The Universal Power of Sin: 1:18-23

Background and Recap

Welcome back. This is the third episode of Series 1 of our study in Romans. I hope that many of you will have followed the first two episodes to understand the sequence of events. Paul builds his case very systematically all the way through the book of Romans. There is a great benefit from going through it, passage by passage, as we are doing.

We started looking at the church in Rome, Paul’s call, the situation he was writing to, the whole process of writing letters, and what it meant. In the last episode, we saw the incredible warmth of Paul as he was relating to the church in Rome. He was a very warm person; he was full of strong emotions of affection and attachment and yearning for people. This is one of the wonderful characteristics of Paul. Here he is thinking about a church he hasn’t visited. He really wants to get to know them, to be their servant and to be their friend. We spoke about the power of fellowship and Paul’s desire to connect to the church; to be there and visit them for the first time. It wasn’t easy for Paul to get to Rome. When he tried to do it, as we discover in the book of Acts, we find that it takes him several years from the point that he decides that he wants to go to Rome until the time that he actually gets there. If you study the book of Acts, you will notice that Paul says at one point that he wants to go from his mission area in Greece and Turkey to Jerusalem, to give them a financial gift, and then travel to Rome - a long journey by sea across the Mediterranean.

If you look at the story, as we did when we studied the book of Acts in The Spreading Flame, you will find that when he gets to Jerusalem, he ends up in conflict with the Jews and he gets put in prison by the Romans - for two years in the Roman capital city of Caesarea. He wants to go to Rome but he can’t move; he is stuck in prison waiting for something to happen. Then, when he does eventually get to Rome, which takes place after this book is written, he goes through a sea journey which is full of storms and trauma, delays and risk. It looked as though the ship was going to sink on one occasion and that everybody would be drowned. Actually getting to Rome proved incredibly difficult for Paul. But here we will see his heart to get to the Romans.

The Need for the Gospel

In this book, as I indicated at the end at the end of the last episode, Paul is laying out his understanding of God’s big purposes and the nature of the gospel. We are now entering into the section of the book in this series where Paul goes into detail in his explanations about how the gospel works and why it was necessary for Jesus to die. This is very important for us in the modern world when people have all sorts of different ideas about religion. Many people in Western countries are becoming more secular. Many religions, other than Christianity, are prospering and thriving in different parts of the world - whether it is Buddhism in Asia, Hinduism in India and Islam across many different parts of the world. So what is unique about Christianity? What is the significance of the cross? These things are very important and they are dealt with by Paul in the episodes we are dealing with now. It all started at the end of the last episode, with Paul declaring his fundamental conviction.

“I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it’s the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first for the Jew then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘the righteous will live by faith.’”

Romans 1:16-17, NIV

Paul was basically saying, God has revealed a fresh way by which people may be put right with God, in a miraculous way - by faith, rather than having to strive through rules, regulations and moral codes, and religious practices, rituals and sacrifices, which had been the way before. Something new happened when Jesus came that bypassed all those things and created a new way to enter into relationship with God. That is what Paul is declaring at the end of the last episode. This creates a very big question. Paul knows what this question is and he begins to answer the question in this episode.

Why the Cross?

The question really is, why should there be a need for this terrible death on the cross? Can’t, we as humans, find our way to God by our own self-efforts, our own righteousness, our own morality, our own kindness to our neighbours and our own sacrifices, religious practices and prayers? That is what most people believe in the world, isn’t it? That their particular religious method or religious system provides a way through effort, through their own goodness coming into play, to connect with the divine. Paul didn’t believe that. He explains here that the problem with humanity is much deeper than most people think.

The problem surrounds sinfulness. Paul is going to begin to explain how desperate the human situation is and how our own religious efforts are never going to be enough to connect us to God himself, who is pure and perfect. We need help - we need someone to stand in the gap for us, to pay the price for the things that we have done wrong. This is not a popular message with everybody but Paul has no hesitation in laying out his message.

At a general level, we can observe that it doesn’t take long for little children to find that they can rebel against their parents and do their own thing. Have you noticed that? I have noticed that all the way through my life. Many parents have said to me, ‘You know, you never have to teach a child to do wrong. It comes naturally.’ This is merely an example of the way that Paul thinks about the concept of sin.

What is Sin?

What does Paul mean by sin? What do we mean when we use the word ‘sin’? Most people mean an individual action or thought that somebody did that was wrong. They say, ‘Oh, I sinned when I did that,’ or ‘that was a sinful thing for them to do.’ Paul didn’t believe that. He believed that human beings have a state of being, where they are programmed to live independently of God to one degree or another. They might be aware of God, might want to reach him, but there is part of us that wants to control our own lives. Sin is not so much an

individual action; it is like a spiritual power that lives inside of us that causes us inevitably to do things which displease God, and to be to some extent independent of him.

Let me use an analogy to try to describe what Paul has in mind. If we think of the human body, and we think of somebody we know where they have been diagnosed with cancer. That is a terrible thing. Many cancers are incredibly dangerous and can’t be overcome by medicine, surgery, or other human interventions and people die. Sin is like a cancer in the human body. When cancer first comes to us, usually it is internal and invisible; it is hardly noticeable. We might even carry it in our bodies without anybody knowing for a period of time but gradually it develops its influence, takes over the bodily systems and causes the destruction of the human life. Sin is like a cancer

Alternatively, sin can be like a powerful virus. A virus is unseen. We have seen some dangerous viruses in our world in in recent years, notably the Covid-19 virus. These viruses can have power to literally overcome the body and lead us to die, unless there is some radical intervention. That is how Paul saw sin. He saw it as such a serious issue that something radical needed to be done to remove its power. He believed with all his heart that the cross of Jesus, the atonement and the forgiveness of God - being put right with God - and the new life that comes through Christ, is that radical solution to the power of sin. He explains that in considerable detail later in the letter to the Romans. Now, we are looking at the universal problem of sin. It is not just a few people doing a few things wrong, in a few places at a few times. It is a universal reality.

Knowledge of God

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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.”

Romans 1:18-20, NIV

In verse 20, Paul makes an important claim: everybody in the world has some knowledge of God. How? Through the creation around them. It reveals something of God to us; it tells us there is a divine maker who has great power. We don’t respond by worshiping him. We see this creator from a distance. We don’t fully know him but we are still drawn to be independent of him because there is the power of sin working within us. Many of us in our journey to faith, will know that the power of creation has been an influential factor on that journey. For some people it is a key factor in their journey in coming to faith; it is a very common human experience.

In different parts of the world there are different ways to wonder at the power of creation. If you live in a tropical country, you will probably have many wonderful experiences of looking up into the beautiful sky; you might find easier to see in your part of the world than in some other parts of the world, where it is more difficult to see the night sky because of so much cloud, or perhaps so much light from urban environments. If you live in Africa, you might wonder at the great wildlife that exists in your country. If you live in a temperate country, with a changing climate, you might wonder at the beauty of the changing of the seasons. You might wonder at the beauty of the human child being born. You might wonder at the power of water - in its power to change lives if you live in a very dry country. You might be interested in birds, or in wildflowers, or like me, enjoy creation most when you are on a mountain or a hill. Something happens within me and I feel more connected to this world around me; I feel that there must be some creative hand when I see the beauty of the mountains and the valleys. It may be the sea, or lakes. There are all sorts of things that can make us sense that there is a power behind creation; there is a divine creator. That is what Paul is referring to here. At the same time, he says despite that experience, people do not allow it to shape their thinking completely - they suppress it; they think of other things. They still want to live independently. Remember, living independently of God is the heart of sin.

The Wrath of God

In verse 18, Paul introduces the idea of the wrath of God, judgement, or anger of God, against all the things that people do, which are independent of him. What does he mean by the wrath of God? There are two things that Paul means. First of all, what we might call the indirect wrath of God. In this case, God isn’t acting directly. He is allowing things to continue in society where everybody has a degree of selfishness within them, and he allows us to experience suffering because things go wrong in community and in society.When you analyse much of the suffering that you experience, you will find that the primary cause of that suffering is what other people have done; relationships breaking down; theft of your property; tribal conflict; war, in different parts of the world. War is raging in many different countries, as I speak this message - in Yemen, in Syria, in Ukraine, in Ethiopia and many other places. This is an element of what Paul described as the wrath of God. He allows humanity to experience what it is to live independently of him. Much of our suffering comes at the hands of other people - deliberately or sometimes indirectly.

The wrath of God is also his direct action. Paul indicates here, and elsewhere, that there is a judgment on our lives, at the end of our lives. However long or short our lives may be, there is a judgment. Hebrews 9: 27 summarises this. The writer to the Hebrews says,

“Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of man; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him”.

Hebrews 9:27, NIV

The New Testament is clear from Jesus onwards, that there is a time of judgment that comes at the end of our lives. It is particularly associated with the return of Jesus, the second coming. This is the direct wrath of God. ‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven’, said Paul; it is indirect wrath now - through the way human society develops, and God shows us through this how things have gone wrong in human society; and then ultimately judgment comes.

I will use an analogy to explain this. Consider a mother who has two sons and they are at home with her. The schools are not in action at this particular time. The father is out at work for most of the day and the two boys, aged about eight and ten, are forever quarreling and fighting. The mother is faced with the decision of how much she should intervene while they are fighting. They are in the streets playing with other kids but they get involved in fights, and particularly fighting with each other. She could shout at them as much as she wants but they still go back. They get involved in fights and they get injured regularly. The mother might take the choice on a particular day, when it is bad, of allowing the indirect wrath of the parents to come on the boys; she lets them get on with it. She doesn’t intervene; they get injured; they come in crying at each other and blaming each other. Sometimes parents step back and let that happen - rather like God sometimes steps back and allows us to learn from our experience. She may say to them, ‘It is up to you, you have got to sort yourself out but when your father comes home we will be talking to you and there will be consequences.’ That is the direct wrath. The two things are working together. They have to learn by experience and mistakes, but there is an accountability. Paul viewed human society a bit like that. Things go wrong because sin is so deeply embedded but there will come a time when every individual will be accountable for the things they have done.

Humanity

This picture of humanity is based on the story of Genesis and it is here in Romans that Paul develops this idea of sin most clearly. In Romans 5, he goes back all the way to Adam and Eve in explaining how sin has dominated human life. Something went wrong in early humanity, and Paul’s point is that what went wrong with Adam and Eve spread to all other humans. We are all in the same position; we are separated from God. We have a desire to live independently of him and we try and prove ourselves to him. If we are religious, we try to earn our way back into his favour. Paul says that is impossible to do this. There needs to be a far more radical solution than that and that is what the gospel is - that is what the cross is. That is why he is not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. You get the righteousness of God coming to you.

Idolatry

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but in their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 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 1:21-23, NIV

Paul is saying, the other thing about humanity is that we are all worshipers; we all have a desire to put our trust in something outside of ourselves. We may not know God, we may not want to acknowledge Him, we may not know about the gospel, but we will always seek something to put our trust in and invest our lives in outside of ourselves. This is what the Bible calls idolatry - putting something in the place of God that isn’t God. In those days, people did it through images of gods that you would worship and pray to, in temples, in shrines and in households.

What are those idols today? Maybe it is money and possessions; maybe the power of sexual relationships and the desire for multiple relationships; maybe it is the desire for adventure and risk; maybe we put all our hope in our family being a secure, stable and nurturing environment; maybe the thing we crave is reputation - in the village, in the marketplace, in the workplace - respect of others drives us forwards; maybe it is power over people, maybe it is just having fun - drinking alcohol, having a powerful social life, ignoring other responsibilities; maybe it is sport; maybe it is traditional religion - tribal witchcraft and occult practices; maybe it is a religion whereby we are trying to find our way to God by our human merits. We are all worshipers but Paul says very powerfully, we are all idolaters. We are all going down the wrong track. It is interesting that Israel’s Temple in the Old Testament had no images, no statues. This was a sign that God was against putting your trust in anything else other than him.

Paul is building a challenging argument here. He is painting a dark picture of humanity. Some people will challenge that picture of humanity and say ‘Aren’t some people good? - they are not as bad as Paul says.’ He will deal with those complaints and arguments later, in chapter two. But for now, he is painting a picture of us being separated from God and in urgent need of the gospel.

Reflections

First of all, we should acknowledge the power of God to communicate to us through creation. Some of you might be on a journey to faith and one of the things that has triggered you is the beauty, or the power, or the majesty, or the greatness of the created order. That is a good thing. It is a signpost. Paul indicates in Romans 1 and 2, that there are there are two signposts that guide people towards seeking God - one is creation and one is their inner conscience - their inner sense of right and wrong. We will study that in a future episode. The voice of creation is important and if you are a believer one way of strengthening your worship is to thank God for his creation and its beauty.

My second reflection is to ask us the question, ‘Have you become a worshiper of idols? Does money control your life? Does pleasure control your life? Does the desire for a good reputation control your life? Does the belief that you can find your way to please God control your life and make you extremely religious? Paul is challenging us to think deeply about ourselves. Then he is going to bring us back to the cross in 3: 21. Once he has laid out his arguments, he will point out how amazing the cross is because whatever we put in in place of God in our lives can be replaced by Jesus Christ at the centre.

My third reflection is about the power of thanksgiving. He says one of the problems with people is they don’t thank God. One of the characteristics of believers should be thankfulness. In our worship, in our prayer, in our relationships, we should be those who are thankful for his wonderful creation, his great salvation and everything he has given us - however hard the circumstances of our lives may be.

So thanks for joining us. We are on an interesting and challenging but incredibly important journey. It is here in Romans 1 and Romans 2 that the Bible explains what sin is in more detail than anywhere else in the whole of scripture. It is important for us to give attention to this. Paul develops his points further in the next episode.