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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Romans 1:24 - 1:24
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Wherefore (dio). Paul’s inexorable logic. See it also in Rom 1:26 with the same verb and in Rom 1:28 kai like “and so.”
God gave them up (paredōken autous ho theos). First aorist active indicative of paradidōmi, old and common verb to hand over (beside, para) to one’s power as in Mat 4:12. These people had already wilfully deserted God who merely left them to their own self-determination and self-destruction, part of the price of man’s moral freedom. Paul refers to this stage and state of man in Act 17:30 by “overlooked” (huperidōn). The withdrawal of God’s restraint sent men deeper down. Three times Paul uses paredōken here (Rom 1:24, Rom 1:26, Rom 1:28), not three stages in the giving over, but a repetition of the same withdrawal. The words sound to us like clods on the coffin as God leaves men to work their own wicked will.
That their bodies should be dishonoured (tou atimazesthai ta sōmata autōn). Contemplated result expressed by tou (genitive article) and the passive infinitive atimazesthai (from atimos, a privative and timos, dishonoured) with the accusative of general reference. Christians had a new sense of dignity for the body (1Th 4:4; 1Co 6:13). Heathenism left its stamp on the bodies of men and women.