Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Gospel’s Saving Righteousness and Humanity’s Deserved Wrath (Romans 1:16–32)

Transcript

The Gospel’s Saving Righteousness and Humanity’s Deserved Wrath (Romans 1:16–32) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reform Thinking. It is really good to have you
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  with us again. It is.
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  And if this is your first time listening, we are glad you found
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  us. We have a a very specific type
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  of listener in mind for this show.
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  We do. We call you the learner.
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  You're the person who you know wants theological depth and
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  clarity, but you're probably just exhausted by all the jargon
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  that usually comes with it. Right, the technical language
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  that can sometimes be a barrier. Exactly.
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  You want to understand the Bible, not just read it, and you
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  want to see how it applies to the real world.
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  And it is a pleasure to be here. And we have a massive task ahead
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  of us today. I mean, it's truly massive. 1
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  It's a big one. We are tackling a text that you
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  could argue change the trajectory of Western history
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  more than almost any other single document.
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  That's a huge claim. It is, but I think it holds up.
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  We're opening up the 1st chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans.
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  Specifically, we're going to be looking at verses 16 through 32.
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  This is the heavy stuff. I mean, you look at church
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  history and every time there's a huge revival or a massive shift
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  in understanding, it seems like the book of Romans is right at
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  the center of it. Always you've got Augustine.
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  Augustine, Martin Luther. Martin Luther, John Wesley, they
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  all seem to hit a wall and then they hit Romans and just
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  everything changes for them. Yeah, but before we dive into
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  the verses themselves, we really need to set the scene.
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  I mean, Paul isn't writing this in a vacuum.
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  He's writing to Rome. And context is everything.
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  It's always everything. If you don't get the context,
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  you miss the punchline. You miss the whole point.
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  So what's the context? Rome wasn't just another city,
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  it was, for all intents and purposes, the capital of the
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  known universe. The center of it all.
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  The absolute center of status, of money, of imperial force.
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  If you lived in Rome, you were constantly, every single day,
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  reminded of who was in charge. No so well.
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  You had marble temples on every corner.
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  You had military parades. This year, unimaginable wealth
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  of the empire was just on display everywhere.
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  The motto of the day was the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.
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  Right, but that peace wasn't exactly a handshake and a smile,
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  was it? No, no, not at all.
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  It was peace enforced by the iron fist of Caesar.
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  It was a culture that was just obsessed with winning.
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  Influence was the real currency. Weakness was it was despised.
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  And honor your public reputation.
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  That was more valuable than money.
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  So your social standing was everything.
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  You lived and died by it. OK, so into the middle of the
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  city that worship strength and victory, you have Paul and he is
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  writing about a Jewish Carpenter who was executed by the Roman
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  state, right? A crucified Messiah.
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  I mean, to the Roman mind, a message centered on a cross
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  wasn't just weird. It was a scandal.
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  It was utterly scandalous. It was the very definition of
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  weakness and humiliation. So that's the central tension
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  we're going to explore today. That's it exactly.
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  The contrast between what the world calls strength and what
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  God calls strength. And our mission for this deep
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  dive is to really analyze the source material to understand
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  the gospel. Not as good advice, but as
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  dynamics, as you called it, explosive energy.
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  And then on the flip side of that, we have to talk about
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  wrath. Yeah, that is a word that makes
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  modern people, myself included, sometimes squirm.
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  It does. It sounds so archaic.
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  But we're going to see that in this text.
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  Wrath isn't some emotional outburst from God.
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  Not at all. It's a settled judicial reality
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  and as always, reviewing this through the lens of Reformed
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  theology and the Westminster Confession, we're looking at
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  God's sovereignty and humanity's total inability to save itself.
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  OK, so that brings us right to Section 1, the thesis.
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  This starts in Romans 1, verses 16 and 17.
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  It does, and Paul opens with a statement that sounds so simple,
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  but it is just loaded with cultural dynamite.
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  What does he say? He says I am not ashamed of the
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  gospel. Let's just stop there for a
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  second. I am not ashamed.
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  That's, that's a really interesting way to phrase it,
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  isn't it? It is.
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  I mean, usually if I say I'm not ashamed of my car, it kind of
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  implies that my car is a bit of a beat up clunker.
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  But you know, I still like it. That's a great analogy.
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  So why does he use a negative there?
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  Why not just say I am proud of the gospel?
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  Well, that's a figure of speech. It's called the light totes.
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  It's where you use a negative to affirm a really, really strong
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  positive. OK.
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  So when Paul says I am not ashamed, he isn't just saying,
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  oh, I'm not embarrassed by this. He's saying I am incredibly
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  proud of this, or maybe even I have absolute terrifying
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  confidence in this. But you're right, I'm picking up
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  on that defensive tone. He's saying it because in that
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  culture, the gospel was something to be ashamed of.
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  Oh, objectively shameful, without a doubt.
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  Because of the cross. Entirely because of the cross.
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  You know, we wear crosses as jewelry today.
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  We put them on our steeples. Right, it's a symbol of piety.
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  It is now, but in the 1st century the cross was an
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  instrument of state terror. It was reserved for the lowest
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  of the low, slaves, insurrectionists.
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  It was designed specifically to strip you of all dignity.
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  So to go into the capital of the empire, into Rome, and say my
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  king is the guy you guys nailed to a piece of wood.
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  It was social suicide. It was laughable.
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  Utterly laughable. You would be dismissed as a
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  fool. So Paul is intentionally defying
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  the world's definition of status.
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  He's looking at the entire Roman Empire and saying you think you
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  have strength. Do you think Caesar has
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  strength? No, I have the real thing.
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  Precisely. Yeah.
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  And he defines that strength in the very next breath.
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  He says the gospel is the power of God for salvation.
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  And the Greek word there is dynamis.
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  Dynamis. It is where we get our word
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  dynamite, but we have to be really careful with that English
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  connection. How so?
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  Well, dynamite blows things up. It destroys dynamics of God
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  constructs, it rescues, it builds.
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  I think a lot of people, maybe most people, view the gospel as
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  persuasion. You know, I'm going to present
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  in a really good argument, and if you agree with my argument,
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  then you're saved. It's like a sales pitch.
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  Right, a transaction of ideas. But Paul seems to be saying
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  something very different here. It's not influence, it's a tool.
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  It's an active force. That distinction is just vital
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  influences me trying to convince you to change your mind.
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  Strength in this theological sense is God acting on a
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  spiritually dead heart. The source material we're
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  looking at points out that the gospel is not a set of moral
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  tips or, you know, lifestyle improvement.
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  It's not try harder and do better.
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  Not at all. It is an operation of God that
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  creates willingness in a person who was previously spiritually a
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  corpse. It's regeneration.
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  It reminds me of that line about the gospel being the instrument
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  God uses to raise the dead. You don't offer advice to a
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  corpse. You can't.
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  You need dynamics to bring it back to life.
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  That is the Reformed view in a nutshell.
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  And Paul says this force is for everyone who believes.
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  But then he adds that little phrase that can sometimes trip
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  people up. To the Jew 1st and also to the
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  Greek, right? Yeah, let's unpack that.
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  Why that distinction? Is there some kind of ranking
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  system going on there? A hierarchy?
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  That's a good question. It's a priority of redemptive
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  history, not a ranking of worth or value.
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  What do you mean by redemptive history?
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  Well, God made his covenants with Israel.
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  The Messiah came through the Jewish line.
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  So the message by divine design, goes to the House of Israel
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  first. But it doesn't stop there.
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  It spills over to the Greek, which is just Paul shorthand for
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  all the Gentile nations. Everybody else.
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  So the scope is universal. It's for everyone who believes
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  right? But the historical order, the
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  rollout, matters. The historical order matters,
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  yes. OK, that clarifies things.
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  Moving to verse 17, this is where we get into some of the
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  really heavy theology. This is the heart of it.
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  Paul says. For in it the righteousness of
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  God is revealed. Now this phrase, the
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  righteousness of God, this used to terrify Martin Luther, didn't
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  it? It terrified him to the point of
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  hatred. Yeah.
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  I mean, he said he hated the phrase.
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  You have to understand Luther's psychology.
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  He was a monk and he was absolutely obsessed with his own
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  sinfulness. He felt the weight of it.
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  Constantly he knew God was holy, and he knew with every fiber of
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  his being that he was not. So before his big breakthrough,
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  Luther understood the righteousness of God as God's
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  active, distributive justice. Active justice.
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  What does that mean in, you know, plain English?
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  It means the standard God uses to judge and punish sinners.
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  It means God's the judge who sits on the bench.
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  He looks at the law, he looks at you, he sees you broke the law
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  and he sentences you. So when Luther read that the
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  Gospel reveals God's righteousness, he heard the good
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  news is that I'm going to show you just how much I'm going to
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  crush you because you aren't perfect.
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  Exactly. That sounds like very bad news,
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  not good news. If the gospel is just a
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  spotlight showing me how much God hates my sin, I don't want
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  it. It's terrible news if that's
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  what it means, but Luther's breakthrough, which really was
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  just a rediscovery of Paul's original meaning, was realizing
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  that this is the Eusticia passiva.
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  OK, that's the Latin term for passive righteousness.
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  It is. Now passive usually sounds like
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  laziness, like I'm sitting on the couch eating chips.
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  That's not what it means here, is it?
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  No, not at all. In this context, it's a
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  grammatical term. It doesn't mean God is passive.
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  It means we are passive in the act of receiving it.
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  It is a righteousness God provides.
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  OK, an analogy might help here. Think of it like a debt.
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  A massive mortgage debt you can never pay.
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  Active righteousness is the bank showing up everyday demanding
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  you pay. It which I can't do.
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  Which you can't do. Passive righteousness is a
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  billionaire walking in, writing a check to pay off your entire
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  mortgage and then handing you the receipt that says paid in
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  full. So it's not the righteousness
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  God demands from us, it's the righteousness God gives to.
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  Us, it's a gift. It's a forensic status.
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  Forensic meaning. Legal, legal.
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  It's a legal verdict in the courtroom of heaven.
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  God the judge credits the perfect record of Christ to the
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  believer. It is an alien righteousness
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  because it comes from completely outside of.
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  Us, we don't manufacture it. We can't.
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  We just receive it. And the mechanism for receiving
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  it is faith from faith to faith. I love that image of faith as
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  just an empty hand. That's all it is.
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  It's not a work. It's not like God says OK, you
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  did the hard work of believing so now I'll pay you with
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  salvation, correct? Faith is the instrument, it is
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  just the open hand that accepts the gift.
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  The source makes a great point here.
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  The gospel saves because it provides what the Law demands
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  but cannot possibly give. The law says be perfect.
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  And we say I can't. And the Gospel says, here is
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  Christ's perfection, take it. That is the good news.
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  And that is the thesis of Romans.
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  It is the glorious high point. But then, right at verse 18,
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  Paul takes a hard, sharp turn. We move from the good news to
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  the bad news. We do Section 2.
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  The diagnosis for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
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  And that little word for is the hinge isn't.
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  It it's the hinge on which the entire argument swings.
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  The gospel is necessary is because the wrath of God is
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  revealed. You cannot understand the cure
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  if you don't accept the diagnosis.
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  OK, let's talk about wrath because we have to be honest.
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  Modern people, we hate this concept.
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  You really do. In our culture, wrath sounds
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  like a guy losing his temper. Someone cuts you off in traffic
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  and you have road rage. Is that what God is doing?
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  Is he just, you know, having a bad day and lashing out?
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  Not at all. And this is where we have to
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  strip away our human projections.
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  The Greek word here is orgue. It refers to a settled holy
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  opposition. A settled opposition.
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  It's not a mood swing. God doesn't wake up on the wrong
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  side of the bed. This is His consistent,
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  righteous, holy reaction to everything that contradicts His
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  perfect nature. OK, help me visualize that,
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  because settled opposition still sounds a little bit abstract.
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  OK, think about it this way. If God is good, he must hate
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  evil, right? Imagine a judge who presided
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  over a terrible case involving, say, child abuse or genocide.
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  If that judge look at all the evidence, saw the horror of it
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  and just shrugged and said, well, you know, I love everyone
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  so I'm not going to get angry about this.
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  Would you think that judge is a good judge?
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  No, I think he was corrupt, or maybe that he didn't care about
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  the victims at all. Exactly.
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  Indifference to evil is not love, it's a moral failure.
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  If God loves what is good, he must intensely hate what
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  destroys the good. So wrath is like the immune
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  system of the reverse reacting to a virus?
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  That's a great way to put it. It isn't a temper tantrum, it is
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  the necessary reaction of holiness to sin.
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  It's a function of his goodness, not a violation of it.
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  And Paul says this wrath is revealed from heaven.
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  It's a present reality. So it's happening now.
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  Yes, it's a divine verdict that is already in motion.
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  It's not just something waiting for the end of the world.
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  And Paul identifies the target very clearly, ungodliness and
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  unrighteousness. Are those just synonyms or is
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  there a difference between them? There's a logical sequence
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  there. Ungodliness.
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  The Greek is Saba, refers to vertical rebellion.
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  It's a refusal to worship God as God.
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  OK, the God word dimension. Right.
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  And then unrighteousness. Adekia refers to the horizontal
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  injustice, the moral crookedness we show toward other people.
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  So the vertical relationship breaks and then the horizontal
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  relationships break as a result. Always.
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  Bad theology leads to bad, bad ethics.
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  Every single time false worship produces false living, you break
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  the first commandment, worshiping God alone, and
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  inevitably you start breaking all the others.
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  You stop loving your neighbor because you first stop loving
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  God. Now here's the objection that
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  everyone raises at this point. I think I know where you're
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  going. Well, that's not fair.
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  What if people don't know about God?
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  What about the person on the deserted island who's never
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  heard the gospel? How can they be held
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  accountable? Paul anticipates that, doesn't
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  he? He does head on.
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  This is the doctrine of general revelation.
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  Paul says in verses 19 and 20 that God has made his eternal
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  power and divine nature plain in the things that have been made.
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  The theater of nature. Exactly.
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  The cosmos itself speaks intelligibly of a creator.
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  The stars, the seasons, the complexity of a single cell.
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  So nobody can plead ignorance. Paul uses a legal term here and
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  Apollo Datos it means without excuse.
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  The source material is very firm on this.
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  We need to reject the myth of the innocent Pagan.
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  So there's no one who lacks the basic information necessary for
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  accountability. That's his point.
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  The problem isn't the transmission of the signal, it's
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  the reception on our end. And that brings us to the
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  mechanism of suppression. Paul says they suppress the
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  truth in unrighteousness. What does that look like?
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  The visual analogy that's often used here is just perfect.
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  Imagine you're in a swimming pool and you have a fully
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  inflated beach ball and you're trying to hold it underwater.
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  What happens? Well, it fights you, it wants to
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  come up. You have to constantly actively
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  push it. Down.
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  And it takes energy, doesn't it? It takes active, continuous
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  exertion. That is what Paul says we are
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  doing with the knowledge of God. So the truth of God is pressing
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  in on us from every side. From the complexity of the human
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  eye, to the mathematical precision of the Galaxy, to the
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  moral law that's written inside our own hearts, it's all.
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  Pushing up and to deny God requires an act of exertion of
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  will. You have to keep holding that
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  beach ball down. You do.
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  That really changes how we view atheism or agnosticism, doesn't
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  it? It suggests that unbelief isn't
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  primarily an intellectual problem.
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  Like, oh, I just don't have enough.
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  No, it's a moral problem. It is a hostility of the will.
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  It is intellectual dishonesty at the deepest possible level.
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  It's not that people can't see, it's that they won't see.
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  Why? Because seeing would require
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  submission. If I admit there is a God, I
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  have to admit that I am not Him. And that I owe him something.
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  And I owe him my allegiance, my worship, my life.
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  And the fallen human heart hates that we want to be our own gods.
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  Which moves us right into Section 3, the downward spiral
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  verses 21 through 23. Paul identifies the very root of
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  this apostasy. It starts with two specific
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  refusals. That's in verse 21.
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  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give
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  thanks to him. Those are the two primal sins.
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  A refusal of glory and a refusal of gratitude.
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  That refusal of gratitude really stands out to me.
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  We don't usually list ingratitude next to murder or
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  theft on our list of big sins. We don't, but we should.
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  But Paul puts it right there at the headwaters, waters of the
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  River of Sin. Because ingratitude is the
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  gateway to practical atheism, think about what gratitude is.
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  To be grateful is to acknowledge that you are a recipient.
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  That you're dependent. You're dependent.
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  Someone else provided for you. The fallen human ego hates that.
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  It despises dependency. We want to be self-made.
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  We want to be autonomous. So ingratitude is the desire to
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  enjoy the gift while ignoring the giver.
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  Exactly. It's like a teenager living in
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  their parents house, eating their food, using their Wi-Fi
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  but refusing to speak to them or even acknowledge they exist.
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  That is a perfect analogy. It's a profound cosmic rudeness.
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  And when you cut yourself off from the giver, from the source
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  of all light and life, what happens to your mind?
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  It goes dark. It goes dark.
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  This is the noetic effects of sin, right?
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  That's the theological term for how sin messes with our
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  thinking. It is, Paul says.
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  They became futile in their thinking and their foolish heart
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  was darkened. And then there's that great
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  irony. Claiming to be wise, they became
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  fools. It's intellectual suicide.
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  It is. When you remove the ultimate
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  reference point, God, all of your other reasoning becomes
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  distorted. You could be brilliant.
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  You can have a PhD, you can be a rocket scientist.
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  But if your foundational premise is that there is no God, your
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  entire worldview is skewed. You've lost the North Star, so
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  your map is useless no matter how well drawn it.
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  Is your map is useless, you're building castles in the air.
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  And because we are built to worship, we don't just stop
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  worshipping when we reject God, we just find something else to
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  worship. We have to.
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  We are, Homo adorns, worshipping beings.
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  We cannot turn off our worship function any more than we can
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  turn off our hunger for food. We only change the object of our
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  worship. And this leads to what Paul
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  calls the great Exchange it. Does he says they exchange the
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  glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man, birds,
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  animals and creeping things? It's a trajectory of the
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  creation, isn't it? In Genesis you have God, then
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  man, then animals. Here, humanity puts itself below
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  the animals it was supposed to have dominion over.
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  Precisely. And there's a spiritual law at
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  work here. We become like what we worship.
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  What do you mean? If you worship the true God who
• 18:30
  is glorious and loving and just, you are elevated.
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  You become more truly human if you worship money or sex or
• 18:37
  political power or even animals. You're degraded.
• 18:40
  You become smaller. You become more beast like.
• 18:42
  Today, we might not be bowing down to statues of birds or
• 18:45
  snakes. Well, most of us aren't anyway.
• 18:47
  But the source material mentions modern idols.
• 18:49
  The principle is the same. Absolutely the same.
• 18:52
  We exchange the Creator for the sovereign self.
• 18:55
  We worship our own autonomy. My truth, my body, my choice.
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  All of those are expressions of self worship.
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  Or we worship the economy, or we worship a political party.
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  These are the creeping things of the modern age.
• 19:10
  We look to them for salvation, for meaning, for our identity.
• 19:13
  And just like the Golan calf in the Old Testament, they cannot
• 19:17
  deliver. They just take from us.
• 19:18
  They only take. Which brings us to the most
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  terrifying part of this whole chapter, Section 4, the
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  sentence. We have seen the crime,
• 19:26
  suppression of truth, ingratitude, idolatry.
• 19:29
  Now we see the punishment and it's not what people expect it
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  to be. This is verses 24 through 32.
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  Three times, like a tolling bill, Paul uses the phrase God
• 19:39
  gave them up. The Greek word is parade jochen.
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  This is a judicial handing over. This is that passive wrath we
• 19:45
  touched on earlier isn't. It it is.
• 19:46
  We often think of judgement as lightning bolts from the sky or,
• 19:49
  you know, fire and brimstone. We expect God to come down and
• 19:52
  smack the center. But sometimes the worst possible
• 19:55
  judgement God can inflict is simply to remove his restraining
• 19:59
  grace and say, OK, have it your way.
• 20:03
  Thy will be done. That is the most terrifying
• 20:05
  sentence a Sinner can ever hear. CS Lewis talked about this.
• 20:08
  He said there are two kinds of people in the end, those who say
• 20:11
  to God thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the
• 20:14
  end thy will be done. So God let's sinners have
• 20:17
  exactly what they want. He lets them experience the full
• 20:20
  weight of their own disordered desires.
• 20:22
  He takes the luge off. He does, and there's a
• 20:25
  progression here, a downward spiral in the judgement itself.
• 20:28
  Stage 1 is in verse 24. God gave him up in the lusts of
• 20:31
  their hearts to impurity. Notice that connection again.
• 20:34
  Because they exchanged God for the lie, they begin to dishonor
• 20:38
  their own bodies. The body isn't neutral.
• 20:40
  It's not just a machine we live in, it's part of the creation
• 20:43
  order. When you disconnect from the
• 20:45
  creator, you start using the creation, and specifically your
• 20:48
  own body in ways it was never designed for.
• 20:51
  So it moves from vertical idolatry to horizontal
• 20:54
  degradation. Yes, and then we get to stage
• 20:56
  2IN verses 26 and 27 Dishonorable passions.
• 21:00
  This is where the text gets very specific about sexual ethics,
• 21:03
  and we need to navigate this carefully, sticking to what the
• 21:06
  text actually says in the theology behind.
• 21:08
  It we do, we need to understand Paul's argument here.
• 21:11
  He focuses on behavior that is contrary to nature.
• 21:15
  The Greek is paraphism. Now when he says nature, is he
• 21:18
  just talking about cultural customs?
• 21:20
  Like this is not how proper Romans behave.
• 21:22
  No. In this context, nature refers
• 21:24
  back to the creation design. He's looking back to Genesis.
• 21:28
  He is looking at the biological and anatomical teleology, the
• 21:32
  intended purpose of male and female.
• 21:34
  So Paul's arguing that just as humanity exchanged the true God
• 21:38
  for idols, they also exchanged the natural use of sexuality for
• 21:42
  what is unnatural according to that created design.
• 21:44
  It's a mirroring effect. The spiritual confusion leads
• 21:47
  directly to a physical confusion.
• 21:49
  And it's an echo. It is, and the source material
• 21:51
  is very clear that we need to report this impartially.
• 21:55
  Paul sees the specific behavior not just as a random sin, among
• 21:58
  other sins, but is a unique manifestation of judgement and
• 22:01
  disorder. It's like a signal flare that a
• 22:04
  society has turned its back on the Creator's design.
• 22:07
  The text calls it a due penalty received in themselves.
• 22:10
  It's an outworking of the idolatry.
• 22:12
  We have inverted the spiritual order, worshipping the creature
• 22:15
  instead of the creator. So it makes a kind of terrible
• 22:17
  sense that the physical order would also be inverted.
• 22:19
  If you don't know who God is, you eventually lose track of
• 22:22
  what a human being is. You do, and then we hit Page 3
• 22:25
  and verse 28. A debased mind.
• 22:28
  That's a strong phrase. It is the Greek word is a
• 22:31
  dokimos. It was a term used in metallurgy
• 22:35
  to describe metals that were tested and found to be impure.
• 22:38
  They were rejects. So a coin that was counterfeit
• 22:41
  or a piece of metal that was too weak to be used.
• 22:43
  It was a dokimos. So a debased mind is a mind that
• 22:47
  can no longer function morally. It has lost its compass.
• 22:50
  It can't tell true north anymore.
• 22:52
  It's the inability to distinguish right from wrong.
• 22:55
  Or maybe even worse, it's the ability to rationalize any evil.
• 22:58
  It is total intellectual darkness.
• 23:00
  Once you were given over to a debased mind, you can justify
• 23:03
  absolutely anything. You can call evil good and good
• 23:06
  evil, and that inevitably leads to total social collapse.
• 23:10
  Which brings us to our last major section, Section 5, the
• 23:14
  vice list, verses 29 through 31. Paul just unleashes this whole
• 23:19
  catalog of sins, and I find it interesting that he doesn't just
• 23:21
  list the big ones that we would expect.
• 23:23
  It's so comprehensive. I mean, he includes murder and
• 23:27
  strife, sure, but look closely at what else there He includes
• 23:30
  gossip. Gossip, envy, boastfulness,
• 23:33
  these are respectable sins in some circles.
• 23:36
  They are. And then there's the one that
• 23:37
  hits home for every parent who's ever lived disobedient to
• 23:40
  parents. That is shocking, isn't it?
• 23:42
  He puts disobedience to parents on the same list as haters of
• 23:46
  God and murder. It is why?
• 23:48
  Why is that so serious in his mind?
• 23:50
  Because it represents the breakdown of the most
• 23:51
  fundamental social unit, the family.
• 23:54
  The family is the building block of civilization.
• 23:57
  When children no longer honor parents, the entire chain of
• 24:01
  authority and wisdom begins to decay, and it creates chaos.
• 24:04
  He uses words like heartless and ruthless to describe the
• 24:07
  society. He does, and the source notes
• 24:10
  that when a society turns from God, it becomes cruel.
• 24:13
  We lose our natural affections. We become hard.
• 24:15
  So we have a society that is envious, gossiping, rebellious
• 24:20
  and cruel. But the absolute pinnacle of
• 24:23
  this rebellion is in verse 32, too.
• 24:25
  It's not just doing these things, is it?
• 24:27
  No, that's the final, horrifying step.
• 24:30
  It's the approval. Though they know God's righteous
• 24:34
  decree, they not only do them, but give approval to those who
• 24:38
  practice them. It's the normalization of sin.
• 24:40
  It is demanding affirmation. It is no longer enough to be
• 24:43
  tolerated. The rebellion demands to be
• 24:45
  celebrated. Why?
• 24:47
  Why is that a plus so necessary? Because deep down, the
• 24:49
  conscience, what Paul calls knowing God's righteous decree,
• 24:53
  is still ticking. It's still sending up those
• 24:55
  warning flares. So to silence that nagging inner
• 24:59
  voice, we need everyone else to clap for us.
• 25:01
  If everyone says it is good, then maybe, just maybe, I can
• 25:04
  convince myself that it's good. It's safety in numbers.
• 25:07
  If we are all jumping off the Cliff together, maybe the Cliff
• 25:09
  isn't really there. Exactly.
• 25:11
  But there's a trap here, isn't there?
• 25:12
  Paul is a master of rhetorician. He has just painted this
• 25:15
  incredibly bleak picture of the Pagan world.
• 25:17
  And you can imagine the religious person in Rome, maybe
• 25:20
  a Jewish moralist, nodding along the whole time.
• 25:23
  Oh absolutely say yes. Look at those terrible pagans.
• 25:26
  Look at those decadent Romans. They are so disgusting.
• 25:29
  And that is exactly the trap. This list functions to indict
• 25:33
  everyone. Because if you look at that list
• 25:35
  honestly, you're on it. Have your gossiped.
• 25:37
  Guilty. Have you ever been envious?
• 25:39
  Have you ever been haughty or boastful?
• 25:42
  Have you ever disobeyed your parents?
• 25:44
  Guilty on all counts. We all are.
• 25:46
  No one can stand outside this diagnosis.
• 25:49
  Paul is preparing the reader for chapter 2 where he turns the gun
• 25:52
  on the moralist and says You who judge you do the exact same
• 25:56
  things. So the Pagan suppresses the
• 25:59
  truth with their immorality. The religious person suppresses
• 26:02
  the truth with their own morality and self righteousness,
• 26:05
  but both are running from God. So we're all in the same boat.
• 26:08
  We have all suppressed the truth.
• 26:09
  We have all exchanged the glory of God for something lesser.
• 26:13
  We have all been ungrateful. Which brings us all the way back
• 26:16
  to the only cure, the only escape from the giving up.
• 26:20
  God giving us up to our sins is the giving over of Christ on the
• 26:23
  cross. That's the beautiful, terrible
• 26:26
  symmetry of the gospel. In judgement, God gives us over
• 26:29
  to our sin. In salvation, God gives Christ
• 26:32
  over for our sin. So the thesis holds the power of
• 26:36
  God that dynamis is the only force in the universe strong
• 26:39
  enough to break the cycle of the debased mind.
• 26:42
  It's the only thing that can take a heart that is curved in
• 26:45
  on itself and turn it back toward God.
• 26:47
  And it connects right back to that root sin we talked about,
• 26:50
  if the root sin is in gratitude. Then the cure must involve
• 26:53
  Thanksgiving. Eucharistic Thanksgiving, the
• 26:56
  source calls it that the remedy is to stop looking at yourself
• 27:00
  as the center of the universe and to look at Christ with an
• 27:02
  empty, open hand and just say thank you.
• 27:05
  It is the death of pride, and the death of pride is the
• 27:08
  beginning of all true life. So let's just summarize what
• 27:10
  we've unpacked today. We have these two great
• 27:13
  revelations happening at the same time.
• 27:15
  We have the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.
• 27:17
  That is the glorious good news. And we have the wrath of God
• 27:20
  revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and that is the
• 27:24
  terrible bad news that makes the good news necessary and
• 27:28
  beautiful. The diagnosis is bleak.
• 27:30
  I mean, it's total depravity. Our minds, our hearts, our
• 27:33
  wills, our bodies, everything is affected by this suppression of
• 27:37
  truth. We can't think our way out of it
• 27:40
  and we certainly can't behave our way out of it.
• 27:42
  But the provision is perfect. It is Christ's righteousness
• 27:47
  given freely to those who do nothing but receive it by faith.
• 27:50
  As we wrap up, I want to leave you, the listener, with a final
• 27:53
  thought to chew on. We talked a lot about the great
• 27:56
  exchange, exchanging the glory of God for lesser things.
• 28:00
  I think the challenge for all of us listening and for us sitting
• 28:04
  here is to ask where are we making that exchange right now
• 28:08
  in our own lives? That's the question.
• 28:10
  It's so easy to point fingers at the culture out there.
• 28:12
  It's easy to read that Vice list and see everyone else but
• 28:15
  ourselves. But where am I personally
• 28:17
  exchanging the approval of God for the approval of man?
• 28:20
  Where am I exchanging the clear truth of scripture for a lie
• 28:23
  that just makes me feel a little more comfortable?
• 28:25
  And maybe the most chilling question of all, if God's wrath
• 28:29
  is revealed by him letting us have our own way, where might we
• 28:33
  be mistaking God's judgement for our own freedom?
• 28:36
  That's a heavy question. Are we celebrating something as
• 28:39
  liberty that is actually God handing us over to a master that
• 28:43
  will ultimately destroy us? That is the question Romans One
• 28:46
  forces every single one of us to ask.
• 28:48
  And the only safe answer is to run to the cross.
• 28:50
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
• 28:53
  This is reformed thinking. We will see you next time.
• 28:56
  Grace and peace.