Romans 14:5

5. Day above another Literally, day over day. Inasmuch as the apostle in the former instance mentions the strong opinion first, namely, that which favoured eating all things, and which the apostle himself held; so by parallelism this must be the stronger opinion, and held by the apostle himself, as being the first. And there is proof from the apostle’s conduct that he did esteem one day above another.

Every day alike The word alike being in italics is of course not in the Greek, and, as supplied by the translators, perverts perhaps the meaning. Let it be noted that the Greek word accurately twice rendered esteemeth expresses in both cases precisely the same state of mind. And then we have the result that, whereas one’s esteem raises a particular day to a certain holy elevation over another, so the other’s esteem assumes to raise all to the same holy elevation. That is, Paul elevates the seventh day above the others to a sabbath, and the other equalizes all days, not by sinking the sabbath to a secular day, but by raising all days to a sabbatical rank. So that as all his eating of vegetable food is a holy fast, (Matthew 3:4,) so all his days are, in his mysticism, holy sabbaths. Paul will not now condemn this high strain of conscience; but he will defend the esteemer of one day above another against the censoriousness of this ultra pietist.