Deprived of Restraining Grace
“Rebellion” - Part 5
(This is the concluding article in this series on “Rebellion”)
God’s wrath of abandonment is stated in verse 18 stated, but the description does not begin until verse 24 with “therefore”.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
This is God’s wrath: God gave them up. God turns over the sinner to the sin within them, lets go of holding his hand, allows them to do what they want to do, and removes restraining grace. Sin is the cause, and further sin is the effect. If the sin of our culture today is not bad enough, the wrath of God leads to more widespread, blatant inequity as restraining grace is removed.
We should note the progression of God’s wrath, as it begins in verse 24. First, it is moral, sexual sin: pornea, fornication, a society abandoned to sex. When god abandons a society, it sinks into a pornographic environment. Our society has descended into the sewer of sexual immorality, and Divine judiciary action takes place as bodies continue to be dishonored in the culture. The obvious sequence of crime and then punishment is clearly seen: starts with the lust of the heart and shows up in the body–a society drowning in a sea of sexual inequity.
In verse 26, God then gives up the people to degrading passions. Going from perversion to inversion, the fallen society then is allowed to have vile desires and gross affections. Women are described as exchanging their natural function for that which is unnatural. Lesbianism comes first because it is the indicator of the true baseness of the culture. The last to fall into inverted perversion are the women, because they are given God designed instincts for the love, nurture and care of children, and for men as partners. When the women have succumb to the temptations of the flesh, then it is clearly seen that God’s restraining grace has been removed. They are the last to go in a fallen, depraved society. Scripture first refers to the degradation of women because they are the last to be affected by the decay of morality, proof that all virtue in the civilization has gone. After the female perversion is described, then men are described as burning for each other and committing shameless acts against one another. These homosexual men twist sex perversion to the point that it is perverted beyond normal. When a society goes plunging into a heterosexual revolution, and then plunges deeper into a homosexual revolution, we can be sure that God has removed restraining grace.
In the last stage of His wrath of abandonment, God gave them over to a depraved mind (verse 28). This is the worst of punishment of all because you cannot find your way back to sanity. Here, reasoning and thinking has been destroyed with the preoccupation with sex–no one can find their way back to morality and sensibility. The reasoning faculty is corrupt and the mind is tested and found useless, for it cannot get its way back to where it ought to be. As a result of this the society does the things that are not proper, not moral, not suitable for human beings. We can see this in our society everyday by simply checking the news, and because of this moral decay, we cannot and should not make our culture feel comfortable, for it needs to know that it is under Divine judgment.
Verse 32 shows that these people know the decrees of God because the law of God is written on all their hearts. Furthermore, we as a nation have been exposed to the revelation of God in Scripture. And so, there is the knowledge of law of God in the heart and in the revelation of God in Scripture. They know that to practice such immorality is worthy of death, since such knowledge is built into the fabric of God’s law written on their heart. Such innate morality usually produces a healthy fear and conscience, but still the people do what they do, and even give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Our society has a reprobate, depraved mind, and our entire nation and continent has lost any sense of what is right. Though it is true that not every single person has fallen into such immoral activity, the evidence of the abandonment of God as described here in Romans 1 is clearly before our eyes. There is no better sign that a society has been abandoned by God but that it will not tolerate anger against sin. We can see this in our nation’s acceptance of homosexual marriage and the egalitarian principles of equality for all people, even gays and lesbians.
How did we get here? How did this happen to our society? Quite simply, our nation has suppressed the truth, and our culture is constantly trying to suppress the truth by their ungodliness. As it says in John 3:19-20
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
God has divinely authored a moral and ethical standard that must be obeyed or there will be wrath in terms of his abandonment. If a society assaults or ignores the standard of God, or rejects/suppresses the word of God, they’re are going to feel the wrath of God. And in the paragraphs preceding the description of God’s wrath, we can see 4 steps leading up to the wrath of God.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
1. Revelation (v.19)
God has inlayed the evidence of spiritual and moral truth in the very nature of our being, so that we are without excuse to know what is right and wrong, and who God is. Ignorance is indeed no excuse since we have been given revelation of God so that we may know of Christ who is the living Word. And so, in the mind and soul, we have a reasoning faculty. Our ability to reason is a cause and effect process where we are driven back to the first cause: certain actions produce certain reactions, certain causes produce certain effects. The logical thinking process eventually brings us back to the original cause, where we should come to know where all things ultimately came from. As we see God’s power and nature on display, we also see in the glory of his creation goodness and beauty and even invisible Divine attributes with our minds.
Thus, we are doubly without excuse since the law of the Lord is written on our hearts, and God’s written Word has been given to us since our nation’s inception. We have received that general revelation in nature and special revelation in Scripture but, but we have rejected it.
2. Rejection (v.21)
Man having the truth, suppress it and reject it, and turn from it. Many of us know God, but many still do not honor or thank Him his revelation. These people turn from the truth given by God, and in pushing it away or running from it, the darkness of human folly overwhelms the mind and the heart
3. Rationalization (v.22)
Professing to be wise, they became fools. Through the wisdom of this world, these people thought there was nothing wrong in what they were doing and rationalized their actions calling it normal or even acceptable by society’s standards. Little did they know that the moral decay of the culture had plummeted beyond the point of no return.
4. Religion (v.23)
In verse 23 we can see that idolatry is the last step in leading to God’s wrath. Man trades God’s glory for images of themselves and earthly creatures, creating a religion for themselves. Man made religion thus is not man at its highest point, but rather, man at its lowest. It is here as man rejects the true God that he comes up with a false religion. Man does not ascend from the muck of paganism and ignorance to religion, but rather, he descends from the truth of God written in his heart, in the Bible and faulty moral reasoning in his mind down into the muck of satanic religion. Anything but the true religion in the one true and living God is the product of hell where doctrines of demons and extreme insanity and wickedness take place.
If there could be any hope for our nation and our generation, it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone:
“But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.
So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.
Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
I would soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
What’s the solution to this moral insanity? Of course, it is to bring the culture to the Word of God, to compassionately confront our culture with the word of God and invite them to listen to God and walk in His ways. I think this is the main lesson to be learned from Campus Challenge 2006: God showed us how human we really were, the sinful nature that is in our flesh, and the consequences of doing what our flesh desires. While it may seem that we may have been punished for the sins of the few in the congregation, it is still true that God depriving us of His restraining grace was a result of our own sins as individuals no matter how small or insignificant or long ago. Indeed, it is a fearful thing to fall into the wrathful hands of the living God, and He made it clearly evident by revealing to us the widespread crime and punishment of our generation’s culture.
Even in this Christmas season, God’s call on us is the same as it has been since the beginning: that we would love each other, as much as He has loved us. So it is because of my love for you, my friends and readers, and my love for Christ that I write these words of encouragement. Oh, how I wish that you could see how much my heart aches and yearns to see our generation reconciled with God and with each other. This is much a message for me, as much as it is a message for you reading this. If we would just turn to Christ, repent of our sins and come back to God our loving father, He would run to us and even kiss us all over our sinful heads–just like the prodigal son. There would be a celebration in heaven and on earth as God delights in the salvation of sinners, sanctification of saints, and finds great joy in when rebels turn into worshippers.
However, if and when such change is going to happen, it will take place only with one soul at a time, for it is the only way the kingdom of God advances. Just as it says in Luke 15, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Our only hope is in true repentance–metanoeo–and in the forgiveness that only Christ can bring. There is not one of us who has not sinned, and not one of us will not sin in the future either. But by His Spirit’s indwelling and empowerment, we can come back into the loving arms of the Father–no matter how far we have fallen, no matter how badly we have messed up. Repenting means experiencing a change of mind that now sees God as true and beautiful and worthy of all our praise and all our obedience–a change that only the LORD Himself can bring about in us.
If only we–who are called by His name–would humble ourselves, and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, then the LORD God will hear from heaven and will forgive our sin and heal our land. (2 Chron.7:14)
Loving you because Christ first loved me,
Alex Leung
SDG
(Thanks to Johnny Mac for his insights into Romans 1)
“Rebellion”: 5 part series
Part 1-Worshippers Rebel
Part 2-False Faith
Part 3-The Apostasy of Young and Old
Part 4-Abandoned by God
Part 5-Deprived of Restraining Grace (this article)
