Romans 1:29 Commentary and Bible Study

From this reprobate mind come this long list of sins. It is the gravest, the saddest sin list imaginable. How can we be lifted up by that? How can we be encouraged by that? Actually, there is enormous encouragement, and amazing thankfulness to be drawn from it. There are twenty-three items on the list. In some, if not most modern translations of the Bible, there are only twenty-one. ‘Unrighteousness’ is not counted as one of them. The modern translations tend to regard it as a general word that covers everything on the list. But then they leave out sin number two on the list, fornication. Why? Because one family of manuscripts leaves it out, probably due to a scribal error. But others have it in, ancient manuscripts, not only in the Greek but in the Latin translations which ultimately stem from the earliest Greek manuscripts. But it's cut out in modern translations and we look in vain to see why the manuscripts that omit it are to be preferred. But it is such a foolish omission when you look at the context. The apostle Paul has been dealing with uncleanness, lusts of the heart, women and men dishonouring their own bodies. These sins have been described at length in the immediately preceding verses. It is only to be expected therefore that the apostle Paul would not leave out fornication from the sin list. ‘Being filled with all forms of unrighteousness.’ Men and women are not just unrighteous, but are filled with unrighteousness. This does not mean that all have reached the same degree of evil, or that each one has gone as far as he can go in sin. But it does mean that unrighteousness characterises every life. There are good works in those who Paul is describing, but none that are acceptable to God. The best of them is unrighteousness in unrighteousness in God’s eyes, being mixed with sin: either coming from an evil motive, or with some evil or self-centred aim in mind. None are done out of love for God.‘Fornication.’ The word translates the Greek, which in its setting means all sexual uncleanness, in thought, word, and deed. What a terrible state the human race is in! There is so much sexual deviation, uncleanness, disloyalty, betrayal, lusting: in thought, in word, in language, in deed. How much we need the cleansing of Christ. If this was the only sin in the world to be considered, how much we need the shed blood of Christ the Saviour who suffered in our stead, who bore the punishment of sin for us. Oh, to be among the people who you can count on being faithful, faithful to their wives and to their husbands and loyal and striving to ever increase in love and kindness. ‘Wickedness’ – the Greek word indicates delight in wickedness. As believers we may fall into sin, but it hurts us and how ashamed we are. You would not plan it; you would not scheme to do that thing or say that thing. In foolishness and weakness, we may have blurted out something concerning which we had to go to God in repentance. But you never plan to be hurtful. Have you ever found yourself looking at something which you expected to be wholesome, and then finding that the humour is dirty and bawdy, and there are the screeches of laughter, as if people get a special delight out of anything that is particularly low and outrageous. And they do, because that is exactly what is meant by this particular word, ‘wickedness’. I have rejected God, and so now in my wickedness, I am going to heartily and especially endorse anything that is particularly foul: a childish and fallen delight in that which is wicked.‘Covetousness’ – I have no God, so I must find substitutes to fill my life. It is pursued in the mind. I want more. I must have this; I must have that – not only possessions and things. People covet after different things. The apostle Paul, before his conversion, was enslaved to covetousness. He tells us that in Romans 8. When that first came home to him, it convicted him. He was a covetous man. What did he covet? A glorious home? The palace of an upper cleric in those days? No. What he coveted was office, power, position. He wanted to be noticed as the great intellectual, the one who had exterminated Christians. What do you covet? Things, or flattery, or fame, or praise. Some people live to have more of something. Sometimes it comes down to being a simple glutton. But it's planned, and dreamed about, and coveted, wanted, thought about. ‘Maliciousness’ – that the desire to injure, to do harm, to inflict hurt. It means depravity. Without God we are depraved. I am responsible. It is not really like a disease, because I am willingly doing it. I am not driven against my will, but at the same time it is though I am diseased. I am depraved: I develop a strong and unreasonable antagonism towards people. Christians are people who are good at heart. In spite of the fact we are all sinners, we have a longing and a standard. There are Christian people who have achieved such purity in the way they think, and the way they reason, and the way they react to circumstances.Then comes another group more than halfway through the verse, and these sins are a form of pride. ‘Full of envy.’ Envy is when you hate somebody, or are very upset and pained because somebody has something you want, and think you ought to have. That gives you great displeasure. You resent those people. You ought to be the one; you deserve it. You should have had that promotion. You should have had that particular benefit or blessing in life. You are hurt and angry at the other. Envy is an ugly thing, and it flows from pride. ‘Murder’: the Bible has murder as the chief sin in a family of sins. You murder by taking away life. You murder by taking away happiness. You murder by taking away liberty. Kidnap is murder. The deprivation of a person's liberty. Young people can destroy their aging parents' happiness and composure and worry them to death. It all comes under the murder sin. You deprive people of some precious aspect of life and ultimately life itself. Christian people, like God himself, are preservers of life, preservers of the dignity of others. They do not want to take away anything from anyone else, not their happiness, not their liberty, not anything.‘Debate’: this is not wholesome debate to arrive at the truth of something. This is the person who just objects to everybody else's view, and contradicts everything, and argues with everything almost for the sake of it. Why? Because he is so proud. His every thought and view must be right in his estimation. He is cantankerous and difficult. ‘Deceit’ which in the original means treachery and includes lies. It starts with the dishonest exaggeration, with the dishonest excuse, and then gradually you become a hapless, hopeless liar. You can't help it: the lies tumble out of us. Then we deceive with cunning. Deception is there in everyone. ‘Malignity’: spite is the modern word. The world is full of spite. You must get back at someone else. You must hurt the other who hurt you. If he has shown you unkindness or something of that kind, you must hate him in return. You must cold shoulder him in return. ‘Whisperers.’ This is paired with ‘backbiters’ at the start of the next verse. Up till now he has used abstract nouns; now he describes sin in terms of people. The whisperer is the person who gossips in secret, sneaking round and discrediting other people. He tells lies about someone behind their back.