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So, last week we covered verses 16-17 of Romans where Paul laid out the fact that the Gospel is the Power of God and that it is the Righteousness of God to salvation to all who believe.
And we ended our time talking about belief, about faith or our response to the gift of salvation offered to all.
At this point Paul shifts gears and points to the world without the Gospel, without the power and righteousness of God and without faith. And he plainly explains how that world then, and the people on it, were viewed from God’s perspective without the Gospel, saying (and beginning at verse 18)
Romans 1:18-21
Milk
November 8th 2020
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Now, before we even begin to tackle what Paul says here, the verses we just read do not in themselves clearly say what group Paul is speaking to – Jews or Gentiles – or both.
There are some hints, at times, as we read verses 18-31 but they are not entirely clear.
Of course all the books of the Bible were written without any breaks from their beginnings to their ends. Consequently, there are a number of important observations that need to be made about the present chapter and verse divisions that we find in Scripture.
It is interesting that the Holy Spirit did not have men write in chapter and verse but men did this for the sake of convenience. There is no absolutely no authoritative basis for any of the divisions we now find. And for the greater part of biblical history, there have been no chapter or verse divisions in Scripture.
The divisions of individual books of Scripture into smaller sections began as early as the fourth century A.D. as the Codex Vaticanus, which was a fourth century Greek manuscript, introduced what we might called “paragraph divisions.” These were comparable to what we find in manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.
Then in the fifth century, the bible translator Jerome divided Scripture into short potions, or passages, called pericopes. The word is still used today to refer to a self-contained unit of Scripture. These pericopes proceeded the dividing of Scripture into chapters.
The actual chapter division took place much later when a man named Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters in the year 1227 AD. The Bible he used was the Latin Vulgate.
Langton was a professor at the University of Paris at the time. Later, he became the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Latin Vulgate, as attested to by Erasmus in the early 16th Century was not in really good order by the way when he embarked on retranslating it.
Anyway, Langdon’s chapter divisions were later transferred to the Hebrew text in the fourteenth century by a man named Salomon ben Ishmael. There seems to have been certain changes made by him because the chapter divisions in the Hebrew text do not line up exactly with the English Bible today.
The modern Old Testament division into verses was standardized by the Ben Asher family around A.D. 900. However, the practice of dividing the Old Testament books into verses goes back centuries earlier.
Modern verse division for the New Testament was done by a guy named Robert Stephanus (Stephens), who was a French printer. He divided the Greek text into verses for his Greek New Testament published in 1551.
Putting it all together the first entire Bible that were broken up into chapter and verse was Robert Stephen’s edition of the Latin Vulgate in 1555.
The first English Bible to have both chapter and verse divisions was the Geneva Bible (1560).
The chapter and verse divisions are certainly convenient for reference and for quotation and memorization purposes. They make it easier to find certain statements and accounts in Scripture and are super-duper convenient for telling a group, turn to this chapter and this verse.
However, to me, there is something “lost in translation” through this man-made method – which again was not supplied by the Holy Spirit when the inspired verses were given.
I tend to think that there is something to reading a text as a whole, inconvenient as it would be. That breaking the narrative up into pieces can contribute to division of thought and the overall meaning of the message intended.
I also wonder if reading the text in segments contributes to the human mind comprehending the Word in segments, and therefore making interpretation segmented, and therefore compartmentalized, and therefore often missing the general thrust of the message that was intended.
In some ways, I suggest that what we have done with the text has made us like lawyers citing code instead of lovers citing God. Today we often hear, what is your favorite verse of scripture and that is really a troubling statement when we consider the way the Word originally came to us.
Remember, these changes are of human origin – and are in many ways arbitrary as they often serve to interfere with original flow. So much so that one of the first steps in sound biblical exegesis is to completely ignore the modern chapter and verse divisions.
To take a single passage, which MANY people naturally do, and to focus on it, can opens us up to some really bad views.
Let’s just take one example, without context. When Jesus said “I assure you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. Anyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in Me, and I in him.”
Context of the time and place, context of the surrounding passages, context of the chapter, context of the book, context of the Testament, context of the Bible as a whole with the understanding of animal sacrifice and communion and the last supper – without these things we are almost guaranteed misinterpretation.
Frankly, to sit a read an entire book of scripture at a time without the breaks will assist us the reader more in getting the overall picture and purpose of the book – and it appears that this is what the author and the Holy Spirit intended.
Dividing up the Scripture into chapters and verses encourages people to read only small parts at a time. Sometimes just single verses. And being naturally lazy, this lends to forming single myopic views.
So back to Romans. In verses 18-31 of chapter 1 we really can’t say who is being spoken of directly.
But by going to chapter two, which of course is a natural extension of one, Paul says:
Romans 2:7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life:
8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;
10 But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:
11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.
And from this we know that Paul is describing all people, all human beings here, and I reiterate that he is speaking of them “prior to the Gospel coming together in the life of Christ and the period before the destruction of Jerusalem after; that what he says here in Romans 1:18-31 is a description of human beings, without the law and with, and for this reason, Paul now says:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
And this passage brings us directly into the reality of the Holiness of God that we cannot comprehend – he responded to ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men (meaning all things that are not of Him) with wrath.
When looking at the Old Testament from what we call a humanist perspective, we generally miss this fact – that the peoples being wiped out – from God’s perspective, deserved it.
They were ungodly and they were unrighteous. They did NOT seek to do good. They did evil.
People cringe at the fact that God had the Nation of Israel kill children – but the fact of the matter is, from this biblical perspective, they were as self-willed and just as natural in their predilections as their parents, and would have grown to be similar adults.
Add in the fact that death is a reality to all human beings (a interesting result of our natures) and it comes to all of us – so from God’s perspective when it is expedited upon unholy creatures in the face of the eternities its not the painful horrible event that humans summarize it up to be.
I’m not saying that death isn’t extremely painful for us humans to face and experience but I am trying to hold it up contextually to the eternal light of our maker and to introduce his perspective of things as we seek to understand what Paul is saying here.
And what he plainly says is God had “wrath” for the ungodly and the unrighteous.
The Greek word “orge” is translated to wrath and it means his passionate anger.
Now, I do not know how a just God could be passionately angry at his creations if freewill was not imparted to all of us. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
And I think we will discover that Paul actually speaks to the freewill existing in all human beings in these verses.
And when I say freewill, I mean the ability to choose what we believe, say and do.
I am not comprehending the notion that human beings are so depraved from the womb that we cannot interpret all the invitations God gives for us to receive him.
And the fact of the matter that God supplies all of us with seven or eight constant invitations to receive him in faith (which we covered last week) suggests to me, at least, that there is the ability to choose Him, to choose Godliness and righteousness. In every conscience human being.
So, the design of this argument Paul presents is to show that men were (prior to the Gospel) “sinners.”
I have to stop here and point out that I said, “were” prior to the Good News of Jesus Christ and not “are” in the sense that God is passionately angry toward sinners today.
That men continue to be sinful that is no doubt. But the wrath of God for sin was mitigated by the payment His Son made for sin on the cross.
I do not suggest in the least that God poured his wrath out upon his Son on the cross as religious men and women have implied over the years.
That is a man-made construction. God did NOT pour his wrath out on Jesus – which I can support in several ways.
First, that act would be unjust as Jesus did not commit the sins – He was innocent.
The next reason I reject the idea that God poured his wrath out upon his Son is that this is not stated in scripture.
What we do read is what Jesus said to his own people in John 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Or what Paul said in
Romans 2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
Or in Ephesians 5:6 where he says, “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Of course Revelation contains the most verses about God pouring out his wrath and they are all speaking to them/then.
And God did, in fact pour his wrath out upon Israel for their idolatry, for their rebellion, their infidelity to Him and for killing their Messiah – frankly for being guilty of all the things Paul includes here.
With the propitiation of Sin that resulted in the establishment of the Good News, God reconciled the world to Himself, and the wrath that Paul speaks of here was erased by and through the payment of all the sins of the world.
This must be remembered. He is not an angry God any longer. But he is certainly just, merciful, fair and good.
So, the context of what we are reading here is to the pre-Gospel, pre-destruction world, where God’s wrath was present for both Jews (who were under the Law) and Gentiles (who were not).
Paul will unfold all of this to the point that we will clearly see that there can be but two ways for the justification of Man before God – one effective and one ineffective (so really only one way in reality). Those two ways will present themselves as by obedience to law (which was ineffective), and the other by grace.
Interestingly, justification by the Law was embraced by both Jew and Gentile even though Gentiles did not have the Laws written on stone given them.
But both approaches to justification would prove to be fails showing that another plan was needed.
The orge (or wrath of God) mentioned here is often applied to men when they are seeking revenge due to harm being done to them.
I would suggest that this is not the way to understand wrath as it is applied to God here.
He does not seek revenge because He is not injured by our sin. His wrath ought to be seen more as an act to put people out of their misery; as a move to improve a situation violently rather than him getting revenge. Perhaps to make things better or right in the face of justice and not as an act to gloat in the death and destruction of the unrighteous.
We put horses to death with broken legs as an act of “just mercy” – to we might see the acts of God against the unjust and unholy souls prior to His solution of the Gospel going into effect in this way.
Paul says that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” meaning from a perspective that is heavenly and not the way we would understand wrath from earth.
“Against all ungodliness.”
The brass tacks of this phrase relates to failing to honor the true God which goes hand in hand with honoring false ones – also known as idolatry.
“UN-God-liness.”
Working through the sin of the COI the main sin was almost always, in every case, idolatry, which is the sin of UN-GOD-LINESS.
Without Godliness – so it implies elements in their lives that do not reflect God and his ways. Taking this out a bit, we are talking about the fact that the central theme of missing the mark is failing to reach touch or hit God himself and his ways, and succeeding at hitting what is not of him – which is idolatry because it is UNgodliness.
There is actual idolatry, you know, bowing down and giving honor to little idols, but there are many more forms of idolatry that are better guised:
Other people
Adultery
Love of Money and materialism
Philosophies of the world
Love of the world’s ways and views over Him.
GOD-“lessness” There is no God in the ways – which are truly the sins of Man since the world began, one which God views as a crime of “absolute iniquity.”
Paul adds:
And the “Unrighteousness of men.” Which might be better understood as the unrighteousness against men.
Of course, the two great commandments are to love God (with our all) and to love neighbor (as we love ourselves). And this is what Paul indirectly alludes to here in God’s heavenly originated wrath being against; people not loving God enough to honor him in their lives and then also people being unrighteous toward their neighbors (or other members of humanity).
And then he adds, speaking to such that they are such . . .
“Who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”
It’s an interesting phrase, who HOLD the TRUTH in UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.”
The word “hold” means to observe or keep or maintain, but it can also mean hinder, detain and hold back.
It is the latter that seems to be the case, that these “held back the truth in unrighteousness.”
Remember last week how we talked about the post-it notes God sticks all around us? The wonders of creation that speak of him, miracles of everyday living, our consciences, the Word written and preached, the witnesses of believers?
Paul is saying that these souls who were the object of God’s heavenly wrath, “held back these truths by and through unrighteousness.”
The difference between those that Paul is talking about here and those today who fit this description comes down to Gods wrath.
Certainly, people continue to do such things today, replacing God with godlessness and the like.
But Paul is speaking of those in the pre-destruction years who were the recipients of God’s heavenly wrath due to these actions and attitudes that fought against the truth.
Today, due to the Gospel, God has been appeased, and his heavenly wrath is not falling upon these sorts. He lets them to live and prosper and advance in their lives – all the while allowing them to have what they want – until their own judgment day – which we all face, where all people will receive their due rewards – not punishments, their rewards, because the payment for sin was taken care of by His Son.
In any case, prior to the Gospel of His Son, the heavenly wrath of God was upon such, as evidenced not only by Him falling upon such wickedness with heavenly justice but by the fact that all human beings were separated from God at death when they went to sheol.
All.
Speaking of them/then Paul says at verse 19
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
This passage speaks to those post-it notes God gave every person on earth as a means to appeal to their sense of reason and abilities to discern.
Because THAT WHICH MAY BE KNOWN OF GOD is manifest in them, for God has show it to them.
How? In what way or manner? Paul tells us in verse 20 saying
20 For (there is that word again – Paul’s favorite preposition) For the invisible things of him (God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
For the invisible things of God – those things that cannot be perceived by our senses.
What invisible things of God?
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world (his plans, intentions, purposes and powers) ARE clearly seen! being understood by the things that are made (the heavens, the earth, animals and human beings), even his eternal power and Godhead (referring again to the invisible things); so that they are without excuse.”
This again, is an appeal to the post-it notes, the signs, the signals and invitations God has infused the world with – they are the invisible things that are clearly seen by us, and Paul adds, even His eternal power and Godhead, so THEREFORE, those who are ungodly and unrighteous toward their fellow man, prior to the Gospel, are without excuse.
When Paul speaks of His “eternal power” we have a scriptural nod to the eternality of the invisible God.
Let me point something out to you that is fascinating – this word translated “eternal” in the Greek is “ahh-idee-os,” and it means, “everlasting and eternal.”
It is the best word for our word ETERNAL and/or EVERLASTING.
And it could have been used all through the New Testament when it comes to explaining life with God after this life, or hell, and to afterlife punishment of the wicked in hell or the Lake of Fire.
But the fact of the matter is the word is only used here in Romans as a means to describe “the Power of God” and in the short book of Jude where it is used to describe the chains that hold demons bound. That’s it!
The rest of the time that we read the word eternal in the scripture – especially the King James – the Greek term is Aionos – which does not mean eternal or everlasting but means, age-abiding or related to an age or epoch of time.
Just wanted to point this out to you that ahh-idee-os which means eternal is never used in the places where eternal is used in the English when speaking of hell.
So again, Paul, describing God, says
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world (his plans, intentions, purposes and powers) are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made (the heavens, the earth, animals and human beings), even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”
Meaning that IN the visible things that are made we humans are able to witness “even his eternal power,” is seen and then Paul adds, “and Godhead.”
Now coming from Mormonism when I read Godhead, I automatically think of God the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit.
But the Greek term translated godhead here is thee-ot-ace and all it means is deity. Not three, not a group of gods, but simply divinity or deity, as it is derived from the term, “thigh-os” which means godlike.
So again, the invisible things of God which are clearly seen (by humans in the form of his material creations and can be defined as “even his eternal power and deity,” and Paul concludes,
“So that they (the unrighteous and godless) are without excuse.”
I cannot emphasize this message more to the world and all within the sound of my voice. I suggest it will be one of the most shocking things that human beings who deny God and His existence will experience at their demise – that they are, in fact, “without excuse.”
I reject the depictions of God waiting there laughing and ready to punish, but that the shock will be more of, “wow, all those post-it notes leading me to believe were correct! You are alive, and real and good and loving, and I could have responded to your invitations – but I chose not to. I honestly do not have any excuse.”
Perhaps some will response with, “I don’t care if he exists or not and that I was wrong – I like the dark more than the light – and they will be rewarded with such.
But in the days before the Gospel was established by the life death and resurrection of His Son, the wrath of God was felt – again not as revenge, but as a holy necessity. And it was going to be felt again as it would fall on all in that day who did not believe and receive the Messiah.
Paul continues at verse 21 and says something fascinating:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Meaning, because of the things described in verse 20, that God held them as without excuse, it was “because that when they knew God.”
Hold the presses! We have established the following things about these passages:
They are speaking about people prior to the establishment of the Good News and up to the destruction of the Nation of Israel.
They are speaking of when God had “heavenly wrath” for these people.
That the people were both Jews under the Law and Gentiles without the Law
And now Paul adds the line, applicable to all of them, “because that when they KNEW God.”
This is written in what is called the “Second aorist active participle of ginôskô,” and it means knowing by “personal experience,” meaning, that these folks, according to Paul, prior to Christ, and thereafter knew (better put they were knowing God personally.”)
And this line fully supports the fact that due to God inviting all people in numerous ways to know him, and that as a result of the presence of those ways orbiting around all conscious cognitive human beings, none of us are without excuse because (drumroll please) we all – Jews under the law and non-Jews not under the law (personally know he is there.)
(Long Beat)
You meet a person who says that they have zero inkling or awareness of God in their lives? I reject that claim. If we are conscience, we have an inkling. We do not have a fact. We do not have sure knowledge. We do not possess an eyewitness – but Paul says here that all of us, every one of us – are without excuse because we know something.
Something sometime in us validated the existence of God to our minds and all of us have been gifted with the reality of his existence, explained in the Greek word gnosis.
We know – something. Therefore, we are without excuse.
Remember, in the two lane economy of God and his reaching out to us, there is his reaching, and our responding.
And every single one of us are responsible for whether we choose to response to his extensions to us or not.
I personally and fully reject anyone who tells me that they have never had an inkling of God in their lives.
Perhaps most importantly, however, I also reject the reformed position that human beings are totally depraved IF that stance suggests that all human beings are incapable of knowing God, and therefore most don’t, unless he elects them. Because the fact of the matter is this passage says all, to some extent or another, all do in-fact know of Him to some degree or another.
So the argument is not against whether or not God reaches out first to us – that is proven true. The fact of the matter is that he reaches, and has reached all – and all know him (not a select few) and therefore none are without excuse.
(beat) we will pick it up from there.
Questions/Comments/Prayer
