All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
By “all things” Paul presumably means those things which are contained in the natural law and which were also lawful for his fellow apostles. It would not refer to the law of Moses, because Moses forbade many things owing to the hardness of heart of an unbelieving and stiffnecked people. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
"Ye are made, so to speak, by Him to be righteous as He is, and are blended as far as possible with the Holy Spirit. For "are not all things lawful to me? yet I will not be brought under the power of any".
so as to do, or think, or speak aught contrary to the Gospel. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, which God shall destroy"
All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things, say Theodoret and Å’cumenius, are through free-will lawful unto me, are in my power, e.g, to commit fornication, to rob, to be drunken, and all the other sins mentioned above. But they are not expedient for the salvation of my soul, inasmuch as they are sins.
But this rendering is rightly condemned by Ambrose, who says: "How can that be lawful which is forbidden? For surely if all things are lawful there can be nothing unlawful." In other words he says that that is said to be lawful which no law forbids. The word lawful does not apply to that which it is in the power of the will to do or leave undone. The meaning, therefore, of this passage Isaiah , all indifferent things, all not forbidden by any law, are lawful to me. So Chrysostom, who with Theophylact refers these words to the next verse.
All things are lawful to me. We cannot take the words in the obvious sense, St. Paul having just before declared, that unjust dealers, fornicators, drunkards, shall not possess the kingdom of God. Some expound the words, as if he said, I have free-will and liberty to do what I will. Others think that the apostle speaks not of all things in general, but with this or the like limitation, all things that are indifferent of their own nature, or all things that are not forbidden by the law of God, and this seems agreeable enough to what he had said of going to judges that were infidels, which, though not a thing unlawful in itself, was not expedient. It may also be connected with what follows of meats, to signify that in the new law any meats may be eaten; (see chap. viii.) but it may be expedient to abstain, when it would be a scandal to the weak.
But I will not be brought under the power of any. It does not appear by the Latin or Greek text, whether the construction be under the power of...
Paul means that if we are free to choose, then we should remain free and not become a slave to any particular desire. Anyone who orders his desires properly remains the master of them, but once he goes beyond this limit he loses control and becomes their slave.
Here he glances at the gluttons. For since he intends to assail the fornicator again, and fornication arises from luxuriousness and want of moderation, he strongly chastises this passion. It cannot be that he speaks thus with regard to things forbidden, such not being lawful: but of things which seem to be indifferent. To illustrate my meaning: It is lawful, he says, to eat and to drink; but it is not expedient with excess. And so that marvellous and unexpected turn of his, which he is often wont to adopt; Cf. Romans 12:21; 1 Corinthians 7:23 bringing his argument clear round to its contrary, this he manages to introduce here also; and he signifies that to do what is in one's power not only is not expedient, but even is not a part of power, but of slavery.
And first, he dissuades them on the ground of the inexpediency of the thing, saying, they are not expedient: in the next place, on that of its contrariety to itself, saying, I will not be brought under the power of any. This is hi...
