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   Judgment According to Truth (Romans 2:1-2) 

INTRODUCTION

Who am I to judge. It’s not my place to judge. 

These are common phrases. We all know them. Some of us have used them. 

But most of the time, these phrases come bearing judgment disguised in my own personal opinion. Of course that opinion stands against the other person’s decision and action. But we somehow think we’ve softened the idea of judgment by portraying it as a preference rather than a judgment.

Aren’t we crafty!

In our society, tolerance and acceptance are the new standard of righteousness. And the greatest sin of all — according to public opinion — you guessed it — judgment of another. 

And yet, that itself is a judgment. We pass judgment on those who would judge another. 

This is actually a portrait of Paul’s very argument he opens with in chapter 2. O the irony!

The list of vices, the dishonorable passions, the lusts of the fallen human heart is not our problem. They are a problem. They are God’s judgment upon a fallen humanity for exchanging God — for giving Him up for lesser things — infinitely lesser things, because everything else piled together is infinitely less than God.)

But our greatest problem is our stance toward God Himself. What we think of God and our finding Him unworthy of our honor, unworthy of our thanksgiving, unworthy even of our acknowledgment. 

So, in chapter 2, Paul addresses the individual who has listened to Paul’s case against humanity in the second half of chapter 1, and somehow missed Paul’s point — that Paul must be referring to others — but certainly not me!

The person who seems to be in agreement with Paul, that humanity is filled with those who are depraved, debased, and dishonorable. But thank God, I’m nothing like that!

Well, chapter 2 is for those who somehow think in chapter 1, Paul wasn’t referring to them.

READ: Romans 2:1-5

LOVING CHAPTER 1

I imagine Paul has in mind, someone having just read the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, and before turning to chapter 2, they find themselves in hearty agreement with him. 

Perhaps Paul’s letter is being read out loud to the congregation in Rome, and you have that person on the front row with his loud “Amens.”

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. AMEN!

For God’s invisible attributes… have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world… So they are without excuse. AMEN!

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. AMEN!

They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. AMEN!

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. AMEN!

They  did not see fit to acknowledge God. AMEN!

They were filled with … full of … they are … AMEN!

They not only practice such things but give approval to those who practice them. AMEN!

And the reader pauses between chapters. And the guy is like: This Paul fellow is good! These people are rightly condemned! They know God’s righteous decree, so they are justly deserving of the condemnation that’s coming. Amen Paul!

We’re loving the second half of chapter 1. Can’t wait to hear chapter 2!

MISSING THE POINT

Many seem to hear the second half of chapter 1 and commend Paul. They feel as if they have passed the test — that Paul’s indictment against humanity somehow excludes them.

“Wait a minute,” says Paul. You obviously missed something. You see, the second half of Romans 1 encompasses all of us — including me — and including you. You, my friend, are guilty too.

I’m not sure where we got off. What you failed to grasp. Is it that you’re heterosexual? So, you think you can cross off verses 26 and 27 of chapter 1 as if they don’t apply to you?

[As we covered two weeks ago, those verses are about all of us — because they aren’t so much about sexuality as they are about the dishonorable and disordered affections that are grounded in an excessive love of self — of sameness — of self-worship.]

You’re claiming to know God and His ways, doesn’t excuse you. Because you don’t live out what you know to be true, any more than those in chapter 1 fail to live out what they know to be true.

You wield God’s law as a mallet to whack others into line when your ways are every bit as crooked — and worse — you somehow think they’re not — because your assessment of yourself is based on a distorted standard. 

Which takes us to No Excuse 2.0.

NO EXCUSE 2.0

Therefore, you have no excuse o man, everyone of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

Notice the therefore at the beginning of verse 1. Therefore, given the argument of the second half of chapter 1 that you find yourself supposedly in agreement with, you have no excuse. 

1:20. Just as everyone is without excuse for suppressing the truth God has made plain to them — here is Paul’s “No Excuse 2.0.” 

You prove that you know God’s righteous decree every time you pass judgment on another and hold them to standards you yourself fail to live by — standards of ought which reveal that you know the eternal law of God — with or without Scripture. You apply God’s righteous decree to others while failing to apply it to yourself.

APPROVING AND DISAPPROVING

You see what Paul did? In 2 verses, he covered everyone’s stance toward sin. The last verse of chapter 1 deals with those who approve of other people’s sins. And the first verse of chapter 2 deals with those who disapprove of other people's sins. 

If you approve of their sins, you are condemned with those in verse 32. If you disapprove of their sin, you condemn yourself. 

Do you approve of other people’s sin? Oh no, I don’t approve of their sin.
So, you disapprove of their sin. Yes. That’s me. I disapprove of their sin. Then you are self-condemned. 

Well, then, I’ll just be indifferent — I’ll ignore the whole world. Let them live how they want.
Well, that’s a type of approval. 

But the bottom line is, we all actually find ourselves on both sides of these two verses. Sometimes we do approve of the wrongdoing of others. And sometimes, we disapprove of the wrongdoing of others. 

Everyone falls on both sides of this. And that’s part of the point.

DRIVING THE POINT

We could simply look at how most of us respond to other people’s driving, and how we ourselves drive. 

Some car flies past us. O he’s going way too fast. He’s going to cause an accident.
Or you get behind someone driving too slow for your taste, and you become impatient. 

But let me ask. Are you ever the slower car? On a two lane road, do you ever find someone tailgating you? Does your speedometer ever crack the posted speed limit? It’s not a suggested speed. It’s not how fast you’re supposed to drive even. It’s the fastest you are permitted to drive. 

Listen loved ones. I’m guilty. My speed will often be a couple, if not a few miles over the limit. And I consider myself I fairly safe — law-abiding driver. But do you know what that means? What I’m really saying is, “Well, I don’t break the law to the degree she breaks does!” So, is that supposed to make me somehow innocent of breaking the law?

COMPARATIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS

Paul’s point is, in our passing judgment on others, we condemn ourselves because we are guilty of the same sort of things. And yet, we somehow have this standard of comparative righteousness, as if my righteousness, at least externally, appears to be a little more righteous than another’s, then I’m supposedly innocent. 

But that’s not how justice works. 

The judge doesn’t take up your case and then weigh it based on the other defendant he’s heard so far that day and those he anticipates hearing after you and say — Well, based on Tommy’s heinous crime, I’m going to declare you innocent. What sort of justice is that?

ACCORDING TO TRUTH

VERSE 2. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Literally, God’s judgment is according to truth.

God doesn’t judge the world on a curve. He judges rightly. He judges righteously. God judges according to truth.

Yet, in our mind, if we lined every person who ever lived according to their own personal righteousness, we would tend to set ourselves as the standard needed to be right before God.

Well, I’m not as bad as Hitler. But I’m no Billy Graham either.

Lord, I think we should draw the line here — somewhere just below where I stand. This group I’m in goes to heaven. The rest, do to them as You see fit. 

That is how most of the world understands righteousness. Sadly, that’s how most of the church understands righteousness. 

But the standard isn’t your neighbor, and it certainly isn’t you. The standard is Christ. Jesus’ righteousness is the only standard sufficient to save oneself.

NOAH, DANIEL, JOB

Picture in Ezekiel 14: The Lord pronounces unstoppable judgment on the house of Israel and Jerusalem. 

Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord. 

… even if these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate.

Four times the Lord makes this pronouncement:
… even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness.

INSUFFICIENT RIGHTEOUSNESS

Now, what the text is not saying is that these men were sinless. Noah got drunk. Job accused God of being unjust toward him. Daniel confessed his sins along with the sins of his people. These men weren’t sinless. They were men of faith — faith which, like Abraham’s, was credited to them as righteousness.

But their righteousness was insufficient to save anyone else. Their righteousness, even their collective righteousness was insufficient to save their own people — not even their own sons and daughters.

So, what would make you think your righteousness, that’s supposedly a bit more righteous than the person next to you, would suffice to save yourself. 

There is but One, whose righteousness is sufficient to save, not only Himself from the grave, but to save and gather together all the children of God. And that’s the Son of God, Jesus Christ. 

Only one person, due to His own righteousness, stands innocent of Paul’s charges against humanity — and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ — who was counted guilty — condemned even — not for any sin of His own — but for the some total of humanity’s sin.

LET’S GO TO THE MOVIES

Here’s the thing. We watch the movies and read the stories. What does the bad guy generally thing regarding his own morality and righteousness? Most often, he thinks he’s in the right. He doesn’t believe he’s actually done anything wrong. Any harm he causes to another, he feels they somehow deserved it, and that he was justified in his actions. 

Well, that’s not just the movies. That’s real life. I’m fairly confident that Hitler didn’t see himself as evil. And we can use plenty of examples today, but I’ll refrain. You can speculate.

The point is, that’s how disordered our own faculties are. We tend to think our evil actions are good — at least good for us. That’s what eating the fruit has led to. We seek to determine good and evil for ourselves, according to our own standard. 

Because we have rejected the God who is TRUTH as our standard of righteousness, we privately feel our actions are not all that bad — that they are justified. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do them.

The one who murders feels justified in doing so. Likewise, the adulterer. Proverbs 30:20. This is the way of the adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done nothing wrong.”

We tend to have one standard for ourselves and another standard for others — Proverbs 20:10 —We use differing weights and measures.

PRAISING GOD FOR SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

And we even praise God for our own comparative righteousness. 

Luke 18:11. Lord, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector.

As Paul writes to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 10:12): When we measure ourselves by one another and compare ourselves with one another, we are without understanding.

And even then, we fail to assess ourselves rightly. Just as the Pharisee thought he was the one who was justified, when it was actually the penitent broken tax collector.

Because here’s the thing. We don’t even live up to the standards we set for others. How much less God’s standard.

ALIGNED WITH GOD’S JUDGMENT

It’s right to disapprove of what God disapproves of. But disapproving along with God doesn’t make one right with God. So, long as we practice the very things God disapproves of, we are under the same judgment.

And humanity proves more often than many would like to admit, just how often we all disapprove of the things God disapproves of. 

AHAB’S RELEASE OF BEN-HADAD

Samuel read for us the account of Ahab releasing Ben-Hadad and making a covenant with him — an enemy of God’s people whom the Lord had given into Ahab’s hands for destruction. 

One of the prophets secretly confronted Ahab, disguising himself with a wound and a bandage. He cried out to King Ahab. Your servant went out in the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, “Guard this man with your life.” But your servant was busy here and there, and the man was gone.

Ahab, like many of us, had a quick response. So, shall your judgment be. You yourself have decided it. So, the prophet hurried and removed the bandage and Ahab recognized him. And the prophet, announced the Lord’s judgment upon Ahab — the very same judgment Ahab had pronounced against the prophet for his story. 

In judging others, we condemn ourselves, for we practice the very same things.

DAVID REBUKED

Well, the most well known example is perhaps that of King David after he takes Uriah’s wife for his own and has Uriah killed in battle. Nathan presents David with the account of a rich man and a poor man. And a traveler came to the rich man. But the rich man was unwilling to depart with any of his own for the guest who had come, and instead, the rich man took the poor man’s sole ewe lamb and prepared that for the traveler.

The account is enough to make any of us furious at such injustice. And that was exactly David’s response. David’s anger was kindled against the rich man, and pronounced his own judgment against him. The man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

And Nathan’s response to David. “You are the man!”

Loved ones. If the man after God’s own heart was blind to his own sin — willfully blind because he suppressed the truth of just how abhorrent his actions were before the Lord — what makes you think that you see your own sin so fully and clearly?

But here’s the thing. Once David was convicted, he immediately repented. I have sinned.

And Nathan follows up with these words: The Lord has put away your sin.

Loved ones, if we but repent, those words are for us. The Lord has put away your sin. But so long as you think Paul’s case against all of humanity doesn’t apply to you — so long as you see in yourself nothing of which to repent — your sin remains yours to cover.

JUDAH AND TAMAR

My family is working through Genesis. And just this week, we saw how Judah was ready to have his daughter in law, Tamar, burned for her sexual immorality because she was pregnant but her husbands, Judah’s sons, were dead. And everyone knows you don’t get pregnant by accident. So, there must have been some promiscuity on Tamar’s part.

As Tamar was being brought out to be burned, she sent word to her father-in-law. “By the man to whom these items belong, I am pregnant.” What were the items? They were Judah’s own signet, cord, and staff — the pledge that Judah himself gave her to sleep with her.

We don’t have time to cover the eye-opening transformation this had on Judah, who had sold his own brother into slavery in Egypt, but listen to Judah’s words here. She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.

She is more righteous than I. That, loved ones, is judgment according to truth. But how often we fail to come to that conclusion. But this is the turning point in Judah’s life. Before, he saw himself as justified in his sin. But this is the Judah who will now go on to offer himself in exchange for his brother Benjamin, the younger brother of the one he sold into slavery.

NOT ACCORDING TO TRUTH

The problem with our own judgment is that it is not according to truth. Our vision is impaired by our own sin.

This is why Jesus himself warns against judging others. 

Matthew 7:1-5. Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

This is likely one of the most misinterpreted and misapplied passages in Scripture. Jesus is not giving a blanket statement against judging. He’s pressing the fact that in our fallen nature we fail to judge according to truth. And until our sin is confronted and dealt with, we are unfit to judge rightly.

But that this is an all out prohibition against judging is not what’s being expressed. 

JUDGING ANGELS AND OTHER MATTERS

Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! (1 Corinthians 6:3)

Jesus is addressing hypocritical judging. We see that in the passage itself. Jesus is warning against passing sentence on someone when you harbor those same sins inside yourself. 

They are in need of the same mercy you need. The reason we expose sin for what it is, is so that it can be nailed to the cross — so they might know repentance — so they might be restored. 

We don’t expose sin for another’s condemnation. We’re not equipped to pronounce such judgments. Because only God can see the heart. And only God knows the end game for each individual.

Leviticus 19:15. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. Jesus didn’t come to contradict Scripture but fulfill it. Jesus never teaches anything that is out of line with the rest of God’s Word. Rather, he communicates the fullness of what was always intended.

What Jesus is saying, is that before you can judge rightly to help your brother, you first have to judge yourself rightly. You first have to be able to rightly assess your own sin, before you can help your brother with his. 

BEAM OF TIMBER

But notice the contrast. The word “log” or “plank” is that of a beam of timber that supports the house, such as a joist or rafter. The comparison is that of a great beam of timber verses a splinter.

First take the beam of timber out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the splinter that is in your brother's eye (Luke 6:42).

I'm often blind to my sin, not because it's not right before my eyes, but because I don’t want to see it. I'd rather suppress the truth and think more highly of myself than I ought. 

Notice that the point of Jesus' parable is not to ignore my brother's splinter. It'd be foolish to think my brother enjoys having a painful splinter in his eye. But he's been just as blind to his splinter as I have been to the beam of timber in my own eye. Love insists that I care for my brother in the best way possible. The question is, "How?" 

Jesus' parable is clear. I must first recognize just how much my own sin impairs my vision, making it difficult if not impossible for me to be of any assistance to my brother in helping him with his own. 

Only in seeing just how great my sin within is — how it far surpasses any outward sin I could ever see concerning my brother — am I then able to gently, lovingly, and with humility help my brother with his splinter by pointing him to the same care I so desperately need — a great Physician who heals our impaired vision by being nailed to the very beam of timber that once blinded me from seeing God rightly for who He is — that blinded me from seeing His perfect goodness and love.

TABLE OF JUDGMENT

It’s imperative that we learn to assess ourselves rightly — to judge ourselves by God’s standard. 

At the communion table, Paul addresses this very issue with the church in Corinth. (1 Corinthians 11:31.)
If we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned with the world.

The Lord’s Supper …

The only way we’ll be able to judge rightly — to judge ourselves according to truth — is in seeing our sin nailed to the beam of timber that once impaired our vision — seeing the grotesqueness of sin for what it is — seeing the necessity of our sin being judged, and not just judged but fully judged — and that the penalty — how horrific — the fullness of what death is — a full and utter separation from the lovingkindness of the Father and all His goodness. 

That’s what the Son of God endured for your sin. 

Jesus’ payment on the cross isn’t a license for us to continue in sin, for how can we continue in that which caused our Lord so much pain and grief.

MIRROR

So, here’s a challenge. Any time you notice another person’s sin, imagine there’s a mirror pointing right back to you. And before saying a word to them, ask yourself how might your sin be like theirs … 

Peter’s sin and restoration — went on to write powerfully and with humility. He was able to judge according to truth because he was confronted with his own sin — and was welcomed and embraced by the nail scarred hands he had once betrayed and abandoned. 

That didn’t mean Peter walked in perfection. But he walked differently. He walked according to truth. 

Go and do likewise.

  God Gave Them Up: Unfit Mind (Romans 1:28-32)

INTRODUCTION:

Ecclesiastes 1:7. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.

The Great Lakes — fascinating system.

Rain, when it falls, the water descends until it reaches the lowest point. Dams may restrain the water from descending further — for a time. But as the water builds, it either overflows the dam, or it is released to continue its downward descent — until it reaches that next gracious restraint and overflows yet again.

We’re continuing to walk through what might be referred to as Paul’s exposition of the Fall of Mankind. And the question we might ask ourselves: Is there an end? Is there a bottom, a lowest point to man’s depravity?

Is there a point at which man has reached or could reach in the depths of his sin, in which he will go no further?

In other words, is there an end to fallen man’s corruptness?

I have a utility trailer I use for work. And I’m often fighting against rust. If the rust is left unaddressed, eventually, it will eat through the metal in its entirety, until the whole trailer, the entire vehicle is useless — unfit for anything good.

Our corruptness isn’t rust. It’s sin. And it needs to be addressed before it permanently destroys us. But before the remedy, we have to come face to face with the problem. That’s what we’re looking at as we wrap up Romans 1 this morning.

READ (Romans 1:18-32)

DOWNWARD EXCHANGE

Paul has been walking us through the downward trajectory of the exchange of God — highlighted by a threefold series of exchanges. We’ve noted the 3-fold exchange over the past few weeks. Now, we’re going to look at how this 3-fold exchange is presented as a downward trajectory.

FIRST

First (v23) we have the exchange of glory. Manind exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for that of the corrupted glory of copies of images. Rather than content to be the glorious image of God, mankind fashioned their own images in which to portray God — images fashioned after themselves. 

SECOND

Second (v25) is the exchange of truth and worship. They exchanged of truth of the One who is the foundational reality of everything else. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie — and in turn, they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

ONE STEP FURTHER

But Paul takes his argument one step further. This great exchange wasn’t some unconscious decision on the part of God’s image-bearers. This wasn’t some accidental oversight in which man was confused as to just who God is. And it wasn’t some mere temptation that drew us away from God to worship something else.

The climax of this exchange — or rather, the anti-climax — is that mankind actually tested God — examined all that could be known about God — and did not like what they found. So, they determined God to be unfit to even have in their knowledge. 

ΔΟΚΙΜΆΖΩ

The Greek word is δοκιμάζω — which means to approve of something after testing. It’s the idea of examining something to reveal its true worth, as when one assays metals — often through fire — to judge its quality and value. Is the gold or silver pure? 

MARKET PLACE

In the market place, merchants and moneychangers would examine or test coins to see whether or not they were genuine, as well as their value. And then they’d either accept them as payment or not — they approve of their value or not. 

CANDIDATES

Similar to our election process, the candidates for the Roman senate would be tested, examined, scrutinized as to whether they were fit for public office or not. (Consider our process. We have candidates who are so obviously unfit, and yet, we give them our stamp of approval. But that’s verse 32.)

SCRUTINIZED GOD

Well, in a similar fashion, God has been scrutinized and examined and found unworthy of even our acknowledgment. Fallen man disapproves of God, and hence, bans God from his very knowledge. It’s this disapproval of God that has led to the exchange of worship, and thus the exchange of glory.

DISAPPROVING GOD

Our first parents looked at the fruit. But in considering the fruit, they also considered God. Didn’t God say.

Well, I don’t approve of God’s decree. Likewise, I don’t approve of the God behind the decree. So, they ate.

CONSTANT SUPPRESSION

Of course, it takes a constant suppression of the truth because one cannot rid God completely from their worldview, try as they may. That’s why, no sooner did Adam and Eve eat, they hid. They could only suppress the truth for a time — just long enough to give into their true desire. But the reality of God is always there. So, they sewed together fig leaves — in an attempt to hide their obvious guilt.

INTENTIONALLY ATHEISTIC

Apart from Christ, this is all of our condition. While there is no genuine atheist in that everyone actually knows — all of humanity is intentionally atheistic in their worldviews as regards the God who is — in that they don’t approve of having God in their knowledge. 

This is why idols and false gods are simply another way of hiding from God. They can’t displace the reality of God. So, they fashion false gods according to their own liking. 

NO PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE

But there’s no practical difference between professing to be an atheist or an agnostic and that of worshiping idols. Because to believe and trust in false gods is to believe and trust in gods who are not. The reality of one’s condition is the same. They are without hope and without God in their own little world or worldview which they seek to craft for themselves.

DOWNWARD CORRUPTION

This downward exchange of God leads to a downward corruption. Paul’s 3-fold exchange of God is followed by a 3-fold God giving humanity up to their exchange. And just as Paul lays out this exchange in a downward trajectory, we are to see God giving them up in a similar downward trajectory. 

UNREGULATED DESIRE

First, God gave them up to unregulated desire — in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

DISHONORABLE DESIRES

Second, God gives them up to dishonorable desires — passions in which there is an obvious corruption of the natural order. This is most obviously displayed in same-sex relationships. But homosexuality is not the lowest bar of corruption. 

DEBASED MIND

Third, God gives them up to a debased mind. Their very mental faculties are corrupt — approving that which is clearly evil as good.

The word is the same root at the beginning of verse 28, where man tested God and did not approve of Him, So God gave man over to an unapproving mind. Or to follow more closely to the ESV, since mankind didn’t see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind to do what ought not to be done.

EXCHANGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCE

So, to follow the exchange and the consequences:
They did not honor God, so God gave them over to dishonor.
They exchange the worship of God; God gave them over to unholy worship.
They exchanged the truth about God; God gave them over to false practices.
(Same-sex unions are a fiction — impossible. They are an exchange of reality — obvious reality.)

Finally, they did not find God fit; God gave them over to an unfit mind. An unfit mind is the fruit of seeing God as unfit. To disapprove of God necessarily entails a disapproval of all who God is and stands for. 

In other words, image-bearers who were created to reflect God, instead are given over to do what ought not to be done. 

FUNDAMENTAL SIN

It’s important for us to recognize, before we look at Paul’s list of sins — 21 vices in verses 29, 30, and 31 — that the fundamental sin is not lust or sexual immorality, nor is it homosexuality, nor is it this list of 21 vices found in the following verses. 

The fundamental sin is a failure to worship God in truth by honoring Him and giving thanks to Him. Every other sin is a consequence of this one! All other sin is an outworking of mankind’s idolatry, which in judgment, God gave them over to.

The fundamental reality in all the universe is who God is, and what is expected of mankind in knowing who He is. 

Because they did not think God was fit to be known, God gave them up to an unfit mind so that they now do those things which are unfitting.

VICE LIST

This list of 21 vices is by no means meant to be exhaustive. There are approximately 30 such lists in the New Testament, none of them identical. They are meant to capture — not so much the specifics of each individual sin or sinful tendency — but the comprehensive nature of sin in that the who person is unwell — the whole person is unfit to do any good whatsoever. 

Where they found God to be unfit — they are unfit to image Him.

This list serves as a general wide-ranging depiction of an unfit mind that is so unfit that it finds the Creator — from whom they enjoy their every good — as unfit. What could be more astonishing!

But listen loved ones. Outside of Christ, that was me. That was all of us! It’s not that society is as bad as it could be, nor that every vice describes every individual.
Yet, to the extent one finds God unfit in their mind, their mind is thus unfit. As such they will either approve of the evil or the evildoer. 

THREE DIVISIONS

This list is divided into three groups, in a sense, to match the ever-deepening corruption. They have been filled; they are full of; and they are.

Remember. This is God’s judgment on a people who have found Him unfit. In finding God unfit, they are filled with the opposite of godliness.

HAVE BEEN FILLED

First group. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil covetousness, malice. 

Where mankind was created upright. A rejection of God leaves a vacuum of ungodliness. No corruption is off the table here. But the passive nature of the verb suggests that they aren’t filling themselves with these things. There being filled with this 4-fold representation of ungodliness is a consequence of disapproving of God.

These are the opposite of good. And that’s the point. That’s what abandoning God for the fruit has led to — and must inevitably lead to. To abandon God is to abandon that which is good — the greatest good.
As such, sin is an ever-increasing decline.

FULL OF

The second group is the result of that vacuum of ungodliness — that which they are full of. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They aren’t just wicked but full of wickedness. 

In one sense, absent of knowing God, there’s an emptiness within fallen man in which nothing else can fill. And yet, here, Paul is stating that mankind is actually full of something — full of those things that in actuality are empty.

Think of envy. Envy is absent of love, joy, gratitude. Murder is absent of life. Strife is absent peace. Deceit is absent of truth. Maliciousness is absent grace, kindness, goodness. 

Rather than full of life, they are full of that which is empty and dead. 

ENVY

Envy, for example, finds no joy in another person’s privileges or pleasures. Where another’s hoppiness should cheer us, mankind’s debased mind brings them misery instead. Envy cannot bear to witness God’s favor toward another. 

(Consider the Jews of Paul’s day. That hated the idea that the gentiles could be included in God’s plan of salvation. As such, the vast majority of them rejected the gospel precisely because of their envy — that God might wish to do good to them too.) 

But listen loved ones. That’s us. Our fallen nature has the same tendency. Just consider how you respond in here (in the heart) when you here of someone else’s goodness — especially if that someone else is someone you don’t particularly care for.

THEY ARE

The last group, the longest of the three, goes from being filled with, to being full of, to simply they are. Each of these last 12 are in the accusative case. They are these things. 

This last group could probably be further subdivided into 4 smaller groups — 2, 4, 2, 4.

SPEECH THAT TEARS DOWN

They are gossips and slanderers. Both deal with speech, but not just any speech. Speech designed to ruin another’s reputation — designed to tear down.

Do you see how these fall in with the previous 5. People gossip and slander because they are full of envy. They gossip and slander seeking to destroy another person, even if only reputationally — hence they are full of murder. 

They gossip and slander because they are at strife with one another. 

Gossip and slander is a form of deceit. Even if true on the surface, the reason one shares such is to give a more negative impression of reality to one’s disfavor. (Isn’t that what the serpent did in his deceit. He sought to use truth deceptively. Think of how he quoted Scripture in Jesus’ wilderness temptation.)

And gossip and slander are most simply a form of maliciousness — an attempt to bring evil upon another.

[And if I inspect — examine my own heart — I’m greatly convicted. Because loved ones, I’m guilty of all of these. O nothing like 15 years ago, when I began to follow Christ. But O how far I still have to go. What about you?]

SINS OF PRIDE

The next four focus particularly on pride. They are haters of God, insolent, haughty, and boastful. These display pride of the most corrupt kind — beginning with their hatred of God.

Followed by insolent or ὑβριστής or our English term, hubris, meaning excessive pride and self-confidence.

Next we have haughty or ὑπερήφανος — which literally means a hyper-showing or shining forth of oneself. This is one who has to be in the spotlight. Hey, notice me! 

And I’m not talking about the child craving daddy’s attention. No this is the person who needs to be the center of attention at the cost of everyone else. Don’t pay attention to them but to me. (O how social media feeds this disordered craving of fallen man.)

The last of this subset is boastful. This is the one who brags he can do or has done many things which he hasn’t or can’t — at least not to the proficiency of which he boasts. 

You see. Each of these sins of pride can only come about when one sets aside God. Because when one acknowledges the immensity of God and that any gifting we have comes from Him, the idea of any sort of boasting just seems absolutely silly.  

But in their pride, they found God unfit and have sought to fill His place. How absurd.

WATER-FALLS

Water actually serves as a beautiful illustration of humility. Waters descend lower and lower and lower. 

Well, I don’t want to be like such a stream. I want to be like the mountain, not the stream that descends to the bottom of it. 

But what happens to that stream when it reaches the bottom? The glorious brilliance of the sun shines on the waters as they gather with the rest of the waters. And that water is exalted high above the mountains in clouds of witnesses to God’s glorious design.

SET ASIDE ALL AUTHORITY

The last two subsets could be presented as they are — partly for a rhetorical flourish — the first two being a pair of noun adjective, noun adjective — and the last four ending with a flourish of assonance — each beginning with the same sound.

That said, we shouldn’t think that rhetoric is the extent of Paul’s purpose. 

We have the setting aside of all authority — no bounds to one’s wickedness. They are inventors of evil and disobedient to parents. The most basic authority structures in life are set aside, so much so that they look for ways to do that which is evil.

Isn’t that what took place in the garden. It wasn’t enough to know good. They wanted to know evil too. Hence, they rejected the authority of the God who fashioned them. 

Inventors of evil. Is there a point beyond which fallen man will not go? Does such exist? Only by God’s gracious restraint society’s not more corrupt. 

But here’s the thing. The judgment is not that God is restraining man’s corruptness but has given man over to their corruptness.

ABSENT

And the final four — no, not basketball. They are foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 

Each of these begin with what’s called an alpha-privative — which, sort of like our prefix “un” means they are not the quality of the root word. For example, one who is unhappy is not happy. 

Likewise, the alpha privative negates or expresses an absence of the root. Rather than understanding, they are absent understanding — or as the ESV translates it, they are foolish. 

The NIV, captures the feel of the Greek words — instead of the same prefix, simply adds the same suffix.
Senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 

Or we could say, they are absent understanding, absent of trust, absent affection, and absent of mercy. 

The theme again is that of emptiness. A rejection of God, leaves one empty of godly qualities.

VERSE 32

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

THEY KNOW 

Now, Paul began this section, back in verses 18-21 stating how man suppresses the truth about God that is plainly displayed for all humanity to easily comprehend — that everyone knows that God is — and that His very attributes are clearly displayed. And yet, as we come to verse 28, the case Paul has made up to this point is that mankind examined God and found Him unfit.

Well, here Paul wraps up this portion of his case by stating, not only does everyone know God, but they know what God expects from them. They know God’s righteous decrees and found those decrees unfitting.

WITHOUT SPECIAL REVELATION

Paul isn’t referring here to special revelation, as if everyone has a copy of the Ten Commandments. No. Paul is saying that everyone without exception — whether they have been graced with special revelation or not — everyone knows God’s decrees, and they know the judgment for going against those decrees — death. Everyone knows they deserve death for the way they have lived out their lives. They know. 

As we’ll see later in chapter 2, the law of God had been written upon every human heart. Because of the fall and our sin, that law is severely marred, but it’s nonetheless there. 

This is why, everyone is without excuse. It’s not simply that they look at creation and deny God the honor and gratitude He deserves. They know how they are to live as image-bearers and instead have chosen to live contrary to the One whom they were fashioned after. 

HEARTY APPROVAL

And just when you think mankind couldn’t sink any lower, Paul hammers home the extent of our depravity with these words — they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

He uses the same root word that he kicked off verse 28 with. They did not approve of God, they approve of those who are in blatant rebellion against Him.

Because they did not think God was fit to be known, God gave them up to an unfit mind to do that which is unfitting. (But get this.) Not only do they do that which is unfitting, they deem those who do such things as fit. Where they didn’t approve of God, they approve of those who are godless to the core. 

(Same root word)

This is the decline of a society — where disorder and ungodliness is the norm.

O the pride it takes to know God’s righteous decree and the penalty for breaking such and yet proceed anyway. This is the epitome of pride — the very depths of our depravity … almost. But we can go a step lower still. And that is giving hearty approval to those who are in rebellion against God, doing these very things they know ought not to be done.

CHEERFUL ADVOCATES

O you have those who want to put on airs as if they are righteous, so they almost seem not to fall into this list of vices. And yet, these who are too timid to sin so boldly themselves, are the ones who cheer on those who do. 

O the advocates for such corruption, such as murder. I would never kill my own baby. But I support those women who do. I mean it’s their right. Listen, the one who approves and offers support of sin, is no more innocent before God than one who committed the act.

At Pentecost, Peter, addressing the Jews in Jerusalem, does not hesitate to say, “this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now, let me ask, were they the ones who crucified Jesus? Not directly. But they gave their hearty approval to those who did. As such, they were guilty. And they recognized that they were guilty. When they heard this, they were cut to the heart. 

Paul, likewise, recognized his guilt in approving of wrongdoing. Acts 20:20. When the blood of Stephen was being shed, Paul said, I myself stood by approvingly watching over the garments of those who killed him. Paul saw himself as sharing in the guilt of shedding Stephen’s blood. How? In his approval of their sin in shedding it. 

Not only do we commit such sinful acts — we sanction evil and evildoers. 

THE GOAL

The goal of revealing and exposing our human condition with such force, rather than tiptoeing around the issue, is to humble us. 

It’s not simply that we were naïve or deceived. We were not okay, nor those who made or make a few mistakes here and there. We know through and through. Yet we suppress, and blatantly rebel. And unless we come to admit just how horrendous our fallen nature is, we’ll never come to Christ as our Savior. 

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO

O when we think of just how far we have fallen, the depths of our rebellion, I often wonder, just how low our depravity can truly reach. 

You want to know the answer? Not as low as the Son of God condescended to rescue us from it.

A CRY FOR HELP

This second half of Romans 1, cries out for help, cries out for a way out of this downward spiral, cries out for good news. Why? Because the picture doesn’t get any bleaker than this. It’s seemingly hopeless — for those who have made such a grave exchange — which is the entire human race. 

O to be clothed in such unrighteousness — such an unfit mind and unfit lifestyle. 

In Paul’s words from Romans 7, who will deliver us from this body of death?

We need a covering — an atonement.

We need repentance. Romans 1:18-32 is Scripture’s plea for man to repent. These verses display the horrific portrait of mankind without God — as if there were no God. (Of course, things are not even close to as bad as they could be. And that loved ones is sheer grace — the merciful restraint of a loving God.)

STARTING POINT FOR THE GOSPEL

In the midst of this horrific downgrade, there’s actually some good news in this case Paul lays out against all humanity — and that’s the starting point of the gospel.

The fact that everyone knows means you don’t have to convince anyone of something they already know to be true. O they suppress the truth to be sure. But everyone is well aware of their condition and dreadful predicament. 

This means that we can speak about the salvation Jesus offers, knowing that everyone is aware of their guilt before their Creator. This is why we can share the gospel with any and everyone regardless of cultural background. Romans 1:18-32 is the inroads, the common point of connection.

O we won’t persuade anyone with our crafty arguments. It takes something far more powerful — supernatural — than that. It will take nothing less than the Spirit of God to open the eyes of those who are willfully blind. 

Still, it’s good news that we don’t have to search for a starting place to share the gospel. It’s already there. You don’t first have to get to know someone, or their lifestyle, or worldview, or culture. Everyone has this starting point.

TRIUNE COST

Well, because we have a three-fold “God gave them up.” We should probably consider the three-fold Triune remedy for our condition. 

The first week we looked at the Father giving up His Son for us all. 

Last week we looked at the Son giving himself up for us. 

This week let’s close with the Spirit. 

The death of Jesus as recorded in John 19. 

After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his Spirit.

THREEFOLD SEVERING

When I think of what it cost for God to save us from this horrific exchange we had made…

Ecclesiastes 4:12 speaks of how two are better than one, though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him — a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

O the strength in unity. And we see in the tower of Babel, and in Psalm 2, and at the cross, and here in our passage in Romans 1, and throughout Scripture that all of humanity has arrayed themselves together against God — against the Triune God. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. And yet to save us, that is exactly what had to take place — nothing less than the severing of the inseparable Trinity. (Of course, we’re looking at this through the incarnation. But that doesn’t discount what took place.)

The Father gave up his only Son. The Son gave up himself. And the Son gave up his Spirit.

But not only did Jesus give up His Spirit in order to save us, in order to cover our sin. He gives us His very Spirit, pouring it out on us so that our corrupt hearts and minds might be renewed from the inside out. 

RENEWAL

Because the only cure for an unfit mind is a renewed mind. Romans 12 is a reversal of Romans 1:28.

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 

While everyone knows, the suppression of true has corrupted that knowledge. We can no longer trust our feelings or our hearts or our unfit minds. They need to be renewed in order to approve that which is approvable and disapprove of that which is unbefitting of image-bearers.

Where we once found God unfit to even acknowledge, with a new Spirit breathed into us, we can now fulfill Proverbs 3:5-6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Paul’s prayer, as recorded in Philippians 1:9-10. That your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.

So, at the end of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, as Damian read for us:
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Only the work of the Spirit in renewing our unfit minds can overcome his deep-seated depravity found in all of us. And little by little, the Spirit of the Lord does just that. (Exodus 23).

  God Gave Them Up: Dishonorable Passions (Romans 1:26-27)

CAUTIONS

A few cautions as we begin our study of these 2 verses. Paul very clearly, very plainly, very graphically brings up the sin of homosexuality. 

We can be tempted to think that Paul is singling out a minority group as if their sin is more detestable than every other sin — or that it is more detestable than our own.

We may be tempted to think these verses have nothing to do with us because we don’t wrestle with this particular sin. While it’s likely that few in this room, if any, wrestle with this sin in particularly, these verses are very much about you and me. And to fail to recognize this as part of our diagnosis, we will fail to get the healing we need. 

These 2 verses, on the surface, deal directly with that of homosexuality — same-sex relationships. But homosexuality is not the point of these 2 verses. Rather, they serve as a portrait, a parable, a real-life example of the disorder that takes place when mankind exchanges the truth about God for a lie — when people exchange the glory of God for the worship of the creature.

In other words, just like the whole of verses 18-32, Paul’s focus is on this great exchange — mankind exchanging God for infinitely lesser things, and God giving mankind over to that exchange.

Verses 26 and 27 serve as the clearest, physical, visible example that things are not as they should be — that mankind’s entire nature is corrupt — that our passions and affections are gravely disordered and dishonorable — that this Great Exchange is the most shameful of all exchanges — and that shame and all it produces — or rather, what it fails to produce — is the penalty for our wandering, our going astray.

READ: Romans 1:24-32

THREE-FOLD PATTERN

We’re walking through Paul’s argument of the Great Exchange. 

There’s a 3-fold exchange of God, where mankind has exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images (verse 23), exchanged the truth about God for a lie and the worship of God for the worship of the creature (that’s verse 25), and the last exchange is the first half of verse 28, mankind finding God unfit to even have in their knowledge — so the exchange of knowing God to not even wanting God in their knowledge. 

Three times — each time following mankind’s exchange of God — Paul uses the phrase, “God gave them up.” (That’s verses 24, 26, and 28.)

What did God give mankind up to? To the dishonoring of their bodies — to dishonorable passions that go against nature — and to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

God giving mankind over to their sin is a 3-fold act of — as we looked at last week — temporal judgment. In other words, God giving mankind over to their sin, while it is judgment, it isn’t final judgment. We’d do well to remember that as we walk through these couple of verses. 

Because the point of God giving mankind over to their sin is so that sin might be shown to be what it is — sin. That in looking at the chaos and the disorder of our world — especially as concerns humanity — that we would notice that something just isn’t right. And that something that isn’t right is because we have exchanged the central reality, the core reality, the foundational reality of who God is for that of a lie. 

DISHONORABLE PASSIONS FOR THOSE WHO DISHONOR

Note, verse 26, these passions themselves are dishonorable. Back up in verse 21, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him. 

They refused to honor and give thanks to God. So, God gave them over to dishonor. 

It’s important to recognize that God is mankind’s greatest honor. We are fashioned in His likeness. There’s no greater honor than reflecting the God who fashioned us to be His image-bearers. 

Part of the issue with homosexuality, which we’ll see, is that it fails to image God at all. Rather, it’s a perversion of everything God is. 

(Fruitful, creator, outward and others-centered, communion and union, selfless, …)

To serve and worship God was to be our greatest passion. But we exchanged God as our passion, therefore our passions in general are dishonorable — and the most obvious of these is same-sex passions.

CONRARY TO NATURE

These passions are just dishonorable; they are contrary to nature. Their women exchange natural relations with those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women.

There’s an obvious misuse of God’s design — an obvious misuse of the physical. 

While heterosexual sin is still sin, it’s not against nature — it’s not against the physical nature of God’s design. It doesn’t excuse the one. But serves to show the extreme disorder involved in exchanging the foundational reality of who God is.

Where people have exchange God, they exchange that which is natural for what is contrary to nature. The one exchange leads to the other. The exchange of God is first; and that exchange naturally leads to the exchange of all other reality which mirrors mankind’s exchange of God. 

Likewise. Notice. This is both a male and a female problem! Men abandoned, left, laid aside, the natural use of the woman, and instead were inflamed with passion for one another. 

And what does such and exchange produce? It produces shame. That, at least in part, is the due penalty for their error.

WANDERING FROM REALITY

We have wandered and strayed from reality itself. That’s the last word in verse 27 that the ESV renders “error.” It’s the Greek word πλάνος or the verb form πλανάω. It’s where we get our English word planet.

Seems strange that the word planet would come from a word that means wander or stray. But to ancient astronomers, the planets, unlike the fixed stars, wandered. They were “wandering stars.”

The rest of the celestial spheres were doing and moving together. But these stood at as seeming to go against the order of everything else. So, they called them “wandering stars.”

You navigate by the North Star, you have a sure fixed point you can count on. But you navigate by the planets, even if the direction seems somewhat close, you travel any amount of distance, you’re ship will miss its mark. 

WHAT PAUL IS REFERRING TO

First, we have to deal with the tendency among certain groups that claim to be Christians who seek to distort the clear meaning of the text. 

There is an exchange of that which is natural for that which is unnatural. You have those who will advocate that if someone is born with an attraction for the same sex, than their attraction is natural. So, it must be that Paul is referring to heterosexuals involving themselves in homosexual relationships. That’s one distortion of the text.

Another distortion is that Paul is referring to relationships between men and boys. But that’s no where in the text either. 

OUR UNNATURAL NATURE

The argument is that if God made me this way, it certainly can’t be wrong. These desires are natural to my makeup, my chemistry. It’s my nature. Surely God wouldn’t condemn me living according to my nature, would He? 

Well, let’s see. It’s my nature to be impatient, to be selfish, greedy, lie, lust, be lazy, vindictive, envious, idolatrous, … you name it. Surely God must be fine with any of those tendencies. They are all simply apart of my fallen nature. 

Well, then, why did God send Jesus to die on a bloody gruesome cross if He’s perfectly okay with us living according to our fallen nature. 

Listen loved ones, that’s what homosexuality is — it’s living according to one’s fallen nature — but not according to nature — not according to God’s design for nature. It might be a part of one’s nature, but it’s a distorted nature. 

And yes. It is a nature — a distorted nature — that God has given mankind over to.

Our nature — due to the Fall — is corrupt. Our nature is the problem. Because it’s not the nature God intended — it’s not the nature God designed humanity with. 

SOVEREIGNTY

But what about God being sovereign? How is God sovereign over this, if it’s against His will?

God’s will, like ours, is multifaceted. The difference is, our wills are corrupted by sin, while God’s will is not. Our will is limited in knowledge, but God’s will has the whole of eternity in view. 

To try and keep it somewhat simple — there are things I will, I desire, I want. But I’m not equally active in my pursuit or bringing forth those desires. 

We had hamburgers the other night at some friends. The burgers were great, and they were huge. My will was to eat a second one, because of how good it was. But I also knew that my stomach wouldn’t feel so good if I did. So, I allowed — permitted — the burger to sit there for a few minutes until my craving — my appetite — matched my desire not to over eat.

There’s an asymmetry in God giving people over to their sin. Yet, God’s permissive will is no less an act of sovereignty. God knows exactly where giving humanity over to their sins will lead. God knew before the first bite of the fruit of the tree. And yet, God sovereignly allowed Adam and Eve to eat. God knew where giving them over to their sin would lead … It would lead to the cross.

INSANITY

I sometimes wonder if Paul would be shocked by what he’d see in our culture. The whole LGBTQIA+ — I’m not even sure what some of those letters are supposed to stand for — seems, in one sense to be new. But I’m reminded in Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun. It may be more extreme. It may be that technology allows for a certain type of defacing and deforming of one’s body that wasn’t possible before. But the root issue is not new. Not even close. I don’t think Paul would be all that surprised. 

GRAPHIC

What Paul offers in these two verses is the most graphic portrait of disorder — a disordered nature — disordered desire — disordered affections — disordered behaviors — disordered practices — a disorder that not only leads to death but in its very essence promotes death. 

The sin of homosexuality — in all its forms — is the exact opposite of fruitfulness. 

Rather than a return to the Garden — this is straying further from creation order — which is simply a picture of straying even further from God.

Just as one trying to navigate by the planets — those wandering stars — will take you further and further off course — the further one strays from God’s design, the further one strays from the designer. 

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Hence, the problem with those who distort God’s Word and seek to suggest there’s no problem in these behaviors, affections, and desires.

There absolutely is. And those who suggest otherwise are part of the problem. They are assisting the lost one their trajectory to hell. And that isn’t love! 

Paul’s point is not to single out a minority group — pointing a finger at them — as if they are the worst of the worst. Not even close! 

Rather, this minority group serves as the most graphic parable that something is wrong with ALL of humanity — not simply this group.

The very existence of such unnatural desires and behaviors serves as evidence of God’s wrath — God’s judgment upon sin — handing mankind over to the consequences of idolatry — any and all idolatry — the exchange of God!

In other words, the moral chaos and disordered desires are the visible evidence of God’s wrath — that is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. That’s verse 18. 

WRATH REVEALED, NOT HIDDEN

It’s not that the wrath of God is hidden, and we can’t see it. We simply assume God must be angry, or if we read our Bibles, we discover — wow, God really seems to be angry. Not at all. Verse 18 begins, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. It’s revealed. It’s not hidden.

Well, how is God’s wrath revealed? It’s revealed in the chaos and the disorder. Things aren’t as they ought to be. 

You look around at the chaos and the brokenness — you should recognize God is angry. 

O but people don’t like the idea of an angry God. 

You want to know what’s worse than God expressing His outrage over the world’s sin? I’ll tell you what’s worse. A God who is indifferent towards sin. That’s far worse.

How hypocritical we are as a society. We become outrages when people show a lack of outrage over those things we are outraged over. But when it comes to God’s righteous wrath — we find it unbefitting of God? How ridiculous. 

(O how often we pretend to be more righteous than God.)

You look around at the chaos and the brokenness — you should recognize God’s wrath. And the most obvious chaos and brokenness is seen in same-sex relationships!

God is not indifferent to sin — not homosexual sin, not heterosexual sin, not any sin. And to see that, all you need to do is look at the cross. That’s where God expressed the fullness of His outrage over sin. 

DUE PENALTY OF DEATH

As much as society may seek to normalize disorder — and worse, celebrate it — we all know there is something gravely disordered in same-sex relationships. I use the term gravely deliberately — because they are relationships that lead to death. 

A society of same-sex couples becomes extinct in a single generation. They can produce nothing except death. Everything about the relationship leads to death. They fail to produce any good — any fruitfulness — only death. 

In fact, death is somewhat an antonym of produce. All they produce is the opposite of produce — receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error — literally, they receive the anti-wages fitting for their waywardness. They aren’t even wages. They are the opposite of wages. 

Is Paul referring to AIDS? Or other STDs. While AIDS came much later, many will suggest that the consequences Paul has in mind are physical diseases, such as STDs. While certainly possible, I believe part of what’s missing is the certainty of death of a bloodline, death of a generation. 

(Sort of like the consequence of Jephtha’s vow. His lineage stopped with his daughter — his only child. That was it. A death in which the effects are felt before it even takes place.)

OBVIOUS INCOMPATIBILITY

Of course, there are advocates who claim it’s not fair that same-sex couples can’t produce their own offspring. See just how disordered we are! But it’s just another way of pointing a finger at God — blaming Him for His design. But that’s what we do.

You don’t have to be a homosexual to see the incompatibility of your sin with God’s design. All sin is incompatible with God’s design. The point of homosexuality is that it’s obvious to everyone! And yes, I mean everyone. 

We know plumbing doesn’t work with two male ends or two female ends. 

We know two bulls aren’t going to produce a calf. We know to mares won’t produce a foal. The truth stands right before our eyes, but we deny it. We suppress it.

And Paul’s point is that as obvious as the exchange made in same-sex relationships is a disorder of God’s design — so too the exchange of God. 

ALIGNED WITH GOD’S DESIGN

Being aligned with God’s design is never the wrong place to find oneself. 

Sin may still be present, but it’s never due to aligning oneself with God’s design. 

TALK ABOUT SEX

In one sense, these verses aren’t about sex. But in another sense, they are. The question is: what is sex about. God made us male and female. Why? 

God created us to be compatible for each other. Or to be more specific. God created us for union. That’s the reason why the disorder of homosexuality is the most graphic obvious example — because it most clearly reveals the disorder of what you and I were made for. We were made for union … communion … intimacy with another who is like us … but who is very much unlike us.

SELF-LOVE

You see. Homosexuality reveals mankind’s disordered love of self. It’s a picture of the love of self. 

There is no one who does not love themselves. We tend not to love ourselves well. But that’s not the issue. The issue is we have an excessive love for ourselves, that has taken place of loving the One for whom we were created — and for loving those fashioned in God’s likeness. 

That’s what’s on display with homosexuality — the perverseness of self-love.

That’s also the opposite of what we were created to portray.  Mankind was made in God’s image to portray God. 

But homosexuality is an inward act — it’s self-focused — seeking sameness rather than being others-centered. 

And that’s not at all like our Triune God who is inherently others-focused.
(1 Corinthians 13.)

UNION AND COMMUNION

When God made mankind, He made us male and female. He made us similar — yet different. He made us compatible.

The likenesses are beautiful in that they allow for communion — or we might say — communication — where we can comprehend (to some degree) one another in order to enjoy relationship. 

Yet, how vast the differences that allow us to come together for union — to become one — in such an intimate sense. That’s what marriage represents. 

That’s why a believer can never acknowledge the idea of a homosexual marriage. Because marriage, at its core, is that of union. And two males can’t make a union. Two females can’t make a union. 

YUCK FACTOR

There’s no such thing as a same-sex union. And the attempts to make such a union is disgusting. Even as much as Hollywood attempts to make society think otherwise — the average human mind will always think: yuck. And rightly so. It’s against nature. And trying to fit pieces together that aren’t designed to fit together — is far from beautiful — it’s sickening. 

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

Why do I make a big deal of this? Because God’s design is beautiful. And everything contrary to God’s design is not. And the marriage union is one of the most beautiful physical acts of all of God’s design — if not the most beautiful. 

Why? Because the union, when according to God’s design, points to the most glorious union that mankind is invited to participate in — and that is union with God Himself. 

DESIGNED TO BE DESIRABLE — INTENSELY DESIRABLE

The marriage union is something husbands and wives should take great delight in. And when such union takes place according to God’s design — God Himself delights in husbands and wives enjoying one another. 

This union is meant to be desirable. God intended it to be desirable — intensely desireable. Because it points to something even more desirable. 

This is why sexual sin is so powerful and so tough to break. Sex is meant to be desirable for a purpose. But when it’s disordered, those strong passions are used for ill rather than good — those disordered passions quickly draw their victims further from God rather than longing for Him. 

INCOMPLETE SATISFACTION

Why? Because all sexual satisfaction is incomplete — and deliberately so. Because it’s meant to lead us to a greater consummation than the physical. 

This is why there will be no marriage in heaven. We’ll no longer need the portrait because we’ll know the reality.

We will no longer need the physical to comprehend the spiritual — we will no longer need the union of husband and wives to comprehend the consummation of our union with Christ — Christ in us. O we have a foretaste of Christ in us now. The Spirit indwells us now. But it’s only a foretaste. 

SONG

I had Caleb read from Song of Solomon for us: 1) because I don’t think we have done so in the 3 years I’ve been here. 2) Because the last thing we should get from this passage is that there is something bad about sex. That God has to turn away, and we have to hide from God. 

Remember. Sex is God’s idea. And it’s meant to be beautiful. And the Song of Solomon portrays it exactly as that. 

Now, if you push the metaphors as if they are meant for an artist to draw, you’ll completely miss the picture. 

The entire Song is filled with Garden imagery, and temple imagery, and vignettes of Israel’s history and the promised land. The whole song, we might say, is decorated with Eden. Why? Because that’s where God was to dwell with His people. But this Song points, not so much back towards Eden, as much as it points to Eden fulfilled — Eden transcended. 

And it’s here, saturated with Eden, the Bridegroom and the Bride are anticipating one another and intoxicated with one another. 

LOVELY BUT BLACKENED

Now, at the beginning of this Song (1:5), the Bride is aware she is lovely … but also far from perfect in beauty. (1:5) I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept.

Furthermore, she sees herself as one among many. (2:1). I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.

EYES OF LOVE

But her Groom sees her as perfect. O no. Not a mere lily of the valleys. But… a lily among brambles. So is my love among the young women. 

Put her next to all the beautiful virgins, this one, His chosen Bride, is a lily among brambles. She’s perfect. O most beautiful among women.

It’s not that love is at all blind. Love looks with different eyes. This one is the one he wants. She is the Bride he desires to have. 

And she has saved herself for him.

GARDEN LOCKED TO BE UNLOCKED

4:12 A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed.

This Bride has been kept pure, exclusive, guarded for her Groom. 

But the Garden isn’t to remain locked forever. O the anticipation of consummation. Verse 16. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow. Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.

From a garden locked, to entering into the garden and sowing seed. The garden is meant to be His — to be her beloved’s. And in sowing the seeds of love, it is to produce fruit. 

But same-sex relationships, they can’t portray that. There’s either no Garden or no Sower. And there can be no fruit — much less the choicest of fruits. 

APPLICATION FOR ALL

Now, time for application — or an application. The point is not for the church to make war on homosexuality. Our goal is not to convert homosexuals and make them heterosexual. 

Homosexuality is the fruit — or rather, the non-fruit — of a greater root disorder. All efforts to address, to change, to correct, to transform the behaviors and practices without addressing the root — 1) brings no glory to the God they continue to reject, and 2) leaves them dead in their sin. 

What needs to be addressed is the same thing that needs to be addressed in every single one of us. That’s why I said, this passage is as much about you, even if you don’t struggle with this particular sin. Because the roots of sin are the same in everybody. 

What are those roots taking in? What are those roots grasping hold of? What are they growing toward? What are they feasting on?

In other words, what is your food? (John 6). Adam and Eve ate, took in, the wrong food, and in doing so, they relinquished the tree of life. That was the exchange. 

John 6 — unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood … 

Unless your rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, your life will be as fruitless as the same-sex couple.  

GAVE HIMSELF UP FOR ME

Last week we looked at how the God who handed over mankind to their sins, handed over His own Son for their sins. 

That’s what the Father did.

But what about the Son?

Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

HE SEES ME PERFECTLY

In Christ, we are the Bride of the Song of Solomon. Maybe I’ll end by letting her speak on our behalf. 

Despite all of my blackness, my being unlovely in and of myself due to my sin, He chose me and gave Himself up for me. 

There was nothing more lovely in me, that caused Jesus to choose me. He simply loved me because He loved me.

If there be any beauty in me, it’s because he has bestowed it upon me. If there be anything special about me, it is Him — what I am in His eyes — what I am in His taking me into His arms and taking me to Himself. 

All my flaws, it’s not that they aren’t still there at the present moment. And yet, He sees none of them, because He has covered them with His own blood. He has cleansed me and made me pure.

It’s this love …

Why is homosexuality the disorder Paul focuses on in the middle of these three great exchanges? Because they capture more than any other distortion, the perversion of God’s ultimate design for marriage and what marriage ultimately points to — Union with God Himself — Christ and His Bride, the Church. 

Every disordered affection draws us away from the greatest of all loves — the love of God in Christ. 

Amazing love how can it be that thou my God shouldst die for me.

  God Gave Them Up: Judgment in Hope

READ (Romans 1:24-32)

REVIEW:

Before we look directly at these specific verses, it’s important to remind ourselves of what’s come before. In other words, how did we get here, and what’s Paul’s purpose for even bringing it up. 

First: how we got here. Verse 18. In his unrighteousness, mankind has suppressed the truth about God, denying what he plainly knows to be true about God. Why does mankind plainly know? Because God has made it plain to him. God has made the truth plain to every person who has ever walked this planet. But instead of honoring God as God and giving thanks for every blessing we enjoy, instead we sought to be wiser than God, exchanging the glory of the eternal God who is glorious in and of Himself, for the glory of things that perish — a glory that fades — a glory that is infinitely less glorious. And Paul makes clear that God is not indifferent to this exchange of glory, but that God is angry. God is wrathful toward this great exchange.

Second: Paul raises this dreadful predicament that the whole of the human race finds themselves in — not for our condemnation — but for our salvation. Despite this great exchange — despite our committing spiritual and physical suicide in exchanging the Author of life for a copy of a copy of a corrupted copy — there is hope. There shouldn’t be hope. We don’t deserve to have hope. And yet, in His great mercy, God has provided a way to restore us, reconcile us, save us from our own dishonorable suicidal tendencies. And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

GOD GAVE THEM UP

We see throughout Scripture this idea of “God gave them up.” 

In the wilderness, the people complained about the menu and demanded that they have meat to eat. God gives the people over to what they demanded. Quail filled the camp. And those who craved the quail gorged themselves on that which they worshiped — only to choke on their idolatry. 

They rejected the daily bread of the Lord. They hungered for something else. And it brought death.

Judges 2, as Silas read for us, when the people of Israel chased after the gods of the nations, God gave them over to be plundered by those nations. And if you revere their gods, then you’ll be left for those gods to deliver you. And we all know a false god can deliver absolutely no one. We know it. And yet, mankind still chases after them.

1 Samuel 8, the people demanded a king like the nations, rejecting God as their King. So, what does God do? He gives them over to their desire. 

Let me ask. Were the people better for it? No. Even knowing the consequences of asking for a king — even being warned that the king would take their sons and daughters to serve in his army and to serve in his household, even being warned that the king would take the best of their fields and vineyards and give them to his officers, even being warned that one day the people would cry out because of the king they had chosen for themselves — the people still demanded that they have a king. So, God gave them their hearts desire. 

Asking for a fallible human king to rule over you is a significant downgrade from the King of the Universe! It certainly wasn’t to the nation’s glory. 

Throughout history, human rulers have been an object of worship — often exalted to the status of a god. 

It’s amazing the worship mankind has given to human rulers much like themselves. But worship the God who rules the universe? O that we cannot do! 

In our fallen state, we prefer to worship anything other than God Almighty. 

Fall down before a block of wood (like we looked at last week in Isaiah 44) or fall before a sculpture fashioned of ordinary clay — the very dust of the earth — there’s very little difference — when compared the eternal Living God. 

And yet, that’s what we do! We worship fallen image-bearers — a copy of a copy of a corrupted copy. Call them celebrities or idols — they are nothing but false gods set up in the true God’s place.

The prophets, from Moses to Malachai, all warned about idolatry. Nevertheless, the people wanted to be like the nations and worship like the nations. So, God gave them over to the nations and to their abominable worship. What did they lose? They lost God. They lost the pearl of great price. 

WHO GAVE UP WHO?

I want you to notice something. In each of these, the people first gave up God, before God gave them up. 

They did not simply forget God; they exchanged Him. They gave up God for the worship of other things. They found God unfit (next week) and sought something more preferable. 

HAND OVER

The word means to give someone or something over to someone or something. (The idea is somewhat synonymous with exchange.) You buy something at the store, you hand over the cash that was once yours, and you give it to the clerk. That’s the basic idea of this word. 

Sadly, it’s most often used in a negative sense, such as handing Jesus over to be put to death. 

The people asked Pilate to release Barabbas — an insurrectionist — over the King of the Jews — in exchange for the King Himself. Barabbas is released. And Jesus is handed over to be crucified.

Several times it’s translated as betrayed. When the disciples are named, you read the final name: and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him — handed him over — gave him up. 

Mankind exchange God — therefore God exchanged them. Mankind gave up God. Therefore God gave them over to something infinitely less than Himself.

JUDICIAL HANDING OVER

For God to give the people up — it’s a judicial act. God giving the people over to their desire is an act of judgment. To remind ourselves of verse 18, it’s the wrath of God revealed. 

We look at the world and see the mess the world is in — and the disordered affections of God’s image bearers — and we are to recognize that this is a portrait of God’s judgment. 

We see the dishonorable behaviors — we are to see judgment. Mankind was created for a far more glorious purpose. But we exchanged that purpose — our God-given purpose — for disordered worship. That is part of the judgment.

EXCHANGED THE TRUTH

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

THE GARDEN AGAIN?

If you haven’t noticed by now, I visit the first three chapters of Genesis often. Many like to dismiss the early chapters of Genesis because it seems to them so unbelievable — the Tower of Babel, the Flood, a talking Serpent, a six-day Creation. But here’s the thing. These opening chapters of Genesis is the context for the rest of — not only Scripture — but all of history. You can’t understand the human condition and the predicament all of mankind finds himself in apart from these opening chapters.

Where did this first exchange of truth take place? It took place in the Garden when the woman believed the Serpent’s word over the Word of God. Hold on to that, because that’s going to matter for the rest of our text. And Adam, in turn, believed the voice of his wife over the voice of God. 

EXCHANGING TRUTH: AN ALTERNATIVE WORD

So, first, in the Garden, they exchanged that which they perfectly knew to be true, and chose to believe something else. Why? Because that something else seemed more desirable. 

God’s clear Word said: The day you eat of this tree you shall surely die — because for you, it is the fruit of death. Well, I don’t like the sound of that. 

So, another comes in and offers an alternative word. You won’t surely die. Rather, eating this fruit will grant you something you don’t have right now. It will make you like God. Well, that word certainly sounds preferable. I’ll chose to believe that one.

That’s what temptation does. It offers you something you don’t currently possess, and it says, this is preferable. And you can have it! Don’t deny yourself.

WITHHELD OR WITHHELD NOT

While the tree in the midst of the Garden was forbidden, it wasn’t withheld. It was left in the midst of the Garden for mankind’s good and glorious use.

How is that?

To refrain from eating was life. So long as they refrained, this tree served as a glorious witness of God’s goodness — that He had given the man and the woman absolutely everything else. It was also a glorious testimony of their honor and gratitude towards God — that He was even more to be valued than His gifts. And it was a testimony of who is God and who isn’t. 

O the tree represented something glorious indeed! And in that sense, the tree was good. It was good for mankind. The fruit wasn’t to be eaten by man. It wasn’t good for that use. But the tree, like everything else God created, was good.

What was not good, was to misuse the tree. To eat from this tree was death. It tarnished, distorted, corrupted everything good they had known. They went from worshiping and serving the Creator — O what a glorious privilege — to worshiping and serving the creature — O how demeaning.

PRESIENTIAL TO ANT HILL

Can you imagine someone in the service of the president — let’s say, secret service. Their job is to defend the president with their lives if necessary. 

And you really don’t like the president, so you type out your resignation letter because you would rather serve and defend an ant hill, or even a worm. 

You exchange the prestige and honor of serving the highest human official of the land to go and serve and defend a worm, and that’s it. You spend your days guarding a worm — defending it, making sure nothing bad happens to it. 

DEGRADING DOWNGRADE

Sounds silly, I know. But what I want you to recognize is just how degrading such an exchange is. 

The exchange that took place in the Garden is infinitely more degrading to God’s image-bearers than that. 

What’s worse, is the disgust you’ve shown to the president doesn’t begin to compare to the infinite disgust you and I have shown to the Creator. How appalling. But listen loved ones, outside of Christ, this is every single one of us. This is our condition.

POLARIZING

I almost decided to change the illustration to some foreign king instead, because our current president is without a doubt the most polarizing president in our nation’s history. 

You have those who love him with unrestrained loyalty regardless of what he says or does. 

And you have those who abhor him with the greatest hatred ever directed towards a human being — again, regardless of anything he says or does. 

CORRECTIVE LENSES

Loved ones. As those who know God in Christ, we should fall into neither of these groups. This is a fallible individual — a fallible image bearer.

Human rulers are but fallible individuals appointed to serve God’s purposes whether they acknowledge Him or not. All earthly rulers either willingly or unwillingly serve the good purposes of the Sovereign Lord of the universe — who works all things together for the good of those who love God! 

But these same human rulers serve as a judgment for all who hate God — regardless of whether they adore or hate the human ruler. The polarization is part of the judgment.

A POLARIZED PORTRAIT

But the polarization of the current president of the United States doesn’t begin to compare to the polarization of mankind toward God. Those who know God in Christ, adore Him. Whatever He says or does is always right; it’s perfect, it’s good.

But those outside of Christ, they aren’t indifferent, though they may like to suggest they are. No. They hate this God with a passion even greater than the hatred they express toward the fallen individual God has currently appointed to the highest office of the land. And that’s not an exaggeration. 

PAUL’S RESPONSE: WORSHIP

And so, seemingly out of nowhere, Paul breaks into doxology. Why? Because this was Paul too. Just the thought of God being dishonored in such an appalling way, Paul breaks into worship. O Lord God, You are deserving of so much more! You are the eternally blessed One. And then he calls on the reader to respond. Amen. That’s the purpose of the amen. The word simply means truly. 

So, when Paul finishes his brief doxology: the Creator, who is blessed forever. He’s expecting you to echo, Truly He is! 

Let me ask. Do you? Now, I’m not one who’s big on the verbal Amen’s throughout a message. But loved ones, I hope your heart, even if silently, echoes Paul’s “amen” every time you’re confronted with such glorious truths about our great God.

JUDICIAL REVIEW

It’s important that we recognize that part of the judgment is God giving man up to his desires. And that what took place in the Garden has taken place in the heart of every single fallen individual. 

On the day you eat you shall surely die. On the day you exchange the truth about me for a lie — on the day you give me up for your lusts — I’m going to give you over to that lust that longs for the fruit you think I’m withholding. 

In other words, part of the judgment is giving us over to our supposed autonomy that seeks to determine good and evil for ourselves. But that autonomy, giving us over to follow our lustful hearts, is worse than any chains of restraint could ever be. 

Our society has more supposed freedoms, more opportunities, more abundance, more time to enjoy it all, than ever. And the depression rate and suicide rate have only skyrocketed. Not only that, how many of those seek to take others with them. It’s heart breaking. 

But that’s what you get when desire is disordered and unrestrained. Because none of those desires that mankind has exchanged God for can ever satisfy. 

The more you have, the emptier you realize all of it is. It’s absolutely depressing. Your desires can’t fill the void.

God giving you up to your desires is the greatest of all judgments — second only to hell itself — which is the fullness of God giving you up. 

For those who desire not to know God, not to commune with Him — He will give them their hearts desire for eternity. But that also means, the absence of all of His goodness. It’s a terrifying picture.

TO DISHONORING THEIR BODIES

So, what did God hand them over to? God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

Simply put, God gave them up to their desires and allowed those desires to go unchecked — mankind created in God’s image, defiling that image beyond recognition. Rather than these physical creatures knowing the greatest honor ever bestowed upon a creature, they dishonor even their own bodies. 

The judgment is this: those who failed to honor God (verse 21), ultimately end up dishonoring themselves. 

Why? Because of the horrific exchange they have made.

CHILD’S PLAY AND TOY ABUSE

You give a child a gift. Perhaps a rough and tough Tonka truck. But the child begins using the toy truck as a bomb. He takes it to the top of the stairs and tosses it down on the rest of his toys. 

You might warn the child. If you play with it like that, you’re going to break it. But to no avail. The child refuses to listen. 

You may decide: okay. I’m going to let Tommy play with it as he wishes. I’ll give him over to his desire to misuse the toy. And when it breaks, that’ll be the consequence of not listening. That will be the consequence of his misuse. The will be the consequence of him exchanging the truth of what he holds in his hands. A broken toy.

MORE PROFOUND

But is that what Paul’s saying? I actually think Paul is saying something far more profound. And it’s important that we grasp it.

Paul is saying that the handing the child over to the misuse of the toy is the judgment!Regardless of whether the toy breaks or not!

Let’s say, rather than a bomb thrown down from the top of the steps, Tommy exchanged that Tonka truck for his stuffed teddy bear and began cuddling with it at night. That won’t necessarily harm the Tonka truck — not physically. But it’s obviously not what the truck was designed for. 

The act is foolish. It’s shameful. It’s dishonorable. That’s what the text is saying.

The difference is that we’re not 5-year-old Tommy. And we’re not talking about a plastic toy. We’re talking about that which can’t be valued — our very bodies — in which we are to glorify God.

Our bodies were given for one use and one use only — they were given to us for the glory of God. Any other use is misuse. 

Any other use is dishonorable. Because it’s to use your body for something significantly less — indeed, infinitely less — than that which they were designed and given to you for. 

IMPURITY

And those additional uses is where we get the idea of impurity. God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity. 

Impurity. That’s Paul’s word. What does it mean to be impure? It means unclean. 

To cleanse something, you remove the dirt — that which doesn’t belong. 

For something to be clean, it means to have no impurities — nothing which doesn’t belong. Impurity means it has something added to it that does not belong. 

Pure gold is quite valuable. But filled with impurities, its value is quickly diminished. Pure unleavened bread — no additives. The people of Israel were to be a pure race — not to be mixed with the people’s of the land. Not because ethnicity was the issue. But because of the culture and the worship those other nations would bring.

Long for the pure spiritual milk of God’s Word. Not some add-mixture.

JUDGMENT IN HOPE

The judgment is God giving mankind up to impurity and dishonor … not necessarily the consequences that follow — although the consequences abound.

While giving man over to his lustful heart’s desire is an act of judgment, it isn’t final judgment. Romans 11:32, God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. 

You see, God gave up man to this temporal judgment, not for man’s ultimate condemnation — but in hope.

Romans 8:20. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

[God gave man over to his heart’s desire which can never satisfy, so that man might know intimately the consequence of sin. Man already knew the judicial consequence — but he didn’t know intimately the pain and emptiness of his sin.]

CLEANSING

God gave mankind over to his sin. But the goal wasn’t to leave mankind forever in such dishonor and uncleanness.

God had a plan for our cleansing. 

John 15:2 — He prunes — literally, he cleans.

All those who belong to Christ are cleaned by Him. He prunes or cleans away all that which is infected and unclean due to sin. Everything impurity — everything that doesn’t belong.

Jesus does that by taking all those impurities upon himself and being pruned — cut-off — in our place.

Jesus will have to enter our uncleanness. That’s, in part, why he was baptized by John in the filthy Jordan River. It wasn’t because Jesus had any sins in which to repent. John himself acknowledge that fact. Rather, Jesus came to wash the people’s sins unto himself. (Symbolic? Yes.) 

THE SECOND GREAT EXCHANGE

The first great exchange was the most horrific appalling exchange ever. Mankind exchanging the glory of God for a copy of a copy of a corrupted copy — Mankind exchanging the truth about God for a lie — Mankind handing over Creator as unworthy of their worship in order to worship the creature instead. 

It’s impossible to exaggerate the magnitude of this exchange. It seems utterly impossible for there to be a greater exchange. There certainly could never be a more horrendous exchange. But thanks be to God, it wasn’t the last great exchange! 

The God who handed mankind over to their sin, will hand over His own Son for their sin. Romans 8:32. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.

It’s the exact same word as that of God’s judicial judgment that Paul uses 3 times in Romans 1.
Therefore, God gave them up.
For this reason, God gave them up.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up.

The most glorious exchange to cover the most horrific exchange. 

In mankind’s exchange of God, we desired God to be not — we desired God to be dead — we desired God to be … crucified. 

God gave His one and only Son over to our desire — and he was crucified. And on that cross hung the one thing that will restore any of us to the truth about just who God is —
the king we demanded for ourselves … versus the King who bore our crown of thorns

BARABBAS

It’s really the account of Barabbas. We are the insurrectionists set free in exchange for the One who had done nothing wrong. The One who honored and served His Father was handed over to be crucified, while you and I who rebelled are set free.

   Claiming to Be Wise: The Great Exchange, part 4 (Romans 1:21-23) 

INTRODUCTION

We’re continuing to look at what is often referred to as General Revelation or Natural Theology — or we might say, that which can be known about God without a Bible.

Specifically today, we’re looking at the misuse of the faculties God has so graciously given us — particularly our hearts and our minds.

As we follow Paul’s argument, my hope is that 1) we are convicted by the Spirit of where we fall short in our worship of God, 2) that we discover why it is we fall short in our worship, and 3) the redemption we have in Christ restores us to proper worship.

Because, part of the reason for Paul putting forth such a thorough indictment of which none of us our excused is to magnify Christ
- through the horrible depths of the circumstance from which He saves us,
- the impossibility of our saving — or even excusing — ourselves,
- and the unbreakable verdict that stands against us — a verdict that God alone can break.
- Despite the right of God to be angry, instead, in Christ, He has shown us incomprehensible mercy and love. 

FOUR POINTS

Looking at four main points today:
1) Worthless Thinking (mind)
2) Darkened Hearts (heart)
3) Foolish Philosophy (mind)
4) Corrupted Glory (heart)

READ: (Romans 1:18-23)

WORTHLESS THINKING

Second half of verse 21. They became futile in their thinking.

Futile means empty, worthless, unprofitable, 

Thinking, to nuance it, deals with that of reasoning and debate — διαλογισμός — you can hear the word dialogue. 

DOGS AND DIALOGUE

God created man with the incredible gift of reasoning, understanding, being able to hold conversations or dialogues. 

Two dogs may bark at each other. And perhaps we could call it a form of communication on some level. But they aren’t dialoguing with each other. They aren’t holding a conversation. They aren’t reasoning with one another. 

They may see another dog or a person walking down the street, and they go crazy informing the whole world. But they aren’t asking each other why this same person walks by every weekday around such and such a time. 

They aren’t trying to figure out why they’re wearing what they’re wearing, or the difference in the gait of one’s stride, or the demeanor on their face.

They don’t wonder: I bet this is part of her daily workout — notice those running shoes. He must be walking from the bus stop; he’s got his backpack on. I wonder if she visits her friend up the street each day. Nope. None of that.  

Our neighbor goes for evening walks and wears his high-visibility vest. The dogs aren’t thinking safety but shiny.

BARK TO GODS GLORY

They are just being a dog — and they do their dog thing to the glory of God. 

When I’m doing work at a customer’s house for my day job, I still find it fascinating how a dog, due to my presence, can bark nonstop for hours on end without ceasing, never letting up. Ruff, Ruff, Ruff. But it does it. And it does it to the glory of God. Dogs bark to the glory of God. That’s how God created them.

Loved ones, we should be equally amazed at how we find it so difficult to do the same in our worship, knowing God is present — to say without ceasing, at least in our hearts, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come! Far from not ceasing, we struggle to even to pray with any intensity for a full 5 minutes a day — much less live in unceasing worship.

Isn’t that the first half of verse 21. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. In other words, mankind has failed to rightly worship God as God — to notice, to sense, to reason that God is present, and bow in worship.

The four-legged beast has no problem doing what God created it to do. But mankind, who was granted such higher gifts, he is the one creature that fails to do what God created him to do — to use these great mental faculties to know Him and worship Him.

MIND RENDERED WORTHLESS

As such, this great gift of the mind which was given that man might know his Creator has been rendered worthless. 

Overstatement? Doesn’t man use his mind for great things? I mean, we’ve discovered nuclear energy and invented the nuclear bomb! Well good for us. Think of man’s greatest achievements of the mind. None of them pale in comparison to what the mind was given for: knowing God. 

PUNY ACHIEVEMENTS

Take all those achievements away, along with all the supposed good that has come from them. None of them — not one of them — nor all of them combined — carry the value of rightly knowing the One we were created for. They are all profitless. 

You know what God thinks of mankind’s achievements? We could look at the tower of Babel, and how such was so unimpressive in God’s sight, that Scripture records God having to come down to see it. That’s Scripture’s way of mocking man who thinks so highly of himself. 

DROP FROM A BUCKET

Or Isaiah 40:15. This is the Lord speaking. Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales… All the nations are as nothing before the Lord; they are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness.

Why does God speak this way about the people He created? Because mankind had become futile in his thinking. Mankind, whom God had given dominion over the whole of creation, used his gift of reasoning to exalt himself.

MISPLACED FOCUS

Consider some of the trivial things you have wasted your time pondering over. 

Worry, anxiety, fear: you know what worry ultimately is? It’s to think too little of the God who is sovereign over all. What ever you’re worried over is bigger — at least in your mind — than God Himself.

Lust, sinful desires, covetousness: all stem from those desires looming larger than the God who should be our heart’s desire.

What’s the correction? Knowing the One whom the wind and waves obey — knowing the One who is the pearl of great price and have our affections stirred for Him.

Compared to God, everything else is trivial — especially one’s own self-exaltation. But that’s what we get — a life of trivialities — when we fail to use our God-given gifts for God-given purposes. 

When our reasoning seeks to remove God from the equation, it is worthless.

DARKENED HEARTS

They became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

We move from the mind to the heart — from failing to use our mental faculties for that which they were created, to what becomes of our foolish hearts — or more literally, our hearts without understanding were darkened.

AFFECTIONS

Now, the heart can be thought of in two ways. Sometimes heart is comprehensive for all of man’s faculties, as such, the whole of man’s being has become darkened. And that is certainly true. 

But sometimes the heart has a more narrow focus such as man’s affections and moral judgments, both of which are intrinsically connected. One’s moral judgments often follow his affections and desires. Hence the reason the whole follow your heart is so dangerous. Our affections are corrupted. So, a morality based our on our affections will naturally be corrupted as well.

FILLING THE VOID

Exiling God as the object of man’s affection and worship means that something else — or many something elses — will have to fill the void. And what a huge void that is. Indeed, the void is infinite. You remove the infinite One, you have an infinite hole to fill. Which is why nothing else can suffice. Every other object of worship will leave the worshiper empty.

So, why does Paul use this language of darkness? Their foolish hearts were darkened. 

Well, we’re looking at the issue of worship and (verse 23) that of glory. 

LIGHT SOURCE 

Mankind has no light in himself. Indeed, I think it’s theologically correct to say that creation has no light in itself. 

Even the sun only has light because the Creator has filled it with light. Even so, God did design the sun to give off light. And the moon, while it seems to give off light, is even said to give off light in Genesis 1, it gives off that light through reflection. 

During a full moon, it gives off enough light that on a cloudless night in the country, you can take a late night walk and see just fine. (Or at least we can when our eyes are younger. I need all the light there is.)

God designed the sun and moon as a portrait of how man is to reflect his Creator. 

Because we fail to use our mental faculties to contemplate the glory of God, our hearts are without understanding. (That’s the word foolish: without understanding.) 

Apart from the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, we have no light which to reflect. Instead, we are darkness.

TAKING IN LIGHT

When Jesus says, “You are the light of the world,” he’s not speaking of mankind in general, but to those who know Him, and hence, reflect Him in that knowledge.

You are the light of the world applies only to those who have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God restored so that they may reflect the true Light of the World, Jesus Christ. 

Matthew 6:22. Jesus says, The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.

The eye takes in light. That’s how it sees. But what the heart’s eye was created to gaze upon is nothing less than the glory of God revealed in God’s creation. Rejecting true glory leaves one in darkness, not light. 

NEED FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

We need the eyes of our hearts enlightened (Ephesians 1:18), in order that we may gaze upon true glory, so that we may see true light, and thus shine as lights in the world that reflect the light of the knowledge of Christ.

That’s 2 Corinthians 4:6. For the God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God — where? — in the face of Jesus Christ.

In fact, that’s why a verse earlier Paul writes to the Corinthians: For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. In other words, Paul recognized himself as one who was to reflect Christ, in order to promote Christ. Paul wasn’t seeking to highlight or exalt himself but Jesus. 

Which takes us to our next point: Highlighting ourselves to be wise.

FOOLISH PHILOSOPHY

Verse 22. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

It’s not accidental that the word Paul uses — claiming to be — comes from the word — light — φῶς. It’s where we get our words — photography — photosynthesis — photons. They each deal with light. 

Rather than simply reading the verse as claiming to be wise, think of it as highlighting themselves to be wise. Because that’s the point — self-promotion — self-exaltation. 

The problem is the boast — the highlighting of oneself. Boasting in oneself often makes one other than he claims to be. The one who boasts in his humility is proud. One who boasts in his wisdom is a fool.

There’s but one thing worth boasting in — one thing we are to boast in, and that is the Lord God. Sadly, He is the one thing mankind is set on rejecting, because to acknowledge God means that we are not — we aren’t God; we aren’t sovereign.

WISE

The word wise — you’re likely familiar with it — σοφός — it’s where we get the words like: sophisticated, philosophy, sophistry, and sophists. 

ADJECTIVE

It’s an adjective, and used as an adjective, Scripture uses it both positively and negatively. At the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he will write, I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. 

Or in his closing doxology: to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

SUBSTANTIVELY

But when used substantively or nominally — that means when an adjective is used as a noun — in Scripture it’s often used negatively. 

On the lips of our Lord Jesus: (Matthew 11:25) Father, I thank you that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them instead to little children. Wise referring to the wise of this world — which means they are not wise in God’s eyes. 

Or in the passage from 1 Corinthians 1 that Samuel read: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

SOURCE OF WISDOM

Just as man does not have light in himself, neither does he have wisdom in himself. Therefore, just as man rejected his source of light and became darkness. Here, Paul is saying, mankind rejected his source of wisdom and became fools. 

When we misuse the faculties God has so graciously given to us, those faculties produce the opposite of what they were designed for — they become profitless. 

Highlighting themselves to be wise they became fools. Fools comes from the Greek word that gives us our English word moron. Claiming to be wise they became morons. I mean, what’s more foolish than exchanging the glory of God! (But we’re not quite there yet.)

In claiming to be wise, we’re exalting ourselves, highlighting ourselves as the object of worship. 

SOPHISTS AND SOPHISTRY

I mentioned the Greek word for wise is where we get our word sophists and philosophers. They can often be interchanged. Philosopher is a lover of wisdom, just as philosophy is the love of wisdom. But again, this is in the worldly sense, not the godly sense. 

Yet, even the world catches on to the vanity of multiplying words. Because where sophist was once a term for a professional teacher or orator, it became known for those whose reasoning was superficial and unsound. They used sophistry — clever arguments that merely seemed true on the surface, but was really nothing more than nonsense. 

Most of us know someone who likes to use sophistry. You can ask him about any subject, and he’ll have an answer for you. And on the surface, it sounds … sound. (Malarky and Balderdash.) 

EXPOSING PHILOSOPHY

Understand this. That is what all worldly philosophy is. It sounds wise, it appears to be sound, but it’s just layer upon layer of superficial arguments. And what makes them superficial? They have no true depth. And why do they have no true depth? Because they have no foundation. They’ve rejected the source of wisdom itself. 

Worldly philosophy seems clever … just like the serpent!

Listen loved ones. The Enlightenment, which sought to displace God as the fountain head of wisdom by setting up human reasoning as the foundation of wisdom, brought a whole new level of darkness to much of Christendom. 

As if the creature can subject the Creator to its so-called rational critiques. 

The Enlightenment was anything but. The only true enlightenment comes through God Himself, revealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit. 

In claiming to be wise — man exalts himself as the object of worship. Look at me! I’m the one with the knowledge of good and evil. 

Which takes us to the culmination of the great exchange, and that is the exchange of glory.

CORRUPTED GLORY

Verse 23. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

This is the great downgrade. The immortal for the mortal, the imperishable for the perishable, the incorruptible for the corruptible. Each of those words capture the ESV’s rendering of immortal and mortal. The one doesn’t change but remains in perfection, that’s God. 

While the list that follows — man, birds, animals, and creeping things — they aren’t in perfection, but worse, due to the Fall, they fall further and further from perfection. They die, their bodies perish, and everything about them becomes more and more corrupt.

MADE OTHER

The word — exchange — means to be made other. It usually refers to another of something similar, such as Jesus told another parable. 

But that’s part of the point. To seek to make God — or rather, the glory of God — something other, even in the slightest sense — is to fashion a god who is not — and a glory that is infinitely less. 

PERFECT-LESS

To take the perfect God and understand Him other than He is, is to distort His very perfections. You can’t make perfection better. You can only make it less than. 

When I’m working on decks — either making repairs or staining them — a cut is either perfect, or it’s not. The color match is either perfect, or it’s not. But here’s the thing with the work I do. There’s a margin of error that is acceptable. So while I might use the term perfect, it’s always hyperbole, because it’s never perfect; it’s only close. (And hyperbole’s okay, so long as you and everyone else knows it’s hyperbole.)

But when you take the equation 2+2, the answer is either perfect, or it’s wrong. There’s no close. You can’t turn in your math exam with 3 or 5 and think the teacher is going to count it as correct. (Perhaps Harvard might. O that’s right, they’re making it where it’s not so easy for everyone to get an A.)

And yes, we can get a lot closer to 4 than 3 or 5. But 4.01 is still wrong, regardless of how many zeroes are placed before the one. 

For God to be other than He is, would be for Him not to be God. And for us to understand Him other than He is would be for us to worship something other than God. 

God is perfect, and he is immutable. He does not change, because perfection cannot be changed without it becoming something less.

BROKEN COPIERS

But what exactly did fallen man exchange the glory of God for? I’m going to give you a bit more literal of a translation than the ESV reads. 

They changed (or exchanged) the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of an image of corruptible man. 

The likeness, of an image, of man who was to image God but became corrupt in his entire being. In other words, they traded the greatest glory of all — the glory of God, for a copy of a copy of a corrupted copy. 

MONOPOLY MONEY

You got a hundred-dollar bill. I know, you can’t buy but so much with it due to inflation. But you can go down to Walmart and buy a hundred-dollars’ worth of whatever. 

But take a hundred-dollar bill out of your Monopoly game. Take that to Walmart and see what you can buy. Absolutely nothing. It’s worthless. 

It’s not even a copy of a real hundred-dollar bill. It’s not even a copy of a copy. It’s a copy of a copy of a fabricated copy that the game designer came up with out of his own noggin — his own idea of what it should look like.

That’s what fallen man has done with the glory of the immutable holy God.

MONA LISA - NONE-A-LISA

Take a famous piece of artwork. People pay millions for the original of some of these. But the further away you get from the original, they lose their value. 

What is perhaps the most famous artwork, the Mona Lisa, if it could be valued, many speculate that it would be upwards of a billion dollars. 

Now suppose I had my six-year-old do her best impression of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and then, rather than selling you her original, I sold you a copy of a copy of her distorted impression of it. 

How much are you going to give me? Any takers? Let me know. Because if the price is right, I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to assign Charlotte this week. Maybe her artwork can find a home at the Louvre. 

Do you see why God said, all the nations together are worthless? Not even a drop in a bucket, less than dust on the scales! Because mankind has exchange the incalculable glory he was to reflect, for the likeness of an image of the corrupted image of God.

DEGRESSION CONTINUES

But the degression continues, from a copy of a copy of what has become a corrupted copy, to man worshiping even the beasts — from the most exalted — the eagle that sores the highest of heights — to the four-footed beasts of the field — to creeping things such as a slithering snake.

In taking the fruit, in exalting oneself as wise, mankind had become like the serpent whose voice he heeded. 

This downgrade that Paul so carefully lays out captures the effects of the Fall.

LIKE BEASTS

In the Fall, mankind became less than man. In listening to the snake over and above God’s voice, mankind fancied God no better than a beast. As such, man has become like the beast. 

O it’s true that man was created in the image of God. But throughout the whole of Scripture, nearly every book of the Bible takes pains to show how fallen man has become like the beast — and more specifically, like the snake. 

The Book of Daniel illustrates this in a couple ways. One is the beastly kingdoms in chapter 7. But what about proud Nebuchadnezzar? (Daniel 4:16). Because of his pride, let him be given the mind of a beast.

All our faculties — our great gifts — have become deluded — where our conclusion of who God is, is no wiser than a beast could render God. Indeed, due to the Fall, we are all the more deluded.

Isaiah 1:3. The ox knows his master, the donkey its master’s crib, but God’s people don’t know Him.

That’s the exchange that has taken place.

HALF-BAKED GODS

See just how deluded humanity has become? As Damian read for us from Isaiah 44. 

A man goes out and cuts down a tree. He takes half and uses it as firewood, over which to bake bread. The other half he makes into a god and falls down and worships it. And yet, no one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest into an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or even say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

To paraphrase puritan theologian Stephen Charnock: Mankind worshiped one end of a log of wood, while warming themselves with the other, as if that which was ordained for the kitchen were a fit representation for God in the temple. 

SOPHISTICATED IDOLS

But Josh, we don’t fall down before a block of wood. We don’t worship idols like they did in Isaiah’s day or even Paul’s day. 

Well, to borrow from Paul’s term for wisdom — perhaps we don’t fall down and worship before a block of wood. We are far more sophisticated in our idolatry for that. Our idolatry is just covered with more layers of the philosopher’s superficial reasoning; our idols are actually further down the line of a copy of a copy of a corrupted copy. Far from being less given over to idolatry, our culture is all in. 

IDOLS

Idols of today: state, science, skill, sex, success, security, self-improvement, salary, self-image … SELF. 

Whatever it is we worship — those are our idols if they are anything other than God — anything other than God as He has disclosed Himself.

PROBLEM OF IMAGES

Idolatry falls infinitely short of giving man any idea of what God is truly like.
Hence, the second commandment, no images. Why?
1) God had already fashioned the image of God — you!
2) The infinite cannot be contained in form. 

CONCLUSION

Why can a dog bark and bark and bark at the presence of another, but we barely even notice God’s presence. 

His fingerprints are everywhere. His footprints, His aroma, the taste of His goodness, the sound of His voice echoes, His light emits throughout all the world.

Yet man takes no notice of his Creator. Why? Because in his pride, fallen man has not taste for his Creator.

Only in gazing upon the Light of the World, is our heart’s sight is restored to see everything else rightly — in proper view.

Only in gazing upon the incorruptible One taking on the likeness of our corruptible flesh…
Only in the uncontainable One contained in human form …
is our reasoning, our affections, our wisdom, and our worship restored. 

Man sought to refashion God in his corrupt likeness. God sent Jesus, the exact imprint of God Himself, in the form of fallen man to restore us to His very likeness. 

John 1 — the light shines in the darkness … — the true light — became flesh — No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

   For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him (Romans 1:21)

PIANO MAN (AND GIRL)

I don’t know who spends more time on the piano in our house — if it’s Chase or Charlotte. For the longest time, Chase played over and over again the theme to How to Train Your Dragon. Well, now, Charlotte is playing the melody, and she’s really quite good. So at times, I’ll be in the other room, and Charlotte will be playing, and I like to tease Chase. So, I’ll say aloud, Chase, you’re sounding better. So, sometimes, Chase will try his best to sound like a six-year-old playing it to try to confuse me as to just who is sitting at the piano. 

But here’s the thing. Whether Charlotte or Chase, when I hear the music coming from the other room, I know somebody is playing it. I know the piano isn’t playing itself. More than that, I know the piano didn’t put itself in that location in our family room. More than that, I know the piano didn’t put itself together to be such a finely tuned instrument.

THE DIVINE ARTIST

We can’t hear some melodious instrument but conclude there is a musician who touches it, as well as some skillful hand that fashioned it for such a purpose, When we hear the piano from the other room, even though we might not see it, our thoughts are fixed, not so much on the piano itself but upon the skill of the artist who strikes it, the skill of the artist who designed it, the skill of the artist who composed the music. 

When I hear someone playing the piano, I don’t think of the block of wood, the metal wires for strings, the felt pads, and the ivory coated keys. I consider the performer, the composer, the designer, the artist.

In the same way, it should be impossible to gaze upon a sunset without contemplating the Artist who paints it — even the Artist who fashioned the materials with which to paint it — the sun, the clouds, the moisture in the atmosphere, and who knows what else goes into it. God knows. Our duty is to be in awe of Him — to praise and honor Him as the Great Artist.

BURSTING OR RESTRAINED WORSHIP

It’s not just that the sum total of creation provides us with enough knowledge of God to render man inexcusable for his unbelief — though that is certainly true. But there is enough knowledge of God in any single slice of creation to render man inexcusable for his lack of worship and thanksgiving to God. 

There is enough evidence of God in a single ray of sunlight, or the song of a bird, or the scent of a lily, or the sweetness of an apple, or the smoothness of a pebble. And every one of our senses should burst with worship and thanksgiving. But they don’t.

Why not? Because as much as fallen man enjoys the gifts of creation, he despises the Giver. Man’s thankless impious heart suppresses the truth about God in unrighteousness. 

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. 

AIRTIGHT

We’re in Romans 1… and we’re continuing Paul’s airtight case against fallen humanity, which reveals just how far we’ve fallen. But as a reminder, Paul lays out this case so that we might take hold of the only lifeline available — the lifeline that God Himself has thrown down in order to rescue us from this deep abyss of thanklessness we have found ourselves in.

     READ: Romans 1:18-23

As mentioned last week, there’s no such thing as a genuine atheist, someone who truly believes that God doesn’t exist. Why? Because, as Paul has made clear, everyone knows. 

FIRST IMPORTANCE

Everyone has all the evidence they need. More importantly, apart from special revelation, the evidence of general revelation is of first importance — which should lead to worship and thanksgiving. That should be the first response of every rational creature. 

Which is why our sin is so foul. Mankind blew off as little import that which was to be of highest importance — knowing his Creator. 

WHAT IT MEANS TO KNOW

For although they knew God… What does it mean to know? The word know carries varying degrees of knowledge. 

KNOWLEDGE CANCER

Just as in Scripture, we use the term to refer to varying degrees of knowing. 

Most of us know about cancer. We know the term. We might even know that it’s related to abnormal cell growth. We know that if left untreated, it will soon lead to death.

But we don’t know cancer the way a medical student knows cancer. They’ve studied it. They’ve inspected this cancer more closely.

What about the oncologist? He’s going to have personal knowledge of diagnosing, treating, and managing cancer for his patients. He knows the effects on the body that cancer will have if not dealt with quickly and decisively.

And then we have cancer patients. They have a different type of knowledge of the cancer than the physician. They have intimate personal knowledge of the disease on their own bodies.

ADAM KNEW EVE

Mankind was gifted with various degrees of knowing. Adam knew things about the beasts of the field. He even had the privilege of naming them. 

I know what that is. It’s a cow! I even picked out the name for it!

But Adam didn’t know the beasts in the way he knew Eve. Adam knew his wife in the most intimate sense — naked and unashamed. And even after the Fall, Genesis 4:1. Adam knew Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain.

So, there are various degrees of knowing. There’s knowing about something. And there’s a personal intimate knowledge. And then there’s degrees of knowledge between the two.

KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL

Adam knew about the tree. He knew the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil was off limits. He knew that on the day he was to eat of it, he would surely die. He knew that the way most know about cancer. It’s a deadly disease. You don’t want it. 

At the Serpent’s urging, Eve seemed to know the tree a bit more closely. She studied it, like a medical student. This tree is actually good for food, it’s a delight to the eyes, and it’s to be desired to make one wise like God. 

The woman’s knowledge became a bit more studied. She had a greater awareness of the fruit. But so long as she didn’t eat, that knowledge was outside her.

But then it became personal and intimate once she ate. And she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 

Adam now knew this tree in an intimate sense. Indeed, Adam now had a personal knowledge of evil — something he had not known before.

And because of such, Adam would know death — varying degrees of death.

THEY KNEW GOD: TWO SENSES

So, when Paul writes, For although they knew God, he likely has two senses in mind. First, all of humanity, not only has a capacity for knowing God; they all were born with a knowledge of God. 

MAN’S DUTY IN KNOWING GOD

From his first awareness of himself to be a creature, man’s first solemn act should have been a particular respect toward his Creator — a particular honor, a particular gratitude, indeed, a particular awe-filled worship, that desired to know his Creator all the more.

But following the lead of our first parents, that wasn’t the case. Instead, we did not honor God as God or give thanks to Him. 

THEY KNEW GOD: COMMUNING IN THE GARDEN

Which takes us to the other sense of Paul’s phrase: for although they knew God. Our first parents did; they knew God. He walked with them in the cool of the day. (Genesis 3:8). Walking with God, and communing with God was supposed to be refreshing. Instead, we find the man and woman hiding among the trees of the garden, covered with fig leaves. 

Why were they hiding? Because rather than honoring God as God, they ate from the tree they were told not to eat from. Rather than being thankful for God granting them access to every other tree in the Garden — all of them but this one — they expressed their ingratitude by eating from that one forbidden tree.

CREATED TO KNOW

Such became the case with every one of us who have walked this creation. 

Where mankind was created to know God in the most personal and intimate, instead, mankind became intimate with the cancer of sin. 

And now, they find themselves hiding from their generous Creator. It’s a sad picture. But we’ve all done it. 

Why? Because in failing to honor God and give thanks to Him, we naturally will walk contrary to Him. 

Rather than gratitude for His boundless grace and goodness, we begrudge those things we feel He wrongly withholds.

Rather than honoring Him by acknowledging Him as the good and generous and righteous Creator that He is, we dishonor Him in our low opinion of Him — if we even acknowledge Him at all. 

As such, apart from Christ, we walk without any experiential intimate knowledge of the One who created us to know Him. And we do so, because we have no desire for Him. Hence, we don’t honor Him, and we don’t live in gratitude towards Him.

Let these words sink in, because they are the heart of the issue:

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. 

HOW WE HONOR GOD

So, how do we honor God? We honor God when we have worthy opinions of Him suitable to His nature. 

The word in verse 21 is  δοξάζω. It’s where we get our word doxology. It’s usually translated: glorify. It comes from a word that means: to think, to suppose, to be of good opinion, or to seem from a personal perspective. 

So, this word honor or glorifyproperly means to acknowledge God in His true character — valuing God for who He truly is. 

In other words, in honoring God, we are to conceive of God as who He is, a being of unbounded loveliness and perfection — of which we can never fully behold and take in with our finite faculties. 

That’s where glorifying God begins. That’s how we honor Him — accurate thoughts of God suitable to who He truly is.

Likewise, we dishonor God when we ascribe to Him such qualities that fall short of beauty and perfection, such as questioning His goodness, His justice, His character, His love, His kindness, His holiness, His power, etc.

GIVE THANKS TO HIM

What about giving thanks to God. Isn’t Paul overstating his case in saying that we fail to give thanks to God? 

Well, first, the occasional thanks is not what Paul has in mind. That tends, more often than not, to be mere lip service. 

Our lives are to overflow with thanksgiving toward God. But how often they don’t. 

And for the unbeliever, there is no genuine thanksgiving to God, but at most, the occasional thanksgiving to their idols, their version of God, which is not God.

Man tends to be thankful for getting what he wants, not so much for what God had already given.

GOOD GRACE

What does it mean to give thanks? It’s the word: εὐχαριστέω. You’re likely familiar with the term Eucharist, often used for the Lord’s Supper or communion. It means: good grace. 

It should come as no surprise that a life of gratitude towards God goes hand-in-hand with communing with God.

Properly, the word thanksmeans acknowledging the goodness of grace — particularly in reference to the God of every grace. 

Thanksgiving, then, would be acknowledging the goodness of God’s grace toward us. God’s grace in what? Everything. Every lovely thing you enjoy … and every hardship He has you endure, so long as your soul remains out of hell. Because as long as there’s breath in you lungs, the opportunity to repent remains. And for that, even the most vile of sinners should be thankful.

EVEN IN HELL

And even those who find themselves in hell due to their lack of honor and gratitude toward God — they still owe it to Him. They should still be ever thankful for the countless opportunities God had given them, every breath they received, for all the mercy and grace God showed them in their lives. 

Yet, they ignored the Giver. God is no less worthy of one’s honor and gratitude simply because he or she might find themselves under God’s just judgment.

VERDICT

The verdict, however, is that mankind is not thankful toward God. 

Honor and thanksgiving go together in what is properly called worship: valuing God for who He is and acknowledging the goodness of His grace toward us.

MORNING PRAYER

Considering this passage, I tried the other morning, in my prayer time, to play out, to live out the implication of Paul’s words here, seeking to be thankful and praise God for all He reveals in creation that my senses are immediately aware of. 

I thought of the not too distant jack hammer. Not necessarily the most pleasant sound in the morning. But I thanked God for the future home for someone that would stand on the lot being prepared. 

I heard the nearby clinking of plastic toys, and thanked God for the joy of Chloe and Charlotte playing so nicely together. Charlotte’s enthused voice: “Chloe, let’s pretend that … “

I heard the sound of an electric pencil sharpener coming from the other room, and thanked God for the gift of such inventions, as Christa sharpened one of her drawing pencils. And I thanked God for the skills He has blessed Christa with in her artwork. 

I thanked God for the lingering aroma of the recently brewed coffee, for the taste that still resided on my tongue, how it helps open the sinus cavities.

I thanked God for the softness of the pajama fabric upon my legs, the coolness of the breeze coming through the open window finding its mark on my bare forearms and neck. 

I thanked God for the remembrance of the warmth and softness of my wife’s lips from our good morning kiss, the softness of the carpet under my toes, the smooth texture of the pages beneath my finger tips — the indents of the pencil markings from notes taken as the Lord has revealed Himself to me in His Word.

GIFT OF GRACE

What a gift of grace! For not so long ago, o how I suppressed the truth! And yet now, I get to hold His Word in these sinful hands — this Word that revealed to me the cost He paid to redeem me — the cost He paid that I might know Him — rightly know Him.

Lord, how true it is that I have not loved you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. And I have not, out of an overflow of that love from You and for You, loved my neighbor as myself. Quicken my heart. Direct it ever more towards You — to truly live in constant worship and thanksgiving of who You are — and all You have done.

For I am all too aware that when I rise from this spot, I will quickly move from worship and thanksgiving and get caught up in lesser things. O guard my heart, Lord.

WEDNESDAY EVENING PRAYER

I love our Wednesday evening prayer time as a church family. And one of the things I love is listening to how most of you pray. Not only are your prayers biblically grounded and Christ-centered, they are often filled with thanksgiving — even in some of the trials we’ve been praying over. 

But the same thing goes for our gathered prayers as a church family. We can quickly leave such gatherings and find ourselves in a completely different disposition, where thankfulness is barely even a part of the picture. 

You know how I know? I ride home with some of you. In fact, I’m one of you. And I’m just speculating here. But I’m guessing that some of you struggle with the same things I struggle with. 

There’s a war taking place for our affections. And when we let down our guard, we’ll soon find our affections for God in retreat, because we’re distracted by the onslaught of far lesser things. 

APPLICATION

For those of you who listen to my ramblings and maybe say to yourself, “Just tell us what to do.” Well, here’s the thing. The solution isn’t something you and I can rectify in ourselves. The condition runs all the way through our fallen condition. 

That prayer of mine — it was short lived. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I could say that as I went about my day, I remained in constant thanksgiving toward God — that He was at the forefront of my every thought. But that wasn’t the case – not nearly the case.

The Fall has had traumatic effects that we can’t overcome in ourselves. And the worst of it is, we don’t want to overcome them. We walk in step with the problem. 

What we need is something we can’t do ourselves. We need a New Spirit breathed into us. Just as God first breathed into Adam the breath of life, and the man became a living being — who knew God. 

So, we need God’s very Spirit breathed into us, that the whole of our being would be animated with worship toward the One who filled us with such life.

Because left to ourselves, we’ll walk in step with the masses who give no thanks or glory to God.

TEN LEPERS

Jesus presents us with the perfect illustration (from Luke 17) in the account of the Ten Lepers (which Silas read for us). Ten lepers were healed of the leprosy. But only one returned to give thanks. Only one returns to give glory to God, and he was a foreigner!

O I’m sure they all worshiped. But nine of them didn’t worship God!

That’s what’s corrupt within us. That’s a picture of our fallen flesh. We fail to honor God as God, and to give thanks in all circumstances.

Our lives should be marked by constant worship and thanksgiving to God — not part of it, but all of it — every waking moment. 

ALL OF LIFE WORSHIP — BUT OFTEN NOT OF GOD

Now, I need to stress this. Our lives actually are, for the most part, marked by constant worship — just not the worship of God. Not only is our love of things an act of worship. Our hatred of a thing also serves as an act of worship.

How is hatred an act of worship? In one’s hatred of something, they are assigning worth to something else. When we consider the Psalms, such as Psalm 139: Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? — and the many other accounts of the psalmist’s hatred — what he is doing is assigning worth to God. 

That’s what worship is — it comes from the term worth-ship. But that was a bit difficult to say in the English tongue, hence worship. 

And when we consider the Psalms in their fullest sense — on the lips of Jesus himself — as we should — we read these words on the lips of the One man who can say pray such words without the slightest inkling of sin. 

And by such prayers, the eternal Son honored his Father. Such prayers served as thanksgiving toward His Father.

So, yes. All of life is worship of something. Just as our thanksgiving is an act of worship, so too our grumbling. Our grumbling reveals what it is we worship that isn’t God. How? Our grumbling is assigning worth to the thing we didn’t get or that didn’t go according to our preference.

Do you see why Scripture stresses the importance of being thankful in all circumstances? Because it’s the difference between worshiping God and worshiping something else that you and I tend to revere and venerate more than Him.

WHY LEPROSY

It’s not accidental that it was leprosy — a skin disease — a disease of the flesh — that was healed, in this portrait of thanksgiving and the lack thereof.

You ever wonder about all those cleanliness laws in Leviticus. In part, they are intended as a physical portrait of a greater spiritual reality — our sinful flesh. 

In Numbers 5, the Lord commands Moses to put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. 

Why leprosy, discharges, and contact with the dead? In a sense, each of these point to the flesh. It is the flesh that dies (or is dead), it’s the flesh that oozes, bleeds, and becomes blemished. The flesh is physically unwell. Of course, leprosy is a very visible image of the disease of the flesh — the disease found in the covering of the flesh — our skin. But all of these physical characteristics serve as an illustration of a greater spiritual issue. 

As unclean sinners, we walk in the flesh, which at its core is defiled by the sinful human heart that fails to honor God as God or give thanks to Him. As such, in our sinful flesh, we are unable to draw near to God’s dwelling or even dwell in the camp among God’s people. We need a better covering — one that truly covers our sin — a covering made available by only through the perfect, spotless, pure, undefiled, Lamb of God — the Son of God, Jesus Christ — the One whose skin was marred, whose blood was discharged, and died in our place.

DISTORTED VIEW

But you won’t ever truly honor or give genuine thanks to this God so long as you have a distorted view of His character. 

You might worship your idol — bowing down and giving thanks to your ideal of God or whatever it is you worship. But your ideal of God is an infinite distortion of the one True God if it comes from any source other than God’s own self disclosure.

How has God disclosed Himself? He’s disclosed Himself in creation, and He’s disclosed Himself in His Word.

MINING CREATION

From the beginning, mankind should have been mining creation with the intention of knowing their Creator. 

Consider modern science. It’s not accidental that it began in Christianized Europe, and that it depended on the assumption that a rational Creator made an orderly universe. 

In other words, because God created the universe, they expected to find order, not chaos. In fact, one can’t do science, observe patterns and how things work, apart from expecting to find order and design. 

None of that’s accidental. Studying creation was intended to be an act of worship in discovering more about God. From the beginning, mankind was to mine creation as a means of knowing God’s nature and character. 

But due to the Fall, we’ll often distort the evidence God has given us in creation. Thankfully, He also gave us His Word.

MINING SCRIPTURE

Likewise, are to mine God’s special revelation of Himself so that we might know Him more intimately. Just as in creation, we’re to expect order rather than chaos — that everything is diligently and deliberately placed — none of it accidental — so too with Scripture. We’ll go much further in knowing Him — and specifically, in knowing Christ. 

When we approach Scripture with the expectation of finding order — that every word has been carefully placed by the Author in order that you might Know Him, we’ll go much further in knowing Him rightly, that we might honor Him and give Him thanks as we see His boundless grace and mercy toward us in Christ.

CONCLUSION

One leper returned to give thanks — only one. He returned to thank Jesus for healing his disease of the flesh. He gives thanks to none other than the spotless unblemished Lamb who took the disease of the flesh upon Himself in order to make the leper truly clean. 

We need the same done with our disease of the flesh. Scripture often uses the term “flesh” to refer to the whole of fallen man’s corrupt, self-focused nature — this disease that fails to honor God as God — this disease that fails to give thanks to Him — this disease of death that has come upon us for our lack of gratitude and worship.

Jesus, the one man unworthy of death, came in order to know death — something impossible for the self-existing eternal God to know. He would take on our finite likeness, clothe himself with the likeness of our sinful flesh — yet without any sin of his own. And Jesus would do so, in order that he could know death in our place … so that you and I might know life.

For this is eternal life — John 17:3 — to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent. 

Although they knew God … Do you know Him?

  Suppressing the Truth: The Great Exchange, part 2 (Romans 1:18-23)

THE POEM TREE

In my preparation for today’s message, I was specifically looking for an image of a poem carved in a tree. I was thinking how lovers will often carve their names into a tree, along with a little heart. And I wondered if perhaps I could find where someone carved an entire love poem into a tree.

And I came across this tree that called the Poem Tree, fitting enough. The Poem Tree was a 300 year old beech tree in Oxfordshire, England, where sometime in the 1840s a man by the name of Joseph Tubb carved a 20-line poem into its trunk. 

The tree is now old and decaying. But here’s the thing. For there to be a poem carved into a tree, obviously, it didn’t get there by chance. There had to have been a poet. Someone had to have taken the time to carve each and every letter. 

Why do I bring this up? Because one of the things we’re looking at this morning is the evidence of God’s glory in creation, and how, despite all the evidence, we tend to suppress the truth, as if we could look at a tree with a 20-line poem carved into it and deny the fact that there’s some great poet that put that there. 

But that’s our condition. That’s a part of every human being’s fallen condition. We tend to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

READ: (Romans 1:18-23)
A HARSH ACCUSATION

It seems strange that Paul would accuse the entire human race of suppressing the truth. I mean, if anything, isn’t mankind all about finding, discovering, and knowing the truth? 

Isn’t that why we set up universities? To know and teach students truth? 

Take Harvard University. It’s logo is a shield with the word “VERITAS”, which is Latin for TRUTH. Of course, Harvard began, as most American universities, as a Christian institution. It was established by Puritans for the sake of training and educating clergy. But over time, how many such universities have strayed from the truth they once proclaimed?

FAULTY PREMISE

Far from suppressing the truth, we want the truth. Don’t we?

So, it seems Paul begins his entire argument for the case set against mankind with a faulty premise. And if the premise is wrong, then there’s really no need for us to continue with the verses that follow. Is there?

But let me ask. Do we always want the truth? Aren’t there times when we’d prefer not to know the truth? 

BEST MOM EVER!

It’s Mother’s Day. Let me ask you mothers out there. Moms, how objective do you ant your child to be in critiquing the job you’ve done so far? Not very! Just give me that “Best Mom Ever!” card, and let’s move on. Right?

Dad’s? Same thing.

But we know, while we may have been better mommys and daddys than others, we know “best ever” is at a minimum an exaggeration, if not a lie.

We’re aware of so many of our failures. We don’t want to be reminded of them. Let’s set them aside and not bring them up.

HIGH CALLING OF MOTHERHOOD

Let me pause and say, “Moms, I’m thankful for you all. Your calling is high calling. It’s nothing less than a reflection of Christ’s church, the Bride of Christ who raises up godly offspring for none less than the King of Creation, the Lord Jesus. That’s certainly something we should commend and celebrate!

PARENTAL FAILURES

Still, our failures as mothers and fathers is a reminder of how desperately we all need grace. And kids, just so you know, “Best Son or Daughter Ever” — same thing. 

We can all express our love and appreciation for one another without the nonsense. Because you know, and they know. We all know. 

There’s only one best Father ever, and there’s only one best Son ever; and that’s in the Trinity! Anyone else comes in at a distant second at best — an infinitely distant second, which is nothing to boast about.

DON’T WANT TO KNOW

So, we know, there are occasions, at least, when we really don’t want to confront the truth or deal with the truth. We’d rather hold to a lie.

NO DOCTORS, PLEASE

For some of you, you don’t want the Doctor to diagnose your symptoms. You’d rather believe it’s nothing. Whatever it is, it’s likely benign … harmless … nothing to worry about. But without the diagnosis, you can’t get the treatment needed. There’s no prescription for an undiagnosed ailment. 

CANCER OF THE SOUL

Paul wants nothing to do with such cover-ups. He wants to expose the disease for what it is, so you and I can be healed, so we can receive the remedy for our most dreadful condition — cancer of the soul.

JUST TELL ME THE TRUTH

Much of the time, when someone begins: “Just tell me the truth.” They don’t actually want the truth. What they are fishing for is confirmation, validation, assurance — a version of reality they feel they can live with or that will at least make them feel better.

The only truth we tend to want is that which fits neatly into our current worldview and doesn’t wreak havoc on our current desires and wants.

PERVERTING THE TRUTH

If there’s ever been an age when the suppression of truth has become more and more apparent, it’s the age and culture we’re living in right now. 

We’ll call the child in the womb a fetus or a clump of cells, but what one cannot do is call him or her a baby. 

What about pronouns? Referring to girls as “him” and guys as “her” or an individual as “they.” 

If that’s not suppressing the truth, then what is?

But listen loved ones. These things are only the symptoms of a far greater suppression of the truth. Far from a false premise, Paul hits what is at the core of our every moral distortion and perversion — and that is: the suppression of the truth about God. 

NOT AN ATTACK, A DIAGNOSIS

Now, it’s important to remind us that Paul is writing to believers. He’s not writing this as an attack against culture or the world. He is writing this as a diagnosis of a disease. Whose disease? The entire human race, which included the believers in Rome, and it includes all who are in this room right now. 

But without the diagnosis, there’s no healing. 

And that doesn’t just go for the unbeliever. You and I still need to be reminded of this. Because every time we sin, we are suppressing the truth about God for a lie. We need the reminder of this diagnosis, so we continue the health regimen the Great Physician has prescribed.

BAPTIZED DAILY

In other words, Elijah, it’s not sufficient for you to be baptized this morning — a picture of dying to self and being raised to new life in Christ. And, well, now you can go right back to living however. You have to die to self daily. That’s part of the regimen. 

As Paul says, “I die daily.” That’s Scripture’s prescription for all of us in this fallen world. Or to quote Jesus himself: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Taking up your cross means dying to self.

TO HEAL AND EQUIP

So, as we walk through this diagnosis of our fallen human nature, know that we are walking through this for your healing, — AND — for you to be equipped to share the diagnosis with your friends and family, so they too might come to the Great Physician and receive healing.

RESTRAIN THE TRUTH IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS

So, back to our text. Verse 18.  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Literally, they hold back or restrain the truth in unrighteousness. 

Unrighteousness, as we looked at last week, is everything that is contrary to God’s character, which flows from a failure to worship God in truth.
(Hence, ungodliness.)

It’s one’s unrighteousness that seeks to restrain the truth, that seeks to avoid coming to terms with the truth. What truth? Particularly, the truth about God.

Verse 19. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

WHAT CAN BE KNOWN?

What can be known about God. What is Paul claiming here? That we can know everything possible there is to know about God? No. In fact, God is incomprehensible in that God cannot be fully or exhaustively known. 

Remember, God is an infinite being, and we are finite creatures. It would take an eternity to know God with such knowledge, meaning, we will never reach an exhaustive knowledge of God. 

(And that’s good news. That’s why heaven could never be boring!)

NOT EXHAUSTIVE BUT ESSENTIAL

But while we can’t know God exhaustively, the argument of Scripture is that we can know somethings about God. Indeed, we can know what is most essential for us to know about God.

MADE PLAIN

And how can we know? Because God has made it plain to all. God has made it plain in them and among them. (That’s the preposition Paul uses.) It’s not just that what is knowable of God is plain, but that God has manifested that knowledge both within us and among us. 

We look outside ourselves, and all the evidence is not just there; it’s apparent; it’s plain; it’s clear. We look inside ourselves, and the evidence is there too. From outward creation to man’s inner conscience, God has made himself known.

WHAT HAS BEEN MADE KNOWN

But what exactly has God made known to us?

Verse 20. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse. 

GENERAL REVALTION

Theologians call this general revelation. General because God has revealed it to everyone without exception. So, what does general revelation reveal about God? Two things: 

1) God’s eternal power (or the eternal nature of His power)
and
2) God’s divine nature (or we might say, God’s divinity or God-ness.)

Eternal Nature of His power: 

First, the eternal nature of God’s power:
For anything to exist, there must be a non-contingent unchanging eternal being who is God. God’s power is from all eternity. 

(Unpack)

God’s Divine Nature (or God-ness):

Second, God’s divine nature or God-ness:
This would cover every necessary attribute of God. From His holiness, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His immutability, For God not to be any one of these would be for Him to be something other than God.  

PLAIN DESPITE DISTORTION

The argument is not that we can know everything about God through general revelation. But at a minimum, many of God’s attributes are revealed, if not all of them, in this general revelation available to all. 

And these attributes are not simply revealed, but they are plain, obvious, clear. 

ATTRIBUTES REVEALED

In creation, we see that God is omnipotent (that is all-powerful), that God is omniscient (that is, all-wise), and that God is omnipresent (that is, God transcends time and creation, he is not limited to time or space). 

But in general revelation, we also witness God’s goodness; His provision to both the just and unjust; His kindness in His care for His creatures (as read in Psalm 104). 

As our text stated, even His wrath is revealed, which means there’s evidence of His righteousness. 

EVIDENCE WITHIN

But we need not look outside only. The evidence is imprinted upon our hearts. Every human being, regardless of how corrupt their hearts may be, has a sense of oughtness within them.

SOMETHING OR ANYTHING

The fact that there’s something rather than nothing; that there’s life, order, provision — all serves as evidence that Scripture declares makes God knowable. 

Our human nature knows emotions, taste, sight, sound, feeling, aromas. And these are varied — some pleasant, some foul — some are a delight, and because of the Fall, some are distasteful at times. 

NO EXCUSE

People may seek to excuse themselves from judgment but not only is Scripture clear; Paul says that general revelation is clear. They are without excuse. Why? Because they all know. 

NO ATHEISTS ALLOWED

There’s no genuine atheist. There are only those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The truth is so obvious to them. But because they don’t want to know God, they seek to convince themselves — or at least, have come up with a framework that suggests rather foolishly that it’s possible for God to be NOT!

They have sought closed consistent worldviews and philosophies — consistent to themselves, or so they think — that exclude God from the equation. 

THE FOOL

As the psalmist pens: The fool says in his heart, there is no God!

It’s utter foolishness to believe that all of this came from nothing. Fraulein Maria had it right. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could. 

“Well,” says the fool, “perhaps the universe is eternal.” It may sound reasonable enough. But we know the impossibility of that. And no professing atheist truly believes that. 

CHANGE REQUIRES BEGINNING

Anything that changes, anything that is mutable, cannot be eternal. Change necessarily has a beginning. 

The first part of Newton’s Law of Motion: "An object at rest stays at rest.” Well, that’s true for everything that’s physical. 

For an object to move or transform or change in any way, something else has to act upon it.

TIME AND ETERNITY

Not even time can be eternal. Why? Because time changes. If time was eternal, we could never reach today. Time demands a beginning. 

But isn’t that what we see that in Genesis 1, when God said, “Let there be light.” And it was. Day one.

We could look at so many other reasons why the universe (or matter, as some will seek to argue) can’t be eternal — from it’s expanding, wearing out, losing energy. It all points to a beginning. And for there to be a beginning, a personal force must decide to bring it to a beginning.

DESIGNER’S FLAW?

Then we have design. It’s not simply that the universe must have a beginning. There’s an obvious design to it all.

Well, says the skeptic, it’s a poor one! Look at how much is broken. Look at the pain and suffering. 

Well, none of that argues against design. If anything, it proclaims the fact that the world has been subjected to futility because of man’s unrighteousness. It’s evidence of God’s judgment. For the wrath of God is revealed. O His kindness and mercy continue to be displayed as well.

It’s impossible to honestly deny that there is a design. And if there’s a design, there must be a designer.

DIVINE CONCLUSION

We cannot light our eyes upon anything, hear a sound, smell an aroma, taste the sweetness or bitterness, feel a touch upon our skin — without concluding that there is a cause for such. And that’s just the physical.

LAWGIVER

What about the spiritual? The internal? That which can’t be seen, or heard, smelled, tasted, touched? What about the conscience? 

The fact that we have a sense of ought demands that there be a Lawgiver. 

We know. Everyone knows. Mankind just seeks to suppress what he knows because this Law stands against our flesh — our sinful desires. 

Surely, we would never willingly put such there! Therefore, it’s apparent that such must have been sown there by some hand more powerful. 

PRINTER AND PROGRAMMER

The notion of a Lawgiver is as natural as the notion of a printer when you hold a newspaper in your hand. What’s a newspaper? Okay. The notion of a Lawgiver is as plain as the notion of a programmer when you use that app on your smartphone or tablet.

When you walk by a tree with two names carved in it along with a heart, you don’t conclude that it was random chance, but that someone must have carved it. It required, not just some external force, but a personal force.

POEM

The word near the end of verse 20 is important in regard to this, and the ESV doesn’t quite do it justice. 

It reads: For His invisible attributes have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. 

“Have been made” is simply a single word. It only shows up one other time in the New Testament, and that is Ephesians 2:10. For we are his workmanship.

Workmanship, that’s the word. The Greek word is ποίημα. It’s where we get our English word poem. 

It’s not simply something made, but something crafted — something artistically fashioned.

All of creation is like a beautiful poem proclaiming the glory of God. The Triune God crafted a poem when He spoke the universe into existence. Let there be light!

PSALM 19

Isn’t that what we read in Psalm 19?
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, there voice is not heard.

And yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

All of creation is like a poem that discloses God. All of creation makes public the glory of the God who is invisible.

And here’s the thing. All of it — every bit of it — should evoke worship and thanksgiving. (But that’s next week.)

PHARISEES DEMAND SIGNS

But no evidence is ever enough for those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. 

The Pharisees demanded signs. Yet the sky itself, which they supposedly knew how to interpret, served as a constant sign. Not to mention their sitting in Moses’ seat with the Law and Prophets all mercifully in their possession — all of which pointed to the Christ. 

And yet, the promised One stood right before their eyes, and they recognized Him not. (Or rather, they chose not to recognize Him.) 

Why? Because Jesus wasn’t the Messiah they wanted. And that’s everyone’s issue when it comes to unbelief. 

God is not the God we want. We can’t do without Him. But we really don’t want anything to do with Him either. So we’ll craft substitute gods of our own.

RICH MAN AND LAZARUS

How much evidence is necessary? Loved ones. No amount will ever suffice for the one who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. 

Eli read for us the passage of the rich glutton and Lazarus. The rich man enjoyed all the good he could possibly know here. He withheld nothing from himself. (Just as Adam and Eve refused to withhold the tree from themselves.) 

While poor Lazarus desired to be fed with the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.

Afterwards, the rich man went to Hades, and Lazarus was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. 

But in his suffering the rich man pleaded with Abraham to have Lazarus dip the end of his finger in water and cool his tongue for he was in agony because of the flame. 

Sorry, replied Abraham. There’s no crossing over from here to there or there to here. 

Well, then at least send Lazarus to my father’s house to warn my brothers!

Again, Abraham replied. They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them hear them.

No, pleaded the rich man. But if someone goes to them from the dead, then they will repent. 

Abraham’s final reply. Listen. If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

A few years ago, we actually had a similar conversation in our home with a young man. If God truly wanted us to believe in Him, he’d send someone back from the dead who knows and could testify. Chase and Cheyenne, being much younger, cracked up over just how true and relevant Scripture is. 

Listen loved ones. God did raise One from the dead. His only Son, Jesus Christ, who died in the place of sinners like you and me.

And the world continues to refuse to listen to Him. No sign will ever suffice, because signs and wonders are not the issue. It’s the heart the suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.

IGNORANT IMPOSSIBILITY

While God is, in a sense, inaccessible, in that He is so far beyond us we can never know Him perfectly or comprehensively — yet, there is so much evidence, so much LIGHT, that it is impossible to be truly ignorant of Him — but only willfully ignorant. 

DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE

Consider the difficulty for one to believe in the God he has no desire or affection for, but only a slavish fear. Or what about the person who despises God for His God-ness, simply because such a person longs for a sort of freedom that doesn’t exist — nor ever could exist. 

IMPOSSILBE TO BELIEVE

For such individuals, their hearts make it impossible to believe God — to trust God. So, they distort the reality of who God is. 

Their desire is that God not exist. They suppress and exchange the truth about God for a lie. Why? Because fallen man is not indifferent to God; fallen man hates God.

WHAT FALLEN MAN HATES

What does fallen man hate about God? Everything. Everything that makes God God. 

They hate His holiness, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His immutability.

Josh, don’t you think this is a bit of an exaggeration. People don’t hate God — or at least most don’t. Most worship God or a god of some kind or another. Well, we’ll look more closely in the next weeks, that counterfeit worship of false gods is actually an attempt to hide from the one true God.

HATING PERFECTION

Far from drawing mankind closer to God, with all this evidence manifested by the light of nature, man has become all the more hostile toward God.

Why? Because, in part, it’s the perfections of God revealed in creation, that fallen man hates. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS

To paraphrase Jonathan Edwards: natural man is at greater enmity with God than toward any other being whatsoever. They may hate their fellow creatures but not so great as they hate God. For there is no other being that so much stands in the sinner’s way — who stands in the way of those things man’s heart is set chiefly upon — than God Himself.

Man hates his enemies in proportion to two things: 1) their opposition to what man looks upon to be his interest, and 2) their power and ability to oppose him. 

So, the question is: who opposes natural man’s desire more than God?  No one.

Who is more powerful in opposing natural man’s desire than God? No one.

Just to hit a few of God’s attributes that fallen man hates:

HOLINESS

First, God’s holiness. God is distinct, not just from every creature, but from man. God will always be set apart from man. So vast is the gulf between that of creature and Creator that man could never close upon. 

O to be like God in so many ways — created to image God. But only an image. Man could never be fully like God. Wasn’t that the bait of the serpent. “O but you can be like God.” Fallen man hates God’s holiness.

SOVEREIGNTY / OMNIPOTENCE

What about God’s omnipotence, or sovereignty? Why would man hate that? Because as much sovereignty and dominion as God bestowed on man, there remained an all-powerful sovereign over him, namely God. 

And the tree in the midst of the Garden stood as a testimony to that fact. 

Every other tree, man could eat from — every tree to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west — but this one tree was forbidden. It was a declaration of God’s sovereignty and man’s submission.

O to be told, “No! You cannot do something.” Our pride seethes. “I’ll show you!”

Whatever this dying might be, there was but one way for man to exalt his autonomy. And that was to eat. 

And in eating, Adam proclaimed, No, God! You won’t be sovereign over me. I’ll call my own shots as to what’s good and evil. 

When Adam ate, their was a deliberate act of rebellion that took place. I’d rather face whatever this dying might consist of than have anything or anyone rule over me. 

We hate God’s sovereignty

OMNISCIENCE and OMNIPRESENCE

What about God’s omniscience, that He knows all things — and His omnipresence, that God is anywhere and everywhere all at once? What’s so bad about that? 

Because mankind’s works are evil. So, he longs to hide in the darkness. But there’s no place to hide from God. 

God sees everything and knows everything — not only what is outwardly manifest, but the very thoughts and intentions of the heart. 

That’s what man hates — that there’s no escaping God’s holy gaze.

IMMUTABILITY

And natural man hates God’s immutability — that God never changes. Why would mankind hate God’s immutability? Because, to quote Edwards, God will never be and can never be otherwise than He is — the infinitely holy God. 

God never takes a day off to leave you on your own. God will never retire allowing you to succeed Him. God’s sovereignty and all of His other attributes will continue just as they are. 

His justice will forever be a holy justice.
His mercy will always be a holy mercy.
His goodness will always be a holy goodness.
And they aren’t the justice, mercy, and goodness fallen man approves of or desires.

Why does mankind suppress the truth about God for a lie? Because man has a distaste for the very perfections of God. They’d much prefer a less than perfect God. So they seek to fashion their own.

INEXCUSABLE

Okay, Josh. I get it. Some people are without excuse. They have Paul’s letter, and they can read it. And upon reading it they have to deal with it. I get that. 

But what about those who don’t have your Bible? What about those who would come to a different conclusion than Paul came to?

Surely they can’t be accountable for coming to the wrong conclusion — for misreading the evidence — can they?

NOT ENOUGH

In other words, what about the agnostic, the one who says, you know, man, I just don’t know. I’m not sure there’s enough evidence to know. (We’ll look at that more closely next week, but for now … )

For starters, they aren’t agnostic about other things.
So, it’s a selective agnosticism. 

Second, to claim that there just isn’t enough evidence to know is a direct attack against the God who claims He has provided all the evidence you need — not only that, He has made it plain — obvious to you and within you.

ORIGIN OF AGNOSTICISM

Where does agnosticism originate? It originates in the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. It’s that simple. 

NO ACCESS

Okay. But what about those who never even heard of Jesus? Those who haven’t had access to the gospel? Surely, God can’t hold them accountable, can He?

Well, here’s another distortion of the truth in unrighteousness. No one is charged with failure to make the most of evidence they do not have, but for denying the evidence plainly set before them. 

God sends no one to hell for not having heard of Jesus or the gospel. He sends people to hell for denying the truth He has placed plainly before them — the truth they suppress in unrighteousness. 

PROCLAIMING THE GOSPEL

Why is it important that we proclaim the gospel to everyone? Not so they are somehow more accountable to the truth, but so they might be saved. 

There’s enough evidence in the smallest slice of creation to make man accountable to God. But that evidence holds no power to save. 

Only in knowing Jesus, does anyone escape the just judgment of God we all deserve.

PERSONAL HOSTILITY

I recall years ago, long before I was a believer. And I remember my hostility toward the idea that God would send someone to hell simply for not believing in His Son. That, I said, is a God I could never worship! That is a God unworthy of worship.

CONVINCED OF GOODNESS?

I tried to convince myself that I could be a good person apart from God. But as we saw last week, that’s impossible. Righteousness flows from godliness — worshiping God in truth. Likewise, unrighteousness flows from ungodliness. 

Deep down I knew any supposed goodness I thought I had was at best a comparative goodness — and that only in certain areas. 

RUNNING FROM PERFECTION

You see. I was suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. I was far from the Lord. And not at all because He sent me into exile far from Him. 

I was far from Him because I was running from Him. I wanted nothing to do with Him. I hated the very God-ness of God. 

SEEKING GOD

But don’t you love it that our God is a seeking God.

In His mercy, He opened my blind eyes — eyes that were willfully blind due to my hatred of Him. 

UNDESERVED MERCY

And loved ones, I need you to understand this. The Lord did not have mercy on me because I had somehow softened my stance toward Him. Nor because I had become a more outwardly moral person. Far from it. 

God was merciful to me because in that sovereignty I once hated, He chose to be merciful to me. I was undeserving of all of it. The only thing I deserved and still deserve is His just wrath for my rebellion. 

PROMPTING CHANGE

There was no change in me that merited God’s mercy. Any change in me was solely due to that mercy. Mercy came first. It always comes first.

So, what did God reveal to me? He showed me my sin nailed to an old gnarly cross — stained by someone else’s blood — not mine — though it should have been mine. 

LOVING ATTRIBUTES

And all those attributes of God I once hated, I began to love — because they belonged to the God I had come to love — this God who first loved me.

O how difficult it is to suppress the truth when it is spoken with such love — with such beauty, with such poetry, as the cross of Jesus Christ. 

How many miss the beauty of the poem of creation because they want nothing to do with the Poet? 

MOST BEAUTIFUL POEM

But creation wasn’t the Poet’s greatest poem.

Remember the Poem Tree? The greatest poem ever was indeed written upon a tree. You see. The Poet came down and entered His creation, and wrote out the greatest poem ever — with His own blood.

And that loved ones (I pray the Lord opens your eyes to see) is the only thing that will transform a rebellious heart that suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. O to see the love of God written out in crimson red upon the tree. This is the greatest love poem ever. Do you know that love? I plead with you, don’t close your heart to this most beautiful of all poems?

https://youtu.be/5ubftGfIWfI

   The Great Exchange: The Wrath of God Revealed (Romans 1:18) 

THE NEED FOR A NEW ROOF

Several years ago, while I was at work, a roofing company showed up at our house and offered my wife a free roof inspection. We had recently had some severe storms come through the area. So, they were making their rounds as a friendly service to help take care of our needs. 

So, while I’m not at home, my wife agrees. Sure, you climb up there and check it out. Well, sure enough, this salesman found plenty of roof damage. But don’t be alarmed. He would help us file a claim with our insurance company so that the new roof wouldn’t cost us anything.

When I got home, I was not too pleased to say the least. But the last thing I was going to do was purchase a roof from a fly-by-night roofing company who chases storms and won’t be around 5 years from now should there be any warranty issues.

So, we call out a couple more established roofing companies. And it turns out, we didn’t have any storm damage to our roof. We had vandalism. The roofing company showed me how the guy my wife let on our roof had folded back the shingles to mimic wind damage. And how he had used a quarter to mimic hail damage. 

So, instead of submitting storm damage to our insurance company, we submitted a claim for vandalism. 

THE RULE OF SALES

The first rule in sales is to create a need. When you learn sales, which prior to knowing Christ, I went to countless seminars and read many books, that’s what they train you on. You have to create a need if you’re going to sell anything. 

Of course, this storm chaser took that to the extreme. But isn’t that the ungodly, unrighteous world in which we live. 

When it comes to the gospel, we don’t have to create the need. It’s already there. And everyone inwardly knows. They just seek to suppress the truth of their predicament.

INTRODUCTION TO VERSE 18

We’ve moved slowly through Paul’s introduction. 

With verse 18, Paul begins to articulate this gospel he isn’t ashamed of — this gospel that reveals the righteousness of God — this gospel that he longs to proclaim to all those in Rome…

It’s important for us to recognize that this is where Paul begins his presentation of the gospel. Verses 16 and 17 set the theme for the letter — which is God’s righteousness revealed in the gospel of His Son. But here is where the gospel begins. 

It begins with mankind’s great need.

READ: Romans 1:18-23

NOT A PEDDLER

I’m not fond of salesmen. Why? Because they spend most of their time trying to convince you that you need something you really don’t need. And some of you are a little more easily sold than others. O yeah. I do need that.

But Paul isn’t a salesman. He’s not a peddler of God’s Word (as he’ll write to the Corinthians). He’s not trying to convince you to buy something. He’s not attempting to convince you that you need something you don’t. He’s presenting the verdict that stands against you and me and the entire human race.

MARKETING JESUS

Sadly, many present Christianity and even Jesus as nothing more than marketers. Perhaps influenced by our heavily commercialized culture. We even seek to sell church. And perhaps part of the issue is that we are consumers. So, it’s no surprise the modern church has bought into this.

We should not be surprised that the church that uses the world’s marketing ploys to fill seats and get people in their doors, also markets Jesus and his gospel with the same gimmicks and tactics. Try Jesus. You might like him. Try him and you may I say. Sounds a little Dr. Seuss to me. 

O to reduce the pearl of great price to such salesmanship.

BAIT AND SWITCH

A friend of mine in youth ministry once told me, and I pulled up his message this morning so I wouldn’t misquote him. This is what he said: 

“It sounds terrible but I’m not going to be able to get kids to come on Wednesdays if we do any kind of Bible study or worship. It has to be camp type stuff. It has to be fun stuff on the front in to get nonbelievers to come. Looking at every church formula, camp etc . There is a bait and switch we all don’t want to admit is there but I don’t shy away from what we are doing either. If it means the kids hear the gospel 5 extra times that they would have otherwise had the fun(bait) not been there.”

You hold these events to draw people in with fun and excitement, and then, you know, at some point, you’ve got to sell Jesus.

Now, I understand where he’s coming from. This is the tactic so many use. It’s the tactic he was taught. It’s what the “experts” promote. How could he not feel that it’s all bait and switch? 

Loved ones, it doesn’t have to be that way. It wasn’t Paul’s way.

HERALD

Paul isn’t a salesman but a herald. “You’re in grave danger! Flee from the wrath to come!” Flee where? “Flee to Jesus! And let me tell you why. Let me tell you what Jesus has accomplished. Let me tell you who he is.”

It’s a little harder to have that conversation when you invited people to come have a fun time bouncing on a bunch of inflatables. And by the way, while you’re jumping around, let me tell you about Jesus. 

There’s a major disconnect with that. I mean, how serious are we about the gospel?

TRIAL LAWYER

Far from marketing, Paul comes as a trial lawyer laying out the facts of the case. Over the next 64 verses, Paul is going to lay out the case against all of humanity. And let me assure you, no one escapes this verdict. It is airtight. Paul will leave no wiggle room. By the time Paul is finished, none of us will have anything to offer in our defense. 

Thankfully, just as the prosecution is about to rest, Paul calls one final witness to the stand. The Judge Himself. Who offers a plea bargain — a full pardon for all who repent. How is the Judge able to offer this pardon? By placing the sentence you and I deserve upon His one and only Son instead of us.

WHERE THE GOSPEL BEGINS

But we don’t have a gospel unless we begin here — where Paul does. As unpopular as it may be, we begin with man’s dilemma — man’s great need — mankind under the wrath of God. 

Now, I want to be careful in how I nuance this. There are many ways to get here. We can approach people with the gospel in any and every situation. Our first sentence doesn’t have to be “Flee from the wrath to come.” What I mean is that here is where the gospel actually begins. Before the fall there was no need for the gospel. It’s only because of sin and God’s necessary wrath towards sin that there is a gospel.

But why begin here? Why does Paul begin the gospel at verse 18 with our pitiful situation beneath the wrath of God? Why? Because without acknowledging such, there’s no need for a gospel at all. 

MODERN SENSITIVITIES

Now, most of the modern church doesn’t begin here, if they even ever get here. Why? Because the wrath of God is almost certain to turn people away before they ever hear the gospel. 

So, clearly, the educated, the surveyors, those who have studied these things warn, whatever you do, you can’t begin here. If you feel somewhat obligated to even mention the wrath of God, you’ll need to back it in, somewhat covertly. You know … sneak the wrath of God in through the back door, if you even mention it at all, after they’ve had a chance to give Jesus a try. 

ACCEPTING JESUS

Instead, begin with Jesus — how accepting he is — Jesus meek and mild. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. (That’s from Isaiah 42:3. And if you stop half way through the verse, you don’t even have to mention the fact that he will faithfully bring forth justice.)

That’s a gospel you can sell. That’s a Jesus you can sell to people. A Jesus who accepts you as you are, who accepts your lifestyle and those things you worship. He’s not offended by any of that. He understands. That’s just who you are. 

And of course, he made you, didn’t he? So, how could he possibly be offended by any supposed sin of mine.

Begin there. But whatever you do, don’t begin with wrath and judgment. 

We wonder why the modern church hardly even has a gospel to share. Try Jesus, and he’ll help you achieve your best life now. I assure you, nothing about Jesus lines up with the world’s idea of one’s best life now — at least not the Jesus disclosed in the Scriptures.

Listen loved ones. Who needs Jesus if not sinners under the wrath of God?

A JOHN 3:16 KIND OF GOSPEL

But instead of mentioning anything about the wrath of God, let’s just, you know, offer a John 3:16 kind of gospel — a gospel of God so loved the world. That’s a gospel they’ll buy. A gospel that’s all love and no wrath.

I wonder if they even know John 3:16. Do they even understand the verse? I think probably not. Why? Because the wrath of God is most certainly implied in what’s possibly the most popular and most loved verse in all of Scripture. 

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish!

Shall not perish! What’s that all about? That’s about God’s wrath. And yet most miss it. Why? Because they want nothing of it. The eternal life bit — we like that. But will skip right over whatever this whole “perish” thing is all about. 

PERISH IS NICE AND SUBTLE

Or it could be, John 3:16, well, it’s nice a subtle. It’s non-offensive so long as we don’t define what’s meant by “perish”. 

All they need is to keep reading the next couple verses — as Samuel read for us. 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Saved from what? From condemnation!

Verse 18. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. They stand condemned already. Far from Jesus being unoffensive — one’s response to Jesus is the difference between condemnation and salvation.

Or the last verse in John 3. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. The wrath of God remains. 

THE CROSS PROCLAIMS GOD’S WRATH

Loved ones. The whole world is already under God’s wrath. There is no sugar coating it. To do so is to be part of the problem. 

It’s to align oneself with the serpent who deceived the woman. How did the serpent deceive the woman? By saying, “Don’t worry about God’s wrath. You won’t surely die. In other words, don’t fear God. In fact, don’t pay Him any mind at all.”

The cross is utterly ridiculous apart from God’s wrath. If sin is no big deal, why did Jesus have to die on a gruesome bloody cross? Remove God’s wrath from the gospel, and Jesus died for nothing. 

While the cross, no doubt, proclaims God’s love louder than anything ever could, don’t miss that it also proclaims God’s wrath. And that wrath you and I deserved was poured out on His Son instead of on us. That’s the gospel.

But you can’t know God’s love in Christ, if you don’t know the wrath Jesus saved you from. And neither can those we share the gospel with, if we sideline God’s wrath from our gospel — if we can even call it the gospel.

UNOFFENSIVE CALLING

I recall being part of a Q and A for a potential pastor a few years back. He shared a message, which was nice, it was light, certainly non-offensive. And of course, we don’t want to be offensive for the sake of being offensive. I get that. But the gospel is necessarily offensive.

So, I asked, what should be the easiest question for any pastor to answer: What is the gospel? There’s many ways you and I can articulate the gospel. But there are certain aspects that are necessary to the gospel. One of which is God’s wrath. You can use different terms, but the idea has to be there. 

So, I listened intently. And he spoke about eternal life and abundant life. He used the word gospel multiple times. He spoke of how Jesus saves us, but from what, who knows. He spoke of us becoming better individuals, to be like Christ. And all of that’s nice. And it’s true. 

WHERE IS HELL

But there was absolutely no mention of sin or repentance or judgment or anything close. So, I asked him point blank. What does Jesus actually save us from? And he pretty much repeated something to the effect of us living up to our full potential. 

I tried with a couple more questions trying to fish the answer out, but nothing. Finally, I asked, “Do you believe in hell?” And there was a pause. And he said, “Well, yes, of course. Jesus saves us from that.”

NOT AN ATTACK

I don’t mention this as an attack on an individual. He’s a nice guy. 

I mention it because 1) this is where much of the church is today. We want to avoid the subject of God’s judgment at all costs, because it’s offensive. 

2) This is where you and I can find ourselves. Why? Because if we’re honest, the fear of man will silence us from sharing the full gospel. 

But listen, a half gospel isn’t the gospel. The gospel, to be good news, must save us from something.

SAVED FROM WRATH

A couple weeks ago, we noted that what we need salvation from is sin — sin’s penalty, sin’s power, and sin’s pollution. And all that is true. Here, Paul homes in on sin’s penalty. Man’s great dilemma is that because of sin, he justly stands under the wrath of God. That’s our predicament. That’s what we all need saved from.

We need saved from God! And the only one capable of saving us from God is God Himself.

WRATH, A NECESSARY RESPONSE

It might be helpful to understand that wrath is a necessary response from God. While wrath is not an attribute of God, wrath necessarily flows from God’s attributes of righteousness, goodness, faithfulness, and even love. 

God’s wrath is, in a very real sense, good news. Not good news in the way the gospel is good news, but good news, nonetheless. 

ALTERNATIVE TO WRATH

Here’s what I mean. Consider the alternative to wrath. A God who does nothing, but rather let’s sin prevail without restraint, without ever calling sin to account. We call that injustice. But God’s wrath is the guarantee that justice will prevail. 

GOSPEL DOESN’T DO AWAY WITH WRATH

In fact, the gospel doesn’t do away with God’s wrath. Rather, it highlights it. The cross is the greatest display of God’s wrath ever. And He poured it out on His Son so that He need not pour it out on you. 

The gospel doesn’t do away with God’s wrath. Yes, it removes God’s wrath from those who trust in Christ. But for those who don’t, they will know God’s wrath for eternity. That’s what hell is.

SOCIETY’S WRATH

It would be wrong to suggest society doesn’t believe in wrath. It just doesn’t like the idea of God’s wrath.

Consider the outrage of society when an innocent individual is brutally harmed or even murdered. Outrage is part of society’s wrath. In fact, it would be an even greater outrage to ignore or make little of such harm. So, know that our culture has no problem with wrath. Society expresses its wrath all the time. 

A CORRUPT STANDARD OF JUSTICE

Yet, society’s standard, due to the Fall, is greatly distorted. How do we know? Because more than half of our society shows, not only no outrage, but no concern for brutal harm done to the most innocent of all — the countless innocent babes in their mother’s womb. 

O they’ll show outrage toward those who don’t celebrate someone’s perverted lifestyle that goes against God’s design. They’ll show outrage for an individual shot while interfering with police officers doing their job. But they show no outrage for the little one who has been brutally harmed — indeed murdered. Because that’s exactly what abortion is.

O the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth. 

GOOD NEWS OF WRATH

Well, God will not be silent regarding the harm done to His image-bearers. In His righteousness His wrath will be fully revealed. And that loved ones is good news. 

Realize, God’s wrath is necessary only because of sin. But for God to fail to display His wrath against sin, He wouldn’t be righteous, or faithful, or loving, or good. God’s wrath is necessary.

INSISTS ON WRATH

God’s character — who God is — from His holiness, His righteousness, to even His goodness — all of who God is insists upon the doctrine of the wrath of God. Without it, God can’t be holy or righteous or good.

PURPOSEFUL WRATH

But understand, God’s wrath is purposeful. God is not some angry god because He’s easily frustrated and displeased. He’s not irritable, resentful, or impatient. God’s wrath concerns one thing — sin. God’s wrath is directed at evil and injustice and those things which are malicious and cause harm. 

What does our text say? God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness … all of it … and necessarily so. 

RIGHTEOUSNESS AND GODLINESS

Righteousness and godliness always go together. You can’t have righteousness — at least not true righteousness — apart from godliness. And it’s godliness Paul lists first. And he does so purposefully. 

WHAT IS GODLINESS

What is godliness? I would argue, it’s reflecting God.
So, what would ungodliness be? Falling short of the glory of God.
Paul will bookend this strongest case of mankind’s guilt before God with this idea of ungodliness and falling short of the glory of God (3:23). 

RIGHTEOUESNESS WITHOUT GODLINESS?

You can’t have genuine righteousness without godliness — without reflecting the character of God. This is why the social gospel fails to promote any true righteousness — because it lacks godliness. It lacks God. It seeks to promote righteous works as the main thing, without necessarily having a need for godliness. 

MODEL JESUS

O it’s alright if you buy into those things about God in the Scripture. It’s okay if you buy the virgin birth and resurrection. But what really matters is the example of Jesus. Model that.

But what is it that Jesus modeled? Jesus modeled honoring His Father above everything else. And what dishonors His Father? Sin. 

Jesus never winked his eye at sin. He died on account of it. He laid down his life for your sin, for my sin, for the world’s sin. Model that!

IMAGING GOD

Ungodliness, therefore, is the core issue. Man was created to image God. But man has failed to image God and His glory. We might say, he who was created to be godly is not. 

Man is ungodly. Hence, he does not image God. And he does not image God because he fails to actually worship God, or at least he fails to worship God in truth. 

UNGODLINESS

Ungodliness — is the Greek form of godliness with what’s called the alpha privative — sort of like our putting “un” in front of our word “godly”. Same idea. So, to understand ungodliness, it’s helpful to understand godliness.

The Greek root means to worship, revere, venerate as holy.

WORSHIP AND IMAGING

What does worship and imaging have in common? We become like what we worship.

What does that mean? Everything about our lives will gravitate toward that which we worship. We will seek to order our lives towards that end, in which we reflect that which most captures our gaze.

PSALM 115

Take the psalmist’s words in Psalm 115. He contrasts worship of the Lord to that which the nations worship.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak; eyes but do not see. They have ears but do not hear; noses but do not smell. They have hands but do not feel; feet but do not walk, and they do not make a sound in their throat. Now listen. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

Those who worship idols become like them.

DEAD IDOLS

Notice the description of the idol. It seems to have all that is necessary and desirable. They have mouths, eyes, ears, noses, hands, feet, and even a throat with which to breathe. But they are mute, blind, deaf, senseless, unfeeling, lame, and dead because they lack the breath of life.

They’re made of costly and beautiful material, but what’s beautiful in worshiping something that’s dead. What’s the value in something that’s dead?

They are fashioned by the hands of men, and then those same men are going to put their trust and hope in them? Do you see the foolishness. How utterly ridiculous! The creator worshiping its creation — trusting in its own creation!

DEAD LIKE ONE’S IDOLS

What they have made is a fiction — a falsehood — a lie. Those who make them and trust in them and worship them become like them. 

The idol worshiper worships a lie, and they become a lie. The idol worshiper was given eyes by the Creator, but in their ungodliness, they are blind. And we could go down the list. Fallen man is mute, deaf, senseless, unfeeling, lame, and dead. 

Those who worship idols become like them. But listen loed ones. The same is true of those who worship God in Christ Jesus.

BEHOLDING TRUE GLORY

This is why 2 Corinthians 3:18 is so vital. Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. Where do we behold the glory of God? Well, the heavens declare the glory of God. But because of sin, we suppress and distort the truth about God. 

We need a more exact representation of God’s glory. Where do we see that? One place — in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6. For the God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So, failing to worship the God we’re imaged after not only dishonors God, it belittles His image; it corrupts God’s image in the image-bearer.

Falling short of true glory — the glory of God — and that of ungodliness go hand-in-hand.

VERTICAL AND INTERNAL

Ungodliness is fundamentally vertical with respect to God. But it plays itself out horizontally in unrighteousness. 

Note that Paul places ungodliness before unrighteousness. That’s not accidental. The one leads to the other.

Ungodliness is internal because worship is foremost internal. Never confuse the supposed outward displays of worship with that of the genuine worship of the heart. Worship takes place inside … in here … in the heart. 

Ungodliness is internal because reverence is internal. Yes, it displays itself outwardly, but it is first a matter of the heart.

Ungodliness is internal because veneration is internal. Veneration is a heart disposition. What does it mean to venerate? It means to regard and consider someone or something with profound respect, reverence, admiration; to regard or hold in one’s heart something as holy or set-apart. 

UNRIGHTEOUSNESS

Where ungodliness is primarily associated with one’s worship, and hence failure to reflect the glory of God, unrighteousness is primarily associated with one’s character and the outward display of one’s character in his or her deeds. 

Unrighteousness is that which is not aligned with God’s character.

UNRIGHTEOUSNESS AND UNBELIEF

To be righteous — and we touched on this last week — is to be right with God. Scripture portrays one is right with God when one believes God and hence trust Him. We call that faith. And it will naturally display itself in a person’s life. 

Unrighteousness fails to believe God. It fails to trust God’s character or His Word. 

UNRIGHTEOUSNESS AND WORSHIP

Ultimately, we trust — or have faith in — those things we worship / venerate / and revere — because we believe that these things will grant us our heart’s desire. 

The only reason one commits adultery is because he thinks it will ultimately satisfy something that faithfulness will not. 

The adulterer worships something other than God. That’s the only reason why adultery ever occurs. The same is true of gluttony, greed, envy, self-exaltation, slander, gossip, and any number of sins.

ONE UMBRELLA

All sin rightly falls under the umbrella of these two words simultaneously because both ungodliness and unrighteousness go hand-in-hand.

All sin not only offends and dishonors God, but it also harms His image-bearers. Ungodliness always leads to unrighteousness, which is why society’s attempt to separate righteousness from the need for godliness will always fall short.

NOT SINS BUT SIN

The issue Paul raises is not so much sins, as in particular sins, but sin. The world has no problem talking about sins. They might not agree with God’s list, but they certainly have their own. They might not prefer the word sin, but they have no problem calling out what they believe to be the transgressions of others. 

So, the issue is not so much sins people take issue with but the idea of sin in general. They reject it. Because where sins may be against one’s neighbor, sin is against God. 

DAVID’S SIN

When David prays in Psalm 51, he doesn’t pray: my sins are ever before me, but my sin is ever before me.Against you, you only, have I sinned. 

David committed multiple sins against Uriah, and Bathsheba, and Joab, and his military, and against the nation he was supposed to lead in righteousness. But his sin was against God. 

DEFINING SIN AS UNGODLINESS AND UNRIGHTEOUSNESS

One way we might define sin is with Paul’s words here. All ungodliness and unrighteousness is sin. 

DECALOGUE

It could be that the first relates primarily toward God and the second toward man. And that might even be helpful — sort of like understanding the decalogue, the Ten Commandments. 

The first table, many suggest, is man’s responsibility toward God and the second table man’s responsibility toward neighbor. But as we looked at Wednesday, both tables of the Ten Commandments deal with man’s relationship with both God and man. 

Murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and covetousness — they all deal with that of worship — misplaced worship. Hence, they all fall under this idea of ungodliness.

GROUNDED IN GOD’S CHARACTER

They are also each a matter of righteousness — that which reflects God’s character.

All Ten Commandments are grounded in who God is — His character which we are to reflect. Thou shall not murder is grounded in God’s character — not simply that God created man in His image, which He did and to murder is to murder the image of God — but that God is life; He breathes life into His creatures and image bearers, and He sustains that life. Murder runs contrary to God’s character.

Likewise, adultery runs contrary to the God who is faithful. Stealing runs contrary to the God who is generous. Bearing false witness runs contrary to the God who is truth. 

Where ungodliness fails to worship rightly, unrighteousness fails to reflect God’s character. Where godliness is compromised, righteousness quickly follows suit. 

Try as people may, you can’t have one without the other … 

Every attempt will fail, because righteousness flows from godliness — from right worship. 

Likewise, unrighteousness flows from ungodliness — worshiping anything other than God. 

And unrighteousness and ungodliness they create grave harm. God can’t overlook it. He must call it to account. He must punish it. 

NOTHING TO SELL

Listen loved ones. We don’t raise the issue of God’s wrath to sell the gospel. We raise the issue of God’s wrath to save souls.

That’s why Paul begins where he does. That’s why we must begin there too. 

Because we’re not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.

DOESN’T END HERE

This is where the gospel begins. It begins with God’s wrath revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 

The gospel begins here, but praise God it doesn’t end here. 

WRATH UPON THE SON

If you are still struggling to come to terms with this idea of God’s wrath, if you still fail to see why it’s paramount we don’t leave this out of our gospel presentations — understand this. 

No one endured God’s wrath like Jesus. And he bore it, not for any sin of his own, but for ours — for our ungodliness — our unrighteousness — that we might become godly and righteous before God.

If we leave out wrath, we will never be able to present the glories of Christ. Because the cross which bore God’s wrath was the Son of God’s most glorious moment.

A BETTER COVERING

Far from needing someone to sell us on a new roof, we need a better covering than any salesman could ever offer. We need a covering to shield us from the just wrath of a holy God. God HImself provided that covering for us in His Son's precious blood that was shed for all who believe. You and I can't buy it. He offers it without cost to you. He paid the price in full Himself.

DAMASCUS TO WITTENBERG

We’re quite familiar with Paul’s Damascus Road experience. It is recounted multiple times in the book of Acts. I doubt there’s ever been a conversion experience that has impacted so many. I mean, we wouldn’t be reading and pondering Paul’s letter to the Romans apart from Paul’s experience.

The verse we are looking at today, Romans 1:17, reminds me of another man’s conversion that has impacted perhaps more than any in the past half century as concerns the gospel. His name is Martin Luther.

MARTIN LUTHER – A RASH VOW

Luther was perhaps the most miserable monk ever. He became a monk after a rash vow he made during a severe thunderstorm. The theme of damnation and salvation was part and parcel of the time in which Luther lived. Such was his fear of death and hell, that Luther promised St. Anne to become a monk. 

(Luther, like the rest of us, had to begin where he was. Which meant beginning with a very faulty theology.)

While Luther’s vow may have been rash, Luther was convinced he had made a wise decision, that he was now at peace with God. Luther didn’t begin as a most miserable monk. It was only when he later became a priest, in celebrating his first mass, that the terror of God’s righteousness began to overwhelm him. 

A SEVERE JUDGE

Luther saw God as a severe Judge. All the means of “grace” afforded by the church could never suffice to make him right before this holy God. If sins had to be confessed to be forgiven, what about sins he had forgotten or left out. As diligently as Luther sought to be right before God, he was well aware of just how short he fell from such righteousness. Where the sacrament of penance was supposed to bring relief, instead all it did was leave Luther in despair.

This sense of despair continued for nearly a decade, until Luther began lecturing on Paul’s letter to the Romans, and he came to this verse. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous one shall live by faith.”

THE PROBLEM OF GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

The problem for Luther was the righteousness God. If the gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness, how could anyone suggest it to be good news — or even news at all? What could possibly be new about God’s righteousness? God has always been just to condemn sin. 

For Luther, if anything was to be good news it would be that God is not righteous, that God simply overlooks sin, that God does not judge sinners. 

INSEPARABLE — JUSTICE AND GOSPEL

And yet, here, Luther found, the apostle Paul insisted that the justice of God and the good news of the gospel were inseparable. So, what could Luther have been missing. It was then, Luther realized the righteousness of God was not something he had to live up to to be saved, but that it was a gift that God Himself gives to those who live by faith. 

Well, it’s here Luther records, “I felt that I had been born anew and that the gates of heaven had been opened. The whole of Scripture gained new meaning. And from that point on the phrase “the justice of God” no longer filled me with hatred but rather became sweet by virtue of a great love.”

READ (Romans 1:16-17)

RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD — WHAT IS IT?

Scholars have long wrestled with this phrase in verse 17, the righteousness of God. It shows up 8 times in Romans alone. Does it mean: 1) the righteousness belonging to God, or 2) the righteous works of God, or 3) the righteousness God bestows in what’s know as justification?

Or to put it more simply, when referring to the righteousness of God, is Paul referring to an attribute of God, and activity of God, or a status God gives to believers? 

All three of these are certainly in view throughout Paul’s letter. And the three aren’t so easily separated. The attribute leads to the activity that grants the status. 

In other words, because God is righteous in Himself, all that He does is righteous. It’s also true that the righteous status God grants to believers is an overflow of His righteous character that displays itself in His works. And the greatest display of God’s righteousness — is that through the cross of Jesus Christ, God has made a way for sinners to be reckoned right before God. 

To separate the three categories is to do an injustice to the righteousness of God. God declares sinners who have no righteousness of their own to be right before Him. This status is granted because of God’s righteous activity in sending Jesus to pay the penalty of sin in our place, and that such was to display God’s righteousness before all of creation. So, the three are connected. And I believe all three are in view.

CORRUPTED ATTRIBUTES

When we consider the righteousness of God as an attribute, Scripture often contrasts God’s righteousness with that of the unrighteousness or ungodliness of men. Though created in God’s likeness to possess some degree of His attributes, the Fall has severely corrupted those attributes so that fallen man is often described as the opposite of God’s attributes. 

Rather than righteous, fallen man is unrighteous.
Rather than good, fallen man is evil.
Instead of just, we tend to be unjust.
Where God is wise, we tend to be foolish.
God is humble, fallen man proud.
God is loving, mankind goes about hating one another.

God is merciful; we tend to be merciless.
God is always faithful, but how often Scripture portrays even God’s people as faithless.
Patient versus impatient; holy versus unholy; selfless versus selfish.

Indeed, the godliness of God is contrasted with the ungodliness of men at every level, utterly marring the image of God in our lives.

LUTHER’S PREDICAMENT – A CONDEMNING RIGHTEOUSNESS

You see the predicament? You see why Luther’s soul was in such turmoil and why he hated the righteousness of God? And far from Luther being licentious or immoral, Luther sought to obey his monastic vows to the fullest. 

But Luther knew righteousness went beyond outward duties. Failing to love God with all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength was to fall infinitely short of the righteousness of the God who fashioned mankind in His own likeness.

Luther, therefore, saw God’s righteousness as nothing more than a condemning righteousness, which drove him to despair. 

Of course, that is one of Satan’s greatest deceptions. It’s what led Adam and Eve to hide from God after they sinned. It’s why mankind has long sought gods of their own making — because who can stand before this Holy God? 

GRASPING GRACE

Only when Luther came to these verses and deeply contemplated these verses was he freed at last. Because he finally understood the power of the gospel to save. For the first time, Luther understood GRACE!

Grace is what sets Christianity apart form every other worldview and religion. Others may use the term, but they are nothing more than works-righteousness dressed up as grace. (Hence Luther’s break with the Roman Catholic Church.)

Grace comes solely through Jesus Christ’s righteousness imputed — or ascribed — to us as a gift, because our sins were imputed to Him.

When Luther came to realize that it is by faith and through faith that God grants righteousness to the person, Luther was finally set free. 

In fact, this most foundational doctrine is the doctrine upon which Luther would take his stand against the world. Like Paul, For I am not ashamed …

NOT WORKS BUT FAITH

The breakthrough for Luther is that our righteousness is found, not in doing, but in trusting. That’s what faith is. We trust that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is a fully sufficient payment for sin — all our sin past, present, future.

In other words, the righteousness of God here is not a transformative righteousness, where we become righteous in ourselves and because of our own righteousness, we are now righteous before God. 

Grace transforms to be sure. But we are not saved by our being transformed. That’s to not only get the gospel backwards, but to gut the gospel of its power to save, and instead bring us to the despair Luther was in.

Our sanctification doesn’t save us so much as it prepares us for living in God’s holy presence. 

A RIGHTEOUSNESS NOT OUR OWN

Without righteousness, no one shall approach the holy God. But by faith, it is possible for sinful man to truly stand righteous before God. This righteousness, however, is not a righteousness of our own, but the righteousness of another. 

So long as we seek to rest in any righteousness of our own, trying to muster God’s favor in and through ourselves — whether that be greater penitence or greater works — we will remain far from God and this great salvation. 

Why? Because deep down we know we are far from being righteous in ourselves. All we need to do is replay our thoughts from the past 24 hours. Stand before God with that!

But in Christ, we boldly approach the throne of God’s grace. 

No other religion or worldview allows one to stand blameless before the Holy God. Either you have Judaism and Islam in which no one would ever dare approach God’s immediate presence — or God must be reduced to something other than the holy righteous God He is.

CONTEMPORARY HATRED

Where Luther lived in a time where damnation and salvation were very much the air one breathed, much of our culture has done everything possible to numb itself to the idea of eternal judgment. 

But where the cultural air may be different, the same resentment and hostility exists. The world hates God, in part, precisely because He is righteous.

Luther hated God because he couldn’t live up to the righteousness of God. Our culture hates God because how dare His righteousness interfere with our autonomy. Either way, God’s holiness — or we might say — the righteousness revealed in God’s holiness is what mankind hates most about God.

UNPOPULARLY GOOD NEWS

As unpopular as the righteousness of God is, as Christ’s ambassadors, we must take care never to minimize God’s righteousness. That God will call every individual to account. As Hebrews says: it’s appointed for man to die once then comes judgment.

But listen loved ones. This is precisely where the gospel comes in. God sent his Son to receive our judgment in our place. So, when we stand before the judgment throne, for all who have placed their faith in Jesus — his work and his worth — we are judged: NOT GUILTY. Because Jesus’ righteousness is credited to us.

But we have no gospel to share if we minimize the righteousness of God, as if God is not concerned with righteousness. 

RIGHT WITH GOD

So, what makes a person right before God?

First, and we best not miss this because Paul will use a large chunk of these first three chapters to make his case — the gospel reveals our sinful condition. Our sin has not merely separated us from God but has placed us under His righteous judgment. 

And yet, God has provided a way for us — who are justly under such judgment to actually be in the right before Him. 

Second, the gospel vindicates God’s righteousness in the very act of declaring sinners righteous. Paul will address this at the end of Romans 3. But I would argue that this is the foundation of the gospel. 

Because God did not punish sin to the full degree it deserved — but instead showed mercy — God was seen to be unjust. In fact, God began making promises to His people that seemed to run contrary to what justice demanded. How on earth could God bless sinners — those who had committed treason against the Lord of all the universe? 

Well, the gospel reveals the righteousness of God in declaring sinners to be righteous. [There’s so much more to say here, but we’ll save this for the end of chapter 3 for when we get there, Lord willing.]

LIVE BY FAITH

So, what makes a person right before God? Who are the righteous? The righteous are those declared righteous by God through their faith. 

The verse quoted by Paul comes from Habakkuk 2. The righteous shall live by faith. 

Is faith, here, the manner of one’s life, as in the way one orders their steps? Or does this mean that those who are righteous by means of their faith will ultimately live? 

The Greek isn’t any more helpful than our English. We could just as easily (and perhaps more literally) translate it like this: But the righteous one, by means of faith, will live.But that leaves us with the exact same question.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think we have to chose between the two interpretations. Both are true. The righteous are those declared righteous by God by means of their faith, and hence, they receive eternal life. But it’s also true that those who are declared righteous by God will order their lives by faith. 

Faith is both that which marks the lives of the righteous, as well as the means by which they are declared righteous and thus live. They know life rather than death. 

These two ideas are not compartmentalized from each other, as if Paul has a narrow view of life. Paul means life in its fullest sense. Eternal life isn’t merely something future. It begins when one believes. 

It is those who are righteous through faith who will be saved in the ultimate sense. And the life they live now is marked by that same faith by which God declares them to be righteous. 

RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN THE GOSPEL

The righteousness of God in the gospel was promised long ago. (That’s verse 2). But only in Christ is this righteousness finally truly and fully revealed — made manifest.

Prior to the cross, the trust and hope of those with faith was that God would provide the Lamb for the burnt offering — that God would provide the substitute for sin — that God would provide the covering needed for sinners to dwell in His presence — that God, in a mystery known only to Himself at the time, would reckon belief and faith as righteousness. 

How? Well, now that Jesus has come, the answer becomes clear. That in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them, but against him — against his Son. Jesus came as the Lamb, as the substitute, as the covering, as our every provision to be made righteous before God.

RIGHTEOUSNESS NOT SET ASIDE

Now we need to be careful in how we understand this. The gospel doesn’t somehow set aside God’s righteousness. Luther, in all his despair, understood at least this much. That’s what was so despairing.

Jesus didn’t come to set aside God’s righteousness. Jesus didn’t come to relax God’s righteousness as found in the Law. Rather, Jesus pressed the Law to its fullest. Jesus equated hate with murder. Lust was equivalent to adultery. 

In fact, listen to Jesus’ own words: Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

You see why Luther failed to see the gospel as good news? Jesus upped the ante. I couldn’t measure up to God’s righteousness before. And here comes Jesus elevating the standard of God’s righteousness. Measuring up just became exponentially harder!

A SURPASSING RIGHTEOUSNESS

So, what’s the solution? What is the righteousness of God found in the gospel? It’s a righteousness that comes from God and a righteousness that satisfies God. 

Why does this matter? Because the gospel is just as concerned about righteousness as the Law was. Jesus is clear. Your righteousness must surpass that of the religious elite in order to be saved. Why? Because their supposed righteousness didn’t make them right before God. Far from it!

NOT THOSE WHO DEEM THEMSELVES TO BE RIGHTEOUS

The righteous in God’s sight, however, are not those who deem themselves to be so. Jesus tells a parable about those who trusted that they were themselves righteous. 

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

What’s Jesus’ verdict: I tell you, this man, the tax collector, went down to his house justified —rather than the Pharisee who thought himself to be righteous.

The Pharisee had faith in himself. Sounds like the world’s refrain — you’ve got to believe in yourself.

The tax collector had faith in God and His great mercy.

FAITH TRUSTS

Faith trusts God’s full word, not part of it. Meaning, faith trusts God’s verdict on one’s life, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Faith trusts that we could never perform enough works to be deemed righteous before God in ourselves. Faith trusts that God Himself must declare us to be righteous through the righteousness of another — His Son. 

HABAKKUK

The righteous shall live by faith is not new. Hence, Paul quotes from Habakkuk 2:4. 

To summarize: Habakkuk, the prophet is greatly troubled by the violence in Judah, and how the Law seems paralyzed to do anything about it. How long, O Lord, must I cry to you, “Violence!” and you do not hear. 

Well, the Lord has a response. I’m sending the Chaldeans —the Babylonians — as a judgment. 

If Habakkuk was troubled before, he is really troubled now. Lord, You are too pure to look upon evil, and here You are sending them as a judgment against us? 

Habakkuk can’t understand how God could use a nation even more wicked to deal with His own people’s wickedness. 

So, what is the Lord’s response? (Habakkuk 2:4, the very verse Paul cites.)

Habakkuk, I know. Their souls are puffed up. They are not upright in the least. But listen. The righteous shall live by his faith. 

In other words, Habakkuk, don’t fear … but trust.

Habakkuk 2:4 contrasts the righteous with those who are not upright. The righteous will be sustained through the coming trial. How? Through their faith. 

HABAKKUK’S SONG

This helps us to make sense of Habakkuk’s song in 3:17-19. 

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fall, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk trusts in God’s character and God’s ability and willingness to save — to sustain — to preserve — even should all other means of sustenance perish! That’s faith!

HEBREWS AND HABAKKUK

The author of Hebrews takes up Paul’s verse from Habakkuk, immediately before Hebrews 11 and the Great Hall of Faith. Hebrews 10:37-39.

“Yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith (and listen to this) and preserve their souls.

Did you catch that? Readers are to remain faithful under trial, because through their faith they will preserve their souls. Perseverance is tied to one’s faith.

It’s only those who trust in God’s character and promise who ultimately persevere. Faith sustains the godly. They will live and not finally perish.

FAITH TO FAITH

I think this helps us to make sense of the phrase — from faith to faith. Receiving the revelation of God’s righteousness revealed in the gospel comes through faith. AND… it encourages and leads to a life of faith. The gospel is received by faith, it leads to faith, and it preserves by faith — faith from beginning to end. 

By quoting Habakkuk, Paul shows the continuity of the gospel with the Old Testament. God’s way of salvation has always been by faith, both before and after Christ. 

In Habakkuk, the righteous Israelite would be preserved through the judgment of the Babylonian invasion by his or her faith. 

In the Gospel, the righteous will be preserved through final judgment by his or her faith.

Where Habakkuk’s message concerned deliverance through the judgment of the Babylonian army, Paul’s gospel concerns deliverance through the judgment of God upon the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth about God for a lie. 

NOT NEW

So, righteousness by faith is not new. It has always been the case. Paul will later use Abraham as an example. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Hebrews will go back as far as Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, each of whom was commended for his faith.

For Adam and Eve, it was a lack of faith that led to the Fall. Far from works righteousness, their works displayed their lack of faith — their lack of trust in God’s Word. Rather than believing God, rather than trusting the Creator, Adam and Eve listened to the voice of another and ate. 

But get this! As soon as they ate, they were aware. They were aware that they had no righteousness of their own with which to stand before God. So they hid. 

Faith is not opposed to works. Works, as James points out, are the display of faith. But one’s works doesn’t make one right with God. 

So where being declared righteous by faith is not new in itself, the gospel is new in that the object of faith is finally fully disclosed — namely Jesus Christ. 

MISPLACED FAITH AND THE CHAIR

Part of the problem with our fallen condition is that we so often place our faith in lesser things. 

Take the popular chair analogy that so many have used to describe faith. You look at the chair, you see others sitting in similar chairs. Perhaps you’ve seen someone sit in this exact chair before. Maybe you’ve even sat in this chair before. You trust the chair will hold, and so by faith you take your seat in that chair. 

Of course, your faith makes no difference in the chair’s actual ability to hold you. You may have sat in it yesterday. But between then and now, a screw may have loosened just enough that no amount of faith will cause that chair to support you. 

Why? Because it’s the object of one’s faith that matters; not the amount of faith one has in the object.

UPHELD BY SOMETHING GREATER

But let’s continue with the chair. The chair is upheld by something greater than itself.
It’s upheld by the quality of the materials its fashioned from.
It’s upheld by the quality of craftsmanship that went into it.
It’s upheld by the quality of the architect’s design.

But we can and should go further. Those materials didn’t come from nowhere. Someone crafted those materials — and I’m not speaking simply of the mill or the blacksmith — or even the tree farmer and his tree grove. The raw materials for the chair all come from the Creator.

We also have the skill of the one who fashioned the chair. That skill didn’t come from nowhere. Men only have the skills they have due to the lovingkindness of the gracious God who assigns those skills.

And what about the quality of the architect’s design. A greater Architect put the laws of gravity and friction and tension and density and so on — all in place. Mankind merely discovers them. And that discovery is also a gift from God.

THE PROPER END OF FAITH

So if we trace it to its proper end, that which upholds the chair is completely dependent on God Himself. 

One aspect of sin is that we have taken trusting eyes off the God who upholds and sustains and instead fixed them on something less. So, when you sit in a chair, far from placing your faith in the chair, your faith should be in the God upholds all things according to His will. 

And it’s this God who will ultimately uphold you.

WHERE’S YOUR FAITH?

Is your faith in Him? Or is it in something less? Is it in His provision for you in Christ? Or are you still convinced you can muster a righteousness of your own?

It is those who are righteous by faith who shall live.

KICKING THE CHAIR OUT

If you are still convinced that you have any righteousness of your own apart from Christ — in the following verses, Paul is about to kick that flimsy chair out from under you.

Through the rest of chapter 1, all of 2, and the first half of 3, Paul is going to present the strongest case ever penned to prove that none is righteous in themselves, not even one.

But listen loved ones, if you embrace the truth of your predicament before God, that apart from Christ, you are utterly defenseless and deserving of judgment, then, like Luther, you will come to absolutely cherish verses 16 and 17. 

But if you somehow think, “ou know, verses 18 and following might be a true assessment of some but not me. In fact, I consider myself to be fairly godly person”, then verses 16 and 17 will seem somewhat dull. And at the end of the age, the righteousness of God will be utterly terrifying.

You and I need what follows, that we might know Luther’s experience, that outside of Christ the righteousness of God is utterly terrifying. 

But God has made a way for His Son’s righteousness to be counted as our own — and that is through faith. 

THE RIGHTEOUS BY FAITH ALONE WILL LIVE

Those who are righteous by faith will live — and them alone. Everyone else remains under the just wrath of God.
That’s what verses 16 and 17 save us from. 

But only if we are those who are among the righteous.
How? By faith and faith alone. By faith in Jesus Christ —
his life and death — his person and work —
his worth and satisfaction for our sin.

When understood rightly, this is the most glorious news ever. That those who were once under wrath, God has made a way through His Son for them to be right before Him — righteous by faith in Jesus Christ the righteous one. 

The glorious news of the gospel is that those who are right before God through faith shall ultimately live — they will know the fullness of life — and they will know it forever. And what glorious news it is. 

Not Ashamed of the Gospel (Romans 1:16)

INTRODUCTION:

Can you imagine a world without shame? Why is shame and guilt even such a thing in the first place? When God created the world, everything was good. Shame would have been an utterly foreign concept. But as it is, with the introducing of sin, man and woman who were once naked and unashamed, now know shame.

But the gospel — and the gospel alone — decisively deals with that shame.

READ (Romans 1:16-17)

NEGATIVE

We ended last week in verse 15, with Paul’s eagerness to preach the gospel to those in Rome and wherever else the Lord might send him. Why? Verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel. 

Why put it this way. Why begin with such negative phrasing. Why not, backing up to verse 15, So, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am honored to preach the gospel.

Why not: I am confident to preach the gospel.  Why not: I praise God that He has enlisted me to preach the gospel, and that He allows me to participate in such a ministry.. 

Well, Paul is honored to participate in such a ministry. Indeed, he’ll say just that in chapter 15. In Christ Jesus, I have reason to be proud of (or boast in) my work for God. Paul boasted in this gospel, boasted in his Lord, not in himself.

So, why here, “I am not ashamed of the gospel?” Because the world as a whole holds this gospel in contempt. While many respond positively to the message, the overwhelming majority do not! They see it as foolishness … as weakness.

TEMPTATION

In other words, there’s a genuine temptation to be ashamed of this gospel. Such is the temptation to be ashamed that Paul writes to young Timothy (2 Timothy 1:8). Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

But Paul isn’t the only one who had to warn against this temptation to be ashamed. The Lord Jesus warned the disciples (in the passage Chase read from Mark 8.)

Right after Peter confesses Jesus to be the Christ, Jesus began to teach them that he must suffer … and be rejected … and be killed.

What’s Peter’s reaction? Peter rebukes Jesus. In Matthews account, Peter is recorded as saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

O the absurdity! A rejected and crucified Messiah! How shameful!

Well, the Lord has a rebuke for Peter. Get behind me Satan! Why? Because Peter was not setting his mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

Then to make sure all the disciples understood, Jesus informs them of just what it will take to follow Him. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it. 

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? 

And listen. For,Jesus says, whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Listen loved ones, the temptation is real.

THE PROUD GOSPEL

Now, if you’ve never known this temptation, my response to you isn’t, “well, good. Keep on in that rock solid faith of yours!” No. instead, I’d ask you to question why it is you’ve never known such a temptation?

There’s a gospel that receives little to no push back form the world:

A distorted gospel has no problem cozying up to the world — a gospel of self-improvement — a gospel of tolerance — a gospel where accepting others lifestyles and worldviews is deemed as the most loving thing one can do — a gospel of prosperity and good fortune — a gospel of waging war against corruption while failing to rightly define such by God’s terms, that it’s our flesh that’s corrupt — a gospel of peace, not so much with God but with the world and, worse, with one’s own sin — a gospel of self-exaltation and self-image. 

The flesh finds no shame in any of the perversions of the gospel. But a perverted gospel is not the gospel. A perverted gospel can’t even pass itself off as any good news worth proclaiming!

If your gospel doesn’t face ridicule or contempt from the average unbeliever, either they have a distorted view of the gospel you hold to, or you have a distorted view of the gospel you communicate.

THE WEAK AND FOOLISH GOSPEL

Why was Paul not ashamed of the gospel despite all the hostility, ridicule, and sufferings he endured? Because he knew the great depths God condescended to save him, and the infinite cost that salvation required. 

O how foolish and weak the gospel looks. How foolish and weak Jesus Christ, the subject of the gospel, looked on that cross! And how foolish to the world those who hold to such a gospel must look.

The gospel humbles to the core and leaves no room for the least amount of self-pride.

Just think of Paul. How wise and sophisticated and brazen in the world’s eyes he must have seemed before he bought into this “foolishness,” this “weakness.” The mighty Saul, persecutor of the church, now taking hold of the crutches of the church.

But for some reason, this weak organization of weak individuals who hold to this weak and foolish message is still standing 2000 years later. Why? Because the founder of our faith, while he became weak for our sake, is not weak in Himself, but is Almighty God! And he has chosen to uphold his church by this weak and foolish message. (But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)

POWER TO SAVE

So we never reduce the gospel to make it somehow more palatable. Because a reduced gospel cannot save. Instead, we proclaim the unadulterated gospel boldly and confidently knowing that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

The only way you and I overcome the temptation of being ashamed of the gospel is like Paul — reminding ourselves of this truth! Paul recognized that this same gospel power that arrested him on the road to Damascus was mighty to save anyone!

If the Lord can save me, as hardened as I was, then there is absolutely no one too far from His saving reach. And this, loved ones, is true for you too.

So, Paul was not ashamed of this gospel — and neither should we be.

WHAT IS SHAME

But what exactly is this shame Paul’s referring to? Most simply, shame is disgrace due to misplaced confidence. Society likes to shame Christians for being on the wrong side of history. History is moving forward without them and leaving their parochial ways behind. 

Of course, when Christ returns, it will be apparent who was on the wong side of history and who was not. 

The word Paul uses here in verse 16, is ἐπαισχύνομαι. It’s the verb form for shame, with a prefix that underlines that this shame comes upon a person. 

Properly, the Greek word for shame means to disfigure, such as a disfigured face or appearance. When one is shamed, they are dishonored, disgraced, their good appearance is marred and disfigured before others.

We have an idiom, “you’ve got cake on your face,” which refers to the embarrassment one faces when proven wrong. Well, this sort of shame isn’t just cake on one’s face, that can be wiped away. This is a disfigurement of one’s good appearance before others, that is not so easily rectified. 

Jesus bore the ultimate shame on the cross. The disgrace mankind has faced since being expelled from the Garden. We had marred, disfigured the glorious image of the God whose image we were fashioned after. 

To cover the shame of our sin, the eternal Son, who is the exact imprint of God, would be publicly marred and disfigured on the cross. Isaiah 52:14. As many as were appalled at him — his appearance was so disfigured beyond any human semblance, and his form marred beyond that of the children of mankind. 

But in being marred and disfigured in our place, Jesus provides us with his righteousness to cover our shame.

THE POWER OF GOD

Why is Paul so eager to preach the Gospel to those in Rome? Why is Paul not ashamed of this Gospel? It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. 

Notice, what exactly is the power of God here. Undoubtedly, the subject here is the Gospel itself. In other words, the power of God for salvation is found in a message. For that’s what the Gospel is. It’s news. Good news. That’s what the word means. 

I find that fascinating when I think about it. The Almighty God saves people through a message — a particular message — but no less a message. 

It’s important we don’t miss this. Because we often see power in muscles and manpower, swords and shields, arms and armaments, missiles and nuclear weapons. But nothing in all of creation is as powerful as communication. (That’s why the curse of Babel was so devastating!) By the way, it takes communication to instruct and command an army to war.

But the omnipotent all-powerful God needs nothing — He does all things through the Word of His power. He commands and creation comes into being. And with a command, He can bring any or all of it to nothing.

The whole, sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me, is nonsense. Words do the most harm. But words are also powerful to do the most good. The most a sword can do is physically kill you. But that’s it. But o the destruction words cause. 

POWER OF A MESSAGE

The power of God for salvation is a message — a message that finally and fully discloses God’s righteousness in Christ. (That’s next week.)

This message alone possesses the power of salvation Because only in the message of the Gospel do we finally see God rightly; do we finally see ourselves rightly, and do we finally see our Saviour. 

This in no way suggests that God is not all-powerful apart from the Gospel. You need only look at creation to see His power. The power to create — order — sustain — His kind provision for His creatures. 

But because of our rebellion, we placed ourselves under the just wrath of God. Though creation displays God’s power, there’s no power of salvation found in creation. Creation moves us not one inch closer to being saved. If anything, apart from the Gospel, the only thing that gazing upon God’s power displayed in creation does is make us all the more liable to judgment. 

The gospel alone is God’s power to save. 

POWER OF THE SPIRIT

Well, one might ask: what about the Spirit? 

God’s Spirit always works in tandem with His Word. The Spirit saves by applying the message of the Gospel. The Spirit doesn’t zap people into salvation. The Spirit penetrates hearts to receive the Gospel message. A person will not trust the message of the Gospel apart from the Spirit’s work. But it’s equally true that the Spirit saves no one apart from this same Gospel. 

Why is that? Well, one of the Spirit’s primary roles is to glorify the Son. Now tell me, how is the Son glorified if the Spirit saved anyone apart from the gospel of the Son, the gospel that brings the greatest glory to the Son? 

And according to God’s all-wise plan and purpose, the Gospel does not merely make salvation possible but actually effects salvation in those who are called and thus believe. 

1 Thessalonians 1:4-5. For we know, brothers, loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. 

Or 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom (that is, according to the world’s standards), but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. The Spirit takes this message that is weak and foolish in the eyes of the world, and it applies it with power to the hearer. 

SAVED FROM WHAT

Now, it’s important that we cover this whole salvation thing, because we can speak a lot about the gospel without ever actually articulating the gospel. 

Salvation is always qualified. If I say, “Honey, I saved the toast.” What do you think I saved it from? I saved it from burning. 

If my wife says, “I saved you a plate of spaghetti.”? Either she saved it from someone else devouring it or from going in the trash. 

Someone who saves the game, saves it from being a loss. Save the date — save it from being filled up with something else. For someone who doesn’t play well with technology, I like it when my work is saved, rather than a program running into a glitch and losing it.

THREE-FOLD DELIVERANCE

But salvation in the Bible most often deals with saving from great harm or loss, such as God saving His people from Egypt. But every deliverance in Scripture served to point to a far greater deliverance, a far greater salvation, all of humanity is in need of … saved from penalty, the oppression, and the pollution of sin. 

Now, it’s right to speak of salvation as being saved from God — specifically, from God’s wrath. But we only need saved from God’s wrath because of sin — our sin.

So when we speak of the salvation found in the Gospel, I find it helpful to think of it in a 3-fold deliverance from sin’s penalty, sin’s oppression, and sin’s pollution.

PENALTY

When we believe the gospel, we are immediately saved from the penalty of sin. How? We trust that Jesus bore that penalty in our place, which is what he accomplished on the cross. (We’ll look at faith more closely next week and how it attaches us to Christ. But for now…) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

OPPRESSION / POWER

We have been saved from the penalty of sin, and we are being saved from the oppression of sin — or the power of sin. This same gospel that is the power of God for salvation to deliver us from the penalty of sin, is also the same gospel that is the power of God to deliver us from the oppression of sin. 

This is why we never grow past the need to hear the gospel proclaimed. We need reminded of what Christ has done in our behalf. The gospel exposes sin for what it is. The gospel also enables us to finally see God rightly, so we are no longer persuaded by sin’s deception.

POLLUTION / PRESENCE

Finally, the day is coming when we will be saved from the very pollution of sin — or we might say, the presence of sin. No sin or cause of sin will be found in the New Creation. This is the only way we can be confident of eternal bliss. 

ALREADY / NOT YET

In other words, salvation has what we might call “an already but not yet” dimension to it. In Christ, we have been saved and are being saved, but the fullness of this salvation is yet on the horizon — it’s future. 

SAVED TO

Now, the gospel does more than save us from something. The gospel also saves us to something. Where we were once enemies, the gospel reconciles us to God. It restores us to communion — or we might say, to enjoy fellowship — with God. 

ALL THE PROMISES OF GOD

This salvation should not be disconnected from the saving promises made to Israel in the Old Testament. All of God’s promises find their yes in Christ. All the covenant promises pointed to and are ultimately fulfilled in Christ and those who belong to him. 

As Paul says, the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek. In other words, both Jews and Greeks are saved by the same gospel. 

COMPLETELY SAVED

Just how powerful is this gospel? Those saved are saved completely — not partly, but fully. Personally, I’m not a fan of the sayings, “once saved always saved” or “can one lose their salvation?” I know what people are asking. They’re seeking assurance. 

The problem is one equates salvation with a human act that may or may not have been genuine or sincere, “but hey, they at least went through the motions.” Scripture is clear, only those who endure to the end will be saved. But it’s also true that we are to have assurance in this salvation. This isn’t some fragile salvation that can easily be broken. 

NO CONTRIBUTION

No one is saved based on anything in themselves. You contributed no power to this gospel. You simply trusted in God’s saving power. Those with more faith aren’t more fully saved than those with a mustard seed of faith. 

We aren’t the power, nor is our faith the power. But the gospel of God is the power, laying bare the fact that you brought nothing into this salvation but your own sin. 

The gospel exposes our utter weakness and helplessness to save ourselves. This is why so many despise the gospel. “I’m not about to parade my weakness and helplessness around before the watching world. I want a gospel that shows me to be strong — a gospel in which I somehow contribute at least a little something to my salvation.”

ONLY ASSURANCE

But here’s the problem with that. If the gospel takes your contribution, you and I could never have assurance of salvation. The only assurance we could have is that if any part of this salvation is up to me, then I’m a goner. 

But because we contributed nothing to this great salvation, what makes you think you can contribute anything to derail your salvation. 

What can break this mighty power of God found in the gospel? Your sin? O don’t think so highly of yourself! Rather, it’s the power of God in the gospel that breaks the power of your sin!

For everyone who truly comes to believe this gospel — the belief itself being the mighty working of God — everyone who believes this gospel may have confidence in its power to save — and save to the uttermost it will. 

SALVATION FOR WHOM

So, who is this salvation for? The Jew first and also the Greek. Greek, here, is likely a stand in for Gentile, meaning those who are not Jews. The Jew first, because it fulfills God’s covenants and promises. But the Greek also because the nations were always in the picture of those same promises. 

In other words, the good news is for all. Jew and Gentile alike are desperately in need of this same powerful gospel. The greatness of one’s sins doesn’t matter in the least. Nor does any amount of supposed righteous works. We are all more guilty than we could ever fathom. 

Outside of Christ, all are equally lost. But get this. The Gospel is equally powerful to save all. No one is too far off. 

EQUALLY FAR – EQUALLY POWERFUL

Think of the most hardened evil person you know. (For some of you, it didn’t take a second for someone to come to mind.) Now think of the sweetest person you know who doesn’t know Jesus. Okay. You’ve got them both in your mind? Now listen loved ones. Outside of Christ, they are equally far from salvation. 

The sweet ole lady or man is in no better position to receive salvation than the most hardened criminal who has done far greater evils and atrocities. The gospel is equally powerful to save both. And if the hardened criminal believes and trust in Christ, he will be saved. And if the sweet ole lady refuses to trust in Jesus, she will not be. The wrath of God will remain on her. 

HARD TO SWALLOW

Now, for most, that’s hard to swallow. It rubs against our flesh that likes to boast in our works. 

But the only reason that’s hard to swallow is because we fail to recognize God’s holiness, and just what is the greatest of all evils — rebelling against and blaspheming the holy God who did nothing but provide undeserving creatures with every good thing they’ve ever enjoyed. 

And in her blasphemy of God, she leads others astray from their greatest good, regardless of how sweet she might speak in doing so. Don’t be fooled. God is not mocked.

This gospel is powerful enough to save absolutely anyone. But apart from one believing this gospel — trusting in Christ, the subject of the gospel — they are lost and will remain so.

WHY IT MATTERS

Why does getting this right matter? Why does it matter that the gospel alone is the power of God for salvation? 

Because if we are the least inclined to think there might be another way of salvation — perhaps one’s good works could suffice — perhaps a vague belief in God is sufficient — perhaps believing Jesus to be a good person — an example to follow, but the whole cross and resurrection, well, I’m not so sure about that — perhaps the Spirit could simply zap people into being righteous before God without the gospel. “You know, I’ve heard about Muslims having dreams about Jesus and being saved without ever hearing the gospel.” 

You know why I don’t buy into any of that? It flatly contradicts God’s Word — every one of these “perhaps.”

So long as we are inclined to think there might be another way, we are going to be hesitant to share the gospel with others — indeed, we’ll be ashamed to share the gospel. Because to the flesh and to the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most unpopular message there is. 

WHAT THE GOSPEL COMMUNICATES

How is that? Because the gospel, when faithfully communicated, announces that we are sinners — not in the sense that nobody’s perfect, and we all make mistakes — but in the most drastic sense that we have raised our fists against the God who created us — we have spit in His face — and condemned Him — we placed Him on trial and found Him unfit — and we proclaim at the top of our lungs “I did it my way!”

The Gospel announces our condition to be so vile, we are justly under God’s righteous wrath, and the sentence is eternal. 

The Gospel shows our utter helplessness — that we can’t lift a single finger in our defense to save ourselves. 

WHAT THE GOSPEL REQUIRED

And the Gospel proclaims that it took nothing less than God’s only Son stepping down out of heaven, bearing the likeness of our sinful flesh, and being beaten and whipped until the image of fallen man was so shamed — so disfigured and marred that people were appalled, as he bore the penalty for our sin in our place. 

O how horrific the payment — that gruesome bloody cross. That’s what it took to save you. That’s what it takes to save any of us. That’s the price it took to save — not the world — but you alone.
That’s how vile your treason was.

HOW GREAT A LOVE

But o don’t miss this. That’s how much you are loved. That God willingly paid that price to save you! 

And He did it that way because 1) it was the absolute only way! 2) Because it’s the only thing that will crush our rebellion. And 3) because in this gospel and this gospel alone, does anyone begin to fathom the depth of the love of God — that the enemy had distorted.

And that, loved ones, is the power of the gospel. The gospel takes those who were once the vilest of rebels against their King and turns them into willing subjects, servants, who adore and worship this King with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

KNOWING LOVE

But someone might ask: don’t people know the love of God apart from the gospel? In a sense, people know the benevolent love of God — that He gives good gifts and provision to the just and unjust alike. 

But at the same time — and this sits at the core of the issue — they see God as withholding much of that good, which He could easily dispense if He was as truly loving as we say He is. 

Every time we grumble, if we trace that grumbling to its proper end, its grumbling ultimately against the Sovereign God’s goodness. 

So, no. People do not, nor can they, truly know the love of God aright apart from the gospel. O they can have an idea. There are shadows and hints. But those shadows and hints are all quickly tarnished by the deception of sin. 

Only in the gospel do we rightly know God’s love. Only in gazing upon God’s love — spelled out in crimson letters upon a rugged beam of wood — engraved with iron nails through the palms of His Son’s hands — etched with sharp thorns around the circumference of His Son’s beautiful brow — painted on the desert clay with the blood that poured from His Son’s pierced side. 

Only then do we come to know God’s love rightly. It’s this love displayed in the gospel — that is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

HISTORY’S END

At the end of history, there will be one thing and one thing only in which to be ashamed. And that my friends, is sin — our own sin — and no one else’s. 

Revelation describes it like this. Silence! 

When the pure undimmed glory of Christ breaks through in His return — and the final seal is broken from the scroll — and all is disclosed — all is uncovered — the hearts of every human being exposed — not simply the acts, as horrific as they might be, but the thoughts and intents of the hearts behind every act — even those acts that by God’s grace were greatly restrained. All of it will be laid bare before creation. 

Then, for everyone who was so proud that they thought they might hide from shame by seeking to cover their sin on their own — they will know what true shame really is. 

O, but for those who have trusted Christ, they have a covering — that shame was already exposed on the cross — where Jesus himself, the exact imprint of God, was marred and disfigured, exposing the shame of our sin — and paying for that shame in full.

Rather than shame, those who trust Christ will know glory — beautiful unending glory — clothed in the glory of the One they were not ashamed to trust, proclaim, and represent. 

PARTING WORDS

At the end of his life, having faced great suffering and persecution and now in a Roman prison cell, Paul wrote to young Timothy, calling him to share in suffering for the sake of the gospel, just as Paul himself had suffered. And he writes these words, and I would encourage you to make them yours. 2 Timothy 2:12. 

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.

Loved ones, you’ve been entrusted with the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Do not be ashamed. But hold to it and boldly proclaim it, that others might know this same power.

https://youtu.be/2VL5CqTbpbQ

Hindered and Harvesting, Obligated and Obedient (Romans 1:13-15)

INTRODUCTION

We’ve been working through the opening of Paul’s letter to the Romans, and with the exception of the end of his letter, this is the most personal and personalized section until we get to the end of chapter 15. 

Paul has long desired to come to Rome. Verse 12. Paul wants to be an encouragement to them, and he wants to be encouraged by them.
Verse 11. He wants to impart to them some spiritual gift to strengthen them — to see them strengthened in their faith.

Yet undergirding all of this is an even greater why — a greater purpose.
Why is it Paul wants to see their faith strengthened through his preaching of the gospel?
What is it about the mutual encouragement of each other’s faith that Paul so longs for?
I would argue, it’s the glory of the God whom Paul serves.
Paul longs for the harvest that redounds— or overflows — to God’s glory.

Verse 13. That I might reap some harvest from among you.
What is this harvest? What does this have to do with God’s glory?
Well, that’s what we’re looking at this morning.

READ (Romans 1:13-15; Acts 8:26-40)

INTENTIONS

Verse 13 begins with Paul’s intention to come to Rome. And he wants the believers to know his earnestness in his intent. I do not want you to be unaware brothers, that I have often intended to come to you. 

The word intended, means to “set forth” or “set before”. Here, it’s used in the middle voice, meaning Paul has often set coming to Rome before himself. But up to this point he has been prevented from coming. 

It’s not that Paul had his itinerary laid out, hotels booked, and at the last minute, each time, the flight was cancelled. 

What Paul is seeking to convey, in line with verse 10, is that he’s had a deep desire to come to Rome, so much so that he has been praying to that end. 

Unlike many, Paul doesn’t vacillate on his intentions. Well, maybe it’d be nice to go to Rome. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea.

OPPORTUNITY HASN’T KNOCKED

While the tickets aren’t yet purchased, he is earnestly looking for the Lord to open a door to that end without neglecting the work to which he is currently called. As of yet, the opportunity has not availed itself. 

Paul has thus far been prevented. This word prevent comes from a term that means cut-off, cut-short, or more graphicly, lopped-off. 

Now, before we look into what exactly is preventing or cutting short Paul’s trip to Rome, it’s probably helpful if we look at what this harvest is Paul’s referring to. 

RIPE FOR HARVEST

Paul wants to visit Rome… in order that I might reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 

Paul’s purpose here is two-fold: reap a harvest among those in Rome. Also in getting to Rome, Paul hopes to reap a harvest among those beyond Rome. 

The word translated harvest is simply the word “fruit.” A more literal translation would read, “that I might have some fruit from among you.”
Paul longs to visit that he might reap some fruit. But what is this fruit?

Many commentators suggest that fruit here refers to making converts through his preaching of the gospel. While that is likely part of what’s involved, we need to take care not to disconnect verse 13 from verses 11 and 12. Paul longs to strengthen and encourage those who are already believers.

More than simply adding to their numbers, Paul wants to see their faith strengthened — their resolve to live out this faith strengthened. Because living out the Christian life is no cakewalk in a culture that is opposed to God and His people. And there has never been a time that hasn’t been the case…

BE FRUITFUL 

So, then, what is this harvest or fruit Paul is referring to?

This idea of fruit goes all the way back to Genesis 1. God created vegetation in which the plants and trees bore seed and fruit according to its kind. And God did the same with the birds in the air, and the fish in the sea, and every creature that walked on the earth. Each was to produce and multiply according to its kind. 

And then God did something most amazing. He created a creature in His own likeness — in his image — to have dominion over this creation the Lord God had made. And do you know what the very first command in all of Scripture is? Genesis 1:28. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth… What was mankind supposed to fill the earth with? God’s image. Mankind was to reflect God’s righteous rule throughout creation. That’s the fruit mankind was to produce … according to its kind.

GARDEN IMAGERY

It’s not accidental that Jesus used Garden imagery in so many of his teachings and parables. You’ll hear some explain that the culture in Jesus’ day was an agrarian society. So he was searching for the easiest illustrations in which the people could understand. 

In other words, it was the clearest way to communicate. 

Of course, Jesus gives an entirely different reason for teaching in parables. Mark 4:11. To you, Jesus says, has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive … hear but not understand.

For the parables being so much more accessible, Jesus sure did have to explain the parables to his disciples. Mark 4:34. Jesus did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

So, it raises the question, perhaps there was something more than clarity that Jesus had in mind. Jesus used Garden Imagery to keep the Garden in view. Jesus used Garden Imagery because he is the Grand Gardener we looked at last week. 

TENANTS

One of the most prominent parables Jesus tells is that of the tenants who failed to produce fruit. The owner of the vineyard sends his son to the tenants to get his fruit — or to use Paul’s phrase in in verse 13 — to reap a harvest among them. (Very similar wording.) 

But the tenants threw the son out of the vineyard and killed him. So, Jesus asks, what will the owner of the vineyard do when he comes? Answer: He will put those wretches to a miserable death [and listen, here it is] and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.

REFLECTION

All of humanity failed to produce the fruit we were created to produce. While mankind was fruitful and multiplied and filled the earth, it was the wrong sort of fruit. Mankind was supposed to fill the earth with God’s righteous rule. That’s the fruit — God’s righteous character produced in God’s people. That’s what being made in God’s image is all about — it’s reflecting Him. 

That’s why conversion, or at least the way most understand it, is not at all what Paul is seeking among those in Rome. Paul’s not looking for people to raise their hand, say a prayer, walk and aisle, and get wet. 

Paul’s not seeking a people who simply call themselves Christians yet fail to actual follow and reflect Christ.
Paul received grace and apostleship (verse 5)  to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of Jesus’ name among all the nations.

MY WAY

Why? Because up to this point, the vast majority of humanity, with very few exceptions, instead of the obedience of faith, have sought to go their own way. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us after his own way. 

In going our own way, the only thing we have produced is foreign fruit. Like a perfect heirloom cross-pollinated with something undesirable, each generation becomes more and more corrupt and less like pure heirloom from which they were created. 

The glory of God is not produced in the lives of those who have gone their own way. The glory of God is not produced except in those attached to the True Vine who is Jesus Christ. (That’s John 15 that Eli read.)

So, what’s the greatest prevention to our bearing this fruit Paul longs to harvest? Our sin. 

Which takes us back to Paul’s phrase, thus far have been prevented. 

MAN-CENTERED CURSE

It’s a blessing to produce the fruit of God’s glory. (Romans 3:21)
It’s a curse for God to give people up to produce their own man-centered glory. (Romans 1:24)

O we might think much of such glory in our flesh. But all man-centered glory quickly fades, decays, and will soon perish to be remembered no more. 

PREVENTED BY THE SPIRIT

Paul’s being prevented from reaping a harvest in any particular place is, thus, multifold. 

Acts 16:6 says that the Holy Spirit prevented (same word) Paul from speaking the Word in Asia. Then, having come up to Mysia, Paul attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow him. 

God is in no way obligated to send the gospel to anyone. If we ever fail to understand that we confuse grace for entitlement. Sometimes God withholds the gospel as an act of judgment, just as Jesus spoke in parables as a means of hiding the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven. So, at times, the Spirit forbids or prevents the gospel going forth as an act of God’s continued judgment on a people for a time.

It’s also true that God sometimes delays sending the gospel so that the harvest, when it does come, will be all the more glorious. (Hold onto that.)

PREVENTED BY SATAN

Another means of hindering comes from the evil one. Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonica was prevented — or cut short — from returning to strengthen the believers there. What prevented his return. 1 Thessalonians 2:18. I, Paul, wanted to come to you again and again, but Satan hindered us.

PREVENTED BY MINISTRY

There’s a third way in which Scripture speaks of Paul being hindered, and that is Paul was busy doing the work of ministry. That’s in Romans 15.
Paul had been fulfilling the ministry of the gospel of Christ… This, Paul writes, is the reason I have so often been hindered from coming to you. 

So, while Paul longs to reap some harvest among the believers in Rome, he recognizes that the Grand Gardener ultimately decides when and where that harvest will take place. 

We are to labor and build, plant and water, but God alone gives the harvest.

DEBTOR TO ALL

But why Rome? Because Paul has an obligation to all. Verse 14 and 15.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 

Literally, Paul is a debtor — a debtor to all, because Paul is a debtor to God.

Self-righteous Paul had his eyes opened on the road to Damascus. Far from being righteous, far from having no sin from which to repent, Paul came to terms with the fact that he was the chief of all sinners in need of the same grace everyone else needs. 

Paul could never repay the debt Jesus paid in his place. But what Paul could do is live his life entirely for the glory of Jesus Christ. What Paul could do is proclaim this same gospel that saved him, so that more and more sinners would be transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light to produce the fruit that redounds to God’s glory.

CULTURAL ELITES

It didn’t matter their status or culture, whether they were the more educated or the simple, because this good news is no respecter of persons. That’s what’s meant by the two pairs of classes Paul mentions in verse 14.
Greeks and barbarians. The wise and the foolish. 

The word barbarian is an onomatopoeia. To Greek speaking society, the rest of the world seemed to speak unintelligibly. It sounded like – bar bar bar bar Barbra Ann. Wait, that’s the Beach Boys. Well perhaps Brian Wilson would have sounded a little unintelligible as well. 

Anyway. The term was often used derogatively to express an inferiority to those who accepted and conformed to Greek culture. Kind of like some who look down on those from rural Appalachia because they judge their culture as backwards and backwoods. 

Similarly, Paul juxtaposes the wise with the foolish. Here, he’s not referring to Proverbs’ idea of the wise and foolish, but the culture’s. You have your Ivy League elites, and you have those who “didn’t get no additional education.” 

UNIMPRESSED

Listen loved ones, God’s not impressed with any of your cultural or academic accomplishments. Nor is He displeased because you either failed to or chose not to climb society’s expectational ladder. If anything, your supposed status will prove a hindrance, because Jesus saves not the proud but the lowly.

Jesus sums it up best in one of his prayers. Matthew 11:25.
I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 

IMPRESSIVE PAUL

Paul was once among the elites. Pharisee of Pharisees. Kept the Law perfectly — at least in his own eyes. Paul was trained under Gamaliel.
From Acts and Paul’s letters, one would come to the conclusion that Paul was the top of his class. But as top of his class, Paul would never willingly bow the knee to Jesus. He first needed to be brought low to the point where all his achievements were now nothing more than rubbish. 

Paul, who once persecuted Christ and his church, goes from being the fiercest persecutor of the gospel to the most eager to preach the gospel. 

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. The gospel is the one message that produces the obedience of faith — the fruit Paul so earnestly desires to harvest among those in Rome. 

FRUITFUL TALK

How is the gospel of Christ the only message that will produce such fruit? Because it is the one message that reattaches image-bearers to the Vine. 

Only in being attached to Jesus, the True Vine, can you and I do anything truly meaningful and lasting. That might sound like an overstatement, so maybe it’s better to hear it from Jesus himself. 

John 15. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser (or Gardener). Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit…
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

LIKE THE BRANCH

What is this fruit? I think it becomes obvious when we consider that the branches bear the likeness of the vine and produce after the likeness of the vine. 

So, at a bare minimum, the fruit is not so much more converts, but Christ-likeness. The fruit is having the image restored more and more as you and I are conformed after the likeness of the One who is the exact imprint of God Himself.

While we could wrap up here…

ACTS 8

To capture this idea of hindered and harvesting, obligated and obedient, turn to Acts 8, where Luke shares the account of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.

Acts 8:26. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And Philip arose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

ELITE CLASS

This court official would certainly qualify as being in the elite class Paul referred to in verse 14. He’s reading from the scroll of Isaiah, so he’s educated. He’s a court official to the queen, so he holds a prominent position of authority. Being over the queen’s treasury, he has incalculable wealth under his care. From a human perspective, this man would be seen a success — living a very fruitful life in the world’s eyes.

CUT OFF

But despite all appearances, this Ethiopian Eunuch is prevented, hindered, cut-off from the people of God. How?

FOREIGN

First, he’s a foreigner. While the law made provisions for foreigners to join themselves to the people of God, for the most part Gentiles were excluded. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians expresses this Ethiopian’s predicament. Remember that at one time you Gentiles (those who are not Jews) were separated from Christ, alienated form the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants and promise, having no hope and without God in the world. He is foreign to the covenants and promises of God.

BARREN

The second thing that has this man severed from God’s people is he’s a Eunuch. Now, the simplest way I know to describe a Eunuch to my kids is that he’s a man who has been made safe to be around the queen. Where the law made provisions for foreigners to join themselves to the people of God, the Law specifically forbade any deformed or emasculated male from entering the assembly of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 23:1)

Part of the issue with being a Eunuch is that it made it impossible to fulfill the very first command given in all of Scripture. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 

This man is anything but fruitful. He’ll never multiply. He’ll never have a child of his own. He’s like a dry tree. Barren, just like the desert road between Jerusalem and Gaza. What fruitful harvest could possibly come from him?

IGNORANT

The third thing that separates him from God’s people is that he’s ignorant of the promises of God. He holds the scroll of Isaiah in his hands, but he’s unable to understand. Like Jesus’ parables, someone will need to explain it.

Look at Acts 8:31. The Spirit has Philip join the chariot. So, Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah and asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” And he said, “How can I unless someone guides me?”

HELP ME, PLEASE!

I hope you hear the humility in that response. I need help. This powerful man riding in back of the queen’s chariot, confessing to a guy who doesn’t even have his own ride, “I need help.” So, he invites Philip to come sit with him.

Loved ones. That is the first step to being able to receive the good news Philip is about to share with this man. This good news that takes a dry tree and makes it fruitful. This same good news that Paul wants to further proclaim to the church in Rome.

A FITTING VERSE

And out of all the passages in Scripture he could be reading, the Ethiopian Eunuch is reading these verses.

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.

And the Eunuch asks Philip, “About whom, I ask, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”Because, one thing for sure, whoever this passage is referring to, this Ethiopian Eunuch can relate. 

JESUS AND EUNUCHS

Jesus had something to say regarding eunuchs. [In Matthew 19.] There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

It is likely this Ethiopian was made a eunuch at the hands of men.
Led like a sheep to the slaughter to be sheared.
Who was he to cry out to? So, he doesn’t open his mouth.
In his humiliation — let me ask, have you known this degree of humiliation?
He was denied justice — literally — justice was lifted or removed from him.
Who can describe his generation? His family? His future heirs? There would be none. No son, no daughter.
His life was lifted from the earth.

NOT ABOUT HIM

Beginning with this passage from Isaiah, Philip tells the eunuch the good news regarding Jesus. This passage, as much as the Eunuch could relate to it, is not about him or the prophet who penned it but about Jesus.

Jesus was the sheep led to the slaughter.
Jesus was the lamb who was silent before his shearers —
 who resolved to remain quite while he was falsely accused and sentenced.
Jesuse was humiliated —
 God of the universe spit upon, mocked, beaten by people he created,
 stripped bare and nailed exposed on a Roman cross for all to gawk at.
Jesus was denied justice.
 Pilate, the governor, repeatedly announced Jesus’ innocence.
 “I find no guilt in him.”
 Yet for fear of the crowd, he sent Jesus to the cross anyway.

The man, Jesus, would never have a biological child of his own — because on that cross, his life was lifted, removed, from the earth. He died without a single heir.

JESUS KNOWS

O Jesus knows the eunuch’s pain, oppression, every injustice ever done to him. And he knows yours. And that’s so important to grasp if you are ever to produce any sort of fruit in your life. 

OUR GREATEST HINDRANCE

But it didn’t matter in the least how much power this Ethiopian official may have had. Second only to the queen, incalculable wealth under his charge, among the academic elites —apart from knowing the One who denied himself of his infinite power, authority, and wealth — an utterly ignorant and foolish act in the world’s eyes — in order to die in this man’s place, the Ethiopian eunuch was hopeless. 

Why? Because the greatest hindrance that had him severed from God and the people of God is the same thing that separates any of us. Sin.

Sin is not merely our greatest barrier; it is the barrier.
Sin makes us foreign to God’s design for our lives.
Sin makes us barren and fruitless.
Sin distorts our knowledge of God… placing us on a desert road far from Him.

BARRIER REMOVED

But Jesus removes the barrier of sin and the brokenness it causes by becoming broken in our place. 

Like the Eunuch, Jesus also came to Jerusalem to worship. Jesus came to worship by making himself a eunuch, in order to remove the barrier of sin that separates us from God — the sin that once left us fruitless.

NO LONGER HINDERED

But you know how the account of this Eunuch ends? Verse 36. Along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”

That word, “prevent”, is the same word in our text — in Romans 1:13. It’s root means, “with a part lopped off.” At one point, this Eunuch was lopped off from the people of God. But no longer. With a little water found along the desert road, indeed Living Water, this once barren man will now produce the fruit of God’s glory.

DEATH AND WATER

Isn’t the whole picture of baptism so perfect for capturing this. Those waters, in one sense, represent death. A seed must fall to the ground and die or it will remain alone, never producing anything. But the seed must also be watered if it’s ever to produce any fruit. Baptism represents both death and new life.

In Rome, seeds have been planted. Yet Paul yearns to come and further water, in order to see the harvest increased.

As for the Ethiopian Eunuch, Isaiah 56 proclaims: Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people.” And let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” … for to those who hold fast my covenant, I will give them a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

PRUNED FOR HARVEST

Loved ones, Jesus is the vine that was pruned — lopped off — in our place, in order that we need never again be severed from God and His people. And attached to this vine, we have the promise of a glorious harvest — not according to world’s eyes but God’s.

Whether Ethiopia or Rome, the harvest of the nations has begun. Whether Philip or Paul, they knew their debt to Christ — that they were obligated to all regardless of status. And they were eager to obey.

WRAP UP

So, what does this have to do with Romans?

Both deal with a temporary hindrance that God Himself sovereignly ordained in order that the harvest would be all the more glorious.

Whether Paul’s delay in getting to and beyond Rome or the Ethiopian foreigner who had so long been prevented all his life from being a part of the people of God.

Both express our obligation — as debtors to Christ — to share this good news with all — regardless of their apparent social status. Don’t be fooled by outward appearances. Outside of Christ, everyone is barren. There is not a soul who is not in desperate need of the Living Water of Christ.—the water of life that poured forth from Jesus’ pierced side to water the thirsty barren ground. 

Paul was hindered from coming to Rome due to fruitful ministry elsewhere. This Ethiopian Eunuch was hindered from the people of God for a time that he might become a part of someone’s fruitful ministry.

In both cases, the Grand Gardener’s timing for sowing and reaping is perfect — watering the once barren land so it produces a harvest that redounds to his glory. 

Don’t be discouraged by the hindrances you meet along the way. The Master Gardener knows what he’s doing. Pruning where he will to produce the most glorious harvest to the praise of His glorious grace.

https://youtu.be/5-nvdVnw2oY