Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

And now in the next section (verses 18 ff) will come Paul’s fourth “For”: showing man’s frightful state of guilt; and his need of the gospel:

18 For there is revealed God’s wrath from heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness [of life]; 19 because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world, made known to the mind by the things that are made, are clearly perceived,—both His eternal power and divinity; so as to render them inexcusable: 21 because, though knowing God, they did not glorify [Him] as God, nor were they thankful [towards Him] but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of quadrupeds, and of creeping things.

It will not only fail to help us, but will seriously harm us, to study the awful arraignment of God against human sin, unless we apply it to ourselves, thereby discovering our own state by nature. Therefore we have sought to make plain these terms which Paul uses, in view of today’s sin. Christendom is rapidly losing sin-consciousness, which means losing God-consciousness; which means eternal doom: “As were the days of Noah . . . as it came to pass in the days of Lot . . . they knew not.” Because iniquity abounds, the love of many professing Christians is waxing cold; so that we see a Sardis condition everywhere, “a name to live, while dead”: on many faces, the horrid lack of spiritual life; the lightless, sightless eyes; the chill,—the corpse-like chill, of the lifeless, the unfeeling.

On the other hand, among God’s real saints, those born from above and indwelt by the Spirit of God, there is everywhere, thank God, a gathering, an eagerness, a hunger for His Word, for news from Home,—for their citizenship is in Heaven!

Therefore let all who have ears to hear give the utmost attention to what God says about our state by nature. Do not apply the threefold “God gave them up” of Romans One to “the heathen,” as most do. Behold, we are those of whom God says: “There is no distinction: all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
ALL are brought under the judgment of God. O saints, beware of the “select” circles, the “we-are-better” societies of pride! For all human beings are alike sinners: for “The Scripture shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe” (Galatians 3:22).

The more you discover yourself to be a common sinner, the more you will realize God’s uncommon grace! And the more deeply you despair of man, of yourself, the more simple and easy it will be to rest in Christ and in His work of salvation for you.

Verse 18: Wrath revealed from heaven—This is the tenor of all Scripture as to God’s attitude toward defiant sin. “Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven,” we read in Genesis 19:24. We know that “God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world” (Acts 17:31); that He will “visit with wrath” at that time (Romans 3:5).

However, in the thrice-repeated “God gave them over” of verses 24, 26 and 28, there is to be seen the character, the beginning, and the working of God’s wrath in this world, in His judicial handing over of rebels to go further into rebellion. But the awful arraignment of humanity in Chapters One, Two, and Three; together with the particular account of their apostasy and lost condition, however terrible it be, is not a description of the finally damned, but of the at-present-lost: and, “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” “Such were some of you,” says Paul to the Corinthians, after an enumeration of those who “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:11). “Effeminate, and abusers of themselves with men,” the very kind of sinners described in our chapter, are in this enumeration. Let us admit, therefore, the judicial “delivering over” of humanity which has “exchanged the glory” of the God they knew for horrid idolatrous conceptions,—a present judicial action of God on earth, where and when He “lets men go their own way.” But let us distinguish this apart from the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God from Heaven. At the Great White Throne of Revelation Twenty there will be no liberty left to the creature to indulge his lusts as in this present world. The lusts, indeed, will remain, and probably intensify forever: “He that is filthy, let him be made filthy yet more”; but the ability to indulge lust will be eternally removed, and the damned placed under the visitation of Divine anger.

Thank God, we may still cry with Paul, “Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!” Grace is still ready to reach the worst wretch on earth!

Note that ungodliness is direct disregard of God, which to the Jew would connect itself with the first table of the Law, the first four commandments; while unrighteousness has reference to wickedness of conduct, in itself and toward other men. Note further that it is distinctly said that the human race, in order to live an unrighteous life, held down the truth. The meaning of the verb translated “hold down” is seen in its use in
II Th 2:6: “Ye know that which restraineth,” referring to the present restraining of the sin and wrath of man by the Spirit of God. It is also true, turning this about, that man in his wickedness restrains the truth he knows. (See also same word in Luke 4:42, “would have stayed Him.”) Almost all men know more truth than they obey. They call themselves “truth seekers”; but would they attend a meeting where Paul preached the facts of this first of Romans?

Verse 19: That which is known of God is manifest . . . God made it evident—Noah’s father, Lamech, was for over fifty years a contemporary of Adam. Knowledge of God was held and imparted by tradition from the beginning. The fact that the “world that then was” became so corrupt as to necessitate destruction (Hebrew, “blotting out,” Genesis 6:7, margin), only supports the awful account. Not only was the world bad unto judgment at the time of the Flood; but the world after Noah became such that God called out His own (from Abraham on) to a separate, pilgrim life. Sodom, and later the Canaanites, again filled up iniquity’s measure and were “sent away from off the face of the earth” (Jer 28:16). Utter uncompromising, abandonment of hope in man is the first preliminary to understanding or preaching the gospel. Man says, “I am not so bad; I can make amends”; “There are many people worse than I am”; “I might be better, but I might be worse.” But God’s indictment is sweeping: it reaches all. “None righteous; all have sinned; there is no distinction.” And the first step of wisdom is to listen to the worst God says about us, for He (wonderful to say!) is the Lover of man, sinner though man be. You and I were born in this lost race, with all these evil things innate in, and, apart from the grace of God, possible to us. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately wicked.” Only redemption by the blood of Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, can afford hope.

Verse 20: For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world . . . are clearly perceived—“The heavens declare the glory of God.” But humanity today prefers Hollywood’s “sound-pictures” to seeing the “things” of the glorious God in the heavens,—beholding His works, and hearing their speechapter How long since you have gone out and gazed at moon and stars, made by the blessed God, travelling in such quiet glory, beauty, power, and order? Men know, if they care to know, that an infinite Majesty made and controls this. Even His eternal power and divinity20—Paul connects the observing of the mighty and beautiful things of the universe with the consciousness of a personal God.21 Human science, through its telescope, observes the vast courses of the stars, moving with amazing accuracy in their orbits, but often counts it a mark of wisdom to doubt whether an intelligent Being exists at all! But, “the undevout astronomer is mad,” as said the great Kepler. No really great scientist today supports the Darwinian theory; and many,—and some of the most prominent scientific men are saying, There must be a God, a Creator.22

Next the reason for God’s wrath is stated: men are without excuse—Men had the light, and that from God. His eternal power and divinity were, from creation onward, plain to men, from His works. Napoleon, on a warship in the Mediterranean on a star-lit night, passed a group of his officers who were mocking at the idea of a God. He stopped, and sweeping his hand toward the stars, said, “Gentlemen, you must get rid of those first!” Men secretly believe there is a Power above them, and that their evil deeds deserve the wrath of that Power. In sudden peril, they scream like the guilty wretches they are, “God have mercy!” Knowledge of God, though not acquaintanceship with Him, lay behind Pharaoh’s words, “I have sinned against Jehovah and against you” (Exodus 10:16); and behind the words of the Philistines in I Samuel 4:7,8, and 5:7,8,11; and the proclamation of the King of Nineveh (Jonah 3:7-9).

Verse 21: Because that, though knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful—Every human being knows he ought to give his being over to his Creator’s worship and glory, and ought to be continually thankful for life itself, and for its blessings; but men refused both worship and gratitude: they became godless and thankless. But they could not free themselves thus easily from conscience and terrors: so came on idolatry. First they resorted to vain speculations and “reasonings,” to escape the thought of God and duty. Then the judicial result: as Alford well renders, “Their heart (the whole inner man, the seat of knowledge and feeling), became dark (lost the little light it had), and wandered blindly in the mazes of folly.” Think of a whole race of created beings knowing, but refusing to recognize, their Creator! of their eating from His hand daily, but refusing even one thanksgiving! Yet such ungodly ones, such unthankful ones, are all about you, now.

Verse 22: Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools— Rejecting the light of God’s knowledge in their consciences, men now arrogated to themselves wisdom, and became—what? Fools!23 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning” —of both knowledge and wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Psalm 111:10; Job 28:28).

The silliness of these “modern” shallow-pan days! How men are rushing back to the old pagan pit out of which God’s Word and His gospel would have delivered them! They suck up sin; they welter in wickedness; they profess to be wise! They sit at the feet of “professors” whose breath is spiritual cyanide. They idolize the hog-sty doctrines of a rotten Freud:24 and count themselves “wise”! They say, “God is not a person; men evolved from monkeys; morals are mere old habits; self-enjoyment, self-expression, indulgence of all desires—this,” they say, “is the path of wisdom.” It is the path of those who go quickly down to the pit and on to judgment! The very morals of Sodom, as our Lord foretold, are rushing fast upon us, and God will bring again the awful doom of Sodom (Luke 17:28-31).

Now if someone objects, saying, This is a strange introduction to the gospel of God’s grace, we answer, It lies here before us, this awful indictment of Romans One, and cannot be evaded! Moreover, until man knows his state of sin, he wants no grace. Shall pardon be spoken of before the sinner is proved a sinner? While the evidence is being brought in, the whole attention of the court is upon that. If the evidence of guilt be insufficient or inconclusive, there is no necessity for a pardon!

Preachers and teachers have soft-pedalled sin, until the fear Of God is vanishing away. McCheyne used to Say, “A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands of God” A preacher who avoids telling men the truth about their sin as here revealed, is the best tool of the devil.

Verse 23: And changed the glory of the incorruptible God—Incorruptibility is of the essence of God’s being. From the beginningless eternity past to the endless eternity to come, He is the glorious self-existent One. Now came the high insult: having rejected knowledge of God, but unable to escape the consciousness that He exists, men, like Israel later, “changed their glory for the likeness of an ox that eateth grass” (Psalm 106:20). The more you reflect upon the infinite glory and majesty of the eternal God, the more hideous will the unspeakable insult to Him of any kind of idolatry appear to you! Men first likened God to man; but, being given over, they rushed rapidly downwards: a bird, a quadruped; and finally, a reptile!

Vincent remarks “Deities of human form prevailed in Greece; those of bestial form in Egypt; and both methods of worship were practiced in Rome. See on Acts 7:41. Serpent-worship was common in Chaldaea, and also in Egypt, where the asp was sacred.” Israel evidently learned calf-worship from Egypt’s sacred bull.25

24 Wherefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, so that their bodies were dishonored among themselves:—25 such ones as they! who changed the truth of God into the lie! and worshipped and served the created thing rather than the Creator,—Who is blessed unto the ages! Amen.

26 On account of this, God gave them over to shameful passions: for their females26 changed the natural use into that contrary to nature: 27 and in like manner also the males27 having left the natural use of the females, were inflamed in their lust one toward another, males with males working out shame, and receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which was due.

Verse 24: God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts. This is deeper than the mere lusts of the flesh. Flesh has natural desires, which may or may not be yielded to. The lusts of the heart continue after the flesh is dissolved; and even when, in the tormented bodies of the damned, the lusts of the flesh cannot be conscious or controlling, “the lusts of the heart” will forever exist.

Notice that when man is delivered from Divine restraint, the lusts of his heart plunge him into ever deeper bodily uncleanness, and bodily vileness. History backs up this fact with terrible relentlessness. What an answer is here to all the boasting of proud men of a “principle of development” in man; to the lying claim that man is ever “making progress.” The “Golden Age” of Grecian literature, and that of Roman letters,—in both of them we find remarkable minds; but their works must be expurgated for decent readers! No printer, even in this corrupt age, would dare to publish books with literal descriptions of the orgies of “classical” days.

Verse 25: For they changed the truth of God into the lie—That God is glorious, incorruptible, infinite, is the truth; that any image whatsoever, be it gold, silver, wood, stone; picture or symbol, is God,—God here names this the lie! 28 Any such thing, connected with worship, is a fearful travesty of the divine Majesty. Think of it! They worshipped and served the created thing rather than the Creator—who made the creature! This is that desperate hiding away from God by wicked-hearted man, called idolatry. (See Appendix
III in the author’s “Book of the Revelation.”)29 Who is blessed unto the ages. Amen. Paul’s adding these humble, worshipful words after “Creator” both glorifies God and also differentiates Paul from the abandoned devotees of sin thronging the dark alley of human history; showing him to be a child of light, as is every real saint of God, though passing through a world of thick darkness.

Verse 26: For the second time we read, God gave them over—and now, unto shameful passions—There are natural and normal appetites of the body: God is not speaking of these, or even of the abuse of these,—adultery or harlotry—in this verse. He is describing that state of unnatural appetites in which all normal instincts are left behind. And it is significant, that, as originally woman took the lead in sin, so here!

Verse 27: Here men are seen visited with a like condign, judicial “giving up” by God, in which they forget not only the holy relations of marriage, but even the burnings of ordinary lust, and plunge into nameless horrors of unnatural lust-bondage, all, males and females, receiving in themselves the due recompense of their error. Compare “among themselves” of verse 24, with “in themselves” of verse 27: “These words bring out,” as Godet remarks, “the depth of the blight. It is visible to the eyes of all.” And Meyer also: “The law of history, in virtue of which the forsaking of God is followed among men by a parallel growth of immorality, is not a purely natural order of things; the power of God is active in the execution of this law.”

What a fearful account is here! A lost race plunging ever deeper, by their own desire! Left in shameful, horrid bondage, unashamed,—not only immoral, but unmoral, hideous. Missionaries abroad can tell you of what they find; as can the Christian workers in our great cities. But you would be unprepared to believe what exists, in the private lives of many, even in country districts through Christendom. And if God has “made you to differ,” thank Him only! It will not do to hold up your hands in self-righteous dismay, and say, These verses do not in any particular describe me. For God will show you and me that this is exactly the race as we were born into it, and out of which the only rescue is being born again. All these things pertain to lost, fallen man. Man is a tenant of the earth only by Divine grace, since the Deluge.30

28 And just as they did not approve to have God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a mind disapproved [of Him],—to practise things not befitting [His creatures]; 29 having become filled with all injustice, destructiveness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, guile, malignant subtlety; secret slanderers, 30 open slanderers, hateful to God, insolent, arrogant, boasters, inventors of bad things; without obedience to parents, 31 without [moral] understanding, without good faith, without affection for kindred, without [consent to] truce, without mercy: 32 who, conscious of the righteous decree of God that those practising such things are worthy of [the sentence of] death, not only keep on practising the same, but also are pleased with those that are practising them. 

Verse 28: Here we have for the third time the judicial utterance, God gave them over. This time it is to a settled state, a reprobate mind. There is such a solemn irony in the manner of speech in the Greek, that it should be brought out as well as the English will allow. Alford translates it: “Because they reprobated the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Conybeare renders it: “As they thought fit to cast out the knowledge of God, God gave them over to an outcast mind.” We might render it: To a mind disapproved of God, since they did not approve knowing God. And given over to do what? To live lives, think thoughts, be such creatures, as are not befitting the universe of the blessed God; and most particularly not befitting man, who was created in God’s image.

In the following verses, 29 to 32, three things are seen: first, some nine phases or developments of human sin (verse 29); second, the kind of people it makes (verses 29 to 31); and third, the fearful human conspiracy or agreement of wickedness of man against God (verse 32). Let us mark each carefully. (The student of Greek may well study the roots of these twenty-two nouns and adjectives, given in the footnote).31

And remember God says men are filled with all these things! And not only so: they are filled without restraint or limit! “With all unrighteousness, all destructiveness,” etc.

Verses 29 to 31: l. all injustice—Selfishness, enthroned against all rights of others.

2. destructiveness—The same word is used to describe Satan and his hosts: “the evil one,” “hosts of wickedness,” in Ephesians 6:12, 16. It denotes wickedness in hostile activity.

3. covetousness—literally, the itch for more. “(a) Claiming more than one’s due, greedy, grasping; (b) making gain from others’ losses; (c) the act of over-reaching by selfish tricks. To take advantage of another’s simpleness, to over-reach, defraud.” – Liddell and Scott. Lightfoot says, “Impurity and covetousness may be said to divide between them nearly the whole domain of selfishness and vice.” Vincent distinguishes between covetousness and avaric

e: “The one is the desire of getting, the other of keeping.” Paul constantly defines covetousness as idolatry, worship of another object than God; and associates it with the vilest sins (I Corinthians 5:11; Ephesians 5:3, 5; Colossians 3:5). Many professing Christians are withering in a blight because of this unjudged sin.

4. malice—“malignity, maliciousness, desire to injure” (Thayer).

5. full of envy—The apostle takes another full breath here, beginning anew this hell-meat catalog. Envy is the hate that arises in the heart toward one who is above us, who is what we are not, or possesses that, which we cannot have, or do not choose the path to attain. “Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered Him.” He was holy and good, which they pretended to be, and knew they were not,—nor really chose to be.

6. murder—How strikingly the Holy Spirit brings these words, envy, murder, which sound so alike in the Greek,—phthonou, phonou—into the order and connection which they constantly sustain in life.

7. strife—Literally, beating down in wrangling and contention. How “full of strife,” indeed, is this human race!

8. guile—Jesus called Nathaniel “an Israelite in whom is no guile” (John 1:47). The Greek word means “a bait for fish,” and so, to catch with a bait, to beguile. So in what is called “business” today, men are baited and lured: and “society” lives by it! This is the human heart.

9. malignant subtlety—The Genevan New Testament renders it, “Taking all things in an evil sense.”

10. secret slanderers—By this Greek word of hissing sound (psithuristas), the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) renders the Hebrew lahash: “a snake-charmer’s ‘magical murmuring.’” Let those privately peddling evil reports, remember that God views their tongue as the slithering of the adder! It is remarkable how secret slanderers can “charm” others (fitted thereto by their evil nature) into believing their slanders. We heard of a modest, excellent young woman secretly slandered by a jealous rival. She could not overcome the falsehood, and died within a year.

11. open slanderers—Literally, those who speak against, incriminate, traduce. See its use in I Peter 2:12. Many openly rail at others—especially if their own lives are condemned by theirs.

12. hateful to God—Hateful toward God, because haters of God. The word means to show as well as to feel such hatred: “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God.”

13. insolent—People taking pleasure in insulting others.

14. arrogant—Full of haughty pride toward others.

15. boasters—The very contrary of Him Who said: “Come unto Me—I am meek, and lowly of heart.”

16. inventors of bad things—From the days of Cain’s city onward (Genesis 4:16-22), men have progressed in evil; until Jehovah said Israel did evil that “came not into His mind” (Jeremiah 19:5).

17. without obedience32 to parents—literally, not able to be persuaded by parents. What a photograph of the “youth” of our day! This appalling rejection of parental control is developing amazingly in these last days, just as God said it would (II Timothy 3:1,2). It brings a curse upon whole families, whole communities, and whole lands. Obedience to parents brings promised blessing: “Honor thy father and thy mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2, 3).

“The eye that mocketh at his father,

And despiseth to obey his mother,

The ravens of the valley shall pick it out,

And the young eagles shall eat it.”

—Proverbs 30:17.

This explains many an early death! Yes; and terrible deaths long delayed.

18. without moral understanding—The verb is used in Scripture only of moral and spiritual understanding (Matthew 13:14, 15, 19, 23, 51). This adjective (Romans 1:31) means, without any understanding of Divine things; having no proper moral discernment. That is the awful condition of the human race; and, remember, you and I were born in it.

19. without good faith—Faithless, bound by no promise or covenant. This is a very heart-disease! The word denotes that wickedness that does not intend to carry out its pledged word, except for selfish ends. Broken business contracts, violated national treaties, light betrayal of personal confidences,—all have this hideous condition as their root.

20. without natural affection—Without affection for kindred. Even a third century pagan poet, Theocritus, calls these “the heartless ones.” How constantly we see, especially in the selfish lives of graceless “moderns,” utter disregard of the natural ties which a kind God has used in “setting the solitary in families.” Such are really moral morons; but the possibilities of all these things are in every one of us.

21. without [consent to] truce,—literally, not willing to consent to a truce, or cease hostilities. The present ruthless civil war in Spain, and the savagery of Japan in China, are examples. Indeed, only an “armistice,” not a peace, was concluded after the World War; and, despite all “treaties” since, there persists a sort of international suspicion; proving that men know, as by instinct, the implacability of human nature.33

22. without mercy—It is said that Nero as a child amused himself in pulling the legs and wings from insects. Perhaps you cry out at this, saying, I have always been tender-hearted towards animals. Indeed? And how about people? Are you tender-hearted towards them? to all of them? Think deeply on this: God “delighteth in mercy”; but “man’s inhumanity to man makes countless millions mourn.” Consider: A merciful God! unmerciful creatures!

And now we come to the dark, wilful conspiracy of evil of this whole human race. For, remember, what we have been reading is not an indictment of the heathen merely, but of the race. It does indeed depict the progress of human wickedness, and how God gave the race over to those lusts that judicially followed their sin. Yet, as we shall find in the next chapter, it is humanity as such, as thus degraded, of which God is speaking.

Verse 32: Who, conscious that such things are worthy of death, not only keep practising them but approve of others practising them.

Here we are confronted with three terrible realities: (1) They have complete inner knowledge from God (Gr. epignontes) that their ways deserve and must have Divine condemnation and judgment; (2) they persist in their practices despite the witness of conscience; (3) they are in a fellowship of evil with other evil-doers!

The Greek word here (syneudokouso) which we have rendered “are pleased with,” “approve of”; the Revised Version renders “consent with”; Bagster’s Interlinear, “are consenting to”; Moule, “feel with and abet.” “Not only commit the sins, but delight in their fellowship with the sinner,” says Conybeare; “Not only practice them, but have fellow-delight in those that do them”—Darby; “Not only do the same, but applaud those that do them”—Godet; “They not only do these things, but are also (in their moral judgment) in agreement with others who so act” —Meyer.

What a description of this world of sinners, this race alienated from the life of God,—at enmity with Him, and at strife with one another! But all in a hellish unity of evil!

THE WRATH OF GOD—IN ROMANS

1. The Greek word for wrath (orgç) is used twelve times in this book of Romans, and always as connected with God. In all twelve occurrences in Romans it is referred to God: “The wrath of God is revealed” (1:18); “wrath in the day of wrath” (2:5); “Wrath and indignation” (2:8); “God visiteth with wrath” (3:5); “The Lair worketh wrath” (4:15); “Much more shall we be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him [Christ]” (5:9); “If God, willing to show His wrath, endured vessels of wrath fitted for destruction” (9:22); “Give place unto the wrath” [of God] (12:19); “Wrath to him that doeth evil” (13:4); “Not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake” (13:5).

Now the fundamental word for “wrath” is orgç, and it always looks, in Romans, toward the final, or last, Judgment; although including, as in 13:4, 5, God’s governmental actions through present human authorities.

This distinction between the outpouring of governmental wrath which precedes the Kingdom, and the final Assize at the Last Judgment is of primary importance. Paul is dealing in Romans with eternal things; with “no condemnation,” on the one hand; and with final condemnation on the other. It is not the attitude and actions of God as the dispensational Ruler of earth’s affairs, but the final Judge dealing with eternal individual destinies, of Whom Paul is writing.

Mark carefully, therefore, that Paul, who is setting forth the gospel of grace, describes the blessedness of those who receive that gospel as forgiven, justified, at peace with God. Romans is a court book. God, who adjudged all guilty under sin, gladly declares righteous and safe those who trust Him. Contrariwise, those who reject His mercy and grace are visited by the same Judge, even God, with wrath. Both the wrath in the one case, and the grace in the other, proceed from God’s personal feeling. and just as there was personal Divine mercy and eternal tenderness toward the believer, so there is personal Divine wrath and eternal indignation against those who despise His love and mercy, as set forth in the death of His Son. It is righteous indignation, certainly; but it is personal indignation. Listen carefully to God’s own words as to this future visitation of wrath upon the finally impenitent: “Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14); “Lest there should be among you man or woman whose heart turneth away from Jehovah, to serve other gods, and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart . . . . Jehovah will not pardon him, but then the anger of Jehovah, and His jealousy, shall smoke against that man” (Deuteronomy 29:18-20); “Jehovah is a jealous God, and avengeth; Jehovah avengeth and is full of wrath; Jehovah taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath or His enemies”; “He will pursue His enemies into darkness” (Nahum 1:2, 8); “Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19); “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God” (Hebrews 10:31) “Can thy heart endure, or can thy hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, Jehovah, have spoken it and will do it” (Ezekiel 22:14)

It is fatuous folly to seek to avoid the manifest, necessary meaning of such words. God, who alone has the right to avenge, will avenge! The very first chapter of the Prophets warns any willing to hear: “Ah, I will ease Me of Mine adversaries, and avenge Me of Mine enemies!” (Isaiah 1:24). Human justice is to be meted out by juries of men and by judges, uncolored by personal feelings. Not so with God! As is not the case in human courts, it is the Judge Himself who has been wronged. It is His light that has been refused for darkness. It is His salvation, and that by His Son’s blood that has bee despised. And it will not be justice merely, but the infliction of penalty by an outraged Being whose Name is Love, now aroused to a righteous fury commensurate with the measureless guilt of the hideous haters of His holiness, the despisers of His mercy—it will be by the Hand of the Judge of all, Himself, that wrath will fall upon the guilty.

As for the “great” pulpiteers of Christendom, the favorites of the rapidly apostatizing denominations of this day, the men who, by their ecclesiastical politics or personal ability, or so called “scholarship,” are “outstanding” and yet deny or ignore the wrath of God,—fear them not! They are false prophets, prophets of “peace,”—which can only be found in the shed blood of the Redeemer: the blood which they do not preach.

Oh, that Day! that Day!—for these lying preachers of “peace, peace,” who have said, “God is too good to damn anybody.” And shall God, in that Day, refuse to remember the agonies of His Son on the Cross? Shall He change that holy hatred of sin, wherein He forsook Christ and spared Him not?—all because miserable guilty Universalists, Unitarians, Millennial Dawnists, “Modernists,” “Christian(!) Scientists(!)”—all the fawning “Hush, hush” preachers, have promised to men “a God that would not show wrath against sin!” A God who would indeed “spare all,— yea, probably, even Satan, finally!”

Let this awful word Orgç, wrath, settle into the conscience of every soul; for God hath spoken it!

And every Preacher and every Prophet of God has warned of it: Enoch (Jude 14,15); Noah (II Peter 2:5); Moses (Deuteronomy 32:35); the Psalmists, the Prophets (for example, Isaiah,— all of Chapters 24 and 34); the Lord’s forerunner, John the Baptist, with his “Flee from the wrath to come”; the Apostles,—from Romans to Revelation; and the great Preachers and Evangelists of the Christian centuries,—the men who have won souls—the Reformers, the Puritans, the Wesleys, Whitefields, Edwardses, Finneys, Spurgeons, Moodys,—all have told of man’s guilt and danger, of the coming judgment, and of the wrath of God upon the impenitent and unbelieving.

2.This wrath is here in Romans 1:18 declared to be now, like the gospel, revealed from heaven; and that, now, against all ungodliness; and against all unrighteousness of men; in that they have resisted the truth they know.

Heretofore, as at the Deluge, and that terrible day when “Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven,” God had revealed His wrath on earth when men’s cup of iniquity was full; as we read also in the case of the Canaanites (Genesis 15:16; Leviticus 18:24, 25). Yet, God “overlooked” much that was evil, even in Israel (Acts 17:30; Matthew 19:8). But now, He “commandeth all men everywhere to repent,”—in view of a revealed coming day of judgment, “by the Man whom He hath ordained” (Acts 17:30, 31; Rom 2:16), and of which judgment He hath given certainty to all men by raising this coming Judge from the dead! The cross brought to an end God’s “overlooking” sin, by judging it, even to the utter Divine forsaking of Him whom God sent to bear sin. Sin, therefore, is brought into the open; God’s wrath from, heaven is now revealed against it all! If the blood of Jesus, God’s Son cleanseth believers “from all sin”; then no sin has been left unjudged at the cross, and no sins will be unjudged upon the lost, at the Great White Throne, nor be “overlooked” today!

This, then, is the first full, formal, and general, announcement of wrath from heaven. For heretofore God had man on trial. While Israel had “the house of God” on earth, and were being tested under law, there was (humanly speaking) the possibility of human recovery. But when they, with the Gentiles, crucified the Lord of glory,—killed the Righteous One, four things came to light: (a) the absolute character of man’s sin; (b) the absoluteness of God’s holiness which could not spare the Son of His love, when once sin was laid on him; (c) the absoluteness of God’s love and grace toward sinners, in publishing forgiveness and righteousness as a free-gift through Christ,—“beginning from Jerusalem—where men had crucified His Son! and the revelation from heaven of Divine wrath against all ungodliness, all unrighteousness. It was not that God hated sin less in the past, in “the times of ignorance.” But there had been “overlooking, forbearance.” Now, with the full revelation of both human guilt and Divine grace by the Cross, ‘there must also be fully announced God’s wrath from heaven against all sin. It is no longer an earthly, governmental affair,—as against high earthly offenders, such as Pharaoh, the Sodomites, or the Canaanites; but against all ungodliness, all unrighteousness. In grace God at the cross had come forth; not in Law or judgment, but as He was, in His being,—that is, absolutely, as Love, offering pardon and justification to men. Therefore, all He was, absolutely, in Heaven His dwelling-place, against the awful thing, sin, must, along with His pardoning grace, be revealed! The days of “winking at” ignorance are over; for, “He spared not His own Son!” So now, that God is against all sin must be revealed. The days of that protection from God’s wrath that religion had afforded are over! For had not Judaism afforded a kind of protection? Jehovah dwelt in the thick darkness of the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle and the temple. An outward walk according to external enactments, secured the nation Israel, amidst which God dwelt. But no longer! “Your house is left to you desolate,” said the Lord to the Jews. “The blood (for forgiveness), and the water (for cleansing) followed man’s spear of hate thrust into the Redeemer’s side.” But by that very fact we know that there is absolute wrath against man’s sin! Only, flee not from this wounded Lamb; for here the wrath has struck! There is safety here,—though nowhere else in the universe!

3. It will fall to other pens than Paul’s—to those of Peter and Jude, and especially to that of John, in the Apocalypse, to describe the particulars of time and mode of visitation of God’s wrath; together with the places of confinement and punishment of the wicked, both before and after the Last Judgment. Peter will write of “Tartarus,” where God cast the rebel angels of (Genesis 6;
II Pet. 2:4); and Jude will describe both the “everlasting bonds” of those angels, and also the “eternal fire” that overtook the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah; while John will show the risen Christ with the keys of death and of Hades (the detention-jail at present of lost human spirits); and John will describe also that awful “lake of fire” which shall be the final portion of the devil and his angels, and of those who sided with him against God. (Compare Revelation 20:10; Matthew 25:41.)

Paul, however, will set forth the scene as from God’s court. Just as his gospel will show a God whose love is such that He gave Christ for wicked, hateful sinners, and offers to justify the ungodly who believe Him; so the contrary of justification—condemnation, becomes the portion of the rejecter of mercy

Since grace is the outpouring of God’s “heart of mercy,” and is a personal feeling; so despised mercy arouses in God (and how necessarily), the opposite of mercy,—wrath! Paul’s words will therefore be: grace, and over against it, wrath. Justification, and over against it, condemnation. Life, and over against it, death. He will say to the saints, “Ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life.” And, of the things whereof the saints are now “ashamed,” —“the end of those things is death!”

4. But be it noted, there is absolutely no foot of Scripture ground to stand upon for those who, refusing the Bible doctrine of a God who “visiteth with wrath,” bring in their subtle arguments for the “final restoration of all.” Honest readers know that the very opposite is taught throughout the Scripture. There is no wrath upon believers. There is forever nothing but wrath for unbelievers. If you value your soul, regard with utter horror all trifling on this question. If you do not believe in Divine wrath, you are not subject to Scripture, and you are in fearful personal danger. The errorists begin very subtly,—as the Bullingerites began with the doctrine of “soul-sleeping.” (See footnote to Romans 15:8 found on p. 526.) Then there are the “annihilationists,” the “conditional immortality” falsifiers, the Christadelphians, the “restorationists,” the Seventh Day Adventists, and all the rest of the rabble. These false prophets are lulling millions upon millions into a deathful slumber from which only the crack of doom will rouse them. There are no “soul-sleepers” or “restorationists” in Hades! They know the truth now! And they are in nameless terror of coming Judgment and final eternal Hell.

The God of the twentieth century is not the God of the Bible, but the God of the vain imaginations of shadow men,—men who will not look honestly at history (as, e.g., the Flood, or Sodom and Gomorrah); nay, who will not look honestly at present events! Preachers are found by the thousands who pooh-pooh the thought that the great calamities, such as the late war, and that now looming, are judgments of God; that great droughts or floods or storms are sent by Him. Like the hardened wretches whom Ezekiel saw, they say, “Jehovah seeth us not; Jehovah hath forsaken the land.”

If Paul, at the beginning of Church days, could write to Roman Christians that terrible arraignment of the human race with which this Epistle begins, and must begin, what shall be the attitude, and what the words, of any faithful preacher or teacher at this, the end of the Church times, after nearly 2000 years of unbelief, heresy, divisions, and general denial of the guilt and danger of lost men!

Merely to give in this book the meaning of the words of Paul,— without applying them to the very soul and conscience of the reader, would, in view of the conditions prevalent today, be both fruitless and cowardly: fruitless, because the present day will not study, and least of all, thoroughly study, Scripture; and cowardly, because shrinking from applying truth would be seeking to be “fundamental” without offending anyone!