God gave them over

The Fallacy of Free Will

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26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. – Romans 1:26-27 ESV

What happens when man abandons the truth of God for “the lie?” The lie is that God does not exist at all or that He is a figment of man’s fertile imagination. And if the one true God does not exist, then man is free to be the master of his fate and to choose his own moral agenda. With God out of the picture, man can determine what is right and wrong and create his own laws for life.

Three times in this section of Romans 1, Paul uses the phrase, “God gave them up.” Paul is attempting to demonstrate what life looks like when God releases men to pursue and believe “the lie.” Thinking themselves to be wise, their foolish hearts become darkened, and they lose any ability to make decisions based on the wisdom and righteousness of God. In this moral free-for-all, they find themselves believing and practicing every imaginable lifestyle choice.

“Those who turned against God turned everything on its head. For those who forsook the author of nature could not keep to the order of nature.” – Pelagius, Commentary on Romans

Paul refers to women who “exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature,” and he mentions men who “gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (Romans 1:26-27 ESV). There are those who attempt to write this off as Paul’s personal opinion. There are others who try to dismiss what Paul says by insinuating that he is only speaking against “improper” homosexual acts, not the act itself. Still others want to believe that Paul is only referring to homosexual acts that were taking place in the context of pagan worship. But these are not the words of Paul; they are the words of God. They are part of the powerful explanation Paul has provided in this letter regarding the gospel of God.

Men are without excuse; they have abandoned the truth about God and His will for mankind. They have ignored His clear revelation of His invisible attributes and divine nature in His creation. Rather than worship God, they have ended up worshiping anything and everything but God. And Paul makes it painfully clear that sinful man always ends up distorting the truth of God. They exchange the natural for the unnatural, what is right for what is wrong, the holy for the unholy, and the will of God for the will of self. They become consumed with passions, all kinds of passions, both good and bad. But the time comes when they can no longer tell the difference, and the lines become blurred. Their consciences become seared, and they lose the ability to discern right from wrong, even becoming rabid defenders of their actions and attitudes.

It doesn’t take a biblical scholar to read the words of God recorded in Genesis 1 and to reach a conclusion.

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it.” – Genesis 1:27-28 NLT

They were to bear fruit, to multiply their kind. That is why God created a male and a female. It was together, as man and woman, that they were to fulfill the command of God. Adam could not do it alone. Eve was incapable of procreating on her own. God built the ability to multiply their kind into their very nature and physiology. But man, in his sin, determined a “better way,” a preferred way. Natural passions are replaced by unnatural, ungodly passions. Paul calls them “dishonorable passions.” The Greek word he uses is atimia, and it carries a very graphic connotation. It was “used of the unseemliness and offensiveness of a dead body” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). It was also used to refer to the dishonorable use of a vessel or container. Bodies were meant to contain life. That is why a dead body is unnatural and offensive to our senses. It is lifeless and no longer operating as intended. The same thing is true of those who are consumed by same-sex attraction. They are no longer operating as God intended, and their acts are unnatural and against the ordained will of God.

But in our day and age, any attempt to make this claim is met with disdain, hatred, cries of bigotry and intolerance, and a violent defense of individual rights and freedoms. But, according to Paul, we should not be surprised. Their foolish hearts are darkened. Claiming to be wise, they boast in their enlightened understanding and progressive outlook on morals and ethics. But they are fools who have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” (Romans 1:23 ESV). Of course, Paul was referring to idol worship here, but the real issue is that of man-worship. When the best expression we can come up with for God’s revealed power and divine nature is the image of man, we are in trouble. When we make a god out of man, we end up worshiping ourselves, sacrificing truth at the altar of our own corrupt passions and desires. Self-satisfaction and self-gratification consume us, and God releases us to pursue our increasingly perverse passions.

We must not lose sight of the fact that Paul was attempting to explain and expound upon the gospel of God. The good news of Jesus Christ must be displayed against the backdrop of man’s darkened, sinful state. Paul was showing that man is in trouble. Without God, things always go from bad to worse. In Paul’s estimation, it doesn’t matter if you’re pagan or pious, immoral or a moral icon of virtue. Without God’s glorious gospel, all men ultimately receive “the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:27 ESV). A man without God is hopeless. Left to his own devices, he will always gravitate toward ungodliness and unrighteousness. But the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed” (Romans 1:16-17 ESV).

Father, You created us and You know what is best for us. But, in our sinful condition, we have determined that we know better. We are like the clay pot telling the potter that he has made a mistake. In our arrogance and ignorance, we have decided that our will is preferable to Yours and so we stubbornly follow our own agendas and rationalize our rebellious behavior as nothing more than our right to free will. But rejecting Your will never results in freedom; it produces slavery to sin. Without Your divine guidance, our passions become self-consuming and self-destructive. The enemy convinces us that self-willed lifestyles are making us god-like, when, in reality, they are making us godless. But the gospel provides an escape from this downward spiral of spiritual and moral enslavement. Through faith in Your Son, we can experience true freedom from sin and the soul-stifling lie of self-rule. Thank You for opening my eyes to the gospel and setting me free from the destructive power of sin. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.22

The Lie That Leads To Death

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24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. – Romans 1:24-25 ESV

This whole section of Romans 1 is concerned with the truth versus the lie. In these verses, Paul states that man has “exchanged the truth of God for a lie,” or literally, “the lie”. To understand this passage, we need to define what Paul meant by these two terms. What is the truth of God, and what is it that unrighteous man has suppressed (vs 18)?

Through His creation, God has revealed His eternal power and divine nature to man, so they are without excuse. Nature virtually screams the truth regarding the existence of God. The very fact that men have ended up worshiping the creation rather than the Creator reveals that man recognizes the existence of a powerful source outside of himself, but has chosen to exchange “worshiping the glorious, ever-living God” to worship “idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.” (Romans 1:23 NLT). The truth to which Paul refers in this opening chapter is the reality of God’s existence.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. – Romans 1:19 ESV

Because man has rejected the truth regarding God’s existence, it is virtually impossible for him to accept the need for a Savior sent from God for his salvation. Ignorance of or disbelief in God’s existence ultimately leads to a refusal to accept any kind of divine standard for moral conduct; morality becomes highly subjective and relativistic. Each man ends up doing what is right in his own eyes. As a result, they begin to believe “the lie,” either rejecting that God exists at all or replacing the truth about God with something or someone else.

Rather than honoring God as the sovereign Lord of the universe and giving Him thanks for all that He has done for them, they turn their attention elsewhere, relying on their own wisdom to explain their existence and to determine their conduct.

As a result of their rejection of Him, God gives them up. That sounds like such a harsh statement, and comes across as some form of divine abandonment. The Greek word is paradidōmi, and it means “to give into the hands (of another)” or “to give over into (one’s) power or use.” In a way, this simply means that God releases them to pursue and believe “the lie.” He allows men to rely on their own wisdom and darkened hearts. In this sense, His wrath is less active than passive. He doesn’t abandon them; He allows them to reap what they sow.

Paul had this idea in mind when he wrote to the believers in Galatia.

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. – Galatians 6:7-8 NLT

Three times in this section of Romans 1, Paul uses the phrase “God gave them up.” In these two verses, he describes God giving man up to impurity. Rejecting the truth regarding God’s existence ultimately leads to a false conclusion that man is the final arbiter of his fate. It is the wisdom of man, divorced from God, that leads to things like genocide, infanticide, abortion, and virtually all forms of sexual sin and perversion. Highly intelligent people can commit and justify extremely immoral acts. Humanism, as a philosophy of life, is destructive. It can be defined as “a variety of ethical theory and practice that emphasizes reason, scientific inquiry, and human fulfillment in the natural world and often rejects the importance of belief in God” (Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition).

Man ends up worshiping and idolizing man. But in the end, all men are inherently selfish and self-centered. Even our best attempts at living altruistic lives end up being self-serving. When you make man the center of your world, it is difficult, if not impossible, to keep from making that world revolve around yourself and your individual wants and desires. You end up doing what is right in your own eyes and find yourself serving the creature rather than the creator. Not only do you dishonor God, but you eventually dishonor your own body, doing things that God never intended or approved and selfishly fulfilling the lusts of your heart. God releases you to reap what you sow and allows you to experience the negative outcomes of your own myopic and narcissistic lifestyle choices.

We see the reality of these verses all around us. We are surrounded by highly educated and intelligent people living godless lives who have made themselves the sole focus of their worship and attention. Mankind has made a habit of rejecting the one true God and coming up with their own version of the truth. They exchange the truth about God’s existence and sovereignty for the lie that He is irrelevant or replaceable, and the lie always leads to destruction.

Paul will outline some serious consequences of living according to the lie. When reading the following verses, it is tempting to focus on a particular sin, but Paul has a much broader view of man’s belief in the lie. He will describe those who reject the truth of God and accept the lie in far-from-flattering terms.

Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. – Romans 1:29-31 NLT

His words should sound familiar because they describe the world we live in. Paul says, “Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done” (Romans 1:28 NLT). And they reaped what they sowed. 

A life lived without God is not a pretty picture because buying into the lie comes with serious consequences. Any man who is left to himself and allowed by God to pursue his own way will ultimately live a life marked by godlessness, unrighteousness, and, in the end, death.

Father, Paul was right, the world is filled with people who have believed “the lie.” They can see the evidence of Your existence all around them but they have become blind to the truth. Their hearts are hardened and their minds have been deceived by the enemy’s constant barrage of blatant lies and half-truths. He has convinced them to worship anything other than You and, as a result, they have left to fend for and care for themselves. Thinking themselves to be wise, they have become fools. And yet, in Your love and mercy, You continue to call the lost back to Yourself. As You have done for centuries, You extend grace and mercy to the rebellious and disobedient, offering them the opportunity to accept the free gift of salvation and spiritual restoration made possible through Your Son’s death on the cross. You allow them to pursue their false gods and, yet, You never completely abandon them. The gift is always available. As Paul told the believers in Rome,“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 NLT). Thank You for this reminder of Your goodness, grace, patience, kindness, and love. Give me a heart to love the lost like You do and never let me forget that, at one point, I too “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25 ESV). Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.22

Romans 1:18-32

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God Substitutes.

Romans 1:18-32

They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. – Romans 1:25 NLT

While Paul relished the the Good News that man could be made right with God through a relationship with Jesus Christ, he was also painfully aware of the bad news surrounding the state of mankind. The next section of his letter paints a very bleak picture of just how bad things had become in the world. God was angry with men, and justifiably so. They had long ago abandoned any idea of acknowledging His presence or obeying His commands. Ever since Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden of Eden, rejecting God’s authority over their lives, man’s moral descent had been a rapid one. While the very nature and attributes of God could be seen all around them, most explicitly through His creation, they refused to acknowledge Him as God. Instead, relying on their limited intellects and sin-infected reasoning capacities, they began to develop their own concept of God. Rather than worship the One who created all that they could see, they began to worship those things He had created. They missed the point. They lost their focus. They became distracted by the temporal, rather than see the eternal. Over time, their minds became darkened and confused. Their sinful pride and arrogance led them to believe they were wise, while in reality, they were nothing but misguided fools.

“So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired” (Romans 1:24 NLT). He handed them over. He took His hand off the wheel, so to speak, and allowed them to do what they wanted to do. This is one of the saddest statements in Scripture. It is also one of the scariest. Man, left to his own, evil devices, is a disaster waiting to happen. Without God’s restraining hand in place, man will self-destruct, which is exactly what happened. Devoid of God’s moral boundaries in place, mankind quickly steered off course. Their behavior degraded quickly, as they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. They worshiped the creation rather than the Creator. They saw more value in themselves than in the One who had made them. With no moral compass to guide them, their sins became increasingly more bold and base, while their behavior became increasingly more man-centered rather than God-centered. “Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done” (Romans 1:28 NLT).

Things had gotten bad. “Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip” (Romans 1:29 NLT). The state of affairs could not have been any worse. But this bleak and foreboding picture is exactly what Paul wants his readers to wrestle with. He wants them to understand just how bad things had become and just how dire the circumstances were when God determined to step back in and fix the problem. When God had turned mankind over to seek their own selfish, sinful desires, He had not done so permanently. He had not abandoned them forever. He had a plan in place and was only waiting for just the right moment to introduce His solution to man’s problem. While God had every right to mete out punishment on mankind for their sin and open rebellion against Him, He chose to show mercy and grace. Mankind stood as guilty and without excuse for their rejection of God, and He would have been just and right to punish them for their actions. The world had become God-less and unrighteous. Yet God would solve their unrighteousness by introducing a righteousness of His own. He would reinsert Himself into the scenario once again – this time in the form of the Son of God in human flesh. Righteousness would invade unrighteousness. The true God would reveal Himself in the midst of rampant godlessness. That is the Good News that Paul will talk about throughout the rest of this letter. “This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, ‘It is through faith that a righteous person has life'” (Romans 1:17 NLT). In the midst of man’s hopelessness, helplessness, sinfulness, and godlessness, God intervened and provided a gracious, merciful solution that should leave everyone of us blown away and eternally grateful.

Father, even as bad as things had become, You never truly abandoned us. You allowed us to follow our own sinful inclination and proved to us just how desperately we need You. Without You, we are doomed to destruction. We will self-destruct. We will destroy ourselves and all that You have made. And yet, You had a solution and You introduced that solution at the peak of our sinfulness – in spite of our sinfulness. While we were yet sinners, You sent Your Son to die for us. That is amazing. It is mind-boggling. And it is truly Good News! Amen.

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org