Moral Degradation in 3 Easy Steps

Romans 1:18-32

The first 17 verses of Romans are Paul's introduction. Not all of the epistle writers gave introductions; James stands out to me as one with no introduction (he starts it out with some light-hearted comments regarding joy while facing trials). But Paul does an introduction and he does it right. There's a lot to unpack in those 17 verses (as I found out in dissecting them!) but they are just the intro. Verse 18 is where he really gets into the meat of it. This section, 1:18 - 3:20, (which I'm only touching a piece of in this blog) is generally thought of by Bible scholars as the first of seven parts (yeah, I have no idea why they don't say 8 parts and count the intro as part one. I guess they just like the Godly number 7. Whatev...). Anyway, I'm starting to officially dig into Romans Part 1 right now. In Part 1 we will learn that the world and every person on it is completely jacked up. No one is good, no one looks good in front of a holy and righteous God, and no one looks any better to Him than anyone else does. Sound uplifting? Read on...

In v. 18 Paul starts to talk about sin and the wrath of God. The wrath of God is being revealed, just as the righteousness of God is being revealed (v. 17). The same wording is used in both of those verses. God's wrath wasn't just revealed in the Old Testament; God's wrath won't just be revealed in the Revelation times (whatever that is. I hesitate to use the words "End Times" due to the risk of sounding like an Armageddon crazy.) Anyhoo, His wrath is being revealed... it was being revealed in the Old Testament, it was being revealed during Paul's time, it will be revealed during the Revelation times, and, by golly, it's being revealed right now. But how? I'm sure we've all heard about God's wrath being revealed... it was revealed on 9/11, or it's revealed by soldiers dying, or by people getting AIDS or cancer, or whatever the crazies are spewing out today about His wrath. But what does He have to say about His wrath? If He's telling us in His word that His wrath is being revealed, surely He should let us know what we should actually be looking for! As a matter of fact, He does. There are three instances in the book of Romans that give us glimpses of the evidence of God's wrath. Check it out.

1. Everyone dies as a result of one man's sin (Romans 5:15-18). So... at first this passage seems really uplifting. And it is! I'm definitely not wanting to diminish that part of it, because life is the real point of the passage. But think about it from another point of view. What it's also telling us is that we all die because one man (Adam) sinned. Of course, we all continue to sin without exception, but... but... he started it! And that's some pretty serious wrath.
   
2. Creation is in bondage to decay (Romans 8:20-23) Yeah, that one doesn't even sound pleasant. And that's because it's not. Basically that means that people wither away and die painful, wasting deaths, natural disasters abound, plants and animals suffer the elements and die, and I have to constantly pull thorny, nasty weeds from my garden. This is because God created a beautiful and perfect world that we (continually, as well as through one man, see #1) ruined. God reveals His wrath by causing/allowing His beautiful creation to become increasingly less beautiful and perfect. And all we can do is endure this decay and look forward the hope of salvation and eternity and the perfection of Heaven.
   
3. People and society just keep getting worse (Romans 1:28). (Actually the entire passage that I'm getting ready to delve into talks about this, but v. 28 summarizes it fairly well.) We hear this all the time from older people (and people, like me, who think and feel old): people keep getting worse, coming up with and committing new forms of the same old sins, becoming more and more accepting of all sorts of depravity, worshiping all manner of newly created gods. That's just the world we live in. And because of society not recognizing an easily recognizable God, He gave them up to it. Society can live in filth, roll around in it like pigs in mud, and you'll never see God strike anyone down with a lightening bolt (at least not right now... I think that kind of thing will eventually come, but definitely not last Saturday). He gave them/us up to depraved minds long ago, and that's how it will be until the end of it all.
   

So, we can see that this wrath is being revealed, despite the attempts of many Christians to deny that it exists in these post-New Testament times. But what exactly is His wrath? Is it some blemish on His divine character? Some might think that, but the fact is that our God is perfect in every aspect of His character. The main problem with thinking of God as angry and vengeful is that we think of those things in human terms. God is not human and so He is perfect in His wrath, just like He's perfect in His love, and so He is only ever justifiably angry. He is not spiteful or malicious; He is not petty or vindictive. He detests sin, as it is in complete discord with His perfect character, and when He displays and reveals His wrath, it is always and only just.

The more important question here, in my opinion, is "WHY has God revealed His wrath?" I mean, our lives here would certainly be easier if He just left us in the dark about it. We'd certainly find out soon enough that He's thoroughly disgusted with us, and He could reveal His wrath at that time, after we've lived out our human existences on this earth in relative pleasure. But He doesn't work that way. And I think that's another testament to His justice and mercy. He reveals His wrath so that He can reveal His love. When I'm angry with my husband and he says "What's wrong?" and I say "Nothing.", what I'm really saying is "I don't want to talk about it and fix the problem and forgive you. I'd rather stay angry, so I'm not telling." Unlike a bitter wife, God is revealing His wrath so that we can become reconciled to Him because He loves us so perfectly.

That's the only thing that makes God's wrath on ungodly and unrighteous people understandable in our human minds. It's easy to think that God is cruel or unjust for pouring out wrath on people who might never have had a chance to hear about Him, or who might have been taught incorrectly about Him, or even those who simply rejected Him for their own reasons. But the facts that He is the true embodiment of love and that He is love even in His anger, show us that He is completely kind and just. It's impossible for us, as humans, to even fathom the depths of our holy, awesome God's love or his anger, and if anything is unjust, it is us attempting to judge someone who created us and who is so complex and deep that all we can do before Him is fall on our faces in worship.

I believe that God is fiercely angry with ungodly mankind - and all of us are ungodly. Why wouldn't He be fiercely angry with people who "exchanged the glory of God" for created idols, who "exchanged the truth of God for a lie", and who "have become filled with every kind of wickedness"? If I were God, I'd be thinking "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it!" In modern, evangelical Christianity this tends to be a taboo topic. Who would "ask Jesus into their heart" if they thought he was an angry, wrath-filled God instead of a warm, fuzzy, feel-good God? Why do we think it's better for people to "accept" God under false pretenses than it is to tell them the truth? I'd be pretty aggravated if I accepted a job after being told by another employee of the company that my boss is "totally cool, will let you do anything you want and won't ever fire you if you just accept the job", then to find out later that my new boss is actually very fair,expects hard work and dedication, and rewards those who follow His directions. Who the boss actually is, in this scenario, is not so bad at all, but I wouldn't want to go into something expecting to be late every day, play on Facebook, take 2 hours for lunch and collect a paycheck, when in reality I have to perform a very rewarding but difficult job even when I don't feel like it. I think it's important for us to present God as He is. He created everything! He is worthy of praise, awe, and adoration; His amazing qualities speak for themselves. He does not deserve misrepresentation. (And btw, kind of off topic, but please google that phrase "ask Jesus into your heart". There were so many good articles that I couldn't choose just one to link here, but that phrase is such utter crap that it's not even funny. Okay, maybe a little funny. But not in a good way.)

The phrase "God gave them over" is repeated three times in this passage in verses 24, 26, and 28. This phrase has real significance in that this passage, through those words, is a three-point sermon on moral degradation (Paul was a master of the three-point sermon. There was actually one in the intro. that I missed writing about and may eventually come back to). When this passage is studied, it's really easy to harp on the description of immorality, and that's what these verses are generally used to discuss. But the face that "God gave them over" is the real shocker here. It's easy to over-look, but I'm going to delve into it as best as I can here.

1. God gave them over to sexual impurity because they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and animals. (v. 22-24) This is one of those things that seems completely inapplicable to us. I mean, we don't worship statues or place the glory of God on men or animals, thereby demoting God to the level of men and animals. Those crazy pagans did that in ancient times, but we are far too forward for that now, right? Right. Because I don't know of any parents that dote on their children to the point that they are the gods and goddesses of the household. I don't know any people that spend more money on their dogs than they do on their tithe. I don't know anyone who's raised a friend or a spouse to a level of hero-worship. Or.... do I? Because placing the glory of God on something that it doesn't belong on doesn't have to be traditional worship of a calf statue. It just means that you're putting something else in a position that should be reserved for God, and when you do that, you're inadvertently putting God in a place below that of men and animals. What happens when we do this is that God gives us over to sexual impurity. It seems kind of unconnected that someone would be given up to sexual impurity because of idol worship, but the fact is that this is the first step in moral degradation. And the first thing that's given up in this "demotion of God" is our bodies. It's not that the two are connected; it's just that this is the first step, the first thing that happens to those who reject God.
2. God gave them over to shameful lusts because they exchanged His truth for a lie. (v. 25-26) The exchanging of God's truth for lies is very easy to see in this society. In fact, it's sometimes hard to know what to believe because there are so many opinions out there. And I think all we can really do is look at God's word and decide for ourselves what He's saying to us. But there are all different types of preachers, teachers and evangelists saying all different types of things now. We hear that if we "ask Jesus into our hearts" we'll go to Heaven, we hear that if we love God we'll have mo money, no problems, we hear that Jesus was a good guy but He wasn't God. And that is what exchanging God's truth for a lie is all about. That's step number 2. "Shameful lusts" is kind of a confusing term because it seems like the same thing as "sinful desires" but I thinkwhat we're giving up here is our hearts. Our hearts that should feel affection, both emotional and physical, for natural things (ie our God-given spouse) begin to feel affection, both emotional and physical, for unnatural things (like people who are not our spouse).
3. God gave them over to a depraved mind because they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. (v. 28-29) We are told to think on what is good, what is of God. If we refuse to retain this knowledge and think on these things, then we've taken that last step, and are minds are what, finally, go. Our minds are in constant motion, and if we choose not to think about what's good, we will inevitably think on evil things.
   

And once our bodies, hearts and minds have been given over to sin, there is not really anything left but sin. There is a massive list in v. 29-32 of what we become after taking our three steps to depravity as outlined here. Some of the things in the list are sins that we Christians would certainly name in a self-righteous manner when talking about "those sinners out there." But there are some surprising and convicting things on the list too. I think it's worthwhile to take a look at every one of those things. This list is almost like an anti-fruit of the spirit list, telling what we naturally do when given up to sin. The sad part is that I feel like I can identify with a lot more of the Romans list than I can with the Galatians list. Is there any wonder that Christians are identified as hypocrites?

In being evangelical, it is really, really important to acknowledge your own faults. When people think that we are perfect, it's us that gets the glory. When they know we're not, the glory can only be God's.

I guess at some point I need to address the big issue of this passage. I have done my best to avoid it up until now, but every commentary and study guide I've looked at has addressed it, and I wouldn't feel like I'd been true to the gospel if I didn't do the same. In v. 26-27, Paul discusses women exchanging natural relations for unnatural ones, and men abandoning natural relations with women and becoming inflamed with lust for one another. Does this really need explanation? It is totally and completely clear. If Paul was talking about what our personal "natural" inclination was, he wouldn't talk about men abandoning natural relations with women and turning to one another. He's making it very clear that "natural" means men with women. I know this is so controversial, but I really, really don't understand why. It is perfectly clear in every passage that addresses it. And don't even tell me that Jesus never mentioned it. That's true. We have no record of Jesus mentioning it. That's because Jesus was a good Jewish boy, and the Jews KNEW that it was unnatural. It was mentioned way back in Leviticus and so Jesus had no need of addressing it. I'm sorry to have to come to that conclusion because I know that it's hard to hear (although, perhaps my 3 readers will agree with me and I won't be throwing myself to the lions. Who knows...). At any rate, that's what the word says, and that's all I have to go by. I will add, though, that other sins mentioned in the passage of Romans I'm currently studying are envy, deceit, gossip, boasting, disobeying parents.... What I take that to mean is that, yes, homosexuality is a sin. And that's something I don't struggle with personally. But so are some things that I do struggle with. So I have no room to boast or be proud. We all have our own struggles, and we all need to work to overcome them, and with the power of Jesus Christ, we CAN overcome them. Praise be to God!

In closing, I want to come back to Romans 1:18 briefly. This is considered to be "Romans' Key Verse" and so I felt that it deserved a little more time spent on it. It took me a lot of time and research to come up with the logic on this. It doesn't seem like a key verse, unless, by "key verse", you mean "most depressing verse". But after a lot of looking, I found some notes from the wonderful John Piper. So, let it be known that I am paraphrasing him now. Earlier I discussed three examples in the book of Romans that show God's wrath being revealed. There are three counter-points to those, that make Romans 1:18 far more "key" in my mind.

1. Death is a gateway into paradise. Oh, death, where is your sting? Death, for believers, is not the wrath of God. It is "the last gasp of a defeated enemy who unwittingly opens a door to Paradise." (John Piper).
2. Suffering and decay are pathways to holiness. The suffering of a believer is never without purpose. In Him, all things work together for good. Through suffering and decay we are punished, purified, and disciplined, but we are never far from the loving hand of our Savior.
3. We don't keep getting worse, we start getting better. We are being remade in His image, in His likeness. He does not give us over to a depraved mind, He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit to convict, correct, and guide us so that we can always be striving to be more like Him.

Take heart! God is not only revealing His wrath with Romans 1:18; He is also revealing His righteousness where there is no condemnation for us any more.

"For you (whoever you are!), who believe, death becomes a gateway to paradise; suffering becomes a pathway to holiness; and sin becomes a dethroned enemy that we fight by the power of God's Spirit." ~John Piper