Introduction
In the first three Bible studies about Paul’s letter to the
Romans, we learned the history, politics, culture, and religious background of
the people to whom Paul wrote this letter. They were Jewish-background and
Gentile-background believers in Jesus Christ who lived in Rome during times of
persecution from the emperors. Besides this, we studied Paul’s opening passages
of this letter to the Roman believers. He identified himself and his
credentials, gave a general understanding of the gospel, prayed for God’s grace
and peace over them, and thanked God for testimony of the Romans’ faith in
action and for the encouragement he would get when he met and lived among them.
The final part of the opening to Paul’s letter gives the thematic statement of
the letter-the righteousness of God.
With this fourth Bible study from the book of Romans, Paul taught
the Romans about the need for righteousness among each person. He carried this idea further by showing the universal
need for salvation by teaching about God’s revelation of Himself (the evidence
for God) to pagans/Gentiles, Gentile-background Christians and God-worshippers,
and the Jews and Jewish-background believers. In
this and the next Bible study, Paul taught the Gentiles about their guilt and
need for justification.
With Romans two through three, Paul taught the Jewish-background
believers the same lessons as he did the Gentile-background believers. We will learn in chapter four, Paul compared the
righteousness of the Gentiles and Jews with Abraham’s righteousness. Later, in chapter five,
he explained how God justifies each person, Jews and Gentiles. Remember,
justification means God declares a person as righteous and made right with Him.
This justification comes by God’s declaring righteous those people who accept
Christ. God credits or assigns Christ’s righteousness to each person who
receives Christ as Savior and Lord. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
(NASB) He described justification best in Romans 3:21-26. Paul said in this
passage, people who believe in Jesus Christ are “justified as a gift by His
(God’s) grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” (NASB)
In Romans 1:18-32, Paul specifically taught about the
sinfulness of pagans/Gentiles and their need for justification. He explained
how, though they had not heard about God, they could know of Him and were, therefore,
also guilty of sin and liable to God’s judgment of them. This Bible study will
help us to realize God revealed Himself through general revelation in creation
and through His creative presence. It will also help us understand the basis of
the Gentiles' guilt. This will lead us to our next Bible study next week when we
will learn of the results of their guilt.
Evidence of God
Paul’s thematic statement of Romans in 1:16-17 carries over
to later verses. He compared the righteousness of God to the unrighteousness of
humanity, both Jew and Gentile. In verses eighteen through twenty, Paul did not
allow the Gentiles to hold on to the excuse that they did not know God. He
explained to them even though they were not Jews, they had no excuse because
God revealed Himself to all people. Paul said in chapter one verses eighteen through
twenty,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (NASB)
With the first word, “for,” Paul began this sentence just like
he did with verses sixteen and seventeen. Each of these verses explain why he
said what he did in verse fifteen. Paul said in verse fifteen he was eager to
preach the gospel to the people in Rome. He next told the readers and listeners
of this letter three reasons he eagerly wanted to preach the gospel to them. In
verse sixteen, Paul said he was eager because the gospel is the power of God
for salvation to anyone who believes. With verse seventeen, he said the gospel reveals
the righteousness of God from faith to faith. Finally, with verse eighteen,
Paul said he eagerly wanted to preach the gospel because “the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness.” (NASB)
Paul’s start of verse eighteen gave the third reason he
preached the gospel. With this one statement, he spoke about two things. Paul
meant God’s righteousness reveals His wrath against unrighteousness, too. God’s
righteousness/holiness requires judgment of unrighteousness/unholiness. Since
the gospel reveals God’s righteousness, it reveals God’s wrath, too. God is the
standard of righteousness and Paul ensured each person understood he or she was
not righteous/holy. The commonality between God’s wrath and His righteousness
is His love. Because He loves, He provided a way for people to become
righteous. Because God loves, He shows righteous anger and disciplines people
to remind them He is God, and to turn them around to return to Him. The other
point this statement makes is Paul could not keep to himself the gospel of God.
He cared so much for these people, he eagerly sought to tell the gospel to
everyone. Because Paul’s heart came from God’s heart when Jesus met him on the
road to Damascus and anointed him to be His apostle, Paul cared deeply for the
lost who had never heard the gospel. He wanted no one to miss hearing about the
gospel and then receive God’s wrath because of their sins. Paul eagerly preached
the gospel because of his love for them. He wanted everyone to experience God’s
love and grace.
Let’s look closer at the words in verse eighteen. We must
understand them well to understand Paul’s message in the rest of this letter. In
our world, people do not consider wrath or anger a positive thing. God’s wrath
is righteous indignation. Because He cannot sin, His anger is righteous. His
cause is to restore peace and balance to life. It is not a prideful anger like
from what people often base their anger. God’s angry at sin and sinners because
sin separates people from Him. He wants nothing to separate people from Him
because He loves each person. God desires to have a right relationship with
each person. This desire for a relationship with each person is the reason for
the gospel of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross in our place and His resurrection.
God provided the sin sacrifice so each person could be in a right relationship
with Him. His wrath is righteous and seeks to draw us to Himself because it is
based on His love. God’s wrath comes on a person when he or she is not justified
to Him through Christ, when he or she is unrighteous. Paul said in Romans 5:9,
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from
the wrath [of God] through Him.”
For what does God’s anger come on people? Paul told the
Romans in verse eighteen. God’s wrath comes because of ungodliness and
unrighteousness. The word “ungodliness” seems self-explanatory: acting,
thinking, speaking, and being unlike God. “Ungodliness” comes from the Greek
word asebeia and means to lack
respect and show impiety, irreverence, and wickedness in thought and deed. It
means to turn your back on God and become your own god. Asebeia means refusing to give honor where it is due, a refusing to
accept God’s existence and His authority over all life and creation. The word
“unrighteousness” comes from the Greek word adikia
and means injustice and violating God’s standards. Because ungodliness is attitude
against and unacceptance of God, unrighteousness is acting upon the
unacceptance of God, acting out. Ungodliness is against God and unrighteousness
is against other people, but also against God’s standards of living, the Law. These
two words correspond to the Ten Commandments-the first four commandments
against God and the next six against other people.
Besides God’s wrath being on the ungodly and unrighteous,
Paul said it came against those who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.
“Suppress” comes from the Greek word katecho
and means to bind, restrain, arrest, or detain. The people upon whom God’s
wrath would come were irreverent and dishonored God. They acted out against God
and His laws regarding Him and other people, and they restrained the truth. They
kept it from being shared or providing a way of life. This means their
ungodliness resulted in unrighteousness affecting other people because they
would not share or allow the sharing of the truth of God-His reality, righteousness,
love, and grace. These sinful people kept other people from living godly and
righteous lives because of the way they lived and the laws they enacted and
enforced. This reminds us of the prophets of Baal, Molech, Asherah, and the
other gods some Israelites followed in the Old Testament. They led people away
from God by not teaching about Him and leading them not to follow His laws.
Paul went further to say, even though people may have kept
others from knowing about God, God made Himself evident to all humanity. No one
has an excuse for not believing in God. In verse nineteen, Paul explained why-because
of creation/nature. He said, “That which is known about God is evident within
them; for God made it evident to them.” (NASB) The original Greek translation
says, “Because the known of God manifest is among them God indeed to them has revealed
[it]” (Interlinear Bible) Paul said, God’s attributes are evident and can be
known through what He has revealed. The word “known” used here comes from the
Greek word gnostos, an adjective, and means literally “because-through”.
It expresses and emphasizes experiential knowing from personal experience. Paul
said they knew God already. This knowledge came through something evident to each
person because God makes it evident, clearly visible to them. This knowing is
not the natural theology of reason where God is evident in the design in
nature. Instead, He is the God who is a Presence active in the created order
now. God did not just make the world and step back letting us see evidence of
Him from what He created. He creates and keeps on creating and maintaining the
world. We see and can know God personally because of His revealing Himself by
and through His creative working.
How did God make Himself evident even to non-Jews? Paul
explained in verse twenty the evidence of God for each person. He said, since
time began when God created the world, His invisible attributes of eternal
power and divinity were seen clearly. Paul explained that from before the creation
when time began, God showed Himself. This word “creation” comes from the word ktisis and means created out of
nothing-ex nihilo. Ktisis is always a
divine creating. From before He created anything, God purposed to show Himself-His attributes of power and divinity, through what He created. He purposed
before He created humanity that each person knows Him and be in a relationship
with Him because of His love. That explains God’s wrath against sin. Sin
separates people from Him, from being in a right relationship with Him. With
this comes the other thread of thought from verse twenty. Since God purposed to
show Himself to humanity through creation, He realized people would sin and
need to see Him readily. The logic follows that God also made a way from the
beginning of creation to bring people back to a right relationship with Him since
His purpose was to be in a relationship with them.
What He revealed to people through creation and His
continuing creative presence was not a simple trick, but to show His grandeur
and power. Paul said this when he used the word dunamis. Dunamis is a great power. From it comes our words dynamite
and dynamo. God’s great power would show His mighty and marvelous ways, ways
which people could never achieve in their own strength and could not explain away.
The other attribute God revealed in creation, Paul said, was His divine nature.
Each person God ever created can know Him experientially (gnostos). From living in His created world watching Him create and maintain
it, this God of the world and creation must be divine. Paul said, it is this
God who would could be “clearly seen.” This verb is third person singular
meaning each person can “clearly see,” as from above when the perspective gives
total sight, that God is all-powerful and divine. God is real and should cause awe,
reverence, and faith in Him because He was visible in what He made and is
visible in His creative acts still. Acts 14:17 and 17:24 say God left a witness
with the rain, fruitful seasons, and the world because He is the Lord of heaven
and earth and not kept in temple made by hands. Job 12:7-9 said the beasts and
fowls will tell you who made them. Psalm 19:1 said the heavens declare the
glory of God. Jeremiah 5:21-22 says God tells the people He is the one who
places the sand as a boundary for the sea. God made Himself evident in creation
and in His continuing creative presence in the world.
Paul ended this section stating God is evident because of
and through His creative presence so people are without excuse. For this reason,
Paul said, their argument against God or about not knowing Him has no
rationale. “Without excuse” comes from the Greek word anapologetos. Anapologetos literally
means “not arguable.” Paul said the pagans/Gentiles’ argument about not knowing God lacked
a defense. The pagans/Gentiles could not excuse themselves from believing in God by
saying they did not know about Him. God can be evidenced, seen and experienced,
by and through creation, a creation that continues as He creates and re-creates
daily. God is known still today like the Israelites knew God in the Old
Testament and Christians knew Him in the New Testament.
No one can raise his or her hands and shrug saying he or she
did not know about God just so they can excuse their wrongdoing and
irreverence. Paul, the apologist and apostle of Christ, explained to them and
to us in detail how we are not guiltless. Each of us sins and God jealously
wants us to be in an eternal relationship with Him. He is angry about our sin
and wants us to be in a right relationship with Him. His love for us causes His
anger, His wrath. God’s love for every person caused Him to provide a way for
each person to return to a right relationship with Him. That way is through
Jesus Christ.
Before Paul arrived at this point in his teaching to the pagans/Gentiles, after explaining each person could know God by and through creation,
he showed the foolishness of humanity. Let’s consider a few relevant questions
for ourselves before we continue with verses twenty-one through twenty-three.
·
Do you
realize you have done wrong things and are not righteous?
·
Have you
wondered and been in awe of the power of waterfalls and storms and the miracle
of rainbows and birth? Have you recognized it as God’s hand in the world?
·
Do you
praise God and give Him honor for what you see and experience in the world?
·
Do you reason
away the evidence of God and refuse to believe God exists?
The Foolishness of Humanity
Once again, Paul begins his verse with the word “for,” which
means we need to relate it to his earlier statement. Verse nineteen is the
statement to which this “for” refers. In verse nineteen, Paul said God made the
truth of Himself evident to humanity. In verse twenty, he explained God made evident
His invisible attributes of power and divinity through creation and His creative
presence in the world. With verse twenty-one, Paul relayed the foolishness of humanity
to think they could reason God away and dishonor Him. He said in verses
twenty-one through twenty-three,
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (NASB)
In verse twenty-one, Paul used a different word for “know”
than he did in verse nineteen. In verse nineteen the word for “known” came from
the Greek word gnostos, an adjective. Gnostos means in that verse that which
may be known of God or the knowable God active in the physical universe. God
made Himself knowable to humanity by and through His creation and in His
continuing creative presence. The word “knew” in verse twenty-one comes from
the Greek word ginosko. Ginosko comes
from the same root word as gnostos
and means to come to know, recognize,
or to understand through personal experience-experiential knowing. In the past
tense, it often means to realize with definiteness the things relating to the
one, true God and Christ, in contrast with the multi-god worship of the pagans/Gentiles, their polytheism. Paul said, “for though they knew God,” which means they
knew God personally because of His active presence in creation and accepted Him
truly as the one, true God.
When faced with this reality of God, a person can choose to
acknowledge God then walk away as if He makes no difference in his or her life
or the person can accept the reality of God, and worship and obey Him. Walking
away from God after knowing of Him as the active presence in creation means
denying Him, disobeying Him, and making one’s self one’s own god. Paul said
that in the rest of this verse. He said, “Even though they knew God, they did
not honor Him as God or give thanks.” The “honor” Paul spoke of comes from doxazo and has the same root as the word
“doxology.” Paul said people did not glorify, honor, or thank God as if He was
God. They acted as if He was merely mortal and could ignore or heed Him. People
did not acknowledge God’s grace, power, and divinity. When faced with the
reality of God, one of two decisions must come from that encounter. The person
can deny God-His power and divinity-or can accept Him and glorify, honor, and
thank Him with his or her words, actions, and thoughts.
Instead of honoring and thanking God, Paul said people
“became futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts became darkened.”
(vs. 21) The word “futile” comes from the Greek word meaning vain, foolish, or
perverted in one’s mind. Paul meant people considered their own back and forth
(debated) speculations and reasonings as having more value than the obvious evidence
for and of God in and through creation and His continual creative presence. When
someone thinks they know more than all-knowing (omniscient) God who created him
or her, that is vanity and foolishness. A prideful person thinks he or she
knows more than the One who created a thing or that person. Paul wrote about
this foolishness in Ephesians 4:17b-18 when he said, “Walk no longer just as
the Gentile also walk, in the futility of their minds, being darkened in their
understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance in them,
because of the hardness of their heart.” (NASB) This foolishness that denies
the divinity and power of God after having seen and experienced it comes because
of pride, ignorance/foolishness, and a hardened heart. This foolishness of
which Paul spoke came from not putting facts together and being unwise. The
people who had foolish hearts chose their own vain ways and kept the light of
God from convincing them of His reality. The person obscured God’s light and
did not focus on God’s sovereign action, but on his or her own desires.
Paul continued describing this person with a foolish heart.
He said in verse twenty-two the person professed to have wisdom. He/she attested
he/she was wiser than the conviction God placed in his/her heart of His power,
divinity, and grace. By setting aside the wisdom of God for human reasoning,
Paul said he/she became a fool. He spoke plainly here. The word “fool” comes
from moraino, which means taint or
make useless. Paul said this person made him/herself foolish-useless-with this
untrue and unfounded reasoning. He said something similar in 1 Corinthians 1:20
when he said, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater
of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this age?” (NASB) Jeremiah
reiterated this in Jeremiah 10:14. He said, “Every man is stupid, devoid of
knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols; for his molten images
are deceitful, and there is not breath in them.” (NASB) Whatever people make
that means more to them than God and upon which they put more reliance than God
shows their foolishness and their darkened hearts. Paul said in this verse while
professing themselves wise, these unrighteous and ungodly people became fools
and showed their stupidity and foolishness.
In verse twenty-three, Paul said, these ungodly and
unrighteous people who knew (ginosko)
God, but did not honor Him as God or give Him thanks, in their professing their
own wisdom and becoming fools, “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God
for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed
animals and crawling creatures.” Instead of worshiping and thanking the God revealed
in creation and active in creating, these people, in their reasoning and
speculation, turned their backs on Him and worshiped created things. They chose
to worship the creature, not the Creator. Though they recognized God as
incorruptible, that is immortal and imperishable, ungodly and unrighteous
people chose to worship an image, something perishable that reflects its Source-Creator
God. These people turned their backs on Him and worshiped man-hewn images of
man, birds, animals, and reptiles (serpents). Luke spoke about man-made images
to worship in Acts 17:29. He said, “We ought not to think that the Divine Nature
is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by art and thought of man.” (NASB)
God told Moses to relay to people His message about this in Deuteronomy 4:15-18
when they did not see an image of Him on Mount Horeb, yet wanted to worship
one. He said,
So watch yourselves carefully since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in water below the earth. (NASB)
·
Do you
recognize God with your life or debate His existence and turn away from Him?
·
Is there
an idol you worship instead of the one, true God?
·
Do you
give your job, your house or car, or your family more priority than God?
·
Do you
care more about what you can do or make with your hands than giving honor,
glory, and thanks to the Creator who made you and all that you work with in
your creating?
Recap
Paul explained to the pagans/Gentiles of Rome no excuse exists for
denying the reality of God and knowing Him in a way that honors and glorifies
Him through righteous and godly living and worship. God’s righteousness means
His wrath will come upon those who are ungodly and unrighteous because He loves
each of His created people and wants a relationship with them. Reasoning and
rationalizing God’s existence, His might, and His divinity is foolishness and
stupidity, Paul said. Why worship man-made idols in the shape of created
things. Instead, worship the One who created all things and continues to be
active in the world. Don’t worship the images of the creation, but instead, the
Creator.
Relevance and Conclusion
God realized from the beginning of time humanity would
gravitate toward worshiping what they could see even though people could recognize
Him through creation and His continuing creative presence in the world. Still,
Paul made sure pagans/Gentiles understood they were without excuse for turning away
from God. He made sure they realized their guilt because of their sins that
separated them from God. By writing this letter to Christians in Rome, Jewish-
and Gentile-background believers, and God-worshipers, he said they were each guilty and without
excuse. Paul would highlight even more the Jews' guilt because they had the Law
from God (chapters 2-3). Evidence for God exists in creation and in the world
God made and re-makes. People who strive to deny His existence so they do not
have to face their own sin and guilt chase folly. Even pagans/Gentile are without
excuse. God is present in the world. His presence as Creator comes as general
revelation of His existence.
Each person must decide to recognize the one, true God-Yahweh,
the I Am who was, is, and will always be. He is evident in the world. David
declared this in Psalm 19:1 when he wrote, “The heavens are telling of the
glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” (NASB) We
each must decide to acknowledge Him and be in a relationship with Him. God made
a relationship with Him possible providing our justification by His Son’s,
Jesus Christ’s, death on the cross. Christ’s death declares us righteous
because He was the perfect sacrifice for sins because He did not sin. Each
person must decide for him or herself if he or she will go beyond recognizing
God in the world and acknowledge Him (confess) and accept His gift of
righteousness so he or she can be in a righteous and eternal relationship with
Him.
What will you do? Will you recognize God and turn your back on
Him or will you acknowledge Him as God and accept the grace He offers of
righteousness through the life and death of His Son, Jesus Christ?
Consider this verse by Paul-
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exult in hope of the glory of God. [Romans 5:1, (NASB)]
Do you have this
peace?
You can have it today, now, if you accept Jesus as Lord and
ask for His forgiveness for your sins.
You can listen to this song declaring the existence of God by Hillsongs. Just click on the title below.
