Romans 1:20 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Romans 1:20

Comments

‘For the invisible things of him are clearly seen.’ Surely that is a contradiction. You can't see invisible things. God is invisible, and there is nowhere in this universe we can go and see him. Yes, but there are invisible things of God which can be seen. They can be seen in his handiwork – work which only he could do, works which require his divine power. You can see something of Almighty God, and God gives you the capacity within you; it's instinctual, to recognize them and to say, yes, to them. ‘Being understood by the things that are made’ – this is the God we see – ‘even his eternal power and Godhead’, the eternal nature of God and his godlikeness. The King James translators were trying to find a word to translate this, and they selected this word ‘Godhead’ after Tyndale. What does Godhead mean? It translates a Greek word which means godlikeness. What God is, who God is – godlikeness, which you can in a measure grasp. ‘From the creation of the world are clearly seen.’ When you were very small, before anybody gave you a rational explanation for God, or offered you an alternative explanation for the origin of this world; before your mind began to be filled with ideas such as evolution, you already understood certain things. You looked up at the sky and the stars, and you looked at nature around you and within you, and you knew God made these things. Your inner intelligence was aware that this is a created world. It was instinctual. It was a response to all that you saw. And in your simple mind you drew obvious conclusions. The God who made all this is above and beyond it. He is mighty. He is beyond time and space. He is eternal. You couldn't have defined eternal when you were very little, but you knew it. Even his eternal power and Godlikeness. In your mind only a God could bring everything from nothing, starting with nothing, no particles, nothing at all, and bring matter and life into being. By that you understood his eternal power and Godhead, Godlikeness, and that became a permanent instinct within you. Now, it's been smothered by layers of rationalism and unbelief and contrary notions, but it's still there, and when you are terrified out of your life, it's that to which you appeal: ‘Oh God, save me.’ It has never been eradicated.

Application

How do I account for everything around me? There must be a Creator, an invisible God, high above it all. There must be a Creator who is outside my material, physical bounds, who is greater than stone and wood and structures, a great spiritual being who is outside and beyond. The one who made time must be outside time. So the very existence of everything around us speaks eloquently of the one who is above and beyond them all. It is so obvious.

We think of the minute detail of creation and the complex systems and structures in creation. There is an intelligent designer, there is one who appreciates beautiful things, and has made such things as colour, and who has designed optical systems capable of appreciating them. There is one who understands fatherliness, because he has put so much fatherliness in creation and care for the young. There is one who understands intricate programming. There are the animals, they develop as chicks from eggs, and yet they know instinctively how to build nests, and how to conduct their affairs. There are these little creatures full of information which is somehow operating within them, barely understood by biologists. Why does this and that and the other animal do this and know what to do? Nobody taught him, nobody showed it. Because there is a great Creator who has made everything complete with information to act and his genius and his power is everywhere.

Questions

What about those who have never heard of the name of Christ? Are they to blame for their sin? We are all to blame, the whole human race. Deep down, we know. Almighty God, the merciful, kind, Godlike creator of all things, the infinite and eternal God. There's no explanation for this complex world and for complex human beings with amazing memories and the power of speech, and towering above it the power of reason, the moral consciousness and creativity within us made to in some small degree in the image of God. There's nothing to explain us apart from God's eternal, creative purpose. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. A powerful God must have made these things. A loving God must have made these things. A God who is capable of design, a God who has a mind of eternal genius: ‘even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.’ The Greek word is literally ‘indefensible’. I am indefensible if I have no belief in God – how I need a Saviour to wash me clean, how I need the atoning death of Christ on Calvary's cross to purge me from sin. ‘Without excuse’ is even more pointed: a perfect translation. We only lose an awareness of these things by pushing them out of our mind and suppressing them, because we have some reason to do that; because we do not want a God to whom we must give an account, a God who is holy, who has standards, a God who governs and rules. Because we want to be king in our own realm, master of our own life, we push these things out.

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Romans 1:20 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Romans 1:20 explained