Studying His Word and His Works

Listen to the study here: Romans 1:26-32

Read here: Romans 1

• Review: Romans 1:18-25
  • God’s wrath is against the unrighteous. One sign of the unrighteous is they suppress the truth. The truth being suppressed here is not God’s word (although that occurs, too), but the truth of God revealed in creation for everyone to see plainly.
    • One thing Paul describes in detail in Romans is that Christians are still sinners, and while that sin nature is dying a slow death, it is still there, which means even believers need to watch out for acts of truth suppression in their own lives, and repent when you recognize it or are called out.
  • The two most obvious signs of truth suppressors are 1) don’t acknowledge Him as God and 2) ingratitude.
    • Schreiner wrote: “The fundamental truth of the universe is that God exists and that he should be worshiped and served and his name should be praised (v. 25).The fundamental task of the creature is to bless the name of God.” 
• Verse 26
• God gave them up. Verses 24, 26 and 28 repeat this phrase.
  • Sproul says he cringes when he hears people talk about God’s “infinite grace and mercy.” He cringes because what the Bible actually says is we have an infinite God who is just, and there is a time when His grace and mercy end for the unrepentant, for the one who refuses to acknowledge him and is ungrateful. The book of Jeremiah is a good place to understand this better, where verse 10:14 says every man is “stupid and without knowledge.” Woah!
    • So yes, there are limits to God’s mercy, but there is hope for the repentant sinner. We can see this in David’s life, Paul’s life, our lives! Romans speaks a lot about this in later chapters, but for now keep your buckle fastened tight.
  • “God gave them up”: This is what theologians refer to as judicial abandonment. It is a point where God basically says “you want to keep on sinning? Go ahead. You don’t want My free gift of grace and mercy? Go ahead.” In dispensing His just judgment, God abandons the unrepentant sinner. Forever. Ouch. Don’t be that guy. Or girl.
    • Did you know judicial abandonment is actually a very good case for church membership. Sproul says there is only one sin for which a person should be excommunicated, and that is impenitence (an unrepentant heart). If you don’t have church membership, how can you be excommunicated? 
  • Sometimes, God abandons for a season, removes the “hedge of protection” so to speak, as he did with Job (Job 1:8-10). Jesus in the wilderness was exposed (and withstood!) Satan’s full hostility for 40 days. Jesus taught disciples to pray for protection (Luke 11), asking God to “lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.” Discipleship, walking the Christian life together with other believers, is a spiritual battle. We need to prepare for war daily as Paul described in Ephesians 6, putting on the full armor of God.
• Verses 26-27
  • These verses connect with Rev. 22:11, describing part of the last judgment; “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy.” 
  • It is interesting that this is God’s personal decision to “hand us over” to our own sin. Something to think about here. God is not evil, our sin nature is, and wickedness in our world is a consequence of not acknowledging God. This is why the “follow your heart” idea is so bad! Follow the Holy Spirit in you, gifted to you at salvation. Follow Him, not your heart.
  • Schreiner says Paul used woman and man here, not “male and female”, and in so doing drew on the first creation account of Genesis 1:27, doing so to emphasize their sexual distinctiveness, and further emphasizing the same sex relationship’s violation of what God intended when he created man and woman. This is actually really important in today’s world, because some interpret “natural” to mean only for those whose nature is heterosexual. If they are “naturally” homosexual, then this does not apply and they are therefore not sinning. But Paul’s clear reference back to Genesis contradicts modern claims on these verses.
    • Schreiner: “The rejection of God theologically is concretely illustrated in evil that is promulgated by human beings.” 
• Verse 28
  • Paul is explaining the ways we see the reality of judicial abandonment in a person’s life:
    • Verse 24: sexual perversion and idolatry.
    • Verse 26: homosexuality.
    • Verse 28: a debased mind:
  • The sin we commit is a punishment for sin. “To do what ought not to be done….” we become slaves to that. The sin is the punishment.
    • Schreiner explains this “sin as punishment for sin” in this way, starting in v. 24 on sexual sin, that “sexual sin is a consequence, or outworking, of the [sin of] rejection of God and a failure to honor him. The fundamental sin isn’t sexual but the failure to worship God. All other sin is a consequence of this one.”
• Verses 29-31
  • All manner of unrighteousness
    • This is much more than just about homosexuality. Here Paul writes another of his “lists”, like we saw in verse 23 on idols. Paul lists a few things, but these are just specific examples and not all-inclusive to the general idea. In verse 23 the general idea was idolatry. In verses 29-31, the general idea is sin, and how one sin begets another in a person’s life who is experiencing judicial abandonment, either for a season or permanently (the timing is up to God). 
  • Study this list, even if you don’t want to. And beware. Don’t act like this is never describing you. Which one(s) do you struggle with? Which ones are not on this list but, deep down, you know are sins, too? Don’t be a “well, it’s not on this list so it must be okay.” No, you know. If the Holy Spirit is in you, if you are truly saved, then you know. Repent of that, humble yourself and let God renew you!
• Verse 32
  • They know God’s righteous decree, meaning they know Scripture, but they still do run towards sin and “call evil good” (Isaiah 5:20). Paul knows this well! He is describing his former, unsaved self, back when he was called Saul. Study Acts 7 through 8:1 about his approval of stoning of Stephen to death, right after Stephen gave an amazing speech about Church history. If you read it, you will see that Saul was quite the intolerable jerk before Jesus saved him.
• Click here for Romans 2:1-16