Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXVIII)

The early church Bishop of Laodicea touches on the subject of misleading others into doing wrong: “Here again we see the innocence of God and the guilt of man and the justice of the judgment which is given. For men do these things, being fully aware that they are worthy of punishment by God the judge. For it is clear that they are not unaware of this when they judge others and hand those who do such things over to execution. For when evil men have knowledge of the good and make use of it as if they are not susceptible to pleasures, they bear witness that God’s creation is good.… But those who lead men into wrong, as well as those who follow what is wrong, are both evils.”¹ Then, the early church Bishop of Caesarea gives his view: “Perverted human tradition is the source of great evil for us, in that some sins are denounced while others are viewed with indifference. Crimes like homicide and adultery are the object of a violent but insincere indignation, while others, like anger, reviling, drunkenness or avarice, are not even considered deserving of a simple admonition.”²

Also, Severian, a contemporary preacher of Chrysostom’s, spoke about this: “When Paul talks about the ‘judgment of God’ he means the rightful recompense God gives to everyone according to what they deserve. For men know by their natural reasoning that transgressors will be punished by God, but instead of ceasing from their wicked ways they are actually pleased with those who do such things!… Therefore, God will judge those who do such things as [being] absolutely and without question worthy of death.”³ Then, Chrysostom has this to say: “For what reason does anyone have to say that he does not know what he should do? Even if he does not know, he is still to blame, because he has turned away from the God who teaches him. But Paul has shown by many arguments that he does know and transgresses willingly. But is such a person drawn by passion? Why in that case does he cooperate with it and even praise it? For they not only do such things themselves, says Paul, but they ‘approve those who practice them.’ Paul thus puts the more serious sin first, in order to get it out of the way (for the one who praises the sin of others is far worse than the one who sins himself).”⁴

Three more early church scholars give us their opinions. Augustine writes about their consenting to evil deeds: “Whatever they had done they did without coercion. For when they give their consent to evil deeds, they approve even of things which they did not do themselves.”⁵ And Pelagius notes that worldliness was at the root of this evil. He says: “Even people who did not agree with these doings … nevertheless seem to have accepted them, because they agreed to idolatry, which is the source and cause of them all.”⁶ Then the Bishop of Arles shares his suspicions: “Those who do not admonish adulterers make us suspect that the reason for this failure of reproof is that they commit similar sins themselves.”⁷

John Calvin summarizes this chapter by saying: “The person who feels ashamed still qualifies for rescue; but when such disrespect is contracted through a sinful habit, that vices, and not virtues, please us, and are approved, there is no more any hope of reformation. Such, then, is the interpretation I give; for I see that the Apostle meant here to condemn something more grievous and more wicked than the very doing of vices: what that is I know not, except we refer to that which is the summit of all wickedness, — that is, when wretched men, having cast away all shame, undertake the support of vices in opposition to the righteousness of God.”⁸

John Bengel states that the hallmark of God’s royalty is that He approves virtues, hates vices and that He justly and deservedly visits the wicked with death to show that He is not unjust. God is, therefore, justified in punishing the guilty with death. Bengel says that even among the Gentiles the punishment by death of those who do evil was considered a royal decree. Bengel goes on to say: “He who perpetrates evil is led away by his own desire, and not without condemnation of himself, and even others. And, while approving the law, he who takes pleasure, or approves, with heart and words, has, as the fruit of wickedness, wickedness itself. He feeds upon it, heaps his own guilt with that of others, and inflames others to sin. He is a worse man, who ruins both himself and others, than he who ruins only himself. This is indeed a reprobate mind.”⁹

So often today, the Gospel it preached to the unconverted as though they are victims of sin. Paul sees it just the opposite. God has given mankind every reason to have the chains of sin broken so they can be free from their bondage to that which is wicked, evil, and ungodly. But many have elected to remain slaves to sin. Some have even chosen to make gods of their own invention and claim that they are in fact serving God thereby. For instance, a popular musician dies a miserable death while addicted to drugs and an immoral lifestyle, yet they are immortalized and venerated as having blessed everyone with their music. It is considered, therefore, that by appreciating their talent and music, we are honoring God for having given them to the world. Such convoluted thinking has so permeated society today that it is considered fashionable.

Charles Hodge concludes his commentary of chapter one with this: “As he had before shown that the impiety of the heathen was without excuse, inasmuch as they had a knowledge of the true God, so here Paul shows that their immorality was inexcusable, since their sins were not committed in ignorance of their nature or penalty. This passage also shows that the judicial abandonment of God does not destroy the free agency or responsibility of men. They are given up to work iniquity, and yet know that they deserve death for what they do. The stream which carries them away is not without, but within. It is their own corrupt nature. It is themselves. Notwithstanding this knowledge of the penalty of the crimes above enumerated, they not only commit them but approve of those who do (or practice) them. This is the lowest point of degradation. To sin, even in the heat of passion, is evil; but to delight in the sins of others, shows that men are of set purpose and fixed preference, wicked. Such is the apostle’s argument to prove that heathens are all under sin, that they are justly chargeable with ungodliness and unrighteousness, and consequently exposed to the wrath of God.”¹⁰

Through this, we can see that Paul lived during very wicked times in Rome and throughout the Greek-dominated world. It was a time of great temptation to those who had been delivered from their pagan ways, yet were still surrounded by multitudes who continued such immoral vices and practices. Oddly enough, some two-thousand years later Christians are faced with the same degradation of society and the rise of the occult once again. But just as the community of believers was victorious before, they will be triumphant again as long as those who know the truth remain true to their convictions.

Adam Clarke gives his summation of what Paul has written so far: “The preceding chapter gives us one of the finest views of the Gospel of Christ, to be met with anywhere. It is God‘s method of saving a lost world, in a way which that world could never have imagined: there is nothing human in it; it is all truly and gloriously Divine; essentially necessary to the salvation of man, and fully adequate to the purposes of its institution. Though it is an extension of the old covenant, yet it is almost wholly dissimilar; being as different from that as the person is from the picture which represents it, and as the substance is from the shadow projected by it. It is a scheme as worthy of God as it is necessary for man; hence there are no exclusion clauses in it – it is for the Jew and for the Greek; for the wise and for the unwise; for all the nations of the universe, and for all the individuals of those nations. He blasphemes God who holds a contrary [view].”¹¹

Albert Barnes offers this note: “The charges which the apostle makes here were evidently those who were well-known. He does not even appeal to their writings, as he does on some other occasions, for proof; compare Titus 1:12. So well known were they, that there was no need of proof. A writer would not advance charges in this manner unless he was confident that they were well-founded, and could not be denied. They are abundantly sustained by the pagan writers themselves. This we have in part seen In addition we may adduce the testimony of two Roman writers respecting the state of things at Rome in the time of the apostle. Livy says of the age of Augustus, in some respects the brightest period of the Roman history, ‘Rome has increased by her virtues until now when we can neither bear our vices nor their remedy.’¹² [In the] Preface to his History. Seneca, one of the purest moralists of Rome, who died in 65 AD, says of his own time, ‘All is full of criminality and vice; indeed much more of these is committed than can be remedied by force. A monstrous contest of abandoned wickedness is carried on. The lust of sin increases daily, and shame is daily more and more extinguished. Discarding respect for all that is good and sacred, lust rushes on wherever it will. Vice no longer hides itself. It stalks forth before all eyes. So public has abandoned wickedness become, and so openly does it flame up in the minds of all, that innocence is no longer seldom, but has wholly ceased to exist.’”¹³

John Stott adds these thoughts: “We have come to the end of Paul’s portrayal of depraved Gentile society. Its essence lies in the antithesis between what people know and what they do. God’s wrath is specifically directed against those who deliberately suppress truth for the sake of evil. ‘Dark as the picture here drawn is,’ wrote Charles Hodge, ‘it is not so dark as that presented by the most distinguished Greek and Latin authors, of their own countrymen.’ Paul was not exaggerating.”¹⁴

Jewish theologian David Stern agrees with Bengel’s assessment by saying: “The downward slide gathers speed. With the necessary changes, the above description applies to all kinds of sins. Verses 29–31 are the Bible’s most comprehensive list of the evils people invent for themselves, and v. 32 shows the state of man in deepest depravity, in which not only do they keep doing these things, but they applaud others who do the same, thus forming a godless society opposing everything God wants from His beloved creation, humanity. Even so, in each one, a voice of conscience still protests that it is God’s righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die, as has been the case from the days of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:17) until now.”¹⁵

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXVII)

Verses 28b-31: And so they end up doing the very thing that hurts them because they are filled with all sorts of godless living, wicked schemes, greed, hatred, endless desire for more, murder, violence, deceit, and spitefulness. And, as if that were not enough, they are gossiping, slanderous, God-hating, rude, egotistical, smug people who are always coming up with even more dreadful ways to treat one another. They don’t listen to their parents; they lack understanding and character. They are simple-minded, covenant-breaking, heartless, and unmerciful; they are not to be trusted.

Now Paul offers a long list of character flaws and felonies that these people seem to wallow in with no desire to escape although they are being pulled under into certain agony and death. What makes it so sad is that they know it is bad for them, yet they keep on adding more and more self-inflicted wounds. Paul does not list them in any order of priority or group them into identifiable categories. But we can see a trend: They begin with the way people think, then the way they feel, then; as a result, the way they treat others, and then what all of this does to their character and reputation.

Several early church writers speak concerning this aggregate of wicked tendencies. Ambrosiaster writes: “Paul put wickedness at the head of the list because he thought that evil and covetousness depended on it. He then added malice, from which flows envy, murder, strife, and deceit. After this, he put maliciousness, which generates gossip and slander.”¹ And Chrysostom says: “Notice how everything here is intensive – ‘filled’ and ‘with all.’ Having named maliciousness in general, Paul goes on to discuss the particulars, and these too he mentions in excess – ‘full of envy,’ etc.”² Then Pelagius points out: “Paul shows that wickedness and evil are the chief causes of the vices. Envy is rightly linked to murder since it is the chief cause for this crime. Strife exists when something is defended, not by reason but by a proud spirit. Deceit is secret malice covered in flattering speech. Maliciousness is a wish or a work of malice.”³

This same trio then comment on the consequences of having such tendencies. Says Ambrosiaster: “They were foolish and faithless and had no feelings either for God or for men. That is why they were heartless and ruthless. For someone who is cruel to his own family will be that much more cruel to others!”⁴ Then Chrysostom writes: “Christ Himself mentions this as the cause of wickedness, saying: ‘Because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold.‘⁵ Paul says here that they were … traitors to nature. For most of us have a family feeling toward one another, which even the beasts share among themselves.… But these men became even more ferocious than the beasts. The disorder which resulted in the world by evil teachings he proves to us by these witnesses and clearly shows that in each case the malady came from the negligence of those who were disordered.”⁶ And finally, Pelagius opines: “Paul mentions all these sins, set out one by one, with respect to those who have been abandoned by God because they have abandoned Him. Let us, therefore, take care, lest we also are abandoned for embracing one of these evils.”⁷

A stoic Roman philosopher named Seneca, in his work on “Anger”, gives us a clear description of life in Rome during the time of Christ. He writes: “Every place is full of crime and vice; too many crimes are committed to be cured by any possible restraint. Men struggle in a mighty rivalry of wickedness. Every day the desire for wrong-doing is greater, the dread of it less; all regard for what is better and fairer is banished, lust hurls itself wherever it likes, and crimes are now no longer covert. They stalk before our very eyes, and wickedness has come to such a public state, has gained such power over the hearts of all, that innocence is not only rare – it is nonexistent. Is it only the casual man or the few who break the law? No! On every hand, as if at a given signal, people rise up to level all the barriers of right and wrong.”⁸

Reformer Martin Luther treats each one of these vices. But he seems to focus especially on the evil of what the King James Version translates as “maliciousness.” In Thayer’s Greek lexicon we find where Bishop Lightfoot denotes this as having a vicious disposition. Luther remarks: “Maliciousness is the perverse tendency in man to do evil despite the good which he has received; indeed he abuses even the good things which God gives him in the service of evil.”⁹ If there is anything that can get under a believer’s skin and cause the breakout of an indignant rash it is someone who takes something offered in love and kindness, and then uses it in a hurtful and malicious way.

John Bengel points out: “The whole enumeration is wisely arranged: nine members on the affections; two on language; three respecting God, oneself, and one’s neighbor; two on the management of affairs; and six respecting ties to relationships.”¹⁰ Bengel goes on to examine each one of these vices and feels that what bothers him the most is that so many of these are expressions and deeds intended to injure others to the delight of the perpetrator. Not only that but because such people seek satisfaction and contentment outside of God, it drives them into being greedy. As Bengel puts it: “He appropriates for himself the goods of others.”¹¹ As a result of being so covetous, “They drive away from themselves everything that is good and beneficial.”¹²

Based upon this, we can certainly say that the term, “yesterday, today and forever,’ as ascribed to Jesus Christ, is also true when applied to sin. As it was in Noah’s day, David’s day, Christ’s day, Paul’s day, Luther’s day, Wesley’s day, so it is today. Satan’s intended influence never changes. It always eats and corrodes away until it lays bare the most evil and base inclinations of mankind no matter how much moral varnish and veneer has been applied. As long as God commands us to be holy, sin will deprive mankind of that goal unless its hold is broken by the power of Christ.

Albert Barnes in his notes, on this portion, gives us a chilling summary of the evil named in verse 31 as the lack of natural affection. He writes: “This expression denotes the lack of affectionate regard toward their children. The attachment of parents to children is one of the strongest in nature, and nothing can overcome it but the most confirmed and established wickedness. Among the ancient Persians, it was a common custom to bury children alive. In most of the Grecian states, infanticide was not merely permitted, but actually enforced by law. The Spartan lawgiver expressly ordained that every child that was born should be examined by the elderly men of the tribe and that if found weak or deformed, should be thrown into a deep cavern at the foot of Mount Taygetus. Aristotle, in his work on government, enjoins the exposure of children that are naturally feeble and deformed, in order to prevent an excess of population. But among all the nations of antiquity, the Romans were the most unrelenting in their treatment of infants. Romulus obliged the citizens to bring up all their male children, and the oldest of the females, proof that the others were to be destroyed. The Roman father had absolute rights over the life of his child, and we have abundant proof that that right was often exercised.”¹³ While such forms of infanticide are not practiced today, another has taken its place, and that is called “late-term abortion.”

John Stott gives us a good categorization of these evils: “Paul gives a catalog of twenty-one vices. Such lists were not uncommon in those days in Stoic, Jewish, and early Christian literature. All commentators seem to agree that the list defies neat classification. It begins with four general sins with which these people have become filled, namely every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. Then come five more sins which they are full of and which all depict broken human relationships: envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. Next, come a couple on their own, which seem to refer to libel and slander, although J. B. Phillips offers a characteristically imaginative translation: ‘whisperers-behind-doors’ and ‘stabbers-in-the-back.’ These two are followed by four which seem to portray different and extreme forms of pride: God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. Now comes another independent couple of words, denoting people who are ‘inventive’ in relation to evil and rebellious in relation to parents. And the list ends with four negatives, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless, which Phillips rather neatly renders ‘without brains, honor, love or pity.’¹⁴”¹⁵

Verse 32: They know God’s law says that anyone who lives like that should die. But they not only continue to do these things themselves, but they also encourage others who do the same.

Here we see the very epitome of man’s depravity. It is one thing to be debased and not know the Laws of God, but it is worse to have knowledge of such divine prohibitions but remain unwilling to break the chain, and so continue on in such practices. But the most sinister of all is not only having knowledge of the rules against such things, but to ignore them; to be cognizant of a way to be set free, but spurn it, and to proselytize others to join in by making such lewd debauchery appealing and socially acceptable. But what seems lost to those who continue in these works of the flesh, is that God’s laws against them and His commandments prohibiting them are for man’s good. God’s opposition to such debauchery is not just to make Him feel good, but to save man from their own destructive behavior.

The Psalmist described such people like this: “You see a thief and run to join him. You jump into bed with those who commit adultery. You say evil things and tell lies. You sit around talking about people, finding fault with your own brothers.”¹⁶ And the Jews wrote about this in their Talmud: “A person does not incur suspicion unless he has done the thing [suspected]; and if he has not done it wholly he has done it partially; and if he has not done it partially, he has a mind to do it; and if he has not had a mind to do it, he has seen others doing it and enjoyed watching it being done.”¹⁷

For many of these despicable people Paul describes here, the one thing that seemed to placate their feelings of guilt and conviction was to get others to join them so that what they were doing began to look like reasonable conduct. No doubt this is why Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit. Paul wanted the Roman believers not to get drawn into such a trap. If God said it was wrong 8,000 years, or 4,000 years, or 2,000 years ago, it is still wrong today. Since God never changes, and His Word never changes, then right and wrong never changes.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXVI)

Jewish theologian David Stern leaves no doubt where he stands on this subject: “Homosexuality was rife throughout the first-century Roman Empire, as it is today. This is why the Gay Liberation movement can gain a wide hearing as it seeks equality, acceptance, and approval of homosexuals and their behavior. It is why the Metropolitan Community Church, with tens of thousands of members in the United States, many of them openly active homosexuals, can refuse to condemn homosexual behavior as sin, yet seek acceptance as a Christian denomination. It is why outsiders condemn the Christian community when it rejects the MCC’s claim and refuses to recognize homosexuality as an ‘alternative lifestyle.’ The basic attitude of people who believe the Bible should be to love sinners while hating their sins. But believers must accept the Bible’s judgments on what is and what is not sin. Moreover, denouncing the sin is an aspect of loving the sinner; this is what enables him to repent, be forgiven, and change. All of this can be done compassionately and effectively; the real tragedy is that few Christian churches try to minister to homosexuals.”¹

Verse 28a: In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God allowed them to keep their worthless thinking.

This was another way for the apostle Paul to say that God is tolerant. Many parents have followed this same tactic. No matter how many times they’ve told their child not to touch this, or run with that, or jump off of this, sometimes, the only way they can teach them is by permitting them to suffer the consequences of disobedience. In God’s case, it’s not so much a matter of Him allowing them to get away with sin, but that He is teaching them how dangerous and harmful sin can be. One of the earliest OT writers commented: “How often do the lights go out on the wicked? How often do the consequences boomerang on them? How often does God allow them to feel the pain of His anger by making them blow around like straw in the wind like debris carried off by a storm?”²

It all starts when they take God out of the equation when they do not factor Him into every decision of their lives. It was Solomon who said: “Knowledge begins with fear and respect for the LORD, but stubborn fools hate wisdom and refuse to learn.”³ So, Solomon asks: “How long will you fools love being ignorant? How long will you make fun of wisdom? How long will you hate knowledge?”⁴ So Wisdom was asked how this could happen. She replied: “Fools will call for me, but I will not answer. They will look for me, but they will not find me. That’s because they hate knowledge. They refuse to fear and respect the Lord. They ignore my advice and refuse to be corrected. They fill their lives with what they want. They go their own way so they will get what they deserve.”⁵

But this was all done to teach them a lesson. God is waiting for them to come to their senses and ask: “Why didn’t I listen to my parents? Why didn’t I pay attention to my teachers? I didn’t want to be disciplined. I refused to be corrected. So now I have suffered through just about every kind of trouble anyone can have, and everyone knows it.”⁶ Unfortunately, wisdom is not for sale, it has to be gained through knowledge, and knowledge can only be acquired through study, and study can only be done through dedication and hard work.⁷

What perplexed Paul was the same thing that God noticed: “My people are foolish. They don’t really know me. They are stupid children. They don’t understand. They are so skilled at doing wrong, but they haven’t learned a thing about being good.”⁸ Jeremiah was told by God, people tell lies to cover up their lies.⁹ The apostle Peter believed that a lot of this came about because people conveniently ignored the past. It’s like, that can’t happen to me. But the truth is, says Peter, “These people don’t want to remember what happened long ago.”¹⁰ Of course, he was talking about the great flood that destroyed the earth’s population except for Noah and his family. So he warns them that they are not exempt from a similar judgment if they continue to ignore God and His Word. Peter goes on to say that instead of a flood, this time God will use fire.¹¹

When Paul was writing about such circumstances to young Timothy, he likened this kind of blind rebellion to what happened down in Egypt when Moses was sent by God to free His people. Paul writes: “Just as Jannes and Jambres¹² fought against Moses, these people fight against the truth. Their thinking has been confused. The faith they have and teach is worthless. But they will not succeed in what they are trying to do. Everyone will see how foolish they are. That is what happened to Jannes and Jambres.”¹³ As far as Paul was concerned, these people were speeding down a road known to have a sudden drop-off at the end. And despite the warning signs, they ignored them, thinking they were only put there to keep them away from enjoying the pleasures that lay hidden up ahead. Not only were they foolish, but they were fools for being so foolish.

The great early church preacher Chrysostom had this to say in one of his sermons on this text: “Paul shows that the heathens were responsible for their own sins, and he deprives them of any excuse. For he says that their evil deeds did not come from ignorance but from willful practice. This is why he did not say ‘because they did not know God,’ but rather ‘they did not see fit to acknowledge God.’ In other words, their sin was one of a perverted determination of obstinacy more than of a sudden delight, and it was not in the flesh (as some heretics say¹⁴) but in the mind, to whose wicked lust the sins belonged and from which the fount of evils flowed. For if the mind becomes undiscerning, everything else is dragged off course and overturned.”¹⁵

Martin Luther suggests that the reason God does not immediately punish people for their sins is that His grace outweighs His displeasure. As Luther sees this, God does so because His hidden divine judgment examines every situation for the circumstances involved. This may lead some to repentance while others continue on their way to destruction. Luther remarks: “At any rate, God stops every arrogant mouth in order that no one might prescribe to Him any rule according to which He should punish sin or reward virtue.”¹⁶ This is why Christians are taught to do the witnessing, and let God do the judging.

The great Reformer John Calvin analyses man’s bad choices: “Since they chose not to continue in the knowledge of God, which alone guides our minds to true wisdom, the Lord let them have a perverted mind, which can choose nothing that is right. And by saying, that they chose not to, it is the same as though he had said, that they pursued not after the knowledge of God with the attention they ought to have done, but, on the contrary, turned away their thoughts abjectly from God. He then intimates, that they, making a depraved choice, preferred their own vanities to the true God; and thus the error, by which they were deceived, was voluntary.”¹⁷ In other words, as far as Calvin was concerned, the excuse, “the devil made me do it,” is not acceptable or valid.

John Bengel sees Paul comparing the thesis of God “giving them over,” with the antithesis of “allowing them to retain.” In other words, these people wallowed shamelessly in their sins, had the knowledge that it was wrong, but chose not to benefit from their possession of such knowledge. Bengel says: “Such words have both an active and passive sense; so [the Greek word] ‘adokimos’ [is used].¹⁸ Here it means in an active sense: the mind which approves things [that] by no means [should] be approved; to this are given up [by] those who have disapproved what was [now] to be approved.”¹⁹ In other words, those who actively knew it was not approved by God, passively accepted it as being approved.

Adam Clarke proposes that not only did these pagan not have any true knowledge of God other than the rudimentary facts provided by creation, but goes on to say: “They did not search to retain God in their knowledge. They did not examine the evidence before them of His being and attributes; therefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to an unsearching or undiscerning mind. They did not reflect on the proofs they had of the Divine nature, and God abandoned them to the operations of a mind incapable of reflection. How men of such powers and learning, as many of the Greek and Roman philosophers and poets really were, could reason so nonconsecutively concerning things moral and Divine is truly astonishing. But here we see the hand of a just and avenging God; they abused their powers, and God deprived them of the right use of these powers.”²⁰ Keep this in mind, although God let them have their corrupt practices so they could learn how bad it was for them, He still did not accept or approve of it.

John Stott points out a play on words in the Greek text which can best be paraphrased as follows: Since they did not see fit to retain any awareness of God, God decided not to retain any awareness of them.²¹ This is another way of saying, that God is no bully. His loving the world is by choice, so He wants loving Him to be by choice. Not only that but by being left to their own devices is a quick way for any person to come to the realization that they need God more than God needs them.

Douglas Moo adds another dimension to this understanding: “Whereas in the previous instances it was to immoral acts that God consigned people, in this case it is to a ‘worthless mind.’ People who have refused to acknowledge God end up with minds that are ‘disqualified’ from being able to understand and acknowledge the will of God. The result, of course, is that they do things that are ‘not proper.’ As in 1:21, Paul stresses that people who have turned from God are fundamentally unable to think and decide correctly about God and His will. This tragic incapacity is the explanation for the apparently inexplicable failure of people to comprehend, let alone practice, biblical ethical principles. Only the work of the Spirit in ‘renewing the mind’ (Rom. 12:2) can overcome this deep-seated blindness and perversity.”²²

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXV)

Paul was very much aware that this degenerate form of immoral activity was still prevalent in his day. He had to warn the Corinthians: “Surely you know that people who do wrong will not get to enjoy God’s kingdom. Don’t be fooled. These are the people who will not get to enjoy His kingdom…men who let other men use them for sex or who have sex with other men… In the past some of you were like that. But you were washed clean, you were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”¹ Paul also warned young Timothy: “We also know that the law is not made for those who do what is right. It is made for those who are against the law and refuse to follow it. The law is for sinners who are against God and all that is pleasing to Him… It is for those who commit sexual sins, homosexuals, those who sell slaves, those who tell lies, those who don’t tell the truth under oath, and those who are against the true teaching of God.”²

It is interesting that Paul puts this unnatural desire to be intimate with the same sex in the category of other unnatural instincts. So if one is allowed, what will keep the others from also becoming a natural way of living and conducting oneself? So it goes without saying, that such unnatural tendencies are to be resisted. And only when a person gathers the courage to resist doing what’s wrong and an abomination to God, will He then give them strength to gain victory. So the apostle Jude tells the community of believers: “Remember Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities, following a pattern like theirs, committing sexual sins and perversions, lie exposed as a warning of the everlasting fire awaiting those who must undergo punishment.”³

The stoic philosopher Seneca was bemoaning the depraved condition of those in power who wallowed in immorality because of their lust and wealth. In one of his epistles he mentioned this: “Believe it or not, men live contrary to Nature who exchange the fashion of their attire with women.”⁴ Today this is more commonly referred to as cross-dressing or transgender attire. Also, Clement of Alexandria made this observation: “The fate of the Sodomites was judgment to those who had done wrong, instruction to those who hear. The Sodomites having, through much luxury, fallen into uncleanness, practicing adultery shamelessly, and burning with insane love for boys.”⁵

But this abuse of boys by men was also prevalent among the Greeks. In one of their documents we read: “Phaedo of Elis belonged to that famous Socratic band and was on terms of close intimacy with Socrates and Plato. His name was mentioned by Plato in that inspired dialogue of his on the immortality of the soul. This Phaedo, though a slave, was of noble person and intellect, and according to some writers, in his boyhood was driven to prostitution by his master, who was a panderer.”⁶ For those who bemoan these same conditions in the world today, it’s not new. The body of Christ has endured it before and will persevere again. The only admonition we need to remember is not to give in, for our Lord said: “The one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”⁷

One early church scholar who was a contemporary of the great Chrysostom, gives us his impression of what Paul is referring to here. He writes: “Paul did not say this lightly, but because he had heard that there was a homosexual community at Rome.”⁸ And Ambrosiaster speaks out by saying: “It is clear that, because they changed the truth of God into a lie, they changed the natural use (of sexuality) into that use by which they were dishonored and were condemned to the second death. For since Satan cannot make another law, having no power to do so, it must be said that they changed [existing law] to another order and by doing things which were not allowed, fell into sin. Paul says that the due penalty comes from contempt of God, and that it is wickedness and obscenity. For this is the prime cause of sin. What is worse, what is more harmful than that sin which deceives even the devil and binds man to death?”⁹

Reformist John Calvin has this to say about mankind’s condition after rejecting the truth and turning a blind eye to God’s creative glory: “They indeed deserved to be blinded, so as to forget themselves, and not to see anything appropriate for them, who, through their own malignity, closed their eyes against the light offered them by God, that they might not behold His glory: in short, they who were not ashamed to extinguish, as much of the glory of God as they could, which alone gives us light, deserved to become blind at noonday.”¹⁰

Albert Barnes gives evidence as to why the apostle Paul focused in on these homosexual activities among the pagans of Paul’s day. He writes: “It doubtlessly pervaded all classes, and we have distinct specifications of its existence in a great number of cases. Even Virgil speaks of the attachment of Corydon to Alexis, without seeming to feel the necessity of a blush for it. Maximus Tyrius says that in the time of Socrates, this vice was common among the Greeks; and is at pains to vindicate Socrates from it as almost a solitary exception.¹¹ Cicero says, that ‘Dicearchus had accused Plato of it, and probably not unjustly.’¹² He also says that the practice was common among the Greeks, and that their poets and great men, and even their learned men and philosophers, not only practiced, but gloried in it.¹³ And he adds, that it was the custom, not of particular cities only, but of Greece in general.¹⁴ Xenophon says, that ‘the unnatural love of boys is so common, that in many places it is allowed by public laws.‘¹⁵”¹⁶

John Stott also weighs in on this subject: “Verses 26–27 are a crucial text in the contemporary debate about homosexuality. The traditional interpretation, that they describe and condemn all homosexual behavior, is being challenged by the gay lobby. Three arguments are advanced. First, it is claimed that the passage is irrelevant, on the ground that its purpose is neither to teach sexual ethics, nor to expose vice, but rather to portray the outworking of God’s wrath. This is true. But if a certain sexual conduct is to be seen as the consequence of God’s wrath, it must be displeasing to Him. Secondly, ‘the likelihood is that Paul is thinking only about pederasty’ since ‘there was no other form of male homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world,’ and that he is opposing it because of the humiliation and exploitation experienced by the youths involved.”¹⁷

Stott goes on to say: “There is the question of what Paul meant by ‘nature’? Some homosexual people are urging that their relationships cannot be described as ‘unnatural’, since they are perfectly natural to them. John Boswell has written, for example, that ‘the persons Paul condemns are manifestly not homosexual: what he derogates are homosexual acts committed by apparently heterosexual people’. Hence Paul’s statement that they ‘abandoned’ natural relations, and ‘exchanged’ them for unnatural. Richard Hays has written a thorough exegetical rebuttal of this interpretation, however. He provides ample contemporary evidence that the opposition of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ was ‘very frequently used … as a way of distinguishing between heterosexual and homosexual behavior.’ Besides, differentiating between sexual orientation and sexual practice is a modern concept; ‘to suggest that Paul intends to condemn homosexual acts only when they are committed by persons who are constitutionally heterosexual is to introduce a distinction entirely foreign to Paul’s thought-world,’ in fact a complete anachronism.”¹⁸

Here’s what Stott says in his conclusion: “So then, we have no liberty to interpret the noun ‘nature’ as meaning ‘my’ nature, or the adjective ‘natural’ as meaning ‘what seems natural to me.’ On the contrary, physis (‘ natural’) means God’s created order. To act ‘against nature’ means to violate the order which God has established, whereas to act ‘according to nature’ means to behave ‘in accordance with the intention of the Creator.’ Moreover, the intention of the Creator means His original intention. What this was Genesis tells us and Jesus confirmed: ‘At the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one.’ Then Jesus added His personal endorsement and deduction: ‘Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’ In other words, God created humankind male and female; God instituted marriage as a heterosexual union; and what God has thus united, we have no liberty to separate. This threefold action of God established that the only context which He intends for the ‘one flesh’ experience is heterosexual monogamy, and that a homosexual partnership (however loving and committed it may claim to be) is ‘against nature’ and can never be regarded as a legitimate alternative to marriage.”¹⁹

Douglas Moo also adds his insights on this subject: “Paul shows that the same ‘sinful passions’ that led women to engage in unnatural homosexual acts are also operative among men, with similar effect. Homosexuality among ‘males,’ like that among ‘females,’ is characterized as a departure from nature. As in the previous verse, ‘nature’ denotes the natural order, but as reflective of God’s purposes. Paul uses strong language to characterize male homosexuality: ‘they burned in their desire for one another, men with men doing that which is shameful and receiving in themselves the just penalty that was necessary for their error.’ In calling the homosexual activity that brings about this penalty an ‘error,’ Paul does not diminish the seriousness of the offense, for this word often denotes sins of unbelievers in the NT. In claiming that this penalty for homosexual practice is received ‘in themselves,’ Paul may suggest that the sexual perversion itself is the punishment. On the other hand, this could be a vivid way of saying that those who engage in such activities will suffer eternal punishment; they will receive ‘in their own persons’ God’s penalty for violation of His will. This punishment, Paul says, was ‘necessary,’ by which he probably means that God could not allow His created order to be so violated without there being a just punishment.”²⁰

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXIV)

German scholar John Bengel, considered the father of modern Biblical scholarship, in his work called, “Gnomen¹ of the New Testament,” deconstructs this verse as follows: “The Truth – Which commands us to worship God as God. Into a lie – [That is, exchanged for a lie] the price of mythology. Worshiped – Internally. Served – Externally.”² Today we might call this “stolen identity.” Using all the things belonging to God for our enjoyment and enrich the prince of this world.

H. A. Ironside also gives what he sees as evidence of what Paul is saying here: “Observe the downward steps on the toboggan-slide of idolatry – God thought of first as an idealized man, then likened to the birds that soar into the heavens, next to the beasts that prowl over the earth, and finally to serpents and other detestable creeping things, whether reptilian or insectivorous. Even the Egyptian worshiped the serpent and the scarabaeus,³ and yet back of all Egyptian mythology is hidden the original revelation of one true and living God! What degradation does this imply on the part of one of the most enlightened nations of antiquity!”⁴

Even in his day, preacher Charles Spurgeon lamented: “There are many preachers who have ‘changed the truth of God into a lie;’ and by their exaltation of man, they have ‘worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.’ God save all of us from such idolatry as that! Amen.”⁵ As I have indicated in the translation of the text above, the truth was used to promote a lie, because it is impossible to transform the truth into a falsehood. It is a matter of using it for wrong purposes with misleading intent.

Albert Barnes has an interesting note on the way Paul ends this verse with an “Amen.” “This is a Hebrew word denoting strong affirmation. So let it be. It implies here the solemn assent of the writer to what was just said; or his strong wish that what he had said might be – that the name of God might be esteemed and be blessed forever. The mention of the degrading idolatry of the pagans was strongly calculated to impress on his mind the superior excellency and glory of the one living God. It is mentioned respecting the Honorable Robert Boyle,⁶ that he never mentioned the name of God without a solemn pause, denoting his profound reverence. Such a practice would tend eminently to prevent an unholy familiarity and irreverence in regard to the sacred name of the Most High.”⁷

Verses 26-27: Because people did those things, God allowed them to be overcome by their degrading and vile passions. Women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural the same way men stopped having natural sex with women and began wanting each other all the time. Men did shameful things with other men, and in their bodies, they received the punishment for those wrongs.

There were times in the past when these verses were adopted as God’s commandments and were made part of man’s laws. While it did not stop such activities, it did place them in the category of being unnatural and therefore unlawful. However, today they are slowly being accepted as natural and as such cannot be considered illegal. This is being done under the covering of what is called, “civil rights.” Meaning, that society as a whole must now accept this as normal and give it their blessing. But this was not something the apostle Paul thought up on his own. He knew there were scriptures to back him up.⁸

John Calvin sees the sinister side of what happens when God allows mankind to exercise their own free will and chooses wrong over right, or bad over good. Calvin points out, that after Paul introduced God’s abandonment it as if it were an intervening clause, he now returns to what he had stated before on the judgment of God. Then he offers, as the first example, the dreadful crime of unnatural lust; and it, therefore, appears that they not only abandoned themselves to bestiality but became degraded beyond the beasts, since they reversed the whole order of nature. He then enumerates a long catalog of vices which had existed throughout the ages and then dominated everywhere without any restraint.⁹

Charles Hodge makes this point about how devastating a sign it was that Paul began with women: “This corruption of morals was condemned to no one class or gender. The description given by profane writers of the moral corruption of the pre-Christian ages is in all respects as revolting as that presented by the apostle. Paul first refers to the degradation of females among the heathen, because they are always the last to be affected in the decay of morals, and their corruption is, therefore, proof that all virtue is lost.”¹⁰ In other words, males have been known to exhibit very vile and corrupt tendencies and language. But when women adopt the same practices, it is a clear omen that things have gone from bad to worse.

Ambrosiaster gives his view on this subject: “Paul tells us that these things came about, that a woman should lust after another woman because God was angry at the human race because of its idolatry. Those who interpret this differently do not understand the force of the argument. For what is it to change the use of nature for purposes which are contrary to nature, if not to take away the former and adopt the latter, so that the same part of the body should be used by each of the sexes in a way for which it was not intended? Therefore, if this is the part of the body which they think it is, how could they have changed the natural use of it as if they had not been given this use to them by nature?”¹¹

The cases of lesbianism were not as acute as was male homosexuality. However, the Jews did have their commentary on such practices. For instance, in their Talmud, we read where many Rabbi’s did not permit their daughters to sleep together. This was because Rabbi Huna said: “Women that commit lewdness with one another are unfit for the priesthood.”¹² Also, Rabbi Solomon Jarchi, better known as Rashi, had this to say about Rebecca who, when the servant of Abraham first saw her, said: “She was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her.”¹³ Rashi writes: “No man had been intimate with her in an unnatural way. Since the daughters of the Gentiles would preserve their virginity but were promiscuous in unnatural ways, Scripture attests that she was completely innocent.”¹⁴ Scholars take this promiscuity in unnatural ways as being lesbian intimacy.

It goes as far back as Noah. There has always been the question of why Noah would curse Canaan, the son of Ham when it was reported to him that while he was laying intoxicated in his tent, it was Ham who came in and saw his nakedness? Without going into extensive detail, there are three words used in the OT for “naked. ” One is “arowm”, which means nude, and was used in Genesis 2:25. Another is “eyrom”, which means nakedness, as seen in Genesis 3:7. The third is “erwah”, which means nude by exposed genitalia, which is used in Genesis 9:22, where Noah’s nakedness was seen by Ham.

So that brings us back to why Canaan was cursed instead of Ham. We have a clue where it reads: “When Noah awoke from his wine, he found out what his youngest son had done to him.” ¹⁵ First, Ham was not Noah’s youngest son, he was the middle child, so the term “youngest” must have another meaning. All listings of Noah’s sons are: “Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”¹⁶ The word used by Noah for “youngest son,” (“beno haqqatan” in Hebrew) is also used to denote grandson. Therefore, it is easy to understand that it was Noah’s grandson involved here. So why was this not spelled out in the text? No doubt because it was a sensitive and embarrassing event that Moses did not want to record in detail. After all, what Lot’s daughters did to him while he was drunk with wine is apparently recorded because it was not of a sodomizing nature.¹⁷

So what was the curse Noah placed on Canaan? It reads: “Let there be a curse on Canaan! Let him be a slave to his brothers. Let the Lord, the God of Shem, be praised! Let Canaan be Shem’s slave.” We see this curse carried out when God called Abram, one of Shem’s descendants, to go to the land settled by Canaan and his descendants, and He would give it to him as an inheritance. Thus, when Israel came out of Egypt, they invaded Canaan and possessed it, and the Canaanites living there became subject to them. As we know from history, this land was taken away from Israel for an extended period, but in 1949 it was given back to them and is in their possession to this day.

But it appears that Canaan’s sin of sexually abusing his grandfather Noah stayed on in the genes of his descendants. This is exemplified in the story of what happened after Lot, Abram’s grandson was gracious enough to invite two angels to come to his house for a meal and to stay the night. We read: “That evening, just before bedtime, men from every part of town came to Lot’s house. They stood around the house and called to Lot. They asked, ‘Where are the two men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us. We want to have sex with them.’”¹⁸ Even though Lot was helpless against this mob, the angels themselves took over. It says: “The two men staying with Lot opened the door, pulled him back inside the house, and closed the door. Then they did something to the men outside the door—they caused all these evil men, young and old, to become blind. So the men trying to get in the house could not find the door.”¹⁹ They gave Lot time to arrange his escape after telling him: “We are going to destroy this city. The Lord heard how evil this city is, so He sent us to destroy it.”²⁰ So the question is: If homosexuality is natural, then why did God react so strongly against it? In fact, what these men wanted to do to these angels became known as “sodomy.”

So, did things change after God gave Moses the laws He wanted His people to follow? No, they did not. God told Moses: “Men, you must not have sexual relations with another man as with a woman. That is a terrible sin!”²¹ But even what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah did not eradicate this unnatural tendency. We are told the story of a Levite who lived far back in the hill country of Ephraim outside of Bethlehem. During one of his travels back home from Bethlehem with a new housemaid, he stopped for a night in Gibeah. Next, we read: “While the Levite and those who were with him were enjoying themselves, some very bad men from the city surrounded the house. They began beating on the door. They shouted at the old man who owned the house. They said, ‘Bring out the man who came to your house. We want to have sex with him.’”²² Did the host say: Oh, yes, of course. I understand because he is so handsome? No! He went out and accosted them by saying: “Don’t do such an evil thing! This man is a guest in my house. Don’t commit this terrible sin.”²³

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU DIED INSIDE?

The great English playwright, William Shakespeare, was inspired to write a play based on the life of Roman emperor Julius Caesar and titled it, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. It was introduced in 1599 for the first time in the Globe Theater, located in the Southwark district of London.

In a scene, at Caesar’s house, during a horrific thunderstorm with multiple strikes of lightning, Caesar is seen walking around in his night-gown complaining that nobody could get any rest, neither in heaven or on earth. Then Calpurnia walks in, and Caesar is surprised when she tells him not to go out of the house today. Proudly, Caesar tells her he has no fear because no one can touch or harm him. That is when Caesar uttered this line: “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste death but once.”¹

How many times in life have you encountered people who thought they knew best and considered themselves as being above failure?  But then you saw them with their faces in their hands and tears running down their cheeks because they couldn’t believe what happened that caused them to fail, or miss the mark, or made a mess out of what they thought was a perfect opportunity. And because their dream or vision has suffered a mortal blow, they feel like they have died inside.

However, they need not be like the coward Caesar talked about. Instead, they can be valiant by taking their disappointment as a learning experience, stand up and boldly keep on going. After all, dreams and visions only exist in our imagination, so we actually haven’t lost just because they don’t come true the way we thought they would. That’s why we should consider them as seeds in our creative thinking. And as we know, when a seed is planted and dies, it can sprout again and indeed become the fruit we were looking for. – Dr. Robert R Seyda

If you’ve ever thought that you didn’t have all it took to succeed in life, just read this unbelievable story of how one man tackled his disability. It should inspire you to take what God has given you and with His help make the best out of it.

JUST A TYPEWRITER

His name was Paul Smith, and he lived at Rose Haven Nursing Home ( Roseburg, OR ) for years. He was a man with extraordinary talent, born on September 21, 1921, with severe cerebral palsy. Not only had Paul beaten the odds of life with spastic cerebral palsy, a disability that impeded his speech and mobility but also taught himself to become a master artist as well as a terrific chess player even after being unable to participate in any formal education as a child.

To keep himself occupied, Paul started to experiment with a typewriter. He would use his left hand to steady his right one. And since he couldn’t press two keys simultaneously, he almost always locked the shift key down and created objects on paper using the symbols at the top of the number keys. In other words, the forms were based on these characters ….. ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ +. For the next 70 years, Paul created hundreds of pictures. He often gave the originals away. Sometimes, but not always, he kept or received a copy for his own records. As his mastery of the typewriter grew, he developed techniques to create shadings, colors, and textures that made his work resemble pencil or charcoal drawings.

This great man passed away on June 25, 2009, but left behind a collection of his amazing artwork that will be an inspiration for many. You know that saying about “When life closes a door, God opens a window?” Well, I think God just helped this man build a whole new house.

Here are some of the typewriter pictures that Paul made. They are beautiful to look at and should make us marvel at what one person can do with so little.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXIII)

Reformer Martin Luther has this to say about God’s nonintervention when a person follows his own desires even though he sees evidence of God’s involvement in other people’s lives. He writes: “From this, we must not conclude that God wants to see sin, even if it does occur according to His will. On the contrary, as such, but He permits sin to execute His punitive judgment upon those who deserve it. The punishment, however, is not properly the sin itself, but the condemnation which is connected with it.”¹ This is another way of saying, that sometimes God lets stubborn people learn the hard way that His way is better than their way.

John Calvin expresses his feeling about the subject of God giving up on those who turned to idols instead of turning to Him. He writes: “With irreverence being a hidden evil, and to avoid their finding an alibi, Paul shows, by a more perceptible demonstration, that, they cannot escape, but must be held fast by a just condemnation, since such fruits have followed this irreverence as cannot be viewed otherwise than manifest evidence of the Lord’s wrath. By such evidence then he now proves the apostasy and defection of men: for the Lord indeed does so punish those, who alienate themselves from Him with their own low condition, when they ought humbly to have given Him His own glory.”² In other words, the error of substituting idols for the true and living God cannot be blamed on God. God is available at all times, but not in the way many desire Him to be. So it’s man’s choice, and he must, therefore, deal with the consequences.

H. A. Ironside makes this observation: “Men could not stand this intimate knowledge of God for it made them uncomfortable in their sins; so a host of lesser deities and divinities were invented as go-betweens, and eventually the knowledge of the true God was entirely lost. But even today creation is His constant witness. This orderly universe with its succession of the seasons and the mathematical accuracy of the movements of the heavenly bodies bears testimony to the Divine Mind. The stars in their courses proclaim the great Creator’s power.³

Forever singing as they shine, The Hand that made us is divine.⁴

One word in the original is rendered by four words in English: ‘Things-that-are-made’ is Poima, and from this, we get our word poem. Creation is God’s great epic poem, every part fitted together like the lines and verses of a majestic hymn.”⁵

Charles Hodge also speaks to the meaning of God abandoning those who insisted on worshiping false gods to reap the harvest of the seed they sowed: “This is explained as a simple permission on the part of God. But it removes no real difficulty. If God permits those who forsake Him to sink into vice, He does it intelligently and intentionally. The language of the apostle, as well as the analogy of Scripture, demands more than this. It is at least a judicial abandonment. It is a punishment for their apostasy that God gives men up to the power of sin. He withdraws from the wicked the restraints of His providence and grace and gives them over to the dominion of sin. God is presented in the Bible as the absolute moral and physical ruler of the world. He governs all things according, to the counsel of His own will and the nature of His creatures. What happens as consequences does not come by chance, but as designed; and the sequence is secured by His control.”⁶

John Stott sees a connection between man’s stubborn mindset to live his life as he pleases as the reason for idolatry. He says: “God’s judgment on the people’s idolatry was to give them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity. The history of the world confirms that idolatry trends to immorality. A false image of God leads to a false understanding of sex. Paul does not tell us what kind of immorality he has in mind, except that it involved the degrading of their bodies with one another. He is right. Illicit sex degrades people’s humanness; sex in marriage, as God intended, ennobles it.”⁷

Also, Douglas Moo makes this comment: “Paul’s purpose in this verse is to highlight the divine side of the cycle of sin; but it must be balanced with the human side, presented in Ephesians 4:19, where Paul says that Gentiles ‘gave themselves up’ to licentiousness, leading to all kinds of ‘uncleanness.’ C. H. Dodd, in keeping with his interpretation of God’s wrath, thinks the ‘handing over’ is no more than the outworking of the natural processes of history. But so impersonal a procedure does justice neither to the biblical teaching about God’s sovereign activity in history nor to Paul’s active language.”⁸

Jewish theologian David Stern makes some very straightforward remarks on how we should interpret what Paul says here: “When people stray from God, he eventually gives them over to the consequences of their horrific error — in physical (v. 24), emotional (v. 26) and mental (v. 28) dimensions, that is, in every aspect of their lives. Sexual sin (v. 24) and, in particular, homosexuality (vv. 26– 27) are singled out as punishments from God, punishments which themselves are sins.” With this view then, we can see how any punishment that results in a person’s immoral behavior does not come from God but from the sin they are committing, such as Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD).

Verse 25: They used the truth of God to promote a lie. They bowed down and worshiped the things God made instead of worshiping the God who made those things. He is the one who should be praised forever. Amen.

Paul continues his critique of the way the Greeks and Barbarians ran after the fantasies and mirages of man-made gods. But he points out, it wasn’t because they had no other choice, but exactly because they did made that choice. They turned from a living God to dead gods. This is something that the prophet Isaiah also confronted in his day: “They don’t realize what they are doing. They aren’t smart enough to think, ‘I burned half of the wood in the fire. I used the hot coals to bake my bread and cook the meat I ate. Then I used the wood that was left over to make this terrible thing. I am worshiping a block of wood!’ Someone like that is deceived. They don’t know what they are doing. They cannot save themselves, and they will not admit, ‘This statue I am holding is a lie!‘”⁹

God saw the situation in Israel getting so bad, that He called out to the prophet Jeremiah: “Do these people think they can make real gods for themselves? No, they can only make statues that are not gods at all. So, I want to let them know once and for all what real power and might looks like. Then they will know for sure that I am Lord.”¹⁰ Unfortunately, by the time God began to use the prophet Habakkuk, He was forced to say: “Their false god will not help them because it is only a statue that someone formed out of metal. It is only a statue, so whoever made it cannot expect it to help. That statue cannot even speak. Look at them! They speak to a wooden statue and tell it, ‘Get up! Rescue me.’ They talk to a stone that cannot speak and say, ‘Wake up!’ Don’t you know those things cannot help you? That statue may be covered with gold and silver, but there is no life in it.”¹¹

One early church scholar examined this practice of converting God’s truth into a lie. He writes: “They gave the name of the true God to these things, which are false gods. Ignoring what rocks and wood and other metals really are, they attributed to them something which does not belong to them. The truth of God is turned into a lie when a rock is called God. This fact drove out the God who is true, and since true and false shared a common name, it was easy for the true God to be regarded as false. This is what it means to change what is true into falsehood. For those things were not called rock or wood, but God. This is to worship the creature rather than the Creator, which is what they did. They did not deny God but worshiped a creature as God. In order to justify this, they gave these things the honor due to God, so that their worship rendered dishonor to God. For that reason, He was quick to punish them, because although they knew God, they did not honor him ‘who is blessed for ever. Amen.’ This is true!”¹²

This redirecting one’s prayers, praise, and thanksgiving from God to some object that is labeled as a form of God have happened again in the congregation of believers. Things such as carved figures of the apostles, early church saints, and even the mother of Jesus. What would parents think if all of a sudden their son or daughter would send a close friend or someone they admired, to speak with them as their way of saying “Thank You,” or to ask for some need, or, to ask forgiveness for some mistake they made against their parent’s instructions. In most cases, the parents would say: Go tell them to come to me in person and converse with me directly.

Martin Luther shares his opinion of what is going on here with these arrogant philosophers: “They do not do Him the honor to admit that the glorious God is supremely exalted over their reason and judgment, but they elevate their own opinions so highly that they have no more difficulty or fear to judge God than they judge the leather of a poor shoemaker.”¹³ It isn’t that Luther doesn’t like the workmanship of poor shoemakers, but that these self-important thinkers prize their concepts over anything that comes from God. But the real rub is that often the critics of these poor shoemakers are people who have never made a shoe themselves. So they are left to judging the quality of the leather rather than the workmanship. In that sense, they see God’s ethics and virtues as having far less intellectual class than their own, rather than admiring the divine intellect behind them.

John Calvin notes: “Paul repeats what he had said before, though in different words, in order to fix it deeper in our minds. When the truth of God is turned to a lie, His glory is obliterated. It is only just that they should be showered with every kind of infamy who strive to take away from God His honor, and also to reproach His name.” Calvin then adds: “No religious honor can be given to a creature without [simultaneously] taking it away, in a disgraceful and irreverent manner, from God: and vain is the excuse that images are worshiped on God’s account, since God acknowledges no such worship, nor regards it as acceptable; and the true God is not then worshiped at all, but a fictitious god, whom the flesh has devised for itself.”¹⁴

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXII)

No doubt Paul remembered his time in Athens where he told the city council: “We all come from God. So you must not think that He is like something people imagine or make up. He is not made of gold, silver, or stone.”¹ So that raises a question for us to consider: Is it wrong to talk about God seeing us, hearing us, speaking to us, lifting us up, understanding us, or His healing touch, etc.? No! Absolutely not. Just as long as we don’t insist that His eyes, ears, mouth, arms, hands, and mind are exactly like ours. All of our senses are finite, that’s why our organs were made the way they were, each with limits. But God is limitless. There’s nothing He cannot see or see through; nothing He cannot hear, nothing He cannot do, and there is nothing He does not know. Philo the Jewish philosopher said a similar thing to what Paul said, that the Jews had: “Forsaken the true God and made for themselves false gods, of perishable and created substances, calling them by the name which only belongs to the uncreated and everlasting God.”²

In examining this verse, early church theologian Origen says: “We ought not to overlook this passage. The apostle is not merely complaining about those who worship idols, but he should also be understood to be refuting the Anthropomorphites,³ who are found inside the church, who say that the bodily image of man is just like the image of God, ignoring the fact that it is written in Genesis that the whole person is created in the image of God,⁴ which must be understood as it is interpreted by the apostle, when he said: ‘You have put off the old man with his behavior and you have put on the new man, which is created according to God.’⁵ … Elsewhere Paul calls this the ‘inner man’ and regards the corrupt bodily image as the ‘outer man.’⁶ … The mistake of those who think that it is this outer man which is the image of God is, therefore, obvious.”⁷ In other words, if you want to look like Christ, it’s not how you resemble Him mortally on the outside, but how you resemble Him morally on the inside.

On the subject of mankind making gods to worship instead of worshiping God Himself, John Calvin has this to say: “Having made up such a God as they could comprehend according to their carnal reason, they were very far from acknowledging the true God: but devised a fictitious and a new god, or rather a phantom. And what Paul says is, that they changed the glory of God… so they departed from the true God. Nor are they to be excused for this pretense, that they believe that God dwells in heaven and that they count not the wood [idol] to be God, but his image; for it is a great indignity to God, to form so gross an idea of His Majesty as to dare to make a [supposed] image of Him. But from the wickedness of such a presumption none were exempt, neither priests, nor statesmen, nor philosophers, of whom the most sound-minded, even Plato himself, sought to discover some likeness of God.”⁸

Bible scholar Charles Hodge gives a profound exposition on how the minds of these false god worshipers became so disoriented: “Some professed to regard the visible image as a mere symbol of the real object of their adoration; while others believed that the gods in some way filled these idols, and operated through them; and others again, that the universal principle of being was revered under these manifestations. The Scriptures take no account of these destinations. All who bowed down to stocks and stones are denounced as worshiping gods which their own hands had made, and idolatry is made to include not merely the worship of false gods, but the worship of the true God by images. The universal prevalence of idolatry among the heathens, notwithstanding the revelation which God had made of Himself in His works, is the evidence which Paul adduces to prove that they are ungodly, and consequently exposed to that wrath which is revealed against all ungodliness.”⁹

In other words, it’s one thing to know that the idol, image, or icon to which you pay homage represents God or is even made in the likeness of God. But when the mind becomes so blind and disillusioned that you actually believe that the true and living God inhabits this dead hand-made god, thereby making it divine and powerful, then the anchor to spiritual reality has been pulled loose and the mind then can drift anywhere and believe anything, no matter how imaginary it may be. As Douglas Moo comments: “This tragic process of human ‘god-making’ continues apace in our own day, and Paul’s words have as much relevance for people who have made money or sex or fame their gods as for those who carved idols out of wood and stone.”¹⁰ But let me go a little further on how false images of God are fashioned. In our own day, some people worship the god of their imagination, they believe they know God because of the image planted in their minds by their parents, Sunday school teachers, Pastors, books they’ve read, and even those icons seen in painted pictures or small religious statues.

Verse 24: People wanted only to do evil. So God released them and let them go their sinful way. And so they became completely immoral and used their bodies in shameful ways with each other.

It is even more clear now that Paul is referring to what he saw among the Greeks, especially in Athens, as well as Corinth just 50 miles away. Many of the ancient Greek documents have subliminal hints at many of these immoral activities, as well as outright documentation of Temple prostitution, all done in the name of their religion. This if confirmed by the Greek geographer Strabo who wrote around 20 AD: “And the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves, courtesans, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich; for instance, the ship captains freely squandered their money, and hence the proverb, ‘Not for every man is the voyage to Corinth.‘”¹¹

This distressed Paul because of the possible influence it had on believers who might be tempted to return to their old ways. For instance, he warned the Ephesians: “I have something from the Lord to tell you. I warn you: Don’t keep copying those who don’t believe. Their thoughts are worth nothing. They have no understanding, and they know nothing because they refuse to listen. So they cannot have the life that God gives. They have lost their feeling of shame and use their lives to do what is morally wrong. More and more they want to do all kinds of evil.”¹²

So it is no wonder that Paul wrote the Corinthians and told them: “The body is not for sexual sin. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. And God will raise our bodies from death with the same power He used to raise the Lord Jesus. Surely you know that your bodies are parts of Christ Himself. So I must never take what is part of Christ and join it to a prostitute!”¹³ He then advises them: “So run away from sexual sin. It involves the body in a way that no other sin does. So if you commit sexual sin, you are sinning against your own body. You should know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit that you received from God and that lives in you. You don’t own yourselves. God paid a very high price to make you His. So honor God with your body.”¹⁴

The Thessalonians must have had a similar problem, so Paul wrote them: “God wants each one of you to learn to control your own body. Use your body in a way that is holy and that gives honor to God. Don’t let your sexual desires control you like the people who don’t know God.”¹⁵ Paul uses this illustration to make his point: “In a mansion there are things made of gold and silver. But there are also things made of wood and pottery. Some of these are used for special purposes, others for regular jobs. The Lord wants to use you for special purposes, so make yourself clean from all evil. Then you will be holy, and the Master can use you. You will be ready for any good work.”¹⁶

Early church scholars had several views on the subject of God giving up on mankind and thereby allowed them to slip further into sin. One writer notes: “In saying that God gave them up to their own lusts, Paul is not claiming that God is the direct cause of this but merely that since God did not bring vengeance on them after much longsuffering and patience, He allowed them to act according to their own desires. He did this, wanting them to be converted to repentance.”¹⁷ And Bishop Theodoret makes this comment: “By saying ‘gave them up,’ Paul means that God permitted this to happen. He simply abandoned them because they had fallen into extreme ungodliness.”¹⁸

Also, early church theologian Augustine addresses this subject in different writings. He says: “This means that God abandoned them to the desires of their own hearts. For Paul says that they got what they deserved from God.”¹⁹ In another place, Augustine writes: “When the evil will receives power to accomplish its purpose, this comes from the judgment of God, in whom there is no unrighteousness. His punishment is carried out in this way as well as in other ways. It is not less just merely because it is hidden. The wicked man only knows that he is being punished when some clear penalty makes him feel, against his will, the evil of the sin which he committed willingly.”²⁰ And on another occasion, Augustine makes this point: “Many are left to themselves, to their own hurt.… A man that has asked for great wealth may have received it to his own hurt. While he was without it had little to fear; as soon as he has possession of it, he has become a prey to the stronger.”²¹

So we can see a consensus among early church scholars that while God abandoned wicked people to wallow in their own sinful dilemma, He did not forsake them altogether. Today this action by God might be labeled as “tough love.” But it also reflects God’s grace. As the apostle, Paul, says elsewhere in his commentary on Romans: “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”²² That does not cheapen grace so it can be used as one desires to their own advantage. No! But used in the same way it was in the case of King David and Nathan the prophet, after David’s adultery with Bathsheba.²³ According to Jewish law, such an act of adultery and murder was paid for by the culprit with their life. But in David’s case, God decided to allow His grace to be sufficient in covering David’s sin because He still had more for David to do that would honor Him.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

Dr. Robert R. Seyda

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

CHAPTER ONE (Part XXI)

Adam Clarke in his exposition on these verses hints that Paul was acquainted with the writings of the Greek philosophers: “This certainly refers to the foolish manner in which even the wisest of their philosophers discoursed about the Divine nature, including Socrates, Plato, and Seneca. Who can read their works without being struck with the vanity of their reasonings, as well as with the stupidity of their nonsense, when speaking about God? I might crowd my page with proofs of this, but it is not necessary to those who are acquainted with their writings, and to others, it would not be useful. In short, their foolish, darkened minds sought God nowhere but in the place in which He is never to be found; viz. the vile, corrupted, and corrupting passions of their own hearts. As they did not discover Him there, they scarcely sought Him anywhere else.”¹

Charles Spurgeon preached on this subject and said: “Even in old Rome, with all its darkness, there was some knowledge of God: how can the creature quite forget its Creator? Of course, the people had not that spiritual knowledge which the Holy Ghost communicates to the renewed in heart, for the carnal mind cannot know God spiritually: its fleshly ideas cannot come near to His holy spirituality. But Paul means that they perceived the eternal power and Godhead of the Great Creator of all things; and they might have perceived much more of His divine character and glory if their foolish hearts had not been darkened by their evil passions.”²

However, Albert Barnes shares that if we consult the writings of the ancient philosophers we will find plenty of evidence that they were aware of a superior divine being.³ In one of the references he names we find the following quote from Chrysippus:⁴ “If there be some thing in the world that man’s mind and human reason, strength, and power are incapable of producing, that which produces it must necessarily be superior to man.”⁵ Barnes also makes reference to a quote from Cicero in the same work, that reads: “When we gaze upward to the sky and contemplate the heavenly bodies, what can be so obvious and so manifest as that there must exist, some power possessing transcendent intelligence by whom these things are ruled.”⁶ To this Barnes asks the question: Who else could this be but God?

John Stott gives us this explanation: “The opening statement that they knew God cannot be taken absolutely since elsewhere Paul writes that people outside Christ do not know God. It refers rather to the limited knowledge of God’s power and glory which is available to everybody through general revelation. Instead of their knowledge of God leading to the worship of God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him. Rather their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”⁷

Douglas Moo echoes the same thought: “This limited knowledge of God falls far short of what is necessary to establish a relationship with Him. Knowledge must lead to reverence and gratitude. This it has failed to do. Instead of acknowledging God ‘as God,’ by glorifying Him and thanking Him, human beings perverted their knowledge and sank into idolatry and immorality.”⁸ It is clear that the individuals Paul refers to knew of God, but they did not really know God. This same fallacy is with us today. It can be seen in the irony of those who use God’s name in vain even though they claim He doesn’t exist.

Verses 22-23: They thought they were being wise, but they became fools. Instead of honoring the immortal greatness of God, they traded it for the worship of idols—things made to look like humans, or like birds, animals, and snakes who get sick and die.

The thing that made Paul shake his head in bewilderment was the fact that such people were convinced they knew exactly what they were doing. When in fact, it was just the opposite of what they thought. We might compare this to what happened to many in the early gold rush in California that started in 1848. Many of the miners would hide the location of their diggings or pannings while bringing bags filled with gold to assessors, only to find out it was worthless pyrite. Thus it became known as “Fool’s gold.” As Charles Hodge point out, they were: “Saying in the sense of pretending it to be. The more they boasted of their wisdom, the more conspicuous became their folly. What greater folly can there be, than to worship beasts rather than [the] God [who created them]?”⁹

In the case Paul presents here, many of those who were worshiping idols thought they were forms of real gods when in fact they were only imagined images carved out of wood, stone, silver, or gold. It was something the prophet Jeremiah had to deal with: “People are so stupid! Goldsmiths end up looking like fools by the idols they make. These statues are nothing but lies. These ridiculous idols are worth nothing. They are something to make fun of.”¹⁰ What astounded Paul, as it did Jeremiah, was that these inanimate man-made objects were given features such as eyes, ears, noses, mouths, arms, hands, legs, and feet, but there was no life in them. Therefore, they couldn’t see, hear, smell, talk, walk, or pick up anything.¹¹

Martin Luther takes what Paul says here as the Golden Rule for all mankind, both those who are considered special in society and those who are thought of as average.¹² In other words, no matter how intelligent or how uneducated a person maybe, to suggest that they have greater wisdom than God makes them all equal fools. This is borne out by the fact they such foolishness leads both to commit the same corruption of worshiping gods of their own making rather than the God who made them.

Reformist John Calvin spoke on what secular philosophers were thinking as they looked at God’s creation: “There were indeed none who sought not to form some ideas of the majesty of God, and to make Him such a God as they could conceive Him to be according to their own reason. This presumption I hold is not learned in the schools, but is innate, and comes with us, so to speak, from the womb. It is indeed evident, that it is an evil which has prevailed in all ages — that men have allowed themselves every liberty in coining superstitions. The arrogance, then, which is condemned here is this — that men sought to be in themselves wise, and to pull God down to a level with their own low condition when they should have humbly given Him His own glory. For Paul holds this principle, that none, except through their own fault, are unacquainted with the worship due to God; as though he said, “As they have proudly exalted themselves, they have become infatuated through the righteous judgment of God.” There is an obvious reason, which contravenes the interpretation which I reject; for the error of forming an image of God did not originate with the philosophers; but they, by their consent, approved of it as received from others.”¹³

Adam Clarke makes this point: “A dispassionate examination of the doctrine and lives of the most famed philosophers of antiquity, of every nation, will show that they were darkened in their mind and irregular in their conduct. It was from the Christian religion alone that true philosophy and genuine philosophers sprang.”¹⁴ Clarke goes on to say: “The finest representation of their deities was [found] in the human figure; and on such representative figures the sculptors spent all their skill; hence the Hercules of Farnese, the Venus of Medicis, and the Apollo of Belvidere. And when they had formed their gods according to the human shape, they endowed them with human passions; and as they clothed them with attributes of extraordinary strength, beauty, wisdom, etc., not having the true principles of morality, they represented them as slaves to the most disorderly and disgraceful passions; excelling in irregularities the most libertine of men, as possessing unlimited powers of sensual gratification.”¹⁵

Several early church scholars have a number of comments on this verse. Says Ambrosiaster: “They imagined that they were wise because they thought they had explored the natural sciences, investigating the courses of the stars and the quantities of the elements, while rejecting the God who made them. Therefore they are fools, for if these things are worthy of praise, how much more is their Creator!”¹⁶ The great preacher Chrysostom said: “Having some high opinion of themselves and not being patient enough to go the way that God had commanded them, they were immersed in a way of thinking which made no sense.”¹⁷ Then the great scholar Augustine makes this point: “It is pride that turns man away from wisdom, and folly is the consequence of turning away from wisdom.”¹⁸ And one of Augustine’s contemporary scholars says: “They thought they were wise because they had ‘discovered’ how the invisible God can be honored by means of a visible idol!”¹⁹ And bishop Theodoret concludes: “They increased their guilt by their claim, for in calling themselves wise they showed that in fact, they were fools.”²⁰

When the Psalmist wrote about how the children of Israel were fooled into making an idol out of gold, he said: “They traded their glorious God for a statue of a grass-eating ox!”²¹ And what made it so ridiculous was that the ox couldn’t move or eat grass. But we must ask ourselves this question: Since we cannot see God, what do we think He looks like in our imagination? The prophet Isaiah asked this question and then gives his answer: “Can you compare God to anything? Can you make a picture of God? No, but some people make statues from rock or wood, and they call them gods.”²² Here in our text, Paul emphasizes the fact that God is a timeless, immortal, bodyless Spirit. After all, that’s exactly the way Jesus His Son described Him: “God is a spirit. So the people who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”²³