Last week, we looked at Paul’s “thesis statement” for this letter to the Romans. In it, Paul declares that the gospel – the message of Jesus crucified, buried and resurrected – is the power of God that brings salvation in the lives of all people. Two weeks, ago, Paul laid out numerous details about the gospel (it was the fulfillment of the OT, in concerned Jesus Christ, etc.). Throughout the letter so far, Paul has held up the gospel as glorious good news and as the ultimate answer.
The problem though is that this language assumes a prior knowledge of a problem. The gospel as good news requires a knowledge of some bad news. The gospel as the answer assumes a question. The gospel as the power of salvation assumes that salvation is needed. The necessity of salvation assumes a prior bondage to something. As Thomas Schreiner writes, “One can grasp the greatness of God’s salvation…only when one understands the devastation introduced into the world by human beings – both Gentiles and Jews.”1 It is this reality that Paul begins to address this morning.
Throughout this letter to the Romans, Paul will hold up the gospel as the hope for all people alike: Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor. In order to do that, Paul has to establish the fact that all those people are in the same position of need. The goal of Romans 1:18-3:20 (the next major section of this letter) is to establish that all people are equally sinful. Paul will hammer this reality home over and over again in these beginning chapters. Moreover, because of this sin, Paul will labor to make clear that all people are equally guilty before the Lord.2 And he spends a lot of time addressing this issue because he does not merely want his readers to know people are sinners; he wants them to feel that all people are sinners. He does not merely want them to know they are sinners but to feel the weight of their sin. Why? Because it is only in that reality that the gospel truly shines and that faith is truly understood. Douglas Moo writes, “…only if sin is seen to be the dominating, ruling force that Paul presents it to be in this section will it become clear why God’s righteousness can be experienced only by humbly receiving it as a gift – in a word, by faith.”3 It is not enough to know that sin exists; we must know that we are sinners. It is not enough to know that God’s wrath burns against sin; we must feel the fact that God’s wrath burns against specific people.
The initial verses (v. 18-20) of our text this morning serve as the heading for the whole section. So, as we look at the rest of chapter 1, we will use these initial verses to guide us as the themes Paul address are all laid out at the beginning. So, in these first verses, we see these realities: 1) God’s wrath burns against the sinfulness of humanity, 2) the root of this human sinfulness is the suppression of truth, and 3) this suppression of the truth induces wrath because the truth is made clear to all of humanity. It is these three themes that dominate the text and we will look at them in reverse order this morning.
Paul, in verses 18-20 moves from effect to cause, so – for logical clarity – we will move in the reverse order. The root of Paul’s thought in this text is that God has revealed himself and made himself known to all people. Beginning in verse 19, Paul writes, “…what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” Paul reiterates this in v. 20 by saying that God’s invisible attributes “have been clearly perceived.” The foundational point of Paul’s argument in this text is that God has revealed himself, and this point is crucial for understanding the argument. As we will see, people cannot be held accountable for what they do not know, so Paul’s first goal is to make clear that God has intentionally arranged things in such a way that they reveal something about him.
So, with that reality in mind, the logical question becomes, “What has God revealed?” Paul lays this out as well by saying, “…his [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (v. 20). One way that God has chosen to reveal himself is through the created order. So, what has God revealed about himself through the creation? Paul makes clear that God has revealed some key foundational ideas about his identity. He has revealed his eternal power by creating the world. The one who creates something is inherently greater than what has been created. God has revealed his power by creating anything at all. Moreover, he has revealed his divine nature. That is, God has revealed the fact that he is God and that he is to be worshiped, and he revealed that by creating the world. Just as God’s creating the world revealed his power, his creating of man reveals the fact that man is indebted to someone. Man owes something to his creator – he owes him honor and glory and thanks and praise. This is what God has revealed. Schreiner makes clear that God has revealed the most foundational things about himself: “The fundamental truth of the universe is that God exists and that he should be worshipped and served and his name should be praised.”4 And a last point about this revelation of God that we should notice is that it has occurred “ever since the creation of the world” (v. 20). The creation of all things happened at the beginning of time, and God revealed these things about himself at that moment. You might say, “So what?” But here is the significance of this realization: there never has been, is not, nor ever will be an individual to whom this revelation was not, is not, or will not be made. In the sense of what can be known about God, there are no ignorant people in the world and there have been no ignorant people throughout history. God’s revelation has been made very clearly, and it has been made to all people.
Having demonstrated the way in which God has revealed himself clearly to all people, Paul goes on to make clear that people reject that revelation. Paul, in v. 18, says that people “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” That is, these same people to whom God has revealed himself refuse to believe the revelation of God that they see. Rather than recognizing the reality of God’s power and his position as God, they ignore those things and worship other things. Paul elaborates on this rejection throughout the text. As he lays out the reason why God’s wrath rests on people (as we will see in a moment), he uses this language of suppressing the truth to describe this rejection. He writes that “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (v. 21). Further, they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (v. 22). Again, in v. 25, he writes, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” In v. 28, Paul reiterates that “they did not see fit to acknowledge God.” So, in response to God’s unsolicited and gracious revelation of himself to humanity, humanity has responded by refusing to believe the very things that God has revealed.
We should take note of the nature of this rejection. It is not merely that human beings refuse to worship God, but they actively put something in his place. They deliberately choose to worship something else. In this text, the main example Paul gives is the worship of the created order. It seems that the people Paul has in mind are taking the worship that should be directed to the Lord and giving it to the very things that God created. Now, not all rebellion looks exactly like this, but all rebellion involves both depriving God that which is rightfully his as well as taking what is rightfully his and giving it to another.
The ramifications of this reality are many. We will look at a few of those that Paul mentions. First, notice that this is active rebellion against the Lord. The problem, as we saw earlier, is not ignorance but rebellion. It is human beings who suppress the truth and exchange God’s truth for a lie and worship the creation and refuse to acknowledge God. In the closing verse of our text this morning, Paul says, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” This is deliberate rejection. Later in this letter (chap. 5), Paul will make clear that the reason for this rejection of God is the fallen heart of every human being. Because of what happened in the Garden of Eden, human beings – by nature – reject God. There is no question that all people, in some way, are bound to reject God. They are blinded to his revelation by sin, and they cannot see it. But, as Calvin writes, “We are not…so blind that we can plead our ignorance as an excuse for our perverseness.”5 Human beings willfully choose to reject God, and they do so arrogantly and boldly.
Second, notice the deceptiveness of this rejection. Paul says, “they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (v. 21b-22). The seriousness of the problem of sin is multiplied by the fact that human beings do not even know that something is wrong. The rejection of God is assumed to be wisdom and enlightenment when – in reality – it is the height of foolishness.
Third, notice that there is absolutely no excuse for this rejection. Paul closes verse 20 by saying that “they are without excuse.” The fault in all of this does not lie with God because God has clearly made himself known. The fault lies with sinful human beings who are so bold as to disobey the very King of Creation – refusing to acknowledge what they can see in the created order. The right and just result of such blatant refusal is the righteous wrath of God, which we will look at in a moment.
But, before we move to that point, we should understand some practical points that are made clear from this text. First, this sin of rebellion against, and rejection of, God is the root of all sin. As we will see in a moment, there is a fairly comprehensive list of vices given by Paul in this text. These vices are indeed clear pictures of the sinfulness of human beings. As Schreiner writes, “Sin does not consist first and foremost in acts that transgress God’s law, although verses 24-32 indicate that sin is the transgression of the law. These particular acts are all rooted in a rejection of God as God, a failure to give him honor and glory.”6 Interestingly, all of those vices are seen by Paul as evidences of God’s wrath rather than as causes of God’s wrath. Instead, the cause of God’s wrath – that which brought it on – was the rejection of him by these people. No matter what sin is being addressed, that sin is – at its very core – an outworking of the rejection of God spoken of in this passage. The result of this understanding is a better comprehension of the root cause of sin in general. The goal is not to stop particular sins – this is the foundational weakness of legalism. The goal is a heart that no longer rejects God. The goal is a heart that renders to God what is rightfully his rather than giving that to another. As a practical application of this reality, this should affect the way we battle sin in general. As Christians, we do not seek to attack sin at the surface level (the fruit – the actions that we do, the habits that we have). We seek to put sin to death at the deepest level (the heart – the way we truly believe). Understanding this reality affects the way we fight our own sin. We no longer fight actions, we examine our heart. We no longer seek to break habits, we let the word pierce our hearts and change them. And understanding the true nature of sin affects the way we minister to other people. Again, the goal is not to change someone’s behavior but to see their heart changed by the gospel and by the word of God.
Also, a right understanding of this point gives us a correct view of people. The assumption that seems to dominate our thoughts about people in general is that they are all neutral, pretty good people. The picture given by Paul in Romans 1 of people is that they are anything but neutral, pretty good people. Just as we saw in the first theme of our text that there are no ignorant people when it comes to the knowledge of God, we see now that there are no innocent people in their relation to God. Often, when a person is caught in some gross and horrible transgression, people will say, “He seemed like a good man.” The truth of this text will force us to realize that there are no good people because we all reject God. Some people just dress up their rejection a bit better. We see this misunderstanding of human sinfulness in the way we talk about others. We often say, “He is a good guy, he just struggles with ______.” This is a wrong understanding. The person being talked about is not a good guy; he is a guy who is rejecting God and refusing to worship him and that is being demonstrated in the area that fills in that blank. We do not deal with neutral people, and we – by nature – are not neutral people. We are people who, from our earliest days, seek to put something else – usually ourselves – in the place that God rightly occupies.
Having followed the logic of Paul’s thought from its foundation (God has revealed himself) to its observation of the response (mankind has rejected this revelation), we come to its conclusion – God’s wrath is revealed against this rejection. Paul begins our text by saying, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (v. 18a). Just as there are no people who, by nature, are ignorant of God’s revelation and just as there are no people who, by nature, are innocent of wrongdoing against God, so there are no people who, by nature, are not under the wrath of God. God’s wrath is a very real and genuine thing. We see perverse echoes of it in our own reaction to situations in which we feel wronged. I say that they are “perverse” echoes because our wrath is often displayed in unjust ways for trivial things. Our wrath is often exercised when it has no right to be exercised. But there are times when human beings feel wrath for appropriate things. Gross injustice, such as the murder of a small child or the senseless torture of another human being, rightly rouses within us a desire for justice. And yet, even those right emotions are tainted by our own human limitations. Nonetheless, even in those tainted emotions, we see and can at least partially understand a truth about God. He is perfectly holy and created us for the express purpose of worshiping him. We, instead, have blatantly rejected him and refused to worship him. Instead, we have worshiped anything else we can find. The result is that God’s wrath burns against human beings, and he exercises that wrath. God’s wrath is his “holy and righteous response to those who do not worship and esteem him as God.”7 But notice the way Paul describes God’s wrath. We often picture God’s wrath as fire coming down from heaven or the ground itself opening up to swallow someone (not without reason because God indeed has done those things in the past). But Paul pictures God’s wrath in a much different way. Three different times Paul says “God gave them up…” (v. 24, 26, 28). First, in v. 24, Paul says, “Therefore [because they exchanged the glory of God for images of created things] God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” The reference here seems to be a veiled reference to sexual sin in general. No doubt, Paul jumps immediately to this issue of sexual sin because it is one of the premier vices of humanity – a sin that has run rampant ever since the Fall. But notice that this “dishonoring of their bodies” is not the cause of God’s wrath. Rather, God gave them over to this dishonoring. It is an evidence of their rejection and it is an evidence of God’s wrath against that rejection.
In verse 26, Paul says, “God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” He goes on to describe these dishonorable passions as homosexual in nature. Again, Paul is holding up homosexuality as evidence of God’s wrath against the blatant rejection of men. There have been any number of attempts to explain this text away in light of our own generation’s “wisdom” regarding homosexuality, but the truth of reality is that the perversion of sexuality (including any and all forms of homosexuality) is another outworking of mankind’s rejection of the revelation of God in the created order. You see God revealed his glory even in the way that he created men and women. He created the two sexes so that they might come together and marry and fill the earth to his ultimate glory. But people have rejected him and he, in return, has given them over to their dishonorable passions as a sign of his wrath. Then, in verse 28, Paul says, “God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” This declaration is followed by an extensive list that covers things as seemingly harmless as disobedience to parents all the way up to murder and ruthlessness. Again, these sins are themselves rejections of God. But, in Paul’s mind, they are also evidence of God’s wrath against the foundational rejection of God that resides in all men’s hearts.
Before we leave this topic of God’s wrath, I want us to think a bit more about the way Paul has described this wrath to us. As human beings, we too often assume that our getting away with sin proves that we have somehow escaped God’s wrath. A major fault in this logic is that God’s ultimate wrath is an end-time event in which all of God’s enemies are cast in hell for all of eternity because of their rejection of him. But, in Paul’s mind, there is an even closer logical fallacy – the fact that you do not see God’s righteous wrath in some visible form could very well be God’s wrath on display. God could very well “give you up” to your greatest desires. And your greatest desires will destroy you. This reality should cause all of those who are not Christians to cry out to the Lord for mercy. Beware of your own lack of conviction with regard to sin because it could be that God is turning you over to your lusts and desires. This reality should cause those who are Christians to rejoice every time we experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the discipline of the Lord. These things, in and of themselves, are signs that God’s wrath is not resting upon us because he has not given us over. May we praise him for that reality.
We have already seen a few ways in which we can apply these truths as we have walked through the text, but let us look at a few more before we leave the first chapter of Romans behind us. First, for those who are not believers, I plead with you to recognize the true nature of your relationship to God. If you are not a disciple of Jesus Christ, then you are still in your natural state. And the natural state of all human beings is one of rebellion against God. God has made himself known to you through the creation and you have rejected him. As a result, his wrath burns against you. And the situation cannot be rectified simply by apologizing to God and promising to do better. God is holy and you are a sinner. The only way the situation can be rectified is through the person of Jesus Christ. He, in his life on this earth, did everything that you have failed to do – he worshiped God rightly and glorified him appropriately. He also avoided all of the things that you have failed to avoid – the horrible sins that we as humans commit so often and so easily. On top of that, Jesus died on the cross and absorbed the wrath of God that we have been speaking of this morning. He was buried in a grave and three days later he rose from the dead. And he is alive today, seated at the right hand of God. And he said that if sinful and lost human beings would simply believe that he really did die on the cross for their sins and that he really rose from the dead and would genuinely follow him as their King, then they would be saved. So repent of your sins and believe and follow Christ this morning.
For those who are believers, you should rejoice as you remember that you used to be just like the people we have been describing this morning. Ephesians 2:1-10 makes clear that we were all dead in our trespasses, living in the passions of our flesh and carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. But God has made us alive together with Christ. After a lengthy list describing the unrighteous in 1 Cor. 6:9-10, Paul writes, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” We should thank the Lord everyday that we have been redeemed because we were actively rejecting God just like everyone else. God, in his mercy, did not “give us up” to death. He saved us and gave us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand.
Further, he did these things for us for a particular end – to tell others about the glorious gospel of life. Paul, in 1 Timothy 1:16, writes, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” Paul understood that he was shown mercy so that he would display that mercy to those who had not yet received mercy. As he demonstrated his mercy, it would serve as the means through which others would receive mercy. And we are in the same position. We have been shown mercy – not so that we might tuck it away and rejoice in it privately. We have been shown mercy so that we might show it to others and speak of it to others and live it out before others so that they might receive mercy as well. May we be faithful in this endeavor. As we come to the table, we remember the work that made it possible for God’s wrath not to fall on us. God’s wrath is a genuine, true reality. And Jesus experienced it in all of its ferocity on the cross. And he endured it for us. May we remember it often and follow our Savior diligently all the days of our lives. Amen.