Today we begin a long section that begins with 1:18 and goes through 3:20.
The focus of this section is the that brought about the .
In 1:17 Paul said the righteousness of God – his quality of righteousness, as well as his gift of righteousness – is revealed in the gospel. Specifically the gospel reveals how a righteous God thinks about and responds to .
The wrath of God revealed, 1:18-21a
In this brief passage there are two questions we’ll need to consider. Perhaps Paul’s readers did not need to do this, but it seems modern readers do.
The first is the subject of God’s and questions people have about it.
The second is the issue of God through creation sufficiently to leave people without excuse for rejecting that revelation.
What is God’s wrath?
God’s wrath is never capricious or simply an emotional reaction, like human anger often is.
It is God’s settled to sin and those who sin. It is God’s to sin, to those who promote sin, and to those who practice sin. His wrath goes out against these things.
Theologian Wayne Grudem says this:
God’s wrath may be defined as follows: God’s wrath means that he intensely hates all sin.
The fact that God has wrath against sin is taught throughout the Bible.
Deuteronomy 9:7
2 Kings 22:17
John 3:36
Revelation 6:15–17
Wrath is one of God’s characteristics, although it is more correct to say that God’s wrath arises out of his holiness and love rather than is a characteristic on its own.
Why should God be angry about sin and those who sin?
Sin was never . Sin messed up.
(MULTILINE)
Sin brought anger, hatred, sexual perversion, assault, murder, other crime, drug and alcohol addiction, wars, and many other evil things into God’s world and into our experience.
Sin destroyed God’s perfect plan for us and for his creation. Sin is . It is still with us, destroying lives, relationships, marriages, families, children, and whole nations. God is right to be angry with sin and those of us who sin.
Can a good God be angry of have wrath?
This is a question many people raise today.
The wrath of God is a neglected or even avoided topic in many churches. It isn’t a theme that packs out churches. People would much rather hear positive and uplifting preaching. They prefer to learn how to overcome discouragement or defeat depression or have peace in daily life than hear about the wrath of God. I get it. But we can’t preach the authentic gospel without including the wrath of God.
Instead of asking if a good God can have wrath, I’d like to ask another question. Can a truly good God when sin destroys people’s lives? Can a good parent not be angry at people who try to mislead, harm, or take advantage of their children?
I don’t see how God can be truly God and just ignore the disease of sin that is destroying his children, creating much suffering, and leading to an eternity without Him.
If God does have wrath, what does His wrath lead him to do?
That will be our subject in the coming weeks. We’ll discover some of the answer in 1:18-32 and more of it in subsequent passages.
Let’s return to the text in Romans.
Paul has just told us he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome.
He now tells us why.
Notice: He doesn’t want to preach the gospel in Rome so the Romans can believe in a God who wants them , nor to believe in a God who by their faith will fulfill , nor does he want to preach so that they can be filled .
He wants to preach the gospel so they can be from the of God.
Fortunately for us Paul truly understood God’s wrath, how God’s wrath was inseparably linked to Jesus’ coming, and how the gospel is good news only against the background of God’s wrath.
I. The revelation: God’s wrath is already being revealed, 18a
II. God’s wrath is being revealed against ungodly and unrighteous people, 18a
God’s wrath is and .
It is not against just anyone. It is against a specific group of people. Paul calls them ungodly and unrighteous.
(MULTILINE)
III. God’s wrath is being revealed against those who suppress the truth, 18b-21a
A. They about God, 18b
You can’t suppress what you do not know or feel. God is just. As we’ll see he doesn’t hold people to something they cannot know.
Suppress: the truth by unrighteousness/ wickedness
This suppression of the truth is not passive. It carries the idea of holding something down.
1. The truth about God , 19-20
Paul insists that no one can say “But I didn’t know there was a god.” Why? Because creation itself witnesses to the power and divine nature of God.
The truth about God is seen .
Psalm 19:1
Psalm 50:6
Psalm 97:6
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Acts 17:23
Let’s elaborate a bit. Is it true that God has revealed himself sufficiently in creation to leave all people without excuse for not pursuing Him?
In Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for a Creator, Strobel covers the following lines of evidence which together make a strong case for a creator like God behind what scientists see in nature:
Challenges to Darwinian that point to a designer
Cosmology and the beginning of the universe that point to a beginning and space, therefore to a beginner who is not bound by time and space.
The of the universe in which dozens of basic parameters are in such fine alignment that the probability of this happing by chance is infinitesimally small.
The anthropic principle, or the observation that the earth with the surrounding cosmos was created with in mind.
The complexity of molecular which suggest that they could not have evolved but must have come into being with intention and design.
Biological information in , which is so vast that it points to someone who put all that information into the DNA in the first place.
The enigma of , where the existence of the mind seems impossible to explain by naturalistic means.
These are all relatively recent scientific discoveries, but they confirm better than ever before that God has left his fingerprints on his creation.
In his book, Strobel quotes the conclusions of a number of well-known scientists:
The vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.
Werner von Braun, the father of space science
The Big Bang, (Astronomer Alan Sandage) told the rapt audience, was a supernatural event that cannot be explained within the realm of physics as we know it. Science had taken us to the First Event, but it can’t take us further to the First Cause. The sudden emergence of matter, space, time, and energy pointed to the need for some kind of transcendence.
“It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science,” he would later tell a reporter. “It was only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.” 4
(Patrick) Glynn credits the absolutely incredible fine-tuning of the cosmos as being among the key reasons why he concluded that the universe must have been the handiwork of a master designer.
“As recently as twenty-five years ago, a reasonable person weighing the purely scientific evidence on the issue would likely have come down on the side of skepticism. That is no longer the case,” he said. “Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis. It is the simplest and most obvious solution to the anthropic puzzle.” 6
2. Because the truth of God is clear, those who suppress the truth are , 20b
God is righteous, which means he is and . He doesn’t expect from us what we cannot do. So, he has left clues all over his creation that he is there and that we should pursue knowing him.
As Paul said when he was in Athens:
Acts 17:24–27
God has revealed enough of himself to allow who wants to do so to .
Those who are experiencing the wrath of God do not lack knowledge about God, they have it, but are suppressing it. This leaves them without excuse.
Fact #1: the wrath of God is falling on those who suppress the truth about God.
B. They refuse to treat God , 21a
They do not him as God, 21a
They do not give him , 21a
Those experiencing the wrath of God are people who have chosen to ignore the truth about God or suppress what they do know so they can continue to live as they choose.
As a result, they do not treat God as he deserves. They don’t honor him, nor do they thank him for his providential care.
Fact #2: the wrath of God is falling on those who do not treat him as he deserves.
Where does this leave us?
God has clearly revealed himself so all can seek after Him. Those on whom the wrath of God has fallen are without excuse for they have suppressed what they do and could know. The wrath that falls on them is .
CONCLUSION
Paul tells us the bad news behind the good news.
So far we’ve learned that some people are already experiencing God’s wrath because they suppress the truth about God. Bad news. The wrath of God may be deserved, but it certainly isn’t good news to learn this.
Just how is this wrath of God falling on some people? The rest of chapter one tells us. We’ll get to that next week.
This week the message is this:
Unrighteous people deserve God’s , not his blessing.
Who is unrighteous? As we will soon see, all of us. “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10)