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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Romans 1:22 - 1:25
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The result of deliberate folly:
v. 22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
v. 23. and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God in to an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
v. 24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves;
v. 25. who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Here the result of ignoring God and of deliberately setting aside the guidance of the natural knowledge of God is shown. When men claimed, asserted, boasted their own wisdom, 1Co_1:22, they became fools, they were stultified in intellect. The true wisdom, which comes down from above, is ever humble, but where the divine truth is missing, human philosophy with its boastful attitude makes its appearance. And so the final result of the vanity of their mind, of the darkness and foolishness of their intellect, was that men have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the semblance of the picture of mortal man. The semblance which was chosen in the place of God was the picture of some man or of some animals, either birds or four-footed beasts or reptiles. Such an idol was to be a representation of the Godhead, Isa_44:12-19; Psa_115:4-8; Psa_135:15-18. History gives many examples; for the idols of the Greeks and Romans, also of the ancient Germans were statues in the form of men; the eagle of Jupiter and the ibis and hawk of the Egyptians were sacred birds; the white ox of the Egyptians, the golden calf of the Israelites, goats and monkeys in other nations, were four-footed idols; and among the reptiles were the crocodile and various serpents, all of which were given divine honor. Such were and are the manifestations of the false religions of men when they turn from the true God. In the foolishness of their unnatural idolatry they pervert the original order of God. "Man, made in the image of God, now makes God in his own image; and the master of the animal kingdom has so far forgotten his dignity as to worship the pictures of animals which should be subject to him."
The result of this idolatry is a loss of all true morality as well, a fact which God permitted as a well-deserved punishment. Therefore, because of their godlessness and idolatry, God has delivered the idolaters into uncleanness. It is a divine punishment and destiny; God punishes sin with sin. In the lusts of their hearts, in the condition in which they were in consequence of their godless, irreligious conduct, which they delighted in, God has given them over to uncleanness. The sinful lusts and desires of the heart were the people's own doing, and the dishonoring practices which followed were God's punishment. When a person refuses to heed the warnings of God in nature and conscience, then these warnings are finally withdrawn, the unrighteous person is abandoned to the gratification of his desires and lusts, to every form of uncleanness and immorality, just as a physician may finally leave an untractable patient to his own devices. And so the uncleanness of the idolaters results in gross transgressions of the Sixth Commandment, that their bodies are dishonored in themselves. Through all immoral vices the bodies of men are shamefully treated; uncleanness takes away all the honor which the body of man possesses as a creature of God, 1Co_6:18.
The apostle now emphasizes once more that the motive which prompted God to this punishment lay in the transgressors themselves. It is carried out in the case of all those that changed the truth of God, the true worship of God, the true God Himself, into a lie, into idolatry and idolatrous practices. Men have exchanged the true living God for idols, to whom they falsely attach the name gods. And the creature they have thus honored and served in place of the Creator, in preference to the true God, to whom alone all blessing and honor is due, as Paul emphasizes by the conclusion with the Hebrew Amen. This same emphatic belief and confession must live in the Christians of all times: there is only one true God, He who has revealed Himself in His Word for the salvation of mankind.