Grace / That You May Know
What If I've Got Something Wrong?
The Christians in Rome disagreed about important religious questions. Paul told them God was able to make them stand.
If being saved requires getting every religious question right, we're in trouble. There's always something else to learn. And once you've learned it, you may discover you've misunderstood something you thought you settled years ago.
Some folks have lived with that worry for a long time. They've been told that people who love Jesus and trust Him are still lost because they got a particular belief or practice wrong. The possibility of an honest mistake becomes terrifying.
Romans 14 gives us something better to work with. Paul writes about Christians who disagree, and he tells them the Lord is able to make them stand.
They disagreed about things that mattered to them
Some Christians in Rome believed they could eat anything. Others ate only vegetables. Some regarded a particular day as especially important. Others regarded all days alike. These weren't abstract arguments. They affected what people did at the dinner table and how they lived their lives before God. ()
Paul didn't pretend everybody was equally right. He spoke of weakness in faith, and later in the chapter he stated his own conviction that nothing is unclean in itself. There was something to understand about these questions.
But he didn't make the argument turn on his opinion. He used the gospel to leapfrog over the question, and he told the believers to welcome one another. The person who ate wasn't to despise the person who didn't. The person who didn't eat wasn't to judge the person who did.
Why? Because God had welcomed him.
That's a pretty important fact to have in view when you're deciding whether another Christian counts. God has already received him. His disagreement with you hasn't prevented God from doing that.
The Lord is able to make him stand
Paul asks, "Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?" A servant answers to his own master. Then Paul adds, "And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand." ()
Paul's confidence is in what the Lord can do for the believer. The person's understanding may need work, but the Lord is able to uphold him.
That answers a question a lot of religious teaching leaves people afraid to ask: Can God save somebody who believes in Jesus and is wrong about something else?
Yes. Paul says He can. He's able to make His servant stand.
God isn't trying to trick us or trip us up. He's on our side, and He's pulling out all the stops to win our salvation. He gave His Son for us, and He's able to save the people who trust Him while they still have things to learn. We're saved by grace alone through faith alone, not by having the right theology of grace alone through faith alone.
You can afford to learn
That kind of confidence makes a difference when you read the Bible. Finding out you've been wrong doesn't mean your entire life with God was a fraud. The question you used to be afraid to ask is one you can ask now.
The same goes for listening to somebody who disagrees with you. Maybe he's wrong. Maybe you are. Maybe you both need to understand the passage better. Work on it, because truth matters and God is good.
Paul expects people to act from faith and to take their responsibilities seriously. He tells them to be convinced in their own minds and to remember that they answer to the Lord. His welcome gives them a reason to grow in understanding.
It also gives them a reason to be patient with each other. The person who's still learning belongs to the same Lord you do. You can help him without threatening to throw him out of God's family.
What this means for baptism questions
In That You May Know, I apply Paul's statement to the claim that a person who trusts Jesus is lost because he hasn't been baptized, was baptized in a different manner, or misunderstood baptism when it happened.
That claim needs to answer . Is the Lord able to save someone who trusts Jesus and is mistaken about baptism? Paul's statement about the Lord's ability gives us good reason to say yes.
That cuts both ways. I don't believe the people who teach that claim are lost. covers everybody who puts their faith in the blood of Christ, and that includes them. But I do believe they're making a grave error, one that undermines the gospel.
The baptism passages deserve to be read carefully. We should want to understand what God is giving us in baptism and receive it gladly. But a person's imperfect understanding doesn't make Jesus an inadequate Savior.
My grandmother, my Mammy, was a hard-core, old-school, a cappella only Church of Christ woman. She taught me, "Learn the Bible for yourself. Don't depend on what another man tells you the Bible says. Then go wherever the Bible goes, no matter who likes it or who doesn't." You can do that without being afraid. The Lord is able to make you stand.
— tobe