physical health and vigour are determined for us by the circumstances in which we were born, but it lies with ourselves to determine whether we will be sober or drunkards, whether we will be gluttonous or temperate.

When William Ellery Channing was a very little boy, his schoolmaster said to one of his school-fellows, Why are you not a good child like William Channing? Oh, replied the boy, it is so easy for William Channing to be good. We, perhaps, have looked round upon friends of ours to whom the conflict we have to maintain is altogether unnecessary. The foes we have to fight with they never meet. The victories which we have to win for ourselves were won for them generations ago by the ancestors whose blood is in their veins. Shall we complain? God forbid. Let us do for posterity what their ancestors have done for them, taking the rough conditions of our actual life, making the best of them, winning no praise from men for what we accomplishfor they know not the difficulty of the workrejoicing in this humbly and reverently, that we have to give account of ourselves to God.1 [Note: B. W. Dale.]

He fixed thee mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance,

This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:

Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.2 [Note: Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra.]

II

It is Inevitable

Each one of us shall give account

1. Every man must give account of himself to God. We will not render our account by our fears, or our sensitiveness, or our bad memories, or our dulness of conscience, or our false and artificial views of truth and duty. We shall give it; and yet He will receive or exact it in utter independence of us, He will read us off as being what we are, as being all that already He knows us to be. All the veils which hide us from each other, or from ourselves, will drop away before the glance of His eye. Even now there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Even now, all that each of us owes to Godwhat graces He has given to us, what dangers and sufferings He has spared usHe knows, and as yet He alone knows. But when we come to give in our account, we shall know too. A flood of light will be poured from His throne across the whole course of our lives, and into every crevice of our souls and characters.

From the outside standpoint judgment is the result of conduct: from the inner standpoint it is the result of character. Conduct is character unfolding itself; and character is the way a man thinks. From the one standpoint judgment is the fruit of mens deeds; from the other it is the fruit of their thoughts. Isaiah puts the same message thus: Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. Jeremiahs statement is the same, only carried a little deeper to its source. Our destiny is the fruit of our doings and the reward of our hands; and our doing is the fruit of our thoughts. The common feature of both messages is that judgment is not something superimposed on life, a sentence arbitrarily passed on a man. Punishment is not retribution exacted from a man by a superior power outside him; it is the necessary and inevitable consequence flowing from the condition. When will we learn that judgment is not arbitrary or incidental or capricious? It is self-registering, automatic, the harvest of our life. Conduct is the outgrowth of character; and character conditions destiny. The wages of being good is not some recompense added on like a perquisite to a salary. Its highest wages is goodness itself. The recompense of being holy is holiness; the reward of being pure is purity. The punishment of sin is itself, its own loathly, deadly self. The harvest of the flesh is itself, corruption. The penalty of a depraved mind is depravity. The retribution of an impure heart is impurity. Who will deliver us from the body of this death?1 [Note: Hugh Black.]

2. Whatever Gods verdict upon us may be, our consciences will have to affirm its justice. We shall see ourselves by His light, as He sees us, as we have never seen ourselves before. We shall know as never before what He meant us to be, what we might have been, what we are. All the illusions of our present life, all the fabrics of self-satisfaction built up by the kind words of friends or by the insincerities of flatterers, all the atmosphere of twilight which here encompasses our spiritual state, will have rolled away; we shall stand out in the light before the Eternal Judge and before ourselves, and we shall be ready to make full confession.

It is not that God is going to judge us some day. That is not the awful thing. It is that God knows us now. If I stop an instant and know that God knows me through all these misconceptions and blunders of my brethren, that God knows methat is the awful thing. The future judgment shall but tell it. It is here, here upon my conscience, now.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks, Addresses, 19.]

O Great Mercy of God, I beseech Thee deliver me from the Bonds of Satan. I have no Refuge in any Thing, but only in Thy Holy Wounds and Death. Into Thee I sink down in the Anguish of my Conscience, do with me what Thou wilt. In Thee I will now live or die as pleaseth Thee, let me but die and perish in Thy Death; do but bury me into Thy Death, that the Anguish of Hell may not touch me. How can I excuse myself before Thee, that knowest my Heart and Reins, and settest my Sins before mine Eyes? I am guilty of them, and yield myself unto Thy Judgment; accomplish Thy Judgment upon me, through the Death of my Redeemer Jesus Christ.2 [Note: Jacob Behmen.]

3. Confession is inevitable whenever we come into the presence of God. When we draw near to God and behold the light of His countenance the sense of our imperfection must be the instant emotion stirred in the mind, and the first actthe expression of this emotionmust be confession. For confession is not making something known to God. It is God making something known to us; it is God revealing us to ourselves, and our cry of pain at the discovery. It comes from the shock of contrast. To know ourselves we need the help of contrast. To know and see ourselves truly we need a much more searching light than that which comes from moral mediocrity. We need the highest light attainable, and that is the light of Gods countenance. Then the sombre recesses of the soul, and all they contain, reveal themselves; and so do its secret bypaths, where the unclean spirits have left their footprints. Confession must be the instant spontaneous product of the vision of God.

Are you ready with your account which you will have to render to God; have you kept one at all? Sometimes when men appear before a court they plead that they have no books, and it is always a bad sign. You know what the judge thinks of them. Can you dare to examine yourself, and answer questions? Can you give an account of your stewardship? Have you kept it correctly, or have you credited yourself with large things where you ought to have debited yourself? Your fraud will be discovered, for the great Accountant will read it through, and will detect an error in a single moment. Is your account kept correctly, and are you ready to render it at this moment?1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword;

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:

As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel!

Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;

Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.2 [Note: Julia Ward Howe, Battle-Hymn of the Republic.]

III

It is Personal

Each one of us shall give account. of himself.

1. It would not be difficult for many of us to give an account, more or less exhaustive, of others. We spend our time in thinking them over, talking them over, discussing them. We know, it may be, some true things about them; we suspect a great deal which is not true but utterly false. To some of us, it may be, this discussion of others presents itself as at once an amusement and a relief. It is an amusement, for it costs us nothing to dwell on their failings; and human nature, when we have no immediate stake in it, is always amusing. And it is a relief. To talk about others keeps us at the circumference of our own life; far, very far away from the centre; we do not wish to be with ourselves, within ourselves, alone with ourselves. There are wounds beneath the surface which we would not or dare not probe; there are memories from which we fly, if we can manage it, to something outside and beyond them. Yet, after all, it is of ourselves that we shall have to give account. Others will come into that account only so far as they depend on us; so far as we may have wronged or injured or otherwise affected them. Their shortcomings may now take that place in our thoughts which ought to be given to our own. But a day will come when this will be impracticable. We shall be isolated before the Eternal Judge. We shall form part of a countless multitude, but He will deal with each one of us as if we stood alone before Him and all the rays of His Infinite Wisdom and Justice were concentrated on our case.

When things go wrong, when others provoke us, then the notion is ready enough at hand that they have sinned, that their account will be heavy; but we are very slow to comprehend the same thing as it concerns ourselves.1 [Note: J. Keble.]

Do not philosophic doctors tell us that we are unable to discern so much as a tree except by an unconscious cunning which combines many past and separate sensations; that no one sense is independent of another, so that in the dark we can hardly taste a fricassee, or tell whether our pipe is alight or not, and the most intelligent boy, if accommodated with claws or hoofs instead of fingers, would be likely to remain on the lowest form? If so, it is easy to understand that our discernment of mens motives must depend on the completeness of the elements we can bring from our own susceptibility and our own experience. See to it, friend, before you pronounce a too hasty judgment, that your own moral sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character. The keenest eye will not serve, unless you have the delicate fingers, with their subtle nerve filaments, which elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves in the invisible world of human sensations.1 [Note: George Eliot, Mr. Gilfils Love Story.]

2. We shall have to give an account each of his own actions, of his own thought, of his own words, of his own intention; and, more than all these, of himself. We shall each of us have to give account of the state of our heart, of the condition of our mind before God, whether we repented, whether we believed, whether we loved God, whether we were zealous, whether we were truthful, whether we were faithful. If it dealt only with actions, words, and thoughts, the account would be solemn enough, but we must each one give an account of himself, of what he was as well as of what he did, of what was in his heart as well as of what came out of it in his deeds.

A mute companion at my side

Paces and plods, the whole day long,

Accepts the measure of my stride,

Yet gives no cheer by word or song.

More close than any doggish friend,

Not ranging far and wide, like him,

He goes whereer my footsteps tend,

Nor shrinks for fear of life or limb.

I do not know when we first met,

But till each days bright hours are done

This grave and speechless silhouette

Keeps me betwixt him and the sun.

They say he knew me when a child;

Born with my birth, he dies with me;

Not once from his long task beguiled,

Though sin or shame bid others flee.

What if, when all this world of men

Shall melt and fade and pass away,

This deathless sprite should rise again

And be himself my Judgment Day?1 [Note: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, To my Shadow.]

Daniel Webster was once asked, What is the most important thought you ever entertained? He replied, after a moments reflection, The most important thought I ever had was my individual responsibility to God.

IV

It is Supreme

Each one of us shall give account of himself to God.

1. Responsibility implies a person, to whom the responsible man is responsible. All human society is based on and kept together by this law of responsibility to persons. We all know that servants are responsible to their masters, and children to their parents and teachers, and soldiers to their commanding officers, and the clerks in a great business house to the partners, and those who are dependent on others to those on whom they depend. The higher you mount the greater the responsibility, because responsibility implies power and grows with power, so that where there is most power there is most responsibility. In reality masters are more responsible than servants, and parents than children, and officers than the soldiers whom they command, and the heads of a great firm than the clerks in their employment, and employers and superiors generally than those whom they employ and who depend on them. But to whom do those highly placed people, more responsible because invested with more power, owe their debt of responsibility? Responsibility is the law of human society; and yet there are always certain members of society who seem to escape it, to be somehow responsible to no one. Wealthy people, with no relations, who as they say, can do as they like with their money; idle people, with no duties or engagements, who have, as they put it, to kill time; clever writers or speakers, with no clear sense of truth or duty, who think that they may write or say, without let or hindrance, just what occurs to them;if these men are really responsible, to whom are they responsible? So far as this world is concerned, they seem to go through it without having to answer to anybody. To whom is the highest of all, the king, or head of the government, responsible? Assuredly there is One Being to whom all must give account of themselves, sooner or laterboth those who have to give account to their fellow-men, and those who seem in this life to escape all real responsibility whatever. One such Being there is to whom we are all responsiblethe Holy and Eternal God.

Frightful to all men is Death; from of old named King of Terrors. Our little compact home of an Existence, where we dwelt complaining, yet as in a home, is passing, in dark agonies, into an Unknown of Separation, Foreignness, unconditioned Possibility. The Heathen Emperor asks of his soul: Into what places art thou now departing? The Catholic King must answer: To the Judgment-bar of the Most High God! Yes, it is a summing-up of Life; a final settling, and giving-in the account of the deeds done in the body; they are done now; and lie there unalterable, and do bear their fruits, long as Eternity shall last.1 [Note: Carlyle, French Revolution, i. 17.]

For none a ransom can be paid,

A suretyship be made:

I, bent by mine own burden, must

Enter my house of dust;

I, rated to the full amount,

Must render mine account.

When earth and sea shall empty all

Their graves of great and small;

When earth wrapt in a fiery flood

Shall no more hide her blood;

When mysteries shall be revealed;

All secrets be unsealed;

When things of night, when things of shame,

Shall find at last a name,

Pealed for a hissing and a curse

Throughout the universe:

Then Awful Judge, most Awful God,

Then cause to bud Thy rod,

To bloom with blossoms, and to give

Almonds; yea, bid us live.

I plead Thyself with Thee, I plead

Thee in our utter need:

Jesus, most Merciful of Men,

Show mercy on us then;

Lord God of Mercy and of men,

Show mercy on us then.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

2. To God. We are not under a rigid law. We are under personal authority, acting in harmony with eternal principles of law; and we have to meet a personal judgment, whose decision will be determined by the eternal principles of law. But this is the supreme thing, that only a living person who knows us altogether can appreciate the true conditions under which our moral life has been lived, the heights we ought to have reached, and the grounds on which we may be forgiven for not having reached heights which were easily accessible to others. We have to give account, each one of himself, to God; and it is this conception of the relations between man and God, and this alone, which relieves human life of its awful gloom and confusion, and contains the promise of a Divine order. For to God some of the noblest forms of moral life may be found where to our eyes there is the least dignity and grace. You were born under felicitous circumstances; but to reach the virtue which you attained without effort, another man may have to exert incessant energy. His dearly bought excellence, though inferior to that which you have easily achieved, is to God infinitely nobler and more precious than the goodness which you, without effort, have accomplished. Each man has to give account of himself to God.

One man is placed under conditionsconditions not of his own choice, conditions to which he was destinedwhich make it impossible for him to do very much beyond getting the rough ore of goodness out of the black and gloomy mine. He has got it with the sweat of his brow, with pain, with peril. To him God will say, Well done! Another man has the ore at his feet to start with. It is not enough for him to bring that to God. For him there is a different task. In the fires of self-discipline he has to liberate the ore from its dross, and to produce the pure metal. It is enough that one man should bring the rough ore to God; this man must bring pure metal extracted from it. And a third has the metal to begin with. He fails, and fails disastrously unless he works it up into forms of noble usefulness and gracious beauty. Each man will have to give account of himself to God, and only God can judge of the worth of each mans work, because only God knows the conditions under which each mans work is being carried on.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]

Not on the vulgar mass

Called work, must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

Oer which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the worlds coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the mans amount

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.2 [Note: Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra.]

Our Accountability

Literature

Black (H.), University Sermons, 311.

Dale (R. W.), Epistle of James, 245.

Harris (H.), Short Sermons, 217.

Hodgson (A. P.), Thoughts for the Kings Children, 11.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year (Advent to Christmas Eve), 164.

Lee (R.), Sermons, 122.

Liddon (H. P.), Advent in St. Pauls, 282.

Palmer (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 50.

Rawnsley (R. D. B.), Village Sermons, i. 96.

Roberts (W. P.), Conformity and Conscience, 66.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881), No. 1601.

Tyng (S. H.), in Plain Sermons by Contributors to Tracts for the Times, viii. 245.

Wordsworth (C.), Christian Boyhood at a Public School, ii.

American Pulpit of the Day, ii. 641.

Christian World Pulpit, xxvi. 4 (Beecher); xxxv. 198 (Dale).

Church Pulpit Year Book, v. (1908), 148.

Homiletic Review, xxxi. 239 (Ireland).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

Ecc 11:9, Mat 12:36, Mat 18:23-35, Luk 16:2, Gal 6:5, 1Pe 4:5

Reciprocal: Act 24:25 – judgment 1Co 13:5 – seeketh Heb 13:17 – give account Rev 2:23 – and I will Rev 22:12 – to give

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A QUESTION OF ACCOUNT

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Rom 14:12

An analogy is continually being drawn by Christ and the Apostles between commerce and the Christian life. Learn some lessons from this analogy.

I. Our business in life, whatever it may be, has something to do with religion.A man must not think that he puts off his religion on Monday; he has to carry it into his whole life.

II. Business-like qualities are sorely needed in the Christian life.Care, diligence, foresight, calculation, judgment, trustworthiness, these are all qualities which are highly developed in the commercial world. When we turn to the Kingdom of Heaven, the lives of Christian people, how often we find that these very qualities are deficient or rare! They go through their life without a thought for the future, with no estimate of their true position before God, thinking perhaps that they are doing Gods work, and yet indulging all the time in their own fads and fancies. What a rude awakening it will be in the last day when they come to give account of themselves to God, and think what they have got of real abiding value remaining with them from this transient life. They will be weighed in the balance and found wanting. There is such a thing as speculation in the world of commerce. It is so also with the moral life and the spiritual life. We think of the many sects which have sprung up, of the fashionable crazes of the present time: Spiritualism, Theosophy, Christian Science, etc. What is all this but a sort of rage of speculation showing itself in a different form, trying to find some short and ready road to heaven, gratifying the love of originality by following these fads and fancies and crude beliefs? Thus it is that men come to neglect the true, well-tried principles of religion and Christian faith in which, perhaps, they were brought up.

III. As in worldly matters so in spiritual matters, there is a reward to be gained.What is a mans object, what he works for? The Christian life has also a special objectthat is, to lay up treasures in heaven. This treasure must be laid up. It is a thing which cannot be seen, it is an invisible thing that resides in the soul; nevertheless it is a very real thing.

IV. The comparison of the spiritual life and the secular life shows that sin is a debt.We are debtors in the sight of God. Not only is there a credit but a debit side in the bank of life. All good left undone is a debt. The grand total is swollen up by many small amounts. Why is it a debt? It is because God is our Creator, God has lent us all things. The loan of life He will ask for again. We must render Him account for advantages of being born in a certain position, for our very selves. God expects something in return. Every man shall give account of himself. The day of reckoning may be long in coming, but it will come.

Rev. F. W. Parkes.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

:12

Rom 14:12. The word himself is the one to be emphasized in this verse.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 14:12. So then each one of us, etc. The emphasis rests on each one of us, not on of himself, or, to God. There is no exception; let each remember this, and each will be guarded against judging his brother. That which precedes means: Do not judge thy brother, since God will judge him; this verse means: Judge thou thyself, since God will judge thee. (Godet.)

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God. [God judges all, hence it is superfluous for the Christian to judge any. Why gather stones of condemnation and judgment when, after all, Jesus renders us powerless to throw them? (Joh 8:7) Since, then, our judgments are futile and worthless, affecting no one but ourselves, let us refrain from them, and cultivate charity, remembering the rule which metes unto us as we measure to others (Mat 7:1-2). We should be glad that we escape the responsibility of judging, since Jesus himself expressed no eagerness to assume the burden. Comp. Joh 5:22; Joh 5:27; Joh 5:30; Joh 5:45; Joh 3:17-19; Joh 8:15-16; Joh 12:47; Luk 12:13-14]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

12. For it has been written, I say, saith the Lord, that every knee shall bow to me and every tongue confess to God. Then, therefore, each one of us shall give an account to God concerning himself. Here we are having the day problem, which the devil in all ages has used to upset myriads, clearly and unequivocally settled. The Christian says, Keep Sunday, the Jew, Saturday, and the Moslem, Friday. Go round the world eastwardly and Saturday would become Sunday; go round westwardly and Monday is your Sunday. Here Paul certifies the utter nonessentiality of the day problem. You must simply satisfy your conscience and that of others and be true to God. Sabbath is a Hebrew word which means rest, symbolizing the soul-rest we have in Jesus when sin is dead and gone. The sanctified have perpetual Sabbath in the soul and life, i. e., seven Sabbaths every week. We see in the above Scripture that every man is to follow his conscience as to this matter. All days are holy when you are holy. God requires you to be holy. If you are truly holy, all your days are holy. If your own heart is not holy, it is idolatry to depend on holy days. You will go straight to hell through holy days if you yourself are not holy. Hence the silly nonsense of the people who try so hard to get you to Judaize on Saturday and at the same time let the devil have your soul. There is no issue here raised on holy days, but holy people. When we are all right, the day is all right. We must all keep Sunday for the conscience of Christendom (1Co 8:12). If your conscience requires you to keep Saturday, then do it for the sake of your own conscience, at the same time remembering that God requires you to keep Sunday for the conscience of Christendom.

So, in that case, you have two days to keep. It will not hurt you to desist from labor and attend church two days in the week. The Christian church began all Jews, revolutionizing in a century and becoming all Gentiles. The primitive Jewish Christians kept Saturday, and commemorated Sunday also as a sacred memento of our Lords resurrection (Acts 20 and 1Co 16:3). This is corroborated by Justin Martyr and other Christian fathers who lived and wrote in the second century. As the Gentiles never did keep the Jewish Sabbath, the universal hebdomadal division of time which followed the evangelization of the nations and exists this day, is demonstrative proof that the early Christians kept Sunday. Some fanatics tell us the Pope of Rome changed the day, when there never was a pope till the seventh century, when Procas, King of Italy, crowned Boniface the Third Bishop of Rome. When a student in college I read the Roman historians Suitonius, Pliny, Sallust, and Livy, who wrote in the first centuries of the Christian era their graphic accounts of the Christians suffering persecution under the Emperors. They are to be taken as perfectly reliable, because they were all heathens and in no sympathy with the martyrs. In their descriptions of their martyrdom, they simply narrate how their persecutors questioned them, Doininicum servasti? Hast thou kept the Lords day? The answer came, Christianus sum; intermittere non possum , I am a Christian; I can not omit it. On this confession they killed them. Now this is positive proof that these early martyrs kept Sunday, which is called the Lords day, whereas Saturday never was so called. If those martyrs had kept Saturday, they would have asked them: Sabbaticum servasti? Have you kept the Sabbath? This question they never did ask them. It is a shame to have weak Christians upset about the old Jewish Sabbath. The very genius of the gospel dispensation corroborates the charge. The old dispensation was under the law, which was work first and then rest, if you do not work you shall not rest, while our dispensation is under the gospel characterized by love and mercy, which says, Rest first and then you will be in good fix to do your work. Some people in our time worship a day-god, others a water-god, and still others worship gods of wood and stone in a fine edifice, worship the institutions of their own making and many other gods. Get saved through and through. Keep your eye on Jesus, be sure that you are holy, then all your days will be holy. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. If you keep on your knees before God and confess Him constantly with your tongue you are going to come out all right. On any other line, with all your holy days, the devil will get you.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

In this summary statement Paul identified the personal responsibility of every Christian to give account of himself or herself to God. We will not have to answer for our fellow Christians or anyone else, but we will have to account for our own deeds.

"We stand before God in the awful loneliness of our own souls; to God we can take nothing but the self and the character which in life we have been building up." [Note: Barclay, p. 205.]

In this pericope (Rom 14:1-12) the apostle stressed the folly of judging our fellow Christians who relate to amoral practices differently from the way we do. There is a strong emphasis on recognizing Jesus’ lordship in our lives in these verses (cf. Rom 12:1-2). The word "Lord" occurs seven times in Rom 14:5-9.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)