Romans 1:24-32

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:24-32)

Up to this point, Paul had been describing why exactly God has cast his wrath upon mankind, but this section describes what that wrath is, what God’s judgment looks like. The theme of these verses, repeated three times, is “God gave them over.” God’s wrath is coming against humanity, and what that means is this giving over. Three things God has given humanity over to: “the lust of their hearts . . . and dishonoring of their bodies(1:24),” “dishonorable passions(1:26),” and “to a debased mind(1:28).” Here are some of my observations.

First, sin is the judgment. You constantly hear Christians talking about the judgment that is going to come against America because of its perversion and evil. God is going to condemn us because of homosexuality, abortion, pornography, etc. But Paul is saying that these are the judgement. Homosexuality is the judgment. God is giving men and women over to unnatural and unhealthy patterns of life that separates them now and forever from everlasting joy. Pornography is not going to bring more judgment in the sense of terrorists attacks or more natural disasters. It’s going to breed more sexual addiction, degrade more women, ruin marriages, incapacitate men from being productive, permeate the society with sexual abuse, and so on. The sin is the judgment. You can translate this principle, I think, into eternal condemnation as well. Hell is when God abandons you to the “lust of your flesh” and to a “debased mind.”

Second, there seems to be an escalation of judgment. First God abandons men to themselves to exchange the truth of him for “the lie”(that’s the way it read in Greek). That in turn leads to unnatural and dishonorable passions, which then leads to a debased mind and the whole gamut of evil that follows (i.e. the list in 1:29-32). A good and helpful meditation might be on how this all plays out on an individual level and a societal level, because I think it is applicable to both. What is striking about this escalation is that those sins with the greatest stigma, at least in our society, like sins of lust or homosexuality are lower level judgments than more socially acceptable sins. For example, Paul seems to consider “gossips,” the “boastful,” the “disobedient to parents,” the “heartless,” etc. as deeper entrenched in evil than a man who gives in to “unnatural relations.” For many Christians this is quite radical. Let me say that none of these sins are acceptable, and all are examples of God’s wrath. Nevertheless, if we take this text seriously, and if you believe that the Bible is God’s Word then you have to, there are patterns of sin in our own lives and churches just as destructive as say homosexuality, if not more so. Paul presents sins of lust, like pornography, homosexuality, etc., as stepping stones on the humanities moral decline. But it makes us no better people if we skip step one and two and jump immediately to step three. Unbridled lust does lead to further sins of deceit, strife, gossiping, boasting, heartlessness, etc., but you cannot be too proud if you didn’t need the sins of lust to ease you into the sins of envy and deceit. You’ve simply chosen not to mess around with the marijuana and went straight for the heroin. I often hear Christians complain about the greater acceptance of gay and lesbian lifestyle when the Scriptures are so clear in condemning it. But is God less clear about our pride, judgmentalism, unforgiveness, gossip, deceit, anger, lack of mercy, sins which we are too often more than willing to tolerate in our own life? It’s something to think about.