Romans is such a great book to study because it sets out systematically and clearly an explanation of the gospel… bringing gentiles and Jews into one understanding of the work of God… it is a theological work explaining God’s relationship with men.
The first 3 chapters in particular set a foundation for what is to come and we need to keep this in mind as we read chapter 1…
Chapter 1 deals with the importance of the gospel and with those who reject the existence of God, despite their being abundant proof in creation, not just of God’s existence, but of His character…
Chapter 2 deals with the law… those who have never had the law and the role of the law…
Chapter 3 deals with the Jews… the law and how the law on its own is not sufficient… faith is the only way to salvation and Paul builds layer upon layer of theology…
Here in chapter 1 of course we are still dealing with the absolute basics… the foundation of belief and our position in relation to God… How does God deal with those who refuse to believe in his existence…
What happens to man if God is rejected, if man ignores his existence and knowledge of God is taken out of society… I am going to read from verse 14…
14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
Verses 17 and 18 are pivotal to this whole passage…
17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
I am eager to preach the gospel… in fact I am obligated… Because… why?... the gospel brings salvation… it is the source of righteousness… the righteousness of God… I am obligated to share it.
Why is the gospel and righteousness so important? Verse 18
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
The other option… if there is no salvation… is experiencing the wrath of God… If the people do not receive the righteousness of God then they will experience… God’s wrath… I have to preach the gospel…
These two verses are pivotal to the whole passage… They are at the centre… God’s wrath is to be revealed against wickedness… but the gospel brings righteousness and life…
Romans… this is the whole story… the rest is explanation…
The question is…
Why is the wrath of God being revealed against the wicked? [Verses 19-23]
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Hey Romans! Don’t think that God’s wrath is somehow unfair… or something that a loving God would never do… God has made it very clear that he exists and more than that… His very nature is revealed in his creation… There are men, who deliberately choose, to reject, what is obvious and rather worship the created instead of the creator… ’What may be know about God is plain to them’... they choose to reject God…
There are consequences for willfully ignoring God… and these we find from verse 24, in the part I am allocated to share on this morning… THE WRATH OF GOD… (What an awful topic to be allocated)... the wrath of God.
Before we look to understand this passage we need to go back in time… Way back in time… to the beginning… I know it is the beginning, because it quite literally says, “In the beginning…” [Genesis 1:1]
With a word from His mouth God creates the whole universe… He creates the seas and light and fish and birds, plants and animals… And at the end of every day He says, “it is good”… God’s creation was good… And if God says it was good… it was good…
Then we get to Genesis 1 [Genesis 1:26-28]
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
And in chapter 2 we read…
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Simple… well known verses… But beautiful and packed with the most majestic meaning… You, me… we were made by hand… in God’s image… God breathed the breath of life… His life into man… And we became living, God reflecting, beings…
When we make an image of someone, say a statue of a famous person… No matter how good the artist is, the statue will never be able to give a full understanding of the person being represented… The artist chooses to bring out some aspect of the person… his bravery… his inclusivity… generosity… Love for people…
We are made in the image of God… we reflect the living God… we are not just another animal being made a bit cleverer, more upright than the others… there are deep differences… each of which reflect the God who made us… each of the things that make us different to the animals are characteristics of God…
We get the first hint when we read about God’s blessing of the sea animals… God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful… [Genesis 1:22]
When He blesses the humans we read… [Genesis 1:28]
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful…
He was speaking to a created being that could understand… he can communicate with them…
So what is it that we actually see in humans that reflect God and his nature?
- Ecclesiastes 3 [verse 11] I have set eternity in the hearts of men… Animals do not consider the existence of God. It is built into man to know that God exists… We are eternal beings…
- We are made to fulfill a purpose… our lives have deep meaning… ‘subdue the Earth and rule over it’… Adam was asked to name the animals… We are not just space fillers… we have a life, given to us to fulfill a purpose… we long for purpose in our lives…
- We have been granted free will… by placing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden and instructing Adam not to eat from it, was explicitly setting up an opportunity for free will. Do animals not have free will? No… and this is important… They are controlled by their instinct… they follow their urges..their drive for food, comfort and reproduction…. Free will is a godly trait found only in humans
- The ability to love is humans reflecting God… 1 John 4: God is love….. Animals do not love… your ability to love is a reflection of God
- Your ability to see beauty and to appreciate it is because you are made in God’s image
- Humans have a conscience… a built in understanding of what is right and wrong…while it can be overridden… we all have one… our knowledge of right and wrong reflects God… in fact the snake said to Adam… if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “you will be like God”… [Genesis 3:5] we know we are are made in God’s image every time feel guilt, when we recoil from things that are abhorrent, when we praise good behavior..how do we know that it is good behavior…? We know right from wrong…
- We know that we are made in the image of God because we have the ability to think rationally. Any abstract thought is God in us… Any understanding of consequences or ability to argue is God in us… People go on about how clever chimpanzees are… The best chimps who can perform the best cognitive tasks are overtaken by human babies before the age of 1… Social tasks are even worse for chimps… they cannot operate beyond a few months of human ability… It is like comparing the space shuttle with a wooden child’s toy… Our ability to make sense of the World is only possible for those made in the image of God…
- Socially… we were made to walk in the cool of the evening with God and to fellowship with the almighty God… We were made to have relationships with people… God said that it was not good for Adam to be alone… He needed Eve…
- We have the godly ability of language, we can sing… we are creative and we can worship…
These examples are just a thin slice of what it means to be made in the image of God…
For me what sums it all up the best is something I have shared before…
“I do not have a soul, I am a soul, I have a body” we are eternal beings…
We are made to be in communion with God for eternity…
John 17:3 says:
”Eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He sent”
Revelation 21:3 says:
“3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God
This… people of Medway… is what we were created for… eternity in relationship with God…
3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Shew! The preacher really is trying to avoid the difficult verse in Romans 1…
No. Paul is explaining here in Romans that when we reject God’s existence, there are consequences for people made in the image of God…
These people he says… are exchanging this. The things I have described… they are giving up on the majesty of being made in God’s image… They are choosing to swap… to trade… Their divine, eternal destiny for… for… for images of birds and animals and reptiles… They are exchanging the glory of God in their lives for trinkets… for things of no value… They choose to be like the beasts…
Paul very clearly repeats himself three times…..and each time Paul reveals more of the consequences for these choices… the wrath of God… let’s see what this is…
23 [They] exchanged the glory of the immortal God… [Romans 1:24-32]
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
What is this ‘wrath of God?”
In this context…
The wrath of God is God giving men over to their base instincts… He lets them reject what it means to be human… That beautiful picture, made in the image of God… he lets them give up on being all those things that come with being made in the image of God… he releases them.
I have a Maths class… I give up on them because they don’t want to learn… I try everything but they are wasting my time… They will not improve… I let them suffer the due penalty for their error…
God does not punish them… He let’s them punish themselves…
Let's look at some of the consequences…
The first consequence in verse 24 is sexual… Sexual impurity… Look how Paul describes it… he says that sexual impurity is, “the degrading of their bodies”.
Degrading means to take something of high standing of high worth and treat it poorly… something made for a high purpose being used for something far below its standing…
Now you may see why I spent so much time on us being made in God’s image… These people were made in God’s image, but they choose to live like the beasts. It is like using a silver dessert spoon for gardening… Like a Ferrari being used to haul garden refuse…
We… you and I… we're made to commune with the eternal God… We are made for love and Godly righteousness, but there are men who choose the most base… It is a misuse of the body,, God’s temple… They degrade their bodies.
It is very important to God that we are made male and female.
While I may have given you a good slice of what it means to be made in God’s image, things we pick up across the Bible, the only thing that God deems worthy to say when He creates us is, “God made man in his own image Male and female he made them.” [Genesis 1:27]
Male and female are equally important… male and female are to be the building blocks of all humanity… He is clearly saying that He has a plan, right from the beginning for men and women to work together to build families and society as a whole and manage the World… This is how God made us…
Paul is saying… people who reject God reject what is important to Him… to not give Women and men the respect they deserve in their roles assigned to them by God…
Of course this is naturally obvious…. Our rejection of someone is first in our heart and then we hate what is most important to them… we stamp on it and express our repulsion…we spurn their values…
God gave us free will… We get to reject him, but along with rejecting God comes consequences, we will reject the very things that make us image bearers of God…
We have a list from verse 29 of Godly attributes which are degraded by those who reject God… this list may be described as Anti-God… The opposite of God.
| Envy | All good things come from God |
| Murder | Self restraint |
| Strife | Rational language |
| Deceit | We know the truth |
| Malice | Empathy |
| God haters | |
| Gossip | Social beings - fellowship |
| Slanderers | Encouragers |
| Insolent arrogant and boastful | Humility… And seeing ourselves in relation to God… |
| Disobedient | Father if it is your will |
| No understanding | Wisdom/intellect |
| No fidelity | Faithfulness |
| No love | God is love |
| No mercy | God is mercy |
In denying God… they deny his character… the things we are created to be…
Do you recognise these things in our society? Is it because man is more sinful? Have these things always been?
Yes, they have always been, but I would suggest that we are much more aware of these things around us because there is so much more of this type of living around us… why?
Paul is very clear… these are prevalent where man denies God’s existence. These are the consequences for our society… Like Roman times more and more people are denying the very existence of God and this is why we see a rise of these anti God behaviours…
Take away's
The choice is God’s wrath or God’s righteousness found in the gospel…
Without God His qualities disappear from human life and societies.
God gives up on chasing people… all those things inside of them designed to draw them to God are gone, no conscience, no morality, no rational intellect… the most obvious things have become incomprehensible to them. Can they still turn to God? I like to think so, our God is merciful.
Arguing with people who deny God’s existence is futile.
We are made in the image of God. We are made for higher things. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Be determined to become more Christ-like, even while the World around you is going in the opposite direction. We are not just saved to get into heaven, but to fulfill our eternal purpose in Christ.
