Romans 1:18 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Romans 1:18

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The apostle Paul sees the wrath of God which is coming upon the unsaved. He must preach. If God will so use his words, he must deliver people from the wrath which is to come. ‘The wrath’ means the settled indignation of God. Wrath does not mean a squall or burst of anger. It means the permanent, abiding, irreducible, fury and anger of God against human sin. It is so foul, it is so offensive to him. The wrath of God, that will never die, is revealed. And it comes from heaven, and it comes upon all ungodliness, and all unrighteousness of men.‘The wrath of God is revealed from heaven.’ I understand that Christ is revealed from heaven – it doesn't actually say so here, but it does everywhere else in the New Testament and in the prophecies – but what is this about the wrath of God? Well, God’s wrath was revealed from heaven, of course, in olden times when God gave the Ten Commandments, and they were written by his finger in slabs of stone. From heaven came the standards by which God would judge us. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven in another way. When Christ came to suffer and died on Calvary, what you see on Calvary is something so awful: that the Son of God should suffer the experience of being separated from the Father. Of course, God the Father and God the Son are one, and there is a sense in which they cannot be separated. But in the experience of Christ, he must suffer the sense of total separation from the Father, the awful abyss that will be our darkness and separation if we come under the judgment of God. He must suffer the agonies in his body as he is nailed through his hands and his feet, but also the torment in his soul which defies all human words to describe. The eternal punishment due to millions and millions of people who would trust in him, was concentrated on Christ, and he suffered all the wrath of God on our behalf. Because he was God as well as man, he could survive it. That is how the wrath of God has been revealed from heaven. Just as Christ's righteousness is revealed from heaven, so is the judgment of God when it fell upon Christ, revealed from heaven. ‘Ungodliness’ means contempt for God. Godliness is actually a technical term, and the Greek has to do with the way we treat God. Ungodliness means that we treat him without any respect, we hold him in contempt, we do not believe in him, we reject him, we rebel against him. Ungodliness means we show him no reverence; we repudiate his authority. ‘Unrighteousness’ refers to our actual sins, our foulness, our bad ways. Both are in view. We offend against God and his majesty, with disrespect and contempt, and we actually sin against his holy laws.‘Who hold the truth in unrighteousness.’ Now, here we do need to expand the translation, because the sense of the Greek is this – who hold down the truth in unrighteousness. God’s fury, his settled indignation is against human beings, because they suppress the truth. They limit it and shut it up, wilfully suppressing, obscuring, denying the truth.A simple illustration helps. When I was at school, a little fellow, and particularly as a boarder, you have much more time to get up to mischief. And mischief is in the heart of a child. And so always, boys are wanting to get up to this, that, or the other. But, there is a form master, or house master, a strong disciplinarian, and always he is on your mind. Whatever you plot or scheme, he may see, and if he does see, you are going to have to give an account, and you will be punished. So if you are apt or inclined to get up to mischief, you are dicing with authority, and you know you could be seen, and you have got to watch out for that. But now in life, it is different. It is not like a child misbehaving at school, trying to keep his misdemeanours concealed or out of the way, a child who has some respect for authority, some acknowledgement, some fear. What Paul refers to is not like that. It is one who is saying, ‘God will not see, I do not fear him. He will not act. I do not believe he is even there. And anyway, what I am going to do is not wrong, and if anybody tells me that God, in that old Bible, says it is wrong, I do not agree. I do not believe it is wrong. What I am about to do is quite reasonable.’ This is holding down the truth. It is not only a matter of contempt for God and sin, but it also a matter of suppressing the truth about God, and his holiness, and his justice. That is the meaning of the verse – ‘Who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.’

Application

Today many believe in evolution, God did not make anything. They scrabble about to find another solution, another explanation, however far-fetched. I am not responsible for my conduct. There is this theory of an unconscious self within me, and things are buzzing around in my unconscious department – all to my training, or my genes, or something else – and these are the things that make me behave as I behave. It is not my fault. By false religion, by sheer brute atheism, the truth is suppressed and conscience can be quiet, so I can do what I like. And the settled indignation of God is against all those things, and Paul sees it, and he knows that there is a price to pay, and the gospel therefore has to be preached. There's a constant campaign in the world to suppress, to pull down, to hold down the truth of God. You go to school and you learn religious knowledge and what do they mostly teach you? Attacks on the Bible, foolish attacks, ideas that undermine the Bible. This is not inspired by God; this is not revelation. This is the work of men and it contradicts itself, and all sorts of spurious examples are brought forward, none of which hold water. Right from the Garden of Eden where Satan said to Eve, ‘Hath God said?’, the casting of doubt is constantly there. Some do it through rationalism – evolution and so on – others do it in a religious way – the Church of Rome. The Council of Trent puts a curse upon anybody who would teach that the salvation which comes from God is altogether free, and Christ totally, entirely earned it for us.

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Romans 1:18 Commentary and Bible Study

Explain meaning of Romans 1:18