[Romans Study 5-4]
The Wrath of God [Romans 1:18-32]
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,19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For 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 people are without excuse.
No God, Sin Abounds
Here, Paul penetrates down to the essence of sin. According to Paul’s argument found in this verse, sin is not thinking it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. It is in one word, arrogance. It is sunflower rejecting the sun, or the son leaving his father. It is cutting off a relationship that cannot be cut off. It is rejecting God. From this, all sins spring out. Sin emerges because man despises God in his heart.
When we lose God, a void remains in our hearts. That pressing emptiness constantly drives us to fill in the hole. Because grace disappears with the absence of God, sin fills the hole and we are filled with relativism and confusion. We must be alarmed in knowing that the place where God is lost will soon be filled with sin. Sin crouches at the door of our hearts. It will immediately enter the heart as soon as God is lost. Where there is no God, sin abounds and triumphs.
29 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, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 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.
The List of Sin
This is the list of sin that we must always meditate on to make sure not to fall into them. Paul closes this dreadful catalog with the darkest stroke in this whole picture, the final and deadliest phase of utter social corruption. Not only were all those vices practiced but the public conscience was dead, and evil would exhibit itself as if it were good. We should never let the light of God’s word become extinguished, but we should always illuminate our hearts with this light. Sin then will not find its domain in us.
Parallel of the Righteousness and Wrath of God
The righteousness of God and the wrath of God are in exact parallel. If you accept the statement of verse seventeen, you must, to be logical and consistent, accept the statement of verse eighteen also. These two verses go together. To say that you believe the gospel does not mean only accepting these words with blind faith. The heart must be involved, there must be a love for these things. And, above all, there must be evidence in the life – it must have led to action, to a movement, to a change, to a confession, not only with lips but also with our lives. Now to summarize all that is put to us clearly by the Apostle here in this seventeenth verse, this quote from Habakkuk, especially completes it.
“For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”” (1:17)
[Questions]
1. Martin Lloyd-Jones argues that the history of the human race is found in Romans 1:18-3:20: “There are all sorts and kinds of theories and ideas about human history; here is God’s own explanation of it, given through His apostle, Paul….There is nothing more important for us than to grasp the full view of salvation – God’s great plan and purpose – and here it is, set out in terms of the entire history of the human race from the beginning until this very hour.” Why does he say the given section is the account of the human history?
2. Martin Luther inspires us to wholeheartedly worship God, not just being content with mere knowledge of His presence: “As a person would be foolish to look for money only to look at it, without trying to get it into his possession, so the heathen, though they knew God, were satisfied with and gloried in the mere knowledge of him. They left out of mind his worship, in particular, the inward dedication to God, whom they knew.” Discuss how we can bring about the inward dedication to God in our lives.
3. Read the following two statements and share your reflection and answer the question: “He starts not with the things which were worrying them, not with that sin which gets them down, which they cannot overcome, nor with their unhappiness, and so on. Not at all! He does not mention these things. Instead, he speaks of the wrath of God!” “I confess freely, I cannot understand a jocular evangelist. I cannot understand anyone who believes this doctrine, for any reason or for any motive, being light, or considering the feelings of men, rather than truth and the power of the Holy Ghost to apply it. Go back and read the lives of the men whom God has used in the mightiest manner, and you will invariably find that they were serious men, sober men; men with the fear of the Lord in them; ‘knowing the terror of the Lord’, they all said with the Apostle Paul. They were not afraid of the people or what they might think of the message; they were only afraid of what God might think of it, and so they started with it and proclaimed it, and God used it.” Do you think Paul’s preaching method is effective today too?
4. The clues to God’s existence and character have traditionally been called general revelation, with which He chose to reveal himself through nature. Then why do we need missionaries if people can know about God through nature (the creation)?
5. According to today’s message, how can you define sin?
6. The righteousness of God and the wrath of God, found in verses 17 and 18 in the first chapter of Romans, are in an exact parallel. “The two revelations referred to in these two verses are then really two aspects of the same process. The preaching of the gospel is at the same time both the revelation of a status of righteousness before God for men and also the revelation of God’s wrath against their sin. With regard to the wrath of God, its reality is only truly known when it is seen in its revelation in Gethsemane and on Golgotha.” Explain the righteousness of God and the wrath of God in your own words.
[Prayer]
The wrath of God—Paul started this great Epistle to the Romans with this message. It is the mighty, tremendous, and awe-inspiring truth. Lord, we thank you for letting us hear this amazing outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s word. Thank you for giving us this amazing truth. Through Paul, Lord, you have told us everything that humans need to know. You have revealed who we are, what we are, how we are before God, and conversely how we are without God. Without God we are nothing. However, our foolishness and vice constantly banish you from our lives. We now know that sin is not letting God be in His position, in us. When God is not in His due position, we cannot find our position either. Just like a child who lost his mother, we will be left drifting and Satan will immediately take possession of us and take us anywhere he wants. He will tempt us to worship idols. Let us look into ourselves to see if it is God or idols who command us in our lives. We know that sin, at the end of this road, lies destruction. We will perish without you.
Lord, from the beginning of this world, your creation tells us that it is God who made all things. You have made everything beautiful and you have also set eternity in the hearts of men. (Eccl. 3:11) From the beginning of this world, you were already within us, in our very hearts. We were created so beautifully and designed mysteriously so that we cannot help but long for you. Let us not cover up our innate spiritual desire, but come before you trusting your love. You are a loving God who does not reject those who come to you knowing your existence by your creation. You then nurture us further and let us know who you are. May we know you more and more as we study Romans.
Lord, thank you for your revelation. Thank you for your gospel that brings us salvation. We confess that it is the only way for us to live. To live by faith, to live by your love that was revealed through the Cross – that is the only way for us to live. Let us fully accept your love and live by your love so that we will be called righteous.
Republished with permission from Dr. Christy Tran, the author of “The Epistle to the Romans: Paul’s Love Letter from God.”