18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Romans 1: 18-25 LSB
Romans 1: 18-19
ROMANS ROAD | ||||
| Romans 1:18-3:20 | Romans 3:21-5:21 | Romans 6:1-8:39 | Romans 9:1-11:36 | Romans 12:1-16:27 |
| SIN | SALVATION | SANCTIFICATION | SOVEREIGNTY | SERVICE |
| NEED FOR SALVATION | WAY OF SALVATION | LIFE OF SALVATION | SCOPE OF SALVATION | SERVICE OF SALVATION |
| God's Holiness In Condemning Sin | God's Grace In Justifying Sinners | God's Power In Sanctifying Believers | God's Sovereignty In Saving Jew and Gentile | Gods Glory The Object of Service |
| Deadliness of Sin | Design of Grace | Demonstration of Salvation | ||
| Power Given | Promises Fulfilled | Paths Pursued | ||
| Righteousness Needed | Righteousness Credited | Righteousness Demonstrated | Righteousness Restored to Israel | Righteousness Applied |
| God's Righteousness IN LAW | God's Righteousness IMPUTED | God's Righteousness OBEYED | God's Righteousness IN ELECTION | God's Righteousness DISPLAYED |
| Slaves to Sin | Slaves to God | Slaves Serving God | ||
| Doctrine | Duty | |||
| Life by Faith | Service by Faith | |||
Modified from Irving L. Jensen's chart above - from PA | ||||
V. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness - Paul starts with an indictment of all man kind, and will lay out his case. This is a big part of what I mean when talking about the whole counsel of God, Paul's desire to be innocent of the blood of every man in this. He doesn't want anyone to be able to say, "you never told me, or you downplayed it so much that I wasn't concerned." Growing up I went to many church services where I heard God was love, which is true, but in not mentioning His wrath they downplayed His holiness. I hear modern movements say, "God is love, love, love," but what some know as the actual Trisagion is "Holy, Holy, Holy," and when Isaiah witnesses this heavenly picture love most certainly doesn't come to his mind, but what does? His need to be cleansed. This is by any standard a very godly individual, but when confronted with the holiness of God he is overwhelmed by his own sinful condition.
John MacArthur writes that orge "signifies the strongest kind of anger, that which reaches fever pitch, when God’s mercy and grace are fully exhausted. It will mark the end of God’s patience and tolerance with unregenerate, unrepentant mankind in the swelling of His final, furious anger which He will vent on those whose works evidence their persistent and unswerving rebellion against Him." (MacArthur, J: Romans 1-8. Chicago: Moody Press) - PA
…35The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3: 35-36
1Then I saw another great and marvelous sign in heaven: seven angels with the seven final plagues, with which the wrath of God is completed. 2And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, beside which stood those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name. They were holding harps from God, 3and they sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are Your works, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!…
…4Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.” 5 After this I looked, and the temple— the tabernacle of the Testimony— was opened in heaven. 6And out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues, dressed in clean and bright linen and girded with golden sashes around their chests.…
…7Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. 8And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. Revelation 15:
…2Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.” 4At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.…
…5Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.” 6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7And with it he touched my mouth and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”… Isaiah 6: 2-7
More on Isaiah 6 and God's holiness At the end of each of the Isaiah 6 posts is a link to part of a lecture by R.C. Sproul that was a watershed moment for me in understanding the gospel. I would encourage you to listen to them, amazing!
V. 18b Who suppress the truth in unrighteousness - If you go to a church that doesn't teach the whole counsel of God and you are there by choice, then while your "pastor" will receive a harsher judgment as we are told of teachers in the Bible, yet you will not be without fault. You being there is feeding his desire to fill seats and be liked, and his bad teaching is scratching your itching ears. Y'all are working together to suppress the truth. I always used the excuse that I was looking for a place that resonated with me, but ultimately I didn't want to address my sin. I was afraid to hear the truth because then I felt there would be more accountability. The simple truth is that God doesn't owe you the truth, doesn't owe you anything but death because that is the wages for sin, and as we will see, all have sinned and fallen short. So even if I never would have heard the truth I would have still been a sinner and received God's wrath against sin, not going into a silent separation from the conscious, to cease being, but a separation from God's mercy, and as the soul is eternal, the never ending reality of His just and Holy wrath. Ignorance is in no way complete and total bliss. What does make it worse is hearing the truth, knowing the truth, and walking away from the truth.
Spurgeon writes that "Those last words may be read, "Who hold down the truth in unrighteousness." They will not let the truth work upon their hearts; they will not allow it to operate in their minds; but they try to make it an excuse for their sin. Is there anybody here who is holding down the truth to prevent its entering his heart? I fear that there are some such persons, who have come here for years, and the truth has pricked them, troubled them, made them lie awake at night; but they are holding it down, like one who grasps a wild animal by the ears, and holds it down for fear it should bite him. Oh, sirs, when you are afraid of the truth, you may well be afraid of hell! When you and the truth quarrel, you had better end your fighting soon, for you will have the worst of it if you do not yield: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness." - PA
For decades the news media behind the Iron Curtain served a very different purpose than in the Free World. While airline accidents in the west got headline coverage, they almost always went unreported in the Soviet bloc, as were crime, and crop failures, and nuclear accidents, and anything else that might raise a question about the efficacy of Communism. The truth was suppressed so the populace would not grow aware of their need for a "cure". - PA
…46The master of that servant will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not anticipate. Then he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 47 That servant who knows his master’s will but does not get ready or follow his instructions will be beaten with many blows. 48But the one who unknowingly does things worthy of punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded.… Luke 12: 46-48
…22Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. 23Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well. 24As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father.… 1 John 2: 22-24
…2Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction. 3For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. 4So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.… 2 Timothy 4: 2-4
V. 19 For that which is known about God is evident within them - We are moral beings, and some would like to attribute this to an unguided, evolutionary, development. The problem or one issue with that is that the notion only undoes whatever good or purpose evolved it. In other words, teaching people that there is no God is the same as teaching them that there is no ultimate moral absolute either. So while it may play well to have morals, to be a cultural Christian like Dawkins now claims to be; the premise for it is undermined. We are consciously aware of right and wrong at a young age, the concept, and I have yet to meet anyone that doesn't live their life in light of this to a varying degree, even those who wrong others with seeming impunity, will have boundaries applying to everyone else lest they be wronged too. We all share the same parents, Adam and Eve, and our common ancestry is acknowledged even by geneticists who say they don't believe in a Creator. From them was the fall, and the shared story throughout the world that there was a Creation, a Creator, and even the Flood story has been found in the records of ancients from many cultures, but like Paul says, we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We either build idols of things God made, like those who worship dragons, the sun, or those who make an idol of human ability, or hoping in a special man or woman who will come and solve all their current ills, meet their comforts and desires, but in no way ask them to repent. It is also commonly accepted that we are finite, yet what makes the finite, what is greater than the finite? The infinite. Why does everything look designed, what would happen if the earth wasn't in it's exact orbit around the sun, or Jupiter for that matter? Everyone believes in a god, even atheists, pagans worship material things like trees or the pseudo spiritual, like the spirit of the trees or ether, and atheists worship the god of human achievement, of fortresses, and they have prophets that call themselves scientists while asking you to believe in things they can't observe, like everything coming from nothing, or I have heard some say that matter is eternal.
1For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. 2Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3Without speech or language, without a sound to be heard,…
…4their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun. 5 Like a bridegroom emerging from his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course, 6it rises at one end of the heavens and runs its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.… Psalm 19: 1-6
…10But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation. 11Thus you are to tell them: “These gods, who have made neither the heavens nor the earth, will perish from this earth and from under these heavens.” 12The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.…
…13When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses. 14Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them. 15They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.… Jeremiah 10: 10-15
Humans have an incurable sense of morality. Conscience is not a perfect moral guide, but it does testify to the reality of a moral standard to which we are personally accountable because it "stabs" us when we violate it. This in turn is testimony for the existence of a moral Creator, in whose image we have been made. In Ro 1:32, Paul also says we all know instinctively that we will give an account to God for our sins. So without any Bible at all, human beings know that there is a God who is personal, moral, intelligent, eternal and powerful. And therefore even people who have never seen a Bible should bow to God and worship him and thank him. But this is not the normal response (Ro 1:21, 22, 23). The memory of this God can be found in virtually every culture ever researched as documented in Don Richardson's great book Eternity in Their Hearts. Nevertheless, they choose to reject the true God and replace him with a corruption of some variety ("idol"). This means that our primary spiritual problem is not intellectual (or lack of sufficient evidence), but moral (we want to rebel and be autonomous).
Even the death of infidels gives vivid testimony to the fact that men know God exists. William Pope was a well known infidel, who died in 1797, is said to have been the leader of a company of infidels who ridiculed everything religious. One of their exercises was to kick the Bible about the floor or tear it up. Friends who were present in his death-chamber spoke of it as a scene of terror as he died crying:
"I have no contrition. I cannot repent. God will damn me. I know the day of grace is past … You see one who is damned forever … Oh, Eternity! Eternity! … Nothing for me but hell. Come, eternal torments … I hate everything God has made, only I have no hatred for the devil — I wish to be with him. I long to be in hell. Do you not see? Do you not see him? He is coming for me." - PA
1For the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good. 2The LORD looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God. 3All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.… Psalm 14: 1-3
…5You welcome those who gladly do right, who remember Your ways. Surely You were angry, for we sinned. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins? 6Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. 7No one calls on Your name or strives to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.… Isaiah 64: 5-7
…3For the wicked man boasts in the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. 4In his pride the wicked man does not seek Him; in all his schemes there is no God. 5He is secure in his ways at all times; Your lofty judgments are far from him; he sneers at all his foes.… Psalm 10: 3-5
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