Romans 14:17
17. For the kingdom of God—or, as we should say, Religion; that is, the proper business and blessedness for which Christians are formed into a community of renewed men in thorough subjection to God (compare 1Co 4:20).
is not meat and drink—"eating and drinking" but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost—a beautiful and comprehensive division of living Christianity. The first—"righteousness"—has respect to God, denoting here "rectitude," in its widest sense (as in Mt 6:33); the second—"peace"—has respect to our neighbors, denoting "concord" among brethren (as is plain from Ro 14:19; compare Eph 4:3; Col 3:14, 15); the third—"joy in the Holy Ghost"—has respect to ourselves. This phrase, "joy in the Holy Ghost," represents Christians as so thinking and feeling under the workings of the Holy Ghost, that their joy may be viewed rather as that of the blessed Agent who inspires it than their own (compare 1Th 1:6). 1 Corinthians 6:13
13. The argument drawn from the indifference of meats (1Co 8:8; Ro 14:14, 17; compare Mr 7:18; Col 2:20-22) to that of fornication does not hold good. Meats doubtless are indifferent, since both they and the "belly" for which they are created are to be "destroyed" in the future state. But "the body is not (created) for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body" (as its Redeemer, who hath Himself assumed the body): "And God hath raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us" (that is our bodies): therefore the "body" is not, like the "belly," after having served a temporary use, to be destroyed: Now "he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body" (1Co 6:18). Therefore fornication is not indifferent, since it is a sin against one's own body, which, like the Lord for whom it is created, is not to be destroyed, but to be raised to eternal existence. Thus Paul gives here the germ of the three subjects handled in subsequent sections: (1) The relation between the sexes. (2) The question of meats offered to idols. (3) The resurrection of the body.
shall destroy—at the Lord's coming to change the natural bodies of believers into spiritual bodies (1Co 15:44, 52). There is a real essence underlying the superficial phenomena of the present temporary organization of the body, and this essential germ, when all the particles are scattered, involves the future resurrection of the body incorruptible. 1 Corinthians 8:8
8. Other old manuscripts read, "Neither if we do not eat, are we the better: neither if we eat are we the worse": the language of the eaters who justified their eating thus [LACHMANN]. In English Version Paul admits that "meat neither presents [so the Greek for 'commendeth'] us as commended nor as disapproved before God": it does not affect our standing before God (Ro 14:6).
1 Corinthians 8:13
13. meat—Old English for "food" in general.
make . . . to offend—Greek, "is a stumbling-block to." no flesh—In order to ensure my avoiding flesh offered to idols, I would abstain from all kinds of flesh, in order not to be a stumbling-block to my brother.