The Justice and Wrath of God – Romans chapter 1, verses 18 to 32
Without this the Gospel makes no sense: “One can grasp the greatness of God’s salvation … only when one understands the devastation introduced into the world by human beings.” – Tom Schreiner. “God is love” yes, but He cannot love evil and injustice. We cry out for justice, and only God can give it to us.
The Revealing of God’s Wrath
So that no one can claim “I did not know”. They rebel by not honouring God, by being thankless, by worshipping false gods, by exchanging truth for a lie.
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Romans 1:18-21
The Unleashing of God’s Wrath
God gave them over to a depraved mind, a mind without conscience, but filled with every kind of evil, “big” and “small”. Down to the bottom rung of the ladder, v32, they approve of others who do the grossest sins. Sin always heads downwards.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them.
Romans 1:28-32
The finality of God’s Wrath
God is patient, long suffering, but this is to lead us to repentance. Without repentance we store up (a bit like superannuation) wrath for the final day. Sin is not merely missing the mark. It is storing up judgement.
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
Romans 2:5
Salvation from God’s Wrath
After this terrible news comes this good news. The cross is a symbol of wrath as well as of love. Of Love that pours out His just wrath on His own Son, that we might be saved from it.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
Romans 1:16
New International Version – UK (NIVUK)
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