Romans 1:18-23

The proposition of Romans (Romans 1:16-17) establishes the idea of “The Righteousness of God.” God is good; God's nature is right and His laws are just. He possesses both actual righteousness and legal righteousness. But the human problem is that we are not. We have broken God's law. We have lost legal righteousness; we are criminals. If the righteousness of God is going to be imparted to us, we have to have a change in our legal standing. That is what we call JUSTIFICATION.

The body of Romans is divided into roughly 4 sections, and the first of those is dedicated to this idea. How can God impart to us legal righteousness? How can we be justified? The issue of justification occupies the section from Romans 1:18 through the end of Romans 4. 

The gospel is good news, but in order to understand the good news, you first have to know the bad news. We have to understand our position before we can figure out how to get out of it. I think it was C. S. Lewis who used this illustration. Suppose you went up to the average man on the street and told him he had the opportunity to have a free, all-expenses-paid, heart surgery. Obviously, that would not be especially exciting--unless he knew that he needed it. In other words, until he knew that he had a problem, he wouldn't be interested in the solution.

Also, until we fully understand the problem we will not be able to assess solutions accurately. You cannot accurately know the cure for a condition that you cannot diagnose. If you get a lump on your hand, it is very important to know whether it's a wart or cancer before you decide on a treatment for it. So for a good part of Romans, Paul spends his time explaining the human problem and the human condition, beginning by speaking of the Gentiles and the history of sin among the Gentiles.

In verses 16-17, Paul said that the righteousness of God is revealed. Now in verse 18, he says that the wrath of God is revealed against the unrighteousness of man. This serves as the basic premise for the next chapter or two of Romans. Picture a diagram with God on the top and man on the bottom. As Paul will show, man is unrighteous, that is, his nature and his actions are not good. And not only is he unrighteous, but ungodly, that is, he does not worship God. Man's unrighteousness in nature and action is tied to his lack of relation to God. So on man's side, we have ungodliness, a lack of attention to, reverence for, dependence on God. And so on God's side, we have wrath.

I have talked extensively about this idea of the wrath of God in another article. (Graphing the Atonement: The Wrath of God) Rather than retread that ground here, I think we can simply define God's wrath as his recognition of and condemnation of unrighteousness. God's wrath is his judgment against sin. So later in Romans Paul will warn us not to seek revenge for ourselves because God and God alone can truly judge and punish sin. And he will also tell the Romans to submit to the government, because the government is God's means for dealing wrath upon evil-doers, because the government punishes criminals. (c.p. Romans 12:19, 13:4)

In short, when Paul says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, it means that God recognizes man and sin and punishes it. That does not deny God's mercy or love, as we will see later. But the first fact we have to get clear, so far as Romans is concerned, is that God realizes and recognizes sin; God punishes sin and will punish it. It is an inevitable rule of life that judgment follows ungodliness and unrighteousness. Earlier, I asked you to picture a diagram with God on the top and man on the bottom. And here is the point--so long as we have the Righteousness of God at the top and the Unrighteousness of Man at the bottom, the relation from God to man will always involve wrath; that is, displeasure and punishment. That is one of the central facts of Romans. God is a God of truth and He cannot and will not accept a lie. God cannot and will not simply ignore sin or treat it as if it were righteousness. Wrath follows sin as certainly as smoke follows fire.

But while this is true, there is something else that must be noted. God's wrath is not the only thing that is revealed. God's nature is also revealed. This is verse 19: “that which may be known of God is manifest in them.” Mankind was ungodly, turned away from God. And that is not ignorance, but rebellion. The problem is not that people have simply not known God but that they have rejected the knowledge of God. Look at verse 20: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.” We cannot see God, since He is invisible, but we can see the world he has created and from that we have evidence of God's existence. Joseph Addison wrote a poem describing the wonder and beauty of the stars and planets and then closes with these words: “What though no real voice nor sound/Amidst their radiant orbs be found?/In reason's ear they all rejoice,/And utter forth a glorious voice:/Forever singing, as they shine,/'The Hand that made us is Divine.'” From nature, from the world that God has created, it is clear that there is a God, a God of great power, great wisdom, and great goodness. Paul uses this argument to appeal to the Athenians and the Lystrans. 

There is a whole study in verse 20 alone and there are a whole series of arguments showing how we see God through creation. But so far as Romans is concerned, the important point is not what you might think. We are used to this idea of inferring one thing from something else. Archeologists dig up artifacts and ruins and from them infer the existence and nature of extinct societies. Detectives find clues and try to infer the nature and existence of the criminal. But that is not what happens here. We do not merely find this world and try to infer and construct the idea of God. Look at verse 19--who is the active agent in this?

It is God; God deliberately reveals Himself to man. If we think of the gulf between God and man, we see that God makes the first step to bridge that gap by revealing Himself. He revealed Himself to all mankind through nature, as Paul says here. He revealed Himself through man's conscience. He revealed Himself more specifically to the Jews through history and through the scripture, as Paul will speak of later. He hath, in these last days, given an even greater revelation of Himself through His son. The opening verse of this passage states that God's wrath is revealed, but it's not as if wrath were the only thing God has revealed. God has revealed his existence and his nature to man. Those, even without the scripture, did have a revelation from and knowledge of God. For instance, here is a quote from the Roman orator Cicero: “There is something in the nature of things Which the mind of man, which reason, which human power cannot effect; and certainly that which produces this must be better than man. What can this be called but God?”

But what we have to keep in mind is that God takes the active role here. Man does not find God; God shows himself to man.  We speak of “man's search for God.” Paul uses almost those words in Acts 17. And that is true in this sense. We have to look for God. God has given us a revelation but we have to look at it. If we close our eyes, God will not force himself upon us. God leaves the choice up to us. But while from our perspective, we seek of seeking God, in reality, it is God who is seeking us. God is the originator and the active agent in all this. God revealed himself and let a path open. Man does not force open the door of the knowledge of God. God has thrown the door wide open. The only question is whether man will or will not walk through it.

And the answer to that question is Romans 1:21. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” God revealed Himself. The pagans, those who did not have God's written word, still had enough evidence and knowledge to know about God. They could not claim ignorance as an excuse. But they rejected God. Verse 18 can be translated: “they held back the truth in unrighteousness.” In other words, they knew the truth but chose to reject it. They knew God but they did not glorify him, they did not worship him, they did not give thanks to him. This relationship could have been worship and thanksgiving as a response to God's revelation, but instead, it was ungodliness; if I understand this correctly, this word literally means not worshipping. Man refused to accept and acknowledge God's revelation and respond with worship.

And because they would not accept the truth, they accepted a lie. Because they would not let in the light, they let in the darkness. Because they rejected wisdom, they became foolish. Because they would not worship God, they began to worship other things. It almost seems that there is a progressive descent in verse 23; man exchanged the uncorruptible glory of God for corruptible man. That is an infinite fall--to worship a creature instead of the creator. Anything in this world is finite and corruptible, that is changing and decaying and fallible. They made gods that were like man. But, of course, man is in the image of God; man has an exalted position and station on the earth. But not only did they worship gods that were like man, but gods like birds. A bird is something less than a man, but there is something noble about a bird; it soars high above the earth and comes close to heaven. But not only did they worship birds, but fourfooted beasts, the common beasts of the field which walk and plod and chew grass. But not only did they worship animals but creeping things--reptiles and insects. They had a revelation of the eternal, immortal, all mighty God and they chose to worship bugs instead.

Professing to be wise they became fools. And it is easy for us to look back on their idolatry with scorn for their foolishness, but as we will see later the rejection of God's truth can lead to worse things than mere idolatry and things which are not as far from us as we might think.

The point of this passage is this. The heathens, who did not have God's word, did have God's revelation. He revealed himself in nature. And they rejected that revelation. Therefore they were without excuse. If they did not have God's revelation, they could not have rejected it. But they did, and hence they were unrighteous. They had sundered the cord between earth and heaven. G. K. Chesterton said that he listened to some people talking “with a hideous fascination, like watching a man sawing off the branch that he is sitting on.” That is the entire history of the world. By choosing ungodliness, man had cut off his own support and so fell, fell into unrighteousness and foolishness. Now, we should be clear: at this point, Paul is not talking about the fall of Adam or the origination of sin in the beginning--that comes in much later. Right now, he is just pointing to these two facts--that God had given a revelation, so that man had no excuse. And that man had rejected that revelation and so had come into sin. And therefore the wrath of God was revealed against the unrighteousness of man.