Our Wrath against God's Wrath

We are studying Paul's letter to the Romans in the Bible study I teach at my church. This week, we looked at Paul's opening argument in chapter one starting with Romans 1:18. Paul is not always easy to read and this text says many controversial things about God's wrath and our sin. Most of us, if we are Christian, understand clearly God's revelation in Jesus Christ. God reveals his love, mercy, and grace toward us in the gospel. But, if God's grace is revealed through the preaching of the gospel, how is God's wrath revealed?

Paul says, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven." Paul argues that this is against all human ungodliness and unrighteousness which suppresses the truth. It is evident there is a God and that he is the creator. Paul says this is clearly revealed to us through creation. The eternal attributes of God can be clearly seen in the world he created.

Humans, however, do not honor God as creator. Instead, we have made idols out of created things. We have given up natural sexual relationships for unnatural ones. We have done a whole list of evil deeds which Paul outlines in Romans 1:28-31. These are harsh words to our ears. Words that immediately cause a negative reaction in us. We feel defensive, argumentative. We don't want to accept what Paul says, but want to defend the reasons we do the things we do.

Paul's words strike at us because we don't want them to be true. We do not want to think about the evil things we have done. If its even right, we might argue, to call them evil. We want to remain comfortable in our sins and not confronted by them.

But, all our sophistry will not ease the guilt of our souls as we stand before his judgment which is being revealed against us. When we face God, it will be on his terms. All our arguments are meaningless before him. As creator he sets the terms and we are left to his mercy.

Comments

  1. Eric SwenssonNovember 13, 2017 at 6:36 AM

    Could you at times make a lesson like this available before Sunday? Even one day before would be useful for social media.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Timothy J. SwensonNovember 13, 2017 at 12:56 PM

    Oh, how difficult it is to rely on another's mercy. We know all too well the fickleness of mercy in
    this sin-broken world. We know all too well how strained is the mercy measured out by our own sin-blackened hearts. Simply put, self-justification is preferable to justification by faith because we have experienced the faithlessness of others and ourselves, we have no way of trusting the God who declares, "I will have mercy on who I will have mercy."

    ReplyDelete

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