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As I meditate and consider the various words and phrases surrounding this text, I am looking for clues and connections that will lead like threads of gold to new insights. One method I use in my study is to condense sentences into their most compact form to more clearly see what is may be saying, since my mind can sometimes become easily confused with too many descriptives, adjectives etc. Then I also like to go back and check with the original language to find further clues that may expose even more hidden details and suggestions.
As I am looking at this sentence which includes v. 18 and 19 I find that the operative key words seem to come down to this – The wrath of God is revealed against men... who suppress the truth...because....
What my mind is grasping for is another analogy that depicts an obvious force, like the strength of a mighty river, that is being resisted. I recently used the analogy of a river for white-water rafting or tubing in the context of God's love and passion. Because I firmly believe that God's passionate love is really one and the same as what is interpreted as His wrath my fallen beings, that analogy still works very well. One does not necessarily notice the immense power of the current until they try to resist it.
That is the situation that I see emerging from these two verses. It is stated the truth being suppressed is evident within them and verse 20 expands that to say that it is also evident outside of them in all of creation. So when a person attempts to resist the obvious (like trying to conjure up rational excuses for evolution) they find themselves in intense resistance to self-evident truth. Living in that kind of lie requires tremendous amounts of denial and effort to justify and shore up untenable positions which is exactly what most of the world is doing today. It is almost a description of the classic question, “what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?” I think we may have just found the answer right here – the wrath of God is revealed. The laws of physics, which God invented in the first place, states that resistance produces heat. Given enough heat the elements composing that resistance will melt and disintegrate and “self-destruct”. Where does the blame lie? Well, that answer depends largely on how much you are resisting the real truth about God yourself. If one insists on clinging to the angry, vengeful God model of believing, then they will insist that the fault lies with God, that He runs out of patience and “gets even” with His enemies and explodes in (human style) wrath, torturing anyone who resists His overtures of affection for them.
This belief system is one of the most diabolical and heinous lies about God that Satan has ever invented. It is strongly promoted by nearly every world religion and assumed to be “gospel” truth by most Christians. Yet this teaching about God's character has caused more souls to turn away in sickening disgust from trusting themselves to God than possibly any other scheme of the Devil. No matter what version or variation of this belief we hold, if it includes believing that God's “wrath” is a reflection of sinful human wrath then we are attempting to force our view of God into our own image.
The very activity of teaching these ideas I believe is the suppression of the self-evident truth about God described in this passage. If this passage is to be understood, then we have to discover in the context clues as to what truth is being suppressed that causes the wrath of God to be revealed.
It is necessary to challenge the common assumption that the word “against” generally produces. The common belief is that it is God-initiated as well as a reflection of human-type wrath. When this assumption is allowed to go unchallenged we are already well down the road of misunderstanding and resisting the truth about God's character and personality, so we need to carefully consider what else this word may imply besides an angry God lashing out against homosexuals. Against can just as well be initiated by the resisters of God as well as from God's side of the relationship. So which side does the context reveal the resistance of “against” coming from?
It is extremely clear throughout the rest of the chapter and into the next that all of the resistance going on is coming from the side of sinners and not from God. God is simply being Himself, remaining consistent with “His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature”. He is an incorruptible God (23) so He cannot adapt to the faultiness that sin produces in those who were created originally in His image.
It is unrighteous people (opposite of righteous God) who suppress the truth, are without excuse, do not honor God or give thanks, profess to be wise but are fools, exchange the glory and truth of God for a lie, exchange natural function for unnatural and become filled with all the symptoms of unrighteousness described at the end of this chapter. And how does God respond to all of this? Does He get angry and thunder down condemnation on them? It simply states repeatedly that He gives them over to their choices and the natural consequences. The attribute that is revealed in these statements is more of a sad “releasing” of those who determinedly resist His love in contrast to a reactionary or arbitrary vengeance so often portrayed by religious philosophies. This is a most crucial truth that is foundational to correcting the lies about God and revealing the true righteousness of God to a confused and lost world frightened away from the very One who wants to save them.
If we do not want to be among those who are given over by God to the consequences of the lies of sin; if we do not want to be those who “exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image” of our own imagination that resembles the devil more than the truth about God, then we should take a serious look at accepting this beautiful truth about God that will liberate us from so many peripheral confusions and usher us onto the road to freedom in Christ.
