Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Gospel Revealed, the Wrath Revealed (Romans 1) | Robert H. Mounce

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The Gospel Revealed, the Wrath Revealed (Romans 1) | Robert H. Mounce · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I am really glad you are here
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with us today. We are doing something a little
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bit different for this one. Yeah, we are usually.
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We take a pretty broad topic, right?
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And we pull from a dozen different places, maybe piece
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things together. But today we are We're fixing
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our attention on a single, massive piece of scholarship.
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Right, a real deep dive. Exact.
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Well, precisely. We are opening up.
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Robert H mounts his commentary on the book of Romans, and we
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aren't trying to swallow the whole book in one sitting.
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That would be. Impossible.
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Yeah, completely impossible. We're keeping our eyes strictly
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on Chapter 1. It is really the only way to do
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it. You cannot rush Romans.
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I mean, Martin Luther said this book was the chief part of the
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New Testament, right? He called it the purest gospel.
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He actually thought a Christian should know it word for word by
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heart. Wow.
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By heart, Yeah. And when you pick up Mounts's
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work, you realize why he felt that way.
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Mounts treats the text with this.
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This incredible difference. He balances the technical Greek
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grammar with a really careful pastoral sensitivity.
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But he doesn't pull his punches, does he?
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No, absolutely not. Romans 1 is a confrontation.
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It challenges how we view our leaders, how we view ourselves,
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and while how we understand the whole world around us.
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It really is a confrontation. I was reading through the notes
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on the latter half of the chapter earlier today and it
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felt like reading a diagnosis of the Morning News.
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It does, it really does, but. Before we get to the scary
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stuff, and it does get pretty scary, we have to start where
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Paul starts the messenger. Right verse one.
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Yeah, Mount spends a lot of time just on the way Paul introduces
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himself right out of the gate. Quote Paul, a slave of Christ
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Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of
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God. Those 3 descriptors carry a lot
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of weight. Slave apostle set apart and that
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first one is where mounts really makes you stop and think.
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Because of the translation. Yeah, we usually hear the
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English word servant there and we think of like a Butler.
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Right. Or maybe someone who helps out
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at a local charity? Yeah, it sounds noble, humble,
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maybe a little soft. Sounds like a volunteer position
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like you sign up for it. But Mounts points out that the
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Greek word here is doulos. It means slave.
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There is no ambiguity about it at all.
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None. And you have to put yourself in
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the shoes of the original audience.
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This letter is going to Rome. The center of the world.
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The absolute center. It was a society built entirely
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on status, hierarchy, and military might.
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In that culture, a slave was literal property.
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They had no rights. A slave had no will of his own.
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A slave was at the absolute bottom of the social ladder, so
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for a Roman citizen, calling yourself a slave as your opening
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line would be shocking. It would be demeaning.
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Very demeaning. So Paul is essentially opening
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his letter to the most arrogant established city on earth by
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saying hi, I am a nobody. In a social sense, yes, but
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Mounts catches a brilliant nuance here.
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Paul isn't writing with a Roman mindset.
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He's writing with a Hebrew mindset.
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Precisely. And in the Old Testament, the
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phrase slave of the Lord wasn't an insult at all, it was a title
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of the highest honor. Oh, that makes sense.
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It was the title used for Moses. It was used for Joshua.
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It was used for David. That is a massive shift in
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perspective. Yeah.
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So he isn't saying I am a piece of property with no value,
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right? He's actually saying I stand in
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the line of Moses. Right, the answer to the same
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boss that David answered to. That's a paradox.
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To the Roman world it looks like slavery, but to the believer it
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is the highest dignity imaginable.
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And mounts connects this to a very reformed idea.
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Paul says he was called to be an apostle, right?
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He did not volunteer for this. He didn't look at a list of
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career options and circle apostle.
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I think that's something we often forget.
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Today. We talk about finding Our
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Calling, you know, as if this is a treasure hunt.
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We initiate, Yeah, But Mounts really stresses that the
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initiative was entirely God's. It is the doctrine of effectual
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calling in action. Think about it.
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Paul was hunting Christians to kill them.
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He was not looking for a job opening in the church.
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No, not at all. God stopped him.
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God called him. God set him apart and Mounts
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notes that the phrase set apart implies a destiny that was in
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place before Paul was even aware of it.
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It aligns perfectly with what we see in Galatians, right?
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Yeah, where Paul says God set him apart from his mother's
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womb. Absolutely.
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This really cuts against the grain of our modern celebrity
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culture, doesn't it? Even inside the church, Mounts
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has a critique here that I found pretty sharp.
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He talks about the celebrity posture.
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That stood out to me, too. We live in an era where leaders,
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especially Christian leaders, often project an image of
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success, autonomy and influence. We want to be influencers, we
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don't want to be slaves. But Mounts warns that this
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celebrity posture is a spiritual disaster.
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Pride is the root of the fall, always.
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If Paul, the man who wrote half the New Testament and planted
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churches across the known world, saw himself primarily as a slave
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who was only there because God decided to put him there, what
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excuse do we have for any? We really don't have one.
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Bounce suggests that Christian leadership requires a daily
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recognition of this status. We are under orders.
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We do not set the agenda. The master sets the agenda.
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And the slave just executes it. That leads us right into the
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agenda itself, the message. Paul moves from his identity to
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the content of the gospel in verses 2 through 4, and Meltz
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points out that this wasn't a new invention.
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No, it wasn't Paul's new idea. Right.
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It was promised beforehand through the prophets.
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This is crucial for the Jewish audience in Rome, but also for
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us. The Gospel isn't a replacement
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of the Old Testament, it is the fulfillment of it.
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But what I love about Mounts's analysis here is how he breaks
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down the description of Jesus. You have this two sided coin.
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The two natures. Yes, verse 3 talks about his
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human nature being a descendant of David, and verse 4 talks
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about the spirit of holiness declaring him with might to be
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the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.
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Human and divine, True man and true God.
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The hypostatic Union. Exactly.
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Mounts notes that the Davidic lineage is what gives Jesus the
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legal right to the Messianic throne.
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He had to be a man, and he had to be that specific man from
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that specific family to fulfill the prophecies.
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But a human king isn't enough to save us.
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Right. A human king can rule a country,
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but he cannot conquer death. And that is where the
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resurrection comes in. Mounts makes a very strong point
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here about the resurrection being the declaration.
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The authentication. Without the empty tomb, Jesus is
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just another Jewish teacher who got on the wrong side of the
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Romans and got killed. For it, he would just be a
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footnote in the history book. A tragic footnote, but not the
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Son of God in strength. The resurrection changes the
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category entirely. It moves Jesus from Teacher to
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Lord. And mounts.
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Quote CS Lewis here to drive this home the famous Troy Lemma.
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I love that argument. I think it is one of the most
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helpful tools in apologetics, but for the listener who maybe
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hasn't heard it or hasn't thought about it in a while,
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walk us through what Lewis and Mounts are getting at there.
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Well, the modern world likes to say things like I don't believe
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Jesus was God, but I believe he was a great moral teacher.
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We hear that all the time. I like the Sermon on the Mount,
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but I don't buy the divinity stuff.
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Lewis argues that this position is logically impossible.
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Because of what he claimed. Right.
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Jesus didn't just tell people to be nice to each other.
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He claimed to forgive sins. He claimed to be one with the
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Father. He claimed to exist before
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Abraham. Yeah, if a regular guy on the
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street walks up to you and says I am God and I can give your
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sins, you don't call him a great moral teacher.
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You call the guys, the white shows you.
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Call him insane, Lewis says. He would be on the level of a
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man who says he is a poached egg.
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That is the first option. Lunatic.
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OK, what's the second? The second option is that he
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knew he wasn't God, but he said it anyway to deceive people.
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That would make him the devil, a liar.
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So he is either a lunatic, a liar, or.
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He is who he said he is. He is Lord.
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So Mounts is using this to show that Paulie's has no middle
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ground. You cannot just tip your hat to
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Jesus, you have to bow your knee.
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That is the only logical response to the resurrection.
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And that brings us to verse 5. Paul talks about the goal of his
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apostleship. He says it is to bring about the
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obedience that comes from faith. No, wait.
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I want to pause here because this phrase, obedience that
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comes from faith, can get tricky for us in the Reformed camp.
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It can. We are the faith alone people
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solifying. When Mounts talks about
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obedience and faith being linked, is he blurring the lines
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there? Is he saying we are saved by our
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obedience? That is a vital question, and
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Mounts is very careful here. He is not saying that obedience
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is the root of our salvation. He's saying it is the fruit.
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OK, but he is also saying you cannot have the root without the
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fruit. Unpack that a bit more.
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Mounts argues that faith is not just intellectual ascent.
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It isn't just looking at the Lewis Trelema and saying OK,
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logically the Lord option makes the most sense.
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Right, that is just data processing.
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Biblical faith involves surrender, Mount says.
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To surrender is to obey. You cannot accept Jesus as
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Savior, the one who saves you from hell, without accepting Him
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as Lord, the one who owns your life.
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So if I say I have faith but my life looks exactly the same as
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my Pagan neighbor's life, like I am not obeying anything, Jesus
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instead mounts would question if I have faith at all.
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He definitely would. He quotes a scholar named E Best
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who says only in obedience is their faith.
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It is like fire and heat. You can distinguish them in your
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mind. Fire is the chemical reaction,
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heat is the result. But in reality, you never have a
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fire without heat. If there is no heat, there is no
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fire. If there is no obedience, there
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is no faith. The gospel isn't just an
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insurance policy, it is a complete transfer of allegiance.
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It is a tough word, but a necessary one.
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It keeps us from what Bonhoeffer called cheap Grace it.
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Does, and it sets the stage for the rest of the letter.
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Paul expects the Romans to live differently because they believe
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differently. Speaking of the Romans, let's
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look at how Paul relates to them.
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We are moving into verses 8 through 15 now.
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This is the Pastoral Heart section, and the first thing
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that mounts notes is the order of Paul's prayer.
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First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.
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It is a lesson in priorities. Think about how we usually pray.
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We usually start with the Gimme list.
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Right. God help me with this, fix that.
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Give me this. Paul starts with Thanksgiving.
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And notice the intimacy there, my God.
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Religion wasn't a theory for Paul, it was a relationship.
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And he is thanking God for their reputation.
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He says your faith is being reported all over the world.
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That is incredibly high praise. It is, but then He does
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something dramatic right after that verse 9 God, who am I slave
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for in my spirit, and preaching the gospel of His Son is my
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witness. He puts God on the stand as a
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witness. He does.
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Why does he do that? It seems pretty intense for just
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a greeting. Well, because prayer is private,
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I can tell you hey, I'm praying for you and you have no way of
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knowing if I actually am. I might just be being polite.
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Right, we say that all the time. But Paul is saying I really am
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doing this constantly and the only one who knows that is God.
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So I call him to testify. It shows the intensity of his
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care for them. And Mounts draws a really
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beautiful insight here about the nature of ministry.
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The part about preaching versus prayer?
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Yes, mounts suggest that we often get it backward.
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We think the main work of a minister is the public stuff,
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the preaching, the teaching, the administration.
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But Mounts argues that the real work is the prayer.
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He quotes Frank Laubach who said it is the preachers business to
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look into God's face until he aches with bliss.
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Aches with bliss. That is a stunning phrase.
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It really is. And Laubach goes on to say that
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if a sermon doesn't rise out of that kind of encounter, that
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eking with bliss, then it is just words.
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It's empty, he says it. Is like fruit tied onto a dead
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tree. It looks real, but there is no
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SAP, no light. Mounts is challenging every
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pastor, every teacher, every parent really, to realize that
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you cannot give what you do not have.
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Paul's public ministry was fueled by this hidden, intense
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prayer life. But Paul isn't just a Mystic on
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a mountain. He wants to see them.
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He wants to visit Rome. He says in verse 11, I long to
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see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make
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you strong. Typical apostle.
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He has something to give. He's the expert.
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But then catch the correction in verse 12.
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Mounts loves this, Paul immediately clarifies.
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That is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each
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other's faith. He.
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Backs up. He catches himself.
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He does, and Mouse points out that this shows Paul's character
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better than a polished speech ever could.
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It is incredibly humble. He realizes, Wait a minute, I am
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not just coming to lecture you, I need you.
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Even the great Apostle Paul needed the encouragement of
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regular believers. It goes back to that idea of not
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having a celebrity posture. We are all parts of the body.
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The eye needs the hand, Apostle needs the layman.
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He also mentions being obligated.
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He says I am obligated both to Greeks and non Greeks, both to
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the wise and the foolish. The Greek word implies a debt.
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Paul felt he owed the gospel to the world, and this is
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interesting. He didn't owe it to them because
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they were worthy. He owed it to them because of
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what he had received. Mounts explains it with that
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great analogy. Right.
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If a doctor discovers the cure for a plague that is killing
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everyone, and he has the medicine in his pocket, he is
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obligated to hand it out. He's in debt to the dying
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because he holds the life. And he specifically mentions
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Rome as a place for a harvest. Mounts talks about the timing
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here. Why was Rome ready for harvest
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right then? Because the alternatives had
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failed, Mounts notes that the Pagan mystery religions, the
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cults of Isis, the Mithraic mysteries, they were popular,
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but they were totally empty. They had rituals and myths, but
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they couldn't deal with real guilt.
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They couldn't give any assurance of peace.
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The Roman world was spiritually exhausted.
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They were cynical, and Mounts says God had prepared the field.
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The hearts of the Gentiles were ready because they had tried
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everything else and found it wanting.
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That feels very familiar. We see a lot of spiritual
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exhaustion today, people trying politics, technology, self help
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and ending up burned out. The field is always white for
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harvest when the idols start failing.
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So Paul is ready, he is eager, he's not ashamed.
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And that brings us to the thesis statement of the entire letter,
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maybe the most significant verses in the New Testament.
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Romans 1.16 for 17. Yeah, I am not ashamed of the
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gospel because it is the dynamic strength of God for the
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salvation of everyone who believes.
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Let's stop on that phrase. Not ashamed, Mounts asks.
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Why would he be tempted to be ashamed in the first place?
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Well, we have to remember where he is going.
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Rome, the city of Caesar, the city of marble and gold and
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legions. And Paul is coming with a
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message about a Jewish Carpenter who is executed by a Roman
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governor in a dusky province on the edge of the empire.
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It sounds ridiculous to a Roman. Here, here is your king, the guy
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on the cross. It was foolishness to the Greeks
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and a stumbling block to the Jews.
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By all worldly standards, the gospel is a weak, pathetic
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message. But Paul flips the script.
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He says no, this isn't weakness. This is absolute might.
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And mounts clarifies that this might the Greek word dynamis
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isn't just potential. It isn't like a battery sitting
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in a drawer. It is active.
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It is the dynamic activity of God.
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The gospel doesn't just tell you how to save yourself.
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The gospel is God saving you. When the message is preached,
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God is effectively working. And then we get the why verse
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17. For in the gospel, a
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righteousness from God is revealed.
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This is the phrase that changed history.
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This is what Luther agonized over.
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It is the pivot point of the Reformation.
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Righteousness from God Mounts outlines the debate here because
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it is so critical. What does that phrase actually
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mean? There are three main options.
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It's. OK, lay them out for us.
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Option one. It is an attribute of God,
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meaning God is faithful to his own character.
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He is doing what is right. Option two.
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It is an activity of God, meaning God coming in to save
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his intervening force. And option three, it is a status
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given to man, a forensic status justification.
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And this matters because if it is just God's attribute that he
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is holy, that is bad news for us because we aren't right.
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If it is just his activity, that is better, but it is vague.
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But if it is a status, if it is a gift, that changes everything.
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And where does mounts land? He sides with scholars like
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Cranfield who argue for the status view.
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He admits that all three are connected.
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God gives the status because He is faithful and active, but the
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primary meaning here is that God provides the righteousness that
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He demands. This is the alien righteousness
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Luther talked about. Right.
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Think of it like a courtroom. You are guilty.
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You have a stack of speeding tickets a Mile High.
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You cannot pay them. You're bankrupt.
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Righteousness from God isn't the judge saying I'm a nice guy so
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I'll ignore the law? That would be unrighteous.
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And it isn't the judge saying go out and try harder to be a good
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driver. That doesn't fix the debt.
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Exactly. Righteousness from God is the
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judge stepping down from the bench, taking off his robe and
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paying the fine for you. Then he gets back up and
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declares you not guilty. The legal status of righteous is
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transferred to you. It is a gift.
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You don't earn it, you receive it.
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That is why Paul quotz Habakkuk the righteous will live by
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faith. It is the only way to receive
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the gift. Hands empty.
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Just faith. So that is the peak, that is the
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glorious news. The judge pays the fine, but
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then Paul turns the page. Verse 18 The wrath of God is
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being revealed from heaven. It is a Cliff edge.
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You go from the sunlight of the gospel into the absolute dark of
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human depravity and Mounts argues you have to go there.
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You cannot appreciate the rescue until you understand the danger.
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Now wrath, that is a loaded word.
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We hear that and we think of Zeus throwing lightning bolts.
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We think of a guy losing his temper and punching a wall.
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Is that what God is doing? No, and Mounts is very specific
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about this. We have to strip away our human
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projections. Human anger is usually a loss of
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control. It is capricious.
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It is selfish. God's wrath is none of those
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things. Mounts defines it as God's
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settled divine displeasure with sin.
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Settled displeasure. It is a principle.
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It is the necessary reaction of a holy God to unholiness.
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Let's think of it this way. If God looked at child abuse or
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genocide or cancer and just shrugged and said whatever, he
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wouldn't be good. You wouldn't be loving.
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His wrath is the other side of his love for what is right.
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He must oppose that which destroys his creation.
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So it is not a mood swing, it is his nature, yes.
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And verse 18 tells us why this wrath is coming.
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It is against all the godlessness and wickedness of
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men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
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Suppress the truth. That is a really interesting
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image. It sounds active.
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It is very active. Imagine trying trying to hold a
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beach ball underwater. You have to exert constant
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pressure to keep it down. The moment you let go, it pops
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up, Mounts says. That is what humans are doing
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with the knowledge of God. We are pushing it down.
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We are holding it under the surface.
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So Mounts is saying atheism, or at least the rejection of God,
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isn't an intellectual problem. It is not that there isn't
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enough evidence. Correct.
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That brings us to General Revelation verses 19 and 20.
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Paul says God has made it plain. His eternal might and divine
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nature are clearly seen from what has been made.
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Melts argues that the universe itself is a sermon.
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You look at the detail of a cell or the orbit of the planets, and
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the natural conclusion is designer.
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So the agnostic who says if God would just write his name in the
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sky I believe is bluffing. According to Paul, yes, Mount
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says. The problem isn't the lack of
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evidence, it is the suppression of evidence.
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It is a moral rebellion, not an intellectual one.
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We don't want there to be a God because if there is a God, we
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are accountable to him. So we hold the beach ball down.
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And the verdict? So that men are without excuse.
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The Greek word is anapoligadis. It is a legal term.
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It means you have no defense. When you stand before God, you
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won't be able to plead ignorance.
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The creation testified against you and.
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Because we suppressed the truth, we started to devolve mounts.
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Calls this the exchange. Verse 21 For although they knew
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God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.
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Mounts notes that the first step away from God is usually simple
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ingratitude. We stop saying thank you, we
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start thinking we did it ourselves.
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And then the thinking becomes futile.
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Hearts get darkened. And then the trade happens.
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They exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to
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look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
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It is reverse evolution. We're supposed to look up to the
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creator. Instead, we look down to the
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crawling things. Mounts compares it to the Garden
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of Eden and the Golden Calf. It is the ultimate absurdity.
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You take the infinite, the holy, the beautiful, and you trade it
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for a statue of a lizard. Or in our day, we traded for a
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career or relationship or a number in a bank account.
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We worship the created thing rather than the Creator.
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And this brings us to the most terrifying part of the chapter,
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the result of the exchange? Three times, Paul says God gave
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them over. This is the doctrine of judicial
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abandonment, and honestly, it is one of the most frightening
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concepts in all of Scripture. We tend to think of judgement as
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God attacking us, but Mounts explains that often judgement is
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God simply letting go. He quotes good 8.
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Here was an analogy that really stuck with me.
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God ceased to hold the boat as it was dragged by the current.
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It is a withdrawal of restraint. It is God saying you want to
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live without me, you want to be your own God.
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OK, have it your way. CS Lewis said in the end there
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are only two kinds of people, those who say to God thy will be
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done and those to whom God says thy will be done.
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This is the second group and it is a nightmare.
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Mounts tracks this abandonment through three stages in the
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text. It starts with the desires that
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moves to the body, then to the mind.
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Right stage 1, verses 24 and 25. God gave them over in the sinful
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desires of their hearts to sexual impurity.
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The first thing that goes is sexual ethics.
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Mounts notes that when you lose the vertical, your relationship
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with God, the horizontal, your relationship with your own body
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and others, falls apart. They exchange the truth for the
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lie. The lie being that you can be
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the center of the universe. Yes, and the result is the
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degrading of their bodies. Sin always degrades, it never
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elevates. Then we get to stage 2 versus 26
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and 27. And I want to slow down here
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because this is where the text hits a massive cultural nerve.
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Today. Paul talks about shameful lusts.
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He describes women exchanging natural relations for unnatural
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ones and men doing the same with men.
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This is the passage on homosexuality and we have to be
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honest, in our current culture, reading this feels like touching
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a live wire. It is labeled as hate speech by
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many, but our job, and Mount's job is to understand what Paul,
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writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, is actually saying.
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We are just reporting with the commentary highlights here.
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He is unsparing with the text. He notes that Paul uses words
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like shameful, unnatural, and indecent, but mounts provides
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important context. He brings to mind that this
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wasn't just Paul being a prude. In the Roman world,
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homosexuality was rampant. Mounts notes that 14 of the 1st
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15 Roman emperors practiced it. It was culturally celebrated in
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many high circles. Nero famously married a man in a
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public ceremony. So Paul wasn't writing in a
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vacuum. He was writing to a culture that
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was very affirming of these things.
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Exactly, and Paul, coming from a Jewish creation based worldview,
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calls it an abomination, but mounts makes a critical
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theological point. Paul frames this not just as a
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prohibited behavior, but as a sign of God's wrath.
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It is an evidence of the giving over.
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Explain that connection. How does mounts say it is
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evidence? Think back to the exchange we
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exchange the creator for the creature.
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Mounts argues that when you reject the creator's authority,
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you eventually reject the creator's design.
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And the most basic design in humanity is the male female
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distinction from Genesis 1. Male and female, He created
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them. When a society embraces same sex
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relations, Mance argues, it is a signal that the society has
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completely severed its tether to the Creator's design.
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It is a confusion of identity that stems from a confusion of
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worship. So it's not just breaking a
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rule, it is a fundamental denial of the created order.
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Right and Mounts points out the phrase receive in themselves the
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due penalty for their perversion.
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He argues that moral confusion carries its own penalty.
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It leads to a breakdown of the person and the society.
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It is is built into the fabric of reality.
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You cannot break God's laws, you can only break yourself against
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them. That is a heavy word for the
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modern year, but Mounts is clear that this isn't an alternative
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lifestyle. In Paul's view, it is a symptom
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of a world that has turned its back on God.
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And that leads to the final stage, the mind verse 28.
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Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the
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knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved.
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Mind, a depraved mind. The Greek word there means
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something that can't stand the test, right?
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Like metal that has impurities. Yes, reprobate.
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Useless Mounts notes that when you reject God, you lose the
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ability to think straight about moral issues.
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Your moral compass gets demagnetized.
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You can't tell N from South anymore.
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And out of that broken mind comes the vice list versus 29
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through 31, Paul just rattles off 21 sins, envy, murder,
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strife, deceit, malice. It is a picture of total social
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breakdown and what is interesting is how mounts
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categorizes them. It is not just the big sins like
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murder, it is things like gossip and slander.
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And disobedient to parents. That one always jumps out at me.
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He puts a rebellious teenager in the same list as a murderer.
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It shows that all sin is cut from the same cloth.
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It is all rebellion against authority.
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Whether you are killing a man or slandering your neighbor, you're
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acting as if you are for God. Mounts points out the phrase
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inventing ways of doing evil. That is chilling.
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It is not enough to just do the old sins.
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A depraved culture gets creative.
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They engineer new ways to be wicked.
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Mounts also notes that when a society forsakes God, it
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eventually loses concern for people.
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Heartless. Ruthless.
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That is the end game. If there is no God, there is no
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image of God in your neighbor. Your neighbor is just an
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obstacle or a tool, so you become ruthless.
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A society without God eventually becomes a society without
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humanity. And that brings us to the
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absolute bottom, the final verdict in verse 32.
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Although they know God's righteous decree that those who
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do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do
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these very things but also approve of those who practice
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them. Mounts calls this the total
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inversion of morality. This is worse than committing
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the sin. We all sin, we all fall short.
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But usually when we sin, we have a conscience that says I
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shouldn't have done that. Real guilt, we try to hide it.
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But here the conscious is cauterized.
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They not only do it, they approve of it.
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They applaud it. Mount suggests this is the
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institutionalization of evil. It is when the culture says this
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sin is actually a virtue. And if you disagree with us, you
26:55
are the problem. They call evil good and good
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evil. Precisely when a society reaches
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the point where it celebrates what God hates and persecutes
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those who hold to God's standard, Mount says, you are
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looking at the final stage of abandonment.
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You are at the bottom of the spiral.
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Wow, we have really traveled the distance in this deep dive.
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We started on the mountaintop, the gospel, the dynamic strength
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of God, the righteousness given by faith, and we ended in the
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pit. A culture that is depraved,
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abandoned and celebrating its own destruction.
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It is a stark contrast, but Mount stresses that this is
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Paul's strategy. You have to see the black velvet
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of human depravity to see the diamond of the gospel.
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The bad news makes the good news necessary.
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Right. If you read verses 18 through 32
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and think, well I'm a pretty good person, I can fix this, you
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haven't understood it. The point is that we are
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helpless. The boat is in the parent, we
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are suppressing the truth, We are broken.
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And into that hopeless situation comes verse 16, the strength of
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God for salvation. We cannot pull ourselves up.
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We need a rescue from the outside.
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We need the righteousness from God.
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God, it is our only hope. The only thing that can stand
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against the wrath of God is the righteousness of God-given to us
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in Christ. That is the Reformed hope.
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We don't trust in our ability to swim against the current.
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We trust in the one who walks on water.
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Amen. As we wrap up this deep dive
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into Mount's analysis of Romans One, I want to leave you with a
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thought to chew on. We talked about that haunting
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concept of passive wrath. God judging a society by letting
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it have what it wants. It is the most sobering thought
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in the chapter. So here's the question for you.
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Look around. Look at our culture.
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Look at the confusion, the celebration of things that used
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to be shameful, the inventing ways of doing evil.
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Do you see the signs of God letting go?
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And if you do, does that drive you to despair or does it drive
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you back to verse 16? Does it drive you to the only
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force that can save? That is the question we all have
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to answer. Thank you for joining us on
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Reformed Thinking. We will see you next time as we
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continue our look through Romans and tackle chapter 2.