Romans 1:18-32 - Mankind's Thinking Problem
- Chad Werkhoven
- Jul 9
- 4 min read
The scary reality is that God always gives people what they want.
Romans 1:18-32 (NIV)
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Canons of Dordt
Article 4: The Inadequacy of the Light of Nature
There is, to be sure, a certain light of nature remaining in all people after the fall,
by virtue of which they retain some notions about God, natural things, and the difference between what is moral and immoral,
and demonstrate a certain eagerness for virtue and for good outward behavior.
But this light of nature is far from enabling humans to come to a saving knowledge of God and conversion to him—
so far, in fact, that they do not use it rightly even in matters of nature and society.
Instead, in various ways
they completely distort this light, whatever its precise character,
and suppress it in unrighteousness.
In doing so all people render themselves without excuse before God.
Summary
Paul begins the greatest exposition of the gospel (Good News) ever written with the harshest proclamation of bad news ever written: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the godlessness and wickedness of people. But notice that, for as bad as what godlessness and wickedness are, they are simply the presenting symptoms of our sin.
Our underlying problem, as we've seen so often these last couple of weeks, is noetic. That is, we have a thinking problem. People know God, because He's clearly seen and understood from what has been made. Therefore, claiming ignorance, or as it's often more attractively described as being agnostic, isn't an option.
But sin causes people to suppress the plain truth about God, and consequently to fail to act upon this knowledge by glorifying and giving thanks to God. As a result, their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. In other words, the result of this thinking problem results in total depravity: people's intellect, emotions and volition are broken and useless.
The scary reality is that God always gives people what they want. Three times in this passage, we read that God gave them over - first to their sinful desires, then to shameful lusts, and then finally to a depraved mind. At each stage, a person's capacity to think is further replaced by increasing sensual lusts which lead to increasingly deviant sexual behavior.
Dig Deeper
So if God always gives people what they want, can you then attribute the fact that you want to live in the knowledge of God to the fact that your thinking ability is more robust than that of the common herd of ignorant fools? No! Not at all!
The reason that you don't suppress the truth the way the rest of the world does is because God in His electing grace through His Spirit has regenerated you; that is, He's turned the lights on, so to speak, so that you no longer wander in ignorant darkness guided solely by what feels good in the moment.
Praise God that His grace is stronger than your instinctive desire to suppress the truth. He sovereignly restored your ability to think, and now that you properly understand God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature, it changes what you want. As we'll learn later this year, God's grace has now become irresistible to you, and God gives you what you now want.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose grace has set us free from our sinful desires;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the strength and desire to continually sharpen and develop your restored ability to think;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Luke 9
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