God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity
Lesson 2 Notes: Romans 1:18-32
“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.” (Romans 1:20)
“Chase your desires and follow the latest trends.” “Find your own truth and create your own identity.” “Unrestrained pleasure is the cure for stress, conflict, and boredom.” “Contributing to your family’s reputation defines your worth.” “Fulfillment comes from following cultural traditions.” Different cultures offer confounding versions of what marks a successful life, yet the world seems more chaotic and desperate than ever. Is this quest for self-determination the cure for the world’s chaos and pain or the cause? Does anyone really know what is true? Does a supreme being exist, or is religion just a mythical crutch for needy people?
Paul reveals the root of this world’s confusion: humanity’s mutiny against God. Intentional rebellion against our Creator has fractured our relationships with Him and one other. Our sinful nature blinds us to God’s evident presence in creation. People look to nature, themselves, and one another instead of glorifying God. We believe we are good and getting better with each passing generation. But when we look around, issues such as hatred, violence, and selfishness persist. With eyes closed to God’s truth, people remain guilty of sin and separated from Him—now and forever. God’s wrath remains on every person who refuses to worship Him. But God continues to reveal Himself in creation and through the one who has made Him known: Jesus Christ.1 Nothing is more important than how we respond to God.
1. Jesus revealed the Father: John 1:18; 5:19
No Excuse – Romans 1:18-20
Paul was not ashamed of the gospel—God’s power to save from His righteous wrath against sin. With his confidence in the gospel affirmed, Paul next accused wicked people of suppressing the truth about God that creation reveals. In Romans 1–3, Paul presents evidence that builds toward a climactic conclusion: “Jew and Gentile alike are all under the power of sin. ... For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”1 The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to offer timeless realities about God’s holy wrath and humanity’s struggle with sin.
Wrath’s Reality – Many believers steer clear of biblical teaching about God’s wrath, thinking enlightened Christians should abandon this notion. However, biblical writers shared no such reluctance. In the Old Testament, more than 20 words in nearly 600 passages refer to God’s wrath. In the New Testament, Jesus and the early Church fathers frequently spoke of God’s wrath.2 God’s wrath against sin perfectly expresses both His justice and mercy. Sin kills, so it deserves to be judged. God’s compassionate love cannot allow sin’s destruction to proceed unchecked.
Scripture portrays God’s wrath as building up over time, like water collecting behind a dam. God will pour out His full wrath in His final judgment.3 However, Paul also explained God’s wrath in the present tense: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” Because the world has rejected God, humanity’s self-inflicted downward slide leads away from God and toward sin’s consequences, not only in the future but in the present.
Properly understanding God’s present and coming wrath invites people to seek God now. One day all who face God apart from Christ’s righteousness will stand condemned. In Romans, Paul offers the gospel as the solution to God’s wrath.4 Slow to anger, God does not explode in petulant temper but expresses righteous, measured fury in appropriate response to sin’s offense.
Wrath’s Reason – In Paul’s day and ours, everything about God offends fallen human nature. Preferring the delusion of personal autonomy, we reject God’s sovereignty. Our desire to freely practice sin causes us to disregard God’s holiness. We resent God’s omniscience because we desire to live without accountability. We delight in the easy path of cultural conformity because we dislike God’s immutability, which overrules our ever-changing whims and demands.
God displays His wrath against “the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth” about Him—not accidentally but “by their wickedness.” Because of God’s abundant evidence of Himself, people must actively hold down truth to avoid God. Why do we do this? Self-satisfying sin lures us, then becomes more appealing than the revelation God provides and the submission His way demands.
God is sovereign, always! He is holy, always! He is omniscient, always! God’s glorious eternal attributes contrast radically with our tarnished, time-bound, fickle, sinful human desires. In our unredeemed, unbelieving, unsaved state, we not only dislike God, we reject His authority over creation and our lives. Even redeemed believers continue to battle lingering fleshly appetites that rebel against God—rationalizing pet sins and avoiding challenging truths.5
The Invisible Made Visible – God’s self-revelation in nature is sometimes called “general revelation”—always available to everybody, everywhere. God is Spirit, unseen by human vision. However, as a painting reveals the artist’s existence, creation reveals the Creator’s existence. While general revelation does not reveal everything we need to know about God, all people can see two things through creation: God’s “eternal power” and His “divine nature.”
Creation reveals God’s eternal power. The sparkling night sky testifies to God’s powerful orchestration of the orbiting cosmos.6 He sets the seas’ boundaries despite their raging tempests.7 The sun’s pulsing radiance and an atom’s pent-up energy hint at the scope of God’s eternal power.
Creation also reveals God’s divine nature. God is sovereign, holy, and omniscient. Nature reveals additional attributes of God’s divine nature, which differs dramatically from human nature. In kindness, God orders the atmosphere to bring rain and seasons that produce crops to feed the earth’s inhabitants.8 God’s creation declares His breathtaking beauty in a sunset, rainbow, bird’s song, or majestic mountain. As the source of all life, God gives breath to every person, determining when and where they will live so they might “seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.”9 No one who refuses to acknowledge and worship God does so because they lack concrete evidence.
General revelation also includes an internal or subjective element. God gives all people a conscience—the gift of knowing right from wrong and comprehending the evidence for His existence.10 We have “clearly seen” the truth and “understood from what has been made.” Conscience, an internal knowing, propels people past creation as a god to recognize the God who created it. Humanity stands accountable for responding to what nature reveals about God “because God has made it plain to them.”
What is sometimes called “special revelation” provides additional insight into God’s invisible qualities. Paul explains in Romans 2 and 3 that, by grace, increasing special revelation came to the Jews through God’s relationship with Abraham, through the law, and through the prophets. The gospel then presents the special revelation of Jesus Christ, explaining the path to God’s righteousness.11 This good news is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.12 Responding to God includes humbly seeking what He makes known through His Son, His Word, His Spirit, and His people.
Visibility Removes Excuses – No excuse exists for humanity’s failure to believe, worship, and thank God—the reasonable responses to God’s visibility in creation alone. Nevertheless, every generation offers excuses for suppressing the truth God reveals. Excuses perpetuate unbelief, unrepentance, and failure to realize that nothing matters more than seeking God and His plans for His creation. Romans 3:19 describes what will happen to excuses when people face judgment: “Every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.” Because of God’s abounding grace and love, He faithfully moves people from general to special revelation as they respond to Him. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers all who believe God’s singular, gracious solution to His deserved wrath.
God’s Righteous Hatred of Wickedness
The first part of Paul’s important letter addresses God’s wrath—the manifestation of His hatred of sin and wickedness. Paul describes God’s wrath as both a present and future problem for fallen humanity.1 In the present, God’s wrath is experienced as He gives people over to sin’s consuming consequences.2 In the future, apart from salvation through Jesus, God’s wrath against sin ultimately brings spiritual death and eternal, conscious separation from God.3 God perfectly expresses His holiness and love as He righteously exercises His justice. As He pours out His wrath on sin, He also mercifully provides an escape from His wrath through faith in Jesus, the perfect atoning sacrifice.
God is not like us. He is not wicked, evil, depraved, envious, or driven by irrational anger.4 God does not exercise His wrath as payback or to get even. Because of His compassion, God hates the destruction in sin’s wake and seeks to save sinners. Because of His omniscience and wisdom, God perfectly measures His punishment to fit each sin. Because of His impartiality, God will hold all people accountable for their response to His truth. Because all people are born with a sinful nature, no one meets God’s righteous standard.5 All people deserve God’s wrath and need a Savior.6
When people do not admit the reality of God’s wrath, they excuse sin and suppress plain truth for which they are accountable to God. An insufficient understanding or outright refusal to believe in God’s righteous wrath against sin leaves people blind to sin’s consequences and without reason or urgency to seek the Savior God sent to receive His wrath in their place. Skewed and self-oriented attempts to define reality leave people facing eternal peril.
When we believe that our sin deserves God’s wrath, we love God more and more for sending Jesus to bear His wrath in our place. The reality of God’s wrath compels us to joyfully declare the righteousness Jesus offers sinners by faith. Have you accepted Jesus’s substitutionary death in taking on God’s wrath on your behalf? If so, how does your life express your gratitude for God’s gift of eternal protection from His wrath through the atoning sacrifice of His Son?7
No Thanks – Romans 1:21-23
After his opening statement about God’s wrath against humanity’s truth-suppressing wickedness, the rest of Romans 1 incorporates Paul’s examples from the irreligious—people unwilling to live in alignment with God’s Word. These verses paint a painful picture of how, in the absence of God’s truth, sin corrupts human thoughts and values. We should read these verses amazed at God’s grace that can save us from the downward spiral Paul describes. At the same time, though saved by grace, believers also mourn sin’s devastating impact on the world; grieve for those who remain shackled to sin and pray for their deliverance; and bear witness to the gift of salvation Jesus offers.
The shimmering stars call for breathless wonder. A newborn baby’s cry invites humble gratitude. The splendor of majestic mountains, canyons, or waterfalls summons appreciation. And yet, people see God’s qualities, experience Him through creation, and still fail to honor Him. God deserves thanks for the food the earth produces and praise for the wonders creation displays. When people refuse to give God glory and thanks, both personal and global disaster results.
Futile Minds – Willfully rejecting God as creator and provider renders human thinking futile. When the truth about God is suppressed, only inadequate and insufficient understanding remains. People can make superficial observations, but without God as the starting point, no one can discern spiritual, moral, and practical realities beneath the surface. Distorted thinking launches further disaster.
Foolish, Darkened Hearts – All reasoning that suppresses God becomes folly and leads to foolish, darkened hearts that people who turn away from God do not recognize. Instead, they speak of “bright new ideas” or “seeing the light,” heralding their own limited insights. But because God, the giver of humanity’s intellect, is the sole source of light, all light apart from Him is mere illusion.13 In the Bible, a fool’s guilt includes intellectual folly, moral folly, and wickedness. Consequently, the Bible often connects fools with denying God. For example, the Psalms repeat the warning: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”14 While finite humanity cannot know eternal God fully, “foolishness” describes the darkened heart’s willful rejection of God’s truth.
Instead of acknowledging their darkened hearts, people who willfully suppress God’s truth call themselves “wise.” The Greek word sophos, translated as “wise,” is the root of such words as “sophisticated,” “sophomore,” and “philosophy.” A philosopher loves wisdom. Sophisticates consider themselves wise in worldly ways. In Paul’s day and ours, those who reject God’s truth mistakenly imagine themselves as intelligent and sophisticated as they value creation above the Creator.
Rather than praise God’s unique glory, people “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.” Two verses later in verse 25, the word “exchanged” occurs again. Rather than flourish in relationship with their Creator, people “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” God designed people to worship Him. When the God of creation is not worship’s focus, people satisfy their inborn design for worship with substitute gods. Spirituality, religious affiliation, good deeds, valued possessions, and personal interests, even when good in and of themselves, can become gods of our own making, suppressing God’s general and special revelation of life-giving truth.
Sin first shattered God’s creation in a similar exchange.15 God placed the first human couple in a perfect place and in perfect relationship with Himself and one another. Adam and Eve sinned, exchanging a perfect relationship with God for the false promise of attaining Godlike perfection. All their descendants—all human beings ever born—share the consequences of their rebellion.16 This traumatic and heartbreaking separation from God is known as the Fall. Even now, the Fall echoes throughout humanity because God’s revelation confronts our sin. In our fallen state, we want almost anything more than the true God. This idolatry fuels humanity’s downward slide, which Paul goes on to describe.
No Limits – Romans 1:24-32
Corrupted behaviors flow out of corrupted thinking, beliefs, and values. We do what we do because we think what we think. When people try to extinguish the truth about God’s existence, darkness blinds them to ultimate accountability for their choices.17 Paul’s vivid explanation reveals the impact of unchecked wickedness on creation.
Paul repeated “God gave them over” three times. God allows people who persistently reject Him to go their own way. If we remain stubbornly in unbelief, He removes His restraints on our sin. What an irony! God’s punishment grants what humans have fought to achieve since Adam and Eve rebelled. Eve believed the lie that God withheld something good, and Adam joined her by approving of her sin. Because sin corrupted God’s creation, humanity pushes God away. People’s actions scream, “God, leave me alone and let me get on with my life.” So, God does.
Unfortunately, the autonomy sin craves promises satisfaction that never materializes. We believe the lie that God unfairly withholds what we desire.18 We think running from God will expand our horizons, reveal our identity, and inaugurate our freedom. Instead of satisfaction, we find dead ends that lead to insatiable longing. Rather than find authenticity, we lose identity. We experience sin’s bondage, not freedom. Without a restored relationship with our Creator, we cannot fulfill our purpose.
“Gave them over” is a Greek legal expression for handing the guilty over to receive their sentence. God gives people over to the consequences of their rebellion. When God releases sinners toward their sinful desires, they do not drift off like an object in space without gravity. Instead, they tumble downward like glass, getting cracked and chipped and ultimately shattered along the way. The path away from God will always careen downward to destruction. To illustrate humanity’s progressive decline into increasing brokenness, Paul used illustrations from his day that are also familiar to modern readers. Apart from God, sin ravages people.
“God gave them over ... to sexual impurity” (1:24-25) – Verses 24-25 address sexual impurity as part of idolatrous worship. Writing from Corinth, Paul would have encountered depraved sexual activity at the temples of Greek and Roman gods who were also worshipped in Rome. The use of sex in worship practices drew people away from the true God, not toward Him. When God releases sinners, false worship turns to degrading cravings.
Outside of marriage, in which a man and a woman become “one flesh,”19 sex becomes distorted and breaks God’s moral law. Any sex outside the godly covenant of marriage is adultery.20 Sex within marriage is God’s gift to humanity. In the Old Testament, God used marriage to illustrate His covenant relationship with Israel.21 This intimate, mysterious union pictures the purity and beauty of Christ’s oneness with His Church.22 People willingly exchange God’s truth for the lie that God does not exist or deserve their worship and obedience.
“God gave them over to shameful lusts” (1:26-27) – Why did God remove His restraint and abandon people to shameful lusts? Because “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.”23 If we are unrepentant, our human nature, corrupted in the Fall, will devolve into corrupted worship—giving glory to the objects of our selfish desires rather than rightfully worshipping God.
Paul used homosexuality to illustrate cascading shameful lusts that result when God’s wrath comes against the wickedness that suppresses revealed truth. Scripture condemns homosexuality,24 but even general revelation reveals God’s natural design for reproduction through the sexual union between a man and a woman. Paul clearly communicates that unrestrained freedom to pursue human lust invites suffering. When God releases sinners, lusts become destructive passions.
“God gave them over to a depraved mind” (1:28-32) – Suppressed truth, corrupted worship, and shameful lusts compound into depravity. A depraved mind is wholly unfit to discern right from wrong. The 21 sins Paul listed describe fallen humanity. Everyone has been guilty of something on this list. Which ones have you been guilty of? Apart from God, nothing is sacred, and no one is safe. When God releases sinners, depraved thoughts lead to deadly obsessions. This is the tragic dead end of a Christless life.
“Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,” Paul wrote, “they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” At the end of this downward slide of abandoning God, people “approve” and derive pleasure from evil. Paul is not describing people who show grace when someone repents and returns to God. Approval here means celebrating error as truth and defining truth as error. Sin’s grip on humanity characterizes beauty as ugliness and ugliness as beauty.25
People who worship and condone the sin that destroys them live in spiritual and moral insanity. This present darkness should lead believers to our knees to call upon the Lord to fill us with His wisdom, mercy, compassion, and truth to bear loving witness to our friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances, who can still find true hope in Jesus. Nothing is more important than how we respond to God. The fallen world might discount Paul’s presentation of God’s presently revealed wrath as fiction or an outdated perspective. However, Paul offers a painful glimpse into “living hell” on earth, where unrestrained sin ravages those who deny God. Meanwhile, God’s truth reveals salvation from this living and eternal hell through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Take to Heart
God has graciously made Himself known to humanity through His beautiful creation. God displays His power, presence, and grace clearly in both the world He created and in His people. God is not hiding Himself or withholding good from humanity. His lavish gifts, astounding glories, and patient kindness leave humanity without excuse for their ingratitude, self-centeredness, and idolatry.
God reveals His wrath on the earth today, as He has throughout history. God has righteously ordained sin’s justified consequence—unchecked pursuit of whatever people desire more than Him. Romans removes our blinders to behold human depravity. God will not protect those who persistently reject Him from their destructive desires. As descendants of Adam and Eve, we are all great sinners. But God stands ready to rescue us from sin’s deadly trap. God’s heart for the wayward consistently beckons, “Come back to me. I love you.”
God’s absolute love, compassion, and mercy delight us, while God’s absolute holiness, justice, and truth collide with our prideful cravings. When God’s incomparable attributes confront our foolish preferences, we face temptation to suppress God’s truth. The broken world bombards people with lies. Which lies are you most tempted to believe? What truth about God or from God would you rather not know? As we pray, study Scripture, and fellowship with other believers, the Holy Spirit steadily peels back layers of suppressed truth, renewing our minds. What would it look like this week to exchange long-believed lies for truth from God’s Word?
What do you desire more than God? A thing? A person? A position? A feeling? Do you consider God relevant in your life and the world today? Progressively, the world pushes God to the margins. But ignoring Him is a terrible mistake. Nothing is more important than a right relationship with God. Only God can provide true understanding of Himself, His creation, and His purpose for each person. Without God’s truth as our anchor, futility and foolishness rule our thoughts. How could your relationship with God gain greater importance in your life?
Paul invited believers in Rome to humbly remember their own need for the righteousness God’s powerful gospel offers fallen people. Apart from God’s grace, the sins mentioned in this lesson dominate our fallen nature and earthly lives. But God’s revealed truth can deliver anyone from moral and spiritual darkness into His true light. Believers were once in the dark before God’s illuminating work revealed a new reality within them.26 In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul explained that “the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth” and encouraged people to “find out what pleases the Lord.”27 The light God shines into believers’ lives displays the power and wisdom of God’s plan to save the darkened world. God transforms people who respond to His revealed truth and His glorious gospel.
The world has much of God’s good order reversed. Confused and upside-down thinking saturates governments, neighborhoods, and families. How should sincere believers engage with a morally insane world spiraling toward God’s eternal wrath? With the gospel of Jesus Christ! “It is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”28 Faith in the gospel offers peace-filled righteousness and clarity to live by—today and forever. Do not be ashamed of that gospel! Offer God’s truth as a beacon of hope and allow His light to shine into the foolish darkness all around you. God is still revealing His saving truth to His beloved creation.
1. Humanity’s sin: Romans 3:9, 23
2. God’s wrath: Matthew 5:22; 8:10-12; 18:8; Mark 9:42-48; John 3:36; Acts 10:42; Romans 2:5-8; 4:15; 5:9; Ephesians 2:3; 5:6; Colossians 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Hebrews 3:11; 4:3; Revelation 6:15-17; 14:10
3. Final judgment: Romans 2:5-6; Revelation 6:17; 20:11-15
4. Wrath in Romans: 1:18; 2:5, 8; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22; 12:19; 13:4
5. Sin in us: Romans 7:14-20
6. Skies declare glory: Psalm 19:1
7. Seas’ boundaries: Jeremiah 5:22
8. Rain for food: Acts 14:17
9. Giving life: Acts 17:24-28
10. Conscience: Romans 2:15
11. God’s righteousness: Romans 3:21-26
12. Power of God: Romans 1:16-17
13. Light’s source: John 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; Revelation 22:5
14. Fools deny God: Psalms 14:1; 53:1
15. Sin shatters creation: Genesis 3
16. Sin’s consequences: Genesis 3:16-24; Romans 5:12; 8:19-22
17. Accountability denied: Psalms 10:13; 73:7-12; 2 Peter 3:3-7
18. The lie: Genesis 3:1-7
19. Man, woman become one: Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6
20. Sex outside marriage: Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:18; Proverbs 6:32; Matthew 5:27-32; Revelation 17:2-4
21. Union with Israel: Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:1, 8; Hosea 3:1-5
22. Oneness with Christ: Ephesians 5:31-32
23. Exchanged for a lie: Romans 1:25
24. Homosexuality condemned: Leviticus 18:22; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
25. Calling evil good: Isaiah 5:20
26. Darkened understanding: Ephesians 4:18
27. Children of light: Ephesians 5:8-10
28. Gospel power: Romans 1:16
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