PAUL AND THE WRATH OF GOD The Dark Side of the Gospel Part I
Romans 1:18-32
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousnss, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them (NASB).
Introduction
1.
Before we travel with Paul to “the dark side of the Gospel” we go back for a moment to our previous lesson on Romans 1:8-15 where we overlooked an important aspect of our key text, vv. 11-12:
I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift (charisma pneumatikon) to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.
The phrase that we need to look at again is “that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.” We interpreted the “spiritual gift” that Paul desired to bring to the Christians at Rome as a “ministry of presence,” the gift of his bodily presence as a bearer of the Spirit, a “spiritual gift.” Thus when Paul is to be personally present with the Christians in Rome, the Spirit of Christ will also be present touching and talking to those in his presence. But not only is it a presence “brought to,” but also a presence “sought in” others—“mutually encouraged by each other's faith.” Jesus is with those loved by God; he is present in their lives. Thus our first approach to each other is “to look for Jesus.” He is to be found in one another!
Mother Teresa, with her “Gospel on five fingers”—“’You-did-it-to- me’—one word for each finger,” wanted her “Missionaries of Charity to remember the poor—not only to respect the dignity of the child of God in each one, but also to realize the supernatural reality of God’s presence in each of them.” Mother Teresa “sought Jesus in each person she met, especially in the poorest of the poor, holding fast to his words, ‘As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’” Paul was anticipating a “ministry of presence” from the Christians in Corinth, and again, that should be our first expectation from one another—we expect to experience the presence of Jesus in each other!
2.
Herb Prince’s previous two lessons as he began Paul’s presentation of “The Gospel of God's Righteousness (1:16—15:13)” dealt with “The Thesis of the Letter (1:16-17)”:
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith” (NASB).
Although connected closely to what precedes by “For” (gar), the key text for today’s reflections appears to open the first section of Paul’s exposition of this thesis as our outline suggests, “A. God's Righteousness Needed (1:18—3:20)” and its first subsection, “1. The Human Predicament (1:18-32).” Our text for today reads:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousnss, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them (NASB).
In the verses quoted note (1) the parallel structure in both English and Greek of “the righteousness of God is revealed” and “the wrath of God is revealed.” Note (2) the identical verb “is revealed” (apokalyptetai), the present tense in Greek describing a continuous process, a contemporary manifestation--“is being revealed.”. Note (3) that it is in “the gospel” that both “the righteousness of God” and “the wrath of God” are being revealed or being made known to the world—a double revelation of God. Note (4) that in the cases of both “the righteousness” and “the wrath” the source and agent (subjective genitive) is God. So not only does the apostolic proclamation of the gospel of Christ reveal “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” but also it reveals “the wrath of God . . . against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousnss.”
Revealed in Jesus Christ, the gospel, “the verdict of the faithful God on the whole world . . . has . . . this dark side as well.” Starkly put, the gospel reveals God’s wrath! In the light of the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross the rebellious human situation can now be seen in its true perspective, as both the cause and the effect of divine wrath, and that inseparably. From this we get our subtopic for today, “The Dark Side of the Gospel.” As Greathouse seeks to interpret Paul, he asks,
What is meant by the wrath of God (orgē theou)? The answer will not become clear until we answer the further question, What is meant by God's wrath being revealed? In only two other passages does Paul add to the word wrath the genitive qualifier "of God," and he never uses the verb "to be angry" with God as the subject.
Before we seek an answer to these questions we read our scripture for today, not a pleasant or pretty picture, so we can get it before us right away:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them (NIV). I. “God gave them over”
In Romans 1:18-32 “the wrath of God” is described in terms of “the total situation that exists when humanity turns away from the Creator,” or more specifically as Barth puts it, the Gentile world as “now confronted with the gospel, whether they know it or not, and whether they like it or not.” Verses 18-23 point out that the key to the described human condition is idolatry, not only devoting ourselves to “idols,” but with the more insidious result of “rejecting God as our Lord, and that is to take as Lord--ourselves.”
In verses 25-32 Paul describes God’s punishment for the sin of idolatry in a most frightening way, “simply because, had Paul not told us that they were signs of wrath, we could easily have mistaken them for signs of grace.” These verses are punctuated by the threefold assertion¸ “God gave them over,” or “God gave them up” (NRSV). Achtemeier expounds:
the wrath which God visits on sinful humanity consists in simply letting humanity have its own way. The punishment of sin is therefore simply—sin! God, says Paul, delivers sinful humanity over to its own desires. In a move that our contemporary world shows is perhaps the most terrifying thing God could do, God punishes sin by letting us have control over our own destinies. . . . The way God in his wrath delivers humanity over to the just punishment of sin is to become permissive. He withdraws the gracious power of his absolute lordship and allows other lordships to prevail.
In the words of C. S. Lewis, “They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved.” As C. H. Dodd wrote in 1932, having quoted Hebrews 10:31, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (NRSV), “Paul, with a finer instinct, sees that the really awful thing is to fall out of His hands, and to be left to oneself where the choice of evil brings its own moral retribution.”
Greathouse’s exposition of “the wrath of God” begins with a description of Dodd’s view which is similar to Achtemeier’s. We quote some key comments.
Elsewhere the apostle warns that "A man reaps what he sows" (Gal 6:7), and that "the wages of sin is death" (Rom 6:23). . . . God has created a moral order in which sin is its own punishment and destruction. In this chapter divine wrath means that God gives sinners up to the consequences of their own rebellion and misdeeds (1:24-32). Thus, God's wrath is not his active intervention to add evil consequences as punishment for human rebellion and disobedience. . . . God does not have to intervene. Sin is its own punishment. "One is punished by the very things by which one sins" (Wis 11:16 NRSV).
Calvin comments here that "the word wrath, referring to God in human terms as is usual in scripture . . . implies no emotion in God, but has reference only to the feelings of the sinner who is punished" (1960, 30). God's wrath should not be misunderstood as a divine temper-tantrum. God's wrath in the present is his unremitting resolve to reclaim his rightful reign over a race in rebellion and on the road to ruin. It is not about an emotion at all; it is about God's personal reaction against sin. . . . Remarkably enough, vv 24-32 insist that God's wrath is expressed in permissiveness, not peevishness.
But is this explanation fully adequate? Greathouse thinks not: “This is certainly true as far as it goes, but does it do justice the idea of orgē theou in our text?”
II. In the Gospel
To rephrase the question, is there more that should be said about Paul’s assertion that “the wrath of God is [being] revealed from heaven in the gospel against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? Back to Greathouse:
The manner in which Paul places the wrath of God against his "righteousness" in v 17 and uses the dynamic term being revealed in both cases suggests that wrath represents something in the attitude and purpose of God. In v 17 he has stated that God's righteousness is being revealed in the gospel, i.e., in the ongoing proclamation of the gospel. In view of the parallelism between vv 17 and 18, the most natural way of taking v 18 is to understand Paul to mean that the wrath of God is being revealed in the gospel.
But what is being revealed and where? What does one witness in this revelation? and, Where does one see it? . . . The two revelations—of the righteousness and wrath of God—in these verses are really two aspects of the same process. The preaching of Christ crucified, risen, ascended, and coming again, is at the same time both the offer of God's righteousness to believers and the revelation of God's wrath against sin. In the gospel, divine mercy and divine judgment are inseparable from each other; the mercy offered us is no cheap grace or superficial pardon, but God's costly redemption. The reality of God's wrath is not truly known until it is seen in its revelation in Gethsemane and on Golgotha (see also Rom 3:24-26 . . . ). . . . Simply put, for Paul this twofold revelation is witnessed in the Christ event. His life, death, and resurrection simultaneously demonstrate the righteousness of God and the wrath of God. This is what Paul means when he insists that the wrath as the well as the righteousness of God are being revealed in the gospel. . . . God's wrath is no outburst of divine fury; it is the reaction of the holy and merciful God called forth by, and directed against human ungodliness (aseibia) and unrighteousness (adikia). In this disclosure, which takes place again and again in the preaching of the gospel, sin is unmasked and brought to light, while at the same time needy sinners are led to faith in the Crucified (see Gal 3:1-2). . . .
Conclusion
The gospel is the fire, the speaking flame, of a holy God. As Barth comments here,
Then there is fire: the fire which consumes the impossible thing man has committed. This fire is God’s wrath. God’s wrath ought not to be misinterpreted as something foreign to and contrary to God’s love. But one should understand that God’s love is this burning and consuming love. The revelation of God’s wrath, of the death-sentence to which God has condemned man because of his sin, is that very act in which God did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all (8.32). The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the revelation of God’s wrath from heaven.
“for indeed our God is a consuming fire” William M. Greathouse: Outline I. Letter Prescript (1:1-15) II. The Gospel of God's Righteousness (1:16—15:13) The Thesis of the Letter (1:16-17) A. God's Righteousness Needed (1:18—3:20) 1. The Human Predicament (1:18-32) 2. God's Righteous Judgment (2:1-16) 3. The Challenge to Jews (2:17-29) 4. The Advantage of the Jews (3:1-8) 5. No One Is Righteous (3:9-20) B. God's Righteousness Provided (3:21—8:39) C. God's Righteousness in History (9:1—11:36) D. God's Righteousness in Practice (12:1—15:13) III. Conclusion: Romans 15:14—16:27 Brian Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 314-315. Ibid. 335. See Herb Prince, “Faith Subjected to Thought But More: Parts I & II (February 10 & 24, 2008). We use the NASB for these two texts rather than the NIV because its more literal translation aids our discussion at this point. . “For” (gar) appears in vv. 16a, 16b, 17a, 18a forming a long chain of subordinate clauses that suggests “that Paul understands each subordinate clause to give the reason for the statement which has preceded it,” all telling us “why Paul is eager to preach the gospel to the Christians in Rome.” Paul J. Achtemeier, Romans, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985), So NIV translates the verb in v. 18 but interestingly (inconsistently?) not in v. 17 Karl Barth, A Shorter Commentary on Romans (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1959), 25. In this introductory paragraph we have relied on an old, old study: Frank Carver, “Toward Expository Preaching: The Dark Side of the Gospel,” The Nazarene Preacher (April 1969), 36-37, 45. Barth was no doubt the inspiration for this title, now our lesson title. Ephesians 5:6 and Colossians 5:6. William M. Greathouse with George Lyons, Romans: New Beacon Bible Commentary, edited by George Lyons, general editors Alex Aarughese and Roger Hahn (Kansas City, Missouri: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2008). We return to the text of NIV because it is the basis of Greathouse’s exposition. He entitles this passage 1. The Human Predicament (1:18-32), and outlines it as a. Introduction: The Wrath of God (1:18, b. Humanity's Original Sin (1:19-23), and c. Humanity's Moral Depravity (1:24-32). A key phrase occurring in vv. 24, 25, and 28. NRSV translates paredōken ho theos with “God gave them up” as does KJV in two of the three occurrences. Undocumented quotations are always taken from Greathouse’s commentary. Barth, Romans, 27. Achtemeier, Romans, 38-39. Ibid., 40, Ibid. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (London: Collins, 1957), 115-116. C. H. Dodd, The Epistle to the Romans, The Moffatt New Testament Commentary (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932). I am quoting the Fontana paper back edition, 1959, page 55, so the page numbers are different from the earlier publication. Inserting the more literal NASB in place of the usual NIV for these two terms. Barth, Romans, 26. Hebrews 12:29. See vv. 18-29.
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