Paul authored Romans 1:18-32 expressly for Believers to underline the impact of sin and unrighteousness on their confidence in God. It represents God's reply to man's evil, as well as God's wrath on the stubborn man. This verse is broken into two sections, the first of which deals with the blameworthiness of Gentiles and all mankind. Paul reinforces his prior teaching in the chapter that righteousness may be gained exclusively through faith. The second half, verses 24-32, focuses on the consequences of the guilt. There is a possibility that the congregation was already in existence by the time Paul was writing this message to the church in Rome. Paul believed in the strength of the church to help him carry further activities he indented to carry in the mission. He saw the congregation as helpers who would stand up and help him accomplish the work of God. He sees his congregation as well organized yet not having been improperly instructed. The Roman church had a mixture of groups of people with large Jewish elements but filled with other groups as Gentile converts who had been pagans for long. It is not clear how the church started, but Catholic view was that the church was founded by Peter.
The Gospel of Christ is the core theme of the book of Romans (Rom. 1:16-17). Paul is greatly concerned that the readers of this book understand how a sinner may be considered righteous by a righteous God. The book lays the foundation on which believers work out their salvation. The passage makes maps the route on which everyone should follow to please God.
Paul also talks about the wrath of God from heaven in this text. He emphasizes that hell is there just the way the heartrate of God and His prohibitions of sin are real. God’s just and sustained anger against sin is real. Hell is also real. If we deny the reality of the just and if we deny sustained wrath of God, it means that we are denying also the reality that we should be saved and that the cross is necessary. The wrath of God then makes salvation necessary, this implies that if we do not receive the salvation of God, then the wrath of God will be upon us. In the same way, the righteousness of God is revealed, so is the wrath of God. This has been so since the first warning against sin in the book of Genesis up to the time Paul was writing. God has not hidden his position regarding sin and His final judgment against sin is not a secret. Furthermore, the death of Jesus Christ who died on the cross in Calvary gives us a very clear revelation about the wrath of God. He gave up his life for the sake our sin. All our sins were forgiven when our savior Christ Jesus died on the cross in Calvary. Every time the message about the death of Christ is proclaimed, we get the revelation of the wrath of God.The death of the savior who is Jesus Christ on the cross leaves us with the reality that the wrath of God is real.
The ungodly and the unrighteousness of people who opposes the truth by their deeds reveal the wrath of God. Their deeds and their sinful nature affirm the wrath of God. They clearly know what God expects from them. They have a clear understanding of what man who is God’s creation should pursue. That person should pursue the route of righteousness. People are left without excuse because Gods divine nature and His attributes are being seen since the creation of the world. People knew God but failed to give Him thanks and glorify Him, their thoughts were corrupt and their hearts darkened. They claimed to have wisdom and continued in their wicked ways, but became fools. They exchanged the glory of immortal for an image resembling a human being and four-footed animals. For this reason, God made them give themselves to the desires of their hearts and dishonor their bodies. This person exchanged the truth for a lie. They preferred to serve and worship the creation instead of the creator. Because of this disobedient to God, He gave them dishonorable passions. Women exchanged the natural sexual behavior for unnatural ones, on the other hand, they were also inflamed in their passions for one another. The last verse literary says that people who practice and do the evils listed and those who give the approval to do them, deserve to die.
Relevance of Romans 1:18-32
This Chapter puts forward the doctrine that God is right when he pours his wrath on sinners. For instance, idolaters get what they deserve for rejecting one who created them. God allowed them to pursue their evil deeds and poured His wrath on them. He did this not only by means of allowing them to reject Him but also by casting them further into the perversion. Homosexuality is a good example of how God cast the idolaters into perversion.
The section confirms that only route in which one can attain righteousness that is offered in the gospel is by faith. This is because all men cannot earn God’s salvation by their own making. This passage as earlier mentioned can be broken into two sub-sections. The first section deals with the basis for the guilt of the Gentiles and the other section dealing with the consequences of that guilt. The wrath of God is directed to all the unrighteousness and ungodliness of people this means that all human life is polluted with sin.
The unrighteousness of people hinders the truth that is to mean the sinful part of people hold the truth from one’s sight, but we cannot destroy truth through sin because we will end up confirming the truth. The truth that is suppressed here is the truth, the power and the authority of the creator. Therefore men are left without excuse since all they need to know has been plainly revealed to them by the scriptures. People face the wrath of God for suppressing the obvious knowledge of God in creation. God’s wrath on gentiles is clearly seen in the text 1:18-23.
Relevance of verses 18-23
These verses give general information that the truth, power and the divine nature of God are suppressed by pagans. This has led to idolaters not recognizing God on who He is. As results of this, they received more condemnation and God enslaved them to their sin so that they can sin more. Verses 24-32 point out a very bad picture of where rejecting their creator God led them. Homosexuality became part of them besides many other sins that came about as a result of rejecting God. These verses, therefore, serve as the introduction of God’s wrath and the failure of humanity to see Him for who He is.
Significance
This passage has contributed to systematic theology in many ways. Human beings have been made to understand God better in this passage. First, the passage makes us as human beings understand God better. Paul in this passage does not appeal to the scriptures but emphasizes on God’s continued revelation through his creation and the wrath against ungodliness and unrighteousness.
For Paul, the characters of God are revealed by the scriptures. God’s eternal power and divine nature are revealed by the creation and his holiness while justice is revealed by his wrath against sin.
Secondly, this passage contributes to the study of sin. It demonstrates elements of both personal and corporate sin, which man should be aware of.
This passage has made enormous contributions to not only to the discipleship but also to the church mission. It is valuable for doing apologetics since the mission of the church is to bring people closer to God by not only explaining the biblical truth to believers and non-believers but also defending and applying them. This will help people understand man’s spiritual problems.
Man’s problem is rebellion rather than lack of knowledge. The knowledge of God has been suppressed by unbelievers and they have turned to idolatry. This means that the unbelievers maintain a bias against God. Unbelievers have failed to approach the question of God neutrally no matter their claim.
Paul teaches that we know God on one hand but on the other hand we suppress the truth about Him. It is therefore difficult to overcome our inherent sin and turn to Christ without us drawing and regenerating through the work of the spirit.
Lessons from the text Romans 1:18-32
Paul in this text takes us through the concept of the reality of the wrath of God. If we deny the reality of the just, we will be denying the reality of our need for salvation. It is really that God opposes sin and he imposes a penalty for sins committed.
We learn from this text that God's wrath is being revealed. The position of God regarding sin has never been a secret. The wrath of God made known to everyone when Christ Jesus died on the cross. Paul has provided us with an in-depth description of human sinfulness through the chapters.
Conclusion
Many people attempt to water down what Paul says about sin especially the sin of homosexuality. But one cannot practice sin and claim to be a faithful and obedient Christian. These people turned against God by refusing to recognize who He is. This made God to forsake them. Paul puts it clear in verse 18-23 that people who sin or engage in homosexuality are guilty of idolatry. Paul passage on righteousness has received a lot of opposition in today’s church. However, all the believers are left with no choice but empress righteousness and run away from evil deeds.
Paul also tries to point out to the specific actions that Christians ought to refrain from so as to glorify God because they constitute sin. Christians should preach against Covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, and haters of God, disobedience, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, and ruthlessness among others. These are things which God is against and every believer should avoid such things.
The reality of God’s wrath and the vigor with which it is emphasized demonstrates that the same way He loves us with tenderness the same way He will punish with vigor. Paul later on in Romans 2: 5, reveals that a future day of God’s wrath is coming where God will administer the final judgment of the sinful man. God has always shown His anger through misery and suffering, for instance, floods, fires, earthquakes, wars, diseases, just to mention a few. Paul, therefore, states the final punishment of sin in this passage, since God gave a solution by having His only son on the cross, sin shall lead to eternal death.
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