By Michael Morrison
By Michael Morrison
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aul introduces his letter to the Romans as a letter about the gospel, and he describes the gospel as “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” In the gospel, he says, a righteousness from God is revealed. The good news is that we can be beneficiaries of God’s righteousness. We can be in a right relationship with him, if we accept the gospel (for a study of Rom. 1:1-17, see the February WN).
After that specific purpose statement, Paul explains the gospel in more detail, starting with our need for the gospel. Why do we need to be put into a right relationship with God? Without the gospel, we would be in a wrong relationship. Paul explains that we were not just going our separate ways—we were enemies of God. There is an important barrier to be overcome.
The wrath of God
Paul explains our need starting in
verse 18: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
God is angry at sin—angry at the passive sin of ignoring God, and angry at
active rebellion. This anger is being revealed, perhaps in nature, or by
scriptures that say that sin will be punished.
However, wicked people suppress the truth, even though they have a chance to know. Verse 19 says: “Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”
How did he make it plain? Verse 20: “For [ever] since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Even though we cannot see God, we can see from his creation that he has eternal power and he is supernatural.
Even today, modern science tells us that the universe had a beginning. There was nothing, and after an incredibly long time of nothing, there was suddenly something—a big bang, creating and filling the universe. This colossal explosion had a cause, a cause that existed before time did, a cause that was not part of the world the big bang created. Many scientists today conclude that the cause was God. They may have only a rudimentary understanding of what God is, but they realize that the origin of the universe implies the existence of an eternal supernatural power of some sort. Paul is saying that some attributes of God can be discerned from creation itself.
God could make himself even more plain if he wanted to. He could be a pillar of fire, or he could write messages in the sky. He could make his existence unavoidable, but he chooses not to. He allows people to ignore him and reject him. This means that we believe in God not because he doesn’t give us any other choice, but because we are willing to. We are not forced to cower in front of an overwhelming power, but our love is freely given. God gives us enough evidence to know that he is, if we really want to know. People might make excuses, but the bottom line is that there is no excuse. We can know God if we want to.
A bad trade
However, many people reject the truth: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (v. 21). Although people know about God, at least in the back of their minds, they ignore him. It is a sin to ignore God, and it is a sin to be unappreciative of what he does for us. We are not self-sufficient beings, and it is arrogant for us to act like we are. We should give credit where it is due, and thanks where they are due.
Because people ignore God, their thinking becomes futile—it doesn’t produce any fruit. If we keep God out of the picture and try to make sense out of life, we will never get the right answer. No matter how much thought we put into it, if we keep God out, we are going to waste our time. We will not have the right answers, because we would be building on the wrong foundation.
“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (vv. 22-23). Most cultures claim to be wise, but if they think it is smart to reject truth and build on falsehood, then they are actually foolish. They are giving up something wonderful and ending up with lizards and fools to worship. All their gods are imitations, and can never be anything more than imitations.
Letting them do what they want
Since people reject God and he is angry at their sin, what does he do? Verse 24: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.” If they ignore God, then he lets them reap the consequences of their foolish way of thinking. They miss out on the wisdom and guidance of God. They have to learn the hard way, because they don’t want to learn from God. So God lets them fall into sexual sin.
Paul repeats these thoughts in verses 25-26: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.” The people traded away truth and decided to live as if God did not exist. So God lets them do what they want, and one of the biggest problems they encounter is sexual.
Paul says: “Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (vv. 26-27). Paul is not saying that God is going to punish them for their awful behavior. No, his emphasis is different. Paul is saying that the people cut themselves off from God and he punishes them by letting them do these sexual sins. The unnatural sexual desires are part of the punishment, not the reason for it.
When we cut ourselves off from God, the things we want are often bad for us, and if God lets us do what we want, then we end up doing things that are bad for us. Sexual sins are just one example; Paul could have just as easily used greed as a different example, or dishonesty, or violence. Different problems appeal to different people, and if we just do what we want, we end up hurting ourselves.
Verse 28 puts it like this: “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” Just because we have an inclination to do something, doesn’t mean that it is good for us. Rather, our desire may be part of our problem.
Many examples
Paul then gives a list of examples in verses 29-31: “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”
These are the natural results of ignoring God. If we pretend like he doesn’t exist, he lets us reap the consequences of our foolish desires. Without God, we end up deeper and deeper in sin. People do not want to live in a world of greed and envy, murder and deceit. They don’t want a world of depravity, arrogance and slander, but without God, that is where they end up. They have thrown away the moral compass, thrown away the ethical guidelines, thrown away the purpose of life.
Paul is saying that God lets them do it. He knows where that kind of behavior leads to—that’s why he tells us not to do it—but he lets us do it if we insist on going our own way. The problems we have in the world have their root cause in the fact that people do not like to retain God in their knowledge. They trade the truth for a lie, and God lets us reap the results.
Verse 32: “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” Maybe it seems harsh to say that the gossiper deserves to die, and that envious people deserve to die. Paul is saying that they deserve death. Those sins are symptoms of ignoring God, of keeping God out of the picture.
When we don’t even thank God for the life we have, we don’t deserve to keep it. So there is the need for the gospel: We are alienated from God, in moral confusion and deserving death. We desperately need some good news in this picture, and Paul is saying, Jesus is what we need. The good news is that the problems Paul has been describing have been overcome. The gospel is the power of salvation, and the revelation of God’s righteousness is the solution to humanity’s mess.
People have gotten themselves into trouble by ignoring God, but God has acted to rescue them, to save them, to restore them to righteousness. As Paul will explain in later chapters, he has done it in Jesus Christ.
Questions for application:
* In what way does creation inform me about God? (v. 20)
* Why doesn’t God make himself more obvious?
* Are foolish desires a sin or a punishment? (v. 24)
* Which of the sins am I most likely to commit? (vv. 30-31)
* Is God’s anger part of the gospel, or simply the setting in which the good news is revealed?
Copyright © Grace Communion International, 2003