Romans 1:18-23
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
The positive news (the gospel) has been Paul's topic since verse 1:1 and he is about to elaborate on it.
What is striking in this verse is how he fluidly moves from “God's righteousness is revealed” (v.17) to “God's wrath is being revealed” in (v.18.)
But God’s wrath is part of the good news because God's wrath is part of the His righteousness.
He pours His wrath out on a very specific group of people: People who "who suppress truth.”
"Suppressing" is a volitional action. It is active, not passive. It is intentional, not out of ignorance. These wicked people know the truth. But they are putting a lid on it. Stuffing truth back inside its container. Preventing truth from coming out in the open. Refusing to acknowledge the truth they know.
If God's wrath causes fewer people to suppress truth, more people will know the truth.
And if more know the truth, more people will put their faith in God and be saved through God’s righteousness.
So it is necessary for God to exercise wrath against the suppression of His truth because He is righteous.
Grasping this can be challenging because we tend to think of wrath the way humans exercise it. But human wrath is carnal wrath. It is grounded in limited knowledge and understanding. It emanates from people who are sinful and self-serving by nature.
God’s wrath can’t be compared to human wrath. His wrath is never out of control. It is never unfair. It is never misdirected. It is always based upon ultimate truth. It is always “right,” or “righteous.”
The problem is not people who ignore Truth. The problem is people who deliberately reject and suppress the truth that God reveals to them.
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 men are without excuse.
God made the truth plain to them. They know His eternal power. They know His divine nature. God's creation itself has made these obvious to them. They suppress these truths even though they know them.
Some thinkers today (in Paul's day too) reason this way:
- If God exists, we can't know Him.
- If we can't know Him, we can't be held accountable for not showing Him respect.
Paul rejects that first premise.
- We can know God
- We can know His role as creator
- We can know His eternal power
- We can know His divine nature
All of those are plain to everyone. God made sure of that from the beginning of time. And Since God revealed His divine nature "clearly" through the medium of creation, those people have no excuse for rejecting Him (
v.20) and God's wrath is just.
Note the wording very carefully. God's wrath isn't against the people. It is against their godlessness and wickedness. That is a very important distinction. Our God loves everything and everyone He created -
including wicked people – and He "desires that everyone be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (
1Timothy 2:4).
21 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. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Now that we know that everyone knows the truth, Paul tells us that:
- Everyone knows God, and
- Everyone knows that they need to glorify and give thanks to God (v.21)
The numerous religions of the world are a testament to that. All try to glorify whatever god they worship, even if that god is mankind itself.
When people suppress their knowledge of God there are consequences:
- Futile Thinking: Their thinking becomes futile, empty, useless (v. 21)
- Dark hearts: Their hearts become dark (v. 21)
- Foolishness: Foolishness seems to them to be wisdom (v. 22)
- Idolatry: They trust the creation rather than its Creator (v. 23)
First century Jews understood idolatry to be the epitome of all sins—as far as one could possibly fall.
Look at modern trends in entertainment, government, families, commerce, education, etc. Can you see clear devolution to futile thinking, dark hearts, foolish wisdom, and elevating the creation above its Creator?
What are the idols of our society today? What are the idols of American churches?
Churches today are more prone to becoming like the world than vice versa.
The church has been failing its calling to transform the culture. Remember Acts?
We - the church – are accountable for the accelerated rate of the world’s degradation.
Things like “bring ‘em to church” or "Friend Sunday" evangelism are impotent.
We behave as if we believe Jesus spoke the Great Commission to the lost, telling them to “go into all the churches so that they can preach the good news to you!”
No. Jesus told us to go into the world (
Mark 16:15-16), not to open the doors to our cushy buildings with professional sound systems and invite the world to come to us to hear our great music and eat our potluck dinners.
One of my professional roles has been as a business coach. I help executives and other leaders bring their own limitations, sloppy thinking, and bad habits to the surface. These are habits, reflexes, prejudices, and attitudes that they regularly suppress. Subconsciously they know negative truths about themselves, but their limitations are more than they can objectively face or overcome on their own. Those thinking patterns subconsciously cause the very troubles these professionals wish to be rid of. When we bring these things to the surface through transparent discussion we can deal with them.
In a similar (but exponentially more important) way, it’s helpful to our evangelistic cause if we remember that:
- Everyone in the world knows God, and
- They deliberately (though often subconsciously) suppress their knowledge of Him.
That should give us confidence when we offer to help them out of the mire. We are talking with them about something they already know is true, but they've suppressed it.
The next logical question is “What sort of wickedness causes them to suppress their knowledge of God?”
The answer is in v. 23. They suppress the truth by trusting (putting importance and faith in) the creation rather than in its Creator. They turn peoples’ attention toward the things God made rather than toward God Himself just as the Wizard of Oz shifted attention to the great image on the wall so that Dorothy and friends would "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" who, once exposed, admitted he had no special powers.
In our present time, consider what issues rise to the top of popular awareness. Environmentalism. Sexuality. Economy. Governmental and military powers. Genomic research. Biological manipulation. Neurology. Extending lifespans. Diseases, cures, and prevention. Global commerce. Generating electrical, nuclear, and other types of power. Poverty and starvation. Astronomy. Space Forces for astrophysical combat, etc.
Those are significant topics. They understandably dominate a worldview that elevates the creation and denies the Creator. Who can blame the godless for wanting to extend carnal life in a physical world if that's all there is? In a godless world, those things are inevitably most important.
What better way to deny God than to elevate the things His created, especially those that redirect our attention toward ourselves, the pinnacle of His creation.?
COOKING GODS FOR DINNER
God said it poignantly through Isaiah:"He cuts down cedars, he selects the cypress and the oak, he plants the ash in the forest to be nourished by the rain. And after his care, he uses part of the wood to make a fire to warm himself and bake his bread, and then—he really does—he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god—a god for men to worship! An idol to fall down before and praise! Part of the tree he burns to roast his meat and to keep him warm and fed and well content, and with what’s left he makes his god: a carved idol! He falls down before it and worships it and prays to it. “Deliver me,” he says. “You are my god!” Such stupidity and ignorance! God has shut their eyes so that they cannot see and closed their minds from understanding. The man never stops to think or figure out, “Why, it’s just a block of wood! I’ve burned it for heat and used it to bake my bread and roast my meat. How can the rest of it be a god? Should I fall down before a chunk of wood?” The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes; he is trusting what can never give him any help at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, “Is this thing, this idol that I’m holding in my hand, a lie?” (
Isaiah 44:14-20, Living Bible Version)
How in the world does the man in that illustration determine which end of the log is to cook on and which side is to worship?
What if he accidentally got them backward and cooked his god for dinner?
