[Romans Study 5-3]
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.
Banish God, Idolatry Follows
And we became fools. The Psalmist says that the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile. (Psalm 14:1)
Paul now continues on to the next step of sin that follows in verse 23. When humans distance themselves from God, that is in other words, banishing God away from the center of our lives, we substitute God’s lost position in us with idols. We try to fill the ‘lost God’ with something else. Therefore, the first and second commandments in the Ten Commandments say: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Exodus 20:4-5) How precise is God! Idolatry brings forth the loss of God in our lives and we are held in bondage to the idols that we choose to worship. However, idols can never liberate us but only make us exceedingly miserable.
Again, our longing, our spiritual thirst can be filled by none other than God. No matter how much money, fame, or popularity we gain, as long as God is not at our center, we will continue to make idols, to worship them, and to depend on them. No matter what idols we worship, we will still feel hungry and thirsty. Then we will end up looking for more thrilling, sensational, and stronger idols. In this passage, we come face to face with the fact that the very essence and basis of sin is to put self in the place of God. Sin is when a man worships himself instead of God.
As we replace God’s central position with idols, what happens next?
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. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Next Is Sexual Corruption
This is the next long step downward. From idolatry sprang sensuality. When we exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles, we become slaves of lusts. Our body that God does not reside in cannot be called the house of God. Then instead it becomes the instrument of sinful desire, rather than the instrument of righteousness. After idolatry comes moral, ethical, and sexual corruption. After idolatry, humans are driven by lusts and live after sexual desires. The route of sin is very clear that idols lead us to sexual corruption and sexual sin. It is because humans innately have longing for love, but they desire to fill it not with God’s love, but Eros- sexual drive, libido-which then precedes sexual sin.
Many people delude themselves into thinking that they live by their own will. However, what actually happens is that they are being driven by their idols. If we do not serve God in His worthy place, we remove him from the very center of our hearts. If we banish God from our hearts, Satan will lead our lives and make us completely dependent on idols. In our hearts we should always keep God, who created us. When we worship instead His creation, we become slaves of lusts and eventually we will perish. We ought to see this spiritual law. Only when we place God in His rightful position, can we truly be liberated from the bondage of sin.
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. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
Given Over to the Lusts, Man Punishes Himself
In verses 24 and 26, Paul announces the most startling punishment of God against sinners: “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts (NIV); God gave them over to shameful lusts (NIV); God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts (KJV); God abandoned them to their shameful desires (NLT)” We must be aware that God’s wrath leaves sinners the way they are. If we reject God and become slaves of lusts, sin piles up. After having sinned, we should acknowledge our sin and repent. Then God will forgive our sin with his infinite love. But if we do not repent, but rather continue sinning, what would God do? Frightfully, God leaves us alone. God gives us over to our sinful lusts. God turns away His face.
Why would He leave us the way we are? There is a deep sorrow of God in this. The closer He gets to you, the further you get away from Him. The more He loves you, the further you resist His love. Love can never be forced. Almighty God cannot force anyone to love Him. He is the God of love and He gave us free will to choose love or to reject Him. He cannot make anyone love Him, but lets them be. This is the sorrow and agony of God.
When Paul speaks of God abandoning men to uncleanness, that word abandon has no twinge of angry irritation in it. Indeed, its main tone is not even condemnation and judgment. God’s abandonment is connoted with a wistful, sorrowful regret, as that of a lover who has trod every path, attempted every overture, yet must be resigned to the inevitability of rejection. It describes exactly the feeling of the father when he saw his son turn his back on his home and go out to the far country. There is far more sorrow than anger in a man’s heart who sees his son’s back in this way. It is just like a loving mother scolding her child. But the more the mother scolds, the more the child rebels. The mother then cannot help but to leave him alone.
We must note that it is not God who is punishing the man. It is that he is bringing punishment upon himself. In actuality, it is not God who leads man to be abandoned but it is man who becomes self-abandoned by following the wrong way.
Paul says that when God leaves because we reject Him, that is where wrath begins. We must never forget that the root of all problems ultimately come from this—taking God away from His due position, driving Him away from our hearts, and separating Him from our lives. When we return to God and become one with Him, all things will be restored.
27 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.
Homosexuality is Sin
Paul describes yet another sinful image of man. At the height of moral corruption lies homosexuality. Paul was not the only one who rebuked this sin, but it was also sharply condemned in the Old Testament: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” (Leviticus 20:13)
Sexual corruption may very well be the essence of sin. The root of sin is arrogance, but when man distances himself from God, sexual corruption immediately follows. The strongest temptation of Satan is the temptation of love. The false love of the world is such an ugly thing. Man becomes the slave of sexual immorality, adultery, lusts – and at its extreme, this corruption even results in homosexuality.
When Paul was addressing wrath in this Epistle, things in Rome were utterly out of control. Propertius, the poet, wrote: “I see Rome, proud Rome, perishing, the victim of her own prosperity.” It was an age of unparalleled luxury and of immorality. Society from top to bottom was riddled with unnatural vice. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors were homosexuals.
It was in this very place, Rome, where Paul was eager to preach the gospel, and it was there that he was not ashamed of the gospel of God. ‘Rome, you must be saved! You need nothing else but salvation.’
28 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.
Republished with permission from Dr. Christy Tran, the author of “The Epistle to the Romans: Paul’s Love Letter from God.”