The Wrath of God Revealed (Rom. 1:18)

 

Last Sunday, William reminded us that this world is like a building on fire.  It’s not something to love; it is something to flee. I would like to begin this morning by modifying that metaphor just a bit.  Think of this world as a condemned building.  There are indications in the structure itself that it is a dangerous place to live.  There are also signs that have been put up telling you that the building is condemned and that on an appointed day charges will be set, and the entire structure will be destroyed and collapse as it is blown up.  That hasn’t happened yet, but the signs are everywhere that it will happen.  So wouldn’t it be strange to see a family with a moving van showing up and starting to unload their belongings and to take them into the building?  Wouldn’t you think that is not only strange but really crazy and dangerous?

When Lot and his wife and two daughters left Sodom and Gomorrah, God hadn’t started raining fire down upon those cities yet.  I wonder if this is one of the reasons Lot’s wife looked back – not only out of a longing for what she was having to leave behind, but also out of an unbelief that God was really going to do what the angel said he was going to do.

In many ways, we are like Lot’s family.  We have been told to get out of Dodge, to look not behind us, neither to stay in all the plain, but to flee for our lives.  We have been told to leave this world, to turn from Babylon, to touch not the unclean thing, to save ourselves from this untoward generation.  And the reason we are told to do this is because, as the apostle John reminds us, “the world is passing away, and the lust thereof, but the one who does the will of God abides forever” (1 Jn. 2:17).  The question is, Do we believe that? 

The reason why this world, thought of in terms of humanity in rebellion against God, is passing away is because as the Scriptures everywhere remind us and as Paul himself here reminds us, the wrath of God is coming.  “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” Paul says.  What we will see is that Paul is not just thinking in terms of the Final Judgment here, but also in terms of the structural damage that sin and wickedness has done and is doing to the human race.  He is going to tell us that part of this revelation of the wrath of God is God giving people over to their lusts when they exchange the worship of the Creator for the creature.  This, it seems, is the primary lesson that he is going to teach us here in the remainder of the first chapter.  Sin itself is a punishment for sin.  Giving people over to unreasonable and unnatural desires is itself a manifestation of the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

But that’s not all.  I think some people would be content to say that God’s wrath should only be thought of in terms of what happens in human history, a sort of karma.  However, to limit it to that would be to severely and seriously truncate the Biblical witness.  It would be to truncate Paul’s own witness.  This is not the only place the apostle speaks of the wrath of God.  In the second chapter, he will say, speaking to hypocritical moralists: “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile” (Rom. 2:5-9).  You will notice that he speaks of the judgment of God, not as present, but as future and inevitable.  And he speaks of it very clearly in terms of the wrath of God that will bring “tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil.”

In chapter 5:9 Paul speaks of salvation in terms of being saved from the wrath of God, and in 9:22 he talks of the wicked as “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,” and he contrasts this in the very next verse with “vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.”  

In other words, it’s like the way Paul put it to Timothy: “Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Tim. 5:24).  Sometimes the punishment of sin begins in the here and now.  For others, we have to wait until the future judgment to see sin punished.  Either way, God will punish sin.  There are cracks in the structure, but that does not mean that future demolition isn’t coming.  In fact, the cracks in the present are really in some sense warning signs for the future demolition, the future judgment of God upon sin.

Paul teaches us about the doctrine of God’s wrath upon this condemned world in this verse.  As we think about the Biblical witness to this important doctrine, I want us to consider three things.  First, the reality of God’s wrath.  Second, the recipients of God’s wrath.  And finally, the rescue from God’s wrath.

The Reality of God’s Wrath

Now I want to stay here in verse 18 and stress this because we need to be reminded again and again that God is holy and that one of the implications of that holiness is his wrath.  Over and over people, not only outside the church (we would expect that), but also from within the church have risen to say that God doesn’t have wrath, doesn’t exercise wrath, doesn’t punish sin.  They will eviscerate the cross of our Lord of any mention of God’s wrath against sin.  Not long ago, there was a Christian denomination that wanted to use the Getty’s hymn, “In Christ Alone,” but they didn’t like part of the lyrics and they asked the Gettys for permission to change it.  The line in question was, “’Til on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.”  They wanted to take out any mention of the satisfaction of the wrath of God in connection with the cross; they thought it was unworthy of God and the cross of Christ to speak in that way.  I think they wanted to substitute something like, “the love of God was magnified.”  To the Gettys credit, I believe they denied the request.  Good for them!  We need to stick to the Biblical witness.

You see, we will always have to struggle with the age-old problem of following your heart, your feelings, and to use that as the ultimate authority.  Why do people reject any concept of the wrath of God? It is partly because they have abandoned the authority of the Bible and they have substituted their own feelings in its place.

This is why it is important for us to really humble ourselves before God’s word and to submit our hearts as well as our intellects to it.  And this means that we not only need to be willing to use the language of Scripture but to mean what the Bible means by that language.  There is no doubt that the old liberalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century advanced in a sort of underhanded and secretive way by using Biblical and orthodox language but by meaning something entirely different by it.  But I would argue that this is still a danger today.  I want you all to understand that just because someone uses Christian language doesn’t mean they are a Christian.  In fact, one of the tale-tale signs of slippage from the faith is when people say they love Jesus but don’t like doctrine about Jesus.  If you hear someone say that, a reg flag should go up immediately in your mind.  Listen, you can’t really love the Lord and not love his teaching, his doctrine.  Faithfulness to Christ is faithfulness at least in part to his doctrine.  It means being careful about words and meaning.  It may be more than that, but it is not less than that.  There are people who say they are Christian but who do not hold to true doctrine about Christ, and we have to say with the apostle, “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 Jn. 1:9-11).

No where is this more needed that when it comes to the doctrine of God.  People say all the time, when they are confronted with the Biblical portrayal of God, “Well, I don’t think God is like that.”  It doesn’t matter what you think!  What matters is how God has revealed himself.  He has done that clearly and authoritatively in the pages of Scripture.  If you want to know what God is like, you need to turn to the prophets and the apostles.

What the Bible says is that God is holy.  Though this is more than just his purity of character, it is not less than that.  The Bible itself says of God, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13).  When Isaiah was confronted with the holiness of God, his immediate response was not, “Look how small I am!” (which of course would have been completely appropriate) but rather, “Woe is me, for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5).  Because God is holy, he hates sin and someone like Isaiah who is confronted with God’s holiness is going to be instantly aware of that.  Hatred is the proper response to sin and evil, because it is God’s response to sin and evil.  Because of that, it ought also to be our response to evil.  “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil” (Ps. 97:10).  “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Rom. 12:9).

That brings us to the wrath of God.  What is the wrath of God?  It is God’s settled opposition to sin.  Because God is holy he must be opposed to sin; because God is holy he must have wrath.  And we are not talking about wrath in some abstract way; we are talking about wrath against those who refuse to repent of their sins.  Those upon whom God’s wrath comes are those against whom God is opposed, and that is a frightening position to be in.  

Again, God’s wrath is not a hypothetical possibility.  The Bible makes it clear that there are and will be people upon whom God’s wrath will come.  Listen to the way Paul will put it to the Ephesians: “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them” (Eph. 5:5-7).  Of course, we just finished the book of Revelation, and much of that book is about the pouring out of God’s wrath upon the unrepentant and unbelieving multitudes.  

You will sometimes get this response: “Oh, that is just Paul.  I don’t like Paul; I like Jesus.  Jesus would have never said that God’s wrath will be poured out upon anyone.”  But even that is wrong.  Of course, pitting Christ’s apostle against Christ himself is muddle-headed to begin with.  But in fact, no one spoke about the future judgment of God in terms of hell more than the Lord Jesus Christ.  Here is what he said in the Sermon on the Mount, for example: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mt. 7:13-14).  Or consider these words a few sentences later: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (21-23).  Actually, I can’t think of anything more sobering than that.  There will be people who don’t do God’s will, even though they claimed to do a lot in God’s name – even good things!  And these people will perish, they will depart from Christ to be damned: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (25:46).

The Recipients of God’s Wrath

God’s wrath is real.  It is his settled opposition to sin.  Now that leads to the question: How do we understand sin?  What is it?  What exactly is it that provokes the wrath of God?  

The apostle helps us out here as well.  He says that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven – that means that this is a revelation from God himself, this is something God himself is doing – and it is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.  It is so important for us to hear the way Paul describes the recipients of God’s wrath.  He uses two words to describe them: they are the ungodly and the unrighteous.  

Now I don’t think the apostle is being redundant here.  There is a definite reason why he uses the language he does, because there is a real and important distinction between ungodliness and unrighteousness.

I think the best way to put it is through a question someone asked the Lord.  They asked him which is the first, the most important, commandment in God’s law?  Here is the answer that the Lord gave to him: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Mt. 22:37-38).  But he doesn’t stop there: he goes on to give the guy more than he asked for: “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (39-40).  Note the distinction and the priority.  The first commandment is to love God with all your heart.  The second to it is to love your neighbor as yourself.  So I would put it this way: ungodliness is the failure to love the Lord your God with all your heart.  Unrighteousness is the failure to love your neighbor as yourself.  

Ungodliness comes first.  It is the more serious sin, and it is the more fundamental sin.  You could say that all human unrighteousness, all human failure to love one’s neighbor stems from a failure to love God first.

I think it is important for us to grasp this.  We don’t tend to think like this, which is another reason why it is so important for us to have our ears to the ground of God’s word.  God says that the most important commandment, the most important duty of mankind, is not how you treat your neighbor, whether that’s your wife, husband, child, parent, or the person who lives next-door.  The most important commandment is to love God with all your heart.  Not just to believe in him – the demons do that – but to love him.  And not just to love him, but to love him with all your heart.  The failure to do that is sin; it is ungodliness.

Paul will go on in the next few verses to talk about ungodliness.  It is manifested in exchanging the Creator for the creature.  It is manifested in idolatry.  It is manifested in the rejection of the God of the Bible as the object of the allegiance and the affection of our hearts and replacing that with something else.  We will see this worked out in verses 19-25.  Then in verse 26 through the end of the chapter you have a parade of acts of unrighteousness.  You see what he is doing?  Ungodliness leads to unrighteousness.  The first produces the second.

It is these upon whom God’s wrath comes.  “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (18).  Now I want to ask this question: how many of us can genuinely say that we have been godly?  How many of us can say that we have loved God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength?  It’s a lot easier perhaps to fool ourselves into thinking that we have loved our neighbors as ourselves.  It’s a lot harder to make the case that we haven’t been ungodly.  In fact, what the apostle is arguing here, and what we all have to agree with, is that all of us are ungodly.  None of us have loved God with all our heart.  And that means that we are legitimately the objects of God’s wrath unless something or someone intervenes to turn God’s wrath away from us.

Let’s just fast-forward a few verses into chapter 3 and see where Paul is going with this.  Here is the conclusion he is aiming for: “we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (Rom. 3:9-11).  No one is exempt.  We are all ungodly and all unrighteous.  And the wrath of God is revealed against us.  Paul will show in chapter 1 that the Gentile world is under the wrath of God and then in chapter 2 that the Jews are under the wrath of God.  The point of chapter 3 is to summarize his overall argument.  In other words, we all need to be saved from God’s wrath.  That is the Biblical witness.

Now perhaps someone will say that this is unfair, that God is not right in pouring out his wrath upon his unsuspecting creatures.  That’s the way a lot of us think, isn’t it?  Unsuspecting – we think that God hasn’t given us enough evidence to convince us about his wrath, and if he were just a bit less hidden, we would get our act together.  They think God hasn’t given them enough warning.  It’s God’s fault if they haven’t fled from the wrath of God.

Well, we will look at this further when we consider the next few verses, but for now I want you to notice how Paul describes the ungodly and unrighteous: they are those “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”  Paul does not let us off the hook here: he claims that all of us in one way or another hold the truth that we are sinning against.  We know what we’re doing.  He will close this chapter out by saying this about Roman and Gentile society: “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (1:32).

God will not judge people for rejecting what they do not know.  But here is the hard truth about the human race: we don’t even live up to what we do know.  None of us do.  No one is guiltless when it comes to the responsibility to love God with all their hearts.  But instead of doing this, we make idols for ourselves.  We put other things in the place of the true God.  And as a result, God’s wrath comes upon us.

By the way, there’s another way to translate the world “hold” in verse 18.  It could be translated “hold down” or “suppress.”  I think it comes to that whether you say “hold” or “hold down,” because of the words “in unrighteousness.”  What does it mean to “hold the truth in unrighteousness”?  Well, it means to suppress it.  It means that you know you ought to do something and yet you do the opposite.  That’s all of us, isn’t it?  

Now we are very lenient on ourselves.  We might be willing to say, “Yes, I acknowledge that I haven’t loved God with all my heart.  So what?  I don’t think that’s a big deal.  I think who wins the Super Bowl is a big deal.  I think how my investments do is a big deal.  But I don’t think loving God with all my heart is really a big deal and I don’t think he should send me to hell for it.”  And this is why we need to hear the Biblical witness.  We need to undeceive ourselves.  We will only be undeceived if we are willing to believe what Paul warns us here, namely, that it is a big deal, and the way we know it is a big deal is that God’s wrath is coming upon the ungodly and unrighteous who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

We are ungodly because we are idolators.  And we are idolators because we have suppressed the knowledge of the truth God with something much, much smaller and more manageable.  But the God who is, is not a manageable God.  He is not the “man upstairs.”  He is not a grandfatherly gentleman.  He is the Creator of the universe, the one who holds your breath in his hand.  He is the one in whom you live, and move, and have your being.  He is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.  He is the one who stretches heavens like a curtain.  There is no one like God.  We owe him our gratitude, our trust, our love and our obedience.  Instead, we find mind-numbing television more compelling than the worship of the God of heaven.  No, my friends, we are worthy of the wrath of God.

The Rescue from God’s wrath

Romans 1:18 wasn’t meant to be read by itself.  I thank God for that.  Paul expects us to keep reading and get to the solution to our problem, to the way we can be rescued from God’s wrath.  We will go on to see how Paul does this in the coming verses and chapters.  But it would be wrong for me to leave us here.  We need to know there is a way to escape God’s wrath.  So let’s look back up to the previous two verses: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed” (1:16-18).

The connection between verse 17 and verse 18 is that the righteousness of God has been revealed, not to judge us, but to save us from the wrath of God.  This righteousness is not our righteousness, but God’s, and it comes to us on the basis of the redemptive work of Christ alone, and it is received, not by works of merit but by faith in Christ, not by looking to ourselves and trusting in ourselves but by looking to Christ and trusting in him.  The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, and this salvation is salvation from the wrath of God!  

What will you do with this gospel?  Sometimes people will argue that you can be saved from God’s wrath apart from faith in Christ.  But that is not the Biblical argument; that is not Paul’s argument.  The apostle does not imagine people out there who are living up to the knowledge they have about God and being saved that way.  Instead, he argues that no one lives up to the knowledge they have; we are all ungodly, “by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).  One of the implications of this is that there is no salvation apart from Christ; the apostles make it pretty clear that there is no hope for anyone apart from faith in him.  “There is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  If you say that’s not fair, why?  Do you believe that salvation is by grace, or not?  If you believe that, it follows that God doesn’t have to save anyone.  We are all worthy of his wrath.  It is sheer grace and mercy that gives us a way of escape through Christ.  And it is therefore the greatest folly to turn away from Christ in unbelief.  If you refuse the gospel, if you turn away from Christ, here is how the Bible describes your future: “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:7-8).  And he will be perfectly just in doing so.  No, my friend, do not refuse Christ; embrace him by faith and be saved.  And we know that all who do so are being drawn by grace to grace, by the Father to the Son.  So hear the words of Christ and flee from the wrath of God: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:28-30).