DISOBEDIENCE TO THEIR CREATOR: EXEGESIS ON (ROMANS 1:26,27)
Today, worldwide, millions of homosexuals and lesbians celebrate in gay pride parades and boast secular society’s acceptance of their lifestyle.
Such basic concepts we have known as “family” must now accommodate the desires of those who refuse to honour God with their bodies and instead ‘CELEBRATE SODOMY”.
The Bible is clear about how God views immorality. This includes premarital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, beastiality, and lesbianism. The Lord does not view these to be equally sinful. However, homosexuality is especially targeted by Scripture, as it was this sin which brought about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It also resulted in the war against the Danites in the Book of Judges.
God’s decree against homosexuality is found both in the Old Testament and New Testament but I want to consider a rather lengthy study provided by Doctor Arnold G Fruchtenbaum (Ariel Ministries) which I took down in shorthand and then transcribed some years ago which resulted in 178 pages. The following is a short excerpt from that excellent study.
So then let us summarise everything Paul said about the gospel not only in these verses but in earlier ones.
1. As to its source – the source of the gospel is God.
2. As to its nature – it is God’s power.
3. As to its purpose – it is for salvation and salvation includes justification, sanctification and glorification, and
4. As to its scope, it is for everyone.
5. As to receiving it, the reception comes to those who believe.
6. As to its efficacy, therein is the righteousness of God revealed, and the efficacy is that righteousness is the effect.
7. As to its proclamation it is to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
8. And finally, as to the result, the just shall live continually by faith.
Paul begins his main line of argument in Chapter 1 verse 18.
Let us turn to Romans 1.
We have dealt with the introduction to the book where Paul, after giving his salutation, spells out his own relationship to the church of Rome dealing with his long term desire to come Rome. Yet God has not so willed it has not opened the way for him to go. Now apparently he is viewing, with anticipation, soon coming to Rome, and he will indeed come to Rome, but it will not be quite the way he had planned, because when he comes to Rome he will be in chains as a prisoner of Rome.
Now finally at Verses 16 and 17 we looked at the theme of this book and that is the explanation of the gospel, in which the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
He now begins dealing extensively with the theology of God’s righteousness which continues right on to the end of Chapter 8.
As I mentioned, salvation involves three main theological aspects – justification, sanctification and glorification. He will deal with all three of these.
He now he begins to deal with the first one – justification – which is the imputation of righteousness and this begins at verse 18 and continues to the end of chapter 5.
Our position as sinners:
Now to be justified means, to be declared righteous in the judicial sense. It does not mean that we are righteous but it does mean that God declares us to be righteous.
Before we can fully appreciate what justification really is we must understand our position as sinners. Unless we understand that we are all sinners in God’s sight we will never come to him for salvation.
So before dealing with justification proper we must first deal with the issue of sin and to show that regardless of one’s status in human society all are guilty of sin and because all are guilty of sin all are under condemnation.
So in Chapter 1 verse 18 to Chapter 3 verse 20 he deals with the issue of condemnation and a universal need for righteousness because regardless of racial qualities or religious qualities everyone has fallen short of God’s standard of righteousness and everyone is in sin.
It deals with the two main bodies. First the Gentiles and then with the Jews.
The guilt of the Gentiles is what he deals with beginning in verse 18 into Chapter 2 Verse 16. And he understands, as we know from his discussion in verses 8-15 that, in a sense, Greeks divided humanity differently to the way Jews did. Jews divided simply between Jews and Gentiles, but the Greeks divided between barbarians and Greeks, who are cultured. He is going to show that even the Greeks considered barbarians or pagans, and the cultured Greeks, are both under God’s condemnation. He deals with the pagan the barbarian or the uncultured in verses 18-32 of Chapter 1 but he turns to the cultured Gentile in Chapter 2 verses 1-16. So first, the uncultured or the barbarian, or what we call today – paganism and then, what we call refined or cultured Gentiles.
In verses 18-20 he shows that there has been to creation and through creation a revelation of the knowledge of God –
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness against the unrighteousness of men who hinder the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known of God is manifest in them for God manifested it unto them for the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen being perceived in the things that are made even his everlasting power and divinity that they may be without excuse.”
Perhaps then, a revelation, to some degree, of the knowledge of God.
In verse 18 the point he makes is the wrath of God. In verse 4 is a further explanation for what he had said in verse 17. The need for a grace gospel arises from a wrath that has been revealed. The righteousness of God is revealed because the wrath of God is revealed. A wrath of God in which God shows his displeasure with ungodliness and sin. The word ungodliness means “irreverence of God” in a religious sense. Any type of irreverence to God religiously is godlessness or ungodliness. It means to disregard the fact that God exists and to keep on living as if he didn’t exist and humanity has had this tendency to live as though God does not exist. Against this kind of ungodliness the wrath of God is revealed.
While ungodliness is a failure or irreverence in the religious sphere, the term unrighteousness is a failure in the moral sphere. So God’s wrath is revealed against both, ungodliness in the religious sphere, and unrighteousness in the moral sphere.
Barbarianism or paganism is guilty of hindering the knowledge of God or holding the truth in unrighteousness. It is not that the pagan world is totally without some amount revelation. The nature of this revelation I will explain:-
They can know certain things about God because there is a degree of revelation available to paganism but Paul says “they hold down the truth”. They possess the truth but hold it down, or suppress it by their unrighteous living and so, the truth that they are able to possess (whatever amount that may be, however limited that may be) they possess it unrighteously.
He explains what he means in verse 18, by verse 19. There are things that can be known by God even by the pagan world that have no Scripture and there is that that can be known. The difficulty is not that of rank ignorance. The difficulty was that of rejection and suppression. All men have the image of God in them to some degree. All men have sense of guilt and according to verse 20 – all men do have an adequate amount of knowledge to know something about God.
What is it that they can clearly know from general revelation, apart from the Scriptures?
What Paul says is that “the visible things are evidence of the invisible”.
The fact that the world exists, that the pagan can look around him and know that the world exists, that there are stars in the heavens, that there is a moon and a sun, these things should have been enough to tell him two things about God.
One: That he must be very powerful – His eternal power to be able to make these things;
Two: His divinity. For in some sense the pagan can know his divinity and is that he is God;
And so, from general revelation, man should be able to conclude two things – there is a God that exists and that this God is extremely powerful.
The purpose that there is general revelation and it is available to all men apart from the special revelation of Scripture is that he says that
“all men may be without excuse”.
The principle that is to be seen here is that, if men truly respond to the light that he has, God will give them more light.
Now general revelation is not enough to save anyone. That which saves is , the content of the gospel:-
“That Jesus died for our sins,
was buried
and rose again in accordance with the Scriptures”
One must have a knowledge of that fact in order to be saved.
The pagan world could have known two basic things about God and had they lived up to the knowledge that they could have from general revelation then God would see to it that they get more of light.
And that is why I can easily see and explain why it is that some men in middle America Kansas, Ohio or wherever, suddenly get this burden, deep inside of them, for a tribe no one else has ever heard of. They get this burden deep inside of them to get out there and present the gospel. They will do anything and sell everything they have because God has instilled that burden in them because there are people out there, no matter how far away from civilisation they may be who would respond to the light if they are given it. And God will make sure that the gospel is presented to them. But God also knows when and where there will be no response whatsoever.
The question is then –
Are pagans lost if they do not respond to the ?
And the answer is – yes.
Paul then continues to develop this in this passage that pagans are still lost if they die without ever hearing the gospel because if men can be saved by hearing the gospel then the worst thing you can do for a man is to send a missionary to them. That is the worst thing you can do for them. Why give them a chance to reject the gospel and end up in hell if you can get to heaven by simply dying and by not having heard the gospel?
When we understand the basic fact that all men are lost because they have rejected general revelation then, we can see the need for getting the gospel out to them.
In Verses 21 – 23 he spells out the fact that they rejected the knowledge available to them.
“Because that knowing God, they glorified him not as God, either gave thanks, but became vain in their reasonings and their senseless heart was darkened: Professing themselves to be wise, they became fool, s and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and creeping things”.
In verse 21 Paul starts out by spelling out what the barbarians or pagans had failed to do. They had failed to learn from the knowledge that was available to them.
And failure to learn from them they began to develop a series of steps:-
Step one – recognise from general revelation they can conclude that there is a God out there yet did not glorify him as God – and that was the first step towards their degeneration.
That was followed by step two. As a corollary, they failed to give him thanks for what had been provided to them through common grace which they received.
Step three followed – and their reasonings became vain. Their reasonings became detrimental. Their reasonings became perverse and self-willed and what began to corrupt the mind began to move towards the heart; and so in
Step four their senseless hearts were darkened as a result of the vain reasonings of their minds; and
Step five professing to be wise they then became fools.
In verse 23 we have a sixth step:
Since it was obvious they could not be moved alike and because general revelation was always available, they began to change the object of that which they are responsible to. Not wanting to be responsible to the Creator out there – the God out there from whom they could learn by general revelation they tried to change the object of which they were responsible to.
In Step 7 we are told what the change was. “They changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man, birds, beasts and creeping things”. In other words they degenerated to idolatry.
Rather than worshipping that which they could see from general revelation who had to be out there – a Creator. They began to make images of that which they see – things that died and corrupted and faded away. They made images of men. They made images of animals and then called these images “gods” and began to worship these “gods”.
Idolatry is a common element in the pagan world but this shows it was a progressive degeneration that led them to it. They became idolaters not out of pure ignorance but because they rejected the knowledge which is available to the pagan world from general revelation.
So as a result of their rejection of the knowledge in verses 42-42 Paul spells out what the results were because of their rejection.
Three different times he is going to be emphasising God gave them up to something.
The word “wherefore” is a very strong inferential participle introducing a specific result that came from it.
The first result then in verses 24 & 25 is that –
“God gave them up in the lust of their hearts unto uncleaness that their bodies should be dishonoured among themselves for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.
Because they rejected the knowledge God simply – “gave them up.” The expression here is used in a judicial sense. It does not mean that God merely permitted them to go their own way. It does not mean that God merely withdrew his gracious aid from them. There is a judicial judgment by God. God “gave them up” as an appropriate punishment for their rejection of the knowledge available to them.
And as a rejection it led to the first stage of degeneration – to promiscuity – this was a logical result. They then began to worship that which is created through idolatry rather than the creator himself. It means to exchange the truth about God and to exchange that truth into a lie.
Then comes a second result in verses 26 & 27.
For the second time Paul says
“for this cause God gave them up unto vile passions for the women changed the natural use unto that which is against nature and likewise also men gave up the natural use of the women burned in their lusts one unto another men with men working on sinfulness and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due.”
The second result was/is that God further gave them up to vile passions and that led to bold lesbianism and homosexuality.
So first we moved to promiscuity which is heterosexuality gone degenerate moving into homosexuality and lesbianis.
“Women with women and men with men burning in their passions one for another and receiving in themselves the due recompense for their error”
And after a period of this going on we will come to a third stage for a third result which he deals with in verses 28-32.
And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not fitting, and then finally, God gives them up to a totally reprobate mind.
And what is involved in a reprobate mind is to do things which are not fitting and in verses 29-31 he lists 21 things which are not fitting.
They know the ordinance of God and that those who do such things are worthy of death. Yet they continue to do such things and consent with them that do so practice.
And this is the state of hedonism and the pagan world.
Let us summarise several things about what he said of the cultured Gentile before we go to Chapter 2.
We should take careful note of exactly what Paul tells us that the pagan world had.
He tells us four things
1. They had a degree of knowledge that was revealed to them according to verse 19.
2. Verse 21, for a while, they knew the truth experientially;
3. They knew that they were repudiating this knowledge in verse 28.
4. They understood to some degree the results of their rejection in verse 32.
In their rejection of the truth we are told they did three things;
1. They changed the glory of God into idolatry in verses 19 – 23.
2. They changed the truth of God into a lie in verse 25; and
3. They gave up the knowledge of God after evaluating it in Verse 28.
By this passage we can draw certain principles of God’s dealings with nations and why finally God allowed them to get into a position where He simply “gives them up” and the progression, in the light of these verses, goes something like this.
Firstly, man begins to lower God into his own image. ( Whenever you reject a proper knowledge of God you begin to lose your proper concept of God and you begin to lower God to your own image) and that is what man began to do.
Secondly, this will lead to sexual immorality, promiscuity, preoccupation with sex in the heterosexual sense. If this is not abated at some point at the first stage this will lead to a
Third stage which eventually leads to homosexuality which is from normal to abnormal and finally in the
Fourth stage God finally gives them up totally for some kind of judgment – fall and so on.
In the light of what is happening in this country, indeed the whole world, is quickly moving towards where, in places, homosexuals do have the majority vote and where we must, as Christians, ensure we have a voice over specific laws regarding homosexuality.
Before that we had already begun well into promiscuity and the natural result eventually leads to homosexuality.
Now what lessons can we draw from that we have learned so far?
- We can learn that there is enough knowledge available in nature for appreciation and gratitude.
- We can learn that in spite of secular anthropology mans’ religious evolution is not upward it is downward. He does not start with polytheism (many Gods) and move to monotheism (one God) the order has been in reverse he moves from monotheism to polytheism.
- A third thing we can clearly learn from this passage is that God will punish sin and sometimes he punishes sin by allowing even greater sin to enter in.
- Another thing important for our concept of proper missions that even the most degraded of men still have a knowledge of God because the conscience of men bears witness according to verses 14 and 15 in Chapter 2.
- We can know that knowledge by itself does not stop men from committing sins worthy of judgment and death. The fact that they have this knowledge does not keep them from going ahead and committing these sins worthy of judgment and death.
Knowledge does not necessarily create a hatred of sin.
Questions: Would you say that even if a person ends up with a reprobate mind – that I know God is so able, but that person still has an opportunity –
Answer: I think that person still has an opportunity is there but that death is the point of no return but the further reprobate he becomes blinded (2 Corinthians 2 verse 4) I believe. Satan has blinded that mind and it makes for the penetration of the light so much more difficult as a result.
Please visit Ariel Ministries (Ariel.org) where a DVD of Romans can be obtained.