ROMANS 1:18-25 ‘God’s wrath on Unrighteousness Pt.1’

TEXT

‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,’ (Romans 1:18)

• wrath is a settled judgment, not revenge or temporal anger.
• ‘suppress the truth’ indicates they know it but deny it in favour of pleasure

‘because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.’ (Romans 1:19)

• they know the truth and ‘what may be known of God’, since God shows it through nature.

‘For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,’ (Romans 1:20)

• Invisible attributes. What are these? Well at least some of them are His eternal power and the Godhead, what are the others that we can see in nature? It is easy to see his eternal power in creation, because for God to create the Universe, which includes inherently Time (as Einstein proved), then God must exist beyond the limits of time, and not subject to it. Therefore His power (in creating the Universe) must be eternal (since Time does not affect Him). Curiously, the Godhead can be seen in nature as well. Three are three fundamental parts of the Universe (so far as we know) – Space, Matter/Energy and Time. All three are intrinsically linked (especially space and time) but all have a different role to play. In fact we see that God is much like space, for space is that in which everything has its being. Jesus is much like matter/energy for it is the representation of everything, it is physical, we can see and touch it. The Holy Spirit is much like Time, for it is He whom we experience Jesus through. We need time to experience things.
• ‘without excuse’. Paul’s reasoning is that everyone lives in nature and therefore no-one ahs an excuse to not know God..

‘because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.’(Romans 1:21)

• This is a dark regression from glorifying God to dark and futile thoughts and emotions. It is intended to be a logical progression of what happens when we leave God out of the picture.

‘Professing to be wise, they became fools,’ (Romans 1:21)

• ‘wisdom’ on earth is foolishness, this could be alluding to Gnosticism, which was prevalent in that day, but also to those who study nature specifically to find that God didn’t create it, which goes against all intuition.

‘and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.’ (Romans 1:22)

• we exchange the real God for anthropomorphic ‘deities’ who suit us and glorify man himself rather than the creator.
• Apparently in ancient religions there were no physical idols, but paganism brought these into existence.
• Some worshipped nature and animals

‘Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,’ (Romans 1:23)

• This verse does not fit the nature of God without the ‘therefore’ at the start. In fact, God giving them up was really them giving God up and turning to idols. The natural progression was to dishonour their bodies because they no longer believed their bodies as sacred in the image of God.
• Note the similarity of this statement and the ‘unforgiveable sin’ – blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Completely turning away from the things God has clearly shown and trusting in the creation instead is unforgiveable, because you don’t want to be forgiven.

‘who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.’ (Romans 1:21)

• In summary, they changed truth for a lie and served powerless creatures and wood and stone rather than the powerful Creator.

SUMMARY

God’s nature is shown in the natural world and truth is revealed there, so everyone should know, but they willingly suppressed that in favour of pleasure and worshipping ‘knowable’ stuff. They wanted to love something they could completely comprehend (don’t we all!), whereas God’s love was incomprehensible in its fullness. This rejection of God led to degeneration and immorality (as natural consequences).

WHAT CAN I LEARN?

I need to question my motives in studying science – do I glorify God or nature? Do I expose or suppress the truth?