Romans 1:32 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Who knowing the judgment of God.’ But Paul, they do not know the judgement of God? All that you have said is true, and it is true of all us by nature. Human nature is so depraved and so awful, but surely, having rejected God and thrown him out of their thinking, and shut themselves under an earthly ceiling, they no longer think about God. How can you say that they know the judgement of God anymore? They may have done when they were little or younger, but now they do not think about it, they do not believe it. Ah, but what the apostle says is still true, because deep down everyone knows that wrong is wrong. That knowledge survives in them however hard they try to suppress it. It is true that they may not believe in judgement, but the apostle Paul uses very careful words – ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death.’ It is possible that I have completely programmed out of my mind any acceptance of a Day of Judgement. But I still know this: that if there was a Day of Judgement, I would be worthy of death. That is what the apostle Paul is saying. I may have laughed it away, and derided it with scorn; I may have refused to accept it, but I know that what I am doing would be condemned, if there were such a day. His argument would have no force in aggravating their guilt if they no longer possessed this knowledge. They not only know that God will judge them, but they know he will be righteous to do so. This knowledge, though hidden deep within them will come to the surface when Christ returns. No wonder they will hide themselves from the face of the Lamb when he appears without anything needing to be said.So I bolster myself up. I ‘not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’ Like a band of drunks outside the pub last thing at night, as an atheist, as a sinner, a depraved human being, I latch onto other people who do the same. I tell myself, ‘This is normal; this is natural. These are the people who I applaud, and who I like.’ I form an alliance with others who are in rebellion against God’s standards in order to reassure my troubled conscience. I go ahead and commit sin even though I know that it deserves death. I am not ignorant of that; I can never rid myself of that knowledge. But I do something worse. I approve of sins in others which I know deserve death. I deliberately pronounce false judgments. I act as if God’s judgment can be overturned by an alliance of sinners contradicting what he has said. I attempt to overturn the entire government of God by mass consent to evil. My personal sin does not necessarily do that. This is what is happening when society tries to rewrite the Bible’s moral code and put something else in its place, or when the most foul sins are brought out into the open and paraded as if men and women were proud of them. But the law of God written on our hearts is indelible. Here is one very powerful reason why conscience is not a cultural matter. Even if all the world were to conspire together to declare homosexuality to be right, they could not succeed in removing guilt from their hearts. Even so-called Christians take part in this charade, for when the apostate church pronounces blessing on those who brake God’s commandments, it is doing exactly the same.For some of the evil listed earlier, the death penalty was in force under the law of Moses, but for others it was not, and yet Paul says that all these sins deserve death. The fact that God allowed the world to continue with sin resident in it was an act of great mercy, which made it possible for the plan of redemption to be carried out. But men and women feel the death sentence in their hearts when they commit sin, and know what awaits them. The very first sin to be committed was threatened with death, and yet the world was permitted to continue for a while. Why should any subsequent sin not also bring the same?