Reasons for Wrath: Man’s Rejection (Part 1)

Romans 1:21

²¹ because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

(Verse 21) - God is also justified in His wrath and judgment because of man’s willful rejection of Him. Because that - The apostle here is showing that it was right to condemn people for their sins. To do this it was needful to show them that they had the knowledge of God, and the means of knowing what was right; and that the true source of their sins and idolatries was a corrupt and evil heart.  Paul explicitly declares that though they knew God through this natural, general revelation (just described in the prior verses), unbelieving men still rejected Him. Although man is innately conscious of God’s existence and power, he is just as innately and wickedly inclined to reject that knowledge. The natural tendency of unregenerate mankind is to “proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13). As Paul reminds believers, “We also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy; hateful, hating one another” (Titus 3:3). This is important for us to understand.  It is NOT the natural capacity of man to understand and by that natural understanding come to salvation.  It is man’s natural tendency to move in the opposite direction away from God and from His salvation.  Nothing could be clearer in the Bible.

The Greek here is “knowing God.” That is, they had an acquaintance with the existence and many of the perfections of one God. That many of the philosophers of Greece and Rome had knowledge of one God, there can be no doubt. This was undoubtedly the case with Pythagoras, who had traveled extensively in Egypt, and even in Palestine; and also with Plato and his disciples. Yet the knowledge of this great truth was not communicated to the people. It was confined to the philosophers; and not improbably one design of the mysteries celebrated throughout Greece was to keep up the knowledge of the one true God. Gibbon, the great historian, has remarked that “the philosophers regarded all the popular superstitions as equally false: the common people as equally true; and the politicians as equally useful.” This was probably a correct account of the prevalent feelings among the ancients. “Cicero” tells us “There is something in the nature of things, which the mind of man, which reason, which human power cannot effect; and certainly what produces this must be better than man. What can this be called but “God?  What can be so plain and manifest, when we look at heaven, and contemplate heavenly things, as that there is some divinity of most excellent mind, by which these things are governed?”  This is typical of how the human intellect deals with the knowledge that General Revelation brings.  They catalogue it and archive it along side of all the rest of their knowledge – they do not treat it as serious truth.

A certain evolutionist said, “I refuse to believe in God, so what other alternative do I have but evolution?” The man was honest, but he gave clear testimony to the fact that it was not evidence for evolution that led him to disbelief in God but rather his disbelief in God that led him to embrace evolution.

Donald Grey Barnhouse made this potent observation:

Will God give man brains to see these things and will man then fail to exercise his will toward that God? The sorrowful answer is that both of these things are true. God will give a man brains to smelt iron and make a hammer head and nails. God will grow a tree and give man strength to cut it down and brains to fashion a hammer handle from its wood. And when man has the hammer and the nails, God will put out His hand and let man drive nails through it and place Him on a cross in the supreme demonstration that men are without excuse.

In verse 21, Paul mentions four ways in which men exhibit their rejection of God: by dishonoring Him, by being thankless to Him, by being futile in their speculations concerning Him, and by being darkened in their hearts about Him.

First, man fails to honor God as God. They glorified him not as God - They did not “honor” him as God. This was the true source of their abominations. To glorify him “as God” is to regard with proper reverence all his perfections and laws; to venerate his name, his power, his holiness, and presence, etc. As they were not inclined to do this, so they were given over to their own vain and wicked desires. Sinners are not willing to give honor to God, as God. They are not pleased with his perfections; and therefore the mind becomes fixed on other objects, and the heart gives free indulgence to its own sinful desires. A willingness to honor God as God - to reverence, love, and obey him, would effectually restrain people from sin. 

This is the basic expression of the root sin of pride which is at the core of man’s fallenness. The word for “Honor” is probably better translated here as glory, as it is in numerous versions. The worst deed committed in the universe is failure to give God honor, or glory. Above everything else, God is to be glorified. To glorify God is to exalt Him, to recognize Him as supremely worthy of honor, and to acknowledge His divine attributes. Since the glory of God is also the sum of all the attributes of His being, of all He has revealed of Himself to man, to give God glory is to acknowledge His glory and extol it. We cannot give Him glory by adding to His perfection, but by praising His perfection. We glorify Him by praising His glory!

Scripture continually calls upon believers to glorify the Lord. David admonishes us: “Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name” (Ps. 29:1-2). “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do,” Paul says, “do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). One day the twenty-four elders will fall down before Christ on His heavenly throne and declare, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created” (Rev 4:11).

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism eloquently declares, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Man was created to glorify God (see Lev. 10:3; 1 Chron. 16:24-29; Ps. 148; Rom. 15:5-6), and for him to fail to give God glory is therefore the ultimate affront to his Creator.

After they were created in God’s own image, Adam and Eve continually experienced God’s presence and glory. They communed directly with Him and they praised Him and acknowledged His glory and honor. But when they sinned by disobeying God’s command and seeking to gain glory and honor for themselves, they “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3:8). Sin brought separation from God, and Adam and Eve no longer sought God’s presence or yearned to bring Him glory. Ever since that time, fallen man has sought to avoid God and to deny His glory and even His very existence.

Throughout Scripture, God has revealed many elements of His glory. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, the Lord manifested His goodness, graciousness, and compassion, saying, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (Ex. 33:19). The Lord placed Moses in the cleft of the rock and covered him with His hand, lest he see His full glory and be consumed. He then allowed Moses to view Him partially from behind as He passed by. As God presented Himself before Moses, He also gave a litany of His divine attributes, declaring, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger; and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin” (Ex. 33:20-34:7).

Although He had delivered them from bondage in Egypt and given them His holy law by which to live, the people persistently rebelled against God and against His appointed leader, Moses. Yet God continued to manifest His glory to His chosen people. After the Tabernacle was built, the Lord filled it with His glory as the sign of His divine presence with His people (Ex. 40:34). As Israel moved about in the wilderness for forty years, God manifested His presence and His glory through the pillar of cloud that guided them by day and the pillar of fire that reassured them by night (vv. 36-38). After the Temple was built by Solomon, the cloud of the Lord’s glory filled the holy place there (1 Kings 8:11). Yet Israel continued to rebel against the Lord through countless kinds of false worship (see Ezek. 8:4-18). When she persistently refused to turn from her sin, God’s glory eventually departed from the Temple (Ezek. 11:22-23), and at that point the theocratic kingdom of Israel came to an end.