Paul vs. My Pagan Ancestors
Today is the day we first see Paul hold nothing back. Done with the pleasantries, he goes straight at the heart of the matter, damn the torpedoes. Hold on tight, because here we go.
Today’s Scripture: Romans 1:16-32
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
Paul’s thesis statement for the entire letter: the gospel is a powerful, glorious thing that is saving the world and everyone in it, regardless of ethnic identity, if they are but willing to trust God.
This theme will be unpacked by Paul over the next 16 chapters.
And then Paul goes straight for my ancestors!
What I mean is, Paul spends the rest of chapter 1 explaining why the Gentiles (i.e., everybody who is not part of Israel, i.e., not Jewish) need to be saved.
The short answer: because they are all idolatrous sinners!
I’m not Jewish; one of my brothers did a genetic test a few years ago and shared the results with me: unsurprisingly, my ancestors all came from northwest Europe. So, at the time of Jesus, my fathers and mothers were prowling the great primeval forests of Germania and Gaul, painted in pagan warpaint and killing Romans, worshipping their false gods around druidic blazes.
And Paul unflinchingly explains why they had no excuse for their sin and violence.
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.
It was obvious to all ancient people that God (or gods) made the world, and if God made the world, then it follows there are right and wrong ways to behave. Paul’s point: even ignorant pagans knew that they often behaved in wicked ways. “A law written on their hearts,” or, as we would put it today, “conscience”. In other words, they couldn’t say, “It’s not our fault—God never gave us the Ten Commandments.” Paul’s reply, “You knew enough, and what you knew you didn’t keep.”
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.
What’s the result of humanity’s refusal to acknowledge God? Well, God gives us over to our desires. And a result of this is our ignorance (though we think we’re smart) to such an extent that the ancient peoples literally worshipped idols and statues.
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.
Idolatry is worshipping something created rather than the Creator. We worship what we think will give us what we don’t have; worship is our focused attention on what we most desire.
One of the consequences of idolatry is sexual sin. Sexual sin is the worship of the human body rather than the Creator of the human body; sexual sin is what happens when we want pleasure on our own terms, that which is right in our own eyes. Because idolatry is a both a result of foolish rebellion and a cause of further foolishness, Paul sees “unnatural” sexual activity—sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage, founded on the male/female union—as the paradigmatic example of pagan sin. Paul is talking about homosexual activity here, but I think the implication is larger than that and includes all forms of sexual sin. (I’ll have more to say about this at Bible study tomorrow evening (6 PM—be there!), but I think digital pornography is about the purest form of idolatry that there is, because it is about the focused desire of another person’s image.)
The brokenness that results from sexual sin is its consequence and proof that it’s wrong.
But Paul is not only concerned with sexual sin; rather, it is for him an excellent example of the consequence of pagan idolatry. So, he goes further and it is quite the indictment—buckle up:
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.
That is some list—hard to see what other forms sin might take that Paul doesn’t here condemn.
The point: the Gentiles (I’ve been calling them pagans) have no hope apart from the gospel. Their idolatry has caused them to be utterly corrupted by sin.
(Paul will spend the next 2 chapters explaining how the Jews are not actually any better.)
Consider that last paragraph of chapter 1—doesn’t it pretty much sum up the state of the world today in many places?
The Good News—which Paul is building towards—is that Jesus died for my pagan ancestors even as they worshipped the dark powers. Thanks be to God!