At the end of the previous section and the beginning of this selection, Paul mentions that he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome because he is not ashamed of the gospel. As the good news spread in the first century, persecution of these believers of the "new faith" increased. For many of us today, news of any kind of "persecution" will make us squirm and shut up about anything resembling the good news of Christ. For Paul, this was not a deterrent or a daunting matter. He wanted to go to the heart of the known world to share the news of the One Who could change hearts and lives. He said he was not ashamed because he knew the power of the gospel.
Here is the power of the gospel: if I have faith, I receive righteousness. That is a very powerful exchange. Salvation occurs when I trust in Christ as my only way to heaven. I admit that I am filthy and rotten and that I have nothing within me that could ever merit eternity. I am unrighteous. When God looks at me in an unrighteous state, He sees my SIN. God is just and must punish sin! If He sees my sin and does nothing about it, He is NOT a fair God. When I realize my state and the deficiency of righteousness I have, and then I see the righteousness of Christ and believe in His atonement, Christ imputes His righteousness to my account. The righteousness of God begins and ends with faith (17). If you really grasp that concept, you will be blown away by the power of the gospel unto salvation. The attribute of the righteous is faith.
After Paul presents the power of the good news of righteousness by faith, he transitions to the flip side. There are two verses here on obtaining righteousness and about fifteen on the ungodly or unrighteous. As I mentioned earlier, God would be unfair if He did not punish unrighteousness. So we can pin-point unrighteousness, Paul gives us the attributes of unrighteousness. In verse 18, Paul says that they suppress the truth. All that can be known about God has been made plain to them (19), but instead of believing they fight all the signs of truth. These people ignore all evidence plainly pointing to God. They see the world around them and explain it away by means of evolution. They attribute blessings of God to luck or circumstance. They refuse to honor and thank God (21). These people also concoct pointless plans and imagine futile ideas (21). They waste their time with idle minds. The last one makes me laugh a little to myself. These unrighteous people boast themselves to be wise when they are really fools (22). Have you ever heard someone go on and on about how wise they are? You know that you think to yourself, "When will this idiot just be quiet?!" That is a characteristic of an unrighteous person! If you notice, all these attributes deal with faith and trust as well. There is a huge difference. The righteous man believes himself to be lacking and trusts in God and His Son. The unrighteous man believes God to be lacking and trusts in his own way. Verse 25 says that they "exchanged the truth about God for a lie." OUCH! What a substitute? I do not want to choose to be "duped." There are immense consequences for voluntarily being ignorant.
The consequences of trading the truth for a lie escalate in verses 24-32. If you notice, God is always in control. First God gives the unrighteous over to their own lusts. He says, "OK, have it your way. Enjoy your sin for the season." The unrighteous begin following the lusts of their impure hearts. The example given is that they dishonor their bodies among themselves. Unrighteous people love to fellowship with more unrighteous people. They love to be able to ''do whatever makes them feel good." They begin to "worship a creation" (25). Next, God gives them over to dishonorable passions. Here Paul references homosexuality. So people slide from their lusts and dishonoring their bodies (most likely through substance abuse and sleeping around heterosexually) to dishonorable passions of homosexuality. The unrighteous woman begins experimenting with lesbianism and the man begins flirting with being gay. The scary part of this section is that they will receive "in themselves the due penalty for their error." Continuing down the slope away from God, the unrighteous man is given up to a debased or reprobate mind. Paul has a very long list of sins that regularly make the headlines: murder, evil, slander, ruthlessness. HE also adds in that the unrighteous are disobedient to parents, are prideful, and gossip. Whoa! That does not even sound close to being on the same page as fornication, homosexuality, or murder! Furthermore, Paul says that people who practice these things deserve to DIE! HARSH, right?
When God looks that the unrighteous, He sees the SIN. God sees one ounce of sin, and He has no choice but to punish that sin because the sinner is not meeting the standards set by the Holy God. This is where the good news comes into play. God loved us so much that He compromised and sent His Son to pay the price and bear our iniquities upon Him that by His stripes, we may be healed (Isaiah 51). When I allow Jesus to use His blood to purchase me back from the kingdom of unrighteousness and to cleanse my sins, the Father looks at me and sees His Son. THIS is the power of the gospel.
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