The Essence of Man’s Sinfulness (Part 1)

Romans 1:24-25

²⁴ Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

(Verse 24) – As we noted, Wherefore or Therefore refers back to the reasons Paul has just set forth in verses 18-23. That is, because they were unwilling to retain him in their knowledge, and chose to worship idols. Here is traced the practical tendency of paganism; not as an innocent and harmless system, but as resulting in the most gross and shameless acts of depravity.  Although God revealed himself to man (vv. 19-20), man rejected God (v. 21) and then rationalized his rejection (v. 22; cf. v. 18b) and created substitute gods of his own making (v. 23). And because man abandoned God, God abandoned men—He gave them over. It is that divine abandonment and its consequences that Paul develops in verses 24-32, the most sobering and fearful passage in the entire epistle.

God gave them up—He abandoned them, or he ceased to restrain them, and allowed them to act out their sentiments, and to manifest them in their life. This does not imply that he exerted any positive influence in inducing them to sin, any more than it would if we should seek, by argument and entreaty, to restrain a headstrong youth, and when neither would prevail, should leave him to act out his propensities and to go as he chose to ruin. It is implied in this,

(1)  That the tendency of man was to these sins; that it was a part of his natural makeup so to do.  He is not compelled by anything outside of himself toward sin – ultimately, that compulsion comes from within.  He is influenced and temped, but there is no controlling compulsion toward sin that is determinative in regard to whether or not that sin occurs.

(2)  That the tendency of idolatry was to promote them.  There are temptations and solicitations to evil, but they not controlling to the extent of compelling one to indulge in those sinful activities.  That which is compelling toward sin, determinative in its accomplishment, comes from within the individual as opposed to outside of the individual.

(3)  That all that was needful, in order that people should commit them, was for God to leave him to follow the devices and desires of his own heart; (compare Ps. 81:12; 2 Thess. 2:10, 12).  Having offered them mercy and their having rejected it; all that was needed for sin to be indulged in was for God to cease restraining them from it.  We ought to say a word about this – this does not make God the author of sin – that authorship arises from within the sinner, not from outside. 

The Greek word used for “gave over” or “gave up” is an intense verb. In the New Testament it is used of giving one’s body to be burned (1 Cor. 13:3) and three times of Christ’s giving Himself up to death (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5:2, 25). It is used in a judicial sense of men’s being committed to prison (Mark 1:14; Acts 8:3) or to judgment (Matt. 5:25; 10:17, 19, 21; 18:34) and of rebellious angels being delivered to pits of darkness (2 Pet. 2:4). It is also used of Christ’s committing Himself to His Father’s care (1 Pet. 2:23) and of the Father’s delivering His own Son to propitiatory death (Rom. 4:25; 8:32).

God’s giving over sinful mankind has a dual sense. First, in an indirect sense God gave them over simply by withdrawing His restraining and protective hand, allowing the consequences of sin to take their inevitable, destructive course. Sin degrades man, debases the image of God in which he is made, and strips him of dignity, peace of mind, and a clear conscience. Sin destroys personal relationships, marriages, families, cities, and nations. It also destroys churches. Thomas Watson said, “Sin … puts gravel in our bread [and] wormwood in our cup”.

Fallen men are not concerned about their sin itself but only about the pain from the unpleasant consequences sin brings. Someone has well said that sin would have fewer takers if the consequences were immediate. Many people, for example, are greatly concerned about venereal disease but resent the suggestion of avoiding it by restraining sexual promiscuity and perversions. Instead of adhering to God’s standards of moral purity, they attempt to remove the consequences of their impurity. They turn to counseling, to medicine, to psychoanalysis, to drugs, to alcohol, to travel, and to a host of other means to escape what cannot be escaped except by the removal of their sin.

It is said that an ermine would rather die than defile its beautiful coat of fur; the animal will go to incredible lengths to protect it. Man does not have such an inclination concerning the defilement of sin. He cannot keep himself pure and has no natural desire to do so.

Not all of God’s wrath is future. In the case of sexual promiscuity - perhaps more specifically and severely than in any other area of morality - God has continually poured out His divine wrath by means of venereal disease. In regard to countless other manifestations of godlessness, He pours out His wrath in the forms of the loneliness, frustration, meaninglessness, anxiety, and despair that are so characteristic of modern society. As sophisticated, self-sufficient mankind draws further and further away from God, God gives them over to the consequences of their spiritual and moral rebellion against Him. One writer said, “Without God there are no abiding truths, lasting principles, or norms, and man is cast upon a sea of speculation and skepticism and attempted self-salvation”.

The divine abandonment of men to their sin about which Paul speaks here is not eternal abandonment. As long as sinful men are alive, God provides opportunity for their salvation. That is the marvelous good news of God’s grace, which Paul develops later in the epistle. Like her Old Testament namesake, the Jezebel who was misleading the church at Thyatira was the embodiment of idolatrous, immoral godlessness, yet the Lord graciously gave her opportunity to repent (see Rev 2:20-21). Despite His righteous wrath against sin, God is patient toward sinners, “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

After giving a list of sins similar to that in Romans 1:29-31, Paul reminded the Corinthian believers, “And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). It is sin that makes the gospel of salvation necessary and that makes God’s offer of salvation through Christ so gracious.

In a second, direct sense God gave … over rebellious mankind by specific acts of judgment. The Bible is replete with accounts of divine wrath being directly and supernaturally poured out on sinful men. The flood of Noah’s day and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, for example, were not indirect natural consequences of sin but were overt supernatural expressions of God’s judgment on gross and unrepentant sin.

God often allows men to go deeper and deeper into sin in order to drive them to despair and to show them their need of Him. Often He punishes men in order to heal and restore (Isa. 19:22).

To uncleanness - To impurity, or moral defilement; particularly to those impurities which he proceeds to specify, Rom. 1:26, etc.  It was because the lusts of their hearts were for impurity that God abandoned men to their sin. Men’s lostness is not determined by the outward circumstances of their lives but by the inner condition of their hearts. A person’s sin begins within himself. “For out of the heart,” Jesus said, “come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man” (Matt. 15:19-20). Jeremiah had proclaimed the same basic truth: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9; cf. Prov. 4:23).