Romans Chapter 1:18-32
In order to show that the world actually needs the gospel (1:16), Paul proves that the Gentiles, individually and as a group, are justly condemned by God’s law, because they indeed have known God and His law, and have broken it. The reason why only the righteous will live by faith is because there is no other viable option. “Paul has just stated what the gospel is; he now goes on to show the necessity for such a gospel. The world is lost without it” (Cottrell p. 133). “Paul is about to expound a wonderful salvation. But first he establishes the need for it. Many of his contemporaries did not agree, with the result that his message seemed foolishness to them. Many of our contemporaries do not agree with him either, with the result that his words are incomprehensible to them, too. It has always seemed to most people that they are, on the whole, pretty decent people. But for Paul the significant thing is not that people have met their own standard but that they have not met God’s. They have come short of His demand. They are in the greatest of danger because they are subject to His wrath” (Leon Morris p. 73). Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness” “For”: Introducing the great need for a way of making people right with God, all unrighteousness faces God’s wrath. “He shows why it is so urgently necessary that the way to get right with God should be known. There is a moral law in life that men are left to the consequences of their own freely chosen course of action, and unless this tendency is reversed…their situation will go from bad to worse. “He begins with an area of human life whose moral bankruptcy was a matter of general agreement among moralists of the day. What is the cause, he asks, of this appalling condition that has developed in the world? Whence come these shameful perversions….it all arises, he says, from wrong ideas about God. And these wrong ideas of God did not arise innocently” (F.F. Bruce, pp. 81,82). “The wrath of God”: “The gospel is necessary because there is such a thing as the wrath of God” (Leon Morris p. 75). While many people do not like to think that God expresses wrath, we need to realize that wrath is just as much a part of God’s nature as is love. “Paul is clear that God is not passive in the face of sin. God is implacably and vigorously opposed to every evil” (p. 75). “God’s wrath is a fearsome reality. We must never weaken its force by separating it from the nature and will of God” (Cottrell p. 134). Neither can we attempt to make God’s wrath some impersonal force. “God’s wrath should not be compared with frivolous, impetuous, capricious human anger” (p. 134).