Romans 1:18-23
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. [NASB]
Verse 18 is where, I think, Paul begins his gospel presentation. The connection with the previous passage seems to be the Greek word apokaluptetai, meaning “he, she, or it is revealed.” In verse 17, it was the righteousness of God that is revealed in the gospel. Here, it is the wrath of God that is revealed. How it is revealed is yet to be seen–that will be the subject of verses 24-32. In these verses, Paul describes what he means when he refers to the recipients of God’s wrath as those practicing “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness.” This passage is critical if we are to appreciate everything that follows–indeed if we are to truly understand the gospel message, we must come to terms with the truth Paul preaches here.
The unrighteous and godless suppress the truth. Paul goes on to explain that God has made His existence evident to them. In their hearts they know He exists, and the creation so clearly displays God’s divine power, so they have no excuse for denying Him. Yet they suppress that knowledge, preferring instead to follow their own path. They don’t want to honor God or give Him the thanks and praise He is due as their Creator and Sustainer. Instead they put their minds to futile speculations. They turn to worship of images and creatures–idolatry–instead of worshiping God.
If we understand the distinction between “righteous” and “unrighteous” here as that between “Christian” and “non-Christian” (which I think is justified given what Paul has already said, and what teaches in the following chapters), Paul is saying that even non-Christians, people who profess to be atheists, know in their heart-of-hearts that there is a God; they are just actively suppressing that knowledge so they can live the lives they do. Naturally, atheists will deny this to be the case, but there’s a reason why the atheist worldview simply doesn’t work. The concept of morality is inconsistent with an atheist outlook; atheists cannot explain the existence of universal moral principles, or things like love, justice, mercy. There is no natural reason why such things should be so dear to people, and so much a part of human nature. So when the atheist practices such things, he demonstrates his innate knowledge of God, because only a knowledge of God would allow him to value these principles.
The denial of God expressed by the unrighteous is demonstrated by substituting the God who is real for idols, things that are diametrically opposed to God. Such blatant rebellion is surely another sign that they know God is real. And Paul calls them fools, despite their professing to be wise (remember, Paul is obliged to preach the gospel to both the wise and the foolish, the Greek and the barbarian). Only a fool would parade his hatred of God in such a way. And yet it still happens today.
Some interesting points from the text. When Paul says in verse 23 that they “became fools,” the verb he uses is môrainô, from which we get our word “moron.” Paul uses this word in this sense again in 1 Corinthians 1:20, but it is also used in Matthew 5:13/Luke 14:34 about salt becoming tasteless. It is not uncommon for words to change their meaning in different contexts without there necessarily being a connection between the different meanings. But in this case I wonder if there is a sense in which, just like salt that loses its saltiness becomes useless as salt, in the same way the unrighteous man who suppresses the knowledge of God and lives in unrighteousness has lost what it means to be God’s loving creation, and is unable to function in that capacity–there is something missing from his life. This might be stretching it a bit, but it is an interesting thought.
The verb Paul uses when he says they “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God…” in verse 23 is the verb allassô, which can mean either “to change,” or “to exchange.” The New King James version chooses the meaning “change,” which I cannot agree with. They are not changing the glory of God into something else, but they are exchanging it for something else–they are replacing the glory of God as the object of their worship.
For the Greek/Hebrew geeks, it is interesting to note that Paul’s use of the verb allassô with the preposition en parallels the way the Hebrew verb mûr (which means “to change” or “to exchange”) is used with the preposition be. On its own, the Hebrew preposition be means (among many other things) “in” or “on,” which is also the meaning of the Greek en. But when this Hebrew preposition is used with mûr it denotes the object of the exchange (e.g., Psalm 106:20: “Thus they exchanged (wayâmîrû) their glory For the image (betabenîth) of an ox that eats grass” [NASB]). Paul uses the Greek en in the same way in Romans 1:23, which, to my knowledge, is not the way this preposition would normally be used in Greek, showing that Paul is importing a Hebrew grammatical construction. It’s possible his usage reflects the usage in the LXX (the Septuagint–the “standard” Greek translation of the Old Testament). In other words, Paul didn’t do this off his own initiative, but simply did what the translators of the LXX had done. However, Romans 1:23 is not a quotation from the OT, so Paul is clearly comfortable using this Hebraism in his own prose.
A last point of textual interest. His mention of man, birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures or reptiles (Greek: herpeton) in verse 23 seems to recall the creation account in Genesis. I’m not sure we can read anything into this other than Paul setting out the scope of man’s idolatry. Fallen man would rather take anything from within the whole realm of creation as an object of worship rather than the Creator of all things Himself.
A thought from the text: how does the fact that all men–atheists included–are suppressing the knowledge of God affect your evangelism? Or to put it more pointedly, do we really need to prove God’s existence to anyone? Might it not be more effective to demonstrate to people how their values and morals betray a hidden knowledge of God?
Yes, I know–another large section. I’m trying to catch up to where we got to in our Sunday School before we start up again on September 11th, so I’m afraid I might have to continue with large chunks for a little while. But even here I’m not going as deeply as I could. But that’s what the comments are for. Please–use them to discuss, ask questions, disagree… but be nice! 🙂
