A Study by Scott Sperling   Romans 1:21-32 -  The Wrath of God, the Sin of Man, pt. 2   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 a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 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 sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28  Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 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 have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 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. Having established in verse 20 that everyone is given a knowledge of God, Paul goes on to describe man’s failure to properly respond to this knowledge of God, and the resulting punishment upon man for having rejected God. Paul gives us three parallel examples of this deadly cycle—the cycle in which man rejects God, and then receives the just punishment for doing so—in verses 21-24, then 25-27, then 28-32. Paul begins: “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” (vs. 21). The proper response to knowing the greatness and majesty of God is to “glorify” Him, and to “give thanks” to Him. These two obligations “embrace the whole cycle of the soul’s duty towards God” [Liddon]. “Man is a religious being, and if he refuses to let God have the place of preeminence that is rightfully his, then he will put something or someone else in God’s place” [Harrison]. “Men often justify their neglect of God by alleging that He has no need of their service, and that it cannot be profitable to Him; but we here see that He is to be glorified for His perfections, and thanked for His blessings… We should constantly remember that God is the source of all that we are, and of all that we possess.” [Haldane, 61]. First, to “glorify” him: The Psalmist teaches, “The heavens declare the glory of God”, and so we must also glorify Him. To “glorify” means to praise God for what He is [Schaff, 27]. To fail to “glorify” God, as stated before, is to fail to properly respond to the knowledge of God given to us. Our awe and adoration of God must keep pace with our knowledge of the goodness and greatness of God. “Reason suggests that the creature should honor the Creator. Scripture asserts in the clearest manner that we are bound to glorify God” [Plumer, 76]. The Psalmist admonishes: “You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!” (Ps. 22:23). In addition to glorifying God, we must also “give thanks to him” (vs. 21). “Well-bred people thank even another man’s servant for a small favor, such as a cup of cold water. How vile must be the heart that warms not with gratitude to God, who lavishes on us innumerable blessings, all wholly unmerited” [Plumer, 65]. “Does not a child even say thanks to its benefactor?” [Godet, 173]. The act of “giving thanks to God” keeps the blessings of God upon our lives in fresh focus before our eyes, which aids in our obedience of Him. “Insensibleness of God’s mercies is at the bottom of our sinful departures from him” [Henry, 218]. The result of man’s ingratitude to God is that “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (vs. 21). Those who refuse to respond to the knowledge of God given them, find themselves meandering into all sorts of mazes of “futile” thought. And so we find that many scientists and intellectuals have the stated goal of explaining the workings of the Creation, without acknowledging the possibility of any activity by God. This leads them to all sorts of “futile”  speculations about how life spontaneously sprang out of nothing, and about how consciousness and the soul are mere mirages. They spend their whole life’s work striving to convince us against things we clearly understand. They wrongly tell us that there is no God, and that our existence is meaningless. They prove this by vain speculations which are supported by the flimsiest of evidences. This is the height of “futile”  thinking. Such “futile” thinking leads to “darkened” hearts. When one shields himself from the clear light of God, what else can the result be but a “darkened” heart? And then those who are in the dark, whose “foolish hearts were darkened”, become accustomed to the darkness, and even learn to love the darkness. In the end, they hate all light. As John teaches: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The rejection of the knowledge of God leads to self- deception, and then idolatry: “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles” (vss. 22-23). “The more they boasted of their wisdom, the more conspicuous became their folly” [Hodge, 39]. “This is the greatest unhappiness of man, not only not to feel his malady, but to extract a matter of pride from what ought to be his shame. What they esteemed their wisdom was truly their folly. All their knowledge, for which they valued themselves, was of no avail in promoting virtue or happiness. Their superstitions were in themselves absurd; and instead of worshipping God, they actually insulted Him in their professed religious observances” [Haldane, 62]. Rejection of the true God, invariably leads to worship of false Gods. As Paul teaches: “They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles” (vss. 22-23). The worship of man-made gods represented by carved wooden or stone figures is not as prevalent as it once was, but false idolatry is still prevalent. When the children of Israel were displeased with God in the wilderness, they made a god of their own devising when they crafted the golden calf (see Ex. 32). Nowadays, when people are displeased with the True and Living God as revealed in the Bible, they devise a god of their own, an image of god that suits them. They may not carve wooden or stone figures of this god, but their worship of the false god, which they have devised in their mind, is still idolatry. They reject the True and Living God because they despise His law, and want a law that they themselves devise; or they despise His Son who died for them, and they do not want to worship the Son as Lord, so they devise their own means of salvation which is acceptable to the god of their own creation. This is idolatry, every bit as much as the idolatry of wooden and stone figures. People worship gods of their own creation, many times, in order to justify actions that they wish to carry out. In one corner of the world, a god of extreme liberality and universal inclusiveness is created in order to get approval for any and every activity (no matter how reprehensible to the True and Living God). In another corner of the world, a god of hatred and vindictiveness is created, in order to get approval for actions spawned by the hatred and bloodthirstiness of men. All such worship of gods, whose will and character deviates from the will and character of the True and Living God as revealed in the Bible, is idolatry. “Paul describes the terrible proclivity of all people to corrupt the knowledge of God they possess by making gods of their own. This tragic process of human ‘god-making’ continues apace in our own day, and Paul’s words have as much relevance for people who have made money or sex or fame their gods as for those who carved idols out of wood and stone…  It is this putting some aspect of God’s creation — whether it be an animal, a human, or a material object — in place of God that is the essence of idolatry” [Moo, 110, 113]. Creating a god of one’s own conception is actually a form of self-deification. They reject the wisdom of the True and Living God, thinking that they are wiser than God, and so they create what they think is a better god—a god that conforms to their own wisdom and desires. “In modern times the western world has outgrown crass idolatry, but humanism has subtly injected the worship of man without the trappings. God is quietly ruled out and man is placed on the throne” [Harrison]. As Paul says, “they become fools”, by “exchanging the glory of the immortal God” for something that is worthless, and non-existent. This is the height of rebellion against God, and the height of foolishness of man. Such a rejection of the True and Living God deserves punishment by God, especially since the revelation of the True God has been given to everyone. God’s means of punishment (in general) was not to hurl fire and brimstone down, but to just let man be man: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (vs. 24). The “sinful desires” of the hearts of men themselves provided the punishment for the idolatry. “God is not represented in these expressions as infusing any evil principles; but simply as leaving them to the unbridled indulgence of the lusts of their own hearts—the unrestrained operation of the principles of evil already in them” [Wardlaw, 121]. “Given up by God, men come under the power of Satan and their own corruption… As the Spirit withdraws, the power of sin advances” [Robinson, 104].  “It is beyond question that, according to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, sin is the punishment of sin” [Tholuck]. “Sin inevitably creates its own penalty… Divine judgment is God permitting people to go their own way” [Mounce, 56]. Given the revelation of God to them, men are “without excuse” (vs. 20), and so deserve the giving over to the desires of their hearts, which without God’s grace and restraining influence, tend to sin.  People blame God for the evil in the world, but rather should credit God for any good that is in the world.  Without God’s restraining influence, the world would be a hell, full of only darkness, which would be the result if man was completely left to his sinful inclinations. “It is a horrible thing to be given up or given over by God. From his throne never proceeds a more dismal sentence than this: ‘Let him alone’” [Plumer, 78]. Paul here, when he speaks of the “sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another”, may be referring particularly to the sexual immorality that often accompanied idol-worship in ancient times. Those pagan rites “degraded” man, turning him from a being created in the image of God, to a brute driven by animal passions. God desires and expects more from us. When men are given over totally to their animal passions, when the animal passions drive the behavior of men, their bodies are “degraded”, and society is “degraded”. As beautiful as sex is within the confines of committed love within a marriage, so is it debasing, disgraceful, and animalistic outside such. It is a “dishonor” to one’s body. The prohibitions concerning sex in the Bible are laws made for our good, so that we would avoid dishonor to our bodies. We are humans, not animals. God desires that we maintain our human dignity, the dignity of being made in God’s image. One need only read the headlines to see the destruction that unbridled animal passions wreaks on society. This is the punishment of idolatry, of rejecting the truths of God, and word of God, and the worship of God. Paul continues in verses 25 to 27, with a parallel passage to verses 21 to 24. He describes again the rejection of God by man, resulting in God’s punishment by merely letting men be men, as He gives them over to sinful passions: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error” (vss. 25-27). Again, Paul may here be referring to “the shameful acts” which took place as part of pagan worship rituals. The unbridled acts of “sexual impurity” in verse 24 escalates to the abandonment of “natural relations” in the form of homosexual sex acts in verse 27. The Greek words in verses 26 and 27 translated as women and men might be better translated female and male, for they are the same terms that describe the sexes of animals. Paul presumably selected these words “to give prominence to the animal idea of sex, instead of the higher human idea of man and woman.” Likewise, the term in the Greek translated here as natural relations “is meant the use of the sexual organs appointed by God in nature” [Liddon, 31]. So Paul is pointing out that men should not be indiscriminant in sexual activity, as animals are, but must have self- control. We are created in God’s image, and should not live like animals, driven solely by passions. We are higher beings. The result of God “giving over” those who worship created things rather than the Creator is that they become more animal-like, and less like what they were created to be, that is, in God’s image. It is God’s desire that we be more like Him, be “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (II Peter 1:4, KJV).  Let me digress here, a bit, from the verse-by-verse analysis of Paul’s writing, to address the prohibitions of homosexual acts in the Bible, as they relate to modern society, where homosexual activity is, more and more, becoming an acceptable norm. If we say that the homosexual sexual act, whether between men or between women, is not a sin, we are, in effect, dangerously “exchanging the truth of God for a lie”  (vs.. 25), for there are clear prohibitions against it in both the Old and New Testaments (see Lev 18:22; Lev. 20:13; I Cor 6:9; I Tim 1:10; as well as here in Rom. 1:26- 27). It is communicated to be, in the Bible, an act of licentiousness that is not originally part of God’s created ideal. And yet, we must not over-emphasize, and over-react to this sin. It is not an unforgivable sin. Those who practice homosexuality need the salvation that is available through Christ, just as much as any sinner. It would be a sin on our part to, say, bar homosexuals from hearing the gospel at a church service. It would be wrong for us to expect homosexuals to rid themselves of sin, before accepting the salvation of Jesus. This is not expected of any other sinner. Salvation comes before sanctification, not the other way around. Jesus Himself said, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners”  (Matt. 9:13). As Christians, we should love homosexuals in a Christ-like manner, communicate to them the glorious grace of the Gospel, not in an off- putting manner that demonstratively, condemningly calls out their sins, but as we would to any lost soul searching for God:  with grace, patience, and sincerity.  As for all of us, the sanctification of their lives will come later, after they have received Christ, as the Holy Spirit works in them. We accept and welcome “gossips”, “slanderers”, the “insolent, arrogant, boastful” (see vs. 29, 30) into our Church services.  We accept and welcome the divorced into our Church services, even though there are many more prohibitions concerning divorce than there are concerning homosexuality. So also should we accept with open arms homosexuals into our Church services. As sinners, they need Christ just as each of us do.  God is a God of grace.  Christ personified grace. Let us, if anything, err on the side of grace in this matter. Let saved homosexuals be sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  Give them time for this process to happen. It is quite possible that this sanctification may happen in ways we don’t see or understand.  Let the Holy Spirit be in charge of that process. Paul continues with the third of his parallel passages, in which he describes the rejection of God by man, and the resulting punishment by God as He gives them over to their sinful behavior: “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done” (vs. 28). Here, man has moved on from idolatry  (in vs. 23 and 25), to outright atheism, as “they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God.”  And then, as they purged their minds of “the knowledge of God”, for their punishment, God allowed their minds to be filled instead with knowledge of sin, as He “gave them over to a depraved mind.” “It denotes a mind judicially blinded, so as not to discern the difference between things distinguished even by the light of nature” [Haldane, 66]. “Truth rejected leaves its mark. One’s ability to think clearly about moral issues is undermined” [Mounce, 59] “People who have refused to acknowledge God end up with minds that are disqualified from being able to understand and acknowledge the will of God… This tragic incapacity is the explanation for the apparently inexplicable failure of people to comprehend, let alone practice, biblical ethical principles. Only the work of the Spirit in ‘renewing the mind’ (see Rom. 12:2) can overcome this deep-seated blindness and perversity” [Moo, 118]. “The next stage is general moral degradation, regarded as the judicial consequence of the dishonour done to God. It is, indeed, a necessary consequence; for low and unworthy conceptions of Deity bring with them moral deterioration; when man’s Divine ideal becomes degraded, with it he becomes degraded too” [Pulpit Comm., 11]. Whereas in the previous sections, where God, it seems, gave men over to sins related to ritual worship of false gods (see verses 24, 26-27), here man is given over to a “depraved mind”, and the resulting sin seeps into all aspects of society. Paul gives a catalogue (of sorts) of the sins that pervade a godless society: “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, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 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” (vss. 29-32). This is a depiction of a society without God’s restraining hand keeping men from sin, a society without the good that only God provides. Sadly each of us, as fallen human beings, practice many of these sins, even those of us who are saved by God’s grace. “Here is enough to humble us all in the sense of our original corruption; for every heart by nature has in it the seed and spawn of all these sins” [Henry, 219]. “Such a catalogue of sins, if duly considered, would overwhelm any unconverted person with shame and self-condemnation” [Plumer, 80]. I cannot see how anyone reading this entire passage can be unaffected with the need to seek God’s salvation, and this is the purpose of Paul’s writing here: to demonstrate that there is not one person, who has ever existed, who does not need the salvation that is available by accepting Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. “From the whole, we see how terrible to his posterity have been the consequences of the sin of the first man; and, on the other hand, how glorious in the plan of redemption is the grace of God by His Son” [Haldane, 72]. Given the variety and prevalence of sin, a Gospel of great power is required for atonement. Click here to see Bibliography and Suggested Reading