Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 1 as we continue our study through this powerful letter that Paul wrote to the church in Rome. We are beginning a section that we might call “THE CONDEMNATION OF MAN.” This section covers Romans 1:18 though Romans 3:20 as Paul shows us that all are guilty before God.
And I believe the picture that Paul is painting for us in this section is a court scene. Paul is the prosecuting attorney and he is showing that man, who is on trial, is guilty before God, who is the Judge. And as man stands before God, alone, he has no hope! You see, apart from Christ, our defense attorney you might say, we are all sinners separated from God. That is the point that Paul is making here. That is what John tells us in I John 2:1-2, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
Yes, God requires perfection from us but the reality is, we are not perfect in a practical sense, we do sin. And because we have been adopted into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ, we are perfect in a positional sense. As the Father looks upon us the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us from all our sins, we are as white as snow! And when we do sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, a defense attorney, Jesus Christ! The Greek word for “advocate” is PARAKLETOS, which means “one who speaks . . . in our defense.”
Now when I think of a defense attorney I see someone who manipulates the truth to get his client freedom. But if Jesus did that, He would not be righteous. Then how does Jesus defend us, how does He refute the accusations that Satan brings against us? (Revelation 12:10). Because our advocate has become our propitiation or atonement for our sins.
You see, God became sin for us; He paid in full the penalty for our sins, enduring the wrath of God that was due us! Thus, Jesus does not defend us by manipulating the evidence because we are guilty before God. What He does do is say that our penalty was paid in full by Him, and He can show the scars to prove it, case closed! But apart from Christ we stand before the Father alone, we have no advocate, no defense attorney and thus, we stand in our own righteousness, which is like filthy rags before Him, we are guilty and will receive His wrath!
Now, to show that the whole world is guilty before God, none are innocent, Paul begins by showing that the unrighteous heathen are condemned by nature. Those who have never heard the Gospel message are still guilty before God because nature declares that there is a God and Paul covers this in Romans 1:18-32.
From there Paul moves on and shows how the self-righteous moralist is guilty before God and the reason is simple. God has placed in the heart of every person what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. You see, the self-righteous moralist is condemned by his conscious. And yes, you can short-circuit your conscious so that you have no feelings, but you are still guilty, because you have hardened your heart. And Paul covers this in Romans 2:1-16.
Then Paul deals with the super-religious person who tries to live by the Law, tries to work his way into righteousness you might say, and that is an impossible feat. Yes, Paul was specifically speaking of the Jew keeping the Law, but man does that today by trying to live up to a certain standard that they have set to be saved, a works salvation you might say. Thus, the Law of God condemns the super-religious person because he can’t keep the Law perfectly, which is the standard that God has set. The Law can only show how short we have come in God’s righteous standard, how we have missed the mark of perfection. And Paul will cover this in Romans 2:17-29.
Then, in Romans 3:10-18 Paul places God on the stand as a witness against mankind, to condemn man and God gives a 14 count indictment against man, that he is guilty and deserves to be judged accordingly for their sin! Paul concludes by saying in Romans 3:19-23, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In other words, the prosecution now rests its case, man is guilty before God and that is the only verdict that can come out of this case, it is the only conclusion you can come to!
This morning and for the next few weeks we will be focusing on the unrighteous heathen who is condemned by creation. This morning we will focus on these verses here in Romans specifically and finish up next week before we look at creation in our subsequent studies. We will see if creation is fact or fiction? You see, if it is fiction, if creation is not true, then we can’t trust anything that the Bible says. But, if it is right, if it is true, and it is, then we must trust what God is saying because even if we don’t believe God’s Word, we are still guilty before Him!
Before we get to our text this morning, let me share with you how deceitful sin can be in our lives and how self-righteous we can see ourselves. We are told:
Man makes the same mistakes over and over, even though history repeatedly warns him about the folly of his sins. Paul pinpointed the problem in Romans 1. He said that although man has a limited knowledge of God in creation, he chooses not to glorify Him, nor is he thankful. As a result, he becomes vain in his imaginations and his foolish heart is “darkened.” He no longer discerns right from wrong, but actually begins to think that right is wrong.
The deceitfulness of sin is vividly seen in the life of the French philosopher Rousseau. He declared, “No man can come to the throne of God and say, ‘I’m a better man than Rousseau.’” When he knew death was close at hand, he boasted, “Ah, how happy a thing it is to die, when one has no reason for remorse or self-reproach.” Then he prayed, “Eternal Being, the soul that I am going to give Thee back is as pure at this moment as it was when it proceeded from Thee; render it a partaker of Thy felicity!”
This is an amazing statement when you realize that Rousseau didn’t profess to be born again. In his writings he advocated adultery and suicide, and more than 20 years he lived in licentiousness. Most of his children were born out of wedlock and sent to a foundling home. He was mean, treacherous, hypocritical, and blasphemous.
- Daily Walk
With that said, let’s begin reading in Romans chapter 1, staring in verse 18 as Paul presents his opening remarks as a prosecuting attorney and he shows that man is a sinner who is separated from God, and the focus here is that the unrighteous heathen are condemned by creation!
This is a very difficult section for many today, that the heathen who have never heard the Gospel message before are not only guilty before God, but they will face the wrath of God! In fact, many have gone to the extreme of not believing that God will judge anyone, He will not pour out His wrath on anyone! R. Kent Hughes makes these comments regarding this difficult issue. He wrote:
Harry Emerson Fosdick, the leading voice of Modernist Christianity during the twenties and thirties, expressed some very unorthodox thoughts in the opening chapter of his famous book A Guide to the Understanding of the Bible. To summarize his views: Primitive man had a devilish concept of God. Noah’s God destroyed the earth with a flood. Abraham’s God was a bloodthirsty God who wanted a human sacrifice. The God of Moses was the horrible God of volcanic fire, speaking to him from Sinai. Little by little man has advanced as the centuries rolled on. David began to have high ethical thoughts of God, but they were mixed with the terrible imprecatory Psalms that call down wrath upon the enemy. By the time of the prophets, God was really improving. He now hated unrighteousness and spoke out against the crimes committed by men.
And when Jesus came along, the idea of God took on the marvelous concepts of fatherhood and brotherhood, the greatest idea up to that time. But Jesus also had the repugnant idea of Hell. This, Fosdick argued, must be abandoned in order to continue the upward curve of development.
Fosdick was, of course, reflecting much of the thinking of modern man, whether religious or secular; a loving God cannot be a God of judgment or Hell – enlightened man is progressively shedding such backward ideas.
Lord Bertrand Russell said essentially the same thing in his Why I Am Not a Christian:
There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching. . . . You do not, for instance, find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him, and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation.
The idea of a God of wrath and judgment is offense to modern man’s sensibilities.
- R. Kent Hughes, Romans, pp. 31-32
Thus, it is important for us to understand what Paul is saying to us in these verses, not only for our own application, but also so we can share with others of what the Holy Spirit is saying through Paul, to be ready to give a defense of what we believe! So let’s dig into this and see what we can glean from this portion of Scripture that we have read this morning.
VERSE 18
Now that does seem harsh, God’s wrath being revealed from heaven, but keep in mind what Paul said in Romans 1:17, prior to this statement. Paul wrote, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” You see, God’s righteousness is also revealed from heaven to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, by receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, having His righteousness imputed into your life by faith, you will not face His wrath. But if you do reject the gift of grace, if you reject Jesus, you will then face His wrath!
Listen carefully to what Jesus said in John chapter 3, for in this section He shows us the choices we have and the consequences of each of those two choices. He said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. . . . He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:16-21, 36. You see, God wants to save us from the wrath, His wrath that is coming upon a Christ rejecting world, but it is our choice!
Now when we think of wrath we think of how we respond many times. You know, an outburst of emotion, blowing up over something or at someone. That is not what Paul is saying here. You see, there are two Greek words that can be used for “wrath.” The first word is THUMOS and it is a word from which we get our English words “thermal” and “thermometer”. This word speaks of a red-hot anger, an explosive anger, it is the type of anger that we experience as we fly off the handle or blow up at someone and explosions are not good. That is not the word that Paul used here.
Paul used the Greek word ORGE and the idea here is “to grow ripe for something.” It is a wrath that builds over time, slowly until it is finally manifested. Not a temper-tantrum by God, but wrath that is in response to mans sin and his flaunting it in the face of God. Now I do realize that some have a hard time with this because in their minds God is a God of love, which He is, but they see Him as never pouring out His wrath on anyone, especially the God of the New Testament! Folks, the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament, and He changes not!
If people think that through they would see how foolish that line of reasoning is. Think of it like this. You enter your house and you see someone beating up your wife. Now you have a problem here. You see, you can’t do anything about it because Jesus has put His love in your heart. Thus, you can only stand there and watch. “I love the person beating up my wife and I love my wife!” mentality! That is just crazy and it is wrong. You better get angry and do something about it because that person is hurting your wife!
God does the same thing folks. He sees the affects of sin upon people and He is angry over it because He is a God of love and sin hurts people, the people who have been created in His image. And please understand that God’s wrath is right, it is perfect, it is just. In fact, Paul tells us that His wrath is against “ungodliness” or that first table of the Law that deals with mans relationship with God. And it is against “unrighteousness” or the second table of the Law that deals with mans relationship with his fellow man.
God’s wrath is Divine, it comes from heaven against us; the cute and adorable people? Not exactly! God’s wrath is against all ungodliness or man’s offenses against God and the unrighteousness of men or man’s offenses against man, as I have said. It is not that God responds in anger, not at all. God’s wrath is righteous; it is not out of control. The Puritan writer Thomas Watson said “Is God so infinitely holy? Then see how unlike to God sin is . . . no wonder, therefore, that God hates sin, being so unlike to Him nay, so contrary to Him; it strikes at His holiness.” It is as Habakkuk 1:13 says, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness. . .”
It is not that God doesn’t see what is going on, for He does. It is speaking that God cannot look with favor upon sin, upon wickedness just as God the Father turned His face from the Son; fellowship was broken as Jesus bore the sins of the world upon the cross of Calvary! In knowing that, why do we think that God will look favorably upon our sin? He won’t! Thus, God’s wrath is never unjust or wrong; it is totally righteous and fair!
And again, it is not something that just happens. Paul tells us “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.” The Greek word APOKALUPTO has the basic meaning of uncovering, bringing to light, or making known. In fact, here in Romans it should read, “For the wrath of God is being constantly revealed.” It has been manifested in the past, it is being manifested in the present and it will be manifested in the future! Don’t make the mistake of denying it. Let me give you a few examples of how this is played out in the Scriptures regarding the wrath of God being revealed from heaven, His holy anger toward sin.
GOD’S WRATH WAS REVEALED IN THE FLOOD.
GOD’S WRATH WAS REVEALED AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
GOD’S WRATH WAS REVEALED AT MOUNT SINAI WHEN 3,000 PERISHED WORSHIPING THE GOLDEN CALF.
GOD’S WRATH WAS REVEALED WHEN GOD KILLED NADAB AND ABIHU, THE SONS OF AARON WHEN THEY OFFERED “PROFANE FIRE” BEFORE THE LORD.
GOD’S WRATH WAS REVEALED AT THE CROSS OF CALVARY AS GOD POURED OUT HIS WRATH UPON HIS SON WHO BORE THE SINS OF THE WORLD SO THAT WE COULD BE SAVED AND ESCAPE THE WRATH TO COME.
If this is true, and it is, why do so many wicked people prosper, mock God, do whatever they want? Paul tells us in Romans 2:5-6, “But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds.” The Amplified Bible puts these verses like this, “But by your callous stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath and indignation for yourself on the day of wrath and indignation, when God's righteous judgment (just doom) will be revealed. For He will render to every man according to his works [justly, as his deeds deserve]: [Ps 62:12.]”
You see, God is patient, He is longsuffering but there is coming a day when He will judge sinful man. Thus, they are only storing up wrath for the coming day of God’s judgment upon them, they will not get away with anything, God is not mocked!
Donald Grey Barnhouse recounts the story of a group of godly farmers in a Midwest community being irritated one Sunday morning by a neighbor’s plowing his field across from their church. Noise from his tractor interrupted the worship service, and, as it turned out, the man had purposely chosen to plow that particular field on Sunday morning in order to make a point. He wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, asserting that, although he did not respect the Lord or honor the Lord’s Day, he had the highest yield per acre of any farm in the county. He asked the editor how Christians could explain that. With considerable insight and wisdom, the editor printed the letter and followed it with the simple comment, “ÿGod does not settle [all] His accounts in the month of Octoberÿ” Don’t think that God’s longsuffering means that God has forgotten or will not judge, He will for He is a holy and righteous God and thus, He must judge sin!
Then what is the problem? Paul tells us that the problem comes because man “suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.” The Greek word for “suppress” means to hold down, a continual and aggressive struggle against the truth! This Greek word, “suppress” comes from a Greek word that refers to a helmsman steering a boat against the current. Here’s the idea. God’s truths, His Word wants to steer people in the right direction, towards God. But here is the problem. Ungodly people are determined to hold the truth down, or hold the rudder of their lives against the current or evidence of God’s truth. They are steering people in the opposite direction, away from God!
This has gone on since man was created and rebelled against God. Man knew what God wanted and yet, they did what they wanted to do. Ravi Zacharias tells us this true and tragic story:
A story I heard personally from Malcolm Muggeridge (that stirred me then and still does even yet) was his account of a conversation he had with Svetlana Stalin, the daughter of Josef Stalin. She spent some time with Muggeridge in his home in England while they were working together on their BBC production on the life of her father. According to Svetlana, as Stalin lay dying, plagued with terrifying hallucinations, he suddenly sat halfway up in bed, clenched his fist toward the heavens once more, fell back upon his pillow, and was dead.
The incredible irony of his whole life is that at one time Josef Stalin had been a seminary student, preparing for the ministry. Coming of Nietzschean age, he made a decisive break from his belief in God. This dramatic and complete reversal of conviction that resulted in his hatred for all religion is why Lenin had earlier chosen Stalin and positioned him in authority—a choice Lenin too late regretted. (The name Stalin, which means “steel,” was not his real name, but was given to him by his contemporaries who fell under the steel-like determination of his will.) And as Stalin lay dying, his one last gesture was a clenched fist toward God, his heart as cold and hard as steel.
- Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God, p. 26
You see, it is not that they don’t know there is a God, they do but they suppress the truth, hold it down, so they can practice their evil deeds! And Paul is going to expound on man’s accountability before God, that he is without excuse in his rejection of God. Remember in Psalm 14:1 the Psalmist tells us, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ . . .” (Also in Psalm 53:1). That can also be translated “The fool has said in his heart, ‘No to God.’” You see, not that he doesn’t believe that there is a God, but he is rejecting God in spite of what he sees and what he knows! That is what nature itself declares, that there is a God!
In Psalm 19:1-6 we are told, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, And rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, And its circuit to the other end; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.”
The Living Bible puts these verses like this, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of his craftsmanship. Day and night they keep on telling about God. Without a sound or word, silent in the skies, their message reaches out to all the world. The sun lives in the heavens where God placed it and moves out across the skies as radiant as a bridegroom going to his wedding, or as joyous as an athlete looking forward to a race! The sun crosses the heavens from end to end, and nothing can hide from its heat.”
In this Psalm we see the glory of God reveled to us in nature, verses 1-6, which speaks of natural revelation. The Bible speaks of 3 heavens; the place where birds fly, the universe, and the place where God dwells. Here, I believe, David is looking up at the billions of stars that fill the sky, and he is overwhelmed at what God has done in creation. Today we estimate the universe at some 12 billion light years in diameter, and it may be even bigger. You can't help but see God's hand in creating all of this, for it did not just happen by random chance! And the Bible tells us that God measures it with the span of His Hand!
And David is saying that creation itself is crying out that there is a designer, a creator, for you only have to look and listen to what they are trying to show you. In fact, as we have read Romans chapter 1, Paul tells us that those that suppress this truth, the truth that nature is showing them, that God has revealed to them through His creation, will be judged accordingly, they are without excuse for nature testifies of the existence of God.
David, in speaking of the sun can be speaking of two different things in these verses. First of all it can be speaking of the rising and the setting of the sun, how it seems to make a circuit across the sky. I think that is a correct way to look at this but also he can be speaking of the circuit that our sun makes in our galaxy, for the sun is not stationary. Interesting how David knew this way back then!
Thus, with natural revelation we can know that there is a God, but you can't know Him specifically, that is only accomplished through special revelation or that which is reveled to us through the Word of God. But nature itself tells us there must be a God, there must be a creator and a designer, just look for yourself! And we will deal more with this over the next several weeks. But I want you to see that men are suppressing the truth of God, they are holding it down, they are steering people away from God, and they will be judged for it by God, His wrath will be poured out upon them.
I do realize we have only scratched the surface here and we have only covered just one verse this morning. But I wanted to lay down a solid foundation for this section of the unrighteous heathen being condemned by creation. We will finish up this chapter next time; we will do more than just one verse. And then in the coming weeks we will be looking at how man is suppressing the truth today, steering people away from God and our focus will be creation.
John Calvin wrote:
It is a person’s duty to seek God, who comes to meet us in such a way that we can have no excuse for our ignorance. Surely nothing is more absurd than that people should be ignorant of their Author, especially people who have been given understanding principally for this use. And we must also note the goodness of God, in that He so familiarly introduces Himself, that even the blind may grope after Him. Because of this fact, the blindness of people, who are touched with no feeling of God’s presence, is even more shameful and intolerable. For God has not darkly shadowed His glory in the creation of the world, but He has everywhere engraven such marks that even the blind may know them.
Therefore we see that people are not only blind but blockheaded, when, being helped by such excellent testimonies, they profit nothing.
- John Calvin
People not only need to see with their eyes, but with their heart and be open to what God is showing them. What we have seen this morning is simple and yet it is very hard for some to swallow. If you reject the righteousness of God that is revealed from heaven in the person of Jesus Christ, then the wrath of God will be revealed from heaven because your righteousness is like filthy rags before a holy and righteous God. You are ungodly in that you have broken the first table of the Law, your relationship with God. You are unrighteous because you have broken the second table of the Law, you relationship with your fellow man. You can’t live up to the standard that God requires, that is perfection!
And it is not that you can’t know God. It is not that you don’t know that there is a God, but you are suppressing the truth so that you steer yourself away from the truth, away from God!
Let me close this morning with this true story from H. A. Ironside. He wrote:
The following incident is vouched for by a Church of England clergyman who knew all the circumstances.
A young woman, who had been brought up in a Christian home and who had often had very serious convictions in regard to the importance of coming to Christ, chose instead to take the way of the world. Much against the wishes of her godly mother, she insisted on keeping company with a wild, hilarious crowd, who lived only for the passing moment and tried to forget the things of eternity. Again and again she was pleaded with to turn to Christ, but she persistently refused to heed the admonitions addressed to her.
Finally, she was taken with a very serious illness. All that medical science could do for her was done in order to bring about her recovery, but it soon became evident that the case was hopeless and death was staring her in the face. Still she was hard and obdurate [stubborn] when urged to turn to God in repentance and take the lost sinner's place and trust the lost sinner's Saviour.
One night she awoke suddenly out of a sound sleep, a frightened look in her eyes, and asked excitedly, "Mother, what is Ezekiel 7:8,9?"
Her mother said, "What do you mean, my dear?"
She replied that she had had a most vivid dream. She thought there was a Presence in the room, who very solemnly said to her, "Read Ezekiel 7:8,9." Not recalling the verses in question, the mother reached for a Bible. As she opened it, her heart sank as she saw the words, but she read them aloud to the dying girl:
"Now I will shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth."
The poor sufferer, with a look of horror on her face, sank back on the pillow, utterly exhausted, and in a few moments she was in eternity. Once more it had been demonstrated that grace rejected brings judgment at last.
- H. A. Ironside, Illustrations of Bible Truth, pp. 31-32
We need to be faithful to what the Scriptures teach in regards to God’s wrath, which is made very clear, not only in the Old Testament, but especially in the New Testament. For example, in John 3:36, which we have read this morning, we are told, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
In Ephesians 5:6 we are told, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”
In II Thessalonians 1:7-8 Paul tells us, “and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And there are many more, in fact Jesus spoke more of Hell and judgment than anyone else, but I think you get the point; God’s wrath will come upon the ungodly, upon sinners, upon those who have not received the Gospel, Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That is the bad news; the Good News is that Jesus has come to save us, sinners. Do you see the contrast between the two? One brings death and the other life, and who in their right mind would say they would rather spend eternity in Hell separated from God instead of spending eternity with Him?