I. Delivered to Corruption (Romans 1:24-25)
Herman Hoeksema
Standard Bearer, 1 February, 1997, vol. 73, issue 9; also in Righteous by Faith Alone, pp. 32-38)
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen (Romans 1:24-25).
Introduction
The main thought of this passage, in its context, can best be expressed by saying that sin is very successful and prospers in all that it wills, even unto the end. The reason for this prospering of sin is the wrath of God. The wrath of God prospers sin so that it reaches its purpose. From a spiritual point of view, the sinner does what he pleases. However, sin prospers more than the sinner originally planned. He cannot stop.
Let me use a figure. Suppose there is a steep, icy road that ends in a precipice. A man sets his feet on that steep, icy road. What will happen? He will go on. He will be prosperous in his slide down that road. Can he stop? No, he must go on. Why? You say, “Because of the law of gravitation.” Perhaps this is correct. But what is the law of gravitation? It is the unchangeable operation of God in things. God pulls that man down. Will God stop because a man puts his feet on that slippery road? No, God does not change. What must happen if that man is to stop halfway, or rather, if he is to go up that steep road instead of down? You say, “It would take a miracle.” This is a fitting illustration of the passage, in its connection.
The slippery road is the process of sin. The man that puts his feet on that road is the sinner, indeed, the whole world. On this slippery road, the whole world moves by nature. The power that pulls the world down is the unchangeable operation of the wrath of God. The wrath of God pulls man down from sin to sin, until he reaches the precipice. The only power that will not only cause man to stop, but also cause him to go up, is the gospel. This is why the gospel is the power unto salvation. This is why the apostle is not ashamed of this gospel.
“The wrath of God is revealed,” the apostle has said (verse 18). When the apostle says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, he does not mean that God in heaven is angry. But he means to say that there is an effectual operation of wrath in the world. This wrath is present. It is around us. It besets us on every side. It works. In the face of the operation of this wrath, men hold the truth under in unrighteousness. The truth is that God is God, that He is glorious, and that He must be praised and thanked. Men hold this truth under in unrighteousness. They want to be unrighteous. Therefore, they hold the truth under in unrighteousness. As soon as they do, wrath is revealed.
How? God’s wrath was revealed in that their hearts were darkened, so that they became religiously foolish. This is the punishment of their wanting to perform unrighteousness. Men held the truth under in unrighteousness, and God made them so foolish that they made themselves gods like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Having made these images, they went on; and their hearts become more darkened, until finally they believed that these images they made actually were God.
This is always the case. Some people, for example, will find all kinds of excuses for not sending their children to the Christian school. They know better. They know that they should send them to the Christian school. But they seek all kinds of excuses. Once having started on this road, they must go on until they finally believe their own excuses.
So it is here. Man said, “I do not want to serve and glorify God.” He held the truth under in unrighteousness. God said, “Go ahead.” Then man made images. He knew these images were not God. But God darkened his heart. Man was carried on until finally he believed that these sticks and stones actually were God. This is the course of sin. The next step is moral corruption. This is the inevitable result. A man is like his god. If he makes himself a god, he becomes like the god he makes. The reason is that wrath pulls him down. God brings His people into heaven. He also brings the wicked into hell.
This is the teaching of the text: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”
This is the development of sin. Only one power that can save man from continuing on this road of sin until he falls into destruction.
The Meaning
The text says that God gave them up to uncleanness. All sin is uncleanness. But if we read the rest of this chapter, we will see that the apostle means something specific. What the apostle means with uncleanness is that moral state of heart and mind in which man corrupts himself sexually. Moral filth is what the apostle has in mind. By this uncleanness, the apostle means that God gave them over to such a condition of the heart, will, mind and desires that they delight in sexual filth. The effect is that they dishonour their own bodies between themselves.
What the apostle means by this, he explains when he says that this moral corruption is such that men lusted after men, and women after women. It began with corruption in the spirit; it ends with corruption in the body. This is heathendom. This is civilized Greece and Rome. This is reality. This is still the case.
The text is an explanation of many things that we see around us. It is striking that the world that departs from God gives rise to all manner of uncleanness. Many of our movies would be out of business if it were not for the sexual filth shown in them. What is the reason for the sexually explicit pictures everywhere? Why must even ordinary ads contain unchastity? Unclean minds make unclean things. But remember, the text explains it as a manifestation of the wrath of God. The wrath of God brings men to hell. The wrath of God brings the world to destruction.
Mark well, the text says that God gave them over. People have tried to explain away the force of this word. They have even found in this chapter a classic proof for common grace. They say that God’s giving man over to uncleanness does not mean that God pushes man into sin. This, they say, would be contrary to God’s holiness. They say, rather, that it means God simply abandoned them. He simply let them go. He let them go as I let go my handkerchief so that it falls. God first held man back on the road of sin. This is called the restraint of sin. Then God let man go. He stepped out of man’s way so that He did not hold him back anymore. Man then slipped down on the road of sin.
This is not so. Did you ever see the law of gravity stop anyone from going down? Romans 1 teaches that the wrath of God pulls man down. The word used in the original does not mean “to let go.” It rather means “to push down,” “to deliver up.” It is the same word that is used for delivering a prisoner into prison. You do not deliver a prisoner into prison by letting him go and letting him walk into prison of his own accord. The same word is used for the deliverance of Christ into the hands of wicked men.
In this same way God delivers men unto sin. He does so in His wrath. The wrath of God is revealed; it operates in the world. The effect is that men become religiously foolish and morally corrupt.
The passage teaches, therefore, that God punishes sin with more sin. The road of the world is sin, wrath, more sin and more wrath.
The Manner
How does God do this? How does He do this without becoming the author of sin? How is it possible? How must it be explained that the wrath of God, which is the reaction of His holiness, brings the sinner deeper into sin? The text says that God does it through the lust of men’s hearts. God gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.
The heart is the centre of man’s life from a spiritual point of view. Out of the heart are the issues of life. All our thinking, our willing and our desiring issue forth from the heart. As the heart is, so is the man, spiritually, morally, ethically.
Now there is nothing wrong in the fact that the heart desires. The heart is made to desire. This is the purpose of the heart. But the normal desire of the heart, apart from sin, is that it desires after God. It desires to be pleasing to Him, to serve Him, to glorify Him. This is the normal desire of the heart. But these desires become lusts as soon as this heart turns away from God. Then the heart fastens itself on other objects, apart from God. It says, “I will no more serve God.”
Upon what does the desire of the heart fasten itself, if not on God? It fastens itself upon the creature instead of upon the Creator. It seeks things and it seeks to press these things into the service of unrighteousness. This is lust. There are many lusts in the world: lust of money, lust of honour, lust of position, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. The lust of money is that we press it into the service of unrighteousness. This is why we have an economic depression.
What does God do? He works upon these lusts by His anger. He does not let them go. He works in them. He works in everything. The purpose of God working in these lusts is to bring man as low as possible. Man says to a cow, “Thou art my god.” God says, “I will see to it that you fall as far below that god you made as a worshipper ought to be below his god.” Thus man comes to fall below the beast. He does things a beast will never do.
God does it! God says two things to the sinful world. He says, “I will take your heart and guide you in the direction that will bring you lower than the beast you serve.” He says also, “I will lead you to destruction.”
The Motive
Why? The final reason for God’s delivering sinners to destruction is expressed in the words, “Who is blessed forever. Amen.” The meaning is that God is the only good. Being the only good, He is the only Blessed One. He is the only Blessed One as the Triune God. As the infinite good, He wills to become manifest as the only Blessed One. He wills to become manifest as the One apart from whom there is no blessedness There may never be anything in which God does not become manifest as the Blessed One.
There are two ways in which God becomes manifest as the only Blessed One. He becomes manifest as such by blessing those who fear Him. But with this same unchangeable will to become manifest as the Blessed One, God assumes an attitude over against the wicked. The result is that God manifests His wrath by making the wicked unspeakably wretched. Antithetically, it becomes manifest that God is blessed forever. Joy and glory are a testimony that God is blessed forever. Wretchedness and misery testify, antithetically, that God is blessed forever. There are but two powers operating in history, blessing and wrath.
The wrath of God is revealed when men serve the creature more than the Creator. This does not mean that they serve the Creator, too, and that they serve the creature more. No, the meaning is that they serve the creature instead of the Creator. They change the truth of God into a lie. And God pushes man down until it becomes manifest that sin is sin.
I am not ashamed of the gospel. This is the positive thought. I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. It is a power on the slippery road on which wrath pushes man down and on which all find themselves.
How can man be saved? By means of instruction? This is impossible. Salvation is not a matter of education. Man wants unrighteousness. What will stop him? Shall we give him an example? There is no example. The whole world is on that path. No, there must be a power that can change that wrath into uplifting love. This power we have in the gospel. The gospel is a power. It is a power to lift man up.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is a power of God unto salvation. The righteous shall live by faith. He that believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
II. Given Over to a Reprobate Mind (Romans 1:28)
Herman Hoeksema
(Standard Bearer, 15 February, 1997, vol. 73, issue 9; also in Righteous by Faith Alone, pp. 39-45)
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:28).
In my explanation of verses 24 and 25, I compared the way and development of sin to a smooth and slippery road upon which the sinner slides down to destruction. He is forced down by a power which the apostle described as the revelation of the wrath of God.
God is the doom of the sinner.
We may compare the development of sin as described in these last verses of Romans 1 to an organic growth. Sin can never stop. It must continue to work until it has corrupted every relation of life. This is not due only to an inherent power of sin but it is also due to the fact that God works in sin. God is not the power of corruption. But God is the power that is able to cause the sinner to corrupt himself unto the very end. God works in sin, causing the sinner to go down from corruption to corruption and to destroy himself.
The beginning was that man did not want to glorify and thank God. By that beginning, man stands opposed to the ever present and ever living God. In His wrath, the ever present and ever living God stands over against that sinner who will not glorify and thank Him. This wrath pushes the sinner down.
The apostle mentions three stages in this awful process. In the first stage, the sinner becomes a religious fool, so that he bows down before an image made like unto corruptible man, and birds, and beasts, and creeping things. When man refuses to glorify and thank God, the first downward step is always that man bows down before an image. It makes no difference whether he carves this image in wood or stone, as the heathen did, or whether he carves it in his mind, as do the modernists of today.
The second stage the apostle pictures in verses 24-27. God gave them over, the apostle says, to the stage that makes them lower than the beast. If a man wants to worship the beast, why should he not become lower than the beast he worships? But wrath does not stop with this one sin. Sin does not stop. It goes on until it bears fruit in every relation of life; hence, the third stage is that God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.
What this means is described in the following verses. When God gives the sinner over to a reprobate mind, three things happen. In the first place, the sinner becomes filled with all manner of unrighteousness, such as fornication, wickedness, covetousness, and maliciousness. Being so filled with unrighteousness, he becomes filled with all vices, such as envy, murder, deceit, and malignity. The final result is that he begins to act. When God gives men over to a reprobate mind, they become whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud and the like.
Is there any hope? What shall we do in such a world? Shall we build up institutions of education? With these institutions of education, the world goes to hell.
Shall we reform this world? With this reformation the world goes to hell.
Shall we have federations? Men who slide down, when they federate, slide down together.
No, we shall say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”
The Meaning
The mind is man’s moral judgment. It is that faculty of man by which he is able to distinguish between good and evil. It is that faculty of man by which he can distinguish between the truth and the lie, between righteousness and unrighteousness. Not only does the mind distinguish but also it is that faculty that counsels the will. We might say that the mind is our moral attorney. It tells us what we should do and what we should not do. This is the function of the mind.
Now the text speaks of a reprobate mind. The original uses a word meaning a mind “not approved.” It refers to a mind that has been put to the test and has failed. It is a mind that has been condemned and rejected. It is a mind that does not function properly. The proper function of the mind would be to distinguish between what is good and what is evil. Having so distinguished, it is the function of the mind to persuade the will to determine what is good. The function of the mind is not only to distinguish between good and evil, but also to persuade the will to determine what is in accord with the will of God.
A reprobate mind functions perversely. Suppose that one must give testimony in a certain case. A reprobate mind distinguishes between what is the truth and what is the lie concerning this case; however, at the same time this mind compiles all kinds of lies and persuades the will to tell the lie. This is a reprobate mind, one that distinguishes between good and evil, but persuades one to choose that which is evil. Of this mind the apostle is speaking.
To this reprobate mind, God gave man over. This giving over is not meant in a passive sense. The word does not mean “to let go.” God cannot let things go. A God who lets things go, we do not fear. But the word means that God takes the sinner and delivers him up to corruption or, to change the figure, pushes him down from corruption to corruption.
God is the doom of the sinner.
When the text says that God gave man over to a reprobate mind, that is, when God gave him over to such moral judgment, the meaning is not that God makes man’s judgment corrupt. His judgment is already corrupt. The mind is already corrupt, when man refuses to glorify and thank God. It is already the judgment of a reprobate mind that changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image of corruptible man and of beasts. God had already given him over, when he fell into all kinds of bestiality.
Rather, the text means that God gave man over to bear the fruit of sin to its fullest extent in every relation of life. There is a working of God in man’s soul, in his mind, in his will, in his desires. This working is a working of wrath. God works in this mind in wrath. In what way? He causes this mind to bear all the possible fruits of sin.
What are the possible fruits of sin? The next verse tells us. The result of God giving man over to a reprobate mind is that he begins to bear every possible fruit of corruption, so that he becomes filled with every possible unrighteousness. He does not become totally corrupt. He already was totally corrupt. But he bears every possible fruit of unrighteousness.
When God influences the thistle, it bears fruit. When God influences the good tree, it brings forth good fruit. When He influences the corrupt tree, it brings forth corrupt fruit. When God influences the sinner, he becomes filled with every form of unrighteousness.
What is this? The description in verse 29 lists fornication, wickedness, covetousness (greed of every kind), and maliciousness (the desire to do someone wrong).
When he has borne this fruit in its general motives, he bears still more fruit. He becomes “full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity.” Under the influence of God’s wrath, the reprobate mind bears fruit.
So it was with the world of Rome. So it is with the world of today. If we scratch off a little of the varnish, what do we find? We find these things. These things are boiling at the fountain heads of the world.
The Result
What is the result? This is expressed in verse 28. Man does things that are unseemly. The inner motives bear fruit in actions. The man that is full of envy, etc., begins to act. What does he do? He does things that are unseemly. Notice that the text says that this is the intended result. “God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do things which are not convenient.” This is God’s purpose. This is the purpose of His anger. The purpose of God is not to hold the sinner back. The purpose is that the sinner become manifest in all his folly and corruption. If this is to become manifest, the sinner must act. God will not let the sinner rest until he does things in order that he may become ripe for judgment and that it may become manifest that God alone is good.
They do things that are not convenient, that is, things that are not fitting or proper. The emphasis of the text is that these things do not fit with the way God rules things. If I put my hand in the fire, God keeps right on working in that fire. The result is that I burn my hand. So God causes man to do things that do not fit with the way He rules.
What these things are the apostle indicates in verse 29 and following: whisperers (people who secretly talk about you), backbiters (wagging of the tongue when you are not present), haters of God (literally, in the original, hated of God), despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things (inventors of things with which to evil), disobedient to parents (setting aside all authority), without understanding, covenant breakers (unfaithful in any relation of life), without natural affection, so that the woman can give up the child of her bosom.
This is the result. This was the case in the Roman world. These sins came forth out of that one sin of not wanting to glorify and thank God. These sins lie at the bottom of the woe of the world of today. It is these sins that destroy the home, that destroy society, that destroy the world.
What shall we do?
I will go a step further. These sins are in your heart and in my heart. I do not mean to say that every one of these sins is in the heart of every individual, but all these sins are in the hearts of men in general, so that the one manifests this sin and the other another sin. These sins are in your heart and in mine.
This is the, doom of the sinful world.
God forces it down from corruption to corruption and into destruction, into hell.
The Reason
Why does God do this? The text explains it. The apostle says, “Even as” is the sin, so is the punishment.
“Even as.”
Even as what?
What was the sin?
The sin was that they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. That is, they did not want to keep the true knowledge of God in their mind. They knew God but they did not want to keep this knowledge of God in their mind. The original uses a strong expression. The original means they did not think God worthy to keep in mind. They knew God. They considered whether they would keep God in mind. They came to the conclusion that God was not fit to keep in mind.
Why?
Didn’t they know any better? Was it an error on their part? No. They wanted to live in unrighteousness. It was not an intellectual error. It was a moral question. They did not want to keep God in mind.
Even as they did not see fit to keep God in mind, so God gave them over to an unfit mind, to do things that are unfit. Why? Because it must become manifest that he who does not think God fit to keep in mind must run to destruction.
What shall we do? Nothing—not if our intention is merely to reform the world by all kinds of human acts.
What shall we do? We shall conclude that it is hopeless. It is the wrath of God that is at the bottom of it all. It is the wrath of God that is at the bottom even of war, of the present confusion of the world and of the depression.
What shall we do? Shall we call a Prayer Day? This is folly. Away with all that is of man! From the point of view of man, it is hopeless. Why? Because it is the wrath of God that takes hold of man and pulls him down into hell. Let us confess that it is hopeless.
What shall we do? We shall say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.” For what do we need? We need righteousness. We need holiness. We need a power to snatch us away from the wrath of God. The gospel is a revelation of the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Christ Jesus.
This gospel is a power. It is not an offer, but it is a power taking man out of the power of sin and lifting him up into the glory of everlasting life.
Hopeless, from the point of view of man and of the world!
Full of hope—in the cross of Calvary!
The righteous shall live by faith.
III. Does Romans 1:24, 26 and 28 Teach Common Grace?
Herman Hoeksema and Henry Danhof
(Sin and Grace, pp. 243-248)
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:24-28).
A popular interpretation and explanation of Romans 1:24-28 is as follows:
- In the old dispensation, a certain operation of common grace was revealed from heaven that checked sin and restrained the operation of destruction [occasioned by the Fall].
- However, God gradually caused this restraining operation to dwindle (diminish gradually). This is evident from the term “gave them over” that appears repeatedly in this chapter (Romans 1). This word means that God withdrew Himself. And, by this withdrawal or dwindling of common grace, man fell into all kinds of debauchery, which the apostle sums up in this chapter.
- That God caused His common grace to dwindle had its reason in idolatry. As punishment, God now held back His common grace and, consequently, sinful man cast himself into the debauchery and impurity mentioned here by Paul.
We wish to remark, first of all, that regardless of the exegetical problems, this is actually no explanation of the passage at all. The reasoning of Dr. Abraham Kuyper (who originated this interpretation of Romans 1) is that by God’s gracious “restraint” of sin, man still knew God and still possessed the light of God’s revelation in creation. Now a question arises: If the restraint of sin also implied that man knew God and thereby was kept from idolatry, how did he arrive at the first step in which he represented God as a beast or creeping animal? Before man could come to that, a dwindling or withdrawing of the common grace must have already occurred. There is no other possibility, unless you make the restraint of sin a resistible grace; and if it is that, then no dwindling is necessary, for then man can overcome God’s resistible grace.
The situation, according to Kuyper’s viewpoint, is therefore this: God first had to cause His common grace to dwindle so that man fell into idolatry. Then God caused His common grace to dwindle still more, so that man fell into the debauchery and filthiness mentioned here in this chapter. But if that is the case, the question arises, “Why did God cause His common grace to dwindle at all?” Dr. Kuyper still owes us an answer to that. This certainly is not an explanation.
But exegetically his explanation of the text is completely impossible.
We briefly follow the apostle in his argument:
The apostle is “separated unto the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1). The content of that gospel that he must proclaim in the world is that there is “a righteousness of God,” a righteousness prepared by God, a righteousness also given by God alone, and given only through faith. The gospel is therefore a power of God unto salvation.
Now the apostle says that he is not ashamed of the gospel of God. On the one hand, he is not ashamed of it because it is a power of God unto salvation. It gives a righteousness that is only from God and can only be accepted by God. On the other hand, he is not ashamed of the gospel because the world is in need of that righteousness. It has no righteousness of its own. Therefore, it also has no blessing. It has only wrath and the curse: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Take note: the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Paul sees in the world and its situation and history a revelation of the operation of God’s wrath. God’s wrath is over all ungodliness and unrighteousness of mankind.
The question is: In what does the apostle see that revelation of the wrath of God?
When the apostle looks around in the world, he sees amazing things. From a religious point of view, man has become a fool. In fact, here he sees someone bowing before an ox; there someone humbly bows before a snake; yonder man worships a frog; and elsewhere he lies in the dust in front of a man. Thus man is become foolish. He is confused, totally darkened. In this way, the wisdom of the world becomes a horrible spectacle. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22).
But there is still more. The apostle sees how, not only from a spiritual point of view man has become foolish and bows before man and beast, before four-footed and creeping things, but also from a moral point of view he has fallen into the horrible depths of debauchery. Men with men work that which is unseemly; women with women perpetrate impurity; men burn with lust toward each other and sink lower than the animal. There is no sin in the ethical realm which, according to the apostle, does not reveal itself in the deed (Rom. 1:26-32). That is how the apostle regards the world of his time: not the world of the [uneducated] Kaffir or Hottentot, but of the Greek and the Roman.
Now the apostle sets himself before the question, How did that come about? If you say no more, you can never explain this condition out of sin as such. That a man bows down before a frog or a snake is more than sin. It is also foolishness. That has not always been the case. Cain was just as spiritually dead as the Greek or the Roman. But he surely would not bow before a cow. He still knew God; it is deep misery, a horrible degeneration below the beast. Therefore, the question is this: How did sin develop to the point that man became so foolish, so miserable?
To that the apostle answers, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven” (Rom. 1:18). There has been an organic development of sin. On the one hand, the situation was such that God’s eternal power and Godhead were revealed in creation. Man stood amid the plain speech of God. Nor was it true that he did not know that speech. He clearly saw God in His work. He had natural light. He knew that God is eternal in power and godliness. He was aware that God must be served. Sin is not insanity; darkness is not ignorance. “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God …” (Rom. 1:19-21).
But even though that was the case, even though there was a manifestation of God, even though the light shone and man also saw this light, the darkness of sin was that he, sinful man, despised that light. Darkness is no ignorance, no lack of the consciousness of God, but rather enmity against God (Rom.8:7). That is what man revealed when he refused to bow before God and would not glorify or thank Him as God. Neither did Cain want this, although he was not as foolish as the Roman. That was man’s sin, for which he has no excuse. Is it not true, therefore, that God stood on the opposite side, revealing His wrath upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness? And the influence of that wrath of God upon that God-despising godlessness of man was such that man became foolish. God spoke in history: “If you, O man, standing amid my revelation, will not honour and thank Me as God, I cast you down in foolishness until you bow before a frog and a snake.” Thus, there is no restraining grace, but a wrath of God that in all the history steadily pushes deeper and deeper. This is taught by the apostle in Romans 1. That operation of wrath worked continually. God does not allow Himself, never allows Himself, to be mocked, not for a single moment in all history. He always remains the same. And the man who assaults Him is pushed away by Him (unless saving grace intervenes) until he finally ends up in outer darkness.
Therefore, God also gave them over to dissoluteness and filthiness whereby they continually became more miserable. Nor is the argument of the apostle that God stood idly by, withholding His restraining hand. The idea is rather that He revealed Himself in wrath in such a way that the bold sinner finally sank away into that which was lower than the animal. The “giving up” mentioned in Romans 1:24, 26 and 28 is not passive, but active; not negative, but positive. And then, obviously, not in this way: that God is the cause of sin. He does not cause man to sin, but in His divine wrath He guides the development of sin in such a direction that man makes himself dissolute.
This shows plainly that Romans 1 does not teach a restraint of sin, but an organic development of wickedness under the constant influence of the wrath of God, actively humiliating man and bringing him to foolishness and debauchery.
IV.
Herman Hoeksema also expounds Romans 1 in his booklet A Triple Breach:
Romans 1 teaches very clearly that there is a constant and general manifestation of the wrath of God over all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who hold the truth under in unrighteousness (verse 18). And this wrath of God over and against the wickedness of men becomes manifest especially in this: that God gives the ungodly over into worse corruption and deeper mire of sin (verses 24, 26, 28). And this wrath of God manifested in the “giving over” of the sinner into more sin and more corruption is revealed throughout all history, from its very beginning, according to the chapter, for it has its reason in the fact that man, knowing God, would not glorify Him as God, neither would be thankful, and this is true from the beginning of history to the present day. Hence, the chapter teaches exactly the opposite of the declaration of the Synod of Kalamazoo in the Three Points [of 1924]. The latter declares: that there is a general operation of grace by the Holy Spirit whereby corruption is checked in the nature of man. But the first chapter of Romans teaches: that there is a general operation of wrath, revealed by God from heaven, whereby man is given over from corruption to deeper corruption. Anyone may verify the truth of this explanation by following the reasoning of the apostle Paul in this chapter from verse 18 to the end.
