Romans 1:21-27 Bible Teaching

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So, let’s move forward in our verse by verse study of Romans where we . . .

Romans 1:21-27
Milk
November 15th 2020
. . . left off with verse 21 with Paul talking about Jew and Gentile prior to the establishment of the Good News, and said,

21 Because that, when they knew God, (which we emphasized last week) they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

And let’s read our text for today where Paul continues on with his description of such folks and adds:

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 dishonour 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.

I want to point out three key words that are in these few passages.

In verse 21 Paul says, speaking of all human beings, that they FIRST! knew God (as we discussed last week, “through things that were made and therefore they are without excuse”)

And then he says that they did not glorify God nor were thankful to God (READY) and they “BECAME VAIN in their imaginations and in their foolish hearts” Got that line? And then verse 22:

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

That’s the second reference to people becoming something darker or less, (Verse 23)

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.

And then verse 24

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts,

And finally verse 25 where Paul concludes

25 Who (referring to the individual souls who were made in God’s image) “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.

What we have here is a scriptural chronology of the human decline, which sort of looks like this:

Human beings, created in God’s very image, meaning with His capacities to some extent, are invited constantly to receive God by and through the numerous things that are seen (experienced) and these things evidence Him, proving His power and His deity.

And all people, to some extent or another, experience him, and therefore we are all without excuse before Him for the choices they make relative to Him and the life given them.

Some respond to these evidences by not “glorifying him and not being thankful to him” – Isn’t that an interesting insight?

Daweed asked last week asked what glorifying him, or in this case not glorifying him looked like – so I did some homework.

The word glorify here is dox-adzo and it means “to render glory,” which is another way “to render praise and honor,” and in a perhaps stepped down sense, “to give the rightful credit to Him.”

When Paul adds that neither were they “thankful” I think we get an overall picture of these sorts:

They reject the experience of God which all have had and are totally ungrateful for what surrounds them. They do not care to assign any time to honoring or thanking him for jack.

Life is theirs, they live it their way which means extracting God completely out of the picture and any inkling of his goodness toward them.

As result . . .

they “BECAME VAIN in their imaginations and in their foolish hearts.”

The attitude of glorifying God and being thankful to him is an attitude of humility.
Relative to His eternal power and deity we are beyond insignificant. And so in the face of his abundant manifestations we humble ourselves before Him and become thankful.

This is not the outcome in most human beings. The outcome is they ignore the obviousness of his goodness, power and deity and do and think not of Him at all. They are ungrateful and they refuse to honor him.

And as a result, Paul says that they become vain (proud – remember the tie to humility here) they become vain in their “imaginations and in their foolish hearts.”

We see this played out in the garden of Eden. God created a beautiful place for Adam and Eve, and they knew him, didn’t they? They experienced him?

He told them not to partake of the one tree – that was it – but they rest of it was open game. But at some point they made the decision to go their own way, and they decided not to honor him (glorifiy Him) or to be thankful to Him for life and the creation around them, and then they became VAIN in their imaginations and in their foolish hearts, and chose their will over his.

This is the nature of human beings. We are made in His image, but we are housed in a setting that somehow isn’t conducive to honoring the very being who made us and provides for us.

So, we lose gratitude. And we BECOME vain and foolish. When I was a child, I wanted to know God and sought him out in my mind. I would talk with him from my bed and to some extent experienced him, knew him, believed that he was there.

In time, however, I lost that as I became “vain and foolish in my imaginations.” There was no breaking through to me by religious rhetoric either. And I literally became all that Paul will describe people to be in this chapter.

My point is I became this way. And this is what Paul points out here. We are all without excuse, he has made clear but he has also proven that we can become something very different when we are left just to our flesh. Something very proud and dark. And he goes on, saying:

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

(morah-ee-no) morons. I love how scripture describes the state of fallen man elevated in their pride – they are morons. This is how Paul directly describes people who think they know better than God. They become morons.

That’s the second reference to people becoming something darker or less, And after becoming morons – (verse 23)

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.

And then verse 24

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts,

And then verse 25

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.

While Paul is describing people prior to Christ (and prior to receiving Christ) we can unfortunately even see this happen to people who once walked with God – as believers. People who for years call themselves Christians that begin to be ungrateful to God, tuned-in to their own vanity, becoming fools, then they even change the glory of the uncorruptible God into something he is not, and in response, God gives them up to their own lust, and they wind up changing the truth of God into a lie and wind up worshipping and serving the creature that they have become rather than the Creator who made them and all things that exist!

Central to this is catabasis, a Greek word for downward spiral, and at the heart of it is ingratitude, then vanity, then foolishness, self-will and adulation, and finally abject idolatry.

And the end result is “un-godliness.”

Paul said last week that God’s “wrath was abiding on such.” Again referring to the condition of the human race prior to the finished work of Christ and while the descriptions of the human condition apply still today – the wrath of God has been mitigated and God now responds to such with the perfect execution of merciful justice at the end of their mortal lives.

At verse 22 Paul said

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (now listen to this passage – meaning in their fallen wisdom they became fools) 23 And (they) 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.

Now if you’re a biblical literalist you would have to read this and believe that these sorts actually had the power to literally change the glory of the uncorruptible God into something else, right? Because that is what is says!

But we interpret what it says and realize that they didn’t in the least change the glory, honor, light, love and power of the uncorruptible God, but that they did so “in their own foolish imaginations.”

Of course, what Paul is describing here is the very natural ego-centric act of taking holy eternal truths about an unchangeable nature about God and his holiness, and re-formatting him as a means to recreate him into something that better suits the vain imaginations.

And what we then are talking about then is called idolatry – recognizing, honoring, glorifying, empowering anything that is not “the true and living God.”

Breaking the idea down a bit more, idolatry is image-worship or giving divine honor to any “created object.”

Here Paul makes it plain that such has its origins in first, “forsaking the True and Living God,” whose power and deity are manifested to all, and then turning to other things that we choose to vainly honor.

The popular forms of idolatry in Ancient Israel and surrounding her in the pagan world were the worship of earthly things like trees, rivers, hills, stones found in earth-nature, then things in the heavens like the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, (as the “powers of nature,”) and then hero worship of deceased ancestors, or of cultural heroes.

In Scripture, idolatry is regarded as of heathen origin and as typically being imported in among the Jews through contact with heathen nations.

The first allusion to idolatry is in the account of Rachel stealing her father’s teraphim (in Genesis 31:19) which were the relics of the worship of other gods by Laban’s progenitors who were from “the other side of the river in old time” (Joshua 24:2).

Then during their long residence in Egypt the Hebrews fell into idolatry and it took quite a bit of time to rid themselves of it. (according to Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7).
It was probably their wandering in the desert for 40 years where God taught them to look to Him and live, and where he would have evidenced his power over the idols (that they secretly bore with them) in their times of great need.

When the Jews entered Palestine, they came into contact with the monuments associated with the idolatry of the old Canaanitish races.

And once again they showed a great tendency to depart from the living God and follow the idolatrous practices around them.

So idolatry was their great national sin, which was again only effectually addressed and rebuked when they were put in Babylonian exile.

If we think about it, the first Great commandments was directed against idolatry of every form. To love God with all your heart soul and mind. No room for an idol when this first and great command is at play.

And the punishment for idolatry was no joke. For instance, and according to Deuteronomy 13:18, if a person was looking to honor other god’s then his or her nearest relatives were to denounce him and deliver him up to punishment and if their guilt was established by two or more witnesses, the relatives were the ones who had to strike the first blow of stones in their death. (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)

If someone was attempting to seduce another into idol-worship the fate was the same – death by stoning (Deuteronomy 13:6-10) and when the nation went to idolatry the result was the same.

These punishments were imposed on non-Jewish nations as well as the reason that they were snuffed out was for their idolatrous practices. The Canaanite communities are examples of this (Exodus 34:15-16; Deuteronomy 7:1-26; 12:29-31; 20:17).

The Old Testament, which can serve as pictures and types for us to learn from today, Jehovah was the theocratic King of Israel. That made him the civil Head of the commonwealth and therefore to an Israelite idolatry was a state offence of high treason (1st Samuel 15:23)

As a means to wipe out the temptation to worship other gods, the Jews, on taking possession of the land and making it part of their kingdom, were commanded to destroy all traces of every kind of the existing idolatry of the Canaanites including the idols themselves, the animals, and the people. (Exodus 23:24,32; 34:13; Deuteronomy 7:5,25; 12:1-3)

God saw Idolatry as adultery against him in the Old Testament, and the Nation as his bride. And that is why the term adulterer is used toward the Nation of Israel repeatedly and in place of idolater.

Interestingly, in the New Testament the term idolatry is often used to describe covetousness (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13; Colossians 3:5; Ephesians 5:5).

Our idolatry as human beings, and our natural tendency toward it, is more than ever evidenced in the world today – in through the continued expressions that were around anciently (nature, cosmos, icons) and through some more modern applications (money and materialism, rock and movie stars, and coveting after an assortment of lifestyles and mindsets).

Perhaps we could expand the definition of idolatry as whatever takes a primary place in our minds and hearts, whatever we devote ourselves to most, whatever becomes our priority, our guide, our source.

I have a few idols that try to get in and take over the throne of the Lord God Almighty in my life at times:

My flesh and will.
Music, film and art – and all that comes with it.
Pseudo intellectualisms as well.

This was especially true in my younger years as a Christian. But as I have been able to devote myself to “Him over them,” their draw and power have greatly diminished – but I find it still necessary to keep the principles of “sold out devotion to Him” at the ready to keep myself in check.

Specifically, Paul addresses what these sorts did with their vain imaginations, adding

“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.”

So, first Paul makes it clear that the Glory of the True and Living God (his person, rightful power, honor and due respect) are incorruptible.

The word in or uncorruptible means not decayable, not corruptible, not capable of losing strength, glory, might, luster, holiness, purity, righteousness. It is something not changeable in any fashion whatsoever.

We’ve talked about this before but God is truly the only Supreme Being – with both words meaning exactly what they represent – He is both supreme (meaning superior to all things always everywhere) and He is being, meaning He is, He always is a BEING, he never was not a Being and is never a becoming. He does NOT change – hard as that is for us to understand.

Here’s the deal – everything else – everything else, has been created! That means that it had origins, has changed, and is changing, and therefore it is corruptible!

A stone castle is corruptible because it is decaying. A wood idol is created and therefore inferior to the living God. A human idol is wholly corruptible. The principles of Men and the materialism we surround ourselves with, will not last. They are all corruptible. They will all fail us, lose value, luster, strength.

Only He and his glory are uncorruptible. And the heinous nature of idolatry is to take something corruptible, fallible, faulty, insensate, incapable, and look to it as having power, or as Paul says here, “taking the uncorruptible God, and changing him to be something less.”

In the case of Paul, he says that these sorts took the glory of the uncorruptible God and with their vain imaginations changed it into

“an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”

The line changed it “into an image” means that they formed, created, carved, drew or made the Glory of God into an image of

“Corruptible man.”

Right here we have a direct proof that God is NOT a man. Not a glorified man, not a human being.

Three key passages that include the words, “God is” say – you ready?

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man

He is uncorruptible, meaning unchanging, and the idea proposed by the vain imaginations of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, are absolute lies opposing scripture.

The second scripture is from Jesus own mouth, John 4:24, God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

So, God is not material, is not human, and is only known spiritually.

Hebrews 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.

This adds to the make-up of our God – he is not only not human, and spirit, he is a consuming fire.

This moves him out of the realm of materialism folks, and places him way out of our reach if we want to gain access or understanding through our flesh. Not gonna happen. We can only know Him by the Spirit.

There are three more passages that help us round out the ontology or make-up of the true and living God here. They are

Colossians 1:15 where Paul writes, speaking of Yeshua and says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.”1

There is 1st Timothy 1:17 where we read:
“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

And there is Hebrews 11:27 where God, again, is described as invisible when he writes of Moses:

By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

And herein lies the human drive toward idolatry. We can’t see, really hear, ever touch the True and Living, consuming fire, invisible God.

But we can touch and see and hear our idols. They are so much more convenient to our desires and wants. And depending on what they are, they often do not exact anything from us either! Not initially at least.

Sure, some people sacrifice to their gods, and pay homage, but in return we typically have something tangible, audible, viewable to relate too. And these types of gods suit our flesh, don’t they?

They tell us how to live, and dress, and think – right here and right now.

In this we discover the value, perhaps the reason, why God is so pleased with people who choose to live by faith in Him. That we refuse to embrace any element of idolatry into our minds and hearts – because we live by faith, and choose to place our trust in the eternal, invisible, uncorruptible, consuming-fire true and living God – and nothing else.

Of course, Paul goes on and describes the way idolators change the living God into corruptible man, and adds. . .

to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”

Birds probably has some reference to the ibis that was reverenced by the Egyptians due to its great ability to destroy invading serpents.

Eagles were worshipped by Roman and often the capacities of such animals were lifted up when they evidenced themselves in and among the people.

Of course oxen, known as apis in Egypt, were adored which is why the Children of Israel formed a golden calf when in the wilderness waiting for Moses to return from the mount.

And civilizations around the globe have worshipped monkeys, and cows and even dogs – not to mention other human beings.

Paul finally adds, “and creeping things.” Which probably refers to reptiles or creatures the creep across the land. Looking to Egypt again, they worshipped the crocodile and such.

What is often ignored or forgotten is the fact that we humans cannot rise above the attributes of what we adore and worship, and typically sink below those attributes as a result of giving our allegiance to them.

The fact of the matter is, if you make your God from insensate materials you too will become insensate.

If you make your god money or materialism you only have the strength and power of that money or material – nothing beyond it.

Hence the LDS who see God as anthropomorphic and an elevated human being become nothing more than elevated human beings – successful, orderly, leaders but vain in their conceptions of the true God and incapable in their mind or heart of advancing beyond the limitations of their God’s anthropomorphic nature.

Speaking of these idolators Paul now adds at verse 24 that supports the concept that what we worship will contribute to our make-up, saying:

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:

In other words, because they were unwilling to retain him in their minds and hearts, in their “knowing” (so to speak) but instead chose to worship idols of every sort, the True and Living God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their OWN hearts.

We discover several biblical principles here. First, we discover that we certainly have free will. Second, God plays a part somehow in our lives when we choose and seek to retain him in our minds. But if or when we make the willful decision to allow the idolatry of this world to consume us, and to turn from Him to them, God will give us up to what we want, to what we are in our hearts and minds, which Paul says is “uncleanness through the lusts of our own hearts.”

And at this point Paul brings us to the reason why idolatry is so heinous – it can lead us to the point where we will choose to ignore him altogether and when this occurs he will turn us over to the desires of our own unclean hearts.

This is a practical reality of idolatry. We become insensate, we become nothing higher in capacity then the gods we adore, and then the living God will turn us over to our own heartfelt desires which will become riddled by unclean lusts.

And then Paul adds the culminating results of all of this, saying:

“To dishonor their own bodies between themselves.” IOW, “to disgrace their bodies with each other.”

I want to reiterate that Paul now describes the culminating RESULTS of everything we have just said. I’ll get back to this point before we wrap it up.

It is probable that Paul is speaking to some of the practices among the heathen nations (like the Greeks) who would engage in all sorts of sexual liasons with each other in a variety of settings.

And then Paul reiterates what he has already said in verse 25 and speaking of these says

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.

That’s the reality, isn’t it. The end-game. When someone moves from the true and living God and embraces a created god, they shift from the truth to a lie.

From something sustainable and eternal and intelligent to something that fails and is temporary and is dumb.

Paul adds what is called a doxology at the end of this verse, which again is related to the word glorified here as the Jews would often do at the mention of the living God, and referring to Him as THE Creator, says

Who is blessed forever, amen.

And so having laid out his case in a fairly systematic order, Paul continues to explain more specifically the end result of those when God gives such up to the lustful unclean desires of their hearts, and says:

26 For this cause (meaning for these reasons we have just described) God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

“For this cause,”on account of all he has just described beginning with the fact that that they would not honor or be grateful to God, He “gave them up to vile affections.”

And from this point forward he will specify what those vile affections or disgraceful passions or desires look like, starting with:

“for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.”

Remember, Paul is describing the end result of turning from the living God and turning to forms of idolatry once God has given them up to their own desires.

What he is about to describe is universally observed and ought not surprise anyone who studies the results of individuals or societies that “go their own way.” The results are proverbial.

If God has created us and given us capacities to act and choose according to our own will. And we choose to think and act defiantly and ungratefully against the Creator, then our actions and minds will stand in opposition to what the Creator created us to be and do.

He created one man and one woman. He did not create two males and one woman or three women and one man. He did not create two males only nor two females only.

The establishment of human propagation in the Garden was from Him. When we turn from him, what he established as His will, we will embrace our own lustful desires which can and will include every type of aberrant sexual expression possible – as history readily presents to us for all to see.

Paul begins here to describe the course fallen humans will by addressing women, and says, “for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.”

Note that all through these passages Paul references first the fact that these idolaters CHANGED things about the living God.

In verse 23 he writes “And they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

And in verse 25 he writes, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,

And now, in describing the results of their trying to change God Paul says:

“for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.”

The Greek word translated natural here is foo-seek-os and it means physical.

So, what is the “physical use” of a woman’s body ACCORDING to the creation of God?

She is constructed to receive into her body her husband’s “physical nature” and she has been given the capacity, as a result of that union, to then conceive and bear children within her.

That is the natural (physical) use of her body. In fact, for clarities sake, we could add, “of her body” to this passage and read it as:

“for even their women did change the natural use of their bodies . . . (and he adds) “into that which is against nature” OR “into that which is in contrast to the natural construction of her physical form – which again was designed by the God who was disregarded.

We study the scripture, and we cover what we come to without hesitation but in context. And I want to make something very clear here relative to our day and age.

What Paul is describing here is NOT, contextually speaking, a diatribe against all lesbians. In fact, lesbianism is not even mentioned. But because in the next verse (where he does speak about men turning from women in lust toward each other) there is the assumption that Paul here is talking about lesbianism.

The fact of the matter is he may be but he could also be speaking of women who were using their bodies with more than one man at the same time, which is not the natural order or established way we read about in scripture nor is it in accordance with their physiologically nature for women to attempt it.

But let’s stick with the standard view, which in context appears to be talking about lesbianism.

Contextually, Paul is talking about the results of idolaters who turn from the Living God and the results of this (once God turns them over to the unclean lusts of their hearts).

That is the connection to women changing “the physical use of their bodies to go against nature.”

It is preceded by a heart and mind-set.

This begs the question then, Has God turned all lesbians over to their own lusts?

This is the standard way to read these passages – that every lesbian is a product of the self-will Paul has described. But I disagree with this assumption. In other words, Paul is certainly describing some women who change “the physical use of their bodies to go against nature.” Those who “do recognize him in the world and are unthankful? Are certainly being addressed here.

But this does not mean all women who are lesbian. So while I do believe that lesbianism is “contrary to the natural established physical use of a woman’s body” I maintain that a lesbian who looks to God in humility and thanksgiving, and who sees him as scripture describes is as covered by the grace of God as the rest of us.

Remember, Paul has spent a lot of time talking about the heart condition here first, not the resulting sin, and the sin of all of us has been taken care of by him.

To me, the problem of lesbianism, or homosexuality, or any form of sexual expression that falls outside the parameters of the Garden of Eden are secondary events in this world and age.

What is primary is are we, and do we possess the heart of an idolator? Are will proud? Are will not grateful and allegiant to the true and living God who HAS reconciled this fallen world to himself.

Paul is not speaking about lesbianism, he is speaking about one of the results of idolatry. And the sin of idolatry, if present, is the sin of primary concern, because by and through it, faith, humility, thanksgiving, gratitude, and sacrificial agape love, are lost.

I think its really really important to keep all of this in line at this point in scripture.

We will stop here and continue on with this very heavy topic next week.

Questions/Comments/Prayer
Danny, Karen, Joe and Sarah