Romans 1:18-2:16
Welcome!
Today we continue our exploration of the incomparable book of Romans. Last
week, John did an excellent job introducing the book, giving background, and
exploring the first half of Chapter 1. Romans is filled with theology – even
the opening words include a significant discussion of who Jesus is and how
Jesus has called Paul’s audience in Rome to “belong” to Him. After explaining
how he longs to be with them and share the gospel in their city, Paul writes:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the
power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to
the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of
God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last just
as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” – Romans 1:16-17
As John explained last
week, this verse really introduces the theme of the entire book of Romans. God
is the one who brings salvation to people, that the mechanism of receiving this
salvation is belief and faith (not works), and that this gospel, or good news,
reveals the righteousness of God. We will unpack these ideas in far greater
detail in later messages, but I want to remind you of these ideas, because the
verses we will look at today build from these ideas. Let’s look at the first
few verses of today’s passage, starting at verse 18:
The
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has
made it plain to them. For since the creation of
the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have
been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that
people are without excuse. – Romans 1:18-20
As we usually do, our
translation today is from the NIV. I generally like the NIV translation of the
Bible; it is certainly not the most literal translation out there, but it isn’t
too far from literal and it tends to flow better and therefore be easier to
follow than more literal translations. But occasionally, I wish it was a little
more literal, and this is one of those times. In the Greek, this passage begins
with a “for”. I think the translators may have taken it out because pretty much
every sentence in this section of
Romans begins with “for” and perhaps the translators thought it was becoming
tedious. But the “for” is important, because it tells us that the ideas in
verse 18 flow out from those in verse 17.
Verse 17 tells us that
the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel; verse 18 tells us that it
follows that, apart from receiving the gospel by faith, a sinner faces the wrath of God. The good news of the gospel
means nothing for someone who doesn’t first know the very bad news. Somebody
once asked R.C. Sproul before he was a believer if he was saved. His response
was “saved from what?” This part of Romans addresses this question. The answer
is that we are saved from the wrath of God. Why is God wrathful? Because,
according to this passage, people are not innocent; they know.
Paul, inspired by God, tells us that
people suppress the truth by their wickedness! This is an extremely provocative
statement! You talk to just about any unbeliever and flat out tell them that
they know God exists, but they suppress this knowledge by their wicked actions
and inclinations and desires, and you might want to stand back out of striking
range, because not only will they disagree, but they will be angry that you
dare to say such a thing!
The verb tense is present, now, that
God’s wrath is being revealed. It is also revealed in the future judgment, but
that is not Paul’s focus here. How do we know God’s wrath is being revealed? We
see it in the fact that we are dying. I hate to break it to you this way, but
you are dying. Your condition is terminal. No medication, no operation, no
lifestyle change will prevent this. You may be able to use these things to
prolong your life a few years or decades, but then, you will die. Dying is an
expression of God’s wrath on sinners. Adam was not dying; he would have lived
forever, until he sinned, and then God sentenced him, and all who follow him,
rebelling against God along with him, to death.
The brokenness of this world is a second
way we know that God’s wrath is being revealed. It’s a far different life we
have from what Adam had in the garden, far harder, far less certain, full of
unexpected hardships and even disasters. And just as we are all dying, so are
our works (apart from certain things we do as Christians, like sharing the
gospel). But our material accumulations, our reputations, our good works, all
of this will perish, and be forgotten. This too is revelation of God’s wrath.
The passage then tells us that God
reveals Himself through creation. The implication is that everyone should know that God exists and know quite a lot about His
attributes, whether they have read the Bible or not. Creation itself speaks to
the existence and nature of God. This is why Paul can say that people know God
but they suppress the truth with their wickedness.
I personally am absolutely convinced
that as time goes on, as science advances, it becomes more and more clear, not
less, that creation points us to God. One way in which this is true is that the
fine-tuning arguments become more and more astounding. What do I mean by
fine-tuning arguments? I am referring to a body of work that shows how
perfectly fine-tuned the universe is to exist. If you tinker with physical
constants even the tiniest bit, the universe falls apart, it doesn’t exist or
only exists for a tiny fraction of a second, or the stars and planets don’t
remain coalesced but they turn into soup or shrink into dots. It also speaks to
the amazing conditions that allow life to exist on earth, from the details of
the nature of matter and the elements, to the precise relationships between
various atomic and subatomic forces, to the precise elemental makeup of earth,
the position of earth, details about the sun, our moon, the other planets, and
so on. The tiniest changes in any of these and there wouldn’t be life on earth.
And as science progresses, we keep finding more and more and more of these
finely tuned details. If one assumes these things are just independent chance,
then the probability of two of them happening is the product of the
probabilities of each of them happening. That is, if two things were each one
in a million, then the probability of them both happening is one in a million
million, which is a trillion. Each new thing science finds that is finely tuned
multiplies the probability of them all happening to something even lower. The
probabilities now are one in a number so large that it is absolutely
incomprehensible to us.
Science also increasingly points to a
creator as we learn more and more about the miraculous complexity of life.
There are countless examples we could point to, but I want to show you a short
video on the kinesin.
Isn’t that amazing? From the tiny to the
vastness of the universe, God’s eternal power and divine nature are clearly on
display. Let’s continue with Romans 1.
For
although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him,
but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although
they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to
look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. – Romans 1:21-23
Paul is talking about
people in the past as well as people today. People knew that there is a creator
of all things, since all things exist. They knew that this creator must be the God, rather than a god, because everything exists because
of Him. And they knew that this creator must be eternal, because He existed
before anything was made. But they suppressed this truth “by their wickedness.”
What is a fool? A fool
is someone who chooses to ignore the obvious, to ignore common sense, and act
as if these things were not true. Again, Paul isn’t pulling any punches here!
He is saying that all people who ignore the evidence of God in creation are
fools. Instead of worshiping the creator of the universe, instead of wanting to
know how He would have us live and seeking to live in that way, these people
chose something fictional to worship. They made gods in their own image,
fallible gods, gods who were not even good. They also made gods who were part
or fully animal. They made idols (“icons” in Greek) of their gods and worshiped
the idols. This is foolish! As Piper writes, this is not mental deficiency, but
moral deficiency: “We suppress the light of God’s glory and
power because we love the darkness of our own independence. We love our sins,
our self-determination, and therefore we suppress the truth that God is God and
that we are to depend on Him and live for His glory.”
Now,
you may say that most modern Americans never make idols or worship them. I’ll
come back to that but first look a little earlier in the passage. “Their
thinking became futile.” Synonyms include empty and vain. I cannot think of a
better description of modern man. We are consumed with materialism, or with
building our careers, or with – dare I say it? – Clemson football. I think many
people are already consumed by these
things. That is, they have lost sensitivity to spiritual things, to deeper
questions of purpose and existence. Lots of people, if you strike up a
conversation with them about Christ, simply aren’t interested. Their thinking
has become futile. This is also the definition of a darkened heart. A darkened
heart is one that has lost the ability to be thrilled by the possibility of
intimately knowing God, of being in a relationship with Him.
Therefore
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and
served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever
praised. Amen. – Romans 1:24-25
Why is it that almost
every single piece of entertainment shows people having sex before marriage?
Why is this so universal? It is because those who write and produce these shows
do such things, and somewhere deep down, they are reminded that they are
rejecting their Creator, whom they do know exists. They promote these values as
a way to convince themselves that it is OK, that everyone does it. And people
watch these things and it helps them as well to convince themselves of the same
things.
Why is this particular
kind of sin so universal? Because it is ultimately an act of passion, and the
line between passion and worship is very thin – if it is there at all. People
are made to worship – it’s in our spiritual DNA, so to speak, and if they don’t
express their need to worship in the way it was created, as worshiping their
creator, they feel compelled to find some other outlet.
Because
of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women
exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women
and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with
other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. – Romans
1:26-27
I want to be careful
with these verses on two fronts. First, I want us to take care not to
overinflate the meaning of these verses or take them out of context. This is
part of a three-fold sequence of “God gave them over.” The first we already
looked at in verses 24-25. The third is immediately after these verses in
verses 28-29. This is the second part of this sequence. It does indeed focus on
homosexuality, but homosexuality is simply one of multiple ways in which God
gives people over to their sinful desires to do what they want apart from God.
Second, I want to be
clear that, as with the other parts of this passage, the focus is on people who
refuse to acknowledge God. It is not speaking to believers in Christ who
struggle with sin after becoming Christians. This is an incredibly important
topic, and later in Romans we will get into it. But that is not being discussed
here. Let me just say here that to a believer struggling with any kind of sin, who acknowledges that
what they are struggling with is in fact sin, who wants to be free from these
sins, our role is to provide prayer and support and Biblical encouragement and
love.
Again, Paul is talking
both historically (as in the entire history of man) and to his present-day
listeners (as well as to us). As our modern society has become more and more
accepting of homosexuality, it may be tempting to say that maybe these passages
no longer apply today, or that Paul didn’t have to deal with the climate we
have to deal with today. This is false. Homosexuality was widespread in the
Roman world at the time of Paul. In some ways it was worse, in that the Roman
world was so driven by class structure, and the idea of basic human rights was
so lacking, that people could do anything they wanted to people below them.
This was legal, and it was culturally acceptable, even laudable, praiseworthy.
Although abuses by one person to another based on power structure still happens
all too frequently, our #MeToo culture is far removed from the horrible
structure of tiered Roman society. My
point is that these verses (like the rest of the Bible) absolutely apply today.
Paul is illustrating via homosexuality the far-reaching consequences of
suppressing the truth that people know in their hearts about God.
Furthermore,
just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God
gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be
done. They have become
filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full
of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent
ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they
have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such
things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but
also approve of those who practice them. – Romans 1:28-32
This
is the third example Paul gives of what happens when God hands people over to
experience the consequences of rejecting Him. Verse 28 says in effect that they
did not want to know God; they didn’t want to have anything to do with Him. And
so, again, God lets them experience what a mind unrestrained, uncontrolled,
unguided by God leads people to do. What follows is a list of twenty-one kinds
of sin. The picture that comes to mind to me is that of a person who can’t swim
about to jump into a deep swimming pool who refuses to use a life-jacket
despite the repeated pleadings of someone who cares about him. Finally, seeing
there is nothing more that can be done, the person lets go of his arm and says,
“I have warned you repeatedly. What you do now is your responsibility.” The
foolish person jumps in, and, as expected, starts to drown.
Is
Paul saying that every rejector of God will do all 21 of these things? Of
course not, not any more than he was saying that every rejector of God will be
homosexual. Different people will “drown” in different ways. For some, like
what people call high-functioning alcoholics, all will appear to be fine to the
outside world. But for every such person, there will be consequences of
rejecting God, consequences of God handing them over to a depraved mind.
There
are important implications for evangelism here. We need to understand that,
deep down, maybe very deep down, but down there somewhere, people know that
there is a God. Little children, by the way, aren’t naturally atheists. If you
ask them whether the whole world is here “just because it is” or because
Someone powerful made it, they will choose the latter. I would not necessarily
come out and challenge people by saying they already know there is a God, as it
just tends to make them angry. There is a school of thought in evangelism
called presuppositional evangelism that does this. I do think with some people
who are already quite hostile there is a time and a place for an approach like
this, but I would never start with it. But when you do share the truth with
someone, it is helpful to remember that deep down, there is a part of them that
can say, “Oh, yes. A part of me thought like this, once.” Pray that as you
share, the Holy Spirit reminds them of this and tears down the walls of
deadening that have blocked their hearts to this truth.
You, therefore, have no excuse, you
who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you
are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is
based on truth. So when you, a mere human being,
pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape
God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the
riches of His kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing
that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? – Romans 2:1-4
Why did Paul continue
in this way? Because it is like he can hear the objections people will make to
Chapter 1. “Sure, some people may be like that, but I don’t do any of those
things. I’ve always been a good person.” The truth is that all of us have done
at least some of those 21 things, and we all still struggle with some of them
now. Who among us never deceives? Never feels jealous? Never is angry? Never
lacks in showing mercy? Never falls short in love?
So we are not supposed
to have an attitude of “I’m so much better than you.” Instead, our attitude
should be “I’m also a sinner. Can I talk to you about the kindness of God, one
sinner to another?” And we should be thankful, so thankful to God, that He has
shown us undeserving kindness, forbearance, and patience. And reflection on His
goodness should lead us to repent of any actions of ours that fall short of His
perfect way. Repentance should lead us to say, “God, forgive me. Only You can
change me. Only You can empower me. Help me to stop rejecting You in this area
and instead depend on You continually!”
But
because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up
wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will
be revealed. God “will repay
each person according to what they have done.” To those who by persistence in
doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, He will give eternal
life. But for those who are self-seeking and who
reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. – Romans
2:5-8
From what we have
already discussed, I hope you understand that this is not at all talking about
a works-based righteousness. Many times we will see this very clearly from
later passages in Romans. I don’t want to give you those passages now because I
don’t want to get ahead of the story. So what is this talking about? It is
about whether we are self-seeking or Christ-seeking, whether we follow evil or
we follow Him. It is about the fundamental question of salvation – are you
going to reject God and rely on your own strength, or are you going to reject
yourself (any claims of your own goodness, or worse, “good-enoughness”) and
rely on Him? Only in Him can you persist in actually doing good. God does not
grade on a curve! But it’s not the goodness itself that gives you eternal life.
It’s the decision to seek Him and follow Him.
Let me clarify this a
little. If, when we follow Him, the Holy Spirit really resides in us, teaches
us, and prays for us when we don’t know what to pray; if, when we follow Him,
He is there with us every step of the way, is it possible that we could be
unaffected by Him? I’m not saying we will become sinless, because we will still
struggle with selfish desires. What I am saying is that we will persevere; He
won’t let the outcome be any other way. The only way it would appear that we
didn’t persevere would be that we never really gave our lives to Him. Now some
people say salvation is a process and others say it occurs at a defining
moment. I would say “yes.” I think both views are true; they are just different
perspectives of the same thing. Those who persevere will have been saved, and
the proof will be their perseverance. Those who don’t won’t have been saved,
and the proof will be their falling away. We cannot tell whether conversion is
genuine or at what moment it really occurs. But God can see this. So in this
way both perspectives are true.
There
will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first
for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but
glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for
the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. All
who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin
under the law will be judged by the law. – Romans 2:9-12
These verses continue
these thoughts by pointing out that both Jews and non-Jews are in the same
boat. This will be discussed in far more depth later in the letter. But for
now, the point is that the law doesn’t save you, nor does it condemn you any
more than those who don’t have the law.
That word translated as
“favoritism” is prosopolempsia, a
word so foreign to the Roman and Jewish cultures that the New Testament writers
apparently invented it! You find versions of this new word in James 2:1 and 2:9,
Acts 10:34, Ephesians 6:9, and Colossians 3:25, as well as here in Romans 2:11.
The word literally means “face receiver.” God does not receive face! As we
learned in our series on honor and shame, the idea of face, your honor, your
reputation, was your most valuable possession in both Old Testament and New
Testament times, as well as today in many parts of the world. To “give face”
was to accept honor from someone usually in exchange for a service or a return
of honor. “God does not receive face” means that your ascribed honor, that is,
the honor that you were born with, or your achieved honor, the honor you have
bought or earned through works with men, don’t
help you in any way with your standing before God. So whether you were a
“Pharisee among Pharisees” (as Paul once called his pre-saved self) or a
pig-farming Gentile made no difference to God and likewise makes no difference
today.
For
it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is
those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things
required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do
not have the law. They show that the requirements
of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness,
and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending
them.) This will take place on the day when God
judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my
gospel declares. – Romans 2:13-16
This goes back to what we started with
today – all people know that God exists, deep down somewhere. This passage says
more – they also know the law. They know on a fundamental level what is
pleasing to God and what is offensive to God. It is written on their hearts.
They don’t need a read a book to know it. And therefore God is just to judge
all people for what they do in this life.
I want
to finish today by going back to something I am fascinated with, the wording to those who by persistence in doing good
seek glory, honor and immortality, He will give eternal life in
Romans 2:5-8. This is not how I
normally think. Do I think about seeking glory? Do I think about gaining honor?
Do I think specifically about immortality? No. I suspect most of you don’t
think this way either. In fact, I suspect many of you are uncomfortable with
the idea of seeking glory, honor, and immortality. Aren’t those “lower” motives
than just to “serve Christ”?
I don’t think so, and
neither does C.S. Lewis. In fact, he wrote a sermon on this, called The Weight of Glory. I want to read two
quotes from this sermon.
“If you asked twenty
good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them
would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great
Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A
negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than
philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it
the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going
without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the
important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New
Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an
end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in
order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall
ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in
most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope
for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in
from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we
consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the
rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires,
not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with
drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant
child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what
is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
And the second passage:
“When I began to look
into this matter I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton,
Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of
fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with
God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation” by God. And then, when I had
thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate
from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and
faithful servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my
life fell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can
enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a
conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in
being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse.
Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years, prevented me
from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most
creaturely of pleasures—nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the
pleasure of a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his
teacher, a creature before its Creator.”
To those who by persistence in doing good seek
glory, honor and immortality, He will give eternal life. Do you
now see this passage in a different light? Doing good isn’t just “not sinning”.
It’s not just coming to church regularly. It’s not just having quiet times. All
these things are good. But there is so much more! What can you do for God? What
can God do through you if you really yield to Him? Yes, lurking around the
corner is the danger of seeking your own glory. But fix your thoughts on
Christ. What would it be like for Him to say to you, “Well done! Good and faithful servant!” How awesome would it be to get an
exclamation point out of God? I encourage you to dream bigger, yield more, pray
for exclamation points, and serve, lead, and “save” (yes it is God who does the
saving but you know what I mean) out of your comfort zone. Seek glory, honor
and immortality!
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