Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Gospel Power That Saves and the Wrath That Reveals (Romans 1) | Walter A. Elwell

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The Gospel Power That Saves and the Wrath That Reveals (Romans 1) | Walter A. Elwell · Reformed Thinking

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  If the phone rings and your doctor is on the other end of
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  the line. Oh.
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  You immediately hold your breath.
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  Right, because the news you're about to get usually falls into
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  one of two very distinct categories.
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  Yeah. It's either good or bad, yeah.
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  You're either completely healthy or well, there's a diagnosis
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  that you have to face right away.
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  It's clean. It's categorized.
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  Which is how we like it, honestly.
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  We do. Welcome to reformed thinking.
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  I'm glad you're joining us. As human beings, we prefer this
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  kind of binary reality. It creates a sense of
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  predictability, Yeah. We organize our days and our
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  expectations around that clear dividing line between good news
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  and bad news. But when you step into the
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  theological landscape of the Apostle Paul, suddenly that neat
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  categorization just it falls apart completely.
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  It really does. It gets shattered.
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  Today we are opening up Walter A Elwell's evangelical commentary
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  on the Bible, and we're looking specifically at his analysis of
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  Romans chapter 1 for this deep dive.
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  And this is a heavy section of scripture.
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  It is. We are going to unpack the
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  staggering generosity of God's hospitality and look at Paul's
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  radical model of being entirely at the disposal of others.
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  Plus, we're going to examine that stark leveling diagnosis of
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  human rebellion. Right.
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  And we hit a paradox almost immediately.
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  In this text, we are looking at a message that is literally
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  translated as beautiful news. Yeah, the gospel.
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  But according to Paul, the proclamation of this beautiful
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  news simultaneously acts as a terrifying declaration of divine
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  wrath. Which sounds completely
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  contradictory at first glance. Right.
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  How can beautiful news be wrathful?
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  Well, it functions like a sword, right?
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  It cuts in two entirely different directions depending
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  on the posture of the person receiving it.
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  Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, the Greek word here as you
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  and Galian, which we translate as the gospel.
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  But bringing a message of that magnitude into a fractured
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  society, I mean, it's going to create shock waves.
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  Absolutely. And Elwell points out that Paul
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  doesn't just drop this theology into a vacuum.
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  No, he starts with himself. He establishes a very specific
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  and frankly countercultural disposition right out of the
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  gate. So let's look at the mechanics
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  of how he does that. In Romans 1.1.
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  The commentary notes that ancient letters conventionally
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  began with the author's name. Right, You didn't sign your name
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  at the bottom of the page like we do today.
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  You announced yourself right at the top.
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  Which makes sense. So Paul follows this custom.
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  He puts his name first, but then he immediately sidelines his own
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  status to place Jesus Christ first.
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  He defines himself with three parallel phrases here.
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  Yeah, he says he is a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an
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  apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.
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  We have to pause on that word servant though.
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  Why is that? Because our modern vocabulary
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  has completely sanitized it. I mean, in a modern context,
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  being a servant often translates to like volunteering.
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  Oh right, like helping out on the weekends at a local charity.
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  Exactly. Or someone who provides a
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  service in exchange for a paycheck.
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  You retain your autonomy. You decide your hours.
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  Right, you can quit whenever you want, but the Greek word Paul
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  uses here is doulos. And that carries a much heavier
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  weight, doesn't it? Oh, it denotes total,
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  unmitigated ownership. A bondservant.
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  A bondservant. It means complete disposability
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  to the Lord. In the 1st century Roman world,
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  a bondservant had no legal rights, no personal property,
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  and no schedule of their own. Yeah, Their entire existence was
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  tethered to the will of their master.
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  And by claiming this title, Paul is aligning himself with massive
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  historical figures from the Old Testament lineage.
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  He's. Placing himself in the exact
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  same category as Moses, Joshua, and David.
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  Yes. I want to visualize this for a
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  second for you listening because the social implications are
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  staggering. Rome was the society obsessed
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  with status. Oh.
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  Absolutely. Citizenship, upward mobility, it
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  was everything. Right.
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  If you were a Roman citizen, you flaunted it.
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  So imagine a modern CEO sending out a company wide memo.
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  OK. And instead of listing their
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  degrees or their past corporate successes, they introduce
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  themselves by listing all the ways they belong to someone
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  else. Hi I am the CEO and I have 0
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  autonomy. Right.
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  My time is not my own and I am entirely disposable to the board
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  of directors. That runs completely backward to
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  our modern sense of self promotion.
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  It really does. So why would Paul introduce
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  himself this way to a church in the capital of the empire?
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  Is it just, you know, rhetorical humility?
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  Well, Elwell makes it clear goes far beyond rhetorical humility.
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  He's not just trying to sound pious.
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  OK, So what is he doing? Paul is establishing the
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  baseline framework for how humans should interact within
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  the Christian community. He's setting up a model of
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  generous cooperation. And he's doing this because he's
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  imitating the ultimate model of that cooperation, right?
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  The Triune God. Precisely Paul's most
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  disposability to Christ is a direct reflection of the divine
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  family's disposition toward fallen humanity.
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  That is a massive shift in perspective.
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  So his lack of autonomy is actually a mirror of divine
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  generosity. Absolutely.
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  Think about the historical figures we just mentioned.
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  Moses didn't want to go back to Egypt.
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  He was terrified, he argued with a burning Bush, right?
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  He wanted to stay in the desert with his sheep, but as a
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  bondservant, his personal career goals were irrelevant.
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  His life was surrendered to the agenda of Yahweh.
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  And David was a king with immense authority, yet he
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  operated as a vassal to a higher king.
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  Yes, by placing himself in that specific Old Testament lineage,
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  Paul is making a bold claim. That God's plan of salvation is
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  entirely continuous. Spot on.
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  From the ancient prophets to Paul's present mission in the
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  1st century, it is one unbroken action.
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  So the Gospel didn't just drop out of the sky in the 1st
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  century as some novel philosophy.
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  No, Paul states explicitly that it was promised beforehand
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  through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
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  And that brings us to the actual content of this beautiful news,
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  which introduces that Triune cooperation you just brought up.
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  Right, verses 2 through 4. Yeah, in Romans as 1.2 through
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  4, the text reveals an astounding theological reality.
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  Right inside the greeting we see the Father, the Son, and the
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  Spirit of Holiness actively cooperating to rescue fallen
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  humanity. Elwell's analysis here provides
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  incredible clarity. He breaks down the dual nature
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  of Jesus presented in these specific verses.
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  Unpack that for. Us.
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  Well, on one hand you have Jesus in his human nature, described
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  as the descendant of David. This anchors Jesus firmly in
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  human history. He has human DNA, a human
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  ancestry. Right, and he fulfills the royal
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  Old Testament promises like the covenant given in Second Samuel
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  7. So he is fully integrated into
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  the human experience. But then the text pivots to his
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  exalted status. It says He was declared the Son
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  of God with supreme strength by his resurrection from the dead
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  through the spirit of holiness. Oh, we really need to draw a
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  sharp distinction from the commentary, right?
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  Now this is crucial. Jesus did not become the Son of
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  God at the resurrection. I am so glad you caught that.
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  I want to make sure you, the listener, grasp the weight of
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  that distinction. He didn't earn his divine status
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  by surviving the cross and rising from the dead.
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  No, it wasn't a promotion. A promotion implies a lack of
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  prior status. Precisely, the divine nature of
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  the Son is eternal. He was always the Son.
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  Rather, the text says that at the resurrection he was declared
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  the Son of God with supreme might.
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  So the resurrection was the public, undeniable vindication
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  of who he had been all along. Yes, and the Holy Spirit acts
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  with incredible force in the resurrection to manifest this
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  reality to the entire world. It's an objective declaration of
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  victory over death. There's a connection here that
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  the commentary draws and I think it is brilliant.
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  It links this declaration to the concept of baptism.
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  Oh yeah, the parallels are striking.
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  Think. About Jesus's water baptism At
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  the very beginning of his earthly ministry, he comes up
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  out of the Jordan River, the heavens open.
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  Spirit descends like a dove. And the father speaks audibly.
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  This is my beloved son. Yes, the entire divine family is
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  present and mutually validating the inauguration of His
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  ministry. It is a public endorsement by
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  the Trinity. Right now, flash forward to the
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  end of his earthly ministry. His death and resurrection act
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  as a final cosmic baptism. And once again, the Father, the
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  Son, and the Holy Spirit manifest as a unified family.
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  They are working together to bring salvation from death to
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  life. The spirit of holiness is
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  actively involved in the resurrection.
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  The Son is vindicated and the Father's plan is accomplished.
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  That synthesis highlights the hospitality we mentioned at the
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  start of our discussion. The Trinity isn't a static,
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  isolated entity sitting in heaven demanding tribute.
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  No, the Father, Son and Spirit are mutually engaged in a
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  massive active rescue operation. Their cooperation is the source
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  from which all other generous acts proceed.
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  They set the pattern for how relationships are supposed to
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  function. Which naturally forces a
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  transition in the text. Once Paul establishes this
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  unified, cooperating divine family, he shifts his focus.
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  Right. He moves to the earthly family
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  that this divine cooperation is actively creating.
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  Yeah, in verses 5 through 7, he moves from talking about his own
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  solitary role as a bondservant to addressing the growing
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  community drawn from among all the Gentiles.
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  He calls the Roman believers loved by God and called to be
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  seen. To grasp the weight of that
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  transition, we have to look closely at the phrase Paul uses
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  to describe their calling, the obedience that comes from faith.
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  Yes, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit display mutual
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  subordination and faithfulness to one another, the new human
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  family is called to mirror that exact same mutual faithfulness.
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  They are meant to be a living reflection of the Trinity.
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  And we really need to understand the social dynamics of the Roman
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  Church at this specific moment in history.
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  Oh yeah, this was not a harmonious group of people
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  sitting in a circle singing songs.
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  Not at all. You had Jewish believers who had
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  grown up with strict dietary laws, circumcision and Sabbath
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  keeping. And you had gentile believers
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  coming out of Pagan backgrounds with entirely different cultural
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  norms. And they were thrust together
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  into the same house churches, trying to figure out how to
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  exist in the same space. The cultural friction must have
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  been intense. The ethnic and religious divide
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  was arguably the greatest social chasm of the ancient world, so
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  Paul does something incredibly strategic in his opening
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  greeting. He says grace and peace to you.
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  It sounds like such a standard throwaway greeting to our modern
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  ears, like saying best regards at the end of an e-mail.
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  But it carries immense linguistic weight.
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  Grace or karis is the standard Greek greeting.
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  Peace or Shalom is the standard Hebrew greeting.
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  By combining them into a single phrase, Paul is sympathizing the
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  2 divided factions of his audience into one sentence.
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  He is linguistically enacting the unity he is about to preach
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  for the rest of the letter. He is telling them from the very
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  first breath, You are one family now.
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  He fuses their cultural identities together under a new
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  banner. And that brings us back to the
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  word he uses for them. Saints, right?
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  I want you, the listener, to evaluate what pops into your
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  head when you hear the word St. Usually we think of flawless
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  marble statues in a cathedral. Yeah, or people who have
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  achieved some impossible elevated level of moral
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  perfection. But Elwell points out that Paul
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  is pulling this concept directly from the Old Testament,
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  specifically referencing texts like Daniel and Deuteronomy.
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  In that ancient Jewish context, Saints are not flawless statues.
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  The word simply means set apart. They are people called to a holy
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  disposability to one another. They are set apart for a
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  specific function within the family of God.
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  Their sanctity is not about being morally untouchable, it's
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  about being entirely useful to God and to their fellow
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  believers. Which forces us to look at how
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  this holy disposability actually plays out in real life.
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  How does a person act when they consider themselves totally
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  disposable to others? Well, in verses 8 through 15,
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  Paul models this vulnerability. He expresses an intense
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  emotional longing to physically be with these people in Rome.
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  And keep in mind, he's never even met them.
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  Right. He didn't plant the Roman
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  church, yet he praises them because their faith is reported
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  all over the world. He prays constantly for them.
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  He says he longs to visit so he can impart a spiritual gift to
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  make them strong. That sounds like a typical
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  leader speaking to followers. He has something they need.
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  But notice the vulnerability in the very next sentence.
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  Paul says he wants to impart a gift to make them strong.
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  But then he quickly adds that he also wants to be mutually
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  encouraged by their faith. I love that pivot.
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  It is such a remarkable admission of need.
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  It is the progressive social nature of Christian fellowship
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  in action. Think about who is writing this.
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  Paul is an apostle. He's seen the risen Christ on
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  the road to Damascus. Right.
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  He has planted churches across the entire Mediterranean basin.
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  He has written theological texts that will shape human history.
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  Yet he readily admits that his own spiritual life is incomplete
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  without the input of these Roman believers.
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  He actually needs their faith to encourage his own.
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  It reminds me of a brilliant tenured professor who has
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  written dozens of books on a subject, walking into a
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  classroom and genuinely telling a group of freshman students
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  that he needs their fresh insights to help finish his next
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  thesis. Oh wow.
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  Yeah, the professor holds the authority and the vast majority
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  of the knowledge, but he recognizes that the learning
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  process, the fellowship, has to be mutual.
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  Paul views himself as a debtor. He says he is obligated both to
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  Greeks and non Greeks, to the wise and the foolish.
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  That language of obligation is fascinating.
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  Why does Paul feel this staggering debt to humanity?
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  Right. Why does he consider himself a
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  debtor to people he has never laid eyes on?
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  It comes down to the sheer force of the message he carries.
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  The message itself compels him. He owes them the gospel, because
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  the gospel belongs to them as much as it belongs to him.
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  Let's dig into that message, because verses 16 through 18
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  represent the absolute core of the entire letter.
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  This is where we see the dual edge of the good news, Paul
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  writes. I am not ashamed of the gospel
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  because it is the effective force of God bringing salvation
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  to everyone who believes. Elwell points out something
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  really interesting here. The gospel is almost personified
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  in the text as a steward of God's righteousness.
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  The UN Gillian isn't just a static set of historical facts.
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  It's not just an announcement of something that happened in the
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  past. No, it is an active living
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  force, and Elwell maps out the three-part structure of Paul's
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  upcoming theological argument right here in verse 17.
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  The argument will flow from this single premise.
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  Well, I should say precisely The first major section will deal
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  with righteousness by faith. The next we'll address the
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  historical reality of the gospel, going first to the Jew,
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  then to the Gentile. And the final section we'll
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  focus on how the righteous will live by faith in practical daily
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  life. Let's pause on that phrase, Live
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  by faith, because Elwell brings up a theological mechanism that
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  we need to unpack carefully. Synergism.
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  He references Habakkuk 2.4. The righteous will live by
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  faith. Now I want to clarify this
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  because it can sound confusing. It definitely can.
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  If God does all the saving, why does Paul say we have to live by
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  faith? Are we earning our salvation?
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  Not at all. God alone makes the Sinner
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  righteous. That is his sovereign action.
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  Right? But the commentary notes a
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  paradox here. While God initiates the grace,
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  there is a voluntary responsibility on the believer
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  to persevere in that faith. Think of it like a medical
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  resuscitation. If a lifeguard pulls a drowned
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  person out of the ocean and performs CPR to bring them back
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  to life, the lifeguard did all the saving.
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  The drowned person contributed nothing to their own rescue.
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  But once that person is breathing again, they have a
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  responsibility to keep breathing, to stand up, to walk.
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  Right there, walking doesn't earn the rescue.
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  It is the necessary voluntary result of having been given
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  life. So God's grace creates the
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  capacity for the human agent to respond.
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  He flips the light switch, but you still have to walk in the
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  light. Precisely God's pattern holds
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  these two components together without contradiction.
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  I understand that dynamic for the believer, but the text
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  forces us to look at the darker side of this equation.
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  We hit verse 18 and there is a jarring, almost violent shift in
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  tone. It really is a sharp turn.
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  Paul has just been talking about salvation, life and
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  righteousness. Then he suddenly says the wrath
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  of God is being revealed from heaven against all the
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  godlessness and wickedness of men.
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  I have to push back here on behalf of the listener.
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  If the Gospel is literally beautiful news, how does its
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  proclamation simultaneously reveal wrath?
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  We have to look at the parallel grammatical structure between
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  verse 17 and verse 18 to make sense of this.
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  In verse 17, a righteousness from God is revealed by faith.
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  In verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed against godlessness.
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  The gospel, simply by existing and being proclaimed, forces a
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  dividing line in humanity. It demands a verdict.
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  You cannot stay neutral once you hear it.
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  No, you can't. It brings salvation to those who
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  believe, but for those who willfully reject it, the
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  situation actually becomes infinitely worse than if they
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  had never heard it at all. Because the arrival of Jesus
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  Christ inaugurated a new eschatological age.
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  Wait, define eschatological for us, because that is a heavy
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  academic term. Sure.
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  It refers to the final ultimate events of history, the end
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  times. Imagine reading a novel and
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  suddenly the author starts putting the events of the final
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  chapter into the middle of the book.
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  The future has broken into the present.
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  Exactly. The ultimate truth about
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  reality, judgment, and life has been fully disclosed in the
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  person of Jesus because that light has come into the world.
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  Rejecting that light heightens the righteous wrath of God.
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  The stakes are higher because the truth is clearer.
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  Yes, the gospel is good news for the believer, but it is the
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  ultimate bad news for the one who insists on absolute autonomy
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  because the arrival of the truth removes any claim of ignorance.
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  That question of ignorance is the linchpin of the whole
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  argument. Because if a human being could
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  stand before God in the cosmic courtroom and say, look, I just
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  didn't know you existed. I didn't have the right
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  information. Nobody told me.
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  Then divine wrath would seem incredibly unfair.
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  It would look like tyranny. So could humanity claim
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  ignorance? Did they lack the data?
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  Paul anticipates that exact defense strategy.
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  In verses 19 and 20, he addresses the concept of general
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  revelation. He asserts that God's eternal
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  might and divine nature have been clearly seen since the very
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  creation of the world. Because of this visible
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  evidence, humanity is quote without excuse.
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  Without excuse, let's dig into the legal weight of that phrase.
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  The literal translation of the Greek is without apology or
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  defense. It means you have no legal
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  standing to even approach the bench and mount an argument.
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  Elwell argues that God's signature is written all over
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  creation. Intellectually and
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  aesthetically, humans can see the symmetry of the world.
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  They can observe the intricate ecosystems, the mathematical
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  laws governing physics, the balance of nature.
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  We see the Ones and Many's incredible diversity functioning
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  within unified systems which reflect God's own triune nature
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  of unity and diversity. So it's not just standing on a
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  mountain looking at a sunset and feeling a vague, warm sense of
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  spirituality. Right, Paul is saying that the
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  structural design of reality logically points to a designer.
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  Yes, the external evidence is overwhelming, but it is not just
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  external. Inwardly, the moral law sits
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  deep in the human psyche. Even the most secular societies
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  have an inbuilt sense of justice, a recognition of right
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  and wrong, an outrage when the innocents suffer.
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  So the knowledge of God is present both outside in the
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  stars and inside in the conscience.
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  The problem isn't a lack of information.
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  The. Problem is what humans actively
• 19:47
  do with that information, Paul says.
• 19:49
  They suppress the truth by their wickedness.
• 19:52
  I was thinking this psychological suppression, like
• 19:54
  trying to hold a massive, fully inflated beach ball underwater
• 19:58
  in a swimming pool. Yeah.
• 19:59
  Have you ever tried to do that for a long period of?
• 20:01
  Time. Oh, it requires an immense
• 20:03
  amount of physical exertion. It is exhausting.
• 20:05
  You're pushing down with all your upper body weight.
• 20:08
  Your arms start shaking, water is splashing everywhere.
• 20:11
  You keep losing your grip and the ball slips out.
• 20:14
  Why? Because the beach ball naturally
• 20:16
  wants to burst up to the surface.
• 20:18
  It has buoyancy. The truth of God's existence is
• 20:21
  like that beach ball. It is buoyant.
• 20:24
  It naturally rises to the surface of human consciousness.
• 20:27
  To deny it requires constant, exhausting, willful effort to
• 20:32
  keep it pushed down out of sight.
• 20:34
  We suppress it because if we let it surface, we have to deal with
• 20:37
  the implications of who owns the pool.
• 20:39
  That analogy perfectly illustrates a sharp critique
• 20:41
  Elwell makes in the commentary against the concept of natural
• 20:45
  theology. Natural theology suggests that
• 20:47
  humans can reason their way up to God just by studying nature.
• 20:51
  But Elwell points out the fatal flaw in that logic.
• 20:54
  Because humans are exhausting themselves, actively suppressing
• 20:57
  the truth. Unredeemed humanity cannot
• 20:59
  reconcile itself to God simply through intellectual
• 21:02
  observation. Our perception of reality is
• 21:04
  deliberately distorted by our desire to rebel.
• 21:07
  So nature is not a ladder we can climb to reach heaven.
• 21:10
  No, it acts as a goad. It constantly pokes at the to
• 21:14
  suppress conscience, bringing to mind our responsibility and
• 21:17
  God's rightful moral authority. It establishes our guilt, but it
• 21:21
  cannot provide the remedy for it.
• 21:23
  Nature tells you that you are breaking the law, but only the
• 21:26
  special revelation of the Gospel brings reconciliation and
• 21:30
  forgiveness. So if humanity is spending all
• 21:32
  its energy suppressing this visible truth, if they are
• 21:36
  holding that beach ball underwater, what do they replace
• 21:39
  the truth with? That's the big question.
• 21:41
  Because human beings are intrinsically worshipping
• 21:44
  creatures, we we have to aim our reverence at something.
• 21:47
  If we refuse to aim it at the Creator, where does it go?
• 21:50
  This brings us to the tragedy outlined in verses 21 through
• 21:53
  23, the inglorious exchange. Paul writes that despite knowing
• 21:57
  God, fallen humanity neither glorifies him nor gives thanks.
• 22:01
  Their thinking becomes futile and their foolish hearts are
• 22:03
  darkened. They exchanged the glory of God
• 22:06
  for images. This failure to give thanks is
• 22:08
  the very essence of original sin.
• 22:11
  Humans were created with a primary function to honor and
• 22:14
  thank their maker. That is the baseline of human
• 22:16
  design. When we refuse to do this, we're
• 22:19
  not just breaking a religious rule, we are dismantling our own
• 22:23
  rational faculties. There's a terrifying irony here.
• 22:26
  Paul says that claiming to be wise, they became fools.
• 22:30
  Their thinking turns entirely futile.
• 22:32
  Humans pride themselves on their intellect, their philosophy,
• 22:36
  their technological advancements, their ability to
• 22:39
  reason their way out of needing a deity.
• 22:42
  Yet the text argues that the moment we cut ourselves off from
• 22:46
  the source of all reason, our minds actually become darkened.
• 22:50
  Why does a lack of gratitude lead to darkened thinking?
• 22:53
  Because gratitude acknowledges dependency.
• 22:56
  When you say thank you, you're admitting that you received
• 22:59
  something you didn't create yourself.
• 23:00
  You're admitting that you receive life, breath, and
• 23:03
  intellect as a gift. When humanity refuses to give
• 23:05
  thanks, they are insisting on absolute self-sufficiency.
• 23:09
  They are claiming they are their own source of life.
• 23:11
  But since that is objectively false, since we are not
• 23:14
  self-sufficient, our thinking becomes detached from reality.
• 23:18
  We enter a state of delusion and futility.
• 23:20
  And the visual representation of this futility in the text is
• 23:24
  staggering. Look at the regression in the
• 23:27
  idols Paul lists. Humans exchange the glory of the
• 23:30
  immortal God for images made to look like mortal man.
• 23:33
  Then they downgrade to birds. Then down to 4 legged animals
• 23:37
  and finally down to reptiles. It is a spatial descent.
• 23:41
  It is a downward trajectory of worship.
• 23:43
  We really need to unpack the psychology of that descent.
• 23:46
  Why do humans do this? You start by worshipping a
• 23:48
  reflection of yourself in the mirror.
• 23:50
  You idolize human achievement, but that eventually fails you
• 23:54
  because humans die. So you look up at the birds in
• 23:56
  the sky, then you look down at the beasts of burden on the
• 23:59
  ground, and finally you are worshipping the snakes,
• 24:02
  Slytherin in the dirt. Why does the human psyche need
• 24:05
  to downgrade the divine to the level of a reptile?
• 24:08
  Because a lesser God is a safe God.
• 24:10
  If you worship the sovereign Creator of the universe, you are
• 24:14
  subject to His moral laws. He had absolute authority over
• 24:18
  your life. But if you worship a bird, you
• 24:19
  can put that bird in a cage. If you worship a golden calf,
• 24:23
  you can melt it down when you get tired of it.
• 24:25
  A reptile does not ask you for moral accountability.
• 24:28
  By worshipping lesser things, humans are desperately trying to
• 24:32
  maintain their illusion of autonomy.
• 24:34
  It is humanity insisting on working from the bottom up
• 24:37
  rather than receiving truth from the top down.
• 24:40
  It echoes the serpent's assault in Genesis 3.
• 24:43
  The lowest creature becomes the source of authority.
• 24:46
  And the tragic result is that by exchanging the truth of God for
• 24:49
  a lie, humans subject themselves to the very things they were
• 24:52
  supposed to have dominion over. In Genesis, humans were
• 24:55
  commanded to rule over the animals and the creeping things.
• 24:58
  Now they're bowing down to them. They forfeit their own dignity.
• 25:02
  So when humanity insists on this downward trajectory, when they
• 25:06
  demand total autonomy and choose to worship the dirt, what is
• 25:09
  God's response? Does He send lightning bolts
• 25:12
  from heaven? Does He force them into
• 25:13
  submission? Here's where we reach the most
• 25:16
  chilling part of the entire chapter.
• 25:17
  God's response is not to fight them.
• 25:19
  His response is to grant their terrifying wish.
• 25:22
  We arrive at verses 24 through 30. 22 The irony of judgment.
• 25:26
  Three separate times in this passage, Paul writes a phrase
• 25:29
  that should make anyone tremble. God gave them over.
• 25:32
  God gave them over. I want to push back on this
• 25:36
  because it sounds incredibly passive.
• 25:38
  It sounds like God just throws his hands in the air, walks
• 25:41
  away, and abandons his creation, right?
• 25:44
  If God is love, how is stepping back and letting people destroy
• 25:48
  themselves a just response? Ill will clarifies this
• 25:51
  forcefully in the commentary. This is not passive
• 25:53
  permissiveness, and it is certainly not abandonment in the
• 25:56
  sense of God losing control. It is an active, deliberate and
• 26:00
  perfectly just punishment. It's the brutal irony of divine
• 26:04
  justice. Sinners receive exactly what
• 26:07
  they're asking for. By demanding independence from
• 26:09
  God's moral order, they are handed over to the logical,
• 26:12
  devastating consequences of that independence.
• 26:15
  Let's parse the mechanics of that judgment.
• 26:17
  Usually we think of judgment as a positive imposition of pain,
• 26:20
  like a judge sentencing a criminal to a physical prison or
• 26:24
  ordering them to pay a massive fine.
• 26:26
  But. Here, the judgment is the
• 26:27
  removal of restraint. If you say to God, I don't want
• 26:30
  you in my life, I want to follow my own desires.
• 26:33
  God's most severe temporal judgement is simply saying, OK,
• 26:37
  have it your way. I will remove my restraining
• 26:39
  grace and let you follow those desires to their absolute
• 26:42
  destructive end. And those desires, once they are
• 26:46
  unmoored from God's design, turn in on themselves and become
• 26:49
  toxic. Paul begins by describing how
• 26:52
  this plays out on the physical level.
• 26:54
  He points to lustful sin working outside the healthy parameters
• 26:58
  God established for sexual relationships.
• 27:00
  The rebellion manifests in the physical body, degrading the
• 27:03
  participants. But then he moves up to the
• 27:05
  rational level and there is a fascinating Greek play on words
• 27:09
  here that Elwell highlights, which reveals the total decay of
• 27:12
  the human intellect. Breakdown that word play for us
• 27:15
  because it shows how the mind itself fractures under the
• 27:17
  weight of this rebellion. Paul writes that because they
• 27:20
  did not approve that the Greek word is UK doki Masan, of having
• 27:24
  God and their knowledge, God handed them over to an
• 27:27
  unapproved mind and a dokimon noun.
• 27:30
  That is incredible. They rejected the knowledge of
• 27:32
  God as worthless, so God handed them over to a worthless mind.
• 27:36
  It is a perfect symmetrical judgment.
• 27:38
  The intellect itself becomes depraved.
• 27:41
  The mind that refuses to retain the knowledge of God loses its
• 27:44
  ability to make sound moral judgments.
• 27:47
  It can no longer distinguish between what is healthy and what
• 27:49
  is lethal. It perpetrates attitudinal
• 27:52
  depravity. Think about the list of sins
• 27:54
  Paul gives at the end of the chapter.
• 27:57
  Envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, slanderers.
• 28:02
  Arrogant. Boastful.
• 28:04
  What do all of these have in common?
• 28:05
  They split people apart. They destroy community.
• 28:08
  This is the exact opposite of the social harmony, grace, and
• 28:11
  mutual faith that Paul was advocating for at the beginning
• 28:14
  of the letter. And the societal decay leads to
• 28:17
  a final horrifying stage in verse 32.
• 28:21
  It isn't enough that they fall into these destructive patterns
• 28:23
  individually. Paul says that humanity knows
• 28:25
  God's righteous decree. They know deep down in their
• 28:28
  suppressed conscience that the penalty for this rebellion is
• 28:31
  deaf. Yet they not only continue in
• 28:33
  their actions, but they actively approve of others who do the
• 28:36
  same. The Greek word for approve there
• 28:40
  is sinu de cousin. They cheer each other on as they
• 28:42
  March collectively toward the Cliff.
• 28:45
  Why do they do that? Why the desperate need for
• 28:48
  corporate approval and rebellion?
• 28:51
  If you were going to commit a crime, usually you want to hide
• 28:54
  it. You don't want an audience
• 28:56
  cheering you on. Because sin in isolation is
• 28:59
  lonely and sychologically terrifying.
• 29:01
  Remember the beach ball? The suppressed conscience is
• 29:05
  still acting as a goad. It is still poking at them,
• 29:08
  telling them they are out of alignment with reality.
• 29:11
  To quiet that internal alarm bell, rebellious humanity has to
• 29:14
  build a consensus. They have to surround themselves
• 29:16
  with people who will validate their choices.
• 29:19
  They create a counterfeit community.
• 29:21
  It's a dark mirror image of the church.
• 29:22
  Yes, it is a death bound substitute for the genuine
• 29:25
  family of believers Paul introduced at the start of the
• 29:28
  letter. Instead of being united by
• 29:30
  grace, peace, and mutual disposability under the loving
• 29:33
  hospitality of the Triune God, this counterfeit family is
• 29:36
  united by mutual validation of their own discretion.
• 29:39
  They applaud each other to silence the truth they are
• 29:41
  collectively holding underwater. Let's synthesize the massive arc
• 29:45
  of what we have covered today, because the scope of Paul's
• 29:47
  argument is breathtaking. We started in the light.
• 29:50
  We looked at the immense hospitality of the Triune
• 29:53
  Godfather, Son and Holy Spirit actively cooperating to bring
• 29:56
  salvation to a fractured world. We saw Paul modeling that exact
• 30:00
  same generosity, viewing himself as a bond servant, totally
• 30:04
  disposable to the needs of others, eager to build a unified
• 30:07
  family out of hostile factions. And then we contrasted that
• 30:10
  beautiful, life giving vision with the stark, terrifying
• 30:13
  reality of a human race that willfully suppresses the truth.
• 30:17
  We trace the descent from ungratefulness to feudal
• 30:20
  thinking to the absurd worship of reptiles, ending with a
• 30:24
  society handed over to a worthless mind frantically
• 30:27
  applauding its own moral collapse.
• 30:29
  It is a heavy diagnosis to sit with, but as Elwell notes in his
• 30:32
  commentary, it is absolutely necessary.
• 30:35
  This leveling of humanity, proving that every single
• 30:38
  person, regardless of their background, is without excuse
• 30:42
  and steeped in rebellion, is the prerequisite for understanding
• 30:46
  why the Gospel is such beautiful news.
• 30:48
  You cannot appreciate the necessity of the cure until you
• 30:51
  comprehend the sheerless sality of the disease.
• 30:55
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, I want to bring this back to
• 30:57
  you, the listener. We spent a lot of time talking
• 31:00
  about that beach ball of truth. I want you to evaluate your own
• 31:03
  life right now. What are the beach balls of
• 31:06
  truth that you might be exhausting yourself to hold
• 31:09
  underwater? Where are you actively
• 31:12
  suppressing what you know to be true about God's design simply
• 31:16
  because you want to maintain the illusion of your own autonomy?
• 31:18
  Remember, the effort to hold that truth down will eventually
• 31:22
  exhaust your rational mind. That is a piercing question to
• 31:25
  carry with. You and I will leave you with
• 31:26
  one less concept to ponder as you go about your week.
• 31:30
  We looked closely at the terrifying irony of God's
• 31:32
  judgement in this text. So think about this.
• 31:34
  If God's most severe temporal judgement is simply stepping
• 31:37
  back, removing his restraint, and handing us over to our own
• 31:41
  unchecked desires, what does it say about the human condition
• 31:44
  that our absolute greatest punishment is getting precisely
• 31:47
  what we want?