Homily 3 — Romans 1, verses 18 to 25

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.” [a]

Notice Paul’s good judgment: after encouraging them with the gentler things, he turns his message to the more fearful ones. He has said that the good news is the cause of salvation and of life, that it is the power of God, that it produces salvation and righteousness; now he speaks of what could well make those who ignore it afraid. Since most people, generally speaking, are drawn less by the promise of something good than by the fear of something painful, he draws them from both sides. This is also why God not only promised a kingdom but also threatened hell. The prophets, too, spoke to the Jews this way, always mixing the evil with the good. For this reason Paul varies his message as well — and not in just any order. He puts the good things first and the evil ones after, to show that the first came from God’s own guiding purpose, while the second came from the wickedness of those who fall away. That is how the prophet puts the good first when he says, “If you are willing and obey me, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you are not willing and do not obey me, the sword will devour you” (Isaiah 1, verses 19 and 20). Paul conducts his message the same way here.

But look at what he is saying. Christ came, he means, to bring forgiveness, righteousness and life — and not in just any way, but by the cross. And this is the greatest and most wonderful thing: not only that he gave such gifts, but that he also suffered such things. So if you arrogantly scorn the gifts, the penalties will be waiting for you. And see how he raises his tone: “For the wrath of God,” he says, “is revealed from heaven.”

Where is the evidence for that? If it is a believer who asks, we will tell him what Christ declared. But if it is the unbeliever, the Greek, Paul silences him with what he says a little later about God’s judgment, bringing an undeniable demonstration from the things those people themselves did. And this is by far the most striking thing about him: he shows the very people who speak against the truth bearing witness to the teachings of the truth by what they do and say every day. But more of that later; for now, let us keep to what is in front of us.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.” And indeed, even here this often happens, in famines and plagues and wars, for individuals and whole peoples alike are punished. What, then, will be new? That the punishment will be greater, will fall on everyone together, and will not follow the same rules. What happens now is for correction; what happens then will be for vengeance. Paul showed this too when he said, “We are disciplined now so that we will not be condemned with the world” (First Corinthians 11, verse 32). And now, to many people, such things usually seem to come not from the wrath above but from human malice. But then the punishment from God will be plain for all to see, when the Judge, seated on that fearful judgment seat, orders some to be dragged to the furnaces, some to the outer darkness, and some to other punishments that are relentless and unbearable.

Why, then, does he not say it as plainly as this — “The Son of God is coming with ten thousand angels and will call each person to account” — but says instead that “the wrath of God is revealed”? His hearers were still beginners, so he first draws them with things they fully accepted. Besides what has been said, he also seems to me to be aiming at the Greeks. That is why he begins here, and only afterward brings in the subject of Christ’s judgment.

“Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Here he shows that the ways of ungodliness are many, while the way of truth is one. Error is varied, takes many shapes, and is made up of many parts; but the truth is one. After speaking of doctrine, he speaks of how people live, mentioning the unrighteousness of men. For there are different kinds of unrighteousness too. One has to do with money, as when someone deals unrighteously with his neighbor in money matters. Another has to do with women, when a man leaves his own wife and breaks into another man’s marriage; Paul calls this defrauding too, when he says, “that no one should overstep and defraud his brother in this matter” (First Thessalonians 4, verse 6). Others again wrong neither their neighbor’s wife nor his property, but his reputation, and this too is unrighteousness, for “a good name is better than great riches” (Proverbs 22, verse 1). Some, however, say that Paul says this too about doctrine. Still, nothing prevents its being said of both. But what it means “to hold the truth in unrighteousness,” learn from what follows.

Verse 19: “Because what can be known of God is plain in them, for God has shown it to them.”

But they draped this glory on blocks of wood and stone. Think of a man entrusted with the king’s goods and ordered to spend them on the king’s glory. If he wastes them on robbers and prostitutes and sorcerers, and makes those people splendid out of the king’s stores, he is punished as one who has done the kingdom the greatest wrong. So too these people: after receiving the knowledge of God and of his glory, they draped idols with it. They “held the truth in unrighteousness,” and, as far as it lay in their power, they wronged that knowledge by not spending it on fitting objects. [c]

Now, is what I have said clear to you, or must I make it clearer still? Perhaps I need to say a little more. What is it, then, that is being said here? God placed the knowledge of himself in human beings from the beginning. But they draped wood and stone with this knowledge, and so wronged the truth, at least as far as they could. For the truth itself stays unchanged, and its glory cannot be altered. “And how is it plain, Paul, that he placed this knowledge in them?” “Because,” he says, “what can be known of him is plain in them.” “But that is a statement, not a proof. Make it good: show me that the knowledge of God was plain to them, and that they turned aside willingly.” How, then, was it plain? Did he send them a voice from above? Not at all. But he did what was able to draw them to him more than a voice could: he set the creation before them, so that the wise and the unlearned, the Scythian and the barbarian, having learned through sight the beauty of the things that are seen, might climb up to God. That is why he says, in verse 20, “For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” The prophet said this too: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19, verse 1).

For what will the Greeks say on that day? “We did not know you”? Did you not hear the heavens sending out a voice through what you saw, while the well-ordered harmony of all things spoke more clearly than a trumpet? Did you not see the hours of night and day keeping their course without fail, the beautiful order of winter, spring and the other seasons remaining sure and unshaken, the sea’s obedience amid all its turmoil and waves? Did you not see all things keeping their order, and by their beauty and their grandeur proclaiming the Creator aloud?

Paul sums up all these things, and more than these, when he says, “The invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and divinity, so that they are without excuse.” Yet God did not make these things for this purpose, even if this is what came of it. It was not to strip them of every excuse that he set such a great school of instruction before them, but so that they might come to know him. But by not recognizing him, they stripped themselves of every excuse. Then, to show how they lost their excuse, he says, in verse 21, “Because, when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God.”

This is the single greatest charge; the second after it is that they also worshiped idols — as Jeremiah said in accusing them, “This people has committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns” (Jeremiah 2, verse 13). Then, as a sign that they had known God and had not spent their knowledge on a fitting object, he offers this very fact: that they knew of gods. That is why he adds, “because, when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God.” [d]

He also names the cause through which they fell into such senselessness. What is it? They trusted everything to their own reasonings. He does not word it that way, though, but much more sharply: “but became futile in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Picture someone on a moonless night trying to travel an unfamiliar road or sail an unfamiliar sea: far from reaching his destination soon, he will quickly be lost. So it was with them. They tried to go the way that leads to heaven, but they destroyed the light within themselves and trusted themselves instead to the darkness of their own reasoning. They looked in bodies for him who has no body, and in shapes for him who has no shape, and so they suffered a most pitiful shipwreck.

Besides what has been said, he names yet another cause of their error when he says, in verse 22, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” Having a great opinion of themselves, and not bearing to go the way God had commanded them, they were plunged into senseless reasonings. Then, to show in outline what a pitiful surge it was, and how inexcusable, he goes on to say, in verse 23, “And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”

The first charge is that they did not find God. The second is that they failed although they had great and clear means of finding him. The third, that all the while they claimed to be wise. The fourth, that they not only failed to find that august Being, but even brought him down to demons and to stones and blocks of wood. He humbles their arrogance in the letter to the Corinthians too, but not in the same way there as here. There he strikes them from the cross, saying, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men” (First Corinthians 1, verse 25). Here, without any comparison, he holds their wisdom up to ridicule on its own, showing it to be folly and a mere display of empty boasting. [e]

Then, so that you may learn that they had the knowledge of God and then treacherously gave it up, he says, “they changed.” Whoever changes something has something to change. They wanted to find out more, and would not stay within the limits given them, and so they were driven out even from these. They craved new inventions — that is what the whole Greek way is like. That is why they rose up against one another: Aristotle rose up against Plato, and the Stoics blustered against him, and one became hostile to one, another to another. So one should not so much admire them for their wisdom as turn away from them in indignation and hate them, because through this very wisdom they became fools. If they had not trusted what they had to reasonings and syllogisms and sophistries, they would not have suffered what they did.

Then, to strengthen the charge against them, he holds their whole idolatry up to ridicule. In the first place, even the changing would deserve scorn; but to change it into such things as these is beyond all excuse. What, then, did they change it into? What did they drape with his glory? They ought to have had certain ideas about him: for instance, that he is God, that he is Lord of all, that he made them when they did not exist, that he exercises providence, that he cares for them. These things are “the glory of God.” To whom, then, did they give it? Not even to human beings, but “to an image made like corruptible man.” Nor did they stop there; they sank even to the beasts — or rather, to images of beasts. But notice, please, Paul’s wisdom: he has taken the two extremes, God the highest and creeping things the lowest — or rather, not the creeping things themselves but their images — to show their obvious madness clearly. The knowledge they ought to have had about him who is incomparably more excellent than all things, they draped on what is incomparably more worthless than all things.

“But what does this have to do with the philosophers?” someone may say. What I have said applies to them most of all. They had the Egyptians, who invented these things, as their teachers; and Plato, who is considered more reverent than the rest of them, takes pride in these teachers. And his own teacher stands in foolish awe of these idols, for it is he who tells them to sacrifice the cock to Asclepius, in whose temple are images of these beasts and creeping things. One can see Apollo and Bacchus worshiped along with these creeping things. And some of the philosophers even raised bulls and scorpions and dragons, and all the rest of that nonsense, up to heaven. Everywhere the devil worked eagerly to bring people down before the images of creeping things, and to set beneath the most senseless of all things the one whom God willed to lift above the heavens.

Nor is it only from this, but from other grounds as well, that you will see their chief man falling under what has just been said. After collecting the poets and saying that we should believe them in matters concerning God, as people with accurate knowledge, he has nothing to offer but a smooth-sounding chain of these absurdities, and then says that this utterly ridiculous trifling is to be held as true.

Verse 24: “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the cravings of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves.” Here he shows that ungodliness was the cause even of the perversion of the laws. “He gave them up” here means “he let them alone.” When the commander of an army, with the battle pressing hard on him, retreats and goes away, he gives his soldiers up to the enemy — not by pushing them there himself, but by stripping them of his help. In the same way God left those who were not willing to receive what comes from him, but who were the first to leap away from him — though he himself had fully done his own part. [i]

Consider this. He set the world before them as a form of teaching; he gave them reason, and an understanding able to perceive what was needed. The people of that time used none of these things for their salvation; they twisted what they had received to the opposite purpose. What was to be done, then? Drag them by compulsion and force? But that would not make them virtuous. So it remained for him to leave them alone. And this he did, so that in this way, if in no other, having come to know by experience the things they craved, they might run from what was so shameful. If a king’s son dishonored his father and chose to be with robbers and murderers and those who break open tombs, preferring their doings to his father’s house, the father leaves him, let us say, so that by actual experience he may learn how far his own madness has gone.

But why does he mention no other sin — murder, for instance, or greed, or anything else of the kind — but only unchastity? He seems to me to be hinting at his audience at the time, and at those who were to receive the letter. “To uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves.” Notice the emphasis here; it is very severe. They needed no one else, he means, to do violence and outrage to them: the very treatment enemies would have given them, they gave themselves. Then, taking up the charge again, he says, in verse 25, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator.”

The things that deserved utter scorn he names one by one; what seemed more serious than the rest he puts in general terms. And through all of it he shows that serving the creature is the Greek way. See how strong he makes his statement: he does not simply say “they served the creature,” but “more than the Creator,” everywhere giving fresh force to the charge and, by the comparison, taking from them every ground for leniency. [j]

“Who is blessed forever. Amen.” By this he means that God was not harmed in the least, for he himself remains “blessed forever.” Here he shows that it was not to defend himself that God left them alone, since he suffered nothing himself. Even if they treated him with contempt, he was not treated with contempt, nor was any damage done to the dignity of his glory; he remains blessed forever. For if it often happens that a man, through philosophy, does not feel the insults people offer him, how much less would God feel them — the imperishable and unalterable Nature, the unchangeable and immovable Glory.

For people are made like God in this respect, when they do not feel what is done to them by those who want to injure them; when they are not insulted by those who insult them, not beaten by those who beat them, not mocked by those who mock them. “And how, in the nature of things, can that be?” someone may say. It can — yes, it is certainly possible — when you are not upset by what is done. “And how is it possible not to be upset?” someone may say. No — how is it possible to be upset? Tell me: if your little child insulted you, would you count the insult an insult? Would you be upset? Surely not. And if you were upset, would you not be ridiculous? Let us feel the same way toward our neighbors, and then we will feel no displeasure. Those who insult us are more senseless than children. [k]

And let us not even try to be free from insults, but, when we are insulted, let us bear them. This is the only secure honor. Why? Because the one is in your power, and the other is in someone else’s. Do you not see adamant throwing back the blows it receives? “But nature,” you will say, “gives it that property.” Yet you too have it in your power to become by your own free choice what adamant is by nature. How? Do you not know that the young men in the furnace were not burned, and that Daniel in the den suffered no harm? This can happen even now. Lions stand beside us too — anger and lust — with fearful teeth, tearing apart anyone who falls among them. So become like Daniel, and do not let these passions sink their fangs into your soul.

“But that,” you will say, “was entirely by grace.” Yes — because acts of free choice led the way to it. So if we are willing to train ourselves into a character like his, the grace is at hand even now. Even if the beasts are starving, they will not touch your body. If they were abashed at the sight of a servant’s body, what else can they do but keep still when they see the members of Christ — which is what we believers are? And if they do not keep still, it is the fault of those thrown to them. For many people spend lavishly on these lions: keeping prostitutes, breaking up marriages, taking revenge on enemies. So before they ever reach the bottom of the den, they are torn to pieces (Daniel 6, verse 24).

With Daniel this did not happen, and it would not happen with us either, if we were willing; indeed, something greater would happen than happened then. The lions did not hurt him; but if we are sober-minded, those who hurt us will even do us good. That is how Paul grew bright out of those who opposed him and plotted against him; so did Job out of his many scourges, Jeremiah out of the miry pit, Noah out of the flood, Abel out of the treachery, Moses out of the bloodthirsty Jews, and Elisha too. So each of the heroes of old came to be clothed with bright crowns — not out of ease and softness, but out of afflictions and trials. That is why Christ, knowing that this is the foundation of a good name, said to his disciples, “In the world you will have affliction; but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16, verse 33).

“Well,” they will say, “have not many been put to flight by these terrors?” Yes, but that came not from the nature of temptation but from their own slackness. But may he who “with the temptation also makes the way of escape, so that you may be able to bear it” (First Corinthians 10, verse 13) stand beside all of us and reach out his hand, so that, gloriously proclaimed as victors, we may win the everlasting crowns, through the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.