Introduction
The last time we were studying Paul’s letter to the Romans, we spent our time on verses 8 to 17 of Romans 1, where Paul wrote about his longing to see the Roman believers in person. He’d never met them before and he wanted so much to meet them. And not only did he want to meet them, but he wanted to preach the gospel to them. He wrote in verse 15 that he was so eager to preach the gospel to them. And the reason he was so eager to preach the gospel to them is because the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. The gospel message of Jesus Christ and of his life and death and resurrection for sinners is powerful. And it’s powerful, because God works powerfully through the gospel to save everyone who believes. The gospel is not advice on how to lift yourself out of trouble. No, the gospel is not advice. The gospel is powerful. It lifts us up out of condemnation and death and it lifts us up to salvation and everlasting life.
And in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. And when Paul referred to a righteousness from God in verse 17, he was really talking about two things. God’s righteousness is God’s saving action. It’s his saving action, because it’s right that God should save his people, because he has bound himself to them with a promise to be their God and to save them by his Son. And so, it’s right for God to save his people from our sin and misery and from the path of death and destruction. And the righteousness of God also refers to the righteousness which comes from God. Because of God’s abounding love and kindness to us, he shares with his people Christ’s perfect righteousness so that Christ’s record of perfect obedience becomes ours. Christ’s status of righteousness becomes ours. And so, instead of being condemned by God at the judgment, which is what we deserve for our sins, we will be set free because of Christ and we’ll be brought into the presence of God to enjoy everlasting life. And we receive Christ’s record of perfect obedience through faith. Through faith in Christ, we are declared right with God for ever.
And so, Paul was eager to go to Rome in order to meet the believers there and to preach to them the good news of the gospel that sinners are declared right with God through faith in Jesus Christ who died and was raised for us and for our salvation.
The gospel message is a message of salvation. And why do we need salvation? That’s what today’s passage is about, because in today’s passage Paul tells us about the wrath of God. And we all need to be saved from the wrath of God.
What is the wrath of God? We shouldn’t think of it as a surge of passion. Whenever people get angry, it’s as if a surge of anger takes over them. It’s as if they’re overwhelmed by these feelings of anger and they can’t control themselves. They explode in a rage. But we shouldn’t think of God in that way, because God, the theologians say, is impassible. They mean that God is without passions and that he cannot undergo changes of emotion the way that we do. All kinds of things happen to us and affect how we feel. But God is not affected by anything outside of himself and he’s always in complete control of who he is and what he does.
And so, when we think about his wrath, we mustn’t think that God is overtaken by a surge of anger and that our sin makes him explode in a rage. Instead we should think of God’s wrath as his holy will to punish evil. It’s his decree to punish those who do evil and who remain unrepentant. That’s what God’s wrath is.
Verses 18 to 20
And in verse 18 of today’s passage, Paul says that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
We should note carefully that Paul is talking about something that is happening right now in the present. So, we know from the Scriptures that the day is coming when Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. And at that time, those people who never trusted in him will be condemned for all that they have done wrong and they’ll be sent out of the presence of God to be punished. And for ever and for ever, they will suffer the wrath of God, which is the decree of God to punish the unrepentant. That’s what is going to happen one day in the future.
But Paul is not talking about that in verse 18. He’s not saying that the wrath of God will be revealed. He’s saying that the wrath of God is being revealed. The wrath of God is being revealed right now in the present.
How is God revealing his wrath right now in the present? Well, he does it in at least three ways. He reveals his wrath through his preachers who declare to us the will of God and how we’ve disobeyed his commands so that he’s angry with us. All through the Old Testament God sent his prophets to warn his people about their sin and rebellion and how they needed to repent otherwise God will punish them.
And God reveals his wrath in the present by sending disaster on unrepentant people. So, in the Old Testament, when his people did not listen to the prophets, God did what he said he would do and he sent them in exile. He let the Assyrians and the Babylonians invade the land and they took the people captive and took them away. Or in the book of Acts, there’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira who dropped dead because they lied to the apostles. And there’s the story of King Herod who was struck dead because he did not give praise to God. And there’s the story of Elymas the sorcerer who was made blind because he opposed what Paul was doing when he was preaching the gospel on Cyprus.
And so, God reveals his wrath in the present through his preachers and by sending disaster on the unrepentant. But God reveals his wrath in the present in another way. And Paul explains what that way is in verses 24 to 34 which we’ll get to in a moment. But for now I’ll say that God reveals his wrath in the present by giving us over to our sin and to all the misery our sin causes. As I’ve said before, sin is misery. Sin is misery Whenever we sin, we cause misery to others by our sinful words and deeds; and we cause misery to ourselves, because of the foolish and harmful things we do. And in verses 24 to 34 Paul says that God reveals his wrath in the present by giving us over to sin and to all the misery it causes us.
But notice from verse 18 that Paul says that God reveals his wrath against all our godlessness and wickedness. The word ‘godlessness’ perhaps refers to religious sins or to sins against God himself. Think of the first four commandments which are about our duty to God and how we’re to have no other gods before him and we’re not to make idols and we’re not to misuse his name and we’re to keep the Sabbath Day holy. The word ‘godlessness’ sums up our failure to keep those commands. And the word ‘wickedness’ perhaps refers to social sins or to sins against other people. So, think of all the ways we break the remaining six of the Ten Commandments, which are about our duty to others. All of us have failed to love God and our neighbour. And therefore the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against us.
I should perhaps add here that Paul is referring here to the whole human race. This is what we are all like. That is to say, this is what we are all like in our fallen state and apart from the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Because of God’s abounding love for us, he rescues us from our fallen state. But Paul is describing the way we all are apart from God’s grace to us. If it were not for God’s kindness to us in Christ Jesus, this is what we would all be like.
And so, in our fallen state, we are under the wrath of God because of our godlessness and wickedness. And in our fallen state, we suppress the truth by our wickedness. That is to say, because we’re sinners, then we naturally suppress the truth we have about God. We push all thought about God from our minds. We shove him to the back of our thoughts. We reject him. We deny him.
Paul goes on to explain that we all know God. We all know God, because — take a look at verse 19 — what may be known about God is plain to us, because God has made it plain to us.
And what has God made plain to us? Take a look now at verse 20, where he says that since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen. And so, what has God made plain to us? He’s made plain to us his invisible qualities. And by that, he means God’s eternal power and divine nature. So, God has made plain to us that he’s powerful and that he’s different from us.
And how are God’s invisible qualities made plain? How can God make visible something that is invisible? Paul explains: these things about God are understood from what has been made. As the psalmist says: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’ The psalmist is saying that the world around us speaks to us without words about God. Everything around us points to the Creator. And Paul is saying the same thing: since the creation of the world, God has been revealing to us in the things he has made his power and his divine nature. He has been revealing himself to us in the things he has made. The sun, the moon, the stars, every tree, every flower, every plant, every blade of grass, every bird and fish and animal and insect and every human being is shouting at us about God.
And so, everyone knows God. We know he’s powerful and we know he’s different from us. And we know these things about God because God has made his power and divine nature plain to us. And they are clearly seen. That is to say, we have seen them. And Paul doesn’t mean we have seen them without noticing them. Someone puts a sign on the door and people may see it, but they don’t actually read it. But that’s not what Paul is saying here. He’s saying that God has revealed his invisible qualities to us and we have seen them and grasped them. We have understood them.
Someone has compared this to what happens when we enter a room of people. Two people are laughing and smiling and they enter a room full of people and they immediately sense the mood of the room and that something sombre is going on and that it would be inappropriate for them to laugh. They have sensed something in the room. They know it intuitively. And perhaps Paul is referring to something similar: we know intuitively from what we can see that God is real and he’s powerful. We sense it. We might not be able to articulate it, but we know it. We know God from what he has made.
However, because we’re sinners, we suppress the truth about God. We push God out of our thoughts. We shove him to the back of our minds. I’ve said before that someone has likened this to the psychological idea of repression, when someone can’t face some distressing thought or memory and so they, without realising it, bury it deep down inside. Or psychologists also tell us about the ways we practise self-deception. There’s something unpleasant in our life, but we can’t bear to face up to it. And so, without realising it, we manage to deceive ourselves. We hide the truth from ourselves. And people don’t want to face up to their knowledge of God. God is continually revealing himself to us through the things he has made. God is continually speaking to us. But instead of acknowledging him, we push him out of our thoughts.
Verse 21 to 23
And not only do we push him out of our thoughts, but we also replace him.
I’m now looking at verses 21 to 23. Paul says that although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God or gave thanks to him. So, that should be our proper response to God: we should glorify God as God and we should give thanks to him continually for his kindness to us in giving us our life and in filling our life with good things to enjoy. We should worship God and thank him.
But instead of doing that, Paul says their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
And so, they exchanged God for something else. Instead of worshipping the true God, who made them, they made new gods for themselves and worshipped them. And again, Paul is talking about all of us in our natural fallen state apart from the grace of God. This is what we would all be like if it were not for God’s kindness to us in Christ.
And this is why the world is full of different religions. If we weren’t all sinners who suppress the truth about God, then we’d all worship the one, true and living God. But since we’re sinners who have replaced God, then the world is full of other religions and false gods and idols. People fill the place in their lives that God is meant to have with something else. And that something else is always less than the true God.
You see, we can’t live without God. We were made for God and to know him and to love him and to worship him and to be known by him. And we need God to make sense of the world and to give us direction and hope and happiness. But once we’ve denied God, once we’ve rejected him, then we need something else to make sense of the world and to give us direction and hope and happiness. And so, we turn to other religions. We put our hope in some false god. Or we put our hope in some person who promises us good things. Or we put our hope in some idea or philosophy or doctrine about how to have a happy life. Or we put our family or our friends or our job or our hobby at the centre of our lives and we rely on those things for purpose and meaning and happiness.
But all of these things we turn to for meaning and purpose and hope and happiness are only substitutes for God, who is the only one who can give us the meaning and purpose we need and the hope we need and the happiness we need. He’s the only one who can give us these things, because he’s the one who made us and who knows what we need. And he made us for himself. He made us to know him and to be loved by him both now and for evermore.
And since this is true, then whoever rejects him has cut themselves off from the only one who can give them what they need. And instead they’re destined to a life of frustration and disappointment and futility which ends in death and condemnation.
Paul says such people claim to be wise. And people who deny God think they know more than us. They think that we’re fools for believing in a God we cannot see. They think they’re the smart ones. But Paul says in verse 22 that they have become fools. And they are fools because they don’t realise that the thing they’re relying on for hope and happiness is only a poor substitution for the true God.
Verses 24 to 32
And so, everyone knows God, because God is continually making himself known through the things he has made. But by nature we suppress or we repress our knowledge of God and we replace the true God with a poor substitute.
Therefore, since we’re sinners who have rejected God, God reveals his wrath against us. And how does God reveal his wrath? I’ve already mentioned two ways: through his preachers who declare that we’re sinners; and by sending disaster on unrepentant sinners. And in verses 24 to 32 Paul gives us the third way that God reveals his wrath. God reveals his wrath by giving us over to sin and misery. We’ve rejected him and his good purposes for us. We’ve chosen for ourselves the path that leads to destruction and death. And God reveals his wrath by allowing us to go further and further along that path that leads to destruction and death.
And so, take a look at verse 24, where Paul says: ‘Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.’ What did God give them over to? He gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts. Because of God’s kindness to all people everywhere, he restrains our natural sinfulness and he prevents us from being as bad as we might be. However, he displays his wrath by taking away his restraint and by letting sinners follow their own evil desires. And it leads to sexual immorality.
Now take a look at verse 26, where Paul says: ‘Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.’ And he goes on to refer to homosexuality among women and among men.
Now take a look at verse 28, where Paul says: ‘Furthermore, since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.’ And so, they were filled with all kinds of wickedness and evil and greed and depravity. And look down at the list of vices. There’s envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. And they are gossips and slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. And they invent new ways of doing evil and children disobey their parents and they’re senseless and faithless and heartless and ruthless. And not only do people do these wicked things, but they approve of those who practise them. Instead of being ashamed of how far they’ve fallen from God and his goodness, they boast about it.
Conclusion
A life without God is not a happy life. A life without God and his goodness is not a good life. It’s a life that is broken and it’s filled with all kinds of misery.
And yet, because of God’s overflowing goodness and love, he was not willing to let us remain on that path which leads to destruction and death. He was not willing to abandon us completely to our sin and to the misery our sin causes. Because of God’s overflowing goodness and love, he sent his only begotten Son into the world to give himself up to death on the cross to pay for our sins with his life. His body was broken and his blood was shed to pay for our sins and our shortcomings. He took the blame for all that we have done wrong and he suffered in our place the wrath of God which was against us. He suffered the wrath of God which was against us, so that all who trust in Christ might receive only good things from the Lord. He suffered the wrath of God so that all who trust in Christ might have peace with God and the hope of everlasting life in his presence.
And not only did he send his Son to die for us, but because of his overflowing goodness and love, he sends his Spirit into the lives of his people to enable us to know God and to glorify God and to give thanks to him every day for his good gifts. And his Spirit helps us to resist temptation and to fight against our sinful desires and he fills us more and more with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. His Spirit enables us to live good lives and happy lives of obedience to our Heavenly Father, while we wait for our Saviour to come again and to make us perfect in God’s presence.
Every day God reveals his wrath from heaven against sinners who suppress the truth about God. But thank God that that’s not the whole story, because in the gospel of Jesus Christ, God reveals that there’s a way to become right with God and that way is by trusting in the Saviour. And the bread we’re about to eat and the cup we’re about to drink speaks to us of this glorious gospel and how, for those who trust in Christ, we can expect good things from God instead of his wrath.
Sermons and Stuff 