Reasons For God’s Wrath: Man’s Religion (Part 2)

Romans 1:23

²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

Along with the rebellious, proud, vain, foolish, and darkened Gentiles, many Jews had also exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for that which is inglorious, shameful, and corruptible. They substituted the reality of the holy God for the vain image of every sort of His creatures.

And changed - This does not mean that they literally “transmuted” God himself; but that in their views they exchanged him; or they changed him “as an object of worship” for idols. They produced, of course, no real change in the glory of the infinite God, but the change was in themselves. They forsook him of whom they had knowledge Rom. 1:21, and offered the homage which was due to him, to idols.  It is important to note two things here.  First, it is not the perception of man that fashions God.  God has not arisen from out of man’s imagination.  There is an objective reality that is God in His heaven – and that man is responsible to worship and respond to rightly.  The second idea is that God had revealed Himself to men, and men had rejected that revelation and “changed” or “exchanged” the reality revealed in that revelation for something other that what it originally was.  We’re told what they exchanged it for in the last part of the verse. 

The glory - The majesty, the honor, etc. This word stands opposed here to the “degrading” nature of their worship. Instead of adoring a Being clothed with majesty and honor, they bowed down to reptiles, etc. They exchanged a glorious object of worship for what was degrading and humiliating. The glory of God, in such places as this, means his essential honor, his majesty, the concentration and expression of his perfections, as the glory of the sun, (1 Cor. 15:41) means his shining, or his splendor; (compare Jer. 2:11; Ps. 106:20).

The uncorruptible God - The word “uncorruptible” is here applied to God in opposition to “man.” God is unchanging, indestructible, immortal. The word conveys also the idea that God is eternal. As he is incorruptible, he is the proper object of worship. In all the changes of life, man may come to him, assured that he is the same. When man decays by age or infirmities, he may come to God, assured that he undergoes no such change, but is the same yesterday, today, and forever; (compare 1 Tim. 1:17).

Into an image - An image is a representation or likeness of anything, whether made by painting, or from wood, stone, etc. Thus, the word is applied to “idols,” as being “images” or “representations” of heavenly objects; (2 Chr. 33:7; Dan. 3:1; Rev. 11:4, etc. See instances of this among the Jews described in Isa. 40:18-26, and Ezek. 8:10).

In their spiritual blindness, intellectual darkness, and moral depravity, men are by nature inclined to reject the Holy Creator for the unholy creature. Because something even in their fallenness demands a god, but one they like better than the true God, they devise deities of their own making.

It is not incidental that the Ten Commandments begin with the admonition: “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them” (Ex. 20:3-5). Yet at the very time those and the other commandments and ordinances were being given to Moses, the children of Israel were making a golden calf to worship (32:1-6).

Although the Lord continued to warn

Israel and Judah, through all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets,” … they rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, and His warnings with which He warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations which surrounded them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them. And they forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves molten images. (2 Kings 17:13-16)

Man’s rejection of God and embracing of idols can be compared to a son who murdered his father and then made a dummy figure that he introduces to the world as his father. Yet what sinful mankind has always done and continues to do with God is infinitely more wicked and senseless than that.

The first creature man substitutes for God is himself, an image in the form of corruptible man. Instead of glorifying and worshiping God, he attempts to deify himself. Although he doubtlessly made this alleged statement in derisive sarcasm, Voltaire was correct in observing: “God made man in His own image and man returned the favor.”

To corruptible man - This stands opposed to the “incorruptible” God. Many of the images or idols of the ancients were in the forms of men and women. Many of their gods were heroes and benefactors, who were deified, and to whom temples, altars, and statues were erected. Such were Jupiter, and Hercules, and Romulus, etc. The worship of these heroes thus constituted no small part of their idolatry, and their images would be of course representations of them in human form. It was proof of great degradation, that they thus adored human beings with like passions as themselves; and attempted to displace the true God from the throne, and to substitute in his place an idol in the likeness of men.

Every form of idolatry is a form of self-worship, just as every form of idolatry is a form of demon, or Satan, worship. Whether his idols are fashioned out of his own depraved thinking or are inspired by Satan, every false god appeals to man’s fallen nature and entices him to glorify and indulge himself. In one way or another, all idolatry is worship of self and service of Satan.

The epitome of human self-worship will be that of Antichrist, who will demand that the entire world worship him in the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem (2 Thess. 2:3-4). As Satan’s supreme emissary on earth in the last days, Antichrist’s demand of worship will also testify that, despite his self-glorification, his real god will be Satan—just as every idolater’s real god is Satan.

“The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons,” Paul declared (1 Cor. 10:20). In other words, even though a person may make an idol of his own design and for his own purposes out of wood, stone, or metal, demons take advantage of that ungodliness by impersonating the characteristics the man-made god is supposed to have. Supernatural happenings have been reliably reported in pagan cultures throughout history and into modern times. Although Satan is limited in his power over nature and even in his own supernatural realm, Scripture makes clear that he is able to produce his own kinds of miracles, as Pharaoh’s sorcerers did before Moses and Aaron (Ex. 7:11, 22; 8:7). Just as Pharaoh’s satanically-empowered sorcerers demonstrated enough supernatural ability to keep that ruler’s heart hardened, Satan allows enough astrological predictions to come true and enough supernatural events to be manifested to keep his followers deluded (cf. 2 Thess. 2:9).

Nebuchadnezzar was perhaps the greatest monarch of the ancient world. But he became so enamored of his accomplishments that he ignored Daniel’s warning and arrogantly declared, “Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?” As Daniel goes on to report,

“…while the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will he with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whomever He wishes.” Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.” (Dan. 4:31-32; cf. vv. 19-27)

By exalting himself virtually as a god, the proud king exceeded the limits of God’s patience, and in an instant both his power and his sanity were forfeited for “seven periods of time” (see  vv. 25, 32), meaning perhaps seven months or even seven years.

“At the end of that period,” the king himself reported, “I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever” (v. 34). It would seem that his chastisement brought him to believe in God, and he ended his confession with the words, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride” (v. 37).