Latest / Reformed Thinking / Key Words That Unlock Romans 1 (Romans 1) | Marvin R. Vincent

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Key Words That Unlock Romans 1 (Romans 1) | Marvin R. Vincent · Reformed Thinking

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  Imagine spending massive, exhausting physical effort every
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  single day just to hold a highly buoyant beach ball underwater in
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  a swimming pool. Oh, I hate doing that.
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  It takes so much energy. It really does.
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  I mean, the natural state of that object is to burst to the
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  surface. It wants to rise, and if you
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  lose your grip for even a fraction of a second, it just
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  explodes upward. Well, according to the apostle
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  Paul, that is precisely what the entire human race is doing with
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  the truth of God's existence. We are collectively exhausting
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  ourselves trying to hold it down.
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  Yes, precisely. Welcome to Reformed thinking.
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  Our mission for this deep dive today is to unpack the
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  linguistic analysis of the 1st chapter of Romans utilizing
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  Marvin R Vincent's classic work Word Studies in the New
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  Testament. Which is such a brilliant
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  resource. It really is.
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  I have a massive stack of notes here regarding the original
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  Greek text, and our goal is to extract the most vital Nuggets
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  of insight regarding human nature, divine wrath, and
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  justification. We are looking past the English
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  translation to see the sheer weight of the original words
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  Paul used to communicate his message to the early church.
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  Yeah. And to give you, the listener,
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  the framework for our discussion today, we are going to evaluate
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  this material strictly through a Protestant Christian Reformed
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  theology lens. Right adhering to the bounds of
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  the Westminster Confession, we will examine how the linguistic
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  nuances of the original Greek text validate and illuminate the
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  Reformed doctrines of total depravity, imputed
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  righteousness, and unconditional election.
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  Because when you look at the precise vocabulary Paul selects,
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  you know the specific nouns and verbs he employs in the Greek.
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  You do not find a theology of human merit or a free will
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  autonomy. You really do not.
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  Instead, you find a rigorous, undeniable presentation of
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  humanity's complete inability to save itself.
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  Yeah, which is matched only by God's sovereign elect and grace
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  and the perfect righteousness of Christ credited to the believer.
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  OK, let's unpack this, starting right at the beginning of the
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  text, looking at the identity of the messenger, covering verses
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  one through 7. Sounds good.
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  The very first word of the epistle is his name Paul, and
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  right away there's an incredible amount of background to consider
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  regarding that specific name. Oh, definitely.
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  The name Paul, or in the Greek Paulos, is actually a transcript
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  for the Latin Paulus or Paulus, which literally means little.
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  Which is fascinating. I mean, it was a rather common
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  name among the solutions, and it was the closest thing in sound
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  to the Hebrew name Saul. Right, and I have always found
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  it so interesting that he uses the Roman name here.
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  Many scholars know that it was very common for Hebrews of this
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  era to hold double names. You know, one national and one
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  foreign. Yeah, you see this all over the
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  historical text, Names like Belteshazzar and Daniel or
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  Esther and Hadassah. Precisely so.
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  Saul Paulus would have been his dual identity, but the choice to
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  exclusively use the Roman name Paul in this letter and
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  throughout his ministry to the Gentiles has generated some
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  really compelling historical theories.
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  What's fascinating here is the specific theory put forward by
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  Dean Houston regarding the moment the name Paul rises to
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  prominence in the biblical narrative.
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  Oh yes, I love this theory. Right.
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  Hausen points out that we cannot consider it accidental that the
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  phrase, who is also called Paul, occurs at a highly specific
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  point in the historical record of the book of Acts.
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  Yeah, the heathen name, The Roman name, surfaces right at
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  the moment when Paul visibly and officially enters onto his
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  office as the apostle to the Gentiles.
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  It is essentially stereotyped at the moment he successfully
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  converts the Roman governor surges Paulus on the island of
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  Cyprus. Wait, let me make sure I'm
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  following that timeline. So he is actively using the
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  Hebrew name Saul all the way up until he steps foot on Cyprus
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  and interacts with this specific Roman official.
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  Yes, precisely. It marks a definitive shift.
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  He is stepping fully into the specific calling ordained for
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  him. Wow.
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  And from a Reformed perspective, this touches beautifully on the
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  doctrine of unconditional election.
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  It really does. Paul did not just stumble into
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  this role. He was eternally appointed to
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  it. Even the historical activation
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  of his Roman name aligns perfectly with the unfolding of
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  God's sovereign decree for the Gentile world.
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  He was elected to carry this specific message to this
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  specific demographic, and the linguistic shift in his own
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  identity reflects that divine appointment.
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  Yeah, and that shift in his identity.
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  Logically, he sets up the very next word he uses to describe
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  himself. After stating his name, he calls
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  himself a servant. But looking at the translation
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  notes here, servant feels like a fairly weak English equivalent
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  for the Greek word used, which is doulos.
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  Oh 100%. I mean when I hear servant in
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  modern English, I picture someone you hire to clean your
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  house or landscape your yard. Right, an employee who can quit
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  whenever they want if they do not like the working conditions.
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  But. Doulos literally means a bond
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  slave, does it not? It absolutely does.
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  It signifies belonging completely to a master by virtue
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  of being purchased. The ancient Roman world had a
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  massive spectrum of servitude, including hired workers, but a
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  doulos was property you were bought with a price.
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  Let me see if I am grasping the emotional weight of this,
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  because calling yourself a slave usually carries a highly
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  negative, degrading connotation. Yeah, it's a tough word for
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  modern ears. It is almost like, well, think
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  of a failing, totally bankrupt company being bought out in a
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  massive corporate acquisition. The employees technically now
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  belong to the new honor. OK, I follow you.
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  But in this scenario, imagine that the new CEO who purchased
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  the company is entirely benevolent, gracious and self
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  sacrificing. I see where you're going with
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  this. Because of the nature of the new
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  owner, the work those employees do is no longer a matter of
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  miserable servility. Their daily labor becomes a
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  genuine expression of gratitude and absolute free choice.
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  They want to work for the one who saved them from financial.
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  Ruin. Exactly.
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  Believers, according to Paul, are purchased by the blood of
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  Christ. They are doulos, bond slaves.
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  They belong absolutely to the Master, but the labor is an
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  expression of love. That corporate buyout analogy
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  captures the dual nature of the word doulos quite well.
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  On one hand, you have the absolute ownership.
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  Right believers belong to Christ by purchase, as we see echoed in
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  First Corinthians and First Peter.
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  He is the. Absolute Master, which again
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  reinforces the Reformed view that salvation is the Lord's
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  doing from beginning to end. You're bought with a price you
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  do not purchase yourself. Yeah, and on the other hand, the
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  Christian life that results from that purchase contains 0
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  elements of forced, miserable servility.
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  It coheres perfectly with freedom and sonship.
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  And Paul moves right from this concept of being a purchase
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  slave to being separated into the gospel.
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  The Greek verb here is ephrasminos.
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  Let's break that word down, because Vincent notes, spend a
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  good amount of time on it. The word literally means to mark
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  off from others by a boundary. The root word is Horus, from
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  which we get the English word horizon.
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  Oh wow, so Paul is saying he was cordoned off, isolated, marked
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  by a definitive boundary line for a specific task by God.
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  Precisely. He was separated from the rest
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  of mankind for this exact purpose long before He had done
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  any good or evil, which is the very essence of sovereign
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  election. And he applies that same root
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  concept of a boundary or a declaration to Jesus Christ
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  himself. Just a few versus later, which
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  creates a brilliant theological contrast.
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  Yeah, Paul says he was separated, marked off by a
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  boundary. Then in verse three he talks
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  about Christ being born concerning his earthly descent.
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  But in verse four he uses a variation of that same root word
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  to say Christ was declared to be the Son of God by the
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  resurrection. I admit that phrasing always
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  trips me up a bit. When he says Christ was declared
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  to be the Son of God, does that imply he was not the Son of God
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  before the resurrection? That is a highly common point of
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  confusion, but the Greek clears it up beautifully.
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  What is fascinating here is the stark antithesis Paul is setting
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  up between the earthly and the divine natures of Christ.
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  OK, walk me through that. Regarding His earthly descent,
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  His human nature, Christ was born just like other men.
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  He entered the human lineage, right?
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  But regarding His divine essence, the spirit of holiness,
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  He was declared. And the Greek word is horos,
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  tentos. Remember that Reed Horos A?
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  Boundary. Yeah, the horizon concept.
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  Exactly. To be declared in this sense
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  means to be designated to be instated to have a boundary
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  drawn around you that unequivocally defines who you
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  are. So it is an epistemological
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  declaration to the world, not an ontological change in his
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  nature. Spot on.
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  The resurrection was the triumphant, undeniable
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  demonstration of His divine rank.
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  It was not that the resurrection made him the Son of God, rather,
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  it was the ultimate establishment and vindication of
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  his identity to the human race. Yes, it was the absolute proof
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  of his divine essence. And Paul states this was done
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  with divine energy in dynamie. He was instated mightily.
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  That idea of divine energy logically pulls us right into
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  the core message of the letter, which we find in verses 8
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  through 17. Paul moves from establishing his
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  own identity as the purchase marked off messenger to defining
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  the actual message he carries. Yeah, in verse 16 he says he is
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  not ashamed of the gospel because it is the energy or the
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  might of God for salvation. And the Greek word again is
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  dynamis. Vinson notes that this does not
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  just mean the gospel is a strong tool or a useful instrument that
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  God happens to use. The Gospel is in and of itself a
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  divine energy. It is an active living force.
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  When you hear the true gospel, you are not just hearing
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  historical information, you are encountering a divine energy
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  that actively works upon the hearer.
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  And the reason this divine energy is required is completely
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  tied to the condition of the human soul.
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  The Gospel is a divine energy because it achieves what human
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  effort never could. Right.
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  The revelation of a true divine righteousness.
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  This leads us to the absolute thematic center of the entire
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  epistle in verse 17. Where Paul says, For therein is
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  revealed a righteousness of God. The word he uses for
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  righteousness is Dekhiocene. To truly grasp the weight of
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  this word, we have to contrast the prevailing classical Greek
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  view of righteousness with the radical biblical view Paul is
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  presenting is a fundamental clash of worldviews.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting, because the
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  cultural background of that word Dakaya scene shows us precisely
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  the concept Paul was battling. Yeah, in.
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  Classical Greek literature, the concept of right or
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  righteousness, personified often as the goddess Themis, was
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  heavily tied to social custom, tradition, and public opinion.
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  It was fundamentally about what society agreed was correct.
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  For instance, if you read Homer, you see the character Penelope
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  mourning for Ulysses. The text describes her mourning
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  as a sacred obligation, but it is an obligation founded in her
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  natural social relation as a wife.
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  It is what the society demands of a Good Wife or.
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  Think about Sophocles's play Antigone.
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  She appeals to the unwritten laws to bury her brother against
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  the King's edict. Right.
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  But even those unwritten laws are largely derived from an
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  established social expectation of familial duty.
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  The social basis of righteousness in the Greek mind
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  cannot be overstated. By the time you get to Socrates,
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  the city itself, the polis, has become the central, paramount
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  source of moral obligation. Socrates actually equated doing
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  right with obeying what the citizens had agreed upon.
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  If the citizens agreed it was right, it was right.
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  Yeah, if they forbade it, it was wrong.
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  For the classical Greek mind, morality was a social contract.
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  A violation of right was simply a violation of the social
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  sanction. But the biblical usage of
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  righteousness as Paul wields it here completely obliterates that
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  social contract theory. Because in the Reformed biblical
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  synthesis, righteousness is not a social construct at all.
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  It has nothing to do with what the citizens of Rome or Athens
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  or modern day New York agree upon.
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  Righteousness is absolute union with God's character.
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  God Himself is the final eternal standard of right.
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  Therefore, every wrong action is not primarily a crime against
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  society, it is a sin against the holy God.
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  This is the heart of Psalm 51. Yes, where David, after wronging
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  Bathsheba and arranging the murder of her husband, Uriah,
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  cries out to God against you, You only have I sinned.
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  To the Greek mind, David sinned against Uriah and the social
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  contract of the Kingdom. To the biblical mind, the
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  primary offense is against the absolute holiness of God.
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  That shifts the entire paradigm of how you evaluate your own
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  goodness. It really does.
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  I mean, if righteousness is just keeping the social contract, you
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  might look at yourself and say I am a pretty decent person, I pay
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  my taxes, I do not steal. People generally like me.
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  But if righteousness means perfect alignment with the
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  absolute holy character of God, suddenly every single human
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  being falls completely short. And that is the setup for the
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  gospel. Because this perfect like
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  justness is not something the believer can generate.
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  It is impossible. Instead, as the text points out,
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  this righteousness is a righteousness of God that is
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  revealed. It's not an attribute of God
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  here, but a righteousness bestowed on man by God.
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  It is imputed. Imputed righteousness.
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  That is a massive theological term.
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  Let's make sure we clarify that for the listener.
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  In forensic or legal terms, to impute means to credit to an
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  account. God credits His own perfect
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  righteousness to the one who believes.
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  This aligns absolutely with the Reformed doctrine of
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  justification by faith. God declares the Sinner
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  righteous not because the Sinner has earned it, not because they
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  have suddenly become morally flawless.
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  Right. But because Christ's perfect
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  record is legally placed upon their account, the divine judge
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  looks at the bankrupt center and sees the perfect Ledger of the
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  Son. And the medium of this
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  imputation is faith. Paul states that the
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  righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
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  Or in the Greek Eck pistios ice piston.
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  It is by faith unto faith that phrase highlights the concept of
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  progression in the Christian life.
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  Yeah, the aim of God's justifying righteousness is
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  life. Justification yields spiritual
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  life, and that life expands and deepens as faith develops.
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  You do not just exercise faith once and then switch to a system
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  of human works to maintain your standing.
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  You move from 1° of faith to another.
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  The entire trajectory of the Christian experience relies
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  solely upon faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ.
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  So what does this all mean? Why does Paul spend so much time
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  establishing the absolute necessity of this imputed divine
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  righteousness? He does it because he has to
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  explain the horrifying alternative.
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  He has to show us the disease before we can fully appreciate
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  the cure. And that brings us to the third
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  major theme of Vincents analysis, covering verses 18
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  through 23. Right the suppression of truth
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  and the reality of total depravity.
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  Paul pivots from the glorious revelation of God's
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  righteousness to the terrifying revelation of God's wrath
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  against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
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  And he diagnosis the fundamental problem of the human heart with
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  one specific Greek word. Yes, Keita Anton is translated
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  in older versions as simply hold, as in who hold the truth
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  in unrighteousness. But the word does not mean to
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  possess or to have in your pocket.
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  It literally means to hold down, to hinder, to repress.
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  It implies an active, strenuous suppression of something that is
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  actively trying to rise, and the thing being suppressed is the
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  truth, the divine truth regarding God's existence and
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  nature that is apparent in all of His creation.
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  This goes right back to that hook we started the show with.
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  To really visualize what Katie Contin means, let me make sure I
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  am wrapping my head around. It yeah, it is active
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  suppression, right? So it is not like losing your
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  car keys and genuinely forgetting where they are.
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  It is more like trying to hold that highly buoyant beach ball
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  underwater in a pool. Oh, exactly.
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  If you have ever tried to do that, you know it takes
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  continuous active physical exertion.
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  The natural state of that beach ball is to burst up to the
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  surface it wants to rise. In the same way, the truth of
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  God's existence naturally wants to surface in the human
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  conscience. The evidence is everywhere.
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  But falling humanity expends massive, continuous intellectual
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  and moral energy to hold that truth down below the surface of
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  their conscience. Because if they let it rise,
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  they would have to submit to the authority of the Creator.
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  They are actively, deliberately repressing the undeniable
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  reality of God. That act of repression brings us
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  to a brilliant linguistic paradox Paul uses to describe
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  general revelation. He says the invisible things of
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  God are clearly seen from the creation of the world.
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  The Greek word is cathopiti. This is a classical oxymoron, a
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  pointedly paradoxical saying where contradictory terms are
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  combined for rhetorical effect. Invisible things are clearly
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  visible. It is a striking literary
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  device, our source notes, compared to Shakespeare writing
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  about a beautiful tyrant or a wolfish, ravening lamb.
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  Or Edmund Spencer writing about a luckless lucky maid.
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  It is an intentional contradiction that forces you to
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  stop and think. God's eternal might and divine
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  nature are inherently invisible to the physical eye, yet they
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  are blatantly, undeniably visible through the physical
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  things He has made. The creation is a mirror
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  reflecting the invisible attributes of the creator.
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  This raises an important question regarding human
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  responsibility, which the Reformed doctrine of total
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  depravity addresses head on. Yeah, if the evidence is that
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  clear, why does humanity universally reject it?
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  Our source material brings in a quote from Charles Kingsley that
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  frames this perfectly. He notes that if you look at
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  history, any given people, whether considered civilized or
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  savage, has always known far more than they have done.
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  They have known quite enough truth to do what is right, yet
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  they actively choose not to. Every human society possesses
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  enough objective knowledge of God as the Creator to render
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  them without excuse. And the Greek word for that is
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  anapologetious, meaning without a defense.
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  Yet because of the total corruption of the human will and
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  mind, they take that universally available knowledge and
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  deliberately suppress it. They do not suffer the
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  rudimentary revelation of nature to develop into a penetrating
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  living knowledge of God. Instead, they choose spiritual
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  blindness. And that deliberate choice leads
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  directly to the descent into idolatry.
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  Verse 21 says their imaginations, their reasonings
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  became vain. The Greek word is Mattia, vain
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  things. This was actually the common
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  Jewish term for idols. Their understanding was reduced
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  to working in a vacuum. It rendered itself futile.
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  They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image
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  made like to corruptible man, and two birds and four footed
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  beasts and creeping things. And Paul is not speaking in
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  abstract metaphors here. He is referencing the literal
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  religious practices surrounding him in the 1st century world.
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  The shift from worshipping the invisible transcended creator to
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  worshipping literal animals is staggering.
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  It is a massive demonstration of the mind's decay.
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  When you reject the absolute truth, you do not believe in
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  nothing. You will believe in anything, no
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  matter how degrading. The Greco Roman world was
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  flooded with this. Deities of human form prevailed
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  in Greece, the bestial forms dominated Egypt, and Rome
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  imported all of it. Serpent worship was incredibly
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  common. The ASP was considered sacred
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  throughout Egypt. And the worship of the Egyptian
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  goddess Isis was entirely domesticated in Rome by Paul's
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  time. The historical specifics brings
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  up here are just wild. He quotes the historian Juvenile
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  who wrote about how the priests of Isis contrived mechanical
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  tricks so that the silver images of serpents kept in her temple
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  would appear to move their heads to a suppliant.
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  There are historical records showing that the revered Roman
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  Vestal Virgins were actually entrusted with attendance upon a
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  holy serpent charged with supplying its table with special
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  meats on festival days. Think about the sheer insanity
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  of that. You have the most advanced
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  philosophically educated society on earth, the Romans, and the
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  absolute pinnacle of their religious devotion is feeding
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  meat to a mechanical snake. Instead of worshipping the
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  creator of the cosmos, it sounds like sheer madness to the modern
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  ear. Feeding a snake to secure divine
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  favor. But that is the precise point
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  Paul is making. Professing themselves to be
• 20:04
  wise, they became fools. The text points out another
• 20:08
  oxymoron. There it is, the raving wisdom
• 20:10
  of the fallen mind, and that active rebellious suppression of
• 20:14
  the truth brings a response from God.
• 20:16
  Which brings us to the next section of verses.
• 20:18
  Moving from verse 24 through 32, we have seen the active
• 20:22
  suppression of truth by humanity.
• 20:25
  Now we see God's passive judicial response to that
• 20:28
  suppression, and it maintains A terrifying chain of cause and
• 20:32
  effect. The operative Greek word in this
• 20:34
  section is paradoken. It means gave them up or handed
• 20:38
  them over. God handed them over to the
• 20:41
  dominion of their own sin. This is perhaps the most
• 20:44
  terrifying aspect of the doctrine of total depravity.
• 20:47
  We often think of God's wrath as lightning bolts striking from
• 20:50
  the sky, an active punishment inflicted upon a neutral party.
• 20:53
  Yeah, like an immediate physical smiting.
• 20:56
  But Paul reveals that the ultimate, most devastating
• 20:59
  punishment for sin is God simply removing his restraining grace.
• 21:02
  God's wrath is revealed by him stepping back and leaving
• 21:05
  humanity entirely to its own desires without any divine
• 21:09
  restraint. He hands them over to the
• 21:11
  logical, destructive conclusion of their own rebellion.
• 21:14
  When the restraining wall of God's grace is lifted, the
• 21:17
  fallen human heart immediately plunges into the abyss of its
• 21:20
  own making. I'm looking at verse 24 and the
• 21:22
  English translation says God gave them over to lusts but down
• 21:25
  in verse 26 it says vile affections.
• 21:28
  Yeah, the English makes those sound like the exact same thing.
• 21:31
  Right. Does Vincent's analysis show a
• 21:32
  difference in the Greek there, or is Paul just repeating
• 21:35
  himself for a fact? There is a vital distinction in
• 21:38
  the Greek. The word translated as lusts is
• 21:41
  epithemii. This is the larger, more general
• 21:44
  word. OK, So what does it cover?
• 21:46
  It includes the whole world of active lusts, the evil longings
• 21:49
  and desires that drive actions. But the word translated as
• 21:52
  affections or passions is path. And how is that different?
• 21:56
  This is a narrower, far more intense word.
• 21:59
  The crucial distinction is that the meaning of path is passive.
• 22:03
  It describes A diseased, ungovernable condition of the
• 22:06
  soul, out of which the act of lust spring.
• 22:09
  Wow, so the divine punishment was intensely severe.
• 22:12
  God did not merely hand them over to a fleeting evil desire.
• 22:15
  No, he handed them over to a diseased condition of the soul.
• 22:19
  They were given over to an ungovernable state of being that
• 22:22
  relentlessly produces shameful actions.
• 22:25
  Ah, so it is the difference between catching a cold and
• 22:28
  having a fundamentally compromised immune system.
• 22:31
  That is the highly accurate way to frame it.
• 22:33
  The path is the compromised disease condition of the heart
• 22:37
  and the epithymiae are the constant symptoms breaking out
• 22:40
  because the system is broken. Yes, and this leads to a
• 22:42
  complete breakdown of the mind itself.
• 22:45
  Paul uses an amazing literary device here to describe this
• 22:48
  breakdown. He writes.
• 22:50
  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
• 22:53
  God gave them over to a reprobate mind.
• 22:56
  If we connect this to the bigger picture, the rhetorical
• 22:59
  brilliance of Paul's Greek here is stunning.
• 23:02
  He uses a figure of speech called paranomasia, a play on
• 23:05
  words that sounds similar, to highlight a theological
• 23:08
  connection. How does that word play function
• 23:10
  in the original language? The Greek reads because they did
• 23:13
  not approve at a camisan to keep God and their knowledge, God
• 23:17
  gave them over to a disapproved or reprobate mind, a document
• 23:20
  noun. Oh, that is clever.
• 23:22
  The word reprobate comes from the Latin repro bear meaning to
• 23:26
  reject on a second trial, to condemn as completely.
• 23:29
  Worthless because they tested the knowledge of God and judged
• 23:32
  it worthless. God handed them over to a
• 23:34
  worthless, condemned intellect. Their very capacity to reason
• 23:39
  and make moral judgments was fundamentally broken.
• 23:42
  This is the core of total Depravity.
• 23:44
  Sin does not just affect the physical body or the emotions.
• 23:47
  It corrupts the noun, the intellect, the mind itself.
• 23:50
  The source material brings in a fascinating reference to Dante's
• 23:53
  Inferno to illustrate this loss of intellect.
• 23:57
  Oh yeah, in Dante's vision of hell, he divides the punishments
• 24:00
  into different sections. Right.
• 24:01
  The section assigned to incontinence, where the basic
• 24:04
  want of self-control is immediately succeeded by the
• 24:07
  section of bestiality or besotted folly, which comprises
• 24:10
  infidelity and heresy. Dante is illustrating the
• 24:13
  precise theological principle Paul is teaching.
• 24:17
  The lack of self restraint, the failure to acknowledge God and
• 24:20
  hold him in your knowledge, inevitably leads to a descent
• 24:23
  into animalism. Self is truly possessed and
• 24:26
  understood only in relation to God.
• 24:28
  When you sever that tie, the tendency is ever downward toward
• 24:31
  a demoniac animal. You lose the very thing that
• 24:34
  makes you human, the capacity to know and reflect the Creator.
• 24:39
  That is actually terrifying when you think about it.
• 24:42
  And once that intellect is broken, the floodgates open.
• 24:45
  Paul provides a chilling catalog of vices that result from this
• 24:48
  reprobate mind. And again, he uses paranomasia
• 24:52
  that play on words to drive the point home.
• 24:54
  He. Lists them as being full of envy
• 24:56
  and murder. In Greek that is futile fonu.
• 25:00
  The words sound almost identical.
• 25:02
  Murder is conceptually linked to envy.
• 25:04
  It is conceived as a thought of hatred that has so filled the
• 25:07
  man that it spills over into violence.
• 25:10
  He also mentions they're filled with wickedness and
• 25:12
  covetousness, and the text makes a really clear distinction
• 25:15
  between two types of greed here that I had never considered
• 25:17
  before. Yeah.
• 25:18
  The Greek word for covetousness is pleionexia.
• 25:21
  It literally means the desire of having more.
• 25:24
  It is the insatiable desire of getting.
• 25:26
  This is distinguished from avarice, which is the desire of
• 25:28
  keeping what you already have. Evidence goes out after the
• 25:31
  things of time and sense of every form and kind.
• 25:34
  It is so destructive that Paul elsewhere defines it as outright
• 25:38
  idolatry. To make this distinction
• 25:40
  concrete for the listener, our source quotes from Jeffrey
• 25:43
  Chaucer's Roman to the Rose, an allegorical poem from the Middle
• 25:46
  Ages. Chaucer vividly personifies
• 25:49
  these two vices. Yes, I have those descriptions
• 25:52
  right here and they are brilliant.
• 25:54
  What does he say? He describes covetousness as
• 25:56
  having 2 crooked hands, always violent and ready to grip other
• 26:00
  people's goods. It is aggressive.
• 26:02
  It eggs people on to take and give nothing back.
• 26:05
  But then he describes avarice entirely differently.
• 26:09
  Avarice is painted as looking half dead from hunger, living
• 26:12
  only on bread. She has a purse hidden and bound
• 26:15
  so strongly in her hand that no one can get a penny out of it.
• 26:18
  It is the miserable, defensive hoarding of wealth, Paul says.
• 26:22
  The reprobate mind is completely stuffed with this aggressive,
• 26:25
  grasping covetousness. And the list goes on to include
• 26:27
  maliciousness debate, which in the older English sense meant
• 26:31
  violent strife, deceit, malignity and being haters of
• 26:34
  God. They become proud boasters,
• 26:36
  inventors of evil things. He concludes the list with
• 26:38
  another rhyming word play in the Greek adanatis SNA.
• 26:41
  Tests without understanding covet Breakers.
• 26:44
  The absolute moral collapse of a society handed over to its own
• 26:48
  devices. Now, it is crucial to recognize
• 26:51
  that Paul is not writing this list in a vacuum.
• 26:54
  He's not making up a theoretical worst case scenario, he's
• 26:58
  describing the observable reality of the Greco Roman world
• 27:01
  he lived in. That historical context proves
• 27:04
  Paul knew exactly what he was talking about.
• 27:06
  Paul grew up in the city of Tarsus, in the province of
• 27:09
  Silesia. In the ancient world there was a
• 27:11
  well known proverb about the three Kappa Kakista, the three
• 27:15
  most villainous caves of antiquity.
• 27:18
  These were the regions considered to be the absolute
• 27:20
  dregs of moral corruption. Cappadocia Kilocia, which is
• 27:23
  Silesia, Paul's home province, and Crete.
• 27:26
  Religion in these areas was heavily oriental in character
• 27:29
  and was defined by incredibly lascivious, degrading rights.
• 27:33
  Paul had been intimately familiar with the absolute
• 27:35
  depths of Pagan degradation. From the earliest days of his
• 27:38
  life, he had seen the reprobate mind in full action.
• 27:41
  He knew the terrifying reality of what happens when a society
• 27:44
  suppresses the truth and is handed over by God to a disease
• 27:47
  condition of the soul. Which brings the entire argument
• 27:50
  of this first chapter full circle.
• 27:52
  By exposing the utter depravity of the Gentile world, a
• 27:56
  depravity resulting from their willful suppression of general
• 27:59
  revelation, Paul proves the absolute, universal necessity of
• 28:03
  the gospel he introduced in verse 16.
• 28:06
  If humanity is universally infected with a reprobate mind,
• 28:10
  actively holding down the truth, and abandoned by God to the
• 28:13
  dominion of their own lusts, then they are completely
• 28:16
  incapable of producing any righteousness of their own.
• 28:18
  The social contracts of the Greeks cannot save them.
• 28:21
  Good intentions cannot save them.
• 28:23
  They are spiritually dead. The only possible hope is a
• 28:26
  righteousness that comes from entirely outside of themselves.
• 28:30
  They need a divine rescue. They need the imputed
• 28:32
  righteousness of Christ received solely by faith, to be credited
• 28:36
  to their account. They need the divine energy of
• 28:38
  the gospel to shatter the reprobate mind and grant them a
• 28:41
  new heart. When we take the time to look
• 28:43
  under the surface of the English translation and examine the
• 28:46
  precise Greek vocabulary Paul used, it absolutely solidifies
• 28:50
  the Reformed understanding of humanity's fall and salvation.
• 28:53
  We see that humanity is not just slightly flawed, we are
• 28:57
  fundamentally broken, actively rebellious, and suffering from a
• 29:01
  diseased condition of the soul. We see that God's wrath is a
• 29:04
  terrifying judicial handing over of sinners to their own devices.
• 29:10
  And against that black velvet backdrop of total depravity, the
• 29:13
  diamond of the Gospel shines with incredible brilliance.
• 29:16
  We are bond slaves purchased by a benevolent master.
• 29:20
  We are granted a divine righteousness that we could
• 29:22
  never earn on our own. And that is the true value of
• 29:25
  linguistic analysis. It does not just satisfy
• 29:28
  intellectual curiosity, it anchors our theology in the
• 29:32
  precise, breathed out words of the text, leaving no room for
• 29:35
  human boasting. Every syllable points to our
• 29:37
  desperate need and God's sovereign provision.
• 29:40
  We have covered a massive amount of theological ground today,
• 29:42
  moving from the identity of a bond slave to the terrifying
• 29:46
  reality of a reprobate mind. We really have.
• 29:49
  But before we sign off, I want to leave you, the listener, with
• 29:51
  a final lingering question based on the material we have
• 29:54
  examined. Something to consider as you go
• 29:56
  about your day. If the natural human condition
• 29:59
  is to expend incredible active energy holding down the truth in
• 30:03
  order to worship the creation, creation instead of the Creator,
• 30:06
  what modern, acceptable cultural idols are you currently treating
• 30:10
  as ultimate truth? What unwritten social laws are
• 30:13
  blinding you to the absolute standard of God's holy
• 30:15
  character? Think about what you might be
• 30:18
  actively trying to hold underwater in your own
• 30:20
  conscience. Thank you for joining us for
• 30:23
  this session of Reformed Thinking.
• 30:24
  Thank you for listening. We hope this look into the Greek
• 30:27
  text has been illuminating and challenging.
• 30:29
  Until next time, keep reading, keep thinking, and keep looking
• 30:33
  below the surface.